King 's pretending to an arbitrary and absolute disposal of these previleges thus granted to be an injurious invasion and usurpation Yet in order to the Church and her rights and immunities they are not ashamed to cut off â—o even and just a parallel and deny so evident a consequence in behalf of her righteous liberty But wisdome is justified of her children And how much were it to be wished that at the least the children of light were as wise as the children of this world are in their generation 3. Beside the invasion threatened to the Church in its power of administration and the usurpation from the Church of the power of Government which this Supremacy imports it further attributes to the Prince according to our Parliaments late explication an illimited power in matters of Religion proper and reserved to God alone To enact whatever a man thinketh fit in Ecclesiastick meetings and maâ—â—ers I am certain is that which the Lord did never allow to any meer man under heaven and yet that this power is assumed and how by vertue thereof old unwarrantable superstitions have been retained new rites and ceremonies in Divine Worship devised and Churches turned and overturned according to mens pleasure is sufficiently known without my condescendence And therefore seing the King by vertue of his Supremacy doth not only intermedle by giving his civill sanction and confirmation to the intrinseck powers of the Church by you mentioned as you do allege or by acts imperate as others in contradistinction to elicite acts in these matters doe use to express it but doth lay claime to an absolute power in and over all Church-matters and persons the filly pretense whereby you go about to smooth it is not worthie of any mans notice In the next place you tell us of some explications provided for removing of the scruples which the generality of the words of the oath of Supremacy might suggest And to this it may suffice for answer that seing these explications are certainly confined to England and by no publick Act received or owned among us your allegeance with your childish ground that we have this oath from them is wholly impertinent as to our releifeâ— But seing the setting down of these explications contained in the English act and Articles above cited Which you do counningly omit will not only by comparing therewith the far different practices of the Kings of that Realme discover the inadequatnesse not to say the slightnesse of these sensings in effect meerly devised to palliat an excess in it self nowise justifiable but more fully manifest the strange extravagance both of the practical acceptation and late express interpretation of this Supremacie You may read them as follows the words of the Act in quinto Elizab. Declare her power and Authority to be a soveraignity over all manner of persons borne within the Realme whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal so that no forreigne power hath or ought to have any superiority over them and these of the Articles run thus Art 37. We give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the injunctions also lately set forth by Elizab our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwayes to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himselfe that is that they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civill sword the stubborne and evill doers These being the termes of these explications what consonancie the medlings of their Princes in imposing rites ceremonies and formes of Worship enjoyning their own dayes and profaning God's commanding what Doctrine Ministers should forbear permitting excomunication in their own name jointly with the Lords and finally by sitting and ruling in the Temple of God as in their own Court do hold therto is obvious to the first reflection Only this I must say that if the Kings of England their Ecclesiastick actings be indeed sufficiently warranted by the foregoing explanations the Author of the late discourse of Ecclesiastick policy who in prosecution of the King's Supremacie doth plainly annexe unto it the Authority of the preisthood and power over the conscience at least the obedience of men in matters of Religion in place of that applause wherwith he is generally received at Court deserves rather to be demeaned as the highest calumniator and depraver of his Majesties government But not to trouble you further with these double English senses viz that pretended by their Acts of Parliament and Articles which I grant to be more sound and such wherewith many godly men have rested satisfied and the other more true received and followed by their Court and Clergie nor yet to insist upon your incomparable and blessed Who now hath mens persons in admiration Bishop Usher his more full interpretation equally redargued by what I have alreadie said Let us consider our Scots most excessive though more ingenuous explanation and although I do apprehend the words of the Oath of Supremacie to be in themselves capable of a sound sense and that by understanding supreme Governour of this Kingdomeâ— not to be a limiting designation but a plain qualification of the nature of the government as being in order to its correlat this Kingdome in it selfe civil and only in this notion to be extended to persons and causes ecclesiastick all difficulties may be salved yet when to the rise and manner of this Supremacie above declared I adde how of late it hath been made the ground of the