reformation and extreamitie of debates and contentions to call a Synod of the best Divines best acquainted with the will of God in Scripture freest of humane inventions and innovations and farrest from pride and avarice which are the evils to be purged out and for afterward prevented And who against all Sects and Shismes unfainedly seek the peace and unitie of the Kirke which by all good meanes both for it selfe and for the truthes sake is to bee procured and preserved When by this remedie faithfully applyed and accompanied with prayers and teares of repentance the worship of God and the government of the Kirk are setled not after the rules of humane policie but according to Scripture there is hope that God will end his contraversie with England and blisse the treaties of peace betwixt your Majestie and your Parliament which is now our humble desire and when it commeth to passe shall be the universall rejoycing of all your good people We should bee not only unchristian but disloyall and unnaturall if we were not affected and afflicted with your Majesties many sufferings and the troubles of your Kingdomes and did not heartily wish that your Majestie were present in your parliam assembled in the most peaceable and Parliamentary way to your Ma. greater glorie and their greater strengthening for the good of the Kingdom For the present the houses of Parliament have professed in their Declaration to the Generall Assembly their desires and willingnesse to settle such a reformation of the Kirk as shall be most agreeable to the word of God and most apt to procure and conserve an happy union with the Kirke of Scotland in a peaceable and Parliamentary way And have passed their bills in both houses without contradiction against Episcopall government and offered them to your Majestie for obtaining your Royall consent This is the peaceable and Parliamentary way meant by us and mentioned in our Petition which we trust can give your Majestie no just offence Although the Ministers of the Gospel have authority in some cases to preach and write not only exhortations and blessings but also threats and sentences of judgement against Kings and Kingdomes which howsoever they be bitter and unpleasant for the present and therefore seldome ministred to Princes may prove very profitable and cordiall afterward Many had perished in their sinnes if it had not been told them that they were to perish faithfull are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitfull and hee that rebuketh afterwards shall finde more favour then he that flattereth with the tongue Yet upon good reason have we abstained from this strain of denuncing of judgement against your Majestie having onely from the conscience of our duty in anguish of our soules faithfully represented the duty and danger with our earnest deprecation of the wrath not onely now incumbent but yet seven times more imminent to your Kingdomes which wee daily more and more apprehend shall ensue unles by a through reformation of Religion and manners it be timeously prevented By this our liberty we have delivered our own soules and endeavoured to deliver your Majestie and your Dominions from the present and future judgements which both love and feare constraine us now againe To entreat your Majestie to hearken unto As wee cannot deny but do reverently acknowledge the influence of many and great blessings from heaven upon the reigne of Queen Elizabeth and your Majesties father of blessed memorie So do we not doubt but your Majestie in your Christian and Royall wisedome will consider that the supreame providence which hath set your Majestie after them upon the throne hath appointed a time for every action A wise mans heart discerneth both time and judgement and where it is not discerned the miserie of man wrestling with invincible providence is great upon him The many blessings upon the Kings of Egypt Babylon and other Princes were interrupted in the time of their successours which opposed the deliverance of the people of God from the Egyptian bondage the Babylonian captivitie the foolishnesse of Paganisme and the tyrannie of Poperie when the time of their deliverance was come Many of the godly before your Majesties reigne have desired and supplicated the Parliament for a reformation but the desires were never so universall as now Prelacie never so insolent nor the evils thereof so well known and so deeply felt nor was it ever voted out of the Parliament nor agreed in Parliament to be abolished in the Kirk nor stood meerly upon the Royall consent of the King till this time Arminianisme hath entered Papistrie hath encreased Sectaries have multiplied sufferings have abounded Tender consciences disquieted with old and new ceremonies much more of late then before that all eyes may see how many things concurre now to make a necessitie of reformation It is the never dying honour of your Majesties late Progenitors above others that were before them that they did begin continue and preserve reformation and shall bee your Majesties greatest and immortall glorie to perfite it with Josiah leaving nothing to imped or obscure the glorie of God An happinesse which the people