second their unreasonable rage was it not then necessary for the Scots to arme againe when they had defeate the Episcopall Army and taken New-castle though they found nothing considerable to stand in their way to London yet they were content to lie still in Northumberland and upon very meane tearnes to returne the second time in peace For all this the praelats could not give it over but raised a new Army and filled England with fire and sword yea well neere subdued the Parliament and their followers and did almost accomplish their first designes upon the whole Isle The Scots then with most earnest and pitifull entreaties were called upon by their Brethren of England for helpe where unwilling that their brethren should perish in their sight and a bridge should be made over their carcasses for a third warre upon Scotland when after long tryall they had found all their intercessions with the King for a moderat and reasonable accommodation slighted and rejected they suffered themselves to be perswaded to enter in covenant with their oppressed and fainting brethren for the mantainance of the common cause of Religion and liberty but with expresse Articles for the preservation of royalty in all its just rights in his Majestie and his posterity what unkindnes was heer in the Scots to their King When by Gods blessing on the Scotes helpe the opposit faction was fully subdued his Majestie left Oxford with a purpose for London but by the severity of the ordinances against his receivers he diverted towards Linn to ship for Holland or France where by the way fearing a discovery and surprise he was necessitate to cast himselfe upon the Scotes army at New-wark upon his promise to give satisfaction to the propositions of both Kingdomes he was received there and to New-castle here his old oathes to adhaere unto Episcopacy hindred him to give the expected satisfaction At that time the prime leaders of the English army were seeking with all earnestnes occasion to fall upon the Scots much out of heart and reputation by Iames Grahame and his Irishes incursions most unhappy for the Kings affaires Scotland at that time was so full of divisions that if the King had gone thither they were in an evident hazard of a present war both within among themselfes and without from England our friends in the English Parliament whom we did and had reason to trust assured us that our taking the King with us to Scotland was the keeping of the Sectarian Army on foot for the wracke of the King of Scorland of the Presbyterian party in England as the sending of his Majestie to one of his houses neer London upon the faith of the Parliament of England was the only way to get the Sectaryes disarmed the King and the people settled in a peace upon such tearmes as should be satisfactory both to the King and the Scots and all the wel-affected in England This being the true case was it any either unjustice unkindnes or imprudence in the Scots to leave the King with his Parliament of England was this a selling of him to his enemies the monyes the Scots received at their departure out of England had no relation at all to the King they were scarce the sixth parte of the arreares due to them for bygon service they were but the one halfe of the sume capitulat for not only without any reference to the King but by an act of the English Parliament excluding expresly from that Treaty of the armies departure all consideration of the disposall of the Kings person The unexpected evills that followed in the Armies rebellion in their seasing on London destroying the Parliament murthering the King no mortall eye could have forseen The Scots were ever ready to the utmost of their power to have prevented all these mischiefes with the hazard of what was dearest to them notwithstanding of all the hard measure they had often received both from the King and the most of their friends in England That they did not in time and unanimously stur to purpose for these ends they are to answer it to God who were the true Authors the innocency of the Church is cleered in the following treatise Among the many causes of these miseries the prime fountaine was the venome of Episcopall principles which some serpents constantly did infuse by their speaches and letters in the eares and heart of the King to keep him of from giving that satisfaction to his good subjects which they found most necessary and due the very same cause which ties up this day the hands of covenanters from redressing ali present misorders could they have the King to joyne with them in their covenant to quit his unhappy Bishops to lay aside his formall and dead Liturgie to cast himselfe upon the counsels of his Parliaments it were easy to prophecie what quickly would become of all his enemies but so long as Episcopall and malignant agents compasseth him about though all that comes neer may see him as lovely hopfull and promising a prince for all naturall endowments as this day breaths in Europe or for a long time has swayed a Scepter in Britaine yet while such unlucky birds nest in his Cabin and men so ungraciously principled doe daily besiege him what can his good people doe but sit downe with mournfull eyes and bleeding hearâ—…s till the Lord amend these otherwise remediles and insuperable evills but I hold heer least I transgresse to farr the bounds of an Epistle I account it an advantage to have your Lordship my judge in what heere and in my following treatise I spake of Religion the liberties of our country and the Royall Family I know non fitter then your Lordship both to discerne and decerne in all these matters Me thinks I may say it without flattery which I never much loved either in my selfe or others that among all our Nobles for constancy in a zealous profession for exemplary practise in publick and privat duties the mercy of God has given to your Lordship a reputation second to none And for a rigid adhaerence to the Rights and Priviledges of your Country according to that auncient disposition of your most Noble Family noted in our Historians especially that Prince of them Georg Buchanan the Tutor of your Grand-Father I know none in our Land who wil pretend to goe before you and for the affairs of the King your interest of blood in the Royall Family is so well known that it would be a strange impudency in me if in your audience I durst be bold wittingly to give sinistrous information Praying to God that what in the candid ingenuity true zeale of my spirit I present under your Lordships patrociny unto the eye of the World for the vindication of my mother Church and Country from the Sicophantick accusations of a Stigmatised incendiary may produce the intended effects Hague this 28 May 7 Iunie 1649. I rest your Lordships in all Christian duety R. B. G.
CHAP. I. The proelaticall faction continue resolute that the King and all his people shall perish rather then the praelats be not restored to their former places of power for to set up Popery Profanity and Tirranny in all the three Kingdomes WHile the Comissioners of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland were on their way to make their first addresses to his Majestie for to condole his most lamentable afflictions and to make offer of their best affections and services for his comfort in this time of his great distresse it was the wisedome and charity of the praelaticall party to send out Doctor Bramble to meet them with his Faire Warning For what else but to discourage them in the very entry from tendering their propositions and before ever they were heard to stop his Majesties eares with grievous praejudice against all that possibly they could speake though the world sees that the only apparent fountaine of hope upon earth for recovery of the wofully confounded affaires of the King is in the hands of that Antipraelaticall nation but it is the hope of these who love the welfaire of the King and his people of the Churches and Kingdomes of Britain that the hand of God which hath broken all the former devices of the Praelats shall crush this their engine also Our warner undertaketh to oppugne the Scotes discipline in a way of his owne none of the most rational He does not so much as pretend to state a question nor in his whole book to bring against any maine position of his opposites either Scripture father or reason nor so much as assay to answer any one of their arguments against Episcopacy onely hee culs out some of their by-tenets belonging little or nothing to the maine questions and from them takes occasion to gather together in a heape all the calumnies which of old or of late their knowne enemies out of the forge of their malice and fraud did obtrude on the credulity of simple people also some detorted passages from the bookes of their friends to bring the way of that Church in detestation without any just reason These practises in our warner are the less pardonable that though he knowes the chiefe of his allegations to bee but borrowed from his late much beloved Comerads Master Corbet in his Lysimachus Nicanor and Master Maxewell in his Issachars Burden yet he was neither deterred by the strange punishments which God from heaven inflicted visibly on both these calumniatores of their mother Church nor was pleased in his repeating of their calumnious arguments to releeve any of them from the exceptions under the which they stand publickly confuted I suppose to his own distinct knowledge I know certainly to the open view ofthousands in Scotland England and Ireland but it makes for the warners designe to dissemble here in Holland that ever he heard of such books as Lysimachus Nicanor and Issachars Burden much lesse of Master Baylies answer to both printed some yeares agoe at London Edinburgh and Amsterdam without a rejoinder from any of that faction to this day How everlet our warner be heard In the very first page of his first chapter wee may tast the sweetnes of his meek Spirit at the verie entrie he concludeth but without any pretence to an argument there or else where the discipline of the Church of Scotland to be their owne invention whereon they dote the Diana which themselves have canonized their own dreams the counterfeyt image which they faine hath fallen down from Iupiter which they so much adore the very quintessence of refined popery not only most injurious to the civill Magistrat most oppressive to the subject most pernicious to both but also inconsistent with all formes of civill governement destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people So much truth and sobernes doth the warner breath out in his very first page Though he had no regard at all to the cleare passages of Holy Scripture whereupon the Scotes doe build their Anti-Episcopall tenets nor any reverence to the harmony of the reformed Churches which unanimously joyne with the Scotes in the maine of their discipline especially in that which the Doctor hates most therein the rejection of Episcopacy yet me thinks some little respect might have appeared in the man to the authority of the Magistrat and civil Lawes which are much more ingeminated by this worthy divine over all his book then the holy Scriptures Can hee so soon forget that the whole discipline of the Church of Scotland as it is there taught and practised is established by acts of Parliament and hath all the strength which the King and State can give to a civil Law the warner may wel be grieved but hardly can he be ignorant that the Kings Majestie this day does not at all question the justice of these sanctions what ever therefore be the Doctors thoughts yet so long as hee pretends to keep upon his face the maske of loyalty he must be content to eat his former words yea to burne his whole book otherwise hee layes against his own professions a slander upon the King and His Royal Father of great ignorance or huge unjustice the one having established the other offring to establish by their civill lawes a Church discipline for the whole nation of Scotland which truly is the quintessence of Popery pernicious and destructive to all formes of civill governement and the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people All the cause of this choler which the warner is pleased to speake out is the attempt of the Scotes to obtrude their discipline upon the King contrary to the dictats of his own conscience and to compell forraigne Churches to embrace the same Ans. Is it not presumption in our warner so soone to tell the world in print what are the dictats of the Kings conscience as yet he is not his Majesties confessor and if the Clerk of the Closet had whispered some what in his earâ—… what he heard in secret hee ought not to have proclaimed it without a warrant but we doe altogether mistrust his reports of the Kings conscience for who will beleeve him that a knowing and a just King will ever be content to command and impose on a whole Nation by his Lawes a discipline contrary to the dictats of his owne conscience This great stumble up on the Kings conscience in the first page must be an ominous cespitation on the threshold The other imputation had no just ground the Scotes did never medle to impose any thing upon forraigne Churches there is question of none but the English and the Scotes were never so presumptuous as to impose any thing of theirs upon that Church It was the assembly of divines at Westminster convocat by the King and Parliament of England which after long deliberation and much debate upanimously concluded the Presbiterian discipline in all the
