THE SPEACH OF THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND TO HER BELOVED CHILDREN HEu heu Domine Deus quia ipsi sunt in persecutione tuâ primi qui videntur in Ecclesia tua primatum diligere gerere principatum impedire salutem est persequi Saluatorem Bernard Alace Alace ô Lord God for they are cheesest in thy persecution who love the first and chief places and to bear rule to stay the course of salvation is to persecute the Saviour Bernard SImplicitas amentia malitia sapientia nomen habet virique boni usque adeo irridentur ut fere nullus qui irrideri possit appareat Petrarch Simplicitie now carieth the name of madnes malice the name of wisdome and good men are so derided that almost no man can be found to be derided Petrarch Imprinted in the yere 1620. THE KIRK OF CHRIST IN SCOTLAND TO HER DEARLY beloved Children wisheth purity and peace AS I your loving mother fearing to be finally deserted of my glorious Spouse the Lord Iesus and to be childles hereafter haue weeped sore in the night this time bypast my teares are on my cheekes Among all my lovers few to comfort mee my friendes haue dealt treacherously with me they are become my enemies Lament 1. 2. So would ye my dear children dolefully cry out The joy of our heart is ceased our daunce is turned into mourning the crown is fallen from our heads woe unto us that we haue sinned Lament 5. 15. 16. If ye were touched with the sense and feeling of your present estate and could by the thick shaddowes of this evening be brought to consider the comfortles desolation of that approaching night of darknes after so bright a day of visitation But so much the more dangerous is defection and the mysterie of iniquitie the more pernicious that it proceeds from so subtile beginnings as to your simplicitie ar almost insensible It is not time then for me your dolorous mother to keepe silence But love and feare presse me to put you in minde that it hath been in all ages the holy disposition happy practise of all Gods people wayting for the appearing of Iesus their Lord tēdring the weal of his spouse and taking to hart the aeternall salvation of their own soules to set continually before their eyes 1. His inaestimable goodnes towardes his Kirk 2. Her case and condition while she is militant here on earth And 3. in consideration of the one and the other the duetie required and expected at their handes wherthrough in the goodnes of God they have beene safe from that dreadfull ruine that hath overtaken the wicked And which I wish you my beloved children to escape by calling to minde in like manner at this tyme of your danger and my distresse First how wonderfull the Lordes mercies have been towards me his Kirk in this nation Secōdlie my present case crying with the complaints of a mother for help at your hands And thirdly what is due from your affection places and callings to me in whose wombe ye were conceived and by whose care ye are brought up to that which ye now are That whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven it may be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven For why should he be wroth against the realme of the King and his sonnes Ezra 7. 23. And that Christ may say to me yet once againe Thou art beautifull my love as Tirzah comelie as Ierusalem terrible as an army with banners Cant. 6. 3. Words and motions of this sort as they have been so they will be but oyle to feede the fire of the furie of such incēdiaries as make their own earthlie particulars their highest projects for the wicked shall doe wickedlie and none of them shall understand yet by the grace of God manie shal be purified and tryed the wise shall understand The greatest wisdome of the greatest of you in other matters and your gracious countenance towards me and the meanest of your brethren at other tymes suffereth me not to doubt of your audience of any message or motiō from heaven but especiallie be my mouth which may either dis cover or prevent anie spirituall or temporall danger Now the spirit of wisdome and knowledge give unto yow all wise hearts that in the sight of God ye trying thinges that differ may approve things excellent which is above the reach of the naturall man that ye may be sincere without offence till that day of Christ your Lord mine THe riches of the unsearchable favours of my spouse towardes me have beene so greate he hath made his glorie to dwell so sensiblie in this land that I may bouldlie say