Conscience And thereafter describing their Church Politie and Discipline calls it that Parity which can never stand with the Order of the Church nor the Peace of a Commonweal and well Ruled Monarchy Now when these are the Characters which the British Solomon gives Presbyterians and Presbytery and with a Protestation before God that he lies not Who can with any shadow of Reason or grain of Charity think that he either was so Unwise or Irreligious as by Act of Parliament to Establish Presbytery in the Church out of his own free choice and not out of some kind of Compulsion Nay when that Government and its Admirers have these Characters from him can any thinking man read over the Act of Restitution of Bishops An. 1606 and not believe that according to its Preamble the former Act An. 1592 impairing that first Estate of his Kingdom was purely owing to his young years and the unsetled Condition of Affairs How he was forced to it we may learn from his own Book wherein he says that God Almighty was pleased that the Blessed Reformation of Scotland should begin with Unordinate and Popular Tumults of men clogg'd with their own Passion and particular Respects that some fiery spirited Ministers got such a guiding of the People at that time of Confusion as finding the gust of Government sweet they began to fancy a Democracy to themselves that having been over well baited upon the wrack first of his Royal Grandmother and next of his own Mother and usurping the liberty of time in his own long Minority there never rose any Faction among Statesmen but they that were of that Factious part were careful to perswade and allure the Church-Men to espouse that quarrel as their own Wherefore in the year 1592 the pernicious Feuds between the Earls of Huntley and Murray and those Contests between the Assembly Men of the Clergy and the Lords of the Session Together with repeated Treasonable Plots carried on against his Royal Person by Bothwel and his Associates of the greatest Power and best Quality forced that young King to settle Presbytery in the Church that thereby he might bring off Presbyterians from joyning with the Acts of their Kirk to unsettle his Throne 3. Charles the First of ever Blessed Memory he pleads that in Charity he may be thought desirous to preserve the English Church Government by Bishops in its right Constitution as a Matter of Religion wherein both his Iudgment was justly satisfied that it hath of all others the fullest Scripture Grounds and also the constant practice of all Christian Churches And after he had written this Confession with Ink and then Sealed it with his Royal Blood who can imagine that his once giving some way to Presbytery in Scotland was his voluntary Act especially when his Majesties Commissioner the Earl of Traquair according to instructions gave in his Declaration to the contrary But here there is no need to declare the unhappy State of Affairs that forced him to it Since there are Volumes written concerning that Religious Rebellion which produced the most horrid Murder of the best King that ever was in these Kingdoms 4. Wherefore the Impartial Resolution to the question proposed is in short this that K. Iames the 6th and K. Charles I. setled Presbytery in the Kingdom of Scotland being constrained thereunto by troublesome and tumultuous times QUESTION III. Whether the Principles of Scottish Presbytery grant any Toleration to Dissenters 1. SINCE the solemn League and Covenant is the Canon and the Acts of the general Assembly the Comment of the Principles of Scotch Presbytery this Question in reference to their Toleration of Dissenters plainly resolves in this Whether Covenanters and Assembly-men according to their Principles are for Liberty of Conscience or against it 2. In the first Article of the Solemn League they swear That they shall sincerely really and constantly endeavour the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Discipline and Government against their common Enemies 3. To preserve this part of the Reformation they swear again in the second Article against Popish Prelacy that is the Church Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops their Chancelors and Commissiaries Dean and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition and Heresie 4. What is meant by their Sincere Real and constant endeavour against their common Enemies King or Parliament for preserving that Reformation in Church-Government by extirpating such an Episcopacy is manifest in the last Article in which they swear to assist and defâ—nd all those that enter into the League and Covenant in the maintaining and persuing thereof and that they shall not suffer themselves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terror to be divided from their Blessed Union and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give themselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in the Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of God 5. But if after all these parts of the first second fourth and sixth Articles of the Covenant compared