Sabbath this to all the godly was a matter of griefe both particular persons and whole Presbyteries have oft regrated it and offered their Petitions to the Councel and Parliament for the remedying thereof but that they ever of themselves did attempt to make any change of Market dayes it is so false as any thing can be you our Prelates as you were taught by your Fathers in England were alwaies passionately desirous to have Sunday counted no Sabbath both by your doctrine and example you laboured to seduce the people to prophane that day with all kinde of publike pastimes all strictnesse about the Sabbath you cryed downe as Puritanick Iudaisme so long as your Kingdome stood this evill was remedilesse but so soon as we got your chaires and thrones as you call them overturned the first Generall Assembly thereafter made it one of their chiefe cares to cause draw a humble petition to the next ensuing Parliament for translating of the Markets of the cheife Burroughs from Munday to Wednesday The Parliament being purged of Episcopall Popish and Malignant Members who oft before had obstructed this gracious worke unanimously did agree to the Petition so that now blessed be God with the good liking of all and to the prejudice of none these market dayes are changed What follows of the Presbyteries violent transporting of Ministers from better places to worse at the pleasure of Noblemen Nor to transport Ministers at any mans pleasure I have known this done by Bishops and their High Commission for no men ever in Scotland did so much flatter the Nobles and assist them if they were resolved to oppresse a Minister as the Prelates but while the Presbyteriall government had any vigour that every man was in this fashion transported I take it to be exceeding false for by the Laws and practise of the Presbyrery disgracefull Transportations are of so great difficulty that since the Bishops were cast out from among us I did never hear of any for no man with us can be put from a better place to a worse but for a fault which as it puts him from one place so readily it will keep him from all others The knavish example he brings of this practise in the Presbytery of Couper They â—ever did dilapidate any benefice I take it to be a meer Episcopall invention no man with whom I have conferred ever heard of any such matter Spotswood the fountaine of his fables is here mute I am confirmed in this opinion by that which he makes the maine scope of the tale the Presbyteries consent to the dilapidation of a Personage such an action is so farre contrary to the rules of all our Presbyteries and to any practise that ever I heard that it makes me take all the rest but for a tale of Robin Hood The Bishops indeed when they professed their greatest zeale to recover all the Church rents out of the hand of the Laity were found to be but too ready to dilapidate unto Noblemen and others too much of the remnant of the Churches patrimony your selfe may remember what bargaine you made as I thinke with the Earle of Seaforth which you know was the first occasion of diminishing your reputation with your great Patron Land of Canterbury I am sure your Colleague Spotswood did sell the whole Abacy of Killwinning to the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Cuningham to the great prejudice and griefe of the University of Glasgow and the Ministers of the bounds who had great interest therein At the Parliament of Lithgow 1606. our good Bishops for their owne base ends did consent in the name of the Church though they had never so much as consulted here in that businesse to the greatest dilapidation that ever was heard of in Scotland the impropriation to Noblemen and Gentlemen at one time of no fewer then sixteen Abbacies every one whereof had incorporate the rents of a number of Parish Churches Too many pranks of this kinde have been plaid by the Prelates and Clergy men of their way but that ever any Presbytery was guilty of such sacrilegious tricks it will never as I imagine be proved What you speake of a Gentlemans confession in Testament of his griefe for deceiving good Ministers is to no purpose Page 12. Nor favour Gentlemen in their wickednesse did not Hypocrites deceive the Apostles but that Ministers did keep him from Church censures for his knowne uncleannesse you know there is no reason to beleeve you upon your bare word the Gentlemans hypocrisie was but small if his villanies were so open that justly he could be challenged for them For your last imputation I know that feuds in Scotland were frequent and lamentable They never did countenance any feud all these were the Prelates crimes also that King Iames labours in suppressing them were happy and successefull but that any Presbytery did ever entertain them it s a lye so grosse that for all your Cretian Art you are not able to bring so much as the colour of on instance to prove it I finde in Spotswood Letters of King Iames to Presbyteries and Synods for their assistance in that gracious work and it is certaine that all the Kings in Christendome had never been able to have abolished these feuds without the helpe of the Ministry Can you tell me of any Bishop that either did endeavour or had such power in the heart of any people as to promove that work one haires breadth I know that the chiefe Bishops for all their open fauning were yet ever esteemed so great haters of the Nobility and prime Gentry that they did little regard how many of them perished your selfe I think knowes that in the feud betwixt the Grahams and the Sandilands none was a better swordman then your Metropolitan Spotswood Your last Paragraph is but a recapitulation of these things which I hope I have demonstrate to be cleer untruths Your next head is of Provinciall Synods Page 13. Prelaticall principles take away the very being of Elderships and Assemblies upon these you are briefe and yet might have spared much of that you bring for the most hath no more relation to Provinciall Synods then to any other Church meeting In the beginning you make the Provinciall Synod to be an apish imitation of an ancient Provinciall Councell consisting of the Metropolitan and his suffragane Bishops intimating hereby what elsewhere you have published and in your declinator of the Assembly at Glasgow subscribed That the very constitution of all our Synods is vitious as consisting of Members whom reason and Antiquity does exclude all Iurisdiction belongs to Bishops a preaching Presbyter has no more to do with it then a ruling Presbyter without an Episcopall commission by vertue hereof a man of any coat may sit and voice in a Synod without this none but Bishops themselves may have place there That which you make the politick stratagem of the Gamaliels as you call them of our Land Presbytetians would not
use wicks to corâ—upt the Assembly thereâ—ore Bishops were seâ—â—p to 〈◊〉 is nothing but that which in all societies Ecclesiastick and civill nature makes necessary in every multitude some men by their gifts and diligence will fall to be leading but that the most leading men among us had ever any authority to command the weakest of their Brethren you dare not alledge it though every Prelate by vertue of his office pretend to a power of commanding all his Clergy That the most eminent men among us could ever carry an Assembly after them farther then their reason did perswade the minds of their Brethren it is very untrue How little able Noblemen have been to sway the Votes of a Synod to their owne desires you and your Brethren know as well as any others for the difficulty and impossibility of this practise was the maine ground whereupon your Antichristian order behoved to be brought back again from Rome to Scotland When King Iames by many experiments had found that neither himselfe nor all the Noblemen of the Land were able either by Art or allurements or terrors to sway the Assemblies of the Church to their owne appetites the resolution was taken to destroy these meetings to overturne their orders to spoile them of their power to put all in the hand of Bishops upon this confidence wherein they were not deceived that although they had found it impossible to make the multitude of the Ministers so long as their Assemblies injoyed their old and just priviledges obsequious to the will of the Court Yet if once that order of Synods were overturned and their power setled in the Bishops hands it would be an easie matter to make the whole Clergy very tractable and obnoxious What therefore here you object of the Synods serving the lusts of great men was neither true nor possible so long as the Presbyteriall government stood intire but so soon as that was overthrowne and changed into Episcopacy that game was gained We never knew any Bishop oppose himself in any thing to the Court nor to the desires of any Nobleman how unreasonable so ever if the Court was for him What here you subjoyn of the great honour deferred to some of the Ministry Page 14. Ministers generally were ever and still are more honoured in Scotland then any where else however your exaggerations be invidious and Satyricall yet we are not ashamed to professe that no where in the World the Nobility and Gentry carry greater respect to Ministers then in Scotland The Bishops did much envy this for how ever the King and Courtiers did countenance them yet the whole Country where ever they went did justly despise them but the Ministers those especially who with any zeale did oppose their evill courses were alwayes by the