Selected quad for the lemma: master_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
master_n	indulge_v	minister_n	stipend_n	24	3	15.9985	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64939	A review and examination of a book bearing the title of The history of the indulgence wherein the lawfulness of the acceptance of the peaceable exercise of the ministry granted by the Acts of the magistrates indulgence is demonstrated, contrary objections answered, and the vindication of such as withdraw from hearing indulged ministers is confuted : to which is added a survey of the mischievous absurdities of the late bond and Sanquhair declaration.	Vilant, William.	1681 (1681)	Wing V383; ESTC R23580	356,028	660

the Church of Scotland In that same page cited from Chap. 10. of the second Book of Discipline they shew that the Magistrate may not usurp the power of the spiritual Keys 2. He might have learned from Mr. Rutherford that the Magistratical power which capacitates the Magistrate to do good to the Church is the same in ill Magistrates even in a Nero that it is in good Magistrates 3. The more ill the Magistrate hath done to the Church he is more bound to repair the wrong he hath done 4. According to this way of Reasoning if the Magistrate overturn the Church he can do no more good to the Church if the placing of Ministers in the corrupted state of the Church be commendable in godly Magistrates why would he hinder Magistrates which have overrurned all to restore all or a part to do something that is good or why should that be counted Usurpation in them which is commended as good service done to the Church when it is done by godly Emperours and Kings Is not that the duty of these who have overturned the Order of the Church to build what they have destroyed and when they do any thing that way it should not be despised but made use of as far as can be done with a good Conscience But the Indulged Ministers need not anxiously enquire as to the defence of their Practice what Power the Magistrate hath or may have in some cases to command Ministers to exercise their Ministry in such or such particular Parishes for that which they accepted and made use of was the relaxation from the Civil restraint and they were called by these Parishes to preach and do their parts of the Ministry there What he saith pag 91. Sect. 3. concerning planting and transplanting and placing Ministers in particular charges is obviated already If he would have disputed fairly he should have kept the terms of the Councils Acts of appointing allowing permitting Ministers to preach in such and such places and not have thrust in his own words of potestative mission planting and transplanting We heard before what words are used in the first Book of Discipline as nominating compelling appointing assigning And in the second Book of Discipline placing Ministers and Mr. Welsh doth not find fault with King James's using the word of planting every Parish within his Kingdom but as was said the Indulged Ministers needs not have recourse to these defences Any who considers that Presbyterial Government was overturned before these Acts of Indulgence and Prelacy setled by Law may think strange that he blames the Council for not consulting Kirk-judicatories There were no Presbyterial Church-judicatories to consult and the Prelates did not like the Indulgence and the consulting them in the matter would have readily scared Presbyterians from making any use of the Indulgence He saith in that same Section That it was the Councils deed alone which did constitute all the Indulged Ministers in such and such places and so made up that relation Now this is false and a begging of the question for they who returned to their own Congregations had a standing relation to these Congregations and they who had not access to their own did not till they had Invitation from the Parishes to which they went and the consent of Presbyterian Ministers concerned conceive themselves obliged to exercise their Ministry among them far less did they think that the Councils deed did constitute them Ministers of these Congregations and make up that relation for if they had thought so they would have thought themselves obliged to have gone to these Congregations upon the Councils deed Concerning the oversight that they have of these Congregations we spoke before and must not continually weary the Reader with Repetitions He frequently carps at their getting the stipend I know not whom he would have to get these stipends seeing he is against the Indulged Ministers getting of them as for the Councils design of fixing them in other charges than their own the Indulged Ministers are not Masters of the designs of any persons but their own but the design of these Ministers was to return to their own Congregations assoon as they had peaceable access Nor could the Indulged Ministers hinder the Council to have regard to the consent of the Patrons but they had no regard to it He refers us to his second remark on the Kings Letter I find no new thing in it he taxes the Indulged Ministers silence and alledges that by their silence they interpretatively assented to the usurpation but they were not silent as we heard before But I would enquire as to the point now in hand to wit the Council appointing Ministers to preach in such and such places What he would have had these Ministers to say Would he have had these who were appointed to return to those Parishes where they were ordained Ministers to have told the Council they would not go to these Parishes because they had appointed them to go Or would he have had these who were appointed to go to other Parishes than their own to have refused absolutely to go because they appointed them to go They did not promise them to go to preach in those Parishes but it had been rashness and unreasonable rashness to have absolutely refused to go and to go upon that account and therefore as they acknowledged not any relation betwixt them and these Parishes upon the Councils Act and did not oblige themselves before the Council to go to these Parishes so they did not go until they were invited by these Congregations To have absolutely refused to preach in these Congregations before they had heard what was the resolution of these Congregations who were concerned as well as they in that matter had been a preposterous haste and they could not have given any rational account to the Council of such a refusal or protestation for if the Council had inquired Why will ye not go to preach there if they had answered according to this Authors mind they behoved to have said Because your L. L. appoints me to go there and preach and I can preach no where where ye command me to preach for I must preach contrary to your command for so he states the matter pag. 129. had not this been humour and no reason if the Magistrate had been disposed to make themselves sport they might have said Then we discharge you to preach in that Congregation which we appointed you to preach in before and we appoint you to preach any where else if the Minister concerned would have been ruled by this Authors reason or humour rather he would have answered Then I will preach in that Congregation where ye first appointed me to preach in and no other place this had been very ridiculous The Magistrate needs not keep soldiers under pay to hinder any of this humour from preaching in any place for they need do no more but appoint them to preach in any place and they may be sure they

