nay by casting out one possesse our selves of seven worse we say nothing in defence of this sort of men we abhor their councells and say as old Iacob did concerning his two sons Gen. 49. My soul shall not come into their secret place nor be joyned with their assemblies Their wrath is fierce their rage is cruell their poyson is rank and deadly they are enemies enough and they bear a tyrannous hatred againstour Church but we could wish there were not other troublers of Israel besides them such as are among us but are not of us that oppose Rome and yet uphold her that by their attempts and practises excuse the practises of the Romish Synagogue and as if she were not impudent enough already adde more brasse to the forehead of that Whore of Balylon We wonder Sir what the Protestant Partie shall be able hereafter to object to the Popes Factors the Jesuits for their treacherous Plots for destroying Kings undermining States raising Sedition exempting Subjects from their obedience when as our present proceedings in that kinde may justly stop our mouthes and make us blush with shame as having equalled if not in some sort exceeded them You say What you do now is for Religion and the Gause of Christ and they as much That what they attempt is for Religion and the Catholique Cause and so the issue of the controversie will be the same Another motive is The deplorable estate of Ireland the distressed estate of England and the dangerous estate of Scotland For Scotland we know not nor hear of any dangers attending them besides Fears and Jealousies which being hansomely managed by the politique contrivers of this War may draw such dangerous consequents upon them as ours have done upon us For Ireland and England their condition is sad and lamentable and the course that is now taken is no means at all of curing them but of making their wounds more deep and gastly A third motive is The failing of other means Supplications Remonstrances Protestations And yet what one thing was ever denyed by His Majesty which was fitting for a King to give away or for Subjects to require All the security for Religion and Liberty that could conveniently be made was fairly offered The fourth and last motive is The practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations It 's marvell you gave no instance in your Explanation it will be hard to finde one in all our Histories that may be a president for such a Covenanting as this we have heard of none more like it then that League of Association which the Anabaptists in Germany made for strengthning of themselves against opposition which they had cause to fear or that la sainte Ligue the holy League of late yeers in France and sure you will be ashamed to make either of those your pattern But as for the example of Gods people in other Nations you instance in the Covenants that Moses made and Ioshuah Iehoida Iosiah Nehemiah c. Custome of sinning how impudent it makes men to be strange that you should not be ashamed at length to make such gulls of poor simple people to delude them with such notorious falsities and so deceive them to their destruction and as strange that the people should endure any longer to be thus perniciously abused Let any man but of the meanest understanding search where these Covenants are registred and compate any of them with this Deut. 29. 2 Chron. 15.12 2 King 11. 2 King 22. Nehem. 9. he shall easily perceive a vast difference both for the manner and the matter In those Jewish Covenants we finde the whole Nation Covenanting and not some particular Faction The Prince or supream Magistrate as Moses and Ioshua were consent and call the people to their Covenant not some of the People bandye themselves together against their Prince and others of their fellow-Subjects In these Jewish Covenants the matter was so apparantly just and good that none could question it The matter of this Covenant seems so unjust to many and is of it self so dubious and suspicious that most men must be pressed and urged to it and threatned for refusall when indeed a Vow or Covenant should be voluntary To conclude as it may be collected from those places this is the sum and substance of the Covenants the Jewes made with God viz To be the Lords people to have nothing to do with Baal to abhor the Idolatry of the Nations to walk after the Lord and to keep his Statutes and his Iudgements with all their heart c. If this were the substance of this Covenant now enjoyned he were not worthy to live upon the earth that would refuse it It appears therefore sufficiently to every considering man how little reason there is from any of these motives to induce us to enter into this League or Covenant So from the Preface to that which you call the substance of this Covenant The first branch of the first Article whereof is this we shall endeavour in our severall places the preservation of Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government This you said was no more then desiring the good of Gods Church according to that Psal 122.7 8. And if that be all may they long enjoy it we shall pray for the peace of Jerusalem in generall in speciall for them they are our Brethren and Neighbours we wish them prosperity and shall seek to procure their welfare But we would fain be resolved of this Whether or no when we vow the preservation of Religion in the Church