Mercie and truth righteousnes and peace had never since Christs comming in the flesh a more glorious meeting amiable embracing on earth then ye have seene amongst your selves in the roughe end of this northern Yland which therfore hath justlie obteined to my no small comfort a great name among the cheefe Kirkes and Kingdomes in the World A people that sat in darknes hath seene a great light and to them who sat in the region of death light is sprung up To what nation under heaven when now the sunne of righteousnes hath shined upon the most part of the world hath the Lord communicated the Gospell for so large a time with such puritie fulnes prosperitie power libertie and peace The hottest persecutions had never greater puritie and power the most halcyon hereticall tymes had never more prosperitie and peace the best reformed Kirks in other places can hardlie parallel your fulnes and libertie And all these with such continuance that not onlie hath he made the truth to stay with you as he did the sunne in the daies of Iosuah but when the cloud of your iniquities did hasten it to goe downe in his mercie hath he brought back the glorious sunne by manie degrees as in the tymes of Ezekiah Oh that ye had known the long pleasant day of your visitation and in this your day the things belonging unto your peace Christ hath not onely beene one his name one in respect of his propheticall office for your information of his priesthood for the expiation of your sinnes and intercession for you but also hath displayed his banners and hath shewed himself few can say the like a soveraigne King in our Land to governe you with his owne scepter erected in his Worde to cutt off with his sword all monuments of Idolatry and superfluitie of pompous ceremonies to restore all the meanes of his worship in Word Sacraments and discipline to the holy simplicitie and integritie of the first paterne shewed in the mount frō the which by that wisdome of man which is ever foolishnes with God they had fearfully and shamefully swerved The sincerer sort of the bordering nations about you haue been so ravished with that beautie of the Lord upon your Sion with that crowne of glorie and rich diademe by the hand of
our God set upon your heades that they have made you the meath of ther religious wishes they haue with vehement desires longed to see the things that ye have seene And have not spared to profess that in your case they would rather suffer themselves to be dissolved then that one pinne of that holy Tabernacle so divinelie compacted should be loosed Within and amongst your selves that puritie of profession received universallie with so full consent that Prince and Peeres Pastors and people were all for Christ one heart one soule of these who beleeved with such evidences of Gods favour that the windowes gates of heaven seemed to be opened to raine downe upon this Land spirituall gifts to save you as sometime they had beene readie to powre downe raine to destroy the world every hand almost received some gift and every head crowned with some grace with such successe that it brought a rare unitie prosperitie peace upon Kirk cōmon wealth With such power and presence of the spirit of God in converting comforting confirming his people that Satan was seene fall like lightening from heaven the infidel and unbeleever casting himselfe downe on his face and confessing that undoubtedlie God was amōgst yow and in the middest of your meetings as the soules of his own secret ones can best beare witnesse who have beene most submitted to that holie and happie simplicitie the effectes whereof yet remayning in the harts of many all worldly power be it never so violent sall not be able to remove it And with such terrour from God and the Kings Lawes that ye wanted not your Theodosians publikly humbling themselves The hardest hearted and haughtiest were made to stoup The Atheist either changed in heart or in countenance and forced to play the hypocrite the proudest papist eyther made like you or made to leave you Heresie never hatched within your walles and the Babylonish brood of schisme in the infancie till this tyme was dashed against the stōes Ye sought not then my dere children with Iohn and Iames like great Princes one to sitt on the right hand another on the left nor to be busked with earthly glorie and Persian pompe better beseeming the kings of the world then the kingdome of Christ. The Carbuncles the Saphyres the