of God in this Iland have long waited for which God calleth for at your hands and we trust hath reserved for our times as a speciall and incomparable honour to your Majestie above the best princes and matter of joy to your people above all other in former ages As the continuall comfort and daily sense of the inestimable benefit of the reformation of this Kirk in worship and government should stir up our hearts to the love of God whose hand principally did bring it about in a way full of marvels and full of mercies And thankfullnesse to your Majestie whom wee look upon not as a naked assenter unto alterations but as a prime instrument of setling a blessed reformation in this Kirke So doeth the same comfort and sense excite in us a fear to losse that which we so much love in a way wherein it hath rune hazard before Our feares are not counterfeit to bring any designe of our own nor politick or created in us by the authoritie of any assertion of others to bring any designe of theirs to passe nor panick or maginarie to torment our selves without cause But are true and reall grounded upon reason which teacheth to beware of contagion in so neer a vicinitie and where there is so frequent commerce and conversing upon by past experience of evils from English Prelacie ever since the beginning of reformation and upon present and daily tasting of the fruits which partly of its own corrupt nature and partly through the corruptions of men It hath brought forth and fomented And though the Petitioners cannot judge nor should intermedle with questions about your Majesties and the Parliaments power yet may they well professe from that which every one may understand that the denying of the people their earnest desires may quench that fervour of affection which is due from
Government We conceived the answer formerly given by us to the former petition in this argument would have satisfied the petitioners and is so full that we can adde little to it viZ. That the government here established by the lawes hath so neare a relation and intermixture with the Civill State which may be unknown to the petitioners that til a composed disgested form be presented to us upon a free debate of both Houses in a Parliamentary way whereby the consert and approbation of this whole Kingdom may be had and We and all our subjects may discerne what is to be left in or brought in as well as what is to be taken away We know not how to consent to any alteration other wise then to such an act for the ease of tender consciences in the matter of Ceremonies as We have often offered and that this and any thing else that may concerne the peace of the Church and the advancement of Gods true Religion may be soberly discussed and happily effected We have formerly offered and are still willing that debates of that nature may be entered into by a Syned of godly and learned Divines to be regularly chosen according to the Laws and Customes of this Kingdome To which we shall bee willing that some learned Divines of our Church of Scotland be likewise sent to be present and offer and debate their Reasons With this answer the petitioners had great reason to acquiesce without enlarging the matter of their former petition only with bitter expressions against the established government and laws of their neighbour Nation as if it were contrary to the word of God with whom they have so lately entred into a strict amity and friendship But we cannot enough wonder that the petitioners should interpose themselves not only as fit directors and judges betwen Us and Our two Houses of Parliament in businesse so wholly concerning the peace and government of this our kingdome and in a matter so absolutely entrusted to us as what new laws to consent or not to consent to But should assume and publish That the desire of reformation in this kingdome is in a peaceable and Parliamentary way When all the world may know That the proceedings here have bene and are not only contrary to all the rules and precedents of former Parliaments but destructive to the freedome priviledge and dignity of Parliaments themselves that wee were first driven by tumults for the safety of our life from our cities of London and Westminster and have bene since pursued fought withall and are now kept from thence by an army raysed as is pretended by the two Houses which consist not of the fourth part of the number they ought to do the rest being either driven from thence by the same violence or expell'd or imprisoned for not consenting to the treasons and unheard of Insolencies practised against us And if the petitioners could beleeve these proceedings to be in a peaceable Parliamentary way they were very unacquainted with the order and constitution of this Kingdome and not so fit instruments to promote that reformation and peace they seeme to desire We cannot beleeve the intermixture of the present Ecclesiasticall government with the Civill State to be other then a very good reason and that the governement of the Church should be by the rules of humane policy to be other then a very good rule unlesse some other government were as well proved as pretended to be better warranted by God Of