greatest of the Land before their faces highly honoured It is true Ministers of the Episcopall cut were no more prized then their Masters but this I may affirme that the poorest and weakest Minister of what ever side was ever more honoured by the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland then by the best of the Bishops even those who made it their glory to be the Patrons of poor Ministers against the Nobilities oppression Though our Scottish Bishops were not come to the height of the English Prelates grandour and the poorest of the Scots Ministers that ever I knew were of a much better fashion then many hundreds of the English Curates and Priests yet I have often seen the meanest of the Scottish preachers get more respect from the prime Earles of that Land then the chiefe and best deserving Ministers could have from their ordinary Bishops either within their private walls or in the face of their Provinciall meetings So what you object of the contempt of the Ministers in Scotland if it be understood from their Brethren or from the Nobility or Gentry it is very false but if from you and your Colleagues it was too too visible Your next Storie concernes Mr. Robert Bruce Minister of Edinburgh P. 15 16 17. Mr. Robert Bruce vindicated a gracious and Heroick Divine as Scotland ever bred Though the quarrell of Episcopacy did at last alter King Iames countenance towards him yet all the Bishops of the three Kingdomes had never so much respect from that Prince as this man What you speak of his great attendance is either a very ignorant or a very malicious mistake neither he nor any Minister of Scotland though nobly borne and of good Estates used ever to be attended by any more servants then one at most but in their journeying to Presbyteries Synods or Visitations the Noblemen and Gentlemen members of these meetings were alwaies glad of the Ministers company and when their way fell to be one they were wont to travell together doth it from hence follow that the Noblemen and all the Gentlemen of their Traine were the Ministers attendants The long relation you make of King Iames conference with Mr. Bruce anent the Earle of Huntly you take it out of the story of Spotswood who at first was a domestick servant but therafter a great unfriend to Mr. Bruce The tale of your Author you doe much enlarge and adde unto it many circumstances whereof you have no warrant the matter as I gather it out of your owne Author was thus The Earle of Huntly all his life time was the head of the Popish faction in Scotland he was oft excommunicate and oft he gave satisfaction to the Church abjuring his Popery and joyning to our Church but alwaies he plaid the Hypocrite or Apostate when the Catholique league was first framed in France betwixt the Pope King Philip of Spaine and the Guizians for the rooting out of all Protestants this man made himselfe quickly of that party When in the eighty eight the Spanish Armada came to conquer this whole Isle no man was so ready as he with his whole strength to have joyned with them when after the miscarriage of that Navy the enterprise was renued divers times he sent his Messengers to the Prince of Parme at Brussels and to Philip at Madrid assuring his readinesse to concurre for the destruction of Queene Elizabeth and all the Protestants in the Isle though all these horrible Treasons were proved under his owne hand and acknowledged and all were pardoned yet nothing could amend his evill nature he was still sound plotting the delivery of the Isle into the Spaniards hands and when all hope of forraigne invasion was past yet he could not give over but was proved to have new plots upon the Kings person for making of him prisoner and killing before his face Chancellor Maitland his prime and best Counsellour This also was pardoned notwithstanding he remained the same man and quickly thereafter in the sight of the Court and all the Town of Edinburgh he burnt the Earle of Murrays house above his head Murray was a prime Noble man of the Land the Kings neer Kinsman the heire of the good Regent the
reformer of a Country without a lawfull calling For the ninth all the Covenants of our Land are warranted by Acts of Parliament and how ever by the misinformation of Prelats the King for a time judged them illegall yet at last he found them just and necessary according to the Laws and Customes of the Kingdome wee indeed doe maintaine when a handfull of wicked Prelats doe seduce a Prince to destroy himselfe and whole Kingdomes that in that case it is lawfull for the Nobles and States of a Land to stand upon their guard and wee cannot subscribe to these prime fundamentall Articles of your faith That the Supremacie of Britaine is so farre exalted above all Law divine and humane that the Parliaments of both Kingdomes for their most necessary defensive Armes are to be condemned by God and all men for Traitors and Rebels yet your good friends the Idolatrous murtherers of Ireland must be registred to posterity for good Catholick subjects No marvell you beleeve all this when you professe your advice to all Princes rather to admit of the worst whordomes of Rome the very Jesuitisme of Raviliack and Faux then of the Presbiteriall government Behold whither despite may carry the spirit of an excommunicate Prelate For the tenth our Assemblies meddle not with questions of State if the originall of royalty be so from heaven that men on earth had never any hand in making of a King if in any immaginable case a King be censurable such questions were never proposed so much as for debate in any Assembly of Scotland unhappy Bishops who must needs prophane the Crowns of Kings by making their Soveraignty and mysterious Prerogatives their ordinary quodlibets to be tossed as Tennis balls in their common discourse Sermons and Pamphets It was a very unhappy day for the Kings of Britaine when the feet of Prelats got first leave to touch the threshold of the Court and their evill eyes to behold the Jewels of the Crown or their soule hands to touch the hemme of the royall Robes such infaust harppies polute all things though most sacred to which they approach For the eleventh though it never came to be scanned in any Assembly yet I know no honest man of Scotland that makes question of the thing The King and Parliament has inacted the lawfulnesse of our late defensive Armes but the Acts of that Parliament are not much to your mind for they cast you out of your native Country as a prime incendiary unfit to breath more in that Aire The twelfth is but to make up the number being the same with the former The conclusion of your Articles is but a malicious railing invective very sutable to your mouth it 's contrary to reason and experience as oft wee have said before but you cannot spare Tauttologies The second part of your Appendix is your Postscript P. 55.56 No shadow of Episcopacie remaines in any well reformed Church wherein you make a large muster of your Episcopall Territories and tell us that the major part of the reformed Churches in Christendome doe retaine Episcopacie also that the removall thereof from England is the fountaine of all our present Sects you may know that all our Heresies and Sects did breed under the wings of Episcopacie the reason why now they appeare so thick in publick is not the removall of Episcopacie but the retarding of Presbiteriall government and the plague of our too too long annarchie That your Episcopacie is to be found in any reformed Church is a great untruth we grant it is to be seen in your Easterne and Westerne Churches the first of your Catalogue but you would speake a little more plainly that people may understand your mind what Westerne Church is this that you propone unto us for a patterne of Episcopacy is it any other then the good old Mother Church of Rome which many of you cry up for so true a Church that all Protestants are Shismaticks for their needlesse separation-there-from and that among Princes those are most happy who shall heale that breach and once againe make us all to be one under our holy Father the Pope the first Bishop of Christendome whom all the Bishops in Britaine and in the whole world ought by a good Ecclesiastick right to reverence as the first Patriarch the constant moderator of all Oecumenick Counsells Your Easterne Churches are those of Greece and Asia whose corruptions albeit not like to these of Rome yet are so many and grosse as none but such as you will propone them for patternes of imitation In the rest of youâ— Catalogue you are pleased to play the Herauld and Cosmographer of purpose to terrifie simple people by the many names of your large territories You know the world scornes the Rodomontades of Spain their King must not be stiled as his neighbours of France and great Britaine but he will be called the King of Castile the King of Arragon the King of Portugall the King of Leon and a large caetera of many Kingdomes yet all in Spaine Might you not have said that Episcopacie was continued in all the Lutheran Churches of Germany which will not make the third part of that Country deducing the Calvinists and Papists In your great vanity you reckon up the Earldome of Henneberg Lenning and these that follow to the number of Thirteene as if they were all great and considerable Provinces and yet put them all together they will scarce make up one fifth part of some English shires But for the matter are the Lutheran Churches esteemed by any well advised Protestants the best reformed whereof our Covenant speaks It seems the worse Churches be reformed you like them the better for they are so much neerer to your best beloved in Rome but true Covenanters are not of your mind Further what you speake of the Lutheran Churches is altogether false That in Germany or any where else among Protestants any thing which you call Episcopacie is to be sound I marvell if you should beleeve it for I pray where-ever except in England did any Protestants spoile all Pastors of all power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction to put it in the hand of one Prelat to be exercised either by himselfe or by any depute Ecclesiastick or civill as he thought fittest The Dutch Superintendens are as like to English Bishops as an Emperour in the dayes of Fabius Maximus The Dutch Superintendents are very farre from the English Bishops when the Senate ruled all to an Emperour in the dayes of Tiberius or Nero when an absolute Prince I will not say a Tirant did governe all at his pleasure The name is one but the things are essentially different and so farre distant as the East is from the West While you cast your selfe upon the Smectymnians and will still raile upon our Covenant we desiderate your piety but while you appeale to Calvin and Beza for your Episcopacie we misse your Common sence All the Episcopacie which ever you had or