Emeraulds the Chrysolites the gold the precious stones wherewith my foundation walles windowes gates were set and adorned were out of the Lords own thesaurie Your ambition was then set upon spirituall glorie the cōquest of syn and Satan by the powerfull puritie of the Word Sacraments and discipline The joy of your soules was to see Christ reigning in the middest of his enemies his sword dividing the father from the sonne and the sonne from the father yea a man frō himself parting the soule and the spirit the joynts and the marrow and ending in glorie to God and peace upon earth Then were the tabernacles of God amiable then provoked ye one another with cheerefulnes to go up to the mountaine of the Lord to the house of the God of Iacob ye were sure there to learne his wayes and how to walke in his pathes Then found ye the Lord his glorie filling his Sanctuarie and one of the largest springs of the blood of Christ from Eden watring the citie of God and glaiding your soules wearied with sinne This was my beautie so truelie glorious in the sight of God and his Angels that all the glorie of this lyfe is unworthie to enter in comparison with it Better to you to have this glorie under a crowne of thornes with our Saviour in a chaine with Paul in the Lyons den with Daniel then all the splendor of Tiberius of Nero of Darius wherewith the weak eyes of the world are dazled and pitifullie to my great griefe bewitched And surely your forgetfull ingratitude were inexpiable if with the mater ye remembered not the finger of God wonderfully working in the meanes of that glorious reformation We have to regrate that the Atheisme of these dreggs of tymes and manners is become so gross that all events now are sacrilegiously ascribed to second causes If Naaman his cure or Anna her fruitfulnes or the Egyptiā or Babylonian libertie had fallen out in these godles tymes it had beene counted foolishnes and simplicitie of men over religious upon the ignorance of alterations wroght by nature or policie to attribute them to God Yet God is the Lord Of him and through him and for him are all things Ezrah Nehemiah and the godly of that time acknowledge no less the wonderfull working of God in their redemption from the bondage of Babylon then their fathers did their deliverance out of Egypt Although the power of God was not so miraculous in the one as in the other Consider a little and mark the constitution of the tyme before this reformation was wrought the grandeur pride insolencies of my office bearers thē the averse disposition induration of the personages both at home abroade upon whom in mans eyes it did depend the heathenish darknes of idolatrie and palpable blindnes of superstition wherin the multitude was wrapped and ye shal be forced to say that he who would have intended a change of religiō might have received that desparing answer which a man of great spirit and place an enemie of Romish pride and a desirer of reformation gave concerning Luthers purpose Brother brother goe to your cloyster and say have mercy on me ô God All seene second causes were posting on in a contrarie course or if any possibilitie of alteration could haue beene imagined what hope could there have beene therof except it had beene wrought with the edge of the sword bathed in blood as Grostead the hammer of Rome said a little before his death Yet to the endles praise and wonderfull goodnes and wisdome of our God be it remembred the great worke was so singularly brought about and perfected that almost without blood except the blood of a few martyres wherein through the same wisdome and goodnes for commending and ratifying the truth the mouth of the sword of persecutors was dipped the whole bodie and shadow substance and ceremonies roote and branches of Romish Idolatrie were at once cut off Thus by reason of the wonderfull manner of Gods working of my own feeling and yours of the wonders wrought amongst you and of the testimonie of others both friends and foes about us may not ye with one voice say and sing with the Kirk Psal. 126. When the Lord turned againe the captivitie of Sion we were like them that dreamed then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing Then sayd they among the heathen the Lord hath done great things for them the Lord hath done great things for us wherof we are glad And would God as your deliverāce was in many things like that of Israel so your infidelitie and unthankfulnes were not like theirs there arose an other