any bills offerd us for reformation we shall not now speak they being a part of those articles upon which we have offered and expect to treats but cannot but wonder by what authority you prejudge our judgement herein by denouncing Gods anger upon us and our hazard of the losse of the hearts of all our good Subjects if we consent not unto them The influence of so many blessings from heaven upon the reignes of Queen Elizabeth and our father of blessed memory and the acknowledgement of them by all Protestant Churches to have been carefull nurses to the Church of Christ and to have excellentlie discharged their duties in the custody and vindication of religion and the affection of their Subjects to them do sufficiently assure Us that we should neither stop the influence of such blessings nor grieve the hearts of all the godly nor hazard the losse of the hearts of our good Subjects although we still maintaine in this Kingdome the same establisht Ecclesiasticall government which flourisht in their times and under their speciall protection We doubt not but our Subjects of Scotland will rest aboundantly satisfied with such alterations in their owne Church as we have assented unto and not bee perswaded by a meer assertion that there is no hope of the continuance of what is there setled by law unlesse that bee likewise altered which is setled here And our Subjects of England will never depart from their dutifull affection to Us for not consenting to new laws which by the law of the land they know We may as justly reject if we approve not of them as either house hath power to prepare for or both to propound to us Nor are you a little mistaken if either you beleeve the generality of this Nation to desire a change of Church-government or that most of those who desire it desire by it to introduce that which you onely esteeme a reformation but are as unwilling to what you call the yoke of Christ and obedience to the Gospell as those whom you call prophane and worldly men and so equally averse both to Episcopacy and Presbyterie that if they should prevaile in this particular the abolition of the one would be no inlet to the other nor would your hearts bee lesse grieved your expectations lesse frustrated your hopes lesse ashamed or your reformation more secured And the petitioners upon due consideration will not finde themselves lesse mistaken in the government of all the reformed Churches which they say is by Assemblies then they are in the best way of a reformation which sure is best to be in a common and ordinary way where the passion or interest of particular men may not impose upon the publique but alteration be then onely made when upon calmed debates and evident and cleare Reason and convenience the same shall be generally consented to for the peace and security of the people and those who are trusted by the Law with such debates are not divested of that trust upon a generall charge of corruptions pretended to have entred by that way and of being the persons to be reformed and so unfit to bee Reformers And certainly the like Logick with the like charges and pretences might be used to make the Parliament it self an incapable Judge of any Reformation either in Church or State For the generall expressions in the Petition against Papists in which the petitioners may bee understood to charge Us with complyance and favour even to their opinions Wee have taken all
a people to their Prince Whether the generality of the Nation desireth a change of Kirk government cannot bee better knowne then by the desires and Propositions of the representative hodie of the Kingdome nor can it bee better defyned what gogovernment shall be established than in a Synod of learned and godly Divines Our part is to wish the patterne is Scripture and the example of the best Reformed Kirks to be followed and to pray that God by his Spirit may lead them into all truth being confident that reformation having begun by your Majesties authoritie at the head and chiefest parts all sectaries and all the inferiour members may be quickly by a Synod brought to such order as may consist with truth and with the peace of the Kirk It was far from our intentions by the generall expressions of our Petition against Papists To charge your Ma. with complyance and favour to their opinions We do from our hearts blesse God for all that your Majestie hath done both here and in England against them and for so free and ample a testimonie of your Majesties desires of the Queenes conversion Jealousies of that kinde and hopes in the hearts of such as are popishly affected of their prevailing power proceed from the power of Papists in Ireland the present posture of Papists armed about your Majestie in this dangerous time of combustion in England and that for so long a time through the connivence or complyance of the Ministers of estate lawes have not been execute against them nor any means at all used for the Queenes conversion A necessary and essentiall duty from which no oath to the contrary can more give dispensation then any oath of old or late publick or private can binde your Majestie to maintaine Episcopacie or any corruption in the worshippe