general assembly IN this Chapter the challenge is that there are no appeals from the general Assembly to the King as in England from the Bishops Courts to the King in Chauncery Appeales in Scotland from a generall Assemâ—ly were no lesse irrational then illegall where a Commission uses to be given to delegats who discusse the appeals Ans The warner considers not the difference of the Government of the Church of Scotland from that which was in England what the Parliament is in the State that the general assembly is in the Church of Scotland both are the highest Courts in their own kinde There is no appeal any where in moderate Monarchies to the Kings person but to the King in certain legall Courts as the Warner here confesseth the appeal from Bishops lies not to the King in his person but to the King in his Court of Chancery As no man in Scotland is permitted to appeal in a civill cause from the Lords of Session much lesse from the Parliament so no man in an ecclesiastick cause is permitted by the very civil Law of Scotland to appeal from the general Assembly According to the Scots order and practice the King in person or else by his high Commissioner sits as usually in the generall Assembly as in Parliament But though it were not so yet an appeal from a generall Assembly to be discussed in a court of Delegats were unbeseeming and unreasonable the one court consisting of above two hundred all chosen men the best and most able of the Kingdom the other but of two or three often of very small either abilities or integrity who yet may be more fit to discern in an Ecclesiastick cause then a single Bishop or his Official the ordinary Trustee in all acts of Jurisdiction for the whole Dioces But the Scots way of managing Ecclesiastick causes is a great deal more just safe and Satisfactory to any rational man then that old Popish order of the English where all the spirituall Jurisdiction of the whole Dioces was in the hand of one mercenary Officiall without all relief from his Sentence except by an appeal as of old to the Pope and his Delegats so thereafter to the King though never to be cognosced upon by himself but as it was of old by two or three Delegats the weakest of all Courts often for the quality and ever for the number of the Judges The Churches â—â—st severity aâ—â—inst Montâ—â—mery Aâ—â—mson was â—proven by â—â—e King and â—â—e parties â—â—mselves Two Instances are brought by the Warner to prove the Church of Scotlands stopping of appeals from the generall Assembly to the King the cases of Montgomery and Adamson if the causes and events of the named cases had been well known to the Warner as he made this chapter disproportionably short so readily be might have deleted it altogether But these men were infamous not onely in their Ministeriall charges but in their life and conversation both became so insolent that contrary to the established order of the Church and Kingdom being suborned by wicked Statesmen who in that day of darkness had well neer brought ruine both to King and Countrey would needs take upon them the Office of Arch-Bishops While the Assembly was in Process with them for their manifold and high misdeameanors the King was moved by them and their evil Patrons to shew his high displeasure against the Assemblies of the Church they for his Majâ—sties satisfaction sent their Commissioners and had many conferences whereby the pride and contempt of these Prelats did so encrease that at last they drew the sentence of Excommunication upon their own heads the King after some time did acknowledge the equity of the Church proceedings and professed his contentment therewith both these unhappy men were brought to a humble confession of their crimes and such signs of repentance that both after a renunciation of their titulary Bishopricks were re-admitted to the function of the Ministry which they had deserted Never any other before or after in Scotland did appeal from the generall Assembly to the King the late Excommunicate Prelate in their declinator against the Assembly of Glasgow did not appeal as I remember to the King but to another Generall Assembly to be constitute according to their own Popish and Tyrannicall principles CHAP. IV. Faulty Ministers in Scotland are lesse exempted from punishment then any other men THe Warner in his fourth Chapter The pride of Prelats lately but never the Presbytery did exempt their fellows from punishment for their civill faults offers to prove that the Scotish Discipline doth exempt Ministers from punishment for any treason or sedition they can act in their Pulpits Answ This challenge is like the rest very false The rules of the Church Discipline in Scotland obliges Churchmen to be subject to punishment not only for every fault for which any other man is lyable to censure but ordains them to be punished for sundry things which in other men are not at all questionable and whatever is consuâ—able in any they appoint it to be much more so in a Minister It is very untruâ— that the Pulpits in Scotland are Sanctuaries for any crime much lesse for the grievous crimes of sedition and treason Let the Warner remember how short a time it is since an Episcopall Chaire or a Canonicall Coâ—t did priviledge in England and Ireland from all censure either of Church or State great numbers who were notoriously known to be guilty of the foulest crimes Was ever the Warâ—â—â—â— companion Bishop Aderton challenged for his Sodomy so long as their common Patron of Canterbury did rule the Court did the Warner never hear of a Prelate very sibb to Dâ—ctor Bramble who to this day was never called to any account for flagrant scandals of such crimes as in Scotland are punishable by the Gallows the Warner doth not well to insist upon the Scots Clergy exempting themselves from civill punishments no where in the world are Churchmen more free of crimes deserving civill Cognisance then in Scotland and if the ears and eyes of the World may be trusted the Popish Clergy this day in Italy and Spaine are not so challengeable as the Prelaâ—icall Divines in England and Ireland lately were for many grossâ— misdemeanors The Warner is injurious to the Ministers of Holland But why does the Warners anger run out so far as to the Preachers in Holland is it because he knoweth the Church D scipline in Holland to be really the same with that he oppugnes in the Scots and that all the Reformed Churches doe joyn cordially with Scotland in their rejection of Episcopacy is this a ground for him to slander our Brethren of Holland Is it charity for him a stranger to publish to the World in print that the Ministers in Holland are seditious Orators and that they saucily controll the Magistrates in their Pulpits Their crime seems to be that for the love of Christ their Master they are
need to be much better cautioned then here it is before it can stâ—nd for a major of a clear demonstration but how is the minor proved behold how much short the Warners proofes are of his great boastings His first argument is grounded upon an evident falshood that in the Covenant we sweare the lately devised discipline to be Christs institution Answ There is no such word nor any such matter in all the Covenant was the Warners hatred so great against that peece of write that being to make cleare demonstrations against iâ— he would not so much as cast his eye upon that which he was to oppugne Covenanters sweare to endeavour the reformation of England according to the word of God and the best reformed Churches but not a word of the Scots Presbytery nor of any thing in any Church even the best reformed unlesse it be found accorcording to the paterne of Gods holy word The second ground of his demonstration is also an evident errour The Warner unwittingly commends the Covenant that the covenant in hand is one and the same with that of King James Answ Such a fancy came never in the head of any man I know much lesse was it ever writen or spoken by any that the Covenant of King James in Scotlaâ—d 1580 should be one and the same with the Covenant of all the three Kingdomes 1643 whatsoever identit es may appeare in the matter and similitude in the ends of both but the grossest errors are solide enough grounds for praelaticall clear demonstrations Yet here the Warner understands not how hee is cutting his owne veines his friends in Scotland will give him small thanks for attributing unto the nationall Covenant of Scotland that Covenant of King James these three properties that it was issued out by the Kings authority that it was for the maintenance of the Lawes of the realme and for the maintenance of the established Religion time brings adversaries to confesse of their own accord long denyed truthes But the Characters which the Warner in prints upon the solemne league and Covenant of the three Kingdomes wee must bâ—â— pardoned to controvert till he have taken some leasure to prove his wilde assertions First that the league is against the authority of the King secondly that it is against the Law and thirdly that it is foâ— the overthrow of Religion The man cannot think thâ—t any should beleeve his dictats of this kinde without p oofe since the expresse words of that league doe flatly contradict him in all these three positions His gentle memento that Scotland when they sued for aid from the crowne of England had not the English discipline obtruded upon their Church might here have beene spared was not the English discipline and liturgy obtruded upon us by the praelats of England with all craft and force did we ever obtrude our disciplin upon the English but when they of their owne free and long deliberate choice had abolished Bishops and promised to set up Presbytery so far as they had found it agreeable to the word of God were wee not in all reason obliged to encourage and assist them in so pious a worke The King did not clame the sole and absolve possession of the militia In the next words the Warner for all his great boasts finding the weaknes of all the former grounds of his second demonstration he offers three new ones which doubtles will doe the deed for he avowes positively that his following grounds are demonstrative yet whosoever shall be pleased to gripe them with never so soft an hand shall finde them all to be but vanity and winde The first after a number of prosyllogismes rests upon these two foundations first that the right of the militia resides in the King alone secondly that by the covenant the militia is taken out of the Kings hands and that every covenanter by his covenant disposes of himselfe and of his armes against the right which the King hath unto him Answ The Warner will have much adoe to prove the second so that it may be a ground of a clear demonstration but for the first that the power of the militia of England doth reside in the King alone that the two houses of Parliâ—ment have nothing at all to doe with it and that their taking of armes for the defence of the liberties of England or any other imaginable cause against my party countenanced by the Kings presence against his lawes must â—e a together unlawfull if his demonstration be no clearer hen the ground whereupon he builds it I am sure it will not be visible to any of his opposits who are not like to be convinced of open rebellion by his naked assertion upon which alone he layes this his mighty ground Beleeve it he had neede to assay its reliefe with some colour of an argument for none of his owne friends will now take it of his hand for an indemonstrable principle since the King for a long time was willing to acknowledge the Parliaments joynt interest in the Militia yea to put the whole Militia in their hands alone for a good number of yeares to come so farre was his Majestie from the thoughts that the Parliaments medling with a part of the Militia in the time of evident dangers should be so certainly and clearely the crime of rebellion The Warners second demonstrative ground wee admit without question in the major that where the matter is evidently unlawfull the oath is not binding but the application of this in the minor is very false All that hee brings to make it appeare to be true is that the King is the supream Legislator that it is unlawfull for the subjects of England to change any thing established by Law especially to the prejudice of the Praelates without their own consent they being a third order of the Kingdome otherwise it would be a harder measure then the Friers and Abbots received from Henry the eight The change of lawes in England ordinarily begin by the two houses wâ—thout the King Ans May the Warner be pleased to consider how farre his dictates here are from all reason much more from evident demonstrations That the burden of Bishops and ceremonies was become so heavy to all the three Kingdomes that there was reason to endeavour their laying aside he does not offer to dispute but all his complaint runnes against the manner of their removall this say I was done in no other then the ordinary and high path-way whereby all burdensome Lawes and customes use to be removed Doth not the Houses of Parliament first begin with their Ordinance before the Kings consent be sought to a Law is not an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons a good warrant to change a former Law during the sitting of the Parliament The Lawes and customes of England permit not the King by his dissent to stoppe that change The King did really consent to the abolition of Bishops I grant for the turning an