of Scotland as it is now established for Discipline and Governmens we do not binde our selves by Oath to preserve unalterably that which is alterable of it self and may be altered upon occasion if the necessity of the Church requires seeing it is held by all the soundest and most learned That forms of Discipline and Government may be altered at least in many things that appertain unto them and we finde by experience daily that some Lawes and Orders which were good at first afterwards do grow inconvenient The next branch in that first Article is The Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland In our Protestation we vowed to maintain defend the Doctrine of the Church of England now we swear to reform that Doctrine surely this is somewhat preposterous first we should have reformed it then after we knew what it was maintain and defend it This for ought we see is no better then the taking of Gods name in vain 1 we swear to maintain the true reformed Protestant Religion which might well seem a strange expression we used to know is by the name of Protestant which doth implie Reformed but it seems it is not enough Protestant till it be again Reformed and then it must be truly Reformed before it can come to the power and purity Then we must swear to reform it though which
way it must be done or how far this reformation must proceed we know not Then if this Reformation please not unconstant heads there must be another League for Reformation This is plainly to swear to we know not or care not what The Reformation of Religion in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government Here 's all out of frame it seems nothing right yet there is nothing in the Doctrine of our Church expressed in the 39. Articles and Homilies but all consonant to the harmony of the Confessions of other Churches The greatest Corruption in Doctrine that is amongst us is in that point of Obedience to the Prince as they shall finde who read the Homilies against Rebellion and Disobedience And for Discipline and Government what is amisse therein hath rather proceeded from the fault of these that exercise it then from the Discipline it self But you cry out and say It must be no longer dissembled A great many things there are to be reformed A great deal of Superstition to be cast out Defects in the Liturgy in the Government Sir it is not fair to bring a generall Defamation when you have no speciall charge We wonder you have sate thus long and framed no Articles of impeachment against the Liturgy that the world may see how true this Accusationis But the Liturgy is used just as the Ministers are accused silenced sequestred yet never called nor heard to speak in their own defence Certainly this could not but be we know not whether advantagious to the Cause or not yet a means of more satisfaction to the minds of men if you had expressed what particulars you except against in our Discipline and Worship For though we daily hear our Liturgy cryed down as Popish our Ceremonies as Superstitious raggs of Antichrist c. yet it is by such as we have little cause to resigne our understandings to unlesse we could see their mindes more calm from passion For while we behold them boyling to such uncharitablenesse their discourse must needs be frothy and their brains as empty of sound judgement as their tongues are full of bitternesse We cannot but think them to be led with a blinde zeal when they call light darknesse and know not to distinguish betwixt gold and drosse The Letany they say is conjuring because we pray to be heard by Christs Nativity and Circumcision by his precious death c. a childish cavill and the Buriall Popish because there is no Scripture from one end to the other that prayers were said at Burials It may be your self is convinced with some such powerfull argument for we hear you neglect the form appointed which if it be so we may well be affraid to entrust the reforming of our Religion into such weak hands though you are vouchsafed the titles of Godly and Learned According to the examples of the best reformed Churches And who shall judge which are the best reformed what hinders that this Church should not be as well reformed as any unlesse because it seems not to be so far removed from some Ceremonies used in Popery we know that vertue consists not in the furthest distance from one extream but in a prudent mediocrity between both so that Church is best reformed that keeps a distance in her Worship as well from Irreverence and Profanesse as Superstition The wise Reformers of this Church had an eye to this It was their principall care to abandon Popish Superstitions yet so as by decent orders established to procure a reverent respect unto Gods service The last branch of this Article is To endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the neerest conjunction and uniformity of Religion confession of Faith form of Church-government c. That we and our posterity may as brethren live together in Faith and Love We are glad to hear any thing of Love which is grown so much a stranger that we had thought the very name of it had been quite buried in forgetfulnesse God onely is he that can unmask the heart if men dissemble But let the world judge how little you seek this in earnest when you have blown up such sparks of dissension as have set these Kingdoms in a combustion