of God or government of the Kirk when God by his word giveth light and by his providence calleth for a Reformation All which had need to be seriously and tymously considered And if the Papists be not speedily disarmed the danger is that both in their owne project and upon the hearing of your Majesties Declaration to disarme them when there shall bee no more use of their service they band together and bend all their wits against a Pacification till by their gathering and growing to greater strength they be able to plead in equall termes for themselves for their share in the places and honours of the Kingdome at lest for peace and tolleration as a reward of all their paines charges and hazards pretended to bee for your Majesties honour and safety but really intended for themselves and their superstition We cannot conceive that loyaltie can be without allegeance or that Papists refusing to take the oath of allegeance do fight in loyaltie and allegeance to your Majestie but for their own ends nor can it bee safe for Protestants to trust them upon the principles of their profession in any whether intestine or forraigne warre In the time of the greatest forraigne invasion year 88. It was not thought safe to arme the Papists in defence of the Kingdome We did not take notice of Papists in the other armie in our Petition to your Majestie but did in our Declaration to the Parliament that although they had professed in their Declarations that they had no knowne Papists in their Armie yet if any were found to be we desired they might in like manner be disbanded Brownists Anabaptists and other sectaries which are the fruits of Prelacie one way as Papists are another are neither so easily knowne as Papists nor so much to be feared and although they be enemies to Religion and to the peace of the Kirk we know not whether they have been so considerable that the law hath taken so far notice of them as to disarme them We have so sincerely and from the inward of our spirits with our hearts and hands lifted up to the most high God the searcher of hearts sworne the care of the safty of your Majesties person and of your greatnesse and authoritie which we have also witnessed in our Declarations to the Houses of Parliament that our hearts within us were wounded when we did heare of the danger your Majesties person was in the 23 of October And as wee doe with the Houses of Parliament as is expressed in their Declaration rejoyce and heartily praise God for your safety So do we not cease to pray for your Majesties preservation in the midst of so many dangers and for a speedy deliverance by a happie peace which we trust shall burie that black and unnaturall day so unhappie and dangerous both to you Majestie and your people in eternall oblivion And therefore not to be paralelled by us with the unparalelled plot of the 5 of Novem. never to be forgoten We have detained your Majestie longer then your great affairs of governing Kingdomes in the time of war could well permit but not so long as the charge committed to us by the Generall Assemblie and the importance of our Petition which is of religious and publick concernment doth require The cry me of bitternesse and want of reverence to your Majestie the challenge of usurpation the aspersion of so much and manifold mistaking wee would bear the more patiently if we were to be considered as privat and particular persons and not as Commissioners of publick trust And yet do bear the more patiently because we take them and in this no man shall perswade us that we are mistaken to proceed from the pen of the writer and not from your Majesties justice and goodnesse unto which wee are bold to appeall from his unjust censure and from such slanderous tongues and pens as by traducing the preaching and praiers of the ministery here of disloyaltie or sedition do much wrong us your Majestie much more and truth and peace most of all Your Majestie in your wisedome will consider what such Sycophants are seeking and in your justice will rather beleeve our publick testimonie in things best known to our selves and to our ordinarie hearers then any private information flowing from the malice of some or the weakenes of others And now in your royall goodnesse will bee graciously pleased to suffer us your Maiesties most humble and faithfull Subjects to fall downe at your feet and with all earnestnesse to renew our Petition especially that of Unitie in Religion and uniformitie of Kirk Government in all your Majesties Dominions which wee conceive to be principally intended by divine Providence in these unhappie distractions and troubles of your Majesties Kingdomes And to this effect for such an Ecclesiasticall Assemblie as hath been formerly described and desired A mean so pious so just and so ordinarie in such cases as malice itselfe can have no colour to object against your Majestie for using it And which shall speedily bring on a firme and well grounded peace and with peace all other blessings spirituall and temporall upon your Majestie and your Kingdomes A. Ker. Cl Commiss Gen. Ass