Oâ—dinance to a standing Law the Kings consent is required but with what qualifications and exceptions wee need not here to debate since his Majesties consent to the present case of abolishing Bishops was obtained well neere to as farre as was desired and what it yet lacking wee are in a faire way to obtaine it for the Kings Majestie long agoe did agree to the rooting out of Episcopacy in Scotland hee was willing also in England and Ireland to put them out of the Parliament and all civil Courts and to divest them of all civill power and to joyne with them Presbyteries for Ordination and spirituall jurisdiction yea to abolish them totally name and thing not onely for three yeares but ever till he and his Parliament should agree upon some setled order for the Church was not this Tantamont to a pertuall abolition for all and every one in both houses having abjured Episopacy by solemne Oath and Covenant the Parliament was in no hazard of agreeing with the King to re-erect the fallen chaires of the Bishops so there remained no other but that either his Majestie should come over to their judgement or by his not agreeing with them yet really to agree with them in the perpetuall abolition of Episcopacy since the confession was for the laying Bishops aside for ever till hee and his houses had agreed upon a settled order for the Church If this be not a full and formall enough consent to the Ordinance of changing the former Lawes anent praelats his Majestie who now is easily may and readily would supply all such defects if some of the faction did not continually for their owne evil interests whisper in his eares pernicious counsell as our Warner in this place also doeth by frighting the King in conscience from any such consent The praelats would flâ—tter the King into a Tyranny for this end he casts out a discourse the sinews whereof are in these three Episcopall maximes First that the legislative power is soly in the King that is according to his Brethrens Commentary that the Parliament is but the Kings great councel of free choyce without or against whose votes hee may make or unmake what Lawes he thinkes expedient but for them to make any Ordinance for changing without his consent of any thing that has been instituting any new thing or for them to defend this their legall right and custome time out of minde against the armes of the Malignant party no man may deny it to be plaine rebellion II. The praelates take to themselves a negative voice in Parliament That the King and Parliament both together cannot make a Law to the prejudice of Bishops without their owne consent they being the third order of the Kindome for albeit it be sacriledge in the Lords and Commons to claime any the smallest share of the legislative power this in them were to pyck the chiefest jewel out of the Kings Crowne yet this must be the due priviledge of the Bishops they must be the third order of the Kingdome yea the first and most high of the three farre above the other two temporall States of Lords and Commons their share in the Legislative power must be so great that neither King nor Parliament can passe any Law without their consent so that according to their humble protestation all the Lawes and Acts which have been made by King and Parliament since they were expelled the house of Lords are cleerly void and null Wee must grant that the King and Parliament in divesting Bishops of their temporall honour and estates The praelats grieve that Monks and Friers the Pope and Cardinals were casten out of England by H. in abolishing their places in the Church doe sin more against conscience then did Henry the eight and his Paliament when they put down the Abbots and the Friers We must beleeve that Henry the eight his abolishing the order of Monks was one of the acts of his greatest Tyranny and greed we must not doubt but according to Law and reason Abbots and Priours ought to have kept still their vote in Parliament that the Monasteryes and Nunryes should have stood in their integrity that the King and Parliament did wrong in casting them downe and that now they ought in conscience to be set up againe yea that Henry the eight against all reason and conscience did renounce his due obedience to the Pope the Patriarch of the West the first Bishop of the universe to whom the superinspection and government of the whole Catholick Church in all reason doth belong Though all this be here glaunced at by the Warner and elsewhere wee prove it to be the declared mind of his Brethren yet we must be pardoned not to accept them as undenyable princâ—ples of cleare demonstrations The just supremacy of Kings is not prejudged by the Covenant The last ground of the Doctors demonstration is that the Covenant is an Oath to set up the Presbyterian government in England as it is in Scotland that this is contrary to the Oath of Supremacy for the Oath of Supremacy makes the â—ing the onely supreame head and Governour of the Church of England that is the civill head to see that every man doe his duty in his calling also it gives the King a supreame power over all persons in all causes but the Presbytery is a Politicall Papacie acknowledging no governour but only the Presbyters it gives the King power over all persons as Subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastick causes Ans Is there in all this reasoning any thing sound First what article of the Covenant beares the setting up of the Presbyterian government in England as it is in Scotland II. If the Oath of supremacy import no more then what the Warners expresse words are here that the King is a civill head to see every man doe his duty in his calling let him be assured that no Presbyterian in Scotland was ever contrary to that supremacy III. That the Presbytery is a Papacy and that a politicall one the Warner knowes it ought not to be granted upon his bare word IV. That In Scotland no other governors are acknowledged then Presbyters himselfe contradicts in the very next words where hee tells that the Scots Presbytery ascribs to the King a power over all persons as subjects V. That any Presbyterian in Scotland makes it sacriledge to give the King any power at all in any Ecclesiastick cause The Warnerâ— insolent Vanity it is a senselesse untruth The Warners arguments are not more idle and weake then his triumphing upon them is insolent for he concludes from these wife and strong demonstrations that the poore covenant is apparently deceitfull unvalide impious rebellious and what not yea that all the learned divines in Europe will conclude it so that all the Covenanters themselves who have any ingenuity must grant thus much and that no knowing English man can deny it but his own conscience will give him the lie
necessary resolutions of their English Brethren though the Warner should call it the greatest crime CHAP. II. The Presbyterians assert positively the Magistrates right to convocate Synods to confirm their acts to reform the Churches within their Dominions IN the second Chapter the Warner charges the Scots Presbytery with the overthrowing the Magistrates right in convocating of Synods When he comes to prove this No controversie in Scotland betwixt the King and the Church about the convocating of Synods he forgets his challenge and digresses from it to the Magistrates power of chusing Elders and making Ecclesiastick Laws avowing that these things are done in Scotland by Ecclesiastick persons alone without consent of the King or his Councel Ans It seems our Warner is very ignorant of the way of the Scots Discipline the ordinary and set meetings of all Assemblies both Nationall and provinciall since the first reformation are determined by Acts of Parliament with the Kings consent so betwixt the King and the Church of Scotland there is no question for the convocating of ordinary Assemblies for extraordinary no man in Scotland did ever controvert the Kings power to call them when and where he pleased as for the inherent power of the Church to meet for discipline as well as for worship the warner falls on it hereafter we must therefore passe it in this place What he means to speak of the Kings power in chusing Elders or making Ecclesiastick Laws himself knows The Warners Erastian and Tyrannick principles hated by the King his Majestie in Scotland did never require any such priviledge as the election of Elders or Commissioners to Parliament or members of any incorporation civil or ecclesaistick where the Laws did not expresly provide the nomination to be in the Crown The making of Ecclesiastick Laws in England as well as in as in Scotland was ever with the Kings good contentment referred to Ecclesiastâ—â—k Assemblies but the Warner seems to be in the mind of those his companions who put the power of preaching of administring the Sacraments and Discipline in the supreme Magistrate alone and derives it out of him as the Head of the Church to what Members he thinks expedient to communicate it also that the Legislative Power aswel in Ecclesiastick as civil Affairs is the property of the King alone That the Parliaments and general Assemblies are but his arbitrary Councels the one for matters of State the other for matters of the Church with whom or without whom hee makes Acts of Parliament and Church-cannons according to his good pleasure that all the Offices of the Kingdom both of Church and State are from him as he gives a commission to whom he will to be a Sheriff or Justice of Peace so he sends out whom he pleaseth to preach and celebrate Sacraments by vertue of his Regal mission The Warner and his Erastian friends may well extend the Royal Supremacy to this largenesse but no King of Scotland was ever willing to accept of such a power though by erroneous flatterers sometime obtruded upon â—â—m se Canterburian self conviction cap. ult The Warners ignorant and false report of the Sâ—â—ts proceedings The warner wil not leave this matter in generall he discends to instance a number of particular incroachments of the Scots Presbyters upon the Royal authority we must dispence in all his discourse with a small piccadillo in reasoning he must be permitted to lay all the faults of the Presbyterians in Scotland upon the back of the Presbytery it self and if the faylings of Officers were naturall to and inseparable from their Office mis-kennning this little mote of unconsequentiall argumenting we will go through his particular charges The first is that King James anno 1579 required the generall Assembly to make no alteration in the Church-policy till the next Parliament but they contemning their Kings command determined positively all their discipline without delay and questioned the Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews for voting in Parliament according to the undoubted Laws of the land yea 20 Presbyters did hold the generall Assembly at Aberdeen after it was discharged by the King Ans The VVarner possibly may know yet certainly he doth not care what he writes in these things to which he is a meer stranger the authentick Registers of the Church of Scotland convinces him here of falshood Bishops were abolished and Presb teries set up in Scotlanâ— with King Iames consent His Majesty did write from Stirling to the Generall Assembly at Edenburg 1579. that they should cease from concluding any thing in the discipline of the Church during the time of his minority upon this desire the Assembly did abstaine from all conclusions only they named a Committee to go to Striveling for conference with his Majestie upon that Subject What followeth thereupon I. Immediately a Parliament is called in October 1579 and in the first Act declares and grants jurisdiction unto the Kirk which consists in the true preaching of the word of Jesus Christ correction of manners and administration of the true Sacraments and declares that there is no other face of Kirk nor other face of Religion then is presently by the favour of God established within this realm and that there be no other jurisdiction Ecclesiastical acknowledged within this Kingdom then that which is within the samen Kirk or that which flowes therefrom concerning the premisses II. In April 1580 Proclamation was made ex deliberatione Dominorum Consilii in name of the King charging all Superintendents and Commissioners and Ministers serving at Kirks To note the names of all the Subjects aswel men as women suspected to be Papists or and to admonnish them to give Confession of their faith acording to the form approved by the Parliament and to submit unto the discipline of the true Kirk within a reasonable space and if they fail that the Superintendents or Commissioners present a role or catalogue of their names unto the King and Lords of secret Counsel where they shall be for the time between and the 15 day of July next to come to the end that the acts of Parliament made against such persons may be execute III. The short confession was drawn up at the Kings command which was first subscribed by his royal hand and an act of Secret Counsel commanding all subjects to subscribe the same as it is to be seen by the Act printed with the Confession wherein Hierarchie is abjured that is as hath been since declared by National assemblies and Parliaments both called and held by the King Episcopacy is abjured IV. In the assemblies 1580 and 1581 that Confession of faith and the second book of discipline after debating many praeceding yeares were approved except one chapter de diaconatu by the Assembly the Kings Commissioners being alwayes present nor finde we anything opposed them by him yea then at his Majesties special direction about fifty classical Presbyteries were set over Scotland which remain unto this day was there here any
attempt of the royal authority About that time some noble men had got the revenues of the Bishop-ricks for their private use and because they could not enjoy them by any legal right therefore for eluding the Law they did effectuate that some Ministers should have the title of this or that Bishoprick and the revenues were gathered in the name of this titulare or tulchan Bishop albeit he had but little part e. g. Robert Montgomery Minister at Sterline was called Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and so it can be instanced in other Bishop-ricks and Abbacies Now this kind of praelats pretended no right to any part of the Episcopal office either in ordination or jurisdiction when some of these men began to creep in to vote for the Church in Parliament without any Law of the State without any commission from the Church the General assembly discharged them being Ministers to practise any more such illegal insolencies with this ordinance of the Church after a little debate King James at that time did shew his good satisfaction The innocency of the much maligned assembly of Aberdeen But the Warner here jumps over no less then twenty seven years time from the assembly at Edingburgh 1579. to that at Aberdeen 1605. then was King James by the English Bishops perswasion resolved to put down the general assemblies of Scotland contrary to the Lawes and constant practice of that Church from the first reformation to that day The act of Parliament did bear that once at least a year the assembly should meet and after their business was ended they should name time and place for the next assembly When they had met in the yeer 1602 they were moved to adjurn without doing any thing for two whole years to 1604 when then they were conveened at the time and place agreed to by his Majestie they were content upon his Majesties desire without doing any thing to adjourn to the next year 1605 at Aberdeen when that dyet came his Majesties Commissioner offered him a Letter To the end they might be an Assembly and so in a Capacity to receive his Majesties Letter with the Commissioners good pleasure they sate down they named their Moderator and Clark they received and read the Kings letter commanding them to rise which they obeyed without any further action at all but naming a dyet for the next meeting according to the constant practise of Scotland hereupon by the pernicious counsel of the Arch-Bishop Banckroft at London the King was stirred up to bring sore troubles upon a number of gratious Ministers This is the whole matter which to the Warner here is so tragick an insolence that never any Parliament durst attempt the like See more of this in the Historicall vindication * Christmas and other superstitious festivals abolished in Scotland both by Church and State The next instance of our Presbiteryes usurpation upon the Magistrate is their abolition before any statute of Parliament thereupon of the Church festivals in their first book of discipline Ans Consider the griveousness of this crime in the intervall of Parliaments the great Councel of Scotland in the minority of the Prince entrusted by Parliament to rule the Kingdom did charge the Church to give them