parts of Spotswoods Story Ibid. The Church of Scotland gives no more power to Congregationall Elderships then the Independents and Erastians doe allow p. 15. the Prelats give much more ecclesiasticall power to Lay-men then we to ruling Elders p. 16 We give to Deacons no power of jurisdiction we wish there were Doctors in all populous Congregations Elders in some few Congregations for a time have a Dispensation p. 17. No Eldership inflicts any civill punishment Ibid. the Prelats confound miserably the spirituall and civill Offices p. 18. Princes plead not for exemption from Ecclesiastick jurisdiction p. 19. No Presbytery did ever enter in any processe with the supreame Magistrate p. 20. the Moderators of our Assembly are Preachers p. 21. Our expectants are not Lay-Preachers p. 22. the Presbytery of Edinborough usurps no power over any other Ibid. King James aversion from Presbytery and affection to Episcopacy makes not this the better nor that the worse Ibid. No Presbytery did ever keep any State with the King p. 23 The Presbytery doth not enquire in secret faults but knowne crimes it does not passe by p. 24. The Presbytery meddles not with matter of trade or debt or any thing civill p. 25. they never did dilapidat any Benefice p. 26. nor favour Gentlemen in their wickednesse they never did countenance any feud all these were the Prelats crimes p. 26 27. Ministers generally were ever and still are honoured more in Scotland then anywhere else p. 29. Master Robert Bruce vindicated p. 30 31. The reason of the Authors malice against the generall Assembly p. 32. His false and railing slanders against it p. 33. The generall Assembly exercises no power but what the King and the Lawes have authorized Ibid. the Commissioners of Burroughs and Vniversities are Elders Ibid. we a cribe to the King so much power in the Assembly as the Laws allow p. 34. the Assembly alters no Law onely it supplicates the King and Parliament to alter such Lawes as confirme evident errors p. 35. the Prelats quarrelling against ruling Elders is absurd Ibid. The Assembly and Parliament in Scotland use not to differ p. 36. The vindication of J. Knox the first reformers from base calumnies p. 37 The suspention of the Queen Regents authority was an Act meerly of the State which did nothing prejudge the Soveraignty p. 38. The Presbyterians have often supported but never hurt royalty p. 39. John Knox did never preach for the pulling downe of any Church p. 40. The armes of Scotland against the tyranny of the French were necessary and just p. 41. the Author very wicked and popish Ibid. Cardinall Beton by all Law and reason deserved death p. 42. An account of the tumult at Edinborough for the Service-book p. 43 44. Our Assemblies did ever defer all loyall subjection to the King p. 45. Master Henderson was ever free from all disloyall and Papall humours Ibid. Our first reformation was authorized by Parliament p. 46. Episcopacy was never approved by any lawfull Assembly in Scotland p. 47. the short confession of faith was subscribed by King James in the yeer 1580 the Presbyterial Government was fully agreed unto before that time ibid. the King and his Counsell did set up the Presbyteries over all the Land at the same time p. 48. The generall Assembly did never approve of Abbots and Pryors ibid. The Ministers of Scotland were wont to preach to the King and State free and seasonable Doctrine but in all wisdome and humility p. 49. Preachers of treason are censurable both by the Church and State p 50. The Erastian and Prelaticall principles brought great trouble on the Ministers of Scotland p. 51. The case of James Gibson p. 52. Mr. David Black his case ibid. A cleer vindication of the Assembly at Aberdeen in the yeer 1605. p. 53 54 55. Mr. Welsh and Mr. Forbes pittifully oppressed p. 56. Bancroft a persecutor of the Scottish Presbyterians ibid. Mr. Andrew and Mr. James Melvils oppressed p. 57. The Scottish Discipline is far from all rigour and tyranny p. 58. A Narration of the Roads of Ruthen and Stirling p. 60. The Assembly meddles not with Lawes nor with any civill Courts p. 61. Mr. John Graham his case p. 62 63. The great controversie betwixt the Church and the King was the infinite extent of the Prerogative p. 64. the Presbytery is a great bar to keep out Democracy and tyranny both from Church and State it is a singular help both to Kings and Parliaments p. 65. Mr. Catherwoods vindication p. 66. The Commissioners of the generall assembly unjustly slandered p. 67. A full account of the 17. day of December p. 68 69 70 71. Mr. James Melvile vindicated from assisting of Bothwell against the King p. 72. A Declaration upon all the twelve Articles imputed to us p. 73 74 75 76. No shadow of Episcopacy remaines in any well reformed Church p. 77 78. The Dutch Superintendents are very far from the English Bishps p. 79. The Contents of the second Treatise THe Opposites of Presbytery blinded with malice have hurt themselves and no other by the reprinting of this false Declaration p. 1. Adamson confesseth himself to be the Author thereof but King James did disclaime it p. 2. whatever in it is contrary to Presbytery is condemned by the Parliament of Scotland p. 3. It is hazardous for a Prince to take upon himselfe the faults of his Officers p. 4. the indignation of the people in Scotland was never against King James but oft against his Court and that upon just grounds p. 5. King James was far from Erastianisme p. 7. Cleer grounds for Mr. Melvils justification p. 9. his flight no argument of guiltinesse p. 11. A great cause of the rooting out of Episcopacy ibid. Mr. Melvils Declinator and Protestation cleered p. 12. What supremacy is lawfull p. 13. the Erastian supremacy is more then a Turkish tyranny p. 14. if either King or Parliament admit of it it will overthrow both and the whole Nation with them p. 15. King James revoked what here is published and King Charles also p. 17. The Presbyteriall Government was established in Scotland on a divine right with the allowance of K. James and K. Charles in divers Parliaments p. 18 The reprinters of this Declaration seem to be contemners of Oaths Lawes and all rights divine and bumane p. 20. A full account of the French Banquet p. 21. The Prelats and Erastians extreamly unjust against the Presbytery p. 24. The general Assemblies approbation of the Road of Ruthven very innocent p. 25 The Road of Stirling cleered p. 27. Episcopacy was not established at the Conference of Leeth 1572. p. 16. It was lawfull for the Assemblies to call to fasting p. 28. The reprinters of this Declaration make no conscience of their Covenant p. 29. King James his full and honest Declaration against Erastianisme p. 31. The pretended intentions were not the Kings but the Prelats p. 32. The reprinters of this Writ are either hypocrits or
