agent of hell you should by hearkening and fearing beare witnesse to his fidelitie I have not in the foregoing discourse taken notice of these slanders of dislovaltie and ingratitude wherewith you think to make us odious this is a theme so trite and tossed on both hands that though in this matter I might with an hundredfold more evidence demonstrat your flatterie then you can exprobat to us the least misdemaner yet in real duetie to his Majestie I choice rather to wave it Neither as to your Bishops and clergie a companie of men of whom all men except themselves are now wearied and ashamed am I more inclined to medle Onely Sir if the unpassion at and disinteressed composure of my heart either as to their persons or pettie fortunes with all the professions wherewith your self do labour to perswade your sincerity may obtaine from you the beleife that you expect of us viz that I designe not your infamie but your resormation I would say that if to despise the holinesse of God and trample underfoot his truth be to blaspheme him if to acknowledge another supreme and all-determining Governour in the Church then Christ the Lord be to renounce him if to smite his Ministers and scatter his flocks be to destroy his Church if to practise indulge or connive at all wickednesse and repute Conscience the onely eye-sore be to overthrow religion if to put to death banish and spoil faithful men be to persecut the saints your Bishops and clergie notwithstanding of your few insinuat and seeming exceptions will ever to all discerning inquirers be found even by your owne Characters the just object of all mens indignation how then they will beare the Lords or what they may look for in the end I pray God that both you and they may in time consider Your next attempt upon my friend concerns the matter of his book and you say the whole designe of it is to provoke to rebellion a high charge indeed but as suddenly deserted for you are not for raveling into this intangled matter which you conceive to be without both your owne and my friends sphere how Sir are alleagance and rebellion The common concerns of the meanest and the great flattering and boasting themes of your preachers discourses so great mysteries Or is this onely a declining shift like to that basle which you designe by saying that my friends book is but Lex Rex put into another method an allegation not more contrarie to its manifest tenor then reflecting upon the surveyer whom you would have with so much heat and confidence to have vented things before confuted with very little notice taken of the answers But the things you cannot explicat Alexander like you can cut off by two positions the first that by immemorial possession and a long tract both of law and practise the King of Scotland is an absolute Soveraigne accountable onely to God and not to be controuled by the force of his subjects but more especially that the subjects of Scotland are bound to obey all lawes enacted in Parliament or at least to submit to the enacted mulcts and punishments How plentifully hast thou declared the thing as it as Both first and second viz. that the Kings of Scotland are Absolut and that at least in King and Parliament there is such an absolut power as may in no case be controuled or resisted are indeed the contradictions of the greatest part of my friends book but are contradictions alone sufficient refutations or shall your bare assertions be received against the most undeniable evidence The certaine and cleare constitution of this Kingdome consisting of King and Parliament the expresse establishment by uncontroverted Law I. 6. P. 7. C. 130. of the honour and authority of Parliament upon the free votes of the three Estat's thereof the known restrictions of the Kings soveraigne power who by himself alone can neither make lawes impose taxes nor so much as put away one foot of his annexed patrimony and lastly the frequent approven and authorized resistances and oppositions made against maleversing Princes especially that made by the Nobles against King James the third fully approven by the 14. Act 1. P. Ja. 4. extant in the old editions in the blacke letter as they call it but industriously left out in that of Scheens the tittle of the act is The proposition of the debait of the field of Striviling The words after the preface are That the haill body of the Parliament and ilk an for himself declarit and concludit that the slaughter committit and done in the seild of Striviling quhair our soverane Lordis father happinnit tp be slain uthers divers his Barronis liegis was allutterly in thair default and colourit dissait done be him and his perverst counsall divers tymes besoir the said field And that our soverane Lord that now is and the trew Lords and barronis that was with him in the same field war innocent free and quyte of the said slaughters done in the said field and all persuit of the occasion and caus of the samin These are the words and the act is declared to be sealed by the Kings great seal and the seals of part of the three estates these I say as to your first position are such manifest redargutions that before equal