of Scotland were the first and only framers thereof but they who gave the life and being to it in England were the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament at West-Minster by the Kings call and at that time acknowledged by his Majestie without any question about the lawfullnes of their constitution and authority these men and that Court were not I hope great strangers in England The covenant was not imposed upon the King but the Parliaments of both Kingdomes made it their earnest desire unto his Majestie that he would be pleased to joyne with them in that Covenant which they did judge to be a maine peece of their security for their Religion and liberties in all the three Kingdomes As for their imposing of it upon the subjects of England an ordinance of Parliament though the King consent not by the uncontroverted lawes of England is a sufficient authority to crave obedience of all the subjects of England during the continuance of that Parliament The last part of the demonstration is dishonorable indeed to the English Nation if it were true it was no dishonour to England to joyne with their brethren of Scotland in a Covenant for mantainance of their Religion and Liberties but for many of the English to sweare a covenant with their lippes from which their heart did dissent and upon this difference of heart and mouth to plead the nullity of the oath and to advance this plea so high as to a cleer demonstration this is such a dishonour and dishonesty that a greater cannot fall upon a man of reputed integrity Especially when the ground of the lie and perjury is an evident falshood for the covenant was not extorted from any flesh in England by feare of any unjust suffering so far was it from this that to this day it could never be obtained from the Parliament of England to enjoyne that covenant upon any by the penulty of a two pence The Warners second demonstration is no better then the first the ground of it is that all oathes are void which have deceipt and errour of the substantiall conditions incident to them This ground had need to be much better cautioned then heere it is before it can stand for a major of a clear demonstration but how is the minor proved behold how much short the Warners proofes are of his great boastings His first argument is grounded upon an evident falshood that in the Covenant we sweare the lately devised discipline to be Christs institution Ans. There is no such word nor any such matter in all the Covenant was the Warners hatred so great against that peece of write that being to make cleare demonstrations against it hee would not so much as cast his eye upon that which he was to oppugne Covenanters sweare to endeavour the reformation of England according to the word of God and the best reformed Churches but not a word of the Scotes Presbytery nor of any thing in any Church even the best reformed unlesse it be found according to the paterne of Gods holy word The second ground of his demonstration is also an evident errour that the covenant in hand is one and the same with that of King Iames. Ans. Such a fancy came never in the head of any man I know much lesse was it ever writen or spoken by any that the Covenant of King Iames in Scotland 1580 should bee one and the same with the Covenant of all the three Kingdomes 1643 whatsoever identities may appeare in the matter and similitude in the ends of both but the grossest errors are solide enough grounds for praelaticall clear demonstrations Yet heere the Warner understands not how hee is cutting his own vines his friends in Scotland will give him small thanks for attributing unto the nationall Covenant of Scotland that Covenant of King Iames these three properties that it was issued out by the Kings authority that it was for the maintenance of the Lawes of the realme and for the maintenance of the established Religion tyme brings adversaries to confesse of their own accord long denyed truthes But the Characters which the Warner inprints upon the solemne league and Covenant of the three Kingdomes wee must bee pardoned to controvert till he have taken some leasure to trie his wilde assertions First that the league is against the authority of the King secondly that it is against the Law and thirdly that it is for the overthrow of Religion The man cannot think that any should beleeve his dictats of this kind without proofe since the expresse words of that league do flatly contradict him in all these three positions His gentle memento that Scotland when they sued for aid from the crowne of England had not the English discipline obtruded upon their Church might heer have been spaired was not the English discipline and liturgy obtruded upon us by the praelats of England with all craft and force did we ever obtrude our disciplin upon the English but when they of their owne free and long deliberate choice had abolished Bishops and promised to set up Presbytery so far as they had found it agreable to the word of Cod were wee not in all reason obliged to encourage and assist them in so pious a work In the nixt words the Warner for all his great boasts finding the weaknes of all the former grounds of his seconde demonstration he offers three new ones which doubtles will doe the deid for he avowes positively that his following grounds are demonstrative yet whosoever shal be pleased to grip them with never so soft an hand shall find them all to be but vanity and wind The first after a number of prosyllogismes rests upon these two foundations first that the right of the militia resides in the King alone secondly that by the covenant the militia is taken out of the Kings hands and that every covenanter by his covenant disposes of himselfe and of his armes against the right which the King hath into him Ans. The Warner will have much adoe to prove this second so that it may be a ground of a clear demonstration but for the first that the power of the militia of England doth reside in the King alone that the two houses of Parliament have nothing at all to doe with it and that their taking of armes for the defence of the liberties of England or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his lawes must be altogether unlawfull if his demonstration be no clearer then the ground where upon he builds it I am sure it will not be visible to any of his opposits who are not like to be convinced of open rebellion by his naked assertion upon which alone he layes this his mighty ground Beleeve it he had need to assay its releefe with some colour of ane argument for none of his owne friends will now take it of his hand for ane indemonstrable principle since the King for
only the Presbyters it gives the King power over all persons as subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastick causes Ans. Is there in all this reasoning any thing sound First what article of the covenant beares the setting up of the Presbyterian government in England as it is in Scotland II. If the oath of supremacy import no more then what the Warners expresse words are here that the King is a civil head to see every man doe his duty in his calling let him be assured that no Presbyterian in Scotland was ever contrary to that supremacy III. That the Presbytery is a papacy and that a politicall one the Warner knowes it ought not to be graunted upon his bare word IV. That in Scotland no other governors are acknowledged then Presbyters himselfe contradicts in the very nixt words where he tells that the Scots Presbytery ascribes to the King a power over all persons as subjects V. That any Presbyterian in Scotland makes it sacriledge to give the King any power at all in any Ecclesiastick cause it is a senselesse untruth The Warners arguments are not more idle and weake then his triumphing upon them is insolent for he concludes from these wise and strong demonstrations that the poor covenant is apparently deceitfull unvalide impious rebellious and what not yea that all the learned divines in Europe wil conclude it so that all the covenanters themselfes who have any ingenuity must grant this much and that no knowing English man can deny it but his owne conscience will give him the ly Ans. If the Warner with any seriousnesse hath weighed this part of his owne write and if his mind goe along with his pen I may without great presumption pronounce his judgment to be none of the most solide His following vapours being full of aire we let them evanish only while he mentioneth our charging the King with intentions of changing the Religion and government we answer that we have been most willing alwayes to ascribe to the King good intentions but withall we have long avowed that the praelaticall party have gone beyond intentions to manifest by printed declarations and publick actions their former designe to bring Tiranny upon the States and popery upon the Churches of all the three Kingdomes and that this very write of the Warners makes it evident that this same minde yet remaines within them without the least shew of repentance So long as the conscience of the court is mannaged by men of such principles it is not possible to free the hearts of the most understanding from a great deale of Jealousy and feare to have Religion and lawes still overturned by that factione But the Warner commands us to speake to his Dilemma whither we think it lawfull or unlawfull for subjects to take armes against their prince meerly for Religion We answer that the reasons whereby he thinks to conclude against us on both sides are very poor if we shall say it is unlawfull then he makes us to condemne our selfes because our covenant testifies to the world that we have taken up armes meerly to alter Religion and that we beare no alleadgance to our King but in order to Religion which in plaine tearmes is to our owne humours and conceits Ans. There be many untruthes here in few words first how much reality and truth the Warner and some of his fellowes beleeves to be in that thing which they call Religion their owne heart knowes but it can be no great charity in him to make the Religion of all covenanters to be nothing but their owne humours and conceits Secondly it is not true that Covenanters beare no alleadgance to the King but only in order to religion III. The Parliament of England denied that they took up armes against their King though to defend themselves against the popish praelaticall and malignant faction who were about to destroy them with armes IV. They have declared that their purpose was not at all to alter Religion but to purge it from the corruptions of Bishops and ceremonies that to long had been noxious unto them V. They have oft professed that their armes were taken for the defence of their just liberties whereof the preservation and reformation of Religion was but one The other horne of his Dilemma is as blunt in pushing as the former If we make it lawfull saith he to take up armes for Religion we then justify the independents and Anabaptists wee make way for any that will plant what ever they apprehend to be true Religion by force and to cut the throat of all Magistrats who are in a contrary opinion to them that it is a ridiculous partiality for any to priviledge their own Religion as truth and Gospell Ans. Whether will these men goe at last the strength of this reason is blak atheisme that their is no realty of truth in any Religion that no man may be permitted to take his Religion for any thing more but his owne apprehension which without ridiculous folly he must not praeferre to any other mans apprehension of a contrary Religion this is much worse then the pagane Scepticisme which turned all reality of truth into a meer apprehension of truth wherein their was no certainty at all this not only turnes the most certaine truths even these divine ones of Religion into meer uncertaine conceptions but which is worse it wil have the most orthodoxe beleever so to think speake and act as if the opinions of Independents Anabaptists Turks Jews Pagans or grosse Atheists were as good true and solide as the beleefe of Moyses or Paul were of the truths revealed to them from heaven Secondly we say that subjects defence of their Religion and liberties established by Law against the violent usurpation of Papists Praelats or Malignants is not the planting of Religion by arms much lesse is it the cutting of the throats of al Magistrats who differ in any point of Religion III. In the judgement of the praelaticall party the defensive armes of the Protestants in France Holland and Germany must be al 's much condemned as the offensive armes of the Anabaptists in Munster or of the sectaries this day in England Can these men dreame that the World for their pleasure will so farre divest themselves of all Religion and reason as to take from their hands so brutish and Atheisticall maximes He concluds with a wish of a generall counsel at least of all protestant Churches for to condemne all broatchers of seditious principles Ans. All true covenanters goe before him in that desire being confident that he and his fellowes as they have declined al ready the most solemne assemblies of their owne countries upon assurance of their condemnation so their tergiversation would be al 's great if they were to answer to an oecumenick Synod What I pray would the Warner say in a counsel of protestants for the practise of his party pointed at in his last words I meane their
Grotius that had better skill in the lawes then you or I sayth That in causes of Delegacie semper appellasio conscssa fuit ad Imperatorem si ex Imperiali jussione judicatum esset aut ad Iudicum quemcunque si ex judiciali praecepto which holds good against your general Assemblie if that judgeth earegali jussione that it doth so is cleare from your Assemblie Act April 24. 1578. wherein it petitioneth the King to set establish your policie a part whereof is your Assemblie judication That it is for the most part order'd to the King in his Courts is not any way to confine his power but to free him from frequent impertinencies unseasonable importnnities of trouble or it may be a voluntarie but no obligatorie Royal condescension to avoyd your querulous imputation of arbitrarie partialitie tyrannie in judicature Therefore you injure the Bishop by converting his assertion into a negative confession As if when he sayth it is to the King in Chancerie he must needs acknowledge It can be neither to the King out of Chancerie nor to him there but with collaterall aequipotential â—…ssistants Whereas your friend Didoclave complaines that our appeales are ever progressus â—…b unico ad unicum wherein whether he mean'd an aggregate or personal unitie I leave you to interpret That an appeale is not permitted from your Lords of session or Parliament in Scotland is because whatsoever is regularlie determin'd there receives its ratification from the King But if one or other in their session without him should determine a case evidentlie undeniablie destructive to the rights of his crowne or liberties of his people whether His Majestie may not admit an appeale assume his coercive power to restraine their license I thinke no loyal subject in Scotland will controvert As touching your Assemblies King Iames tells you It is to be generallie observed that no priviledge that any King gives to one particular bodie or state within the Kingdome of convening consulting among themselves which includes whatsoever they doe when they are convened consulting is to be understood to be privative given unto them so the King thereby depriving himselfe of his owne power praerogative but onelie to be given cumulative unto them as the lawyers call it without any way denuding the King of his owne power authoritie This His Majestie alledged against the Ministers at Aberdene whom he accuseth not onelie of convening but acting after they were convened He particularlie mentions their setting downe the dies of the next Assemblie His Councel addes their endâ—…vour to reverse overthrow all those good orders godlie constitutions formerlie concluded for keeping of good order in their Church If you alledge that His Majesties Commissioner was not there then you grant me their acts are not justifiable without him And that all are not necessarilie with him I argue from the language of the Commission