Church does proceed not onely in foro interiori conscientsae but also exteriori â—cclâ—siae to censure as it finds cause Thus far you and the most Monarchik of the Prelates goe No Presbytery did ever enter in any process with a supream Magistrate that in doctrine any Presbyterian Divine went ever further I doe not know but in practise never one of them went so far Some Bishops have actually excommunicate the best of the Emperours upon their enormous Scandalls but that any Presbyterian did ever so much as begin a processe with any Prince when they had the greatest provocations thereto it cannot be shewed to this day The Church of Scotland notwithstanding all the crosse actions of King Iames or King Charles against them in overturning not only the accidentalls but many of the substantials of their Religion and in persecuting them without all cause with fire and sword and all the calamities of a bloody warre yet did they never so much as bethink themselves of drawing against any of them or any of their kindred or speciall servants the sword of Church censures The Church of France alwaies wholly Presbyterian when Henry the fourth one of their Members apostatised from them to the Pope did never so much as enter into a consultation of delivering him into the hands of Satan Without all peradventure Presbyterians are much more tender then any other Christians of what ever name to meddle with Magistrates by the censures of the Church In the next Paragraph you flee out againe upon the ruling Elders as if it were absurd for any of their coat to sit in Ecclesiasticall Judicatories all the ground of your quarrell is their want of an Episcopall Commission with this qualification you can admit any Lay-man not onely to sit in Ecclesiasticall Iudicatories but to sit there as sole and onely judge you can make them your Vicar generalls before whom all the Clergy of your Diocesse must stand to be examined and judged for the discharge of their duty in all Ecclesiastick administrations The Prelates have no question with the Presbyterians about the persons of Laymen as they call them whether they may be Members of Spirituall Courts but about their calling both grant the lawfulness of the thing but the Prelats doe found it upon a Commission from themselves The Presbyterians presse their calling from God and the Church according to Scripture What you object of Lay men moderating our Presbyteries and Assemblies All the moderat is of 〈◊〉 â—â—â—embly are preachers is no more then the ordinary practise of our Prelates how often has Sir Nathaniel Brent and other Gentlemen meerly Civilians sitting not only as Prolocutors but aâ— Vicar generalls and so only Iudges before whom the whole Clergy of the Diocesse of London or of Canterbury have appeared as my Lord Bishops subjects for their tryall and censure albeit in Scotland we never had any such custome as you object for the Moderators of our Church meetings doe begin and end with solemn prayers now ruling Elders have not a calling to pray publickly in the Church also they are but assistants in Discipline the principall charge lies upon the labourers in the Word and Doctrine we doe not allow to an Assistant the place of the Principall As for the men whom you name we grant none of them was in the Orders you speak of neither of Deacon Priest nor Bishop you meane preaching Deacons Orthodox men in Scotland as now in England doe reject all these Orders as Popish further I did never heare that any of the three persons you name did ever moderate any of our Assemblies their is no reason that for this or any thing else we should take your bare assertion or the word of any of your Coleagues for a sufficient proofe but giving all you alledge to be true the first man you name you confesse was a Reader now ye know at the beginning of our Reformation our Readers were Ordained to be truly Ministers to be Priests in your dialect for they did exhort and preach as they were able and celebrate the Sacraments The second man you name Mr Melvil was a Doctor of Divinity and so long as Episcopall persecution permitted did sit with great renoune in the prime chaire we had of that faculty George Buchanan had sometimes as I have heard beene a Preacher at St Andrewes after his long travells he was employed by our Church and State to be a Teacher to King James and his Family of his saithfu nesse in this charge he lest I believe to the world good andisati factory tokens the eminency of this person was so great that no society of men need bee ashamed to have been moderated by his wised me Your next exception against the Presbytery is for their Expectants Expectants are not Lay-Preachers these be the Sonnes of the Prophers who in their preparations for the Ministery at their first exercises for assay and tryall are heard in the Presbytery with this practise no reasonable man can finde fault it is naturally impossible for any without a miracle to attaine the habite of preaching but by divers Initiall and preparatory actions where can these be so fitly performed as in the Classes The Expectants are present in the Classes for their training not as Members for they doe not voyce in any matters of Discipline The true mystery of this controversie is that the Expectants are permitted to preach before the holy hands of a Bishop have conferred upon them the Order of a Deacon and so power to preach and baptize The Church of Scotland did alwayes reject this corruption as clearly contrary to Scripture Your gird at the Presbytery of Edenburgh is weak and unconsiderable The Presbytery of Edingburgh usurp no power over any other for that meeting has no power at all above the meanest Presbytery in the Kingdome notwithstanding of all the service which the gifts of the Members thereof may performe to any who are pleased to crave their advice It s not to be supposed but men of eminent gifts where ever they live must have an influence upon many others we doe remember it to our griefe that you and your Companions while you lived in that Presbytery which you mock did send forth your Episcopall Arminian and Popish poyson to all the corners of the Land East West South and North. That King Iames at Hampton Court Pag. 6. King Iames aversion from Presbytery and affliction to Episcopacy makes not this the better not that the worse and elsewhere did speak his pleasure of the Presbytery makes it nothing the worse his resolution to keep up Eiscopacy in England for his own ends moved him to discountenance what ever opposed it yet so that in his Basilicon doron at divers other occasions he gave luculent Testimonies to many Presbyterian Divines of his own acquaintance preferring them for grace and honesty before all those whom he could make willing to accept of Bishopricks The best Princes
before any Assemblies were in Scotland should be laid to their charge But what may those absurd asserions of Iohn Knox be he sayes as you alledge that the Nobility of Scotland who are borne Counsellours of the Kingdom and by the Laws have great priviledges may represse the fury and madnesse of a misled Prince I grant this to you must be a great Heresie who makes it one of the Articles of your faith that though Princes were as mad as ever Nero and should openly avow their desires to overturn all the sworn Lawes of their State and to kill without any cause all their Subjects yet for the Nobility or whole States of Parliament to make the smallest opposition or to goe one haires breadth beyond a naked supplication were no lesse then a damnable Rebellion and Treason but beleeve it the subjects of Scotland will not take off your hand such maximes without some Argument for their truth Iohn Knox is alledged to say that the Commonalty may bridle the cruell beasts and resorme Religion but what does it concerne the generall Assembly whatever power the Lords or Commons have by the Law or usurpe against the Law The matter whereof Iohn Knox is speaking is this The body of Scotland in the yeare 1557. were true and zealous Protestants the Masse and Images were to them Idols long before the governour and protector of the Kingdom Duke Hamilton was for the Religion At his first Parliament he did authorize some good beginnings of Reformation the Cardinall and Clergy at this grew mad and found means to translate the government from the Duke to the Queens Mother sister to the Duke of Guize and Cardinall of Lorain in the time both of the Duke and Queen Mothers Regency the cruelty of the Bishops was unsufferable They took divers of the most zealous Preachers and Professors men and women and publikely without any Commission from the Magistrate onely for their zeale to the truth of God did burne them quick as Hereticks After many yeers patience the people at last seeing no end of the Prelates fury did cause write Letters to some of their most wicked persecutors telling them that if they gave not over to murther their Brethren themselves should taste of that Cup of which they forced others to drink All the Reformation which the people at that time practised was to keep themselves pure from most vile Idolatry and in private to heare the Word of God purely preached They made no publike Reformation till first they had openly supplicated the Queen and gotten her allowance and a promise of an Act of Parliament in the yeare 1558. which promise when the Protestant Nobility Gentry and Commons did presse in face of Parliament it was not denyed by the Queen but cunningly put off upon assurance that all their desires at the first conveniency should be granted in the meane time she received their Protestation for a Liberty to live in their reformed Churches separate from Popish Idolaters and promised in due time to give to the Protesters full satisfaction Though you have brought together all the malicious a persions which your predecestors the Popish Prelates and Priests were wont at these very times to heap upon the heads of our blessed Reformers yet shall you never be able to leave any stain upon that happy work though here and elsewhere you spue out your dispight against it The Reformation of Scotland was begun by publique Authority in the first Parliament of Queen Mary the yeare 1542. holden by the Governour the Earle of Arran a Protestant for the time the setting up of it in publique was avowed and protested for in face of Parliament 1558. with the Queen Regents evident allowance and without the opposition of any but in the next Paâ—liament 1560. the whole Estates without the contradiction of any but three Popish Lords did set up by Law the whole body of that Religion which since by Gods mercy we have ever peaceably possessed except so farre as wicked Prelates have troubled us It is true The suspension of the Queene Regenâ—s authority was an act of the State which did nothing I rejudice the Soveraignty that Queen Regent