King his restoring of Bishops and framing their government to an absolute dependence upon himselfe granting of the high Commission appointing the constitution of a National Synod and of other strange acts before touched and especially that as the Act Parl. 1592. expresly and justly limiting this Supremacy was by the first Act 〈◊〉 2. Parl. 1661. Wholly abrogate and made voidâ— so by the first Act of the Par. 1669. The same Supremacie is assâ—rted to that absurd hight as doth import a plain surrender of Conscience and submission of all Matters of Religion for as to civills we are not so rash to his Majesties pleasure in a more absolute manner then ever to this day hath been acclaimed either by Pope or general Council These things I say being weighed I think I may safely conclude that I look upon the Supremacie not only as a civill Papacie but an height of usurpation against our Lord King in Zion whereunto never Christian Prince nor Potentate did heretofore aspire And here your N. C. seconding my assertion tells you that this Supremacie clearly makes way for Erastianisme To which you answer That this is one of our mutinous arts to find out long hard names and affixe them to any thing displeaseth us But passing the childishness of this conceite as if either a long or hard name were more odious then a short in my opinion
Christians ought not to press or judge one another in the performance or forbearance of things in themselves indifferent as acceptable and well-pleasing to God without his warrant and therefore the force and effect of humane Laws ordering and commanding things in order to the Politick ends of Government and in so farre by the Lord commanded to be obeyed are not by this Doctrine in the least demurred Now that your Ceremonies and other impositions being all relative to the service and worship of God wherein as every thing is to be observed with the faith of the Lords acceptation so nothing can be acceptable without his warrant are not of the nature of things as objected to civill commands but plainly such wherein Paul pleads for liberty is manifest Nay you your self know so well that the very things scrupled at by us as enjoyned toward a religious observance would be readily complied with upon any other reasonable occasion and that thousands who detest the Surplice would chearfully engadge in a Camisado for their Prince's service that I add nothing If you say that the things in debate though commanded for religious uses are never the less enjoyned not as acceptable to God and under this formality but are only necessary because commanded You bewray not only a sinful gaudie licentiousness of doing things for and in the house of the God of Heaven not commanded by the God of Heaven wherein even Heathens let be Christians have been tender but expose the purity and simplicity of Religion to all the corruptions of mans vain imagination As to what you adde anent the pretext which this liberty may give to offenders to decline Discipline it is yet less to the purpose in as much as submission to Discipline doth in effect flow from the Lords Authority whereby it becomes necessary and Mens part therein is only a naked ministerial application Lastly if you object that publick Peace and Order require your conforming obedience Your opinion and method in this point is much different from the Apostles he makes it his great argument not only for not judging and censuring Non-conformists but also in the case of offence for complying with them in their forbearance That we ought to follow the things which make for peace and wherewith one may edisie another But you and your partie for all the noise you make for publick Peace before you tolerat a Non-conforming in the greatest indifferencies and howsoever tender and innocuous will sooner both deprive your Brethren of Peace and for your vain trifles destroy the work of God whereas though you had faith in these things yet you ought to have it to your selves before God But Sir it is already too manifest that as in practice you know not the way of Peace so in this discourse by pressing a strict obedience from the free Spirit of Christian liberty which you seem to commend you palpably condemn your self in that which you appear to allow Having thus farre in the pursute of your reasonings digressed in the explanation of true Christian Liberty because of its after use in the perusal of your remaining purposes I shall not stick in the considering of what you make your N. C. add That we forbear the things pressed for avoiding the scandal of others I have already told you that the reasons of our forbearance have no less then the indispensable motive of the will and Oath of God Yea suppose the things required were meere externals and indifferent as they are not yet I have so clearly proven that your abridging of our Christian liberty therein by vertue of your commands is in it self repugnant to the Apostles Doctrine and in its effects pernicious that your requiring to make the restraint of Authority abused to these impositions the warrant of Practice to the forcing of Conscience and the offending of a Christian Brother is a Sophisme no better then if the hardie practiser or proud imposer who is expressly commanded in Christian tenderness to regard his Brothers offence should by a vain pretending of his own offence taken from the others indulged forbearance or recusancie thereby turne the Argument and elude the exhortation to the