whereby they meet which limits them thus secundum legem praâ—…im against which if any thing be acted upon appeale the Kings praerogative may rectifie it at pleasure if not any judge may praetend to be absolute then the King must be absolutelie nothing having committed or delegated all power from himselfe What civile law of Scotland it is that prohibites appeales from the General Assemblie you should doe well to mention in your next I know none nor did King Iames thinke of any when he cited his distinction from the Scottish Lawyers aswell as any other Where an Assemblie proceeds contrarie to the lawes of God man Which is not impossible while it may consist of a multitude men neither the best nor most able of the Kingdome the Bishop thinkes an appeale to a legal Court of delegates constituted by a superiour power might be neither unseeming nor unreasonable The law of old never intended they should be the weakest of all Court Where it hath so happened by your owne rule pag. 22. The Delegates not Delegacie are to be charged Such heretofore in England as imployed mercenarie officials for the most part were mercenarie Bishops if they had been cut to the core would have been found I doubt Disciplinarian in heart though Episcopal in title The Scots way of managing Ecclesiastical causes is not more just because more derogatorie to the right of the King And the late Martyr'd King found it not more safe therefore told Mr. Henderson plainlie the papacie in a multitude might be as dangerous as in one how that might be Gualter writ to Count Vnit-glupten in a letter Emergent hinc novae tyrannidis cornua paulatim cristas attollent ambitiosi Ecclesiarum pastores quibus facile fuerit suos assessores in suas partes attrahere cùm ipsii inter hos primatum teneant He might have found the experiment of it in Scotland Nor can it be more satisfactorie to those rational men with whom the Bishops arguments are prevalent beside what else may be effectuallie alledged against it Allthough the two instances the Bishop brings for stopping appeales were accompanied with so many treasonable circumstances as might have enlarged his chapter into a volume deleted the credit of a Scotish Disciplinarian Assemblie out of the opinion of all the Cristians in the world Yet His Lordship thought good to furnish his reader with better authoritie from the second Booke of Discip. ch 12. which shall here meet you againe to crave your acquaintance From the Kirke there is no reclamation or appellation to any Iudge Civile or Ecclesiasticall within the Realme The reputation of the two Reverend Arch-Bishops Montgomerie Adamson depends not upon the sentence of a turbulent envious Synod much lesse any single malicious Presbyter in a pamphlet with whom we know 't is crime hainous enough to be a Bishop shall not want his vote to make them excommunicate Their manifold high misdemeanours are mention'd in the censure of the Presbyterie of Striveling for admitting Montgomerie to the temporalitie of the Bishoprike of Glasgow his owne for aspiring thereto Assemblie 1587. And of the other for taking the Kings commission to sit in Parliament 1584. In the last Act of which his commission is printed to register â—…his guilt The principal of their evil patrons among the wicked States-men I meane next under the King to whom you yeild that praerogative at least is sayd to be the Earle of Arran who deserves that character for being second at that time in His Majesties favour he is sayd by your brethren to have taken them into the Parliament So that lay their commission Earle Arrans courtesie together which without the other had implied the pleasure of the King they tooke not without authoritie upon themselves as you sayd the Episcopal office nor place in that Parliament Whether the pride contempt of the Prelates or Presbyters were greater may be judg'd in the case of Arch-Bishop Montgomerie by the Assemblies slighting not onelie
Presbyterians tolerate more libertie on their Sabbath then the Bishops on our Sunday 50. 125 The hypocritical superstition of the Sc. Presbyters in the sanctification of their Sabbath 81 Offenders quitted to be admitted to the H. Sacrament without publike satisfaction in the Church 126 False measures c under colour of scandal not to be brought into the cognizance of the Church 66 All civile causes are brought before the Presbyterie under the pretense of scandal 170 The Pr. Scotish partie inconsiderable 2 They gave beter language to our Bishops heretofore then of late 8 Carefull Christians will finde litle leisure on weeke dayes to heare many sermons 157 Sermons not to exceed an houre 158 Those that are Rhetorical may be as usefull as many meerlie Textuarie 159 St. Claud Somais no Countenancer of the late Kirke proceedings Ans. to Ep. Ded. 4. 111 The Sc. Presbyterians coordinate two Soveraignities in one State 113 Two Scotish Kings at one time avouched by A Melvin 114 Capt. Iames Stuart vindicated at large 87 Superintendents aequivalent to Bishops 23 Imperious supplicates from the Presbyterie 26 Rebellion the subject of most 165. 179 The Kings supremacie impaired by Presbyterie 27. 195 Placed upon the People 29 Scotish Presbyterie overthrowes the right of the Magistrates convocating Synods 10. 30 Synods where the Magistrate prohibited them 31. 36 Receiving appeales not the principal end of calling Synods 132 Noblemen to have no suffrages in them but when sent thither by the King 134 T. THe by-tenets of the Discipline 3 The Texts of Scripture urged against Episcopacie for Presbyterie answered 105 c The Presbyterians treason at Ruthuen 88 At Striveling 89 V. FAmilie visitations commendable aswell in orthodoxe Priest as Presbyters 173 The Reviewer much in love with the uncleanlie metaphore of a vomit 176 W. ACcording to the Word of God a more dubious and frivolous limitation in the Covenant them heretosore in the oath for Episcopacie 181 FINIS 1 Sâ—…n Gâ—…r 16. 7. Dâ—…ar Parl. 1648. c. Assemb Gâ—… Aâ—…no 1556. Can. 50. Ench. cand S. min. ex decrâ—…o sal The Edit Gron. 1645. pag. 161. Los ordiuâ—… Eccles. printed at Geneva 1562. pag. 66. pag. 20. Pagin 20. Pag 9. Pag 11. Octob. 20. 1597. Assâ—… Abberd 1600 1 Book dise 1. held Ass Dun. 1580. Patl. 1584 1 Book discip 4. and 6. head Anno 203. 1606. Ass. Glasg 1610. Parl. Edenb 1612. Ass. Edenb 1590. 2 Book disc Chap. 9. 1 Book disc 6. head Ibidem Ibidem Ibidem Ass. Edenb 1 6 4 7. Ass. Glasg 1 5 8 1 Ass. Edenb 1 5 9 0 Ass. Edenb 1 5 9 1. 1 〈◊〉 Book disc Chap. 7. 2 Chap. 12. 3 Ass. Edenb 1 7 0. a Book disc Chap. 7. Chap. 12. 2 Book disc Chap. 1. Theoremaâ—… III. imp Edenb 1 6 4 7. decreto Synodi Theor. 4 Theor. 8. Theâ—…r â—…2 Information from Sâ—…t â—…nd p. 19 Theor 98. Theor. 82. Theor. 96. Tâ—…r 50. 5â—… Ibid. 2 Book of disc châ—… 10. Theor. 84. and 85. Ibidâ—… Theor. 43. Theor. 97. Theor. 88. Theor. 82. 2. Theor. 82. 3. Theor. 91. 92. 2. 1582. Ass. Saint Andrâ—…ws 1582. Ass. Saint-Andrâ—…ws 1582. 〈◊〉 Eccl. Ord. pag. 14. Dâ—…c 15â—… a Book diâ—…c châ—…p 11. At Edâ—… 1587. Minster â—…vid Bâ—… 1596. 4 1 Book dâ—… 7 heâ—…d 2 Book dâ—…c Chap. 〈◊〉 Thâ—… 〈◊〉 9 1 Book disc â—…d 9. Ibid. Ass Edenb 1594. Parl. Ed. 1594. Gen. 79. 7. Vindication of Commissioners Jun. 6 1648. 6 1 Book dise 7. head 2 Book dise Chap. 7. 1 Book disc 〈◊〉 head and Thâ—…r â—…3 Theor. 47. 4â—… Vindicat. com p. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1648. Theor. 63. vindication p. 5. Humble advise Edchb. Iune 10. 2â—…48 vindication p. 8. Ass. Dund 1593. Ass. Fdâ—…b 1567. 〈◊〉 Book dise â—…h 7. Vindication pâ—…g 11. 〈◊〉 10. 1582. 1583. Ass. Edenb 1582. Sept. 27. 1648. Ar. 3 Theor. 84. Ann. 1562. Ass. Edenburg 1593. An. 1596. 1 Cor. 1â—… 1. 1 Kin. 3. 25. 1582. Febr. 16. At Saint Giles Church March 22. Declar. Scot. Leit p. 57. 58. 1 Book dis 7. head Theor. 63. 1 Book 9. head p. 44. Scot lit 48 47. 1 Book dis 7. h aâ—… 55. Articl 1596. Scot. Liâ—… 49 Motus Brtanici 171 1 Book dis 9. head 1 Book dis 9 head The Authorâ—… reasons of his wryting The Praelats are unable by reason to defend Episco pacy Cheir strongeâ—… 〈◊〉 are 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 The 〈…〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only crane of the Covenant is that it extirpate praelacy The Bishops are most justly cast out of England The Scots were never injurious to their King The Scotes selling of the King is a most false calumnie The reason of the dediâ—…ation The unseasonablenes of Doctor Brambles warning The irrational way of the warners writing The most of his stuffe is borrowed and long agoe confuted The conâ—… bitternes of the warners spirit The warner stricks at the Scotes discipline through the Kings sides In the threshold hee stumbles on the Kings conscience The Scots never offered to impose any thing uâ—… on England The elder praelats of England were Erastians and more but the younger are as much an i-Erastian as the most riged of the Presbytery The Scotes first and greatest crime is irreconciliablenes with Rome The Scotes were ever anti episcopall The Praelates lately were found in the act of introducing Popery into the Church and Tiranny into the Kingdom No controversie in Scotland betwixt the King and the Church about the convocating of Synods The warners Erastian and Tirannick principles hated by the King The Warners ignorant and false report of the Scotes proceedings Bishops were abolished and Presbyteries set up in Scotland with King Iames consent The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland The second book of disciplin why not al ratified in Parliament The Warners hipocrisy calling that a crime which himselfe counts a virtue The Warner a grosse Erastian Praelatical principles impossibilitate alsolid peace betwixt the King and his Kingdoms Erastian praelats evert the legall foundations of all government The finall determination of all Ecclesiastick causes by the Lawes of Scotland is in the generall assembly The divine right of discipline is the tenet of the most of praelats All the power of the Church in Scotland is legall and with the Magistrats consente The prelats rather then to lay aside their owne interest will keepe the King and his people in misery for ever Appeals in Scotland from a generall assembly were no lesse irrationall then illegall The Churches just severity against Montgomery and Adamson was approven by the King and the parties themselfe The pride of prelats lately but never the Presbitery did exempt their fellows from punishment for their civil faults The Warner is injurious to the Ministers of Holland The pretended declaration of King Iames was
this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honor and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in their chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare trick which hardly the inventions of all their praedecessors can pararel They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did dryve him on to his satal praecipice unles they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the eares of his Son in his later will and testament to follow him in that same way of ruine rather then to give over to serve the lu◅ts of the praelaticall clergy They have gathered together his Majesties last papers and out of them have made a book whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and devotion was among them by way of essayes as it were to frame the heart of the Son by the fingers of the dying Father to piety wisedome patience and every virtue but ever anone to let fall so much of their own ungracious dew as may irrigat the seeds of their praelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre as to charge him to perseveer in the maintainance of Episcopall governement upon all hazards without the change of any thing except a little p. 278. and to assure that all Covenanters are of a faction engaged into a Religious rebellion who may never be trusted till they have repented of their Covenant and that till then never lesse loyalty justice or humanity may be expected from any then from them that if hee stand in need of them hee is undone for they will devoure him as the Serpent does the dove These and the like pernicious maximes framed by an Episcopall hand of purpose to separat for ever the King from all his covenanted subjects how farr they were from the heart language and wrytings of our late Soveraigne all who were aquainted with his carriage and most intime affections at New-Castle in the Isle of Wight and thereafter can testify But it is reason when the Praelats doe frame an image of a King that they should have liberty to place their owne image in its forheade as the statuary of old did his in the Boss of Pallas targe with such arti◅ice that all her worshipers were necessitat to worship him and that no hand was able to destroy the one without the dissolution and breaking in peeces of the other yet our Praelats would know that in this age there be many excellent Engyneers whose witty practicks transcend the most skilfull experiments of our Auncestors and what ever may be the ignorance or weaknes of men wee trust the breath of our Lords mouth will not faile to blow out the Bishop from the Kings armes without any detriment at all to royalty Allwayes the wicked and impious cunning of these craftsemen is much to be blamed who dare be bold to insert and engrave themselfes so deeply in the images of the Gods as the one cannot be intended to be picked out of the other more then the Aple from the eye unles the subsistance of both be put in hazard The other matter of his rayling against us is the solemne league and covenant when this nimble and quick enough Doctor comes assisted with all the reasons the whole University of Oxford can afford him to demonstrat it as he professes in his last Chapter to be wicked false void and what not wee find his most demonstrative proofes to be so poor and silly that they infere nothing of his conclusion To this day no man has shewed any errour in the mater of that covenant as for our framing and taking of it our adversaries drave us thereunto with a great deale of necessity and now being in it neither their fraud nor force may bring us from it againe for we feare the oath of God After much deliberation we found that covenant the soveraigne meanes to joyne and keep together the whole orthodox party in the three Kingdomes for the defence of their Religion and Liberties which a popish praelaticall and malignant faction with all their might were overtarning who still to this day are going on in the same designe without any visible change in the most of their former principles And why should any who loves the King hate this covenant which is the straytestty the world can devise to knit all to him and his posterity if so be his Majestie might be pleased to enter therein but by all meanes such a mischiefe must be averted for so the roote of Episcopacy would quickly wither without any hope of repullulation an evill farr greater in the thoughts of them who now mannage the conscience of the Court thē the extirpation of Monarchy the eversion of all the three Kingdomes or any other earthly misery As for the third subject of the Warners fury against us our unkindnes to the late King if any truth were in this false challenge no other creature on earth could be supposed the true cause thereof but our unhappy praelats all our grievances both of Church and State first and last came principally from them had they never been authors of any more mischiefe then what they occasioned to our late Soveraigne his person family and Dominions this last dozn of yeares there is abundant reason of burying that their praeter and Antiscripturall order in the grave of perpetuall infamy But the truth is beside more auncient quarrels since the dayes of our fathers the Albigenses this limb of Antichrist has ever been witnessed against Wickleif Huss and their followers were zealous in this charge till Luther and his disciples got it flung out of all the reformed world except England where the violence of the ill advised princes did keep it up for the perpetuall trouble of that land till now at last it hath well neare kicked downe to the ground there both Church and Kingdome As for the point in hand we deny all unkindnes to our King whereof any reasonable complaint can be framed against us Our first contests stand justified this day by King and Parliament in both Kingdomes When his Majestie was so ill advised as to bring downe upon our borders an English army for to punish our refusing of a world of novations in our Religion contrary to the lawes of God and of our country what could our land doe lesse then lie downe in their armes upon Dunce law for their just and necessary defence when it was in their power with ease to haue dissipat the opposit army they shew themselves most ready upon very easy conditions to goe home in peace and gladly would have rested there had not the furious Bishops moved his Majestie without all provocation to breake that first peace and make for a second invasion of Scotland only to