notwithstanding of her good countenance and faire promises was forced by the privy Instructions of her wicked Brethren Guize and the Cardinall of Loraine to oppose Reformation wherein fore against her own minde as at her death shee professed shee went so farre as to bring in many thousands of the French to conquer and subdue the Land They began to the terror of the whole Isle to fortifie Leith and other Maritime places they exercised an evident tyranny both in Church and State and overthrew the Laws and liberties of the Nation which forced the cheise of the Nobility for the casting off of this yoak of stavery from the Church and State and preventing the danger which threatned the whole Isle to enter in a covenant of defence both among themselvs and with the Queen of England but without the least prejudice to the just authority of their Soveraign then Queen of France as it after appeared for when by the blessing of God and the helpe of the English they had ejected the French usurpers they did heartily receive and obey the Queen so soon as she came from France For the justification of all this I could bring formall testimonies out of Spotswood himselfe What you say of the deposition of Queen Regent from her Authority it is false that any Church Assembly did ever meddle with it lesse or more it was the Act of the three Estates how just let any judge She was the first woman as I remember that ever in Britain had the government of the State it belonged not to her by any right the Lawes provided that charge for Duke Hamilton but she and the Prelates couzend him out of his right and long possession she became not only a violent persecuter of all the faithful against the Law and her own promises but also went about evidently by violence and force of Arms to subdue the land to the tyranny of strangers much of this shee did albeit at the direction of her Brethren of Loraine yet without all commission from our Soveraigne her daughter When no supplication nor remonstrance could stop her the Estates of the Land being all denounced Rebels and Traitors by her did passe an Act not for depriving her of her Regency but for the suspending of her Authority till the next Parliament or till shee altered the course of her tyrannous government with an expresse protestation that the authority and power of the King and Queen of France their Soveraignes should remain to them sacred and inviolable This act of the Statewhether right or wrong what does it concerne the generall Assembly of the Church be it so that a Minister or two being called for advice did give their assent to this action which is the furthest our Enemies alledge yet what hath this to doe with our Church government
Generall Assembly were these actions either decreed or allowed by any Church meeting but the truth is you are gathering togither a confused masse of all the odious fables which you can either find or invent to the prejudice of Protestant Religion since it came first in Scotland to this day As for the Cardinalls slaughter Cardinall Beton by all Law and reason deserved death yet Knox did not defend the way of his slaughter all good men who heard it did heartily rejoyce at the judgement of God in taking away that cruell persecuter a most vicious wretch as Spotswood himselfe relates the story his crimes were many for which his life by all Law and reason was forfeit the suborning of a false Testament to King Iames the fifth for his owne advancement the burning quick by his owne Ecclesiastick authority the most holy Martyrs the marring with all his might the Reformation of Religion that such a man was removed in the indignation of God according to Mr. Wisheard the martyrs prophesie the whole Land did greatly rejoyce As for the manner of his slaughter that it was by the hands of privat men and not of the publick executiooner this no man did defend of Mr. Knox disallowing thereof Spotswood testifies expresly but that which troubles you is not the killing of a man but as you speake of a Preist of an Arch-Bishop of high dignity that is a Cardinall of Rome these circumstances are but poore agravations of that fact The other horrible fact at Edinburgh how detestable it was P. 31. An account of the tumult at Edinburgh for the Service-booke Let all the Isle judge When a company of base men were come to that height of insolency as to tread on the necks of the whole Kingdome as to make it an Act of high treason for the greatest of the Nobility to keep albeit very secretly in their Cabins a Copy of a Petition presented to his Majesty in person Vide the large Declaration against some new illegall usurpations of the Prelats to get Noblemen condemned to lose their heads only for this action and to avow in print the great Justice of such a sentence and the extraordinary favour in pardoning so high and treasonable an attempt When they became so extreamly malapert without so much as once acquainting the Church to bring in three or foure whole books full of Novations in Religion and withal to proclaime the absolute unlawfulnesse for the whole Land to make the smallest opposition if to morrow they should bring in upon the back of their former Novations the Masse in Latine or the A coran in Arabick when they came with a high hand to put in practice this their lawlesse Tyrannie that good zealous people whom you maliciously and falsly stile whoores and coale stealers should have their patience so far tempted as to break out in violence against you was it any wonder when atrocious injuries are multiplyed upon a Nation and by a few openly vicious and corrupt persons the current of Justice is stopped all the world will not be able to hold the passions of a people not totally subdued from breaking out into unjustifiable insolencies which a little Justice might easily have prevented What ever wrong might accompany the zeale of that very good people the reverend Answerers to the corrupt Doctors of Aberdeen doe openly disavow it and all of us were ever very well content that the whole action of that famous infamous day might have come to a perfect tryall That all persons according to their demerits might have suffered legall punishments That you and your associats the professed Authors of these popish books and violent introducers of them in our Church against all our Laws and Customes might have been brought to answer before your Judge competent a lawfull generall Assembly also that the interrupters of your shamefull usurpation might have come to an accompt for all their words deeds that day but you and your Colleagues knowing well your legall deserts would never bee pleased to come to any tryal You pressed very hard for some dayes that a number of very honest men and women might have bin put to bodily tortures and that all your abominable Novations might have been quietly without any scruple every where thereafter received upon these conditions your clemencie was content to intercede with his Majestie That the horrible and monstrous uprore might be pardoned but when this your overture was not hearkened unto your Antichristian furie broke out so high that nothing could satiate your rage but the destruction with an English Army of all your opposites in the whole Nation and the fastning upon the neck of the Country with undissoluble bands the yoke of a perpetuall slavery Though in opposition to this your horrid designe many thousands in both Nations be already destroyed though the King himselfe be brought in extream danger both of his Crown and person yet so matchlesse is your rage and that of your friends that unlesse your pride avarice and errors may be satisfied except Bishops books and a Turkish royaltie may be gotten established you are willing the King his Family the remnant of his people should all bee destroyed with you and turned into water to quench the fire of your ashes It 's a great mercy of God to these Lands that such unparalelled furies are not buried below the ground or beaten off to so remote corners that they may no more bee seene in the societies of men either of Church or State From your 32. page P. 32. Our Assemblies did ever deferre all loyall subjection to the King as a man distracted ye ramble up and downe backward and forward you rayell in so many things old and new that to follow you with any orderly cleere and distinct answer I think it impossible Your first gybe is at the power of the Generall Assembly which the King and Parliament has allowed unto it and whereof they are in a quiet possession to wit that in matters meerely Spirituall they are the last ordinary Iudges but if they should miscarry that the King and Parliament should not have power to make them reforme their errours it never came in any of our minds Your next calumny is that wee count it but a curtesie and no necessary duty to Petition for the civill sanction to our Acts and that if our Petitions bee not granted we are ready by Excommunication and rebellion to force the King and the State to our will These are but Symptomes of a spirit in which Excommunication has wrought its first effect I wish it might worke farther for your repentance and salvation For proofe of the Assemblies usurping over the King Mr. Hinderson is farr from all disloyall and papall humours you alledge first the late Sermon of the Scottish Pope at Westminister and then you run backe upon our first reformation It is true that Scottish Pope was the man whom the Generall Assembly made their instrument to deliver