together any Seruple yet remains whether those Men who make Conscience of the Oath they have taken against any Indifferency or Neutrality in this Cause against Episcopacy which in Charity I believe they think the Cause of Christ can allow any Toleration to Dissenters let us in the next place consider some Acts of their General Assemblies which are the Infallible Interpreters of this Rule of their Faith about Ecclesiastical Polity Now although the Episcopal Clergy in the times before the year 1639 when they saw that destruction of the Church Government neither themselves appear'd in Tumults nor in Sermons or Books exhorted others to Tumultuate for to preserve it yet the Presbyterians were so far from taking pains to gain them unto a Conformity or in case they conform'd from letting them continue in their Cures as the Presbyterians were dealt with after the year 1662 that on the contrary they pass these following Acts. 6. The General Assembly ordaineth the subscription of the Covevant to all the Members of that Kirk and Kingdom 7. And whereas the former Act Aug. 1630. hadnot been obeyed it was again ordain'd by another Assembly That all Ministers make intimation of the said Act in their Kirks and thereafter proceed with the Censures of the Kirk against such as shall refuse to subscribe the Covenant and that exact account be taken of every Ministers diligence herein by their Presbyteries and Synods as they will answer to the General Assembly 8. Neither was this last Act inflicting Ecclesiastical Censures only to fall heavy upon those who were hinderers of their blessed Reformation whom they called Anticovenanters but in the Assembly it 's appointed that all Ministers take special notice when any secret disaffecters of the Covenant shall come within their Parishes that so soon as they shall know the same they may without delay cause warn them to appear
before the Presbyteries within which their Parishes lies or before the Commissioners of the Assembly appointed for Publick Affairs as they shall find most convenient which warning the Assembly declares shall be a sufficient Citation unto them 9. And that all and every one of such Offenders shall humbly acknowledge their Offence upon their knees first before the Presbytery and thereafter before the Congregation upon a Sabbath in some place before the Pulpit and in the mean time they be suspended from the Lords Supper And in case they do not satisfie in manner aforesaid they be processed with Excommunication And this is as easie an Ecclesiastick Censure as the whole body of their Acts of Assembly have upon Record or any now alive can remember Nay the Assembly enjoyns this Excommunication against Covenanters themselves who but in so far comply with Malignancy the King 's Evil of those times as to drink the health of any declar'd a Common Enemy of that Covenanted Kirk and Kingdom 10. And in case any Excommunicated Malignant should for all his being Heathen be yet so much the Christian as to long after the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood they did all they could to hinder it For not only is it by them ordain'd That all Deposed Ministers who after the Sentence of Deprivation pronounced against them exercise any part of the Ministerial Calling in the Places they formerly served in or else where they should be proceeded against with Excommunication but Five Years before Anno 1643. it was by them provided that if any Covenanted Minister should haunt the company of any Excommunicated Person he should for the first fault be suspended from his Ministry by his Presbytery during their pleasure and for the second fault be deprived and in case the Presbyteries be negligent therein that the Provincial Assembly shall censure the Presbytery thus negligent And when they have done sufficiently to deprive the Excommunicate person of all Spiritual Mercy as far as they could do they proceed to take from him all his temporal comfort of Liberty and Property according to their Act whereby they order his Person to be imprisoned after the loss of his Goods and Estate 11. Now these being the Principles of Presbytery founded upon the Oath of the Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy and never to be indifferent in the Cause and explained in the Assembly-Acts enjoyning Censure and Excommunication and recommending to the State the Temporal punishment of Forfeiture and Imprisonment to pass thereupon against all Persons disaffected the impartial resolution to the Question is this That the Principles of Scottish Presbytery grant no Toleration to Dissenters QUESTION IV Whether between the Year 1662. and the Year 1689. Presbyterian Separatists were guilty of sinful Separation 1. THE Larger Catechism agreed upon by the pretended Assembly at Westminster with assistance of Commissioners from the Kirk of Scotland and thereafter approved by their general Assembly teacheth such Doctrine as from it can be demonstrated how necessary it is for Salvation that every person keep Communion with the particular Church established by the Laws of