parts thereof to be agreable to the word of God it was the two Houses of the Parliament of England without a contrary voice who did ordaine the abolition of Episcopacy and the setting up of Presbyteryes and Synods in England and Ireland Can heere the Scotes be said to compell the English to dance after their pype when their own assembly of divines begins the song when the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England concurre without a discording opinion when the King himselfe for perfecting the harmony offers to adde his voice for three whole yeares together In the remainder of the chapter the warner layes upon the Scotes three other crimes first That they count it Erastianisme to put the governement of the Church in the hand of the Magistrat Answ. The Doctors knowledge is greater then to bee ignorant that all these goe under the name of Erastians who walking in Erastus ways of flattering the Magistrat to the prejudice of the just rights of the Church run yet out much beyond Erastus personall tenets I doubt if that man went so far as the Doctor heere and else where to make all Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction but a part of the Magistrats civill power which for its execution the supreame Governours of any state may derive out of the fountaine of their supremacy to what ever hands civill or Ecclesiastick themselfes think fit to commit it Let the Doctor adde to this much knowledge but a little ingenuity and he shall confes that his Brethren the Later Bishops who claime Episcopacy by divine right are all as much against this Erastian Caesaro-papisme as any Presbiterian in Scotland The elder Bishops indeed of England and all the Lawes there for Episcopacy seeme to be point blank according to the Erastian errours for they make the crowne and royall supremacy the originall root and fountaine whence all the discipline of the Church doth flow as before the days of Henry the eight it did out of the Popes head-ship of the Church under Christ. How ever let the Doctor ingenuously speake out his sence and I am deceived if he shall not acknowledge that how grosse an Erastian so ever himselfe and the elder Bishops of England might have been yet that long agoe the most of his praelatical friends have become as much opposit to Erastianisme as the most rigid of the Presbiterians The other crime he layes to the charge of the Scotes is that they admit no latitude in Religion but will have every opinion afundamentall article of faith and are averse from the reconciliation of the Protestant Churches Ans. If the warner had found it seasonable to vent a little more of his true sence in this point he had charged this great crime far more home upon the heade of the Scotes for indeed though they were ever far from denying the true degrees of importance which doe cleerly appeare among the multitude of Christian truthes yet the great quarrell heer of the warner and his freinds against them is that they spoiled the Canterburian designe of reconcealing the Protestant Churches not among themselfes but with the Church of Rome When these good men were with all earnestnes proclaming the greatest controversies of Papists and Protestants to be upon no fundamentalls but only disputable opinions wherein beleefe on either side was safe enough and when they found that the Papists did stand punctually to the Tenets of the Church of Rome and were obstinately unwilling to come over to England their great labour was that the English and the rest of the Protestants casting aside their needlesse beleefe of problematick truths in piety charity and zeale to make up the breach and take away the shisme should be at all the paines to make the journey to Rome While this designe is far advanced and furiously driven on in all the three Kingdomes and by none more in Yreland then the Bishop of Derry behold the rude and plaine blewcapes step in to the play and marre all the game by no arte by no terrour can these be gotten alongs to such a reconciliation This was the first and greatest crime of the Scotes which the Doctor here glances at but is so wyse and modest a man as not to bring it above board The last charge of the Chapter is that the Scotes keep not still that respect to the Bishops of England which they were wont of old in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reigne Ans. In that letter cited by the warner from the generall assembly of Scotland 1566. Sess. 3. there is no word of approbation to the office of Episcopacy they speake to the Bishops of England in no other quality or relation but as Ministers of the word the highest stile they give them is reverend Pastors and Brethren the tenour of the whole Epistle is a grave and brotherly admonition to beware of that fatall concomitant of the most moderat Episcopacy the troubling of the best and most zealous servants of Christ for idle fruitles Ceremonies How great a reverence the Church of Scotland at that time carried to praelacy may be seen in their supplication to the secret counsell of Scotland in that same assembly the very day and Session wherein they write the letter in hand to the Bishops of England The Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews being then usurping jurisdiction over the ministry by some warrant from the state the Assembly was grieved not only with the popery of that Bishop but with his auncient jurisdiction which in all Bishops Popish and protestant is one and the same That jurisdiction was the only matter of their present complaint and in relation thereto they assure the counsel in distinct tearmes that they would never be more subject unto that usurped tiranny the they would be to the devill himselfe So reverend an opinion had the Church of Scotland at that time of Episcopall jurisdiction But suppone that some fourscore yeares agoe the Scotes before they had tasted the fruits of Protestant Bishops had judged them tolerable in England yet since that time by the long tract of mischiefes which constantly has accompanied the order of praelacy they have been put upon a more accurat inspection of its nature and have found it not only a needles but a noxious and poysonous weed necessare to be plucked up by the root and cast over the hedge Beside al its former malefices it hath been deprehēded of late in the very act of everting the foundations both of Religion and governement of bringing in Popery and Tiranny in the Churches and States of all the three Kingdomes Canterburian self conviction cap. 1. And for these crimes it was condemned killed and buried in Scotland by the unanimous consent of King Church and Kingdom when England thereafter both in their Assembly and Parliament without a discording voice had found it necessary to root out that unhappy plant as long agoe with great wisedome it had been cast out of all the rest of the reformed
to meet when an erroneous Magistrat by his Tyrannous edict commands them to doe so let him call up Erastus from the dead to be disciplined in this new doctrine of the praelats impious loyalty The third principle is that the judgment of true and false doctrine of suspension and deprivation of Ministers belongeth to the Church Ans. If this be a great heresie it is to be charged as much upon the state as upon the Church for the acts of Parliament give all this power to the Church neither did the lawes of England or of any Christian state popish or protestant refuse to the Church the determination of such Ecclesiastick causes some indeed doe debate upon the power of appeales from the Church but in Scotland by the law as no appeale in things civill goes higher then the Parliament so in matters Ecclesiastick none goes above the generall assembly Complaints indeed may goe to the King and Parliament for redresse of any wrong has been done in Ecclesiastick Courts who being custodes religionis may by their coercive power command Ecclesiastick Courts to rectifie any wrong done by them contraire to Scripture or if they persist take order with them But that two or three praelats should become a Court of delegats to receave appeales from a generall assembly neither Law nor practise in Scotland did ever admit nor can the word of God or any Equity require it In the Scotes assemblies no causes are agitat but such as the Parliament hath agreed to bee Ecclesiastick and of the Churches cognisance no Processe about any Church rent was ever cognosced upon in Scotland but in a civill Court it s very false that ever any Church censure much lesse the highest of excommunication did fall upon any for robbing the Church of its patrimony Our fourth challenged principle is that wee maintain Ecclesiastick jurisdiction by a divine right Ans. Is this a huge crime is there divine in the world either Papist or Potestant except a few praelaticall Erastians but they doe so If the Warner will professe as it seemes hee must the contradiction of that which he ascribes to us his avowed tenet must bee that all Ecclesiastick power flowes from the Magistrat that the Magistrat himself may execute all Church censures that all the Officers appointed by Christ for the governement of his Church may bee laid aside and such a kind of governors bee put in their place as the Magistrate shal be pleased to appoint that the spirituall sword and Keies of heaven belong to the Magistrate by vertue of his supremacy al 's wel as the temporall sword and the Keies of his earthly Kingdome our difference heere from the Warner will not I hope be found the greatest heresie Our last challenged principle is that wee will have all our power against the Magistrat that is although hee dissent Ans. It is an evill comentare that al must be against the Magistrate which is done against his consent but in Scotland their is no such case for all the jurisdiction which the church there does enjoy they have it with the consent of the Magistrat all is ratified to them by such acts of Parliament as his Majestie doth not at all controvert Concerning that odious case the Warner intimats whither in time of persecutiō when the Magistrat classheth with the Church any Ecclesiastick disciplin be then to be exercised himselfe can better answer it then we who with the auncient Christians doe think that on all hazards even of life the church may not be dissolved but must meet in dens and caves and in the wildernes for the word and Sacraments and keeping it selfe pure by the divine ordinance of discipline Having cleered all the pernicious practises and all the wicked Doctrines which the Warner layes upon us I think it needles to insist upon these defenses which he in his aboundant charity brings for us but in his owne way that he may with the greater advantage impugne them only I touch one passage whereupon he make injurious exclamations that which Mr. Gilespie in his theoremes wryts when the Magistrate abuses his power unto Tyranny and makes havock of all it is lawfull to resist him by some extraordinary wayes and meanes which are not ordinarily to bee allowed see the principles from which all our miseryes and the losse of our gracious Master have flowed Ans. Wee must heere yeeld to the Warner the great equity and necessity that every doctrine of a Presbyter should be charged on the Presbytery it selfe and that any Presbyter teaching the lawfulnesse of a Parliaments defensive armes is tantamont to the Churches taking of armes against the king These small unconsequences wee must permit the Warner to swallow downe without any stick however wee doe deny that the maxime in hand was the fountaine of any our miseryes or the cause at all of the losse of our late Soveraigne Did ever his Majestie or any of his advised counsellers declare it simply unlawfull for a Parliament to take armes for defence in some extraordinary cases however the unhappines of the Canterburian Prelats did put his Majestie on these courses which did begin and promote all our misery and to the very last these men were so wicked as to refuse the lousing of these bands which their hands had tyed about his misinformed conscience yea to this day they will not give their consent that his Majestie who now is should say aside Episcopacy were it for the gayning the peaceable possession of all his three Kingdomes but are urgers of him night and day to adhaere to their errours upon the hazard of all the miseries that may come on his person on his family and all his people yet few of them to this day durst be so bold as to print with this Warner the unlawfulnes of a Parliaments armes against the Tyranny of a Prince in any imaginable case how extraordinary soever CHAP. III. The Lawes and customes of Scotland admitte of no appeal from the generall assembly IN this chapter the challenge is that there are no appeales from the generall Assembly to the King as in England from the Bishops Courts to the King in Chauncery where a Commission uses to be given to delegats who discusse the appeales Ans. The warner considers not the difference of the Government of the Church of Scotland from that which was in England what the Parliament is in the State that the generall assembly is in the Church of Scotland both are the highest courts in their owne kind There is no appeale any where in moderat Monarchies to the Kings person but to the King in certaine legall courts as the Warner here confesseth the appeale from Bishops lyes not to the King in his person but to the King in his court of Chauncery As no man in Scotland is permitted to appeale in a civil cause from the Lords of Session much lesse from the Parliament so no man in an Ecclesiastick cause is permitted by