judges I could undertake upon the hazard of my life for the asserting of this one point to obtaine you convict of high treason as a leesing-maker betwixt the King and his subjects and an impugner of the authority of the three Estates but retracting a little as to this head concerning the Kings power by acknowledging that it hath been called in question you say my friend hath the honour to be the first who controverts the authority of King and Parliament as is evidently confirmed by the perpetual practise of Scotland before year 1648. But as it is incontroverted that lawes agreed to by King and Parliament are indeed the ordinarie binding lawes until by the same authority they be repealed so seing its uttermost import is that the same soveraigne authoritie which in absolut Kingdomes is in the Prince alone is with us divided betwixt and subjected unto both King and Parliament it is evident that this doth no more afford us any special determination then it doth conclude my friend to be singular for asserting the lawfulnesse of resisting even the princes who are reput absolute in case of their intollerable oppressions wherein he hath thou sands of concurrents But not to trifle with you my friend alledgeth the Kings limited power and maketh use of the authoritie of the Parliament in justification of the resistances made by us in the yeers 1639. And 40. And 43. whereby superaddeing to our natural and common right these civill and positive priviledges he accumulateth an unanswerable vindication As for other times wherein the hypothesis varying both King and Parliament became our partie what could be more reasonable then to shew that even the most
tempest of perjury violence and apostasy broke in upon us not onely to the subversion of the Lords work but to the laying waste of all religion and conscience what mad and untractable questions and unreasonable and violent disputings a faithful remnant have since been exercised with the Lord knoweth this one thing I am assured of that whatever advantage you may take of failings whereunto you force them and however you may vaunt yourself in empty professions yet by their constant stedfastnesse in midst of so many trials they have witnessed a measure of true Charity patience humility meeknesse and holinesse that shall be remembred for a testimony for God and his truth to all generations passing therefore your groundlesse and childish reflexion of our speaking against Bishops as if what you observe most we were best pleased with and your more absurd and ridiculous retortion as if we had ruined religion betrayed Christ and sold him for the gratifying forsooth of our humors and passions a strange price when as the real mony that your Bishops received for him is to be found in their coffers the blood of his saints in their skirts and under the colour of a name the very scandal and scorne of all religion in their lives Omitting also that most censorious calumny of our censuring traducing railing forging and publishing of lies which you cast upon us without the least verification and contrary to the evidence of that profanity falsehood and perjury on your part that iâ— sufficient to justify the highest accusation I wish you could yet consider and lay to heart that it is not by the non-compliance and testifying of our Lords faithful members against corrupt bakstiders that the ligaments of his body are dissolved but by the breaking of his bonds assunder and casting away of his coards from you that your party have rebelled against the Lord our Head and King and laboured for the very destruction of piety and true religion among us If with these things you were rightly and deeply affected your soul would rather abhorre the wicked who have marred and removed our true peace then testify an aversion for such who at their own cost dare not joine in your sinfull confederacy in place of precipitating an escape from the contentions and confusions here below by your aiery aspirings to these regions of peace and joy above you would preferre for a time that warfare of faith and patience against the wickednesse stander and persecutions of this evil generation whereunto the Lord hath called us Sir this is the path that these have trode who out of great tribulation are arrived and do stand before the throne in white with their palmes of victory singing a new song Your excessive charity towards anungodly world and fond and sinful courting of peace on any termes wil but in end deceive you the narrow way of life admits not of your latitude heaven knowes not your comprehension In the next place you are for Jeremiah's wildernesse and upon the wings of the same fancy you flee also to David's retirement why would you so soone leave these assemblies of treacherous men which you did freely choise or doth the not ceding of a smal afflicted party to all your imposings seeme to you so terrible a storme and tempest Nay certainly were there no other argument the obvious easinesse of the execution with your contrair forbearance is eneug he to redargue these your wishes either of a wretched peevishnesse or a worse dissimulation You forbid my friend to