occasion to publish to the world Our practice and resolution in the true protestant Reformed Religion and wee are verily perswaded there is no one Subject in either of our Dominions who at all knowes Us and hath observed our Life but is in his soul satisfied of our Zeal and unremoveable Affection to that Religion and of our true dislike of and hearty oposition to popery And as wee willingly consented at our being in Scotland to all acts proposed to Us for the discountenancing and Reforming the Papists in that our Kingdome so by our Proclamations for the putting of all Lawes severally in execution against Recusants and by not refusing any one Bill presented to Us to that purpose in this Kingdome and by our perpetuall and publique professions of Readinesse with the advice of Our two Houses of Parliament prepared for Us in a deliberate and orderly way to finde some expedition to perfect so good a worke or conceived wee had not left it possible for any man to believe Us guilty of tolerating any part of the Romish Tyrannie or Superstition or to suspect that the Conversion of our dearest Consort was not so much our desire that the Accession of as many Crownes as God hath already bestowed upon us would be more welcome to us then that day A blessing which it is Our daily prayer to the almighty to bestow upon Us. But we might well have expected from the Petitioners who have in their solemne Nationall Covenant literally sworne so much Care and safety of Our Person and cannot but know in how much danger that hath bin and still is by the power and threats of Rebellious Armes that they would as well have remembred the 23 of October as the 5 of November and as well have taken notice of the Army raised and led against Us by the Earle of Essex which hath actually assaulted and endeavoured to murther Us which wee know to abound in Brownists Anabaptists and other sectaries and in which we have reason by the prisoners we have taken and the evidence they have given to believe there are many more Papists and many of those forraigners then in all our army as have advised Us to disband out of the army of the Earle of New castle which is raised for Our defence the Papists in that Armie who are knowne to be no such number as to endanger their obtaining any power of building their Babell and setting up their Idolatrie and whose loyaltie he hath reason to commend though he was never suspected for favouring their Religion not before that of Protestants but of such as rebell under that Title And whose assistance is as due to us by the law of God man to rescue Us from domestick Rebellion as to defend us from forraigne invasion which we think no man denyes to be lawfull for them to do But we do solemnly declare and protest That God shall no sooner free us from the desperate and rebellious armes taken up against Us but we shall endeavour to free our selves and King dome from any fear of danger from the other by disarming them according to the laws of this Land as we shall not faile to send our Commissioner to the Assembly at the time appointed for it by the laws of Scotland To conclude We desire and require the Petitioners as becomes good and pious Preachers of the Gospel to use their utmost endeavours to compose any distraction in opinions or misunderstandings which may by the faction of some turbulent persons bee raised in the minds of Our good Subjects of that Our Kingdome and to infuse into them a true sence of Charitie Obedience and Humilitie the great principles of Christian Religion That they may not suffer themselves to bee transported with things they do not understand or thinke themselves concerned in the Government of another Kingdome because it is not according to the customes of that in which they live But that they dispose themselves with modesty and devotion to the service of Almighty God with duty and affection to the obedience of us and our laws remembring the singular Grace Favour and Benignitie We have alwaies expressed to that Our Native Kingdome and with brother-therly and christian charitie one towards another And Wee doubt not but God in his mercy to Us and them will make us instruments of his blessings upon each others and both of us a great measure of happinesse and prosperitie to the whole nation FINIS To the Kings most excellent Majesty The bumble Remonstrance and renewed Petition of the Commissioners of the Generall Assemblie of the Kirke of SCOTLAND from their meeting at Edinburgh the 2. day of June 1643. AS the manifold and pressing necessitie of the duetie of our place and trust did constrain us in these distempered and dangerous times in most humble manner To direct our earnest supplication to your Majestie for such remedies as wee conceive to be most fit for us to propone And being applyed by your Majesties owne hand might both for cure and prevention prove most effectuall So are we enforced by the same necessitie growing daily to the greatest extremitie In all humilitie and earnestnesse To renew not only our prayers to God but our Petitions to your Majestie For Sions sake can we not hold our peace and for Jerusalems sake we will not rest untill the righteousnesse thereof go forth as brightnesse and the salvation thereof as alamp that burneth But because in your Majesties