the verie civil Law of Scotland to appeale from the general assembly According to the Scots order practise the King in person or else by his high Commissioner sits al 's usually in the generall assembly as in Parliament But though it were not so yet an appeale from a generall assembly to be discussed in a Court of delegats were unbeseeming and unreasonable the one Court consisting of above two hundred all chosen men the best and most able of the Kingdome the other but of two or three often of very small either abilities or integrity who yet may be more fitt to decerne in an Ecclesiastick cause then a single Bishop over his officiall the ordinary trusted in all acts of jurisdiction for the whole dioces But the Scots way of managing Ecclesiastick causes is a great deale more just safe and Satisfactory to any rationall man then that old popish order of the English where all the spirituall jurisdiction of the whole dioces was in the hand of one mercenary officiall without all reliefe from his sentence except by an appeale as of old to the pope and his delegats so therafter to the King though never to be cognosced-upon by himselfe but as it was of old by two or three delegats the weakest of all courts often for the quality and ever for the number of the judges Two instances are brought by the Warner to prove the Church of Scotlands stopping of appeals from the generall Assembly to the King the cases of Montgomery and Adamson if the causes and events of the named cases had been wel knowne to the Warner as he made this chapter disproportionally short so readily he might have deleted it al together Both these men were infamous not only in their Ministeriall charges but in their life conversation both became so insolent that contrary to the established order of the Church Kingdome being suborned by wicked statesmen who in that day of darknes had wel neer brought ruine both to King and country would needs take upon them the office of Arch-Bishops While the assembly was in proces with them for their manifold and high misdeameanors the King was moved by them and their evill patrons to shew his high displeasure against the assemblyes of the Church they for his Majesties satisfaction sent their Commissioners and had many conferences whereby the pride and contempt of these prelats did so encrease that at last they drew the sentence of excommunication upon their own heads the King after some time did acknowledge the equity of the Church proceedings and professed his contentment their with both these unhappy men were brought to a humble confession of their crimes and such signes of repentance that both after a renunciation of their titulare Bishopriks were readmitted to the function of the ministry which they had deserted Never any other before or after in Scotland did appeale from the generall assembly to the King the late excommunicat praelats in their declinatour against the assembly of Glasgow did not appeale as I remember to the King but to another generall assembly to bee constitute according to their own Popish and Tyrannical principles CHAP. IV. Faulty Ministers in Scotland are lesse exempted from punishment then any other men THE Warner in his fourth Chapter offers to prove that the Scottish discipline doth exempt Ministers from punishment for any treason or sedition they can act in their pulpits Ans. This challenge is like the rest very false The rules of the Church discipline in Scotland obliges Churchmen to bee subject to punishment not only for every fault for which any other man is lyable to censure but ordaines them to bee punished for sundrie things which in other men are not at all questionable and what ever is censurable in any they appoint it to be much more so in a Minister It is very untrue that the pulpits in Scotland are Sanctuaries for any crime much lesse for the grievous crimes of sedition and treason Let the Warner remember how short a time it is since an Episcopall chayre or a canonicall coate did priviledge in England and Ireland from all censure either of Church or State great numbers who were notoriously knowne to be guilty of the foulest crimes Was ever the Warners companion Bishop Aderton challenged for his Sodomy so long as their commune patrone of Canterbury did rule the court did the warner never heare of a prelate very sibb to Doctour Bramble who to this day was never called to any account for flagrant scandals of such crimes as in Scotland are punishable by the gallows the Warner doth not well to insist upon the Scots Clergie exempting themselfe from civill punishments no where in the world are Churchmen more free of crimes deserving civil cognisance then in Scotland and if the ears and eyes of the world may be trusted the popish clergy this day in Italy and Spaine are not so challengeable as the praelaticall divines in England and Ireland lately were for many grosse misdemeanors But why does the Warners anger run out so farre as to the preachers in Holland is it because he knoweth the Church disciplin in Holland to be really the same with that he oppugnes in the Scots and that all the reformed Churches doejoyne cordially with Scotland in their rejection of Episcopacy is this a ground for him to slander our Brethren of Holland Is it charity for him a stranger to publish to the world in print that the ministers in Holland are seditious oratours and that they saucily controll the Magistrats in their pulpits Their crime seemes to be that for the love of Christ their master they are zealous in their doctrin to presse upon the Magistrat as well as upon the people the true practise of piety the sanctification of the sabbath day the suppression of heresy and shisme and repentance for the sins of the time place wherein they live This is a crime whereof few of the Warners friends were wont to be guilty of their shamefull silence and flattery was one of the great causes of all the sins and calamities that have wracked the three Kingdomes the streame of their sermons while the enjoyed the pulpit was to encourage to superstition and contempt of piety to sing asleepe by their ungracious way all that gave eare unto them The man is impatien t to see the Pastors of Holland or any where to walk in another path then his own and for this cause would stirre up their Magistrats against them as it was his and his Brethrens custome to stirre up the Magistrats of Britan and Ireland to imprison banish and heavily vex the most zealous servants of God only for their opposition to the praelats profanity and errours The Warner I hope has not yet forgotten how Doctor Bramble and his neighbour Lesly of Down did cast out of the Ministry and made flee out of the Kingdome men most eminent for zeale piety and learning who in a short time had
doubting for conscience sake his Majestie might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his dominions though not upon a divine right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royall right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts heere again upon the Presbyterie the usurpation of the temporall sword in what indirect relation so ever its probation in the former chapter was found so weake and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only wee marke that the Warner will have the Presbitery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Praelats especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this howre an answer that their principles unavoidably did bring backe the pope For a Patriarch over all the westerne Churches and among all the Patriarches of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flowes cleerly out of the fountaine of Episcopacy according to the avowed doctrine of the English praelats who yet are more liberall to the pope in granting him beside his spirituall super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporall jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other faire principalities within and without Italy There is no ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous ceremonies of Rome their images and altars and adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any recantation we have heard of avow them all even an adoration of and to the altar it selfe As for the doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in expresse tearmes a corporall presence of Christs body upon the Altar the Tridentine justification free-will finall apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbyterie is as absolute papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian position which the Warner heere offers not to dispute but to laugh at that Christ as King of his Church according to his royall office and Scepter hes appointed the office-bearers and lawes of the house is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our adversaries whether English or Romish as their owne tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Lawes c. neither they nor wee doe acknowledge His declamations against the novelty of the Presbyterie in the ordinary stile of the Jesuites against Protestants and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regarde our plea for the Praesbyterie is that it is scripturall if so it is auncient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that heer also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speake out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was wel warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirme that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantiall limbs was ever knowne in the World till the pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all acts of State and exercising the place of a high Thesaurer of a Chancelor or what ever civill charge the favour of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction with out any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himselfe in any part of his dioces but devolving the exercise of that power wholly upon his officials Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himselfe alone or with the fashionall assistance of any two Presbyters who chaunce to be neare a Bishop the only Pastor of the whole dioces and yet not bound to feed any flock either by word or Sacrament or governement but having a free liberty to devolve all that service upon others and himself to wayte at court so many yeares as he shall think fit This is our English Bishop not only in practise but in law and so was hee defended by the great disputants for praelacy in England But now let the Warner speake out if any such treasure can more be defended or was ever knowne in scripture or seen in any Christian Church for 800. yeares and above after the death of Christ. I take it indeed to be conscience that forces now at last the best of our Court-divines to devest their Bishop of all civill imployment in Parliament court or Kingdome in denying his solitarines in ordination in removing his officiall and Commissary courts in taking away all his arches Arch Bishops Arch Deacons deane and Chapter and all the c. in erecting Presbyteries for all ordinations and spirituall jurisdiction It is good that conscience moves our adversaries at last to come this farre towards us but why will they not yet come nearer to acknowledge that by these their to lately recanted errours they did to long trouble the world and that the little which yet they desire to keepe of a Bishop is nothing lesse then that English Bishop but a new creature of their own devising never known in England which his Majestie in no honnour is obliged to mantaine for any respect either to the lawes or customes of England and least of all for conscience While the Warner with such confidence avowes that no text of Scripture can be alleadged against Episcopacy which may not with more reason be applyed against the Presbytery behold I offer him here some few casting them in a couple of arguments which according to his great promises I wish he would answer at his leasure First I doe reason from Ephesians 4. 11 all the officers that Christ has appointed in his Church for the Ministry of the word are either Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors or Doctors but Bishops are none of these fyve Ergo they are none of the officers appointed by Christ for the Ministry of the word The Major is not wonte to be questioned the minor thus I prove Bishops are not Apostles Evangelists nor prophets for it s confessed all these were extraordinary and temporary officers but Bishops say yow are ordinary and perpetuall our adversaries pitch upon the fourth alleadging the Episcopall office to be pastorall but I prove the Bishop no Pastor thus no Pastor is superior to other Pastors in any spirituall power but according to our adversary a Bishop is superior to all the Pastors of his dioces in the power of ordination and jurisdiction Ergo. The doubt heer is only of the Major which I prove Argumento Ã