think that all this is the effect of your zeal for Episcopacy And I dare affirme that without your suggestion it had never come into his thought the giddie instabilitie of the now-Bishop of Dumblaines weak Fantastick braine dissatisfied with both prelacy and Presbyterie whom neither the smal cure of Newbottle nor the more abstract retreat of the colledge of Edenburrough nor his owne choice the Bishoprick of Dumblaine could formerly sixe and the present accession of Glasgow doth as little please and yet in discourse alwayes longing either for the shaddes of the grave or the rest above is not so rare a thing but you may be tainted by the same or the like maladie But the cause of your wearinesse is your solicitude for the great Bishop of souls whom my friend you say is doing what in him lies to depose from his Goverment and Kingdome which you adde is neither in meats nor drinks neither in Episcopacy nor Presbyterie but in righteousnesse and peace and joy in the holy Ghost what a bold accusation have we here The zeal of Christs government and Kingdome is that which in a manner eats up my friend he asserts not onely its internal and spiritual power but also its external and visible administration consisting in these lawes and ordinances which our Lord by vertue of that All-power given unto him hath expressely appointed and the whole scope of his writing is in defence of righteousnesse and to establish the peace and joy of all its followers and yet you are confident to say without any reason that he is doeg what in him lyes to depose him It 's true the Kingdome of God is neither in meats nor drinks and thereby all the trash of your unwarranted ceremonies is evidently rejected but if under this you judge the usurpation of Episcopacy ordinance of Presbyterie to be equally comprised I really feare that in the temptation the same errror may substitute to you the Messe and the Lords supper or the Alcoran and the Bible with the same perswasion The next thing that occurres is your opinion of Episcopacie and I am assured that as to this whole paragraph you may already finde your self so exactly and fully answered in a little treatise anent the late accommodation that according to your owne verdict all that read it will account you deceived if you let it passe without a reply As to what ensues viz your resolution to forebeare both rallerie and injurie and yet immediatlie objecting dull buffonrie your meen and il phrased boast of causing flashes of a left handed witt rebound your purpose of seriousnesse which yet you onely terme a serious mood and is not indeed more permanent your promise not to raill observed just aswell as you have done other promises and vowes far more important and the prejudice which you endeavour to insinuat from the alledged general dislike even of good Ministers of our owne perswasion against my friends book As to these things I say I shall content my self with the naked observation onely as to this last I may affirme it upon good ground that what ever dislike some good mens over-kinde charitie or civilitie towards you or the temper of their particular dispositions may make them expresse of this book in certaine circumstantial points yet the substance of the work both for acutenesse and soliditie hath the very consentent approbation of all of our way and is also acknowledged for such by many of yours
absolut politick Empire that can be lawfully set up by men is lyable to these implyed yea indispensable conditions and exceptions which in the case of an insupportable perversion doe certainely warrant the peoples necessar resistance to which if you judge the inquirie into the rise of Magistracie the nature of a compact betwixt a King and his subjects and the precedents of these two absolut Kingdomes of Iudah and Israel recorded and approven in Scripture to be impertinent I confesse your reasons are above my reach I graunt therefore that the subjects of Scotland are obliged to acknowledge with all due obedience and submission the soveraigne authoritie of King and Parliament and that this is the onely supreme authority known amongst us but as the consent contract and trust by which this authoritie is constitute are by their expresse end and the supposed superior rules of reason most certainly qualified both as to the point of obedience which is by all acknowledged and also as to that of submission by none disowned in its constraining exigence so I plainly affirme that not onely there was never a surrender made by any people in terminis disclaiming the lawfulnesse of resistance in every case and though the pressures should be the most injust and violent but that a surrender of that nature were in it self utterly unlawful and no wayes obligatorie for seing it were unquestionably contrair to the law of God for any people in the certaine imminency of visible destruction to betray themselves and their posteritie in their lives religion or liberties by a wilful and explicit acquiescence it must necessarly follow that either the controverted general surrender by reason of the tacit exceptions pleaded hath not the same import or that in this respect