in write their judgement about matters Ecclesiasticall in obedience to this charge the Church did present the councel with a write named since the first book of discipline a which the Lords of councel did approve subscribe and ratifie by an Act of State a part of the first head in that write was that Christmas Epiphany Purification and other fond feasts of the Virgin Mary as not warrented by the holy Scriptures should be laid aside Was it any encroachment upon the Magistrate for the Church to give this advice to the privy councel when earnestly they did crave it the people of Scotland ever since have shewed their ready obedience to that direction of the Church founded upon Scripture and backed from the beginning with an injunction of the State His third instance of the Church of Scotlands usurpation upon the Magistrate is The friends of Episcopacy thryves not in Scotland their abolition of Episcopacy in the assembly 1580 when the Law made it treason to impugne the Authority of Bishops being the third estate of the Kingdom Ans The Warner seems to have no more knowledge of the affaires of Scotland then of Japan or Utopia the Law he speaks of was not in being some years after 1580 however all the general assemblies of Scotland are authorised by Act of Parliament to determin finally without an appeal in all Eclesiastick affairs in the named assembly Lundie the Kings Commissioner did sit and consent in his Majesties name to that act of abolition as in the next assembly 1581 the Kings Commissioner Caprinton did erect in his Majesties name the Presbyteries in all the Land it is true three years thereafter a wicked Courtier Captain James Stuart in a shadow of a close and not summoned Parliament did procure an act to abolish Presbyterie and erect Bishops but for this and all other crimes that evil man was quickly rewarded by God before the world in a terrible destruction these acts of this Parliament the very â—â—â—t year were disclaimed by the King the Bishops were put down and the Presbytery was set up again and never more removed to this day The Warners digression to the perpetuity of Bishops in Scotland to the acts of the Church and State for their restitution is but to shew his ignorance in the Scots story what ever be the Episcopall boasting of other Nations yet it is evident that from the first entrance of Christian Religion into Scotland Presbyters alone without Bishops for some hundred years did govern the Church and after the reformation there was no Bishop in that Land but in tittle and benefice till the year 1610 when Bancroft did consecrate three Scots Ministers all of them men of evil report whom that violent Commissioner the Earl of Dunbar in the corrupt and nul assembly of Glasgow got authorised in some part of a Bishops office which part only and no more was ratified in a posterior Parliament Superintendents are nowhere the same with Bishops much less in Scotland where for a time only til the Churches were planted they were used as ambulatory Commissioners and visitors to preach the word and administer the Sacraments for the supply of vacant and unsetled congregations The second book of discipline why not at all ratified in Parliament The fourth instance is the Churches obtruding the second book of discipline without the ratification of the State Ans For the Ecclesiastick enjoyning of a general assemblies decrees a particular ratification of Parliament is unnecessâ—ry general acts of Paâ—liament commanding obedience to the acts of the Church are a sufficient warrant from the State beside that second book of disciplin was much debated with the King and at last in the General assembly 1590 his consent was obtained unto
it for in that assembly where unanimously the subscription of the second book of disciplin by all the ministers of the Kingdom was decryed his Majestie some time in person always by the Chancelor his Commissioner was present and in the act for subscription Sess 10 Augusti 8. it is expresly said that not only all the Ministers but also all the Commissioners present did consent among which Commissioners the chancelor his Majesties Commissioner was chief But neither the King nor the Church could get it to passe the Parliament in regard of the opposition which some States-men did make unto these parts thereof which touched on their own interest of unjust advantage this was the only stick The Warners hypocrisy calling that a crime which himself counts a vertue The next instance of the Churches encroachment is their usurpation of all the old rents of the clergy as the Churches patrimony and their decerning in an assembly that nothing in the next Parliament should passe before the Church were fully restored to her rents Ans Consider here the Warners hypocrisie and unjustice he challenges the Presbyterians for that which no Prelate in the world did ever esteem a fault a meer declaration of their judgment that the Church had a just right to such rents as by Law and long possession were theirs and not taken away from them by any lawfull means What if here they had gone on with the most of the prelatical party to advance that right to a jus divinum what if they had put themselves by a command from Court into the possession of that right without a processe as divers of the Warners friends were begun lately to do in all the three Kingdoms But all that he can here challenge the Scots for is a meer declaration of their simple right with a supplication to the Regent his Grace that he would indeavour in the next Parliament to procure a ninth part of the Churches patrimony for the maintenance of the ministry and the poor of the Country for all the rent that the Churches then could obtain or did petition was but a third of the Thirds of the Benefices or Tithes That ever any Assembly in Scotland did make any other addresse to the Parliament for stipends then by way of humble supplication it is a great untruth The last instance is the erecting of Presbyteries through all the Kingdom by an Act of the Church alone Answ I have shewn already the untruth of this Allegation the proof here brought for it is grounded only upon an ambiguous word which the Warners ignorance in the Scotish Discipline and Presbytery though the main subject of his Book permits him not to understand The Presbyteries were set up by the King after the Assembly 1580 but the second Book of Discipline of which alone the citation speaks how-ever injoyned by many Assemblies yet it could never be gotten ratified in any parliament only because of those parts of it which did speak for the patrimony of the Church and oppugne the right of patronage How well the Warner hath proved the Presbyterian practices to be injurious to the Magistrate we have considered The Warner a gross Erastian possibly he will be more happy in his next undertaking in his demonstrations that their doctrinal principles do trample on the Magistrates Supremacy and Laws Their first principle he takes out of the second book of Discipline Chap. 7. That no Magistrate nor any but Ecclesiastick persons may vote in Synods Ans Though I finde nothing of this in the place cited yet there is nothing in it that crosseth either the Laws or the Kings Supremacy for according to the Acts of Parliament of Scotland both old and late and the constant practice of that Church the onely members of Presbyteries are Ministers and ruling Elders Is it the Warners minde to vent here his super-Erastianism that all Ecclesiastick Assemblies Classical Provincial National are but the arbitrary courts of the Magistrate for to advise him in the execution of his inherent power about matters Ecclesiastical and for this cause that it is in his arbitrement to give a decisive voice in all Church Assembles to whom and how many soever he will Though this may be the Warners minde as it hath been some of his friends yet the most of the prelatical party will not maintain him herein How-ever such principles are contrary to the Laws of Scotland to the professions also and practices of all the Princes and Magistrates that ever have lived there Prelaticall principles impossibilitate all solid peace betwixt the King and his Kingdoms But the Warner here may possibly glance at another principle of his good friends who have been willing lately to vent before all Brittain in print their elevating the supremacy of Soveraigns so far above Laws that whatever people have obtained to be established by never so many Assemblies and Parliaments and confirmed with never so many great seals of ratification and peaceably enjoyed by never so long a possession yet it is nothing but commendable wisdom and justice for the same Prince who made the first Concessions or any of his successors whenever they find themselves strong enough to cancel all and make void what ever Parliaments Assemblies Royall ratifications and the longest possession made foolish people beleeve to be most firm and unquestionable To this purpose Bishop Maxwel from whom much of this VVarning is borrowed doth speak in his Sacro-Sancta regum Majestas Though this had bin the Cabin-divinity of our Prelats yet what can be their intentions in speaking of it out in these times of confusion themselves must declare for the clear consequent of such doctrine seems to be a necessity either of such Warners perpetuall banishment from the Courts and ears of Soveraigns or else that subjects be kept up for ever in a strong jealousie and fear that they can never be secure of their Liberties though never so well ratified by Lawes and promises of Princes any longer then the sword and power remains in their own hand to preserve what they have obtained Such Warners so long as they are possessed with such maximes of state are clear everters of the first fundations of trust betwixt Soveraigne and Subjects they take away any possibility of any solid peace of any confident settlement in any troubled State before both parties be totally ruined or one become so strong that they need no more to feare the others malecontentment in any time to come Our second challenged principle is that we teach the whole power of convocating assemblies to be in the Church Erastian Prelats evert the legal foundations of all Government Ans The Warners citations prove not that we maintain any such assertion our doctrin and constant practise hath been to ascribe to the King a power of calling Synods when and wheresoever he thought fit but that which the Warner seems to point at is our tenet of an intrinsicall power in the Church to meet as
about it Ans Must it be Jesuitisme and a drawing of all the civill affaires to the Churches bar in ordine ad Spiritualia for an Assembly to give their advice in a most eminent and important case of conscience when earnestly called upon in a multitude of supplications from the most of the Congregations under their charge yea when required by the States of the Kingdom in severall express messages for that end It seems it s our Warners conclusion if the Magistrate would draw all the Churches in his jurisdiction to a most unlawful war for the advancement of the greatest impiety and unjustice possible wherein nothing could be expected by all who were engaged therein but the curse of God if in this case a doubting Souldier should desire the Assemblies counsell for the state of his soul or if the Magistrate would put the Church to declare what were lawfull or unlawfull according to the Word of God that it were necessary here for the servants of God to be altogether silent because indeed war is so civill a business that nothing in it concerns the soul and nothing about it may be cleared by any light from the Word of God The truth is the Châ—rch in their publick papers to the Parliament declared oftner then once that they were not against but for an engagement if so that Christian and friendly treaties could not have obtained reason and all the good people in Scotland were willing enough to have hazarded their lives and estates for vindicating the wrongs doâ—e not by the Kingdom of England but by the Sectarian Party there against God the King Covenant and both Kingdoms but to the great grief of their hearts their hands were bound and they forced to sit still and by the over great cunning of some the erronious mis-perswasions of others and the rash precipitancy of it that engagement was so spoyled in the stating and mannaging that the most religious with peace of conscience could not go along nor encourage any other to take part therein The Warner touches on three of their reasons but who will look upon their publick declarations shall find many more which with all faithfulness were then propounded by the Church for the rectifying of that action which as it stood in the state and management was cleerly foretold to be exceeding like to destroy the King and his friends of all sorts in all the three Kingdoms The irrepairable losses and unutterable calamities which quickly did follow at the heels the mis-belief and contempt of the Lords servants and the great danger Religion is now brought unto in all these Kingdoms hath I suppose long agoe brought grief enough to the heart of them whose unadvised rashness intemperate fervor did contribute most for the spoiling of that designe The first desire about that engagement which the Warner gives to us concerns the security of Religion In all the debate of that matter it was agreed without question upon all hands that the Sectarian Party deserved punishment for their wicked attempts upon the Kings person contrary to the directions of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms and that the King ought to be rescued out of their hands and brought to one of his Houses for perfecting the Treaty of Peace which often had been begun but here was the question Whether the Parliament and Army of Scotland ought to declare their resolutions to bring his Majesty to London with honor freedome and safety before he did promise any security for establishing Religion The Parliaments of both Kingdoms in all their former Treaties had ever pressed upon the King a number of Propositions to be signed by his Majesty before at all he came to London was it then any fault in the Church of Scotland to desire the granting but of one of these propositions concerning Religion the Covenant before the King were brought by the new hazard of the lives and estates of all the Scotish Nation to sit in his Parliament in that honor and freedom which himself did desire There was no complaint when many of thirty propositions were pressed to be signed by his Majesty for satisfaction and security to his people after so great and long desolations how then is an out-cry made when all other propositions are postponed and only one for Religion is stuck upon and that not before his Majesties rescue and deliverance from the hands of the Sectaries but only before his bringing to London in honor freedom and safety This demand to the Warner is a crime and may be so to all of his belief who takes it for a high unjustice to restraine in any King the absolute power by any condition for they do maintain that the administration of al things both of Church and State doth reside so freely and absolutely in the meer wil of a Soveraign that no case at any time can fall out which ought to bound that absoluteness with any limitation The second particular the Warner pitches upon is the Kings negative voyce behold how criminous we were in the point When some most needlesly would needs bring into debate the Kings negative voice in the Parliament of England as one of the royall Prerogatives to be maintained by our engagement it was said that all discourse of that kind might be laid aside as impertinent for us if any debate should chance to fall upon it the proper place of it was in a free Parliament of England that our Laws did not admit of a negative voice to the King in a Parliament of Scotland and to press it now as a Prerogative of all Kings besides the reflection it might have upon the rights of our Kingdom it might put in the hand of the King a power to deny all and every one of these things which the Parliaments of both Kingdoms had found necessary for the setling the peace in all the three Dominions We marvel not that the Warner here should tax us of a great error seeing it is the belief of his faction that every King hath not only a negative but an absolute affirmative voice in all their Parliaments as if they were nothing but their arbitrary counsels for to perswade by their reasons but not to conclude nor impede any thing by their Votes the whole and intire power of making or refusing Laws being in the Prince alone no part of it in the Parliament The Warners third challenge against us about the ingagement is as if the Church had taken upon it to nominate the Officers of the Army and upon this he makes his invectives Answ The Church was far from seeking power to nominate any one Officer but the matter was thus When the State did require of them what in their judgement would give satisfaction to the people and what would encourage them to go along in the ingagement one and the last part of their answer was that they conceived if a War shall be found necessary much of the peoples encouragement would depend upon the qualification