answere to our former Petition wee meet with a multitude of prejudices and exceptions against us and our humble desires wee will crave leave first to remove these out of the way Acknowledging the full expression of them by your Majestie to be no small favour and being confident after we have expressed our selves in the truth and integritie of our hearts both to give unto and to receive from your Majesties Justice and goodnesse the greater satisfaction And first although there bee good reason for printing of Answers and Replyes the Petition being before printed yet wee acknowledge that your Majestie hath just cause to finde fault with that publishing of our Petition in print which is mentioned in the introduction to your Majesties answer And if it had been done by our Commandement counsell or knowledge we had not only given your Majestie just provocation and fallen in an errour contrary to the nature of a Petition and to the right disposition of Petitioners but also had used means contrary to our own ends in publishing a programme of our diffidence of obtaining our desires or in giving a publick testimony that we were aiming at some other thing then what we professed to seek And therefore wee are so far from excusing that forme of doing that we judge our selves to be wronged thereby Another fault much more intollerable is objected against us The bitternesse and sharpnesse of some expressions which may bee interpreted by your Majesties well affected Subjects not to be so agreeable to that regard and
reverence which is due to your Majesties person and the matter it selfe to be reprochfull to the honour and constitution of that your Majesties Kingdome Whether the matter of the Petition be reproachfull shall aferwards in the particulars appear But for the expressions we have examined the whole Petition and can finde no word of that kinde Wee rather did feare the censure of fauning and flattering words which your Majestie may remember were sometime put upon our supplications Our desire was to keepe within the bounds of that liberty which beseemeth the Ministers of Christ and if any word have escaped us which we cannot see it was contrary to our intention for wee know that we should neither speak evill of dignities nor unreverently unto them The like report hath beene made to your Mejestie of our preaching and prayers but when the de lators are tryed they will be found either malicious against us for reproving their faults Or having no other way of insinuation too officious to your Majestie or to others whom they desire to please or so blinded with self-love that they thinke Preachers should speak like Parasites or so undiscerning that when we professe our desire to the reformation of Religion in England and Ireland we are fansied by them to preach or pray against the King and his royall authoritie Wee fear God and honour the King And have learned not onely to put a difference betwixt God and the King but also against the old sophistication now revived betwixt the pictures of the Emperour and the images of the false gods craftily insert into them and know the way how to honour the King without such a mixture and confusion Slownesse to beleeve an evill report and the constructing of things doubtfull is one of your Majesties royall praises of which the faithfull Ministers of this Kirk desire against slanders and suspitions to have the experience which will prove profitable for your Majesties honour and obedience and our peace and quietnesse As the north winde driveth away rain So doth an angrie countenance a back biting tongue Righteous lips are the delight of Kings and they love him that speaketh right Concerning the interposing of the Generall Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland and our intermedling by commission from them in the affairs of the Kirk of England We humbly intreat your Majestie to consider of the reasons of this our doing 1. Although the Kirks of one Nation be distant in place from the Kirks of another Nation yet are they united in heart and spirit and are generally but one body and Kirke and must as Sisters of one Mother keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace whence ariseth the communion of all Gods graces and blessings amongst the Kirks that they may not only help comfort and refresh but advise admonish exhort warne and reprove one another so farre as need requireth and their Christian love and abilitie reacheth Yet avoiding both ambition and confusion there being a coordination between Kirkes of diverse Nations but no subordination We have not presumed to passe the limits of this Christian communion having proceeded by way of charity and in a ministeriall or rather brotherly manner not by authority or Magisterially by way of humble supplication to your Majestie Declaration to the house of Parliament and advice and exhortation to such of our brethren of the Ministerie as were best known unto us very farre from usurpation or jurisdiction 2. Our humble petition to your Majestie and our Declaration to the Parliament were nothing els but a prosecution of the demand made by the Commissioners of this Kingdome and a pressing of the answer