may thinke theÌ„selves safe But be assured when the Lord shall search Ierusalem with lights and enter to the fiery â—â—yall every abomination shall kythe in the own colours If ye hold your peace God will provide for his owne children But behold hee commeth shortly and his reward is with him to give to every man according as his workes shall bee Albeit my messengers may now cry with the prophet Who beleeves our report yet that dreadfull sentence shall make the soule once brought within the sight of death to tremble and quiver God wil not be mocked If the righteous scarcely be saved and God spares not his Angels where shall they appeare who make marchandise of his truth albeit at the highest rate of honour and wealth The whole word of God his law promises and threatnings his practises and the works of providence cannot prevaile with the sencelesse soules of men But death so violent are his perswasions and his might so unresistable at his first approch shall make every heart to beleeve and feele that all the workes under the Sunne are but vanity The conscience and happy remembrance of one word uttered or suffered for Christ his crowne his truth or his needy members shall at that strait fill the soule with greater joy then all the crowns and kingdoms under heaven And what is then left to the godlesse craftie and merciles wretch that laugheth at my death and daunceth at my funerals when men afflicted cry unto the Lord and he heareth them But thou hast proved in the end victorious O Iesus of Galilee I conclude with that of my beloved Bernard I owe my selfe unto God for my creation what shall I give for my restauration especially being restored after such a manner neither was â— so easily restored as created In his first work hee gave me unto my selfe in his second he gave himself unto me by giving himselfe he hath restored me unto my selfe Being therfore given restored I ow my selfe for my selfe and so ow my selfe unto God by a double right But what shall I render unto God for giving himself unto me For though I should give my selfe a thousand times for recompence what am I in comparison of him And I add that seeing all my well-doing can be no recompence unto him I wish the increase of his glory by a second restitution of me unto my selfe by giving himselfe now the second time unto me and am content to be put to a greater perplexity not knowing what to render that his mercies yet may be the greater O that it would please him yet again to pitty me At least let all the blessed of the Lord keep themselves from troubling the preachers of peace and bringers of blessings let them be stout stedfast and play the men that they may all run out their course with joy and report that excellent price conquesed by the blood bitter sufferings of Iesus Christ my spouse now at the right hand of the father for whose revelation I am waiting daily that my marriage may bee perfected and I with all the Saints may enter into the ioyes conquesed by his bitter suffering To him with the Father holy Ghost be all glory praise and honor for ever FINIS A three fold consideratioÌ„ of every Christian ap plyed to the present purpose and tyme. First of the great goodnes of God to the Kirk of Scotland In making the Gospel to shine here beyond the light of other nations Testified by their confessions ' and wishes His goodnes in the manner of the working of her reformation Frater frater abi in cellâ—m et dic miserere mei Deus more gladij cruentaÌ„di “ Malleus Romanorum His strong hand against all her enemies forraine and domestick The present distress and doleful face of the Kâ—rk Crying sinns of the godles multitude and lukewarmnes of the best preachers and professors The glory of the Kirk turned into shame In turbis pravus etiam sortitur bâ—norem et quam dignitatis sedem quieta rep desperat eam perturbata se consequi posse arbitratur The causers of her calamitie the same that have beene in other Kirks heretofore Some of theÌ„ drawen out of Gerson aâ— the neglect of Scripture and multiplying of traditions The â—variâ—â— and ambitioÌ„ of Bishops Causes out of Nicolas Orem as the profanity of kirkmen Want of proportion in the Kirk Pride of Prelates Divers other causes Causes brought by the Bishop of Spalato CoÌ„â—estae passim opes in tanti officij reverentiam pene causam reverentiae â—xâ—inxerunt Conclusion from Nazianzen III. The dutie required of us in respect of the two