did enquire at the Noblemen how they durst conveene without his expresse warrant Lindsay by kind a zealous Spirit but ever most Loyall being in passion at this question that when their Lives and Religion as they conceaved were in extreame and present hazard they should be quarrelled for meeting in a peaceable manner only to draw a modest supplication did say that they durst doe more then meet to supplicate with these words his Majestie was offended but not in that degree as to cast downe his countenance on the Noble man therefore only he went away without giving any answer to their petition What here you add of your owne of craving justice against the Counsellors of laying hold upon some of their garments all is grosly false even Spotswood being Judge who had much better reason to know the Acts of that day then you who then was scarce borne but he was one of the most diligent of all the company to arme himselfe and all others he could especially his patâ—on Tarfichen The Messengers returning to them that sent them reported the matter as it was that his Majestie had not deigned them with any answer at all this did much increase the feare of the whole company while they are in consultation what to doe some without the doors suborned by the malecontent Courtiers did cry that Huntly and the Popish Lords were comming upon them to make a massacre Master Robert Bruce did what he was able to compose the people but amazement had stopped their eares all got to their Arms in which they did not continue a full half houre for before the Sermon ended it behoved to be nere ten and before they could conveene draw up their supplication goe to the King and returne doubtles it was more then eleven and long before twelve all the tumult was quieted the King on foot went downe the streets in peace to his dinner in the Abby and came up againe to Counsell before two of the clocke no violence at all was so much as offered to any man The people being frighted and apprehending upon very probable grounds a present surprise of their towne and persons run to their Arms for defence but finding no Enemie to appeare presently they laid aside their weapons without any compulsion either from the Hammer men or any other for such a poore resistance as all their opposits were able then to have made could have saved no man out of their hand to whom they had intended any reall harme No tumult in the world was ever more harmeles in the effects nor more innocent in the causes if you consider all those who did openly act therein What you speake of a Letter to Hamilton you are extreamely malitious therein when you have told us two great untruths first that the result of the Ministers deliberation was to goe to armes Secondly that they did conclude to pull the Counseliours from His Majesties side in both which Spoâ—swood who was present at all these Counsells is against you you will contradict him in this third also for he tells us that there was no word of any Letter to any man that day of the tumult but to morrow when at Court their was nothing heard but hanging of Ministers and Citizens heading of Noblemen and Barons razeing of the Towne of Edinburgh and plowing of it to be sowen with Salt then some Letters were appointed to be sent to Hamilton Bacleugh and others to come and countenance their Brethren that Religion might not be ruined this was all the direction as your Author setts it downe He says indeed that Master Robert Bruce wrot some more to my Lord Hamilton but who dare trust a Prelates word when his designe is to disgrace his enemy or if all were true what does the Letter of any particular Minister concerne the Church of Scotland or the Generall Assembly This was the 17. day of December the Courtiers and Prelaticall faction did exaggerate it to the most horrid rebellion that ever was upon the earth but how unjustly Queen Elizabeth by her wise Letters recorded by Speâ—swood does well declare It was indeed a most sad day to all the Godly but most joyfull to all their enemies for as they did insolently but too truly boast it paved them a very faire way to bring Prerogative to its Throne yea to set it up upon the highest pinacle of power they could desire and withall to make Bishops get upon their kicking horse which before would never receave them It put into the hand of the Prince a facility without any hazard of future resistance to doe in the Church and State what ever seemed good in his eyes Such advantages are exceeding sweet in the mouth and are swallowed downe with a great deale of greedinesse by those who long have been lying in waite to catch them but ere all bee done they become in the belly wormwood and gall as the royall family to our griefe but the Prelates and Malignant Courtiers to our good enough liking doe feele this day Wee are come at last to the end of your Calumnious stories which your selfe upon very good reason confesseth to be wearisome Mr. Iames Melvil vindicated from assisting of Bothuel against the King But yet before you can be drawne off you must hint at on another as false and malicious as any of the former Your Author in this and the rest of your narrations is only Spotswood whom in this wicked fable though you and he both would sweare it no intelligent Scotsman would beleeve Who will believe that Master James Melvil a most gracious and wife man very much in favour with the King more then any of those who then were hunting after Bishopricks that this faithfull man having in his hands the religious aimes and charitable contribution of the Country to the distressed towne of Geneva the City in the whole world which Scotland at that time loved best should send it to the Earle Bothwell to raise an Army against the King at a time when his Majestie was in so good tearmes with the Church as ever either after or before when the Towne of Edinborough was most ready for one word of the Kings mouth to run out presently with him and fight with Bothwell who then was much hated by all the godâ—y for his adulteries and other personall crimes and was knowne to bee confederate with the popish Lords against the Church and who lately in the eighty eight had been a forward perswader to invade England by Land as the Spaniards did by Sea that such a man should be assisted against the King and Town of Edinborough by any moneys much lesse by the almes gathered for Geneva and that al this should be done by Master Iames Melvil is such a calumnie as Satan could not fancie a falser but a farre more foolish lyar then either you or Spotswood might easily have contrived a more probable fable this is like the Tale of Beza's conversion to poperie of Calvins consultation to
change the Sabbath day of Luthers conference with the Devill When you have over-wearied both your selfe and us P. 53.54 A Declaration upon all the 12. Articles imputed to us you will yet adde as a mantissa and appendix two other points first you set down the twelve Articles of our Creed Since you are so good at the confessing of your Neighbours I would gladly know what your own faith may be what you ascribe here to us ye doe it without any ground either of reason or Authoritie your simple assertions must be the very Articles of your Creed Some yeares agoe we did see a book called Ladonsium Autocatacrisis wherein by formall and expresse testimonies not the articles of your faith for you are an avowed paucifidian but such opinions as you and your companions did preach and print are set down at large Wherein it was demonstrate that you and your bosome friends in Aberdeen and Edinburgh did hold grosser Arminianisme Popery and Tiranny then the worst of the Canterburians in England also in the beginning of this Treatise we did see under your owne hand such a confession of your faith as few of the most malignant of your party will have the impudence to subscribe it with you But be your faith what it may for it is like that times and occasions may make you hide or open yea vary and change as you find it most convenient for your purpose I am content freely to tell you my mind in all these Articles as you stile them of our Creed I never heard of the first but in your Pamphlet no Presbiterian ever dreamed of any necessity to change the government of the State that it might be conforme to the Church but many Episcopall and all Erastians doe hold the government of the Church to bee a matter of so indifferent arbitrary and changeable a nature that it may well comply and ought to be conformed to the model of every State wherein it requires to be entertained The true tenet of all approved among us so farre as I know is that the government of the Church and State are two really distinct policies both ordained of God which without his displeasure may not bee confounded nor ought not to encroach one upon another That the wrath of God will be on that Church and on these Church-men who for any advantage they apprehend can come either to the Church or to themselves will go to trouble or change any civil State be it Monarchy Aristocracie Democracy or what ever els which by the just lawes of any people is setled in a Land on the other side that God will be angry with every State and all those Statesmen who for the advancement of their owne or the States interest will goe to impede trouble or change that government of the Church which Christ in his Testament has left to his servants unto his second comming For the second we doe maintaine a parity among Ministers courting it an Antichristian ambition for any one to make himselfe Lord Bishop over the rest