given by your Majestie and the Parliament in the last treatie which filled us with hope of what was then demanded since followed by diverse Declarations and now again desired 3. The experience of the sufferings of this Kirk from the doctrine for me of worship and government of the Kirk of England Doth beget feares of the like hereafter which maketh our petition to be unto us a necessare meane of self preservation 4. Our encouragements from your Majesties Letter to the Generall Assembly and the Declaration of the house of Parliament desiring them to concur in petitioning your Majestie for setling one confession of Faith one directorie of the publike worship and one Catechisme in all the three Kingdomes as a meane to advance the honour and service of God enlarge the greatnesse power and glorie of the King confirme the peace securitie and prosperitie of all his good Subjects make way to the relief and deliverance of the poore afflicted Kirks abroad and to the totall abolishing of the usurpation and tyrannie of Rome 5 The paterne wee have of this Christian duty both by word and wryting in the Kirk at Jerusalem and the Kirk at Antioch which was first crowned with the name of Christians The one of which were Jewes and the other Gentiles And in diverse other Kirks recorded in Scripture many Precedents also in antiquity before the Kirks did contend for primacy or knew any preheminence one over another Many examples of other reformed Kirks And the practise of the Kirk of Scotland diverse times after the Reformation wryting into England against the ceremonies and for union against the Papists and their confederats banded together by the bloudie league of Trent These and the like reasons wee conceive did sufficiently authorize us in all that we have done not as Directors or Judges but as supplicants and humble advisers In that day shall there be a high way one of Egypt into Assyria from one Kirk and Nation of the Gentiles to another And the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians whom the Lord of Hostes shall blesse Upon this and the like grounds have letters been sent professedly between some godly loyall and peaceable Ministers of the Kirk of England and the Generall Assembly here and their Commissioners One of the means intended for the good of Religion in both Kingdomes against Sects and Shismes admitted and approven by your Majesties Commissioners in the Generall Assembly and which for the forme of doing is innocent and may bee profitable unlesse the matter bee nocent and hurtfull and thereby deserves censure Wee wish we were able by our Letters Declarations or Petitions To reduce all the reformed Kirks to a perfect conformitie to suppresse all the Heresie Superstition and Tyrannie of Papists and the Paganisme of Turkes and Insidels and would not doubt of your Majesties Roy all approbation not withstanding all the Lawes standing to the contrarie and plea's could be made for their antiquitie happinesse and stabilitie Common arguments and collours pretended for every Religion and of late answered to the full in the point of Episcopall government from the verity of Scripture which is true antiquity and the onely solide ground of the happinesse and stabilitie of Religion and government of the Kirk The Petitioners were far from laying upon your Majestie any Imputation of the
Irish-rebellion beseeching God to manisest your Sacred Majesties innocencie to all the world They made mention of the miseries of Ireland for no other end but to represent the danger of your Majesties Kingdomes through the prevailing power of the Popish faction The British Papists at this time being animated by the same spirit working upon the same principles enraged with the same furies breathing out the same threatnings and slaughter aiming at the same ends and emboldened with the same presumptions with the Papists of Ireland their confederates And withall to present our earnest desires for a pacification that both the armies may bee sent against that horride rebellion and peace restored to all your Majesties Dominions The expression in our Petition of Unitie in Religion we have borrowed from the Article in the Treatie accorded unto by your Majestie from the Declarations of the Parliament and from the Generall Assemblie By which is meaned no other thing but one Confession of Faith one common directorie for worship and one Gate chisme The Papists may know that the true Kirk in all ages hath been troubled with differences and contentions as great as any now against the reformed Kirks which many of the godly have lamented and studied to compose and as it was written of some hereticks of old They themselves sacrifice in schisme and dissention and greet the world with the name of peace whom they drive from the peace of their salvation They therefore cannot hence authorize their scandall against the reformation yet the smallest differences of practise and diversitie of the expressions are matter of strife to the contentious of hinderance of edification to the ignorant of stumbling to the weake and of grief to the godly when thereby they see against religious Unitie and Christian love the bowels of the