The fourth hurt is that every ordinary Presbyter wil make himselfe a Noblemans fellow Ans. No where in the World does gracious Ministers though meane borne men receive more respect from the Nobility then in Scotland neither any where does the Nobility and gentry receive more duely their honour then from the Ministers there That insolent speach fathered on Mr. Robert Bruce is demonstrat to be a fabulous calumny in the historicall vindication How ever the Warner may know that in all Europe where Bishops have place it hes ever at least these 800 yeares been their nature to trample under foot the highest of the Nobility As the Pope must be above the Emperour so a little Cardinal Bellarmin can tell to King Iames that hee may well be counted a companion of any Ilander King were the Bishops in Scotland ever content till they got in Parliament the right hand and the nearest seates to the throne and the doore of the greatest Earles Marquesses and duks was it not Episcopacy that did advance poore and capricious pedants to strive for the whyte staves great Seales of both Kingdomes with the prime Nobility and often overcome them in that strife In Scotland I know and the Warner will assure for England and Ireland that the basest borne of his brethren hes ruffled it in the secreet counsel in the royall Exchequer in the highest courts of justice with the greatest Lords of the Land it s not so long that yet it can be forgotten since a Bishop of Galloway had the modesty to give unto a Marquise of Argile tanta mont to a broadly in his face at the counsel table The Warner shall doe well to reckon no more with Presbyters for braving of Noblemen The nixt hee will have to bee wronged by the Presbytery are the orthodoxe clergy Ans. All the Presbyterians to him it seemes are heterodoxe Episcopacy is so necessary a truth that who denies it must be stamped as for a grievous errour with the character of heterodox The following words cleere this to be his mind they losse saith hee the confortable assurance of undoubted succession by Episcopall ordination what sence can be made of these words but that all Ministers who are not ordained by Bishops must lie under the confortlesse uncertainty of any lawfull succession in their ministeriall charge for want of this succession through the lineall descent of Bishops from the Apostles at least for want of ordination by the hands of Bishops as if unto them only the power of mission and ordination to the Ministry were committed by Christ because of this defect the Presbyterian Ministers must not only want the confort of an assured and undoubted calling to the Ministry but may very well know and be assured that their calling and Ministry is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their printing for what cause the author lest knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his mind then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did not only annuall the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these societies to be true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our praelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacraments there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true ministry and where no Bishops there is no true ordination and so in no reformed country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annull the Ministry yea null the Church and all the Reformed at one strock is it any mervaill that all of them doe concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no disconfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytry After all this was writen as heer it stands another copie of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand printed in these distinct tearmes and put it to a dangerous question whither it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they doe truely judge the want of Episcopall ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dangerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his book that errour the repentance had been commendable But he hes left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed heere at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the praelaticall tenet against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy when these mē doe still stand upon the extreame pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scuple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the counsel of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separation is needlesse and with which are-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and seale a full liberty of Religion to the bloody Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the nixt Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their furious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischieves of the world does lurke in that miserable covenant that death and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to bee imbraced by his Majestie then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because forsooth it doth oblige in plane tearmes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse praelacy The nixt hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry is that by it they
are brought to ignorance contempt and beggery Ans. Whither Episcopacy or Presbytry is the fittest instrument to avert these evills let reason or experience teach men to judge The Presbyteriall discipline doth oblige to a great deale of severer tryalls in all sort of learning requisite in a divine before ordination then doth the Episcopall let either the rule or practise of Presbyterian and Episcopall ordination be compared or the weekly Exercises and monthly disputations in Latine upon the controverted heads be looked upon which the Presbytry exacts of every Minister after his ordination all the dayes of his life for experience let the French Dutch and Scots divines who have been or yet are be compared with the ordinary generation of the English Clergie and it will be found that the praelats have not great reason so superciliously to look downe with contempt upon their Brethrens learning I hope Cartwright Whitaker Perkins Reynolds Parker Ames and other Presbyterian English were inferior in learning to none of their opposits some of the English Bishops has not wanted good store of learning but the most of them I beleeve wil be content to leave of boasting in this subject what does the Warner speake to us of ignorance contempt and Beggery does not all the world know that albeit some few scarce one of twenty did brook good benefices yea plurality of them whereby to live in splendor at Court or where they listed in their non-residency neverthelesse it hath been much complained that the greatest parte of the priests who had the cure of soules thorow all the Kingdome of England were incomparably the most ignorant beggerly and contemptible clergy that ever have been seen in any of the reformed Churches neither did we ever heare of any great study in the Praelats to remeed these evils albeit some of them be provident enough for their owne families Doctor Bramble knowes who had the skill before they had sitten seven yeare in their charge to purchase above fifeteen hundred pounds a yeare for themselves and their heirs what somever The third evil which the Ptesbytery brings upon Ministers is that it makes them prat and pray nonsence everlastingly Ans. It is indeed a great heartbrake unto ignorant lazy and unconsciencious Ministers to be put to the paines of preaching and prayer when a read service was wont to be all their exercise but we thought that all indifferently ingenuous men had long agoe been put from such impudence It was the late labour of the praelats by all their skill to disgrace preaching and praying without booke to cry up the Liturgy as the only service of God and to idolize it as a most heavenly and divine peece of write which yet is nought but a transcript of the superstitious breviary and idolatrous missall of Rome The Warner would doe well to consider and answer after seven years advisement Mr. Bailie his pararell of the service with the missall and Breviarie before hee presente the world with new paralels of the English liturgy with the directories of the Reformed Churches Is it so indeed that all preaching and praying without book is but a pratting of non-sence everlastingly why then continues the King and many well minded men to be deceived by our Doctors while they affirme that they are as much for preaching in their practise and opinion as the Presbyterians and for prayer without book also before and after sermon and in many other occasions it seemes these affirmations are nothing but grosse dissimulation in this time of their lownesse and affliction to decline the envy of people against them for their profane contempt of divine ordinances for wee may see heere their tenet to remaine what it was and themselves ready enough when their season shall be fitter to ring it out loud in the eares of the World that for divine service people needs no more but the reading of the liturgy that sermons on week dayes and Sundayes afternoon must all be laid aside that on the Sabbath before noone Sermon is needlesse and from the mouths of the most Preachers very noxious that when some learned Schollars are pleased on some festivall dayes to have an oration it would be short and and according to the Court paterne without all Spirit and life for edification but by all meanes it must bee provided that no word of prayer either before or after be spoken except only a bidding to pray for many things even for the welfare of the soules departed and all this alone in the words of the Lords prayer If any shall dare to expresse the desires of his heart to God in privat or publick in any words of his own framing hee is a grosse Puritan who is bold to offer to God his own nonsence rather then the auncient and well advised prayers of the holy Church The Warner is heer also mistaken in his beleefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any Liturgy they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but no ty ever in any of them by law or practise they doe not condemne the use of set formes for rules yea nor for use in beginners who are thereby endeavouring to attaine a readinesse to pray in their family out of their owne heart in the words which Gods spirit dytes to them but for Ministers to suppresse their most confortable and usefull gift of prayer by tying their mouth unto such formes which themselves or others have composed wee count it a wrong to the giver and to him who has received the gift and to the gift and to the Church for whose use that was bestowed In the nixt place the Warner makes the Presbytry injurious to parents by marying their children contrary to their consent and forcing them to give to the disobedient as large a portion as to any other of their obedient children and that it is no mervail the Scots should doe these things who have stripped the King the father of their country of his just rights Ans. By the Warners rule all the actions of a nation where a Presbytry lodges must be charged on the back of the Presbytry II. The Parliament of Scotland denyes that they have stripped the King of his just rights while he was stirred up and keeped on by the praelaticall faction to courses destructive to himselfe and all his people after the shedding of much blood before the exercise of all parts of his royall government they only required for all satisfaction and security to religion and liberties the grant of some few most equitable demands The unhappy Praelats from the beginning of our troubles to this day finding our great demande to runne upon the abolition of their office did everpresse his Majestie to deny us that satisfaction and rather then Bishops should be laid aside they have concluded that the King himselfe and all his family and all his three Kingdomes shall perish yet with all patience the Scotes continue to supplicat and to offer not
Lordship asserts about the supremacie of the Civile Magistrate Ecclesiastike jurisdiction derived from thence is but what he all his brethren have sworneto not one of the late Bishops retracted who claim'd Episcopacie by divine right nor were they at daggers drawing with that horrible word Erastian Caefaro-papisme having a farre more monstrous creature call'd Scoto-Presbytero-Papisme to encounter Our lawes are the same aswell to the latter as the elder Bishops if their subjection to them must be accounted such an errour the next pedlars pack that you open we may looke to finde Christianitie bundeli'd up into a sect The Bishop hath more charitie in him then to become an accuser of his friends so much ingenuitie as to heare your sense not onelie speake his owne about their writings which when you bring in any particular instance shewing them to joyne with the most rigid Presbyterians in opposing Erastus about the Magistrates power you may looke for your answer Here the Reviewer I can not say for want of a pare of spectacles for who is more blinde then he that will not see is pleas'd to over looke the whole bodie of the Bishops charge against them instead of quiting himselfe to any purpose recriminates onelie upon other mens scores having as it seemes been very slenderlie acquainted with the late controversies between the Papists us not sounded the depth of the question as it was stated by our later most learned writers particularlie that most glorious martyr the Right Reverend Arch-Bishop of Canterburie with the rational subtile Mr. Chillingworth who between them having clear'd the well of that dirt which defil'd commonlie the fingars of them that went to draw water at it before made the face of truth appeare at the botome to any that came impartiallie to behold it But the Bishop mentioning nothing hearebout I have no authoritie farther to enlarge being oblig'd onelie to put Mr. Baylie in mind that in his next Review he give account to the world Why the Scotish Presbyterie comes not into the harmonie of all Protestants both Lutharans Calvinists who give unto the English Episcopal Church the right hand of fellowship why he his later Brethren out do etheir forefathers who durst not condemne her either as defective in any necessarie point of Christian pietie or redundant in any thing that might virtuallic or by consequence overthrow the foundation The Canterburian designe was forged at Edenburgh into a passe for the Scots to come over the borders The Prelatical partie might charitablie wish but never rationallie hope to see all Christian Churches united in truth love so long as the perverse Presbyterie confines all Religion to it selfe For whatsoever the blew caps came in we know when they went out they caried many vvainloades of somevvhat clse beside the spoile of the blacke-caps reconciliation vvith Rome so long as such bootie is to be had they want more power then will to set up a new controversie in England But while they are thinking of that I must put them in mind of what we have in hand notwithstanding Mr. Baylies pretense assure him King James who had trouble enough with them makes good upon his owne experience that every nicitie is a fundamental among them every toy takes up as great a dispute as if the Holie Trinitie were question'd …De minimis Politiae Ecclesiasticae quaestiunculis tantum excitant turbarum ac si de sacrosancta Trinitate ageretur As touching your answer to the last charge you cunninglie omit what is found in the letter a word at least of approbation to the office of Episcopacie in that Bishops are call'd guides or leaders of Christs flocke wherein a superintendence Prelacie or precedence is own they being Pastorum Pastores for by the flocke there is mean'd the inferiour Ministerie not Laitie otherwise that text of St. Peter is unfitlie applied Feed the flocke of Christ which is committed to your charge caring for it not by constraint e'piscopôuntes mi a'nagkastôs e'piscopôuntes is being Bishops over it where a'nagkastôs must relate to the Ministers who