but this is farre from any Democracy for wee put all the Ministers of a Kingdome under the jurisdiction of a Nationall Assembly the rules whereof use to be so just and exact that where they are reverenced there is no danger of any popular confusion much lesse then where Episcopall either Tiranny or Obligarchy does prevaile For the third to our Consistories we give no Independent power these with us are all subordinate to Classicall Presbiteries and to our Nationall Assemblies wee give no power to meddle with any temporall things at all nor any Legislative power about things spirituall When they have past their Votes upon a matter spirituall according to the rules of the word of God If any Law or civill Sanction bee needfull they supplicate the Magistrate whom they never presume to command to be an executioner of their Decrees these be but your calumnies only they intreat him to make such Laws as hee finds the equity of the matter in his own conscience to require You indeed professe an inthronization of Bishops and give to them not only a directive power over the King but an authoritative to excommunicate him and if he to save his Crowne will be content that his Parliaments doe with your Thrones and Myters what they thinke expedient you print to the world that this shall bring a remedilesse and perpetuall ruine both on the King and his people themselves and their posterities For the fourth the Lawes of Scotland allow to the Generall Assembly a power to Judge of all divine truths and heresies so that if they find popish Episcopall or what ever Errours established by Acts of Parliament yet they are authorized to proceed to give their sentence from the word of God not of the Law but of the Errour to which Church-men in their ignorance have procured a Sanction as for the Law the Parliament when they sit take it into their owne consideration never any Assembly of the reformed Church dealt either with Prince or Parliament for the reclaiming of a Law otherwise then by humble supplication What you speake of a corrective power the Church of Scotland did ever disclaime it all compulsion by outward inconvenients they remitted ever to the State As for the censures of the Church no faction ever has been more prodigall of them both in doctrine and practise then you and your gracious Brethren the Prelats For the fifth we exeem no Minister who preaches Treason from the cognisance and punishment of the Magistrate only by the Laws of our Kingdome the judgement of Ministers doctrine in the first instance belongs to the Ecclesiastich Judicatory For the sixth we pretend no power to make the Magistrate adde the civill Sanction to any of our Assemblies Decrees further then his own conscience the Justice of the thing the former Laws of the Land the humble and earnest desire of the Subjects does plead for but you before your Tippets and Rotchets be laid aside will permit three Kingdomes to be consumed with fire and sword without any remedy unlesse your thrones may bee re-established King and people must be destroyed for ever And this you tell us must be and shall be but in many things wee have found you false prophets and feare not your causelesse curses For the seventh we maintain no power of the Church to reforme and preserve Religion but such as does well consist with that duty which God has laid upon the Magistrate both for the reformation of Religion and preservation of it when it is reformed For the eight wee maintaine that the sins of the Magistrate does not excuse the people for their neglect of any duty that God has laid upon them and when Superiours are resolved to live and dye in Idolatrie we thinke that every inferiour Magistrate and every person is obliged to keepe himselfe free of corruption and so farre as he is able to reforme his owne soule but not to be a publick
ever aimed at was most immoderate and the most moderate Episcopacie that can be conceived is a meere human invention which has no ground at all in the word of God which in all times and places has proved unhappy to the Church and which at this time is talked of by some for no other end but to be a new beginning and step to such a Prelacie as may be serviceable to the Prince as before for the advanceing of his Prerogative in Church and State above all Law and reason How ridiculous is it to heare most immoderate spirits talke of moderation to speake of a moderate Episcopacie a moderate Popedome a moderate Tyranny is to tell us of a chast Bordell an honest cousinage a meeke murther and such like repugnancies men now are no more childish to be couzened by your distinctions out of their Covenant FINIS Good Reader BEE intreated to pardon sundry literall faults and many mispunctations and some other grosser typographicall faults which corrupt the sence An ANSWER to the DECLARATION AS Every passion when too much stirred The opposites of Presbytery blinded with malice have hurt themselves and no others by the reprinting of this Declaration has a power to send up vapours and mists for darkning the light of the minde so especially anger and malice doe dazle and blinde the eye of reason Too much wrath devests men so farre of understanding as to make them take up such Armes against an Enemy which cannot hurt him but fail not to pierce themselves and their best friends with dangerous wounds The opposites of Presbyteriall government be they Independents or Erastians or who ever when after all other devices they thinke fit for the helpe of their cause to reprint here and put in the hand of people the old and forgotten calumnies formerly invented and spread by the SCOTS excommunicate Prelates by such weapons they will not be able to effect what they intend yet by such practises they cannot faile in the heart of intelligent beholders to wound their owne reputation proclaiming either grosse ignorance or very malicious fraud in this their offer to abuse the simplicity of people with writs which are fraughted with most notorious lyes Concerning the Title This writ of Adamsons is paralell to Balcanquals large Declaration A Declaration made by King JAMES in Scotland They who have acquaintance with the SCOTS affaires of that time doe know this writ to have no more relation unto King JAMES then the late large Declaration had to King CHARLES both carry the name of Kings but the specious pretence of a royal title was not able to save the true Authors of either from the just censure which they deserved by such false and malicious slandering of their Mother-Church and native Country Doctor Balcanquall for his wicked service in penning that large Declaration in King CHARLE's name was condemned as a Lyar and Incendiary and so stands registred both in that generall Assembly a The Generall Assembly at Edinburgh 1639. p. 9. the Assembly resenting the great dishonour done to God our King this Church and â—â—â—ole Kingdome by the Book called A larg Declaration have collected some amongst many of its false grossâ— and absurd passages They did supplicate to have Toâ—â—or Balcanquall the knowne Author cited for exemplary punishment and Parliament of Scotland b The secord Parliament of Kin Charles p. 29. the Booke called Al arge Dâ—craration was found to be full of lyes and known untruths and therefore the Parliament ordaines the Authoâ—s and spreaders thereof to be most severely punished to discourage all such underminers of his Majesties throne and abusers of his royall name by prefixing the same to such scandalous and dishonourable Treatises ibi p. 126. the Act against the five incendiaries Doctor Walter Balcanquall c. which King CHARLES by the advice of his Houses here did lately ratifie c Second Parliament of King Charles p. 72. whereunto it was an wered by the English Commissioners that his Majesty doth in the name of a King promise to publish the said Acts as is above specified The Bishop Adamsor for the like disservice in King James pretended Declaration does not also remaine in the Records of the Assemblies and Parliaments of Scotland â—ignmatized with the same Note of perpetuall infamy nothing impeded but his publicke Declaration of repentance That King James Adamson confesseth himself to be the Author notwithstanding of all his favour to Episcopacy was neither the Author nor approver of this Declaration I demonstrate thus First Master Patricke Adamson upon his death-bed put it under his hand with a solemn Oath that he himselfe was the Author of that Wryt which hee had drawne by the direction of the Chancellour and Secretary two very wicked Courtiers d The recantation of Patrick Adamson Bishop of St. Andrewes Whereas I am burdened to be the setter forth of the Booke called the Kings Declaration wherein the whole order of the Church is condemned and traduced I protest before God that I was commanded to write the same by the Chancellour for the time but chiefly by the Secretary another great Courtier contrary to the minde of the King o King Iames did disclaim it Secondly when the Commissioners of the generall Assembly the very next yeere at the Parliament of Lithgow did complaine to the King of the many false and wicked aspersions of that Declaration His Majesty did take such notice of their grievances that with his owne hand he did write a new Declaration much differing from the former which he told them was not his but the Archbishops e These animadversions and supplications being presented to his Majestie by the Ministers the King tooke paines himselfe by the space of foure and twenty houres to take him to his Cabinet and with his owne hand both wrote and penned this Declaration following word by word Ibid. the Bishop of St. Andrewes his own Declaration c. Thirdly What ever in it is contrary to Presbytery is condemned by posterior Parliaments the Acts of Parliament upon which this Declaration is grounded and which it doth interpret were all annulled some few years thereafter and the Presbiterian government which this writ tendeth to disgrace was compleatly set up by the King and States of Parliament to the great joy of the whole Land f Twelfth Parli of King James the 6. 1592. Act 1. our Soveraigne Lord and Estates of this present Parliament ratifies and approves the generall Assembly appointed by the said Kirke and declares that it shall be lawfull to the Kirk and Ministers every yeere at the least and ofter pro re nata as occasion and necessity shall require to hold and keepe generall Assemblies and also ratifies and approves the Synodall and Provinciall Assemblies to be holden by the said Kirk and Ministers twice every yeere as they have beene and are presently in use to doe within every Province of this Realm as also