Kirk rent assunder and people scandalously divided in some parts of the worship of God All which evil might be perfectly cured in all your Majesties dominions the mouthes of Papists scopped schisme and separation hereafter prevented and the face of the Kirke filled with true beautie and splendor to your Majesties greater glory and the greater terrour of all your enemies by this blessed and never enough desired Unitie in Religion Without which tender consciences being freed from constraine may bee in some degree eased by your Majestie but shall never have rest and be satisfied nor shall the rent of the Kirk arising from different or contrary practises be cured but shall from time to time increase Concerning uniformity in Kirk government our hopes thereof and of the unitie of Religion grounded upon the Article of the Treatie made this Kirk and Kingdome to enter into the more strict amitie and friendship with England And that the amitie and friendship builded upon such a foundation might be the more firme and durable they have since pressed the same by their Petitions and Declarations in all humilitie and love without any bitternesse of expression Onely they have declared the government of the Kirk by Assemblies in their strong and beautifull order and subordination to bee by divine right and that as Prelacie is confessed in this your Majesties answer to be by the rule of humane policie so to bee almost universally acknowledged by the Prelates themselves and their adherents to be but a humane institution introduced by humane reason and setled by humane law and custom for supposed conveniencie which therefore by humane authoritie without wronging any mans conscience may be altered and abolished upon so great a necessity as is a heartie conjunction of all the reformed Kirks a firme and well grounded peace between the two Kingdomes formerly divided in themselves and betwixt themselves by this partition wall and a perfect Union of the two Kirks in the two Nations which although by the providence of God in one Island and under one Monarch yet ever since the Reformation have been at greater difference in the point of Kirk government which in all places hath a powerfull influence upon all the parts of Religion then any other reformed Kirks although in nations at greatest distance and under diverse Princes Papacie is the greatest cause of schisme in the Christian Kirk and Episcopacie devised by man to bee a cure the greatest cause of schisme in the reformed Kirks As the mutuall relation and conjunction of true Ecclestasticall and Civill government is a corroboration of both so do we conceive that both are much weakened in their proper functions by that intermixture of the Ecclesiasticall government with the Civill State And as wee know the principles of Prelacie to be Popish and contrarie to the principles of Reformation So have we reason to beleeve That such an intermixture is not for your Majesties honour while they maintain and professe that Monarchie cannot subsist without Prelacie And that Prelacie had not been cast out of the Parliament if it had been profitable there And thought fit to bee altogether abolished if it had not been an unprofitable burthen to the Kingdome and pernicious to the civill State and common wealth As is contained more fully in the Declaration of both Houses of Parliament to the Generall Assemblie The following of humane inventions without and against Scripture and the ambition and covetousnesse of Kirkmen were observed of old to bee the corruptions which made many to call upon the Pope and the chiefe guides of the Kirke at that time for a reformation but all in vaine for that had been their own ruine to which in humane reason they would never willingly have consented That upon the same causes and corruptions there is a necessitie of the reformation of the Kirk of England Is as unanimously confessed as it is universally acknowledged that it is unlikely if not impossible to be obtained in the regulate and ordinarie way Upon the reason exprest afterward in your Majesties answer Because in the common and ordinary way the passion or interest of particular men will impose upon the publict For what greater privat interest then benefits and dignities Who more interessed in these then Bishops Deans Arch. deacons and such ordinary members of the convocation And ho can be more sueyed and by assed with passion then such as have this interest Whether this bee applyable to the Parliament whose places and dignities are uncontroverted and unquestionable it is not for us to judge but this we know when the corruptions of the Kirk are grown to such an height that she can neither beare her diseases nor endure the remedies it is the dutie of the magistrat and civill authoritie by the advice of the more sound and sincere part of the Kirke and Ministrie to endeavoure a reformation since no reformation worthie of that name can be expected from the corrupt Clergie nor hath at any time Religion been that way in any tolerable measure reformed When the evils are extraordinary the remedies must bee other then ordinary Scripture reason and experience of the Kirk teach in such an exigence of