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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51154	An apology for the clergy of Scotland chiefly oppos'd to the censures, calumnies, and accusations of a late Presbyterian vindicator, in a letter to a friend : wherein his vanity, partiality and sophistry are modestly reproved, and the legal establishment of episcopacy in that kingdom, from the beginning of the Reformation, is made evident from history and the records of Parliament : together with a postscript, relating to a scandalous pamphlet intituled, An answer to The Scotch Presbyterian eloquence.	Monro, Alexander, d. 1715?	1693 (1693)	Wing M2437; ESTC R20155	87,009	107

to connive a while at at their Insolence for they had preached the People into a persuasion that the King was to betray his own Crown and Kingdoms to the King of Spain And when three Noblemen were brought to Tryal before the Justice the Ministers would needs order the Process in October 1593 and to back them they stirred up multitudes of the Rabble to Arms thereby to force Justice to decide in their favour nor would they disband or abstain from coming before the Judges in armed Crowds although the King and Council did by Proclamation prohibit them If this be Presbyterian Government it must be confessed that Anno 1590 1591 1592 and 1593. Presbyters had it solely But all this time Bishops did exist by Law enjoyed their Rents and preached in their Churches if you trust not us Notice the most Authentic Records of the Kingdom By Act of Parliament 1. Jac. 6. Chap. 7. Ministers are ordered to be presented by the Patrons to the Superintendent of the Diocese Note At this time most of the Bishops were Popish which occasioned the Protestants to appoint Superintendents Anno 1572. Parl. 3. Jac. 6. Chap 45. The Government of the Church is declared to be in the Archbishops Bishops and Superintendents Note Both Bishops and Superintendents are contemporary then in the Church The like owned Chap. 46. 48. and 54. of that Parliament In the year 1573. The Authority of the Bishops is owned by the first Act of the 4. Par. Jac. 6. In the year 1578. the like by Act. 63. Parl. 5. Jac. 6. In the year 1579. the like by Act. 71. Parliam 6. Jac. 6. In the year 1581. That the Bishops did continue in the Church appears from Act 100. Parl. 7. Jac. 6. The like appears from the Acts 106 and 114 of that Parliament In the year 1584. The Bishops Authority fully owned Act. 132. Parl. 8. Jac. 6 In the year 1587. It appears that Prelacy existed then by Act 28. Parl. 11. Jac. 6. Also in that 11. Parl. It appears by the Act of Annexation that Prelacy did still exist by Law even although their Temporalties were annexed to the Crown and by the 111. Act of that 11. Parl. In the year 1591 1592 1593 and 1594. The King and Bishops could not stop the Insolence of Presbyters nor their meeting in Synods and Assemblies without any interposition of the Royal Authority but this hindered not but that the Bishops did still exist by Law and exerced some part of their Office and in all Parliaments and Conventions of Estates the Prelates did did always Sit and Vote as the first of the three Estates as the Records and Sederunts of all the Parliaments will prove In the year 1596. Leslie Bishop of Ross dying at Brussels Mr. David Lindsey was presented by the King to the Bishoprick the very next year In the year 1598. there was a Conference appointed at Falkland betwixt the Commissioners of the Assembly and some appointed by the King to meet with them where they agreed on ten Articles or Propositions of Policy for the Church relating chiefly to the Clergy's Votes in Parliament and the Elections of Bishops in the Dioceses some of these Propositions were foolish but it was thought convenient that the King should comply with those Hot Heads in some things for at that time Severals began to debate his Right of Succession to the Crown of England and so he would have all quiet at Home yet still this is evident that Bishops did then exist by Law and that altho something concerning them was debated yet their Office and Order was not In the year 1600 these forementioned Articles were appoved in the Assembly at Monross March 28 1600. and to that Assembly Mr. Dury who was the chief Tool with Mr. Melvil for parity at his death did write an Exhortation disowning his former Errors and earnestly advising them to submit to the ancient Order and to chuse good Bishops of the best of the Ministers In the year 1601. the King called an Assembly of the Church to meet at Brunt Island where many good things were Enacted both for the true Liberty of the Church and for reclaiming the Popish Nobility from their Errors which proved more effectual and pacific than all the former furious Methods which at