he refers to the judgment of the Reader pag. 159. I apprehend the Historian durst not for his Conscience conclude that it was sinful to hear or that it was a Duty to withdraw from hearing the Indulged Ministers he knew and his Conscience put him to declare that the acceptance of the Indulgence and the Councils Order as he calls it settling the Indulged Ministers did not make it sinful to hear these Ministers for he confesses that notwithstanding of the settling of these Ministers by the Councils Order yet if there were no other to be heard they not onely might be Lawfully heard and joyned with but they should and ought to be heard See the stating of the Question in his 28 Questions But though he durst not positively conclude the sinfulness of hearing the Indulged Ministers yet the poor People thinks that he hath done it and they are run so far from hearing the Indulged Ministers that they are without his cry to bring them back though there were no other to hear And too many by these questions about hearing are become careless of all hearing and some place their Religion in no hearing It had been good for many they had never intermedled with these questions about hearing for they are by the wind of Erroneous and Schismatical Doctrines driven from the Publick Worship of God And they take the profanation of the Sabbath in despising the Publick Ordinances to be a piece of tenderness and Religion and if the Lord prevent it not they are like to turn Quakers Pagans Atheists and to shake off the very form of Religion both in publick private and secret The Lord in mercy pity and prevent the ruine that the poor People are blindly running upon Page 159. He proposes Objections to be answered The first Objection should have been proposed thus Ministers of the Gospel who are Ordained and admitted Ministers of their respective Congregations and Ministers who not having access to these Congregations where they were Ordained Ministers are invited by desolate vacant Congregations to Preach the Gospel to them and who upon their invitation and consent of the Ministers concerned come to help these destitute desolate Congregations should not be disowned discountenanced deserted while they are doing the Work of the Ministry to which God hath called them by these People who invited them to Preach the Gospel to them But the Indulged Ministers were either Ordained c. o● invited and come with consent of the Ministers concerned c. And therefore they should not be deserted while they are doing the Work of the Lord to which these respective Congregations invited them If he had thus proposed the Argument he could not have evaded the force of it but it is his way to make Objections so as he may leave some way for himself to escape The true state of the Question is Whether these respective Congregations should disown and reject these Ministers of the Gospel whom they had invited and with consent of the Ministers concerned had received and appropriate to themselves to whom they had submitted and whom they had countenanced in the exercise of their Ministry Now why should they reject them as if they had nothing to do with them whom they received Why should they disown them whom they owned and whom they desired to own them Why should they withdraw from hearing these whom they invited to Preach to them Should they leave them because they Preach the Gospel to them While this Author calls in question if the Indulged Ministers be Lawfully called and appropriate Pastours of this Church he calls in question if this Church have any Pastours for they were Ordained by laying on of the hands of the Presbytery according to the Order of the Gospel and if this make them not Pastours of this Church I would know who are Pastours of it As for his second Objection taken from Mr. Livingston's Advice to hear Mr. John Scot an Indulged Minister he had better forborn to mention it than to have past it with such Answers as he gives Mr. Livingston whom he acknowledges an eminent Seer and Servant of Christ advised to hear the Indulged This Historian advises to withdraw from hearing the Indulged And it 's no disparagement to the Historian to say that Mr. Livingston's Advice was preferable to this Historians Advice who for Learning Piety Prudence Experience and Age was far inferiour to Mr. Livingston The onely thing which Mr. Livingston missed so far as I remember was a Testimony and if he had been well informed of the Testimonies which the Indulged Brethren gave upon several occasions and particularly before the Council and of the consonancy of their Practice to their verbal Testimony and their former Principles he would have been much confirmed in advising to hear Indulged Ministers The Historian says that he does not certainly know whether this Advice of Mr. Livingston proceeded from want of full information of Circumstances or from Ignorance of the Magistrates design or from fear that Field-meetings would cease but he inclines to the last because Mr. Livingston speaks not of his Peoples going to the Field-meetings Answ We have seen that any Light which this Historian hath gotten from Circumstances is darkness And I am very confident if Mr. Livingston had lived to see what Erroneous and Schismatick inferences this Historian hath made from the information which he hath gotten of many Circumstances and had seen the horrid Divisions and Confusions following upon these Erroneous dividing Doctrines he would either have judged that that Circumstantial Light was darkness or if it was light that this Historian did draw darkness out of light But I know no Circumstance of any importance which could make any thing against the Indulgence which was unknown to Mr. Livingston Mr. Livingston was a wiser man than to take his measures of judging of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of hearing Indulged Ministers from the Magistrates designs and intendments Though Ministers and People were clear that the Magistrate had an ill design in permitting or allowing Ministers to Preach the Gospel and People to hear or in permitting Masters of Families to pray in their Families or in permitting Physicians to cure Diseased People yet no rational man who is not blinded with Humour or some prejudice will conclude from the Magistrates ill design which is his Act and no way approved but disapproved by these Ministers Masters of Families Physitians that it 's unlawful for them to Preach Pray or Cure Diseased Persons Mr. Livingston's fears that Field-meetings would cease it seems have been better founded than the Historians confidence that they would continue And though it cannot be supposed that Mr. Livingston was an Enemy to Field-meetings yet none who knew him will think that he was so fond of the Fields that he would have preferred the Fields to a Kirk if the Kirk could have contained all who were to hear him And seeing he speaks nothing of Field-meetings it seems he had not learned that