know and bee assured that their calling and Ministery is null The words immediatly following are scraped out after their Printing for what cause the Author best knoweth but the purpose in hand makes it probable that the deletted words did expresse more of his minde then it was safe in this time and place to speake out it was the late Doctrine of Doctor Brambles prime friends that the want of Episcopall ordination did ot onely annull the calling of all the Ministers of France Holland Zwit-zerland and Germany but also did hinder all these Societies to bee true Churches for that popular Sophisme of the Jesuits our Prelats did greedily swallow where are no true Sacrament there is no true Church and where is no true Ministry there are no true Sacraments and where no true ordination there is no true Ministry and where no Bishops there in no true ordination and so in no reformed Country but in England and Ireland where were true Bishops is any true Church When Episcopacy comes to this height of elevation that the want of it must annull the Ministry yea the very being of all the Reformed Churches at one strock is it any marvell that all of them do concurre together for their own preservation to abolish this insolent abaddon and destroyer and notwithstanding all its ruine have yet no discomfort at all nor any the least doubt of their most lawfull ordination by the hands of the Presbytery The Prelats are so basely injurious to all the Reformed Churches that their selfes are ashamed of it After all this was written as here it stands another copy of the Warners book was brought to my hand wherin I found the deleted line stand Printed in these distinct termes and put it to a dangerous question whether it be within the payle of the Church the deciphering of these words puts it beyond all peradventure that what I did conjecture of the Warner and his Brethrens minde of the state of all the reformed Churches was no mis-take but that they do truely judge the want of Episcopall Ordination to exclude all the Ministers of other Reformed Churches and their flocks also from the lines of the true Church This indeed is a most dâ—ngerous question for it stricks at the root of all If the Warner out of remorse of conscience had blotted out of his booke that errour the Repentance had beene commendable But hee has left so much yet behind unscraped out as does shew his minde to continue what it was so that feare alone to provoke the reformed here at this unseasonable time seemes to have been the cause of deleting these too cleare expressions of the prelaticall tenent against the very being and subsistence of all the Protestant Churches which want Episcopacy where these men doe still stand upon the extreme pinacle of impudency and arrogance denying the Reformed to be true Churches and without scruple averring Rome as shee stands this day under the councell of Trent to be a Church most true wherin there is an easy way of salvation from which all separaion is needlesse and with which a re-union were much to be desired That gracious faction this day is willing enough to perswade or at least to rest content without any opposition that the King should of himselfe without and before a Parliament though contrary to many standing Lawes grant under his hand and saâ—â— a full liberty of Religion to the bloudy Irish and to put in their hands both armes Castles and prime Places of trust in the State that the King should give assurance of his endeavour to get all these ratified in the next Parliament of England these men can heare with all moderation and patience but behold their fu ious impatience their whole art and industry is wakned when they heare of any appearance of the Kings inclination towards covenanting Protestants night and day they beate in his Majesties head that all the mischiefes of the World doe lurke in that miserable Covenant that deâ—th and any misfortune that the ruine of all the Kingdomes ought much rather to be imbraced by His Majesty then that prodigious Monster that very hell of the Covenant because for sooth it doth oblige in plaine termes the taker to endeavour in his station the abolition of their great Goddesse Prelacy The next hurt of Ministers from the Presbytry is The generality of Episcopall Clergy have ever been covered with ignorance beggery and contempt that by it they are brought to ignorance contempt and beggery Ans Whither Episcopacy or Presbytry is the fittest instrumen to avert these evills let reason or experience teach men to judge The Pâ—esbyteriall discipline doth oblige to a great deale of severer tryalls in all sort of learning requisite in a divine before ordination then doth the Episcopall let either the rule or practise of Presbyterian and Episcopall ordination be compared or the weekly Exercises and monthly disputations in Latine upon the controverted heads be looked upon which the Presbytery exacts of every Minister after his ordination all the dayes of his life for experience let the French Dutch and Scots divines who have beene or yet are be compared with the ordinary Generation of the English Clergy and it will be found that the Prelates have not great reason so superciliously to looke downe with contempt upon their Brethrens learning I hope Cartwright Whitaker Perkins Reynolds Parker Ames and other Presbyterian English were inferior in learning to none of their opposits some of the English Bishops have not wanted good store of learning but the most of them I believe will be content to leave of boasting in this subject what does the Warner speak to us of ignorance contempt and Beggery does not all the World know that albeit some few scarce one of twenty did brooke good benefices yea plurality of them whereby to live in splendor at Court or where they listed in their non-residency neverthelesse it hath bin much complained that the greatest part of the Priests who have the cure of the soules thorow all the Kingdome of England were incomparably the most ignorant beggerly and contemptible Clergy that ever have bin seen in any of the reformed Churches neither did we ever heare of any great study in the Prelats to remedy these evills albeit some of them be provider t enough for their owne Families Doctor Bramble knowes who had the skill before they had sitten seven yeare in their chaire to purchase above fifteen hundred pounds a year for themselves and their heirs what some-ever The Prelats continue to hate preaching and prayer but to idolize a popish service The third evill which the Presbytery brings upon Ministers is that it makes them prate and pray nonsence everlastingly Ans It is indeed a great heartbreake unto ignorant lazy and unconsciencious Ministers to be put to the paines of Preaching and Prayer when a read service was wont to be all their exercise but we thought thâ—t all indifferently ingenuous men had long
or Synode in Scotland did so much as assay to impede or repeale the proceedings of any the meanest civill Court I did never heare it so much as alledged by our adversaries Serious catechising is no Episcpall crimeâ— The next injurie is against all Masters and â—istresses of families whom the Presbytery will have to be personally examined in their knowledge once a yeare and to be excommunicate if grosly and willfully ignorant Answ If it be a crime for a Minister to call together parcels of his congregation to be instructed in the grounds of Religion that servants and children and where ignorance is suspected others also may be tryed in their knowledge of the Catechisme or if it be a crime that in family-visitations oftener then once a yeare the conversation of every member of the Church may be looked upon we confesse the Ministers of Scotland were guilty thereof and so farre as we know the generality of the Episcopall faction may purge themselves by oath of any such imputâ—tion for they had somewhat else to doe then to be at the paines of instructing or trying the Spirituall State of every sheep in their flocks we confesse likewise that it is both our order and practise to keepe off from the holy table whom we finde grosly and wilfully ignorant but that ever any for simple ignorance was excommunicate in Scotland Church sessions are not high commissiones none who knowes us will affirme it The last whom he will have to be wronged by the Presbyte y are the common people who must groane under a high commission in every parish where ignorant governors rule all without Law medling even in domesticall jarres betwixt man and wife Master and Servant Answ This is but a gybe of revenge for the overthrow of their Tyrannous high Commission-Court where they were wont to play the Rex at their pleasure above the highest subjects of the three Kingdomes and would never give over that their insolent domineering court till the King and Parliaments of both Kingdomes did agree to throw it downe about their eares The thing he jeâ—â—es at is the congregationall Eldership a jâ—dicatory which all the Reformed doen joy to their great comfort as much as Sâ—otland They are farre from all arbitrary judications their Lawes are the holy Scripture and acts of superior Church jâ—dicatories which rule so clearely the cases of their câ—gnisance that rarely any difficulty remaines therein or if it doe immediately by refâ—rence or appeale it is transmitted to the Classes or Synode The judges in the lowest Eldersâ—â—â— as we have said before are a dozen at least of the most able and pious who can be had in a whole congregation to joyne with the Pastors one or more as they fall to be but the Episcopall way is to have no discipline at all in any congregation only where there is hope of a fine the Bishops officiall will summon before his own learned and conscientious wisedome who ever within the whole dioces have fallen into such a fault as he pleaseth to take notice of as for domistick infirmities Presbyterians are most tender to meddle therein they come never before any judicatory but both where the fault is great and the scandal thereof flagrant and broken out beyond the wals of the family These are the great iniuries and hurts which the Church discipline has procured to all orders of men in the whole reformed world when Episcopacy has been such an innocent lambe or rather so holy an Angell upon earth that no harme at all has ever come by it to any mortall creature a misbeleeving Jew will nothing misdoubt this so evident a truth CHAP. ULT. The Warners exceptions against the Covenant are full of confidence but exceeding frivolous THough in the former Châ—pters the Warner has spewed out more venome and gall then the bagge of any one mans stomack could have beene supposed capable of yet as if he were but beginning to vomite in this last Chapter of the covenant a new flood of blackes poyson rusheth out of his penne His undertaking is great to demonstrate cleerâ—y that the covenant is meerly void wicked and impious His fiâ—st clear demonstration is that it was devised by strangers imposed by subjects who wanted requisite power and was extorted by just feare of unjust suffering so that many that tooke it with their lips never consented with their hearts Ans This cleer demonstration is but a poore and evill argument the Major if it were put in forme would hardly be granted but I stand on the minor as weake and false for the Covenant was not devised by strangers The Covenant was not dishonourable to union the Commissioners of the Parliament of England together with the Commissioers of the Parliament and generall assembly of Scotland were the first and onely framers thereof but they who gave the life and being to it in England were the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament at Westminster by the Kings call and at that time acknowledged by his Majestie without any question about the lawfulnesse of their constitution and authority these men and that Court were not I hope great strangers in England The Covenant was not imposed upon the King but the Parliament of both Kingdomes made it their earnest desire unto his Majestie that he would be pleased to joyne with them in that Covenant which they did judge to be a â—aine peece of their security for their Religion and liberties in all the three Kingdomes As for their imposing of it upon the subjects of England an ordinance of Parliament though the King consent not by the uncontroverted lawes of England is a sufficient authority to crave obedience of all the subjects of England during the continuance of that Parliament The last part of the demonstration is dishonourable indeed to the English Nation if it were true it was no dishonour to England to joyne with their brethren of Scâ—tland in a Covenant for maintainance of their Religion and Liberties but for many of the English to sweare a Covenant with their lippes from which their heart did dissent and upon this difference of heart and mouth to plead the nullity of the Oath and to advance this plea so high as to cleer demonstration this is such a dishonour and dishonesty that a greater cannot fall upon a man of reputed integrity especically when the ground of the lye and pe ju y is n evident falshood for the Covenant was not extorted from any flesh in England by feare of any unjust suffering so far wâ—s it from this that to this day it could never be obtained from the Parliament of England to enjoyne that Covenant upon any by the penalty of a two pence The Warners second demonstration is no better then the first the ground of it is Covenanters were not deceived but understood what they sware â—hat all oathes are void which have deceipt and errour of the substantiall conditions incident to them This ground had