very scorne of Scripture That which I rather observe is that seing that to give Scandal is not ill defined by you to be a stretching of our liberty to practice to the drawing of others to the like or grieving or making them weak who have not the same clearness why do you not begin your application at Prelats Who having first streatched their practice to the ensâ—aring do also frame unjust decrees to the forcing of such who have no clearness to conform And on the other hand ought you not to indulge such who only desire to reâ—uge their Conscience in the Sanctuary of an allowed forbearance But these are the men whom having first sinfully spoiled of liberty you scornfully abuse by telling they may now act without regard to Scandal since you do permit them no liberty to the contraire But I hasten to your more closs examination of the matter of Conformity And first you ask why do not our Ministers join with your Courts for Church-discipline It 's answered it were tedious to examine the follies of you and your N. C. in this point we join not in your Courts because they are not the Courts of Jesus Christ but of the King and Prelates If this you deny read the Act Par 1. 1661 Sessâ— 1. Concerning Religion and Church-Government the proclamation of Councel thereafter discharging all Presbytries untill Authorized by the Bishops and the Act Par. eod Sess. 2. For the restitution of Bishops where as you will finde that Presbytries were made Precarious as to their continuance not as to their right which is indeed Divine by the first Act and then simpliciter discharged and broken up by the Proclamation so that which returnes in their place by the last Act and what ensued is not the former Presbyteries but only the Exercises of the Brethren having both their regulation and authority from the Bishops who have all their Church-power and Jurisdiction in a dependance upon and subordination unto the soveraign power of the King as Supream So that the Kings Authority and Prerogative Royal is plainly the proper fountain and last resort of all the power and jurisdiction to be found either in your Church or its Meetings Nay further this 〈◊〉 so certain that as his Majesty doth not so much as pretend a Commission from Jesus Christ as the anointed King of his Church for this effect which yet the Pope in his most wicked usurpation did alwayes Judge necessary so if it be Treason as it is dict sess of the same Parliament act 3. to derogat from the prerogative of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and if absolute supremacie in Ecclesiasticks incapable either of superior or conjunct do thereto by the late Act of Supremacie appertain certainly to make our Lord so much as a sharer with the King in
this point of more knowledge then your self who proving it by the point ordinarily set after the figures of the year of God would have the following restriction only to concerne the Acts and Lawes generally annulled But as it is evident that the point maketh no period and protestant Religion contained in that Act. 1592. Should be vacated and annulled so the obvious tenor of the words together with the sense of the Parl. Anno. 1662. Who in the new establishment of your Prelacy did judge it convenient to the grounds therein laid down to rescind de novo that old Act in all its heads clauses and Articles whatever might be the consequence do abundantly elide this conceit However I do again tell you that our consciences in this matter are better founded and not squared to such mutable rules And therefore seeing our grounds are firme and stable let me in the words of your own exhortation obtest you and your party to consider your way better cease from your persecution repent of your apostasy and usurpation and return into favour with God and union with us Now follows a childish quarrel between you and your N. C. anent the tenderness of your love and prayers in our behalf above that measure which we use towards you and 1. You say wo should be to you and you N. C. If the love of God to you did appear in such effects as the love of some of ours doth the invidious strain of their prayers being universally that God would bring you down destroy the incorrigible and shew the rest the evill of there defection but you say how would we take it if you should pray that God would destroy our party and shew us the evill of our Rebellion and other wicked courses 'T is answered 1. Seeing that wo shall certainly be unto all such and they are far from the love of God who are incorrigible that God by making manifest his righteous judgments would glorify his own Name and deliver his Church from such adversaries is a prayer clearly warranted both from the word and the practice of the Saints nor is it in the least discordant from that Christian charity whereby I am really moved earnestly to desire the Lord to deliver you and all both from the thing and its punishment 2. That God would bring down the proud that exalt themselves against Jesus Christ and give repentance to backsliders is a prayer so agreeable to the will of God and full of love to the persons prayed for that I am certain whatever may be said against our principles which I remit to the impartial discerner yet our practice in this as being both tenderly Christian and fairly consequent cannot but be approven 3. Mistake not if you should pray for us in the same strain we might possibly and with great reason account it an aggravation of the evils of your