former consideratioÌ„s And first a common duty of humiliation urged upon all Two things required eveÌ„ of ordinary professors First skill to try the Spirits SecoÌ„dly readines to suffer for the least poynt of the 〈◊〉 truth Your care and your comfort in suffering Speciall duâ—… of Pastors †Râ—conditae prorsum occuitae eruditionis viri ‡ Audi vide tace In pace leones in praelio Cervi Quibus audendi quae fecerunt pudor est nullus faciendi quae audire â—rubescunt Illic ubi opus est nihil verentur hic ubi nihil opus est ibi verentur Some demands proponed to the Prelates Pastores facti estis non percussores nova atque inauditae est ista praedicatio quae verberibus â—xigit fidem Aliud est quod agitur typho superbiae aliud zelo disciplinae Plus erga corrigendos aâ—at benevolentia quam severitas plus cohortatio quam comminatio plus charitas quam potestas Sed hi qui quae sua sunt quaerunt non quae Iosa Christs facile ab hac lege discernuntur qâ—um domiâ—ri magis quam consulere subditis quaerunt Places honor inflat superbiâ— quod provisum ad concordiam â—endit ad noxam Petition in â— humility tâ— the Nobility and Estateâ— to deale with his Maâ—esty Triall to bee made by the word By true zeale By the fruits and not by pretext of antiquity or outward appearance Perih â—…y wants a paterne Hooker and Saravia â—heÌ„selves against the â—reâ— entry of Râ—â—es †A multâ—â—unt reformâ—â—â— ecclesiae qâ—ae â—ineam â— lam vesteâ— non admittunt pereorinaâ—uÌ„ ecclesiarum ministri insularum Iersae Iernâ—ae quae Anâ—lcanâ— ecclesiae annumerentur Resp â—um qui in illis ecclesijs usum hujus vestis vellet introducere a schismste non posse excusaâ—i sicut nec a superstitione quicquid contra ad suam excusationent posset allegare The moane of the Kirk of â—â—d under the burdâ— of ceremonies Quanto maegis accedit cumulo rituum in Ecclesia tanto maegis dâ—trahitur non tantum libertati Christianae sed Christo eiuâ— fideâ— dum vulgus ea quaeâ—â—t in ritibus quae quae eret in solo Dei filio Jesu Christo per fidem Liâ—hâ— of nature true policie and coÌ„mon equity against English formalities in our Kirk InterduÌ„ conâ—â—veâ—â—â—menus est qâ—am remâ—dâ—jâ— dâ—licta incendere JudgmeÌ„ts to be given not according to the bâ—senesse of the defenders but according to the truth Râ—spuite AEneâ—â— suscipite pâ—um Illi in vos saeviant qui nullo â—asi â—â—râ—re decâ—pâ—i sunt quali vos deceptos vident ego â—utem saevire in vot omniâ—â— non possuÌ„ quos sicut â—eipsum illo â—empore ita â—unc debeo sustinere auferamus illis nocentes divitias hoâ— enim facere est opus charitatis CoÌ„ditions of conformity Impossibile fuerit omnes ecclsiaruÌ„ quâ— per civitateâ— sunt regiones ritus coÌ„scribere Nulla religio cosdem ritus custodit etiamsi eandeâ— de illis doctrinam amplectitur Quis ferat co qui aâ—â—aÌ„ qâ—aÌ„piam synâ—dum praepoâ—â—nt Nâ—â—inae At quis non potius oderit eos qâ—i rejiciunt paâ—uÌ„ decreta praeponunt receÌ„tioâ—a nuper Aâ—â—mini contentione vi expressa Quâ—â— cum illis hominibus societateÌ„ iniâ—e velit qui ne quideÌ„ sua ipsi â—uâ—ntuâ— Nos non nostra voluntate sed necessitaâ—e adducti subscripsimus non animo sed verbis duntaxaâ— consensimus The poynts controverted are material propter scandalum quod vel 〈◊〉 imbecillitaâ—e vel ex ignorantia nascitur declinandum omnes quantum cumque rectae aut utiles actiones quae ad animi salutem non sunt necessariae praetermittendae vel occultandae aut saltem in in aliud tempus differendae sunt Thom. 2a 2â—q 43. artic Quaedam frivola innoxia quaedam frivolâ— noxia Hope of hâ—â— Ma. gracious favour Quod neque imperiale siâ— libertateÌ„ dicendi negare neque sacerdotale quod sentiat non dicere â—is causa vero Dei quem audies si sacerdotem non audies cuius maiori peccatur periculo quis tibi verum audebiâ— dicere si sacerdos non audeat Sed mihi placet sive in Romana sive in GalliaruÌ„ seu in qualibet ecclesia aliud invenisti quod plus omnipotenti Deo possie placeâ—e sollicite eâ—â—g as Et in Anglorum ecclesiaÌ„ quâ— ad fidem nâ—â— vâ— est institutione praecipua quae de multie ecclesijs colligere potuiâ—ti inâ—undas Non enim pro locâ—â— res sed pro bonis rebus loca amanda sunt Ex singulis ergo quibusque ecclesijs quae pia quae religiosa quae rectâ— sunt elige haec quasi in fasciculum collecta apud Anglorum mentes in consuetudinem deponâ— Neque Philosophia neque imperiuÌ„ â—olliâ— affectus Supplication to the Nobility and Estates urged for that end Viciâ—â—i tandem Galilae