A REVIEVV OF THE Seditious Pamphlet lately published in HOLLAND by Dr Brambell pretended Bishop of London-Derry ENTITLED His faire Warning against the SCOTS DISCIPLINE In which His malicious and most lying Reports to the great scandall of that Government are fully and clearly refuted As also The Solemne League and Covenant of the three Nations justified and maintained By Robert Baylie Minister at Glasgow and one of the Commissioners from the Church of Scotland attending the KING at the Hague Printed at Delph by Mich. Stait dwelling at the Turf-Market 1649. For the Right Honourable the Noble and Potent Lord John Earle of Cassils Lord Kennedy c. one of His Majesties Privy-Counsell and Lord Iustice generall of Scotland Right Honourable MY long experience of your Lordships sincere zeale to the truth of God and affection to the liberties of the Church and Kingdome of Scotland against all enemies whomsoever hath emboldened me to offer by your Lordships hand to the view of the publick my following answer to a very bitter enemy of that Church and Kingdome for their adherence to the sacred truth of God and their owne just Libert es At my first sight of his Book and many days thereafte◠The Authors reasons of his writing I had no purpose at all to meddle with him your Lordship knowes how unprovided men of my present condition must be either with leisure or accommodations or a mind suitable for writing of Books Also Doctor Bramble was so well knowne on the other side of the Sea the justice of the Parliament of England and Scotland having unanimously condemned him to stand upon the higgest pinacle of infamy among the first of the unpardonable incendiaries and in the head of the most pernicious instruments of the late miseries in Britaine and Ireland and the evident falshood of his calumnies were so clearly confuted long ago in printed Answers to the Infamous Authors whence he had borrowed them I saw lastly the mans spirit so extreme saucy and his pen so waspish and full of gall that I judged him unworthy of any answer But understanding his malicious boldnesse to put his Booke in the hand of His Majesty of the Prince of Orange and all the eminent Personages of this place who can read English yea to send it abroad unto all the Universities of these Provinces with very high and insinuating commendations from the prime favourers of the Episcopall cause hearing also the threats of that faction to put this their excellent and unanswerable peece both in Dutch French and Latine that in the whole neighbouring World the reputation of the Scots might thereby be wounded killed and buried without hope of recovery I found it necessary at the desire of divers friends to send this my review after it hoping that all who shall be pleased to be at the paines of comparing the Reply with the challenge may be induced to pronounce him not only a rash untimous malicious but also a very false accuser This much justice doe I expect from every judicious and equitable comparer of our wrytes upon the hazard of their censure to fall upon my side The Prelate are unable by reason to defend Episcopacy His invectives against us are chiefly for three things our Discipline our Covenant our alleaged unkindnes to our late Soveraigne My apology for the first is that in discipline we maintaine no considerable conclusion but what is avowed by all the Reformed Churches especially our Brethren of Holland and France as by the approbatory suffrages of the Universitie◠of Leyden Utrecht and others to the theorems whereupon our adversary doth build his chiefe accusations may appeare If our practise had aberred fro◠the common rule the crookednesse of the one ought not to prejudge the straitnesse of the other though what our adversary alleadgeth of these aberrations is nothing but his owne calumnious imputations the chiefe quarrell is our rule it self which all the Reformed harmoniously defend with us to be according to Scripture and the Episcopall declinations to be beside and against the line of the word yea Antichristian If our Prelates had found the humor of disputing this maine cause to stir in their veines why did they not vent it in replyes to Didoclavius and Gersome Bucerus who for long thirty years have stood unanswered or if fresher meats had more pleased their tast why did not their stomacks venture on Salmasius or Blondels books against Episcopacy If verball debates had liked them better than writing why had none of them the courage to accept the conference with that incomparably most learned of all Knights now living or in any bygone age Sir Claud Somayis who by a person of honour about the King did signifie his readinesse to prove before His Majesty against any one or all his Prelaticall Divines that their Episcopacy had no warrant at all in the word of God or any good reason Their strongest Arguments are tricks of Court But our friends are much wiser then to be at the trouble and hazard of any such exercise the artifices of the Court are their old trade they know better how to watch the seasons and to distribute amongst themselves the houres of the Kings opportunities when privately without contradiction they may instill in his tender mind their corrupt principles and instruct him in his cabine how safe it is for his conscience and how much for his honor rather to ruine himself his Family and all his Kingdoms with his own hands then to desert the holy Church that is the Bishops and their followers then to joyne with the rebellious Covenanters enemies to God to his Father to Monarchy that the embracing of the barbarous Irish the pardoning of all their monstrous murders the rewarding of their expected merits with a free liberty of Popery and accesse to all places of the highest trust though contrary to all the Lawes which England and Ireland has known this hundred yeares all this without and before any Parliament must be very consistent with conscience honour and all good reason Yea to bind up the soule of the most sweet and ingenuous of Princes in the chaines of their slavery for ever they have fallen upon a most rare tricke which hardly the inventions of all their Predecessors can paralell They rest not satisfied that for the upholding of their ambition and greed The Bishops unlucky foot is visible in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they did harden our late Soveraigne to his very last in their Errours and without compassion did drive him on to his fatall praecipice unlesse they make him continue after his death to cry loud every day in the eares of his Sonne in his later will and testament to follow him in that same way of ruine rather than to give over to serve the lusts of the Prelaticall Clergy They have gathered together His Majesties last papers and out of them have made a Booke whereupon their best pens have dropped the greatest eloqution reason and
devotion was among them by way of essayes as it were to frame the heart of the Son by the fingers of the dying Father to piety wisedome patience and every virtue but ever and anon to let fall so much of their owne ungracious dew as may irrigat the seeds of their prelaticall Errors and Church interest so farre as to charge him to presevere in the maintainance of Episcopall governement upon all hazards without the change of any thing except a little p. 278. and to assure that all Covenanters are of a faction engaged into a Religious rebellion who may never be trusted till they have repented of their Covenant and that till then never lesse loyalty justice or humanity may be expected from any then from them that if he stand in need of them hee is undone for they will devoure him as the Serpent does the dove These and the like pernicious maxims framed by an Episcopall hand of purpose to separate for ever the King from all his covenanted subjects how far they were from the heart language and writings of our late Soveraigne all who were aquainted with his cariage and most intime affections at New-Castle in the Isle of Wight and thereafter can testify But it is reason when the Prelates do frame an Image of a King that they should have liberty to place their owne image in its forehead as the statuary of old did his in the Boss of Pallas targe with such artifice that all her worshipers were necessitat to worship him and that no hand was able to destroy the one without the dissolution and breaking in peeces of the oâ—her yet our Prelats would know that in this age their be many excellent Engyneers whose witty practicks transcend the most skilfull experiments of our Auncestors and whatever may be the ignorance or weaknes of men wee trust the breath of our Lords mouth will not faile to blow out the Bishop from the Kings armes without any detriment at all to royalty Allwayes the wicked and impious cunning of these craftmen is much to be blamed who dare be bold to insert and engrave themselfes so deeply in the images of the Gods as the one cannot be intended to be picked out of the other more then the Aple from the eye unles the subsistence of both be But in hazard The other matter of his railing against us is the solemne league and covenant The only crime of the Covenant is that it extirpate prelacy when this nimble quick enough Doctor comes aflicted with all the reasons the whole University of Oxford can afford him to demonstrat it as he ptofesses in his last Chapter to be wicked false void and what not we find his most demonstrative proofs to be so poore and silly that they infer nothing of his conclusion To this day no man has shewed any errour in the matter of that covenant as for our framing and taking of it our adversaries drave us thereunto with a great deale of necessity and now being in it neither their fraud nor force may bring us from it againe for we feare the oath of God After much deliberation we found that covenant the soveraigne meanes to joyne and keep together the whole orthodox party in the three Kingdomes for the defence of their Religion and liberties which a popish prelaticall and malignant faction with al their might were overturning who still to this day are going on in the same designe without any visible change in the most of their former principles And why should any who loves the King hate this covenant which is the straytestry the world can devise to knit all to him and his posterity if so be his Majesty might be pleased to enter therein but by all meanes such a mischief must be averted for so the root of Episcopacy would quickly wither without any hope of repullulation an evill far greater in the thoughts of them who now mannage the conscience of the Court then the extirpation of Monarchy the eversion of all the three Kingdomes or any other earthly misery The Bishops are most justly cast out of England As for the third subject of the Warners fury against us our unkindnes to the late King if any truth were in this false challenge no other creature on earth could be supposed the true cause thereof but our unhappy Prelats all our grievances both of Church and Sate first and last came principally from them had they never been authors of any more mischief then what they occasioned to our late Soveraigne his person family and Dominions this last dozen of yeares there is abundant reason of burying that their praeter and Antiscripturall order in the grave of perpetuall infamy But the truth is beside more ancient quarrels since the dayes of our fathers the Albigenses this limb of Antichrist has ever been witnessed against Wicklise Huss and their followers were zealous in this charge till Luther and his disciples got it flung out of all the reformed world except England where the violence of the ill-advised princes did keep it up for the perpetuall trouble of that land till now at last it hath well neer kicked downe to the ground there both Church and Kingdome The Scots were never injurious to their King As for the point in hand we deny all unkindnes to our King whereof any reasonable complaint can be framed against us Our first contests stand justified this day by King and Parliament in both Kingdomes When his Majestie was so ill advised as to bring down upon our borders an English army for to punish our refusing of a world of novations in our Religioâ— contrary to the laws of God and of our country what could our land doe lesse then lie down in their armes upon Dunce law for their just and necessâ—ry defence when it was in their power with ease to have dissipat the opposite army they shew themselves most ready upon very easy conditions to goe home in peace and gladly would have rested there had not the furious Bishops moved his Majestie without all provocation to break the first peace and make for a second invasion of Scotland only to second their unreasonable rage was it not then necessary for the Scots to arme againe when they had defeat the Episcopall Army and taken New-castle though they found nothing considerable to stand in their way to London yet they were content to lie still in Northumberland and upon very meane tearms to return the second time in peace For all this the Prelats could not give it over but raised a new Army and filled England with fire and sword yea well neere subdued the Parliament and their followers and did almost accomplish their first designes upon the whole Isle The Scoâ—â— then with most earnest and pitifull entreaties were called upon by their Brethren of England for helpe where unwilling that their brethren should perish in their sight and a bridge should be made over their carcasses for a third warre upon