other principles and practices but we are not so narrow as to construe it a particular breach of charity Nay for my part as I would think it rationally consequent so abstracting from the errors which it supposâ—th I would take it for the greatest testimony both of your zeal toward God and love toward us But if I may use a little freedome why do you please your self so much in vain talk though we hear not many of your prayers yet I am sure all know that we want not plenty of matter and instances for a retortion in what termes soever you please to frame your challenge are we so short in memory as not to remember how your pulpits sounded both in preaching and prayer after the late rising and that not only against these poor broken innocents but in such a manner against our whole party as by false and fierce accusing of all without distinction might almost have excused in them the like attempt to save from that fury that thundered every where If you would have any latter and more particular instances pray inquire after the B. of St. Andrew's Sermons specially that preached by him the 30 of Jan. 1669. and the other before the last Parliament you complain of the severe stile of our prayers he good man being ill satisfied with such soft and aâ—rie tooles and having passionately fumed out a most bitter invective against our Presbyterian Ministers not long since his brethren and benefactors did very agreeably close it in these words these are circumforaneous Demagogues acted by a spirit otherwise to be cast out then by fasting and prayer But what need I mention your prayers when indeed many of your practices have most visibly been such as may justly make your fairest words suspected of the deepest dissimulation I know some of you have a fashion of praying that God would unite this poor Church and heall our breaches But if that be all the evidence you can bring to shew the healing and peaceable spirit to be on your side Pray tell me why the Church of Rome that may boast as much of the same formula may not as justly pretend to it I might further adde that it appears to be no extraordinary merit for such as are countenanced by the Powers and do Idolize peace and ease to wish for an union with any whom they apprehend to be their opposits and that perhaps the more sober amongst you for all their compliance under the tentation yet are not so far abandoned as that they dare in Gods sight justifie there defection and pray against the party and courses which they know they did not desert from any conscientious conviction But I have insisted too long on so poor a subject and I can in your own words assure you that we are not only ready to unite with you but are extremly though not implicitly desirous of it and do therefore dayly pray that God would open your eyes reclaim you from your backslidings and grant unto us union and peace in truth to his glory This is the Accommodation that is only desireable if you pursue any other I am certain that however it may be consonant to your designes yet it is altogether dissonant from your proâ—ession and therefore if we be more rational and upright to hate all sinfull Accomodation and rather to wish that our differences may stand and be perpetuat in the behalf of truth then cemented by a sinful compliance wherein are we to be reprehended Now that this is all that we teach in this matter the same books which you referre to do testify and that it is none other then the very doctrine of the School of Christ the frequent Scripture-injunctions to the defence of and stedfastness in the truth with the commands of a just opposition to and avoiding of every false way and its promoters do sufficiently evince But you adde Let all men judge if there be not a bitterness in the Preface to Masâ—er Rutherfoords letters the Apologetical Narration and Naphtali unsampled in any satire let be grave and Christian writing Sir since you are pleased to
precedent you say is the holy league of France from which you think our whole matter seems to be transcribed I have on purpose exhibited these passages together that men may the better perceive the malice of your calumny which prefacing and palliating with a great show of ingenuity you prosecute with meer falshood and impertinency But first dare you after second thoughts affirme upon your ingenuity small as it is that this History of Gregory is the first precedent that occurres to you of fighting for Religion I have already told you how before Constantin's Empire the Christians in the East the Armenii by name did by armes assert the liberty of the Gospel and rout Maximinus their Persecutor and that the Persian Christians persecute by their Princes did implore the assistance of the Romanes against them is obviously notour Are not these then antient and undeniable precedents But 2. What likeness find you in Gregories case to these practices that we maintaine An usurping Prelat according to the Spirit of pride and violence moving in that order quarrels with the Emperour anent the investiture of Bishops whether upon just grounds or not is not the present concern and thereupon excommunicating him extites his Subjects yet unstable after a recent rebellion to a second rising Pray Sir was this a war provoked to by persecution the necessity of defence in which points the justice of our courses doth cheifly Consist Sir do you think that a war being sometime made upon a false or unjust pretense of Religion should be an