were constrained to weare the cap surplice tippet or else be deprived of all Ecclesiastical function as your Assemblie complaines at the very begining of the letter Yet had they writ no more then you produce had been of the same minde with you now it would follow necessarilie that you acknowledge several members of Antichrist Ministers of the word reverend Pastours brethren of the Kircke Which give me but under your hand in your next My Lord of Derrie I presume will use you as his profess'd brother very kindlie trouble you no more about that businesse I must adde this Mr. Knox as futious otherwise as he was before Queen Elizabeths time when as your Historian relates in his life K. Edward VI. offered him a Bishoprike he resus'd it with a grave severe yet not so severe speach saying the title of Lordship great state had quid commune cum Antichristo somewhat common with Antichrist he sayd not the office of an English Bishop was Antichristian nor his person a limbe of Antichrist himselfe What the same Assemblie sayd or did about the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrewes was in the midst of their freanzie when as by their actions may be judged they had alreadie made good what they threatned were become subjects or slaves to the tyrannie of the Devil Whose title their successours have these last ten yeares renewd payd a greater homage then ever to that Lord. What you suppone is a grant of the question That some 80. yeares agoe the Scots might admit the Protestant Bishops tolerable in England the law being still the same upon which they are founded if their practice be not which is more then you prove whatsoever it may detract from their persons it derogates no thing from the continuance of their office Neither hath your inspection been so accurate of its nature but that like unskillfull physicians ye have cast away that balme of Gilead whereby the health of the daughter of Gods people must be recovered like ignorant simplers have throw'n over the hedge for a noxious â—…eed that Soveraigne plant which God ordain'd for the perpetual service sanitie of his Church As for those crimes which you mention though you will never be able to make them good against the Reverend Prelates of any the three Kingdomes yet for shame say not for those you got the consent of the King to condemne kill burie in your countrey the sacred order of Episcopacie in that Church His Majestie having not expressed the least word or syllabe to that purpose The most that ever he yeilded was this For it should be considered that Episcopacie was not so rooted setled there in Scotland as t is here in England nor I in that respect so strictlie bound to continue it in that Kingdome as this
to their brethren yet keeping backe whole viols of vengeance and wrath unto themselves For the many causes of Ministers deprivation cognosced upon in your Presbyteries you have the good liking of neither Papists nor Prae lates who finde no canon that gives commission to such a mungrel socitie of lay-Clerical Presbyters to take away what they have no power to conferre If I give but not grant your usurped tyrannie a priviledge by many yeares rebellious precedent to cognosce of such cases I must except against clipping of canons the coyne that beares the Majestike image of the Primitive Church such as is the 67. in the fourth Councel of Charthage Seditionarios nunquam ordinandos Clâ—…ricos sicut nec usurarios nec injuriarum ultores The first of the three had met with your vertous Fore-Father Knox in the Castle of St. Andrewes sav'd all the mischiefe we have reap'd by his call from abetting the murder of Cardinals to rebelling against Princes renting the Church the Commonwealth into Congregational Covenanting parties The last which was your injust praetense if not in your banners at least in the Remonstrances which you brought in your hands when you invaded England Canons holding aswell for depriving as ordaining had rid us of all the rable of Rebellious revengefull Presbyters without a stroke For the businesse of usurie I shal not draw up my charge till I discover the Scottish Presbyterian Cantores Yet you were best have care whatsoever becomes of the ancient Canons that you be not too severe in depriving for that lest you get a rebuke from your brethren abroad who it may be desire not to shake hands with you in that point of the Discipline The Bishop neither tooke out nor put in any causes of Church-mens deprivation but merelie transcrib'd what he thought more concern'd a Civile Court then a Synod If he had been at the charge of reprinting all whereof your booke of Discipline makes mention he must have left an c. to bring up a reserve though yov will not owne it of preaching penning practizing schisme sedition Rebellion against moderate just pious Kings aswell as what your Assemblies were solicitous to prohibite under the terme of Schisme or Rebellion against the Kirke For the first last of the three sinnes you draw out because you will have the pleasure at least of licking your lips at the naming His Lordship knowes no Bishop nor Doctour but may finde a namelesse Scottish Presbyter to give place to If he should be mistaken which he hath not so much reason to hope as charitie to wish he sees in St. Iames the guilt of murder aequivalent to adulterie made as great a transgression of the law He heares of Isaiah's triel in Scotland which deserves the same wonder crie of the Prophets Ye are drunken though not with wine ye stagger though not with strong drinke c. And since your last returne out of England beholds sitting at Edenburgh aswell as London the great whore instead of her blew arrayed in purple scarlet colour decked with gold pretious stones pearles having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations filthnesse of her sornication And upon the forhead of the woman drunken with the bloud of the Saints with the bloud of the Martyrs of Iesus a name written with a beame of the sunne Mysterie Babylon the Great The Mother of harlots abominations of the earth For the third sinne of gluttonie which you will have produc'd because in your canon though not much for your credit that your excessive gossiping comes to be cognosced by your Church all Bishops Doctours may freelie bid desiance to your sect of whom so manie are so often known to be as fed horses in the morning though you flatter your selves into a conceit that the noyse is not heard are neighing as much as those in Isai. So that you may in due time have what you better deserve the same curse with the Priests in the Prophet Malach which will spoyle your reviewing singling out other mens crrours or secret sinnes to the shame of Christianitie among the Nations when your selves are spiloi kai momoi the principal spots blemishes that are in it God may corrupt your seed spread dung upon your saces soleunitatum stercus even the dung of your solemne feastes you more likelie then they may be taken away with it The Bishops third chalenge mounts somewhat higher then your answer which pleades onelie for preaching upon texts concerning the Magistrates dutie resolving from Scripture their doubts both which reach up onelie to a judgement of direction but his Lordâ—…hip cites the clause in your theorem which makes difficult cases between King people subjects of cognizance judgement before the Assemblies of the Kirke And this he sayth riseth to a judgement of jurisdiction Your second booke of Discipline is more modest in language though as mischievous in meaning The Ministers exerce not the Civile jurisdiction but teach the Magistrate how it should be exerciz'd according to the word whereas if you take cognizance of pronounce judgement in these difficult cases Or call before you such as may be more easie but should be heard otherwhere this is no other but exercing civile jurisdiction as spiritual as you make it If you with the terrour of your excommunicating Maozin overaw the Magistrate into a servile submission to what you praescribe this I take to be no teaching but commanding instead of resolving by deliberate advice Christian moderation cutting in sunder with this sword of your spirit no word of Gods the knots perplexities of his conscience What doubt-resolvers you are commonlie between Master servant husband wife your licentious demeanour in many families may informe us where it is too well know'n you have made your selves judges of the trivial oeconomical causes in the hall dispensers of or with more private duties in the chamber So that they say the good man hath many times met with a consistorian censure at his table if not with a Presbyter a Presbyterian prohibition in his bed I beleeve you mistake preaching Praelates Doctours for some babling Puritanical Pastours Lecturers in England who have made these things their care gone about them as the uncontroverted parts of their Ministerial function The Bishops negligence herein was the silent reverence he payd which you owe to Majestie at a distance And His Lordships modest declining domestike curiosities a civile diversion from that wherein the word is so cleare as to need no interpreter the Husband or Masters authoritie so absolute as admits no superintendencie to praedominate Your license to preach personallie against Princes I finde given to your Fore-fathers in an answer to the Queenes proclamation 1559 Your tradition still continues the same touching which for brevities sake
Scottish Presbyterie in practice and such they would have it in law too if they could with all their Scripture collusions but once corrupt His Majesties judgement or by their sharpe-pointed swords two edged tongues affright him from a well grounded resolution into what his Royal Father esteem'd it a faint servile ungodlie and unkinglie consent The treasure you call for hath hitherto had God for its defense who hath made know'n and distributed those talents in Scripture which maintain'd the litle familie of the Church and discharg'd the itinerant Gospell of that time The greater mine hath been often discovered by them whose divina virgula hath stouped and put them upon the search of the veine that caried the Episcopal government through the 800. yeares of your account Your soon-shot bolts in many frivolous quaestions have been better feather'd with many wise mens answers and for all the horned impudence you hold out returned very often upon your heads one of whom I shall send you to who not to derogate from the happie endeavours of many others aswell of the learned Laitie as Reverend Clergie hath alone anticipated and fullie with much acutenesse and judgement answered allmost every particular you object Shewing that Christ himselfe hath made the office of Apostle or Bishop distinct from Presbyters Given them power to do some offices perpetuallie necessarie which to others he gave not Asof Ordination and confirmation And superioritie of jurisdiction Bishops by vertue of their office more then called observed as Lords in a more sublime sense then you mention And commended to the service of Kings Saint Chrysostom others imployed in Embassies Saint Ambrose a Praefect and Dorotheus a Chamberlaine to the Emperour Many of them Councellers to Princes and Iudges aswell in ordinarie secular affaires as Chanellors in extraordinarie by appeale Treasurers at least of the Church revenue and undergoing what ever civile charge the conscientious favour of Princes put upon them which was not in gradu impedimenti â—…lericalis Bishops with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction otherwise then as they thought good to call into their subordinate assistance or deputed Presbyters in their Dioceses Of officials and Commissaries I thinke he makes litle mention because he bends his discourse against all interest of Lay elders yet I doe not thinke he would denie that Civilians such as are our Officials and Commissaries might be instrumental to the Bishops especiallie having some learned Presbyter authorized in cases to which the others lay propertie extends not Bishops when necessitie may require using solitarie ordination which is good in nature rci as may be taken for granted by that Canon of the Apostles which as it enjoines no more then one Bishop so makes no mention of any Presbyter which it had quaestionlesse done if of absolute necessitie to the businesse Bishops ordaining not with the fashional but canonical assistance of any two Presbyters that they please by choyce of their owne chaplaines or others where are many or taking any two that chance otherwise to be neare Bishops principal pastours of their whole Dioceses when commanded or countenanc'd by the King to waite at Court not obliged to feed their flockes in their persons which they doe by many learned and religious proxies themselves in the meane time feeding by word or sacrament or ghostlie counsel the great shepheard whose Royal soul is worth 10000. of the peoples All this in effect a great deale more then your Parkers or Didoclaves could have answered hath this one learned Doctour defended as know'n long before the Pope gave over to say his creed which he did surelie when he became the Anti-Christ you call him I could goe up yet once againe helpe you to a third turne from the top of your demands Shew you that the Warner and his friends give the King the same assurance that erthey did that what they stand upon as unalterable in their order hath Scripture and Antiquitie for its warrant That upon the conversion of England to Christianitie the Ecclesiastike government there constituted was not Anti-Christian That a Bishop there is not a Lord in Parliament by vertue of his office as it may be to resolve spiritual doubts he ought to be but by the Baronie call which the favour of Kings hath annex'd unto it That in Scotland when it was decreed that Bishops should have no voyces in Parliament these your selfe-denying men desired of the King that such Commissioners as they should send to the Parliament and councel might from thence forth be authorized in the Bishops places for the Estate That not many protestant English Bishops have been High Treasurers not many Chancellars some that have you have litle reason to finde faultwith That they are not bound in law to devolve all jurisdiction That all which in practice did it are not to be condemned where they found able honest men to exercise it in their names That those which erre must not praejudice the care and deligence in government of the rest That solitarie ordinations were very rare therefore not to be objected as so common Nor did halfe the Bishops live at Court nor most that did halfe their time All these particulars could I enlarge on but that I beleeve the Reader satisfied with the execution done before and hath some what else to doe then to stay to see you stript In what followes you take a great deaie more then is given you naming that a donation from the Court divines conscience for which the Citie Divines chieflie of Edenburgh London forced the temple of God by such sacriledge to furnish the two tabernacles of robbers that then prospered too well in England and Scotland That Royal Saint that upon this most impious violence yeilded up so great a portion of his Ecclesiastike inheritance the Bishops avile imployment Arch-Bishops Arch-deacons with the c which might have been better spar'd did it in angusto comprchensus not upon any compunction of conscience Sed difficulter sed subductis supercilijs… vix exeuntibus verbis And had not his paternal affection prompted him to what your unnatural disobedience litle deserved he had given you not onelie panem lapidosum as Fabius was wont to call a gift very hardlie bestowed upon an hungrie beggar but pro pane lapidem without our saviours censure a stone instead of that bread which was never ordained to stuffe the insataite stomach of every gaping Rebell that call'd for 't Yet whatsoever you had was you know but for a triennal experiment which being exspired in the yeare of libertie that was to succeed according to Gods paterne in Ezekiel if you could then praetend no better title then you had done it was to returne to your Prince and the inheritance of such an inseparable right to be his sonnes who of your adversaries gave this unseasonable advice I know not nor who have acknowledg'd and recanted for errours those divine