entry from tendering their propositions and before they were ever heard to stop his Majesties eares with grievous prejudice against all that possibly they could speak though the world sees that the onely apparent fountain of hope upon earth for the recovery of the wofully confounded affaires of the King is in the hands of that Anti-prelaticall Nation but it is the hope of these who love the welfare of the KING and the people of the Churches and Kingdomes of Britain that the hand of God which hath broken all the former devices of the Prelats shall crush this their engine also Our warner undertaketh to oppugne the Scots discipline in a way of his own none of the most rationall The irationall way of the Warners writing He does not so much as pretend to state a question nor in his whole Book to bring against any main position of his opposites either Scripture Father or reason nor so much as assay to answer any one of their arguments against Episcopacy only he culs out some of their by-tenets belonging little or nothing to the main questions and from them takes occasion to gather together in a heap all the calumnies which of old or of late their known enemies out of the forge of their malice and fraud did obtrude on the credulity of simple people also some decorted passages from the books of their friends to bring the way of that Church into detestation without any just reason The most of his stuffe is borrowed and â—ong ago confuted These practises in our Warner are the less pardonable that though he knows the chief of his allegations to bee but borrowed from his late much beloved Comrades Master Corbet in his Lysimachus Nicanor and Master Maxwel in his Issachart Burden yet he was neither deterred by the strange punishments which God from heaven inflicted visibly on both these Calumniators of their Mother Church nor was pleased in his repeating of their calumnious arguments to releeve any of them from the exceptions under the which they stand publickly confuted I suppose to his own distinct knowledge I know certainly to the open view of thousands in Scotland England and Ireland but it makes for the Warners design to dissemble here in Holland that ever he heard of such Books as Lysimachus Nicanor Issachars Burden much lesse of Master Baylies Answer to both Printed some years agoe at London Edenburg and Amsterdam without a rejoynder from any of that faction to this day The contumelions bitternes of the Warners spirit However let our Warner be heard In the very first page of his first chapter we may tast the sweetnesse of his meek Spirit at the very entry he concludeth but without any pretence to an argument there or else where the discipline of the Church of Scotland to be their own invention whereon they dote the Diana which themselves have canonized their own dreams the counterfeit image which they faine hath fallen down from Jupiter which they so much adore the very quintessence of refined Popery not only most injurious to the civil Magistrate most oppressive to the Subject most pernicious to both but also incensistent with all forms of civil Government destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall on a people So much truth and sobernesse doth the Warner breath out in his very first page Though he had no regard at all to the cleer passages of Holy Scripture whereupon the Scots do build their Anti-Episcopall tenets nor any reference to the harmony of the reformed Churches which unanimously joyn with the Scots in the main of their Discipline especially in that which the Doctor hates most therein the rejection of Episcopacy yet methinks some little respect might have appeared in the man to the Authority of the Magistrate and civill Laws which are much more ingeminated by this worthy Divine over all his book then the holy Scriptures Can be so soon forget that the whole discipline of the Church of Scotland as it is there taught and practised The Warner stricks at the Scots Discipline through the Kings sides is established by Acts of Parliament and hath all the strength which the King and State can give to a civill Law the Warner may well be grieved but hardly can he be ignorant that the Kings Majesty at this day does not at all question the justice of these sanctions what ever therefore be the Doctors thoughts yet so long as he pretends to keep upon his face the mask of loyalty he must be content to eat his former words yea to burn his whole book otherwise he layes against his own professions a slander upon the King and His Royal Father of great ignorance or huge injustice the one having established the other offring to establish by their civil laws a Church Discipline for the whole Nation of Scotland which truly is the quintessence of Popery pernicious and destructive to all formes of civil Government and the heaviest pressures that can fall upon a people All the cause of of this choler which the Warner is pleased to speak out is the attempt of the Scots In the thresshold he stumbles on the Kings conscience to obtrude their Discipline upon the King contrary to the dictats of his own conscience and to compell forraign Churches to embrace the same Ans Is it not presumption in our warner so soon to tell the world in print what are the dictats of the Kings conscience as yet he is not his Majesties confessor and if the Clerk of the Closet had whispered somewhat in his care what he heard in secret he ought not to have proclaimed it without a warrant but we do altogether mistrust his reports of the Kings conscience for who will beleeve him that a knowing and a just King will ever be content to command and impose on a whole Nation by his laws a discipline contrary to the dictats of his own conscience This great stumble upon the Kings conscience in the first page must be an ominous cespitation on the threshold The other imputation hath no just ground The Scots never offered to impose any thing upon England the Scots did never meddle to impose upon forraign Churches there is question of none but the English and the Scots were never so presumptuous as to impose any thing of theirs upon that Church It was the Assembly of Divines at Westminster convocat by the Parliament of England which after long deliberation and much debate unanimously concluded the Presbyterian Discipline in all the parts therof to be agreable to the word of God it was the two Houses of the Parliament of England without a contrary voice who did ordaine the abolition of Episcopacy and the setting up of Presbyteries and the â—ynods in England and Ireland Can here the Scots be said to compell the English to dance after their pipe when their own Assembly of Divines begins the song when the Lords and Commons
for the Word and Sacraments so for discipline in this all who are Christians old and late the Prelaticall and Popish party as well as others go along with us to maintain in doctrin and practise a necessity even in times of persecution that the Church must meet for the worship of God and execution of Ecclesiastick discipline among their own Members In this the doctrine and practise of the Scots is according to their setled laws uncontroverted by his Majestie If the VVarner will maintain that in reason and conscience all the Churches of the world are obliged to dissolve and never more to meet when an erroneous Magistrate by his Tyrannous Edict commands them to do so let him call up Erastus from the dead to be disciplined in this new doctrine of the Prelats impious loyalty The third Principle is that the judgment of true and false doctrine The finall determination of all Ecclesiastick causes by the Laws of Scotland is in the generall Assembly of suspension and deprivation of Ministers belongeth to the Church Ans If this be a great heresie it is to be charged as much upon the State as upon the Church for the Acts of Parliament give all this power to the Church neither did the Laws of England or of any Christian State Popish or Protestant refuse to the Church the determination of such Eccclesiastick causes some indeed do debate upon the power of appeals from the Church but in Scotland by the Law as no appeal in things civil goes higher then the Parliament so in matters Ecclesiastick none goes above the Generall Assembly Complaints indeed may go to the King and Parliament for redresse of any wrong has been done in Ecclesiastick Courts who being Custodes Religionis may by their coercive power command Ecclesiastick Courts to rectifie any wrong done by them contary to Scripture or if they persist take order with them But that two or three Pâ—aelates should become a Court of delegates to receive appeals from a general assembly neither Law nor practice in Scotland did ever admit nor doth the word of God or any Equity require it In the Scots assemblies no causes are agitat but such as the Parliament hath agreed to be Ecclesiastick and of the Churches cognisance no process about any Church rent was ever cognosced upon in Scotland but in a civill Court it s very false that ever any Church censure much lesse the highest of excommunication did fall upon any for robbing the Church of its patrimony The divine right of discipline is the tenet of the most of Praelats Our fourth challenged principle is that we maintain Ecclesiastick jurisdiction by a divine right Ans Is this a huge crime is there divine right in the world either Papist or Protestant except a few praelatical Erastians but they doe so If the Warner will profess as it seems he must the contradiction of that which he ascribes to us his avowed tenet must be that all Ecclesiastick power flowes from the Magistrate that the Magistrate himself may execute all Church censures that all the Officers appointed by Christ for the government of his Church may be laid aside and such a kind of governors be put in their place as the Magistrate shall be pleased to appoint that the spiritual sword and Keyes of heaven belong to the Magistrate by vertue of his supremacy as wel as the temporal sword and Keyes of his earthly Kingdom our difference herefrom the Warner will not I hope be found the greatest heresie All the power of the Church in Scotland is legal and with the Magistrates consent Our last challenged principle is that we will have all our power against the Magistrate that is although he dissent Ans It is an evil commentary that all must be against the Magistrate which is done against his consent but in Scotland there is no such case for all jurisdiction which the Church there doth enjoy they have it with the consent of the Magistrate all is ratified to them by such acts of Parliament as his Majâ—stie doth not at all controvert Concerning that odious case the Warner intimates whither in time of persecution when the Magistrate classheth with the Church any Ecclesiastick discipline be then to be exercised himself can better answer it then we who with the ancient Christians do think that on all hazards even of life the Church may not be dissolved but meet in dens and in the caves and in the wilderness for the word and Sacraments and keeping it self pure by the divine ordinance of Discipline Having cleered all the pernicious practises and all the wicked Dâ—ctrines which the Warner layes upon us The Prelats rather then to lay aside their own interest will keep the King and his people in misery for ever I think it needless to insist upon these defences which he in his abundant charity brings for us but in his own way that he may with the greater advantage impugne them only I touch one passage whereupon he makes injurious exclamations that which Mr. Gilespie in his theoremes writes when the Magistrate abuses his power unto Tyranny and makes havock of all it is lawful to resist him by some extraordinary wayes and means which are not ordinarily to be allowed see the principles from which all our miseries and the loss of our Gratious Master hath flowed Ans We must here yeeld to the Warner the great equity and necessity that every doctrine of a Presbyter should be charged on the Presbytery it self and that any Presbyter teaching the lawfulness of a Parliaments defensive arms is tantamont to the Churches taking of armes against the King These smal inconsequences we must permit the Warner to swallow down without a stick however we do deny that the maxime in hand was the fountain of any of our miseries or the cause at all of the loss of our late Soveraign Did ever his Majesty or any of his advised Councellors declare it simply unlawful for a Parliament to take arms for defence in some extraordinary cases however the unhappiness of the Canterburian Praelats did put his Majesty upon these courses which did begin and promote all our miserie and to the very last these men were so wicked as to refuse the loosing of the bands which their hands had tyed about his misinformed conscience yea to this day they will not give their consent that his Majestie who now is should lay aside Episcopacy were it for the gaining of the peaceable possession of all his three Kingdoms but are urgers of him night and day to adhere to their errours upon the hazard of all the miseries that may come on his person on his family and all his people yet few of them to this day durst be so bold as to print with this Warner the unlawfulness of a Parliaments armes against the Tyranny of a Prince in any imaginable case how extraordinary soever CHAP. III. The Lawes and customes of Scotland admit of no appeal from the
zealous in their doctrine to presse upon the Magistrate as well as upon the people the true practice of piety the sanctification of the Sabbath day the suppression of heresy and schism and repentance for the sins of the time and place wherein they live I his is a crime whereof few of the Warners friends were wont to be guilty of their shamefull silence and flattery was one of the great causes of all the sins and calamities that have wracked the three Kingdoms the stream of their Sermons while they enjoyed the Pulpit was to encourage to superstition and contempt of piety to sing asleep by their ungracious way all that gave ear unto them The man is impatient to see the Pastors of Holland or any where to walk in another path then his own and for this cause would stirre up their Magistrates against them as it was his and his Brethrens custom to stir up the Magistrates of Britain and Ireland to imprison banish and heavily vex the most zealous servants of God only for their opposition to the Prelats profanity and errours The Warner I hope has not yet forgotten how Doctor Bramble and his neighbour Lesty of Down did cast out of the Ministry and made flee our of the Kingdom men most eminent for zeal piety and learning who in a short time had done more good in the house of God then all the Bishops that ever were in Ireland I mean Mr. Blair Mr. Levington Mr. Hamilton Mr. Cuningham and others The Warner needed not to have marked as a singularity of Geneva that there all the Ecclesiasticks quâ tales are punishable by the Magistrats for civil crimes for we know none of the reformed Churches who were ever following Rome in exempting the Clergy from saecular jurisdiction except it were the Canterburian Praelates who indeed did scare the most of Magistrats from medling with a canonical coat though defiled with drunkenness adultery scolding fighting and other evils which were too common of late to that order But how doth he prove The pretended declaration of King James was Bishop Adamsons lying libel that the Scots Ministers exempt themselves from civil jurisdiction first saith he by the declaration of King James 1584. Ans That declaration was not from King James as himself did testifie the year thereafter under his hand but from Mr. Patrike Adamson who did acknowledge it to be his own upon his death bed and professed his repentance for the lyes and slanders wherewith against his conscience he had fraughted that infamous libell His second proof is from the second book of disciplin Chapter II Though always in England yet never in Scotland had Commissaries any jurisdiction over Ministers It is absurd that Commissaries having no function in the Church should be judges to Ministers to depose them from their charges Ans Though in England the Commissary and officiall was the ordinary judge to depose and excommunicate all the Ministers of the diocese yet by the Laws of Scotland no Commissaries had ever any jurisdiction over