and rent in pieces Cities Villages Families and are these the works of those that endeavour to live in love But Sir is it not possible to retain Christian love and unity in the difference of Rites and Customs and outward accidentall forms of Worship and Government Calvin respons ad Versipellem Mediat Did not the Eastern and Western Churches retain Communion notwithstanding the Difference about observing Lent and Easter Hear him whose judgement we doubt not you much approve and that is Master Calvin As concerning rites in particular Augustin Ep ad Cassula saith he let the sentence of Augustine take place who leaves it free unto all Churches to retain their own Customes yea sometimes it profiteth and is expedient that there should be a difference lest men should think that Religion it tyed to outward Ceremonies Possble therefore perchance you will grant it is but not so easie Well then it will the more commend our Christian dispositions that we can retain true brotherly love where it is hard to be retained To conclude we wonder how those men dare speak of Love who have raised and fomented the most unnaturall division that ever was or how their hearts can be affected at all with Christian Charity who think the abolishing or changing of those things they contend for in this Reformation worth so much Christian blood-shed besides the ruining of the happinesse of the Kingdom and endangering the very substance of Religion The second Article That we shall in like manner endeavour the extirpation of Popery The most warrantable course that could be taken for this end the Kings Majesty to whom this care belongs in chief was pleased long since to commend to the two Houses that is That the Children of Papists might be brought up in the Protestant Religion and why was it not then accepted But if this extirpation must be by murthering or banishing all of that Religion depriving them of their Estates and goods in which by the law of God and man they have Propriety we doubt whether it may be done without manifest breach of the sixth and eighth Commandements Now we must swear That we will extirpate them yet the manner how it must be done is not exprest Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops Bishops Deans and Chapters c. Here Prelacy is set between Popery and Superstition and so it is handled in that unworthy manner that our Saviour was by the spitefull Jews when he was Crucified between two Theeves that so he might be thought as notorious a Malefactour as those were with whom he suffered Now this question may well arise from hence How those men your self as we suppose and others who have taken Sacred Orders shall be dispensed withall for their Oathes of
Obedience to their spirituall Governours and their severall subscriptions to the present established government which implyed an approbation unlesse to pull down Prelacy you care not to uphold Popery by dispensation of Oathes as some of no small account amongst you did in the case of the Souldiers taken by the King at Brainceford Besides you must needs grant That the Oath of Canonicall Obedience bindes so long as Prelacy stands and Prelacy stands after this League or Covenant taken notwithstanding so many Barons Knights and Burgesses have vowed the extirpation of it for when they vow the extirpation of it that doth imply It is not yet extirpate nor abolished Well then suppose this which may very well be supposed that your Diocesan or Bishop shall command you by all means you lawfully may to countenance Episcopall Government and to uphold it and in your Sermons as occasion shall be to shew how agreeable it is to the word of God and to the first and purest times if you obey him not you are forsworn by reason of that Oath you made to obey him and his Successours in their lawfull and just Commands and on the other side if you do obey him you are forsworn too by taking this new League and Covenant wherein you have vowed the extirpation of Episcopacy It will trouble you Sir to winde your self out of this Dilemma But because shame will not suffer you to declaim with such violence and bitternesse as some of your Brethren do against that which formerly you have approved you told us in your Explanation you would say no more of this Government then was the censure of the Parliament in that Ordinance of theirs for calling an Assembly of Learned and Godly Divines And there is a four-fold Charge against Episcopacy yet God forbid that all the Charges there drawn up should be true First that it is evill But whether in se or in effectu you will not dispute you told us We will excuse you Sir We perceive you were not made for disputing that have learned to distinguish no better Whatsoever is evill in it self must needs be so in the effects For an evill Tree cannot bring forth good fruits you know who said it And whatsoever is evill in the effects is so in it self also by that known Maxime Quod efficit tale est magis tale So that if Prelacy be evill one way it must as necessarily be so the other And if it be not evill in se it is not at all evill and so you may well save the labour of disputing the question falls But to prove it evill some way or other you added this Certainly if it were good so many godly Ministers had not suffered under it To answer that First it is well enough known That when the Discipline of the Church