the State he liveth in unless she either enjoyn in her Canons any sinful term of Communion or propose in her Confession of Faith any Heretical Article or prescribe in her Directory for Worship any Idolatrous impurity So that the Question here proposed plainly resolves into this Whether the Episcopal Church of Scotland these 27 years enjoyn'd any sinful Canon as a term of Communion or prosess'd any erroneous Doctrine to be believed or directed any Idolatry to be performed in Divine Worship 2. All the Presbyterians in the World cannot produce one Canon of any Synod of the Episcopal Church of Scotland from 1662 to the last year with which they will not readily comply excepting those Canons that qualifie Ministers to the Exercise of the holy Function and none of those are enjoyned the Clergy of that Perswasion as a term of their Communion but as a condition of their Ministration So that however these should debar any Ministers from the Pulpit they cannot shut them out of the Church Nay when it hath been demonstrated to them in a Letter for Union dated at Edinburgh the 4th of March last that never any Confession of our Reformed Church avowed a Divine Right in a parity among all Church-Officers and that the Solemn League did not abjure the President Bishop and that the English Presbyterians in Conscience of their Oath of the Covenant petitioned for such an Episcopacy I think it may be presumed when twelve-months are past without any Reason published against the said Letter that they now believe that sin lieth at their door for leaving their Charges after the Restauration of our Kingly Government upon the point of Difference about Episcopacy 3. In the second place the Scottish Presbyterians for Matters of Faith adhere to the Westminster Consession in obedience to the Act of their General Assembly Now let any Presbyterian discover if he can one single Article of all the three and thirty Chapters of that Confession that was ever condemn'd by the late Episcopal Church of Scotland in any whatsoever Synod since the time of its Restitution 4. Thirdly Scotch Presbyterians for publick Worship in the Church retain the Directory composed by the foresaid pretended Assembly at Westminster and thereafter approved by the General Assemblies of their Kirk Now to this Rule of Divine Service the established Episcopal Church there hath these 27 years been more conformable than the Presbyterians ever were or are It is true that those who have Sworn in the Solemn Leagne to preserve the Protestant Religion as it stood reformed in Scotland An. 1638. and to reform the Kingdom of England in the same point of Worship according to the Example of the Church of Scotland are by virtue of this their Solemn Oath obliged to ling the Doxologie after the singing Psalms ever after the year Forty Eight as well as they did it all the ten years before and to avoid the sin of Perjury they were bound to make their English Brethren to sing it rather than at their instigation to forbear to sing it themselves But not to insist upon this Covenant-Obligation doubtless when the Episcopal Church of Scotland continues that Christian Hymn which the Directory hath no where forbidden their sin of Commission is not half so great as the Omission of the Lords Prayer which the Directory enjoyneth to be said at Sermon times of which Omission the Presbyterians are only guilty of all the Christians in the world 5. Again in Administration of both Sacraments the Episcopal Church of Scotland observeth the Directory in all things save one which is a very justifiable Practice and that is in the Office of Baptism the solemn Confession of the Apostolick Creed which both the pretended Assembly here at Westminster and the General Assembly there in Scotland at the end of the shorter Catechism acknowledge to be a Brief Sum of the
importing That every Person having an Inheritance should pay the fourth part of his yearly Estate every Yeoman Tenant or Farmer the fourth part of his free moveables after the payment of their Dues to their Master and that every Burgess should lose all the Priviledges within the Borough and the fourth part of his moveables 12. But notwithstanding this Penal Law the contagion of those Books and Sermons which poisoned so many with Principles of Separation from the established Church produced the renovation of the Covenant contrary to the Authority of the King and Parliament and that again was followed by an open Rebellion of the Western parts known by the name of Pentlin Hills in the Year 1666 defeated by the King's Army so that they were out of capacity of resisting However the King in his Royal Clemency at the Address of some States-men gave them indulgence to convene in Meeting-Houses for Divine Worship and they made this good use of his Mercy as that by them the incumbent Ministers whose Characters would have secured them any where but in the West of Scotland had their Houses in the night time invaded their Persons assaulted wounded and pursued for their Lives Then indeed that merciful Prince with advice of his Estates