Ministers But though the officials jurisdiction together with their Lords the Bishops were abolished yet doth it follow from this that no other jurisdiction remaineth whereby Ministers might be punished either by Church or State according to their demerits is not this strongly reasoned by the Warner His third proofe is the cause of James Gibson James Gibson was never absolved by the Church from his Process who had railed in Pulpit against the King and was only suspended yea thereaftâ—r was absolved from that fault Ans Upon the complaint of the Chancelor the alledged words were condemned by the generall Assembly but before the mans guiltiness of these words could be tryed hee did absent himselfe for which absence he was presently suspended from his Ministry in the next Assembly he did appeare and cleared the reason of his absence to have been just feare and no contumacy this he made appeare to the Assemblies satisfaction but before his processe could bee brought to any issue he fled away to England where he died a fugitive never restored to his charge though no tryal of his fault was perfected Mr. Blacks appeâ—â— froâ— the Councel cleered The fourth proof is Mr. Black his case hereupon the Warner makes a long and odious narration If we interrogate him about his ground of all these Stories he can produce no warrant but Spotswoods unprinted Book this is no an hâ—â—tick Râ—gistâ—r whereupon any understanding man can rely the Writer was a pâ—ofest enemy to his death of the Scotish Discipline he spent his life upon a Story for the dâ—sgrace of the Presbytery and the honour of Bishops no man who is acquainted with the life or death of that Authour will build his belief upon his words This whole narration is abundantly confuted in the historicall Vindication when the Warner is pleased to repeat the Challenge from Issachars burden he ought to have replyed something after three yeers advisement to the printed Answer The matter as our Registers bear was shortly thus In the yeer 1596. the Popish and Malignant Faction in King JAMES his Court grew so strong that the countenance of the King towards the Church was much changed and over all the Land great fears did daily encrease of the overthrow of the Church Discipline established by Law The Ministers in their Pulpits gave free warning thereof among others Mr. Black of S. Andrews a most gracious and faithfull pastor did apply his doctrine to the sins of the time some of his Enemies delated him at Court for words injurious to the King and Queen the words he did deny and all his honest hearers did absolve him by their testimony from these calumnies of himself he was most willing to be tryed to the uttermost before all the world but his Brethren finding the libelled calumnies to be onely a pretence and the true intention of the Courtiers therein was to stop the mouthes of Ministers that the crying sins of the times should no more be reproved in pulpits they advised him to decline the judgment of the councell and appeal to the general Assembly as the competent Judge according to the word of God and the Laws of Scotland in the cause of doctrine for the first instance they did never question but if any thing truely seditious had been preached by a Minister that he for this might be called before the civil Magistrate and accordingly punished but that every Minister for the application of his doctrine according to the rules of Scripture to the sins of his hearers for their reclaiming should be brought before a civil court at the first instance they thought it unreasonable and desired the King in the next Assembly might cognosce upon the equity of such a proceeding The Ministers had many a conference with his Majesty upon that subjâ—ct often the mat er was brought very near to an amicable conclusion but because the Ministers refused to subscibe a band for so great a silence
as the Court required against his Majesties countenancing of treacherous Papists and favouring the enemies of Religion a severe Sentence was pronounced not only against Master Black but also all the Ministers of Edinburgh In the mean time The Tumult of the seventeenth day of December was harmless and no Minister guilty of it malcontented States-men did adde oyl to the flame and at the very instant while the Ministers and their friends are offering a Petition to his Majesty they suborn a villane to cry in one part of the Streets That the Ministers are slain and in another part of the Streets That the King was killed whereupon the People rush all out to the Streets in their Armes and for half an hour at most were in a tumult upon meer ignorance what the fray might be but without the hurt of any one man so soon as it was found that both the King and Ministers were safe the people went all peaceably to their houses This is the very truth of that innocent commotion whereupon the Warner here and his fellowes elsewhere make all their Tragedies None of the Ministry were the Authors or approvers thereof though divers of them suffered sore troubles for it CHAP. V. No Presbyterian ever intended to Excommunicate any Supream Magistrate THe Warner in his fifth Chapter The Prelats ordinarily but the Presbytery never were for rash Excommunications charges the Scots for subjecting the King to the censure of Excommunication and bringing upon Princes all the miseries which the Popes Excommunications of oâ—d were wont to bring upon Anathematised Emperours Ans It does not become the Warner and his fellowes to object to any the abuse of the dreadfull sentence of Excommunication no Church in the world was ever more guilty of that fault then the Prelats of England and Ireland did they ever censure their own Officials for the pronouncing of that terrible sentence most profanly against any they would had it been for the non-payment of the smallest sums of money As for the Scots their doctrine and practice in the point of Excommunication is as considerate as any other Church in the world that censure in Scotland is most rare and only in the case of obstinacy in a great sin what ever be their doctrine in generall with all other Christians and as I think with the P elaticall party themselves that the object of Christian doctrine Sacraments and Discipline is one and the same and that no member of Christ no son of the Church may plead a highness above admonitions and Church Censures yet I know they never thought it expedient so much as to intend any Processe of Câ—uâ—â—h aâ—â—â—â—dversion against their Soveraign To the worlds end I hope they shall not have again greater grievances and truer causes of â—â—ritation from their Princes th n they have had already It may be confidently believed that they who upon so pregnant occasioâ—s dâ—d never so much as intend the beginning of a Process against their King can never be supâ—osed in danger of any such proceeding for time to come The Prelates flatter Princes to their ruine However we love not the abused ground of the Warners flattering of Princes to their own great hur is it so indeed that all the sins of the Princes are only against God that all Kings are not only above all Laws of Church and State but when they fall into the greatest crimes that the worst of men have ever committed that even then their sins must not be against any man or against any Law such Episcopall Doctrine spurs on Princes to these unhappy precipices and oppressed people unto these out-rages that both fall into inextricable calamities CHAP. VI. It grieves the Prelates that Presbyterians are faithfull Watchmen to admonish Princes of their duty The Scots Ministers Preaching for Justice was just and necessary THE sixth Chapter is spent on an other crime of Presbytery it makes the Presbyters cry to the Magistrate for Justice upon capitall Offenders Ans What has Presbytery to doe with this matter were it never so great an offence will the Warner have all the faults of the Prelaticall Faction flow from the fountain of Episcopacy this unconsequentiall reasoning will not be permitted to men below the degrees of Doctors But was it a very great crime indeed for Ministers to plead the cause of the fatherlesse and widowes yea the cause of God their Maker and to preach unto Magistrates that according to Scriptures murtherers ought to die and the Land bee purged from the staine of innocent blood when the shamefull impunity of murther made Scotland by deadly feuds in time of peace a field of war and blood was it not time for the faithful servants of God to exhort the King to execute justice and to declare the danger of most frequent pardons drawn from his hand often against his heart by the opportunity and deceitfull information of powerful solicitors to the great offence of God against the whole Land to the unexpressible grief and wrong of the suffering party to the opening also of a new floodgate of more blood which by a legall revenge in time easily might have been stopped Too much pity in sparing the wilfull shedders of innocent blood ordinarily proves a great cruelty not only towards the disconsolate oppressed who cry to the vicegerents of God the avenger for justice in vain but also towards the soul of him who is spared and the life of many more who are friends either to the oppressor or oppressed As for the named case of Huntly let the world judge Huntleys notorious crymes whether the Ministers had reason often to give Warning against that wicked man and his complices Beside his apostasie and after-seeming repentance his frequent relapses into avowed Popery in Eighty eight he banded with the King of Spaine to overthrow the religion and government of the whole Island and after pardon from time to time did renew his treasonable plots for the ruine of Britain he did commit many murders he did invade under the nose of the King the house of his Cousin the Earl of Murray and most cruelly murdered that gallant Nobleman he appeared with displayed Banner against the King in person he killed thereafter many hundreds of the Kings good people when these multiplyed outrages did cry up to the God of heaven was it not time for the men of God to cry to the Judges of the earth to doe their duty according to the warrant of many Scriptures What a dangerous humor of flattery is this in our Prelates not onely to lull a sleep a Prince in a most sinful neglect of his charge but also to cry out upon others more faithful then themselves for assaying to break off their slumber Never any question in Scotland betwixt the King the Church for Tythes and Patronages by their wholsom and seasonable admonitions from the Word of God The next challenge of the Scots Presbyters is that they spoile the
of the Commanders to whom the managing of that great trust should be committed for after the right stating of the War the next would be the carying on of it by such men who had given constant proof of their integrity To put all the power of the Kingdom in their hand whose by-past miscariages had given just occasion to suspect their designes and firmness to the interest of God before their own or any other mans would fill the hearts of the people with jealousies and fears and how wholsome an advice this was experience hath now too clearly demonstrated To make the world know our further resolutions to meddle with civill affaires the Warner is pleased to bring out against us above 80 years old stories and all the stuff which our malicious enemy Spotswood can furnish to him from this good Author he alledges that our Church discharged Merchants to traffique with Spaine and commanded the Change of the market-dayes in Edenburgh Ans Both these calumnies are taken off at length in the Historical Vindication After the Spanish Invasion in the year 88 many in Scotland kept correspondence with Spaine for treacherous designs the Inquisitors did seduce some and persecute others of our Merchants in their traffique the Church did deale with his Majesty to intercede with the Spanish King for more liberty to our Countrey men in their trading and in the mean time while an answer was returned from Madril they advertized the people to be wary how they hazarded their souls for any worldly gaine which they could find about the Inquisitors feet The Church meâ—led not with the Munday Marâ—et buâ— by way of supplication in Parliament As for the Market days I grant it was a great grief to the Church to see the Sabbath day profaned by handy labor and journeying by occasion of the Munday-markets in the most of the great Towns for remedy hereof many supplications have been made by the Assembly to the Parliament but so long as our Bishops sate there these petitions of the Church were alwaies eluded for the Prelates labor in the whole Island was to have the sunday no Sabbath and to procure by their Doctrine and example the profanation of that day by all sorts of playes to the end people might be brought back to their old licentiousness and ignorance by which the Episcopall Kingdom was advanced It was visible in Scotland that the most eminent Bishops were usual players on the Sabbath even in time of divine Service And so soon as they were cast out of the Parliament the Churches supplications were granted and acts obtained for the carefull sanctification of the Lords day and removing of the Markets in all the Land from the Munday to other days of the week The Church once for safty of the infant Kings life with the concurrence of the cret Counsel did call an extraordinary meeting The Warners next challenge of our usurpation is the Assembly at Edenburgh 1567 their ratifying of Acts of Parliament and summoning of all the Countrey to appeare at the next Assembly Ans If the Warner had known the History of that time he would have chosen rathet to have omitted this challenge then to have proclaimed to the world the great rottenness of his own heart At that time the condition of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland was lamentable the Queen was declared for Popery King James his Father was cruelly without any cause murthered by the Earl of Bothwel King James himself in his infancy was very neare to have been destroyed by the murtherer of his Father there was no other way conceivable of safety for Religion for the Infant King for the Kingdom but that the Protestants should joyn together for the defence of King James against these Popish murtherers For this end the general Assembly did crave conference of the secret Counsel and they with mutual advice did call for a meeting of the whole Protestant Party which did convene at the time appointed most frequently in an extraordinary and mixed assembly of al the considerable persons of the Religion Earls Lords Barons Gentlemen Burgesses and Ministers and subscribed a bond for the revenge of King Henries death and the defence of King James his life This mixed and extraordinary Assembly made it one of the chiefe Articles in their bond to defend these Acts of the Parliament 1560. concerning Religion and to endeavour the ratification of them in the next ensuing Parliament As for the Assemblies letter to their Brethren for so frequent a meetting at the next extraordinary Assembly it had the Authority of the secret Counsel it was in a time of the greatest necessity