that time were promoted by a Hot Headed Man called Davidson who by a Letter to the Assembly incited them to declare against the Kings Hypocrisie and other Errors The Assembly would have proceeded to Censure him but the King would not allow it saying it was matter of Joy that these Hot Heads were reduced to one or some few In the year 1602. the King in an Assembly at Halyrood-House did shew great Clemency to some firy Ministers whom the Assembly would have Censured as also he gave great Satisfaction to the whole Assembly and Nation by his excellent Proposals for establishing Provisions both for Bishops and Presbyters And in this Assembly of the Church was the fifth of August appointed an Anniversary Thanksgiving for the Kings Delivery from Gowry's Conspiracy Before the Diet appointed for the next General Assembly the Crown of England did fall to the King by the Death of Queen Elizabeth so there was no meeting of Church General Assemblies for a while but the few remaining Hot Headed Presbyters were very busie on the Kings removal so far and fearing the excellent Order of the English Church the great Safety and Peace of Britain depending on an intire and full Concord of the Island they were apprehensive that upon such Considerations the King would heartily promote a further Establishment of Episcopal Jurisdiction in Scotland The Presbyterians in this Juncture did busily stir up Prejudices in the People against the Church of England tho undoubtedly the best Reformed Church and greatest Bulwark against Popery And though the King for good Reasons when he went to England Adjourned the General Assembly from July 1604 to July 1605. yet these Men prevailed with Nine of the Fifty Presbyteries of Scotland to keep the Meeting notwithstanding of the Kings Prorogation where Thirteen Persons meeting did most Seditiously run into such Declarations against the Statutes and standing Laws as were by the Judicatures declared Treason and for which Severals of the Thirteen were Condemned before the Justices For they could not be persuaded either to acknowledge or revoke their seditious Pasquils but they were afterwards pardoned by the King when they confessed that the Chancellour encouraged their Meeting in July 1604. and proved it which forced the Chancellour to prove likewise that they promised to connive at his being a Papist and his Possession of what he had of the Church Lands upon Condition he should own them against Episcopacy whereupon the King said that the Presbyterians would betray the Protestant Religion in hatred to Episcopacy and the Chancellour would betray Episcopacy for greed of their Temporalties So far my Author And now from all this I infer that the first Reformers of our Religion in

the World when the Matter of Fact is so very recent and known to all the Inhabitants at Edenburgh and the Leading Presbyterians are very loth to part with the honor of this Atchievement so agreeable to their constant Genius and former Practises for one of their chief Advocates pleaded lately before the Judges in the Tryal of Mr. Wallace that they that Pillaged the Kings House were a Company of Grave Reasonable Thinking Men Commanded by a Lord of the Sessions We see then by this one single Instance the Spirit of Lies and Vanity that runs through his Book For if it be undenyable that this Rabble Reformation was concerted by the Ringleaders of the Faction Then he must own that the Tumults were not the accidental Essorts of some angry inconsiderable People but the united endeavours of the Presbyterians And indeed this Essay at Edenburgh was but the Preface to other marks of the Kindness they intended the Clergy in that place if their violence had not been happily prevented by the Generous Resolution of that Learned and Illustrious Society of the College of Justice and it is very probable that the Vindicator wrote down this Story carlesly and hand over head For if he had advised with his Friends at Edenburgh George Stirling the Apothecary and Mr. Menzies in the Locken buiths they could not be so self-denyed as to be willingly deprived of the honour they had in managing and contriving this Tumult It was a disparagement to their Zeal and Activity to be robbed of the Glory they acquired in this Enterprise I cannot but acknowledge that it is highly indecent to name particular Men but what shall we say when we have to do with such Wasps and Hornets you see then by the Reflections I have made of this General Topick what the Superstructure must be The next thing under which he endeavours to cover himself and his Party is his fancy of an Interregnum He tells us gravely in many places of his Book that what was done against the Clergy was done in an Interregnum and that the People were highly provoked by the Clergy that they