it is equally sinful But to this you object that if such submission be unlawful then they are self murderers who suffer willingly when they are in a capacity to resist and this you second with an affected Alas for the aspersion that thence would ensue upon the glorious martyrs as self murtherers It s answered that he who from the meere sense of such a promised submission suffers himself in a cleare capacity to resist to be killed is either a malicious or stupid self murtherer I nothing doubt but seing that to renounce a priviledge and to forebeare its excercise are things so vastly different that oftentimes the contradiction of the former is the latters greatest praise the causes and motives which induced these glorious witnesses into quiet forbearing and their voluntary and cheerful sufferings are so noble and conspicuous that I will not so much as call in question their capacity though for the most part by providence wisely overruled either to vindicat their immortall fame or releive my selfe of your pitieful sophistry But here you think that my friend will looke to escape by the distinction of religion when it becomes a right setled by law from what was before it was so established But seing it is evident that he onely makes Law an accession to that liberty which we have by God and natures original graunt your delusive self-conceit that suggested unto you this apprehension and your weak opinion that a right righteously and necessarily established by Law can as easily by a contrary Law be renversed are equally contemptible In the next place after a preface of your religious preferring of Gods commandments to the Kings Lawes you fall upon an inference which you say my friend doth thence draw viz. because when the Magistrat commands what is contrary to Gods Law we are not bound to obey him therefore when he punisheth contrary to that same Law we are not bound to suffer And for this indeed you treat him as Magisterially as if he were really that schoole boy to whom you do dully resemble him but sparing to inquire where it is that you do finde him barely delivering this consequence and not being permitted in this place to explaine how that regard to the Prince his place character and the general ends thereof and how that many considerations of prudence charity and patience may in lighter occasions perswade to subjection where its proper and formal reason hath no immediat force I shall onely say that the comparing of the limitation of our obedience with the case of our suffering is of excellent use in as much as it sheweth first that as a peoples indefinit surrender though chiefly respecting their obedience doth neverthelesse imply its tacit exceptions so the seeming generality of the same surrender is no argument to exclude all conditions in the point of subjection next that seing a discretive judgement is allowed to the people in the matter of obedience there can be no reason wherefore in the matter of suffering a thing far more obvious and dignoscible the same should by the men of your way be so much decryed Thirdly since it is certaine that subjection to suffering was directly commanded by God and consented to by the people onely for the securing of our obedience it may well be concluded that as in inferiour unjust sufferings our resistance is mostly restricted not by vertue of our formal obligation to subjection but by the forementioned influences so when by notorious and insufferable perversions all these are cut off and both the place is plainly forefeited prudence befooled charitie rendred desperat and patience turned into stupiditie the libertie of resistance must of necessitie be conceded As for the reason of disparitie by you adduced viz. That in the case of the Kings sinful command Gods countermand of our obedience is supposed to be cleare whereas our sufferings are not countermanded though he punish unjustly I shall not reply to you that in the case of a stupid casting away of life or libertie even sufferings aswel as sinful obedience are certainly countermanded but the thing I would have you to advert to is that seeing it is not so much the obligation as the right and liberty of defence which we plead for and seeing in the case of intollerable sufferings the same is no lesse clearly warranted then sinful suffering appears to be countermanded the difference by you asserted is but claudicant and insufficient But now you are wearie of tracing my friends politicks and truely considering how samely you have done it I wonder you have traced them so far onely let me tell you that if you shall be pleased to give me any further provocation upon this subject I here offer to make good all that my friend hath asserted in maintenance of the Peoples rights and liberties to the most critick if impartial of your adherents You adde that it is your chiefe designe to prove that matters of Religion are not to be decided by the sword Pray Sir speak plainly you know and are perswaded that we are neither for the propagation of Religion nor determining in its matters by the sword all that we maintaine is that in the case of unjust suffering for the sake of