when the Religion and liberties of the land were in evident hazard from the potent and wicked counsels of the Popish Party both at home and abroad when the life of the young King was dayly in visible danger from the hands of them who had murthered his Father and ravished his Mother Lesse could not have been done in such a juncture of time by men of wisdom and courage who had any love to their Religion King and Countrey but the resolution of our Prelates is to the contrary when a most wicked villain had obtained the connivance of a Queen to kill her husband and to make way for the killing of her Son in his Cradle and after these murders to draw a Nation and Church from the true Religion established by Law into Popery and a free Kingdom to an illegal Tyranny in this case there may be no meeting either of Church or State to provide remedies against such extraordinary mischiefs Beleeve it the Scots were never of this opinion What is subjoyned to the next Paragraph of our Churches presumption to abolish Acts of Parliament By the laws customs of Scotland the assembly procedes the Parliament in the â—foâ—mation of Ecclesiastical abuses is but a repetition of what is spoken before Not only the laws of Scotland but equity and necessity refers the ordinary Reformation of errors and abuses in Religion to the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies what they find wrong in the Church though ratified by acts of Parliament they rectifie it from the word of God and thereafter by Petition obtaines their rectification to be ratified in a following Parliament and all former Acts to the contrary to be annulled This is the ordinary Method of proceeding in Scotland and as I take it in all other States and Kingdoms Were Christians of old hindred to leave Paganisme and embrace the Gospel till the Emperial Laws for Paganisme and against Christianity were revoked did the Oecumenical and Nationall Synods of the Ancients stay their reformation of heresies and corruptions in Religion till the laws of State which did countenance these errors were cancelled Was not Popery in Germany France and Britaine so firmly established as Civill Laws could do it It seems the Warner here doth joyn with his brother Issachar to proclaim all our Reformers in Britaine France and Germany to be Rebels
for daring by their preachings and Assemblies to change these things which by Acts of Parliaments had been approved before new Parliaments had allowed of their reformation Nevertheless this plea is foolishly intended against us for the Ministers protestation against the Acts of Parliament 1584 establishing in that houre of darkness iniquity by a Law and against the Acts of the Assembly of Glasgow declaring the unlawfulness of Bishops and Ceremonies which some Parliaments upon Episcopal mis-information had approved both these actions of the Church were according to former Laws and were ratified afterward by Acts of Parliament yet standing in force which for the Warner a private man and a stranger to challenge is to contemn much more grosly the Law then they do whom here he is accusing of that crime The Church part in the road of Ruthven cleâ—red By the next Story the Warner wil gain nothing when the true case of it is known In K. Jame's minority one Capt. James Stuart did so far prevail upon the tender and unexperienced years of the Prince as to steal his countenance unto Acts of the greatest oppression so far that James Hamelton Earl of Arran the next to the King in blood in his health a most gallant Prince and a most zealous Professor of the true Religion in time of his sickness when he was not capable to commit any crime against the State was notwithstanding spoyled of all his livelihood and liberty his Lands and honor with the dignity of high Chancelor of Scotland were conferred on that very wicked Tyrant Captain James a number of the best affected and prime nobility impatient of such unheard-of oppressions with meer boasts and no violence at the road of Ruthven chased away that unhappy Chancelor from the Kings person this his Majesty for the time professed to take in so good part that under his hand he did allow it for good service in his letters to the most of the Neighbor Princes he dealt also with the secret Counsel and the chief Judicatories of the Land and obtained from them the approbation of that act of the Lord as convenient and laudable pormising likewise to ratifie it in the next ensuing Parliament When the Lords for their more aboundant cleering required the Assembles declaration thereupon the Ministers declined to meddle at all with the case but the Kings Majesty sent his Commissioners to the Assembly entreating them withall earnestness to declare their good liking of that action which he assured them was for his good and the good both of Church and Kingdom for their obedience to the Kings importunity they are here railed upon by the wise Warner It is true Cap. James shortly after crept in again into Court and obtained a severe revenge against the authors of that action before a Parliament could sit to approve it but within a few months the same Lords with some more did at Striveling chase again that evill man from the Court whither he never more returned and this their action was ratified in the next Parliament and so stands to this day unquestioned by any but such as the Warner either out of ignorance or malice I am weary to follow the Warner in all his wandrings The interest of the general assembly of Scotland in the reformation of England at the next leap he jumps from the 1584 to the 1648 skipping over in a moment 64 years The Articles of Stiveling mentions that the promoving of the work of Reformation in England and Ireland be referred to the general Assembly upon this our friend doth discharge a flood of his choller all the matter of his impatience here is That Scotland when by fraude they had been long allured and at last by open violence invaded by the English Prelates that they might take on the yoke of all their corruptiones they were contented at the earnest desire of both the houses of Parliament and all the wel-affected in England to assist their Brethren to purge out the leaven of Episcopacy and the Service Book with all the rest of the old corruptions of the Engish Irish Churches with the mannaging of this so great and good an Ecclesiastique work the Parliament of Scotland did intrust the general assembly No marvail that Dr. Bramble a zealous lover of all the Arminianisme Popery and Tyranny of which his great Patron Dr. Lade stands convicted yet without an answer to have been bringing in upon the three nations should be angry at the discoverers and dis-appointers of that most pious work as they wont to style it What here the Warner repeats it is answered before as for the 2 Stories in his conclusion The violent apprehenâ—â—â— of Masse-Priests in their act of Idolatry râ—proved by the Warner which he takes out of his false Author Spots-wood adding his own large amplifications I conceive there needs no more to be said to the first but that some of John Knocks zealous hearers understanding of a Masse-Priest at their very side committing Idolatry contrary to the Laws did with violence break in upon him and sease upon his person and Masse-cloathes that they might present him to the ordinary Magistrate to receive justice according to the Law This act the Warner wil have to be a huge Rebellion not only in the actors but also in Iohn Knocks who was not so much as present thereat What first he speaks of the Assemblies convocating the people in arms to be present at the tryall of the Popish Lords and their avowing of that their deed to the King in his face we must be pardoned to mistrust the Warner herein upon his bare word without the relief of some witness and that a more faithfull one then his Brother in evill Mr. Spots-wood whom yet here he doth not profess to cite Against these Popish Lords after their many treasons and bloody murders of the Lieges the King himself at last was forced to arme the people but that the generall Assembly did call any unto Arms we require the Warners proof that we may give it an answer CHAP. VIII The chief of the Prelates agree with the Presbyterians about the Divine right of Church-iscipline THe Warners challenge in this Chapter is That we maintaine our discipline by a Iure divino and for this he spews out upon us a Sea of such Rhetorick as much better beseemed Mercurius Aulicus then either a Warner or a Prelate In this challenge he is as unhappy as in the rest it is for a matter wherein the most of his own Brethren though our Adversaries yet fully agree with us that the discipline of the Church is truly by divine right and that Jesus Christ holds out in Scripture the substantials of that Government whereby he will have his house to be ruled to the worlds end leaving the circumstantials to be determined by the Judicatories of the Church according to the general rules which are clear also in the word for matters of that nature In this neither Papists nor the
learned'st of the Prelates find any fault with us yet our Warner must spend a whole Chapter upon it It is true as we observed before the elder Prelates of England in Edwards Elizabeths days as the Erastians now did maintain The Warner and his prelatical Erastian brethren are obliged by their own principles to advise the King to lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery in all his dominions that no particular Government of the Church was jure divino and if this be the Warners mind it were ingenuity in him to speak iâ— out loud and to endeavor to perswade his friends about the King of the truth of this tenet he was never imployed about a better and more seasonable service for if the Discipline of the Church be but humano jure then Episcopacy is kept up upon no conscience conscience being bottomed only upon a divine Right so Episcopacy wanting that bottom may well be laid aside at this time by the King for any thing that concerns conscience since no Command of God nor Warrant from Scripture ties him to keep it up This truly seems to be the main ground whereupon the whole discourse of this Chapter is builded Is it tolerable that such truths should be concealed by our Warners against their conscience when the speaking of them out might be so advantagious to the King and all his Kingdoms however we with all the reformed Churches do beleeve in our heart the divine Right of Synods and Presbyteries and for no possible inconvenient can be forced to deny or pass from this part of truth yet the Warner here joyns with the elder Prelates who till Dr Banckrofts advancement to the sea of Canterbury did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of divine Right and by consequent affirmed it to be moveable and so lawful to be laid aside by Princes when so ever they found it expedient for their affairs to be quite off it why doth not the Warner and his Brethren speak plainly their thoughts in his Majesties ears Why do they longer dissemble their conscience only for the satisfaction of their ambition greed and revenge Sundry of the Prelatical Divines come yet further to joyn fully with Erastus in denying not only Episcopacy and all other particular forms of Church-Government to be of Divine Institution but in avowing that no Government in the Church at all is to be imagined but such as is a part of the civil power of the Magistrate The Warner in the Chapter and in divers other parts of his Book seems to agree with this judgment and upon this ground if he had ingenuity he would offer his helping hand to unty the bonds of the Kings conscience if here it were straitened by demonstrating from this his principle that very safely without any offence to God and nothing doubting for conscience sake his Majesty might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his Dominions though not upon a divine Right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royal Right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts here again upon the Presbytery the usurpation of the temporal Sword in what indirect relation soever The prelatical party were lately bent for Popery its probation in the former Chapter was found so weak and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only we mark that the Warner will have the Presbytery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Prelates especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this hour an Answer that their principles unavoidably did bring back the Pope For a Patriarch over all the Western Churches and among all the Patriarchs of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flows clearly out of the fountain of Episcopacy according to the avowed Doctrine of the English Prelates who yet are more liberal to the Pope in granting him beside his spiritual super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporal Jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other fair principalities within and without Italy There is no Ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous Ceremonies of Rome their Images and Altars and Adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any Recantation we have heard of avow them all even an Adoration of and to the Altar it self As for the Doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in express terms a corporal presence of Christs Body upon the Altar the Tridentine Justification Free-will final Apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbytery is as absolute Papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian Position which the Warner here offers not to dispute but to laugh at That Christ as King of his Church according to his royal Office and Scepter hath appointed the Office-bearers and Laws of his House is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our Adversaries whether English or Romish as their own tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Laws c. neither they nor we do acknowledg His declamations against the novelty of the Presbytery in the ordinary stile of the Jesuits against Protestants The Prelats profess now a willingness to abolish at least three parts of the former Episcopacy and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regard our plea for the Presbytery is that it is Scriptural if so it is ancient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that here also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speak out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was well warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirm that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantial limbs was ever known in the world till the Pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all Acts of State and exercising the place of a high Treasurer of a Chancelor or whatever civil charge the favor of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction without any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himself in any part of his diocess but devolving the excise of that power wholy upon his Officials and Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himself alone or with the fashional assistance of any