instance sufficient to disprove all warres whatsomever upon a Religious account Certainly if we admit of such reasoning the most necessary and just defensive war that ever was or can be supposed may by the objecting though most groundlesly of any of the most arrant rebellions by the same consequence be condemned Seing therefore that Gregorie's course was plainly wicked 1. Because his medling with the Emperour after this sort was a proud usurpation 2. Because whatever right or wrong was in the matter abstractly considered yet without doubt the Emperour's pretense was better founded then the Pop's 3. Because he not only abused the spirituall censure but perverted it to the instigatting to perjury rebellion and blood for his own tyrannous lust and ambition your reproaching us who from our heart detest all such wayes either with this or any the like act of the papal insosolence and domination is but dull and ridicluous envy As for the Holy league of France from which you say our whole matter seems to be transcribed Was it not contrived and entered into at least in pretense for the restoring and settling of Romes superstition and consequently for the extirpation of the protestant Religion How then can our necessary undertaking for the defence of our selves in the maintenace of the true Religion and covenanting together in this cause expresly against Romes designes and instruments be assimulat to that precedent Out of what Topicks will you prove such direct opposites as a League for establishing error against truth and a Covenant for truth's defence to be parallel Or do you think that the same common name and forme of a League or the accidental similitude of certaine ordinary methods and circumstances is sufficient to conclude all ingagements accordingly modelled under the same character But it is so certaine that the most wicked combinations of the ungodly may proceed in the same form manner with the righteous Covenants of the faithful and that as these may joyn themselves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant so those also may conspire against the Lord and against his anointed plote against the just and make a Covenant even with hell and death that I am ashamed of your futility But you say That herein we symbolize with Courtiers Canonists and Iesuites the worst gang of the Romane Church and yet fill heaven and earth with clamors against the Church of England for innocenter resemblances Sir This your herein needeth explication for that as they did so do we enter into Leagues is too general to import any reflection and as to the specifications of that popish League seing they disterminate our cases to no less opposition then that of error persecution and destruction on their part to truth necessary defence and preservation on our part what remains to make out this your objected agreement 'T is true these French leaguers were subjects and did pretend for their Religion with an avowed preference to the subordinate duty of their allegeance to their Prince but seing their religion was a false superstition and their ingagement neither provoked by injurie nor limited to defence but in manifest malice Without the countenance of Authority entered into to suppresse by bloud and violence truth and innocenie our Covenant authorized byâ— the unanimous vote of the Estates of Parliament for the necessity of defence in an exigent very demonstrable both from our first and chief obligation unto God and unquestionable liberty and priviledge of selfe defence can not without an impious effrontery be compared to that wicked and cruel Bond. And here if comparisons were not more odious then pungent it were easie for me to prove that as our National Covenant was at first made in opposition to the bloudy decrees of the Council of Trent and the combinations framed for executâ—ing thereof â—and our League and Covenant afterward ingaged in upon the express consideration of the continual plotes and conspiracies of the enemies of God against his truth so it is only the practice of your Prelats their persecuting bonds and subscriptions with their persidious â—ellum Episcopale and not our defensive Covenants that can be reproached with the imitation of these popish courses But seing the necessity and justice of our cause was plainly such as neither can be convelled by your aspersions nor needeth the confirmation of the known precedents of the French and other protestants counter-leaguing in opposition to that wicked League devised against them I shall not detain you longer on this subject As for the Church of England's seeming to symbolize with Rome in some innocenter things as you phrase it I wish she were indeed as innocent in that matter as we are in what you objecte But seing what you would only have to be a seeming appearance is a manifest reality already clearly Demonstrate by the Authors of Altare damascenum and the English Popish Ceremonies passing this poor reflection as one of your affected transitions I follow you to your next purpose Which you table by a challenge from your N. C. that you still retain the papacie and do only change the person from the Pope to the King whom you make and swear to as Head of the Church And to this you answere very vehemently that it is an impudent calumny as you promise to clear by an account of the whole matter But behold the worthie performance a lame confused pitiful storie how the Pope beside his general tyrannie did upon King