meanest guiltlesse The guilt of our blood shall not onely lie upon the Prince but also upon our own Brethren Bishops Counsellours and Commissioners it is they even they that have stirred our Prince against us we must therefore lay the blame and burden of our blood upon them especially however the rest above written be also partakers of their fins with them And as to the rest of our Brethen who either by silence approve or by crying Peace Peace strengthen the arme of the wicked that they cannot returne in the meane time make the hearts of the righteous sad they shall all in like manner be guilty of our blood and of high treason against the King of Kings the Lord Jesus Christ his Crowne and Kingdome Next unto them all Counsellours Chancellour President Comptroller Advocate and next unto them all that first or last sate in Counsell and did not beare plaine testimony of Jesus Christ and his Kingdome for which we doe suffer and next unto them all these who should have been present and supplied who should at such times have come and made open testimony of Christ faithfully although it had been contrary to plaine Law and hazard of their lives when the poor Jewes were in such danger that nothing was expected but utter destruction Queen Ester after three days fasting concluded thus with her selfe Ester 9.16 I will said she goe in to the King though it be not according to Law and if I perish I perish with this resolution such as are borne Counsellours should have said Christs Kingdome is now in my hand and I am bound also and sworne by a speciall Covenant to maintaine the Doctrine and Discipline thereof according to my vocation and power all the dayes of my life under all the paines contained in the Book of God and danger both of body and soule in the day of Gods fearfull judgement and therefore though I should perish in the cause yet will I speak for it and to my power defend it according to my vocation Finally all those that counsels commands consents and allowes are guilty in the sight of God but the mourners for these evils and the faithfull of the Land and they who are unfainedly grieved in heart for all the abominations these are marked as not being guilty Ezek. 9. I know not whether I shall ever have occasion to write againe and therefore by this Leteer as my latter will and testament I give testimony and warning and knowledge of those things to all men according to the Lords direction to the Prophet Son of man I have made c. therefore I give warning to all men hereby Ezek. 33.7 that no mans blood be required at my hand Thus desiring the help of your prayers with my humble commendations and service in Christ to my Lord your Husband and to all the Saints there the Messenger of peace be with you all for evermore Amen Yours to my full power for the time Christs Prisoner JOHN WELSCH From Blacknesse Jan. 16. 1606. This second Letter was written before the first to Sir William Levinstone of Kilsyth one of the Lords of the Colledge of Iustice RIght honorable Sir after my hearty salutations Your love and care towards us uttered many wayes hath certainly comforted me and having no other thing to requite as I am able I shall desire the Lord who is mighty and hath taken upon him so to doe to meet you and yours with consolations in his good time As for the matter it selfe the bearer will shew you that what is required is such a thing as in the sight of our Lord we may not doe without both the hazard of our consciences and liberty of Christs Kingdome which should be deerer to us then any thing else What a slavery were it for us to binde our consciences in the service of our God in the meanest point of our callings to the will of man or Angels And we are fully resolved that which we did was acceptable service to our God who hath put it up as service done to him and has allowed and sealed it to us by many tokens so that it were more then high impiety and apostacy to testifie the ruine or undoing of any thing which our God hath ordained to be done and has accepted of us being done a This Letter is an Answer of Master Welsh to Kilsyth it seemes Spotswood then Archbishop of Glasgow had moved Kilsyth to tempt the prisoners after their condemnation to acknowledge a fault and crave pardon for their actions at Aberdeen upon assurance of libertie this overture Master Welsh rejects as unlawfull and withall denounces the judgement of God against Spotswood the chiefe instrument of the gracious Ministers oppression in a mervailous and altogether Propheticall manner Wee Sir if the Lord will are yet ready to doe more in our callings and to suffer more for the same if so be it wil please our God to call us to it and strengthen us in it for in our selves we dare promise nothing but in our God all things As for that instrument Spotswood we are sure the Lord will never blesse that man but a malediction lyes upon him and shall accompany all his doings and it may be Sir your eyes shall see as great confusion covering him ere he goe to the grave as did his predecessours Now surely Sir I am farre from bitternesse but here I denounce the wrath of an everlasting God against him which assuredly shall fall except it be prevented Sir Dagon shall not stand before the Arke of the Lord and those names of blasphemy that he weares of Lord Bishop and Archbishop will have a fearfull end a This Prophesie of the abolishing of Episcopacy is now accomplished in our eyes Not one beck is to be given to Haman suppose he were as great a Courtier as ever he was suppose the Decree were given out and sealed with the Kings Ring Deliverance will come to us elsewhere and not by him that hath been so sore an instrument not against our persons that were nothing and I protest to you Sir in the fight of my God I forgive him all the evill that ever he hath done or can doe to me but unto Christs poore Kirk in stamping underfoot so glorious a Kingdome and beauty as was once in this Land he has helped to cut Sampsons haire and to expose him to mocks but the Lord will not be mocked he shall be cast away as out of a sling-stone his name shall rot and a malediction shall fall upon his posterity after he is gone c Not a word of this is fallen to the ground Spotswood in the top of all his honours when he had come up to be Archbishop of St. Andrewes and Chancellour of the Kingdome he was cast out of Scotland and dyed a poore miserable man at London having not a sixpence of his own to buy Bread or to put him in his grave but as it was begged at Court the evident hand of God lighted on his posterity his Lands of Darsie all the conquesse he was able to make to his eldest Son Sir Jo. Spotswood is ready to be sold and that branch of his posterity to goe a begging his second Son Sir Robert Spotswood President of the Colledge of Justice for his treason against Scotland did dye miserably on a scaffold at St. Andrews an obdured impenitent man his brother the Bishop of Clogher was cast out of his great estates in Ireland and here in extreame old age was put as he told us to teach children for his Bread and being unfit for that imployment he was long a suitor here at London for the meanest place in the Ministry that he might be kept from starving but could not obtaine it Let this Letter Sir be a Monument of it that it was told before that whē it shall come to passe it may be seene there was warning given him and therfore Sir seeing I have not the accesse my selfe if it would please God to move you I wish you did deliver this hard Message unto him not as from me I assure you but as from the Lord that except he repent he shall be made a fearfull spectacle of Gods wrath in this Land d These things were Prophesied in the yeer 1605. forty yeers before their full performance contrary to al worldly appearance for then and many yeeres after Master Welsh his death it was more improbable that the Episcopall thrones in the King of Britains Dominions could ever have been overthrown by any humane force then that the See of the Pope at Rome and the Seats of all the Antichristian Prelates in Italy France and Spain or any where this day in the Earth should be overturned in despight of all their Defenders I have kept the matter onely to my selfe as our Brother will shew you Now the grace of God be multiplyed upon you Yours from my heart to be commanded in the Lord. JOHN WELSH From Blacknesse Oct. 9. 1605.