were instrumental in the Sufferings of the Non-Conformists That the Clergy themselves were but profligate and debauched and that they are generally such as are unacquainted with the operation of the Spirit of God upon their Hearts and if this does not excuse yet it extenuates what those zealous Patriots did at that time to advance the Glorious Reformation I cannot but take notice in the first place of his wild imagination of an Interregnum which cannot properly fall out in an Hereditary Monarchy for the King never dies For Though the Laws were not put in Execution in that Interval of Confusion and uncertainty yet they retained their Legal Force and Authority The Government was indeed in a Convulsive Motion so that it could not perform the ordinary Functions of Order and Justice but does he think that because humane Laws were in that Interval hindred that therefore the Godly and Zealous Presbyterians were loosed from the Obligations of the Laws of Nature and Religion Is there no security against the violent hands of those Saints but the coercive power of Laws How can they pretend to be better Christians than the rest of their Neighbours when they venture upon the most unchristian Practices Which puts me in mind of the Character that Cornelius Tacitus gives of the Jews They were kind and affectionate to their own Kindred but they retained adversus omnes alios hostile odium Juvenal gives the same Character of them but it is much more agreeable to the Presbyterians Does he think that the Notion of an Interregnum can justifie what modest Men are ashamed to own And is it for the honour of his Party that he should proclaim to the World that they stand not in awe of the Divine Laws unless they are restrained by the terrour of Humane Laws Why do they pretend to be acquainted with the Gospel when they openly and jointly contomn its most essential Precepts But he says the People were much injured and provoked by the Clergy What the Clergy in the West of Scotland did I know not if I make an estimate of their proceedings against Non-Conformists from the practice of our Clergy-Men in other parts of the Nation I declare sincerely to you I never knew one of them that prosecuted the Dissenters without great reluctancy nay I knew many of them that interposed with sincere kindness and vigor for their Parishioners frequently and with success too when they were obnoxious to the Laws But let us suppose that the Clergy did prosecute the Dissenters according to Law they did nothing in this but what they were obliged to do the Peace of the Nation was indangered the Legal and Lineal Monarchy was undermined and the Government by such frequent shakings most likely to relapse into its former state of Civil War and Confusion and the souls of the People committed to their Care were poysoned with dark and Enthusiastick Principles Speaking evil of Dignities took place of the Ten Commandments and a Schism unreasonable in its beginnings and disowned by all Protestant Churches and the learnedest Presbyterians was propagated in all corners of the Nation with all vigor and diligence and ought the Clergy to look on and continue idle Spectators when the Peace and Safety of their Country Spiritual and Temporal was so daringly and factiously invaded Were they not obliged by the Laws of God and Man to stop this Career of Insolence and Villany and though they ought to undeceive the poor deluded People by all the soft Methods of tenderness and meekness yet the Boutefeu's and Incendiaries were to be chastised and lashed with greater severities and our Governours did nothing then but what they ought to have done in their own defence unless they had resolved to Sacrifice the Fundamental Constitution of the Monarchy and their own Honours Dignities and Estates unto the Caprice and Ambition of some bigotted Covenanters But I would ask the Vindicator whether they of the Clergy that never prosecuted any of the Dissenters were the more kindly treated upon this last Revolution I know severals of them who have been most spitefully used by the Presbyterians though formerly they did them all the good Offices that lay in their power The Clergy as well as the Laity were obliged by the Laws of the Land and by the Fundamental Laws of Humane Society to crush and extirpate the beginnings of Rebellion and the attempts of such as preached the most pernicious Principles until at last the Rebels justified in their Books and Sermons open and avowed Murthers And that by the most natural Consequences from their own Principles when the wickedness of the Party appeared thus terrible to the Peace of the Nation was it to be expected that our Governours should look on and suffer their own Throats to be cut their Families to be forfeited their King to be dethroned their