praecedent or reason The Kings Majesties person or in his absence his high Commissioner is there onelie you tell him to countenance not vote in your meetings and proesides in them for exernal order not for any intrinsecal power So that when you goe on calmelie in your businesse he findes litle to doe without Domitians flie-flap of more use by farre in a summer Synod then a Scepter among you which you often times wrest out of his hand and continue your meetings after he hath dissolv'd them You can denie him or his commissioner the sight of publike papers brought into the Court which libertie the meanest subject may challenge And twhen he hath any thing to object against suppositions or at best suspicious Registers the E. Rothes can tell him boldlie in your names he must speake it praesentlie if at al and because he doth not you wait no longer but proimperio vote them to be authentike Beside to deminish as well the Kings state as authoritie you send Assessours or Assistants to your Elders and invest them with power aequivalent to his Councel This meeting thus disordered sits too long by a monâ—…th when no more and Assembles too often when but once in a yeare The number of such Members no more hindereth an appeale then a multitude of Malefactours can sentence a necessitie of becoming their followers in doing evil Their wisdome is such as his to whom a wiser man tells us it is a sport to doe mischief Their eminencie like Sauls head and shoulders higher then the common people in Rebellion And their honour somewhat like Absoloms mule beares them up to the priviledge of the great oake in the wood for their hanging in beter aequipage then their fellowes So that beside the justice there 's an absolute necessitie of appeal to the Parliament or in that to the King from himselfe to himselfe who sits there as supreme here in no other capacitie but of your servant Which is farre more justifiable and necessarie then vour appeale from both Parliament and Assemblie to the bodie of the people which I tell you againe is the final appeale you make when Assemblies are not modell'd to vour minde The number and qualification of Knights and Burgesses is therefore large and as great in your Assemblie as Parliament that your power may be as large and great in the State as the Church and the Nobilitie sit in one by election because they sit in the other by birth and so in a condition to unite the counsels of both according to the instructions of some few Presbyters that by Sycophantike infinuations have got possession of their soules and by their Spiritual Scepter dominion of their suffrages Headie zeale craft and hypocrisie got in commission or Covenant together we finde by experience can fit them to judge in Ecclesiastike affaires when age wisdome and pietie are sentenc'd If â—…he hundred choyce unparliamentarie pastours make up the oddes of some absent Noblemen it should seem you and the Nobilitie are even pares cum paribus Peeres alike in your honourable Assemblie Which they must not disdaine since Christ himselfe I meane not his Anoynted that you take to be out of quaestion goes but for a single Elder or Moderatour at most So Cartwright and his Demonstratour cajoles them together when he sayth If they the Princes and Nobles should disdaine to joine in consultation with poore men they should disdaine not men but Christ himselfe So that Christ being in his name made your Assembly Praesident or Prolocutour the King in his Commissioner your protectour the Nobilitie your aw full subvoters or suffraganes I see nothing wanting can conciliate a tyrannie to your Presbyterie nor keep your foot of pride from trampling as basely as may be upon the people But not to forget at last what you set in the front as first to be answered The Presbyterian course as you or I more trulie have describ'd it is not much more readie then the Praelatical because the benefit of appeale is to be had ordinarilie but once or twice in a yeare not much more solide because most of your Iudges can reasonablie be thought neither good Civilians nor Casuists not much more aequitable because as you order them many more of the laitie then Clergie In the second hurt your Nobilitie sustaine the Bishop lookes not upon the judgement of foreigne Reformed Devines you doe not say of Churches nor yet on their practice which I have know'n some time a great deale too sawcie with Princelie Patrons but upon the aequity of the thing upon the priviledge our Nobles in England enjoy the right yours have to the same by many yeares praescription and the lawes of your land The first will be found if the original be searched The right of patronage being by the due gratitude or favor of Kings Bishops reserved to such as either built Churches or endowed them with some considerable revenue as likewise for the encouragement of others to propagate meanes and multiplie decent distinct places for Christian conventions Hoc singulari favore sustinetur ut allectentur Laâ—…ci invitentur indâ—…antur ad constructionem Ecclesiarum The exercise hereof in Iustinian is expressed by the termes Epilegein or onomazein which signifies an addiction or simple nomination to stand good or be null'd at the just pleasure of the Bishop and therefore accounted no spiritual act in the Patron but a temporal annexed to that which is spiritual in the Bishop and therefore not simonaical as your brother Didoclave would have it Nor is there that absurdâ—…ie he mentions of arrogating to one what belong to all the Members of the Church as is praetended but can never be proved Nor that danger in transmitting this right from one to another if the care of the first patron desâ—…end not with it which defect the care of the praesent Bishop must supplie Nor is it requisite he should be a Member of the same parish to which he praesents since the Bishop is head of the same diocese to whom That this is contrarie to the libertie of the Primitive and Apostolike Kirke to the order which Gods word craves and good order is onelie sayd but not argued in your Discipline no more then by you when and to whom it became a grievance Your patience in enduring it goes for no heroical vertue being peevish enough soon after the Act of annexation had passed as appeares by your cariage in the Assemblie at Edenburgh 1588. and turned into a Rebellious Conspiracie allthough painted with the name of a Parliamâ—…nt that now at last because it could not at first hath taken it away The Nobilities losse of their Impropriations and Abbey lands is very considerable when they bethinke themselves upon what false pleas and to what unconcern'd persons they must part with them Touching which as Sycophantike as is the Bishops accusation he 'll not abate a sig of his right for
dubious consent with andby a Traâ—…terous Assemblie who had in vaine posted away foure Caitiffe-Cursitours miscalled Commissioners to the more loyal Lords delated for the Hamiltons as likewise to the Neuters to depose their Queen and clog their future Princes's succession with this impious condition That all Princes and Kings hereaâ—…ter in this Realme before their Coronation shall take oath to maintaine the true Religion now prosessed in the Church of Scotland and suppresse all things even their soules consciences contrarie to it and that are not agreeing with it This I take to be the fundamental law your Proclamation reflects upon foralas the other foundation of your solemne league and covenant lies not fathom deep a stripling of twelves yeares old can reach to the botom and evert both when he calls for that invisible law of God which approves much lesse enjoines this praerequiring satisfaction from a King For it is not Maitlands idle concession to Buchanan in his cursed dialogue upon Homers authoritie That there was a time when men liv'd law lesse in Cottages and caves and at length by consent tooke a justisiable course of creating a King unto themselves that will reduce Royaltic to popular restrictions Such stuffe as this may be put off among Pagans that will hearken to the fable of Cadmus be wonne into a beliefe that the serpents teeth were sowed in so good a soile as that they all sprung up proper men of whose race we might have had some at this day if they had betoke themselves to the election of a King when for want of one they fell to civile dissensions destruction of themselves I demand as a Christian and as much mighta â—…ew Who was the first King Whether he was not instituted by God Whether not with a decree touching primogeniture in thâ—… right of succession by the first borne to propagate his authoritie and office Whether any people in the world more or lesse in a bodie lawsullie assembled have been at a losse for a King to command them what law beside that of nature which if such as Saint Paul describes it is somewhat hard to distinguish from an original law of God and yet shall be sequester'd from our praesâ—…nt dispute constituted them in a full capacitie to chuse one Who When Where Open Buchanans packe as big as it is begirt with no lesse then the cingle of the world and with out Ambiguons peradventures or assâ—…mations involv'd in quaestionable circumstances lay me out one cleare instance to this purpose and when you have purchase a parallel among your selves Transmigration of Nations Navigations of discoverie design'd or contingent New plantations upon necessitie or pleasure Spontaneous secessions though by supreme authoritie approved Relegations and exiles Extinctions of lines Finallie whatsoever to be thought on that can separate a medley of men from a setâ—…ed societe or make an Anarchie among People will when all are combin'd I beleeve litle disorder me in my hold So that to use the words of that valiant General or take the Kings from his mouth You declared him to be your King but with such conditions and provisoâ—…s as robbeâ—… him of all right and power For while you prâ—…ctend to give him a litle which he must actept of as from you you spoile 〈◊〉 of all that power and authoritie which the law of God of Nature and of the Land hath invested him with by so long continued deâ—…cent from his famous praedeccssours For the nature of your demand the abolition of Episcopacie which you confesse to be a great one so great indeed as not to be granted but with a devastation of his conscience the Praelates were very unworthie of their miters if they pressed not his Majestie were it necessarie where is so free an inclination to denie you though they know well enough were your great demand yeilded you have one no lesse behind securitie of liberties and when both were had which God forbid they ever should be your crueltie and guilt would admit of no lesse after-satisfaction from him for England then from his Father for Scotland nor your raging Devill be otherwise satiated then with his bloud Therefore the advantage you take of his denial though you confesse upon other mens importunate instance makes your Praedestinarian Godships no lesse peremptorie in the immutabilitie of your decree to forme Commonwealths of Kingdomes and according to you Divinitie the meanes being as unalterablie destin'd as the end you resolve what you can and doe well to tell us so that he and all his familie shall perish Levia sed nimium queror Coclotimendumest regna ne summa occupet Qui vicit ima… For you that thus capitulate with Kings have nothing next to doe but to article with God Presbyterie admitting no Rival Regent much lesse any superiour will make way to its solitarie supremacie by ruine I terruina quaeret vacuo volcâ—… Regnare mundo Your patient surplicateâ—… were your Hage papers which most inquisitive men have heard or seen before this time Wherein you tell His Majestie his denial will constraine your people… to â—…oe what is incumbent unto them we know what you meane that fatal word being scarce to be met with but having Rebellion and Murder at its heeles Your Euangelist of the Covenant did not cant it to his Father but sayd plainlie Reformation may be though he wish'd it not left to the mulâ—…de whom God â—…rreth up to kill and slay without quaestion when Princes are negligent as they are when they yeild not their aequitable demandâ—… grant their patient supplicates lay their heads on the blocke and not doe but suffer as they would have them Laesa patientia fit furor Even in such meeke men as you patience upon denial can become furie and supplicates after some continuances commands And then he may have an offer of his or their Kingdome as you thinke fiter to style it but it must be with a resignation of his crowne their Lives and estates shall be Oretenus for his service when aurium tenus they are up to the â—…ares in a good bargaine taking money with one hand and delivering him up with the other which is the issue to be expected upon the grant and nothing worse can be feared nor that if well thought on from the denial of your demands Therefore to conclude no miserie of King nor people should be so impolitikelie declin'd as to be desperatelie embraced And till the essentials of Scotish Presbyterie be changed which are undisputablie destructive to all Monarchs that come among them true Praelatical hearts can not be trulie considerate or loyal if they be not obstinatâ—… in this perswasion and beleefe The place cited to which you send us for a view of your tender care in providing the parents consent to the mariage of their children gives us a full prospect of your tyrannie over Nature whose throne is usurped whose praerogative trampled