or Laws of this Land though not to the height of severity have been executed against those whose tongues are the trumpets of Sedition it hath been their custome to cry out of Cruelty and Persecution and in the mean time to persecute worse with the sting of their tongue or pen those whom they conceived were the authors or occasioners of their punishment though deserved most justly by their breach of Order and Christian Unity And the miserable confusion of these times doth shew sufficiently how dangerous it would have proved to the State to have passed by such Incendiaries with connivence and indulgence Secondly suppose that some men in the Prelacy have unjustly vexed some Godly Ministers yet a Member of the Assembly as you are may we hope have so much skill as to distinguish the person from the Office and not to slander the calling with the imputation of that which is the fault of those that bear it But it hath been observed long since that amongst other devices you have to make this worthy calling others you use to rip up the faults of Governours with exceeding sharpnesse nay you impute all the faults and mischmeanours abounding in the world unto this form of Ecclesiasticall Government under which we live when as indeed these faults arise from humane frailty and the common depravation of our natures and have been and will be alwayes complain'd of more or lesse what form of Government soever shall take place And you may with the like shew of reason impute those errours and corruptions which we finde reproved by the Prophets in the common-wealth of Israel unto that form of Jewish Government of which you cannot deny God him self was authour as you may charge the Office of Episcopacy with those misdemeanours and abuses that are found among us But secondly It is charged by that Ordinance to be offensive and burthensome We verily think it is to those whose haughty mindes disdain to see any above themselves and whose stiffe necks can hardly endure to be yoked with any though the easiest kinde of Subjection and Obedience To such Monarchy it self is burthensome And if to satisfie their desires they should be suffered to cast off that any other Government would quickly be as burthensome Thirdly it is an hinderance to Reformation saith that Ordinance so say you No marvell indeed if Reformation be to extirpate Episcopacy What you seek to root out the Bishops and the Bishops seek what they can to uphold and maintain their calling This the Law of self-preservation teacheth that Supream Law that teacheth you also now to take up Arms against the King Fourthly it is charged to be prejudiciall to the State and Government of this Kingdom As wise a man as any Member of either House thought otherwise when he said No Bishop no King But how is it prejudiciall You endevour to shew us in your Explanation The state of this Kingdom say you is Parliamentary and the Parliament and Prelacy are not well consorted there is Antipathy between them Now you have confessed the truth by chance that the world may bear witnesse of your loyalty that you have no thoughts to diminish His Majesties just Power and Greatnesse No by no means though you exclude him from bearing the chiefest part in Government The government of this Kingdom you tell us is Parliamentary with which Prelacy is not well consorted So that the Bishops must needs be cast out for their Antipathy Let the King look to himself his turn will be the next But to end our Answer to this Charge Let this worthy Office be laden with all the slanders that envie can cast upon it let it be charged as deeply as the Earl of Strafford or the Archbishop of Canterbury yet you cannot be ignorant That the Antiprelaticall partie which you side with hath been often challenged to shew any Church since the time that the blessed Apostles were conversant upon earth that hath been ordered by any other but Episcopall Government besides some in these last times which for insolency pride and contempt of all good order are found to be the worst and they never yet were able to do it nor ever will
be In the next place is Superstition That is as you say whatsoever it used in Gods worship without expresse warrant from the word This description is so large that a Gown or Surplice a Rayle about a Table a gesture of kneeling or standing up c. will come within the circumference of it and indeed most of you in your popular Sermons use to bring each of these under the lash of Superstion It had been right if you had said That whatforever is brought into the Church of God and held as a necessary part of his Worship without warrant from the Word that is Superstition So that 's a superstitious opinion which is hold by many of your partie when they make one gesture effentiall and necessary to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper namely Sitting and condemn the other of Kneeling to be Idolatrous Next to Supersitition is Haeresie Schisme c Here you instance in Socinianisme Arminianisme Antinoinianisme Anabaptisme There be some too as we hear in the holy Assembly that deny the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son What call ye them must they passe for Orthodox But you gave no instance for Schisme yet never more plenty never was the bond of Communion of Saints broken into so many pieces because of a Rite or Ceremony when as yet we all agree in one Faith have received one Baptisme acknowledge and worship one God and Saviour Oh Sir Schisine was too near you to discern it well If you know what Schisme is namely the breach of Christian Unity and had but looked wishly upon your self you would have condemned your self Who can be more guilty of Schisme then your self and your Partie is You make and take a Covenant here which tends to make a new Schisme in the Church and State at least to make the old one wider and yet colour it over with a pretence of swearing against Schisme It is therefore worth the noting how well this Covenant is kept by those that have power to extirpate these evils that grow upon us To instance but in the Antinomians It is well known there be many that Preach that Doctrine and their Auditories frequented with multitudes of followers yet where is the endeavour of extirpation or any restraint at all where is any stopping of the mouthes of such as speak things they ought not No when we urge this we are told The time is not yet they serve for the present to advantage the Cause and promote the great designe in hand therefore must be born with But what a wicked policy is it in the mean time for any end whatsover to suffer so many souls to be poysoned with erroneous Doctrine when there is power to hinder it Thus where there is little Conscience made of taking Oathes there will be as little of keeping them Or it may be those who have learned to dispense with Oathes have also got that other Jesuiticall trick of equivocating and so they reserve when they take this Covenant that it shall not binde them ad semper to endevour the extirpation of Heresie and Schisme but onely prostaturerum when it shall be no longer advantagious and serviceable for their ends Now we come to the third Article that containes three things First To endevour to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliaments They are like to be preserved and defended well enough by those that know them better then we do when they make it their priviledge daily to command our Estates and Lives Next The liberties of the Ringdoms And that will be an hard matter for us to do viz. to preserve our liberties when we shall have sworn to enslave our Estates and Lives to the arbitrary disposall of our fellow-Subjects Then because he is Minor universis in the last place comes in the Kings person and Authority which must be preserved and defended in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms and no further we suppose you mean it though you are loath to speak it out For if so be he stands not in defence of Religion and Liberties or if you conceive he doth not then your generall tenent is That he may be resisted and you confirm it by your practice God blesse His Majesty and send him a safer Guard then you have been or are like to be you have endevoured all you can to bring his Person and Authority too into a dangerous Estate And surely if he by whom Kings Reign and who will undoubtedly maintain those whom he hath made his Deputies had not been his speciall Guardian he had been long before this destroyed It follows That the world may bear witnesse of our Loyalty The world sees and good mens hearts lament the little Conscience that is left of Loyalty when they hear His Sacred Majesty reviled daily and made contemptible to the people both in jest and earnest by Pamphlets and Preachers Certainly they that know but in grosse what belongs to Royall Majesty cannot but see the Kings just Power and Greatnesse by this time much diminished Is not the power of Arms with which the Law hath entrusted him taken from him and so he is disabled of doing that which his Office doth chiefly call him to that is to protect and defend his Subjects so that in this one particular you will scarcely be able to justifie your Loyalty unlesse holpen out with some of those or such like distinctions which necessity hath taught this age to make use of to defend Rebellion So you can defend his Authority and yet destroy his Person resist him as a man not as a King ye can do that and more too you can defend Religion by courses utterly condemned in that Religion The fourth Article To endeavour the discovery of Incendiaries Malignants and evill Instruments c. And who are they such as divide the King from his people And such too as divide the People from their King Such as Sheba and Absalon were in Israel Now who are in more esteem with the City and Parliament then those who have been the chiefest Incendiaries of this War Strange it is that those who sound Alarms as far as Scotland and seek to engage this Kingdom more desperately in this unnaturall War should be judged good Instruments and Well affected and those that Pray and Preach and endeavour by all good means for Peace at home should be counted Incendiaries and Malignants It is our chief comfort that there is a time to come when the secrets of all hearts shall be manifest when every one shall receive according to his works Before that time the Peace-makers must not look for their promised blessing The fifth Article concerns The endeavouring that the Kingdoms may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Vnion to all Posterity God grant they may but yet the Scots invading this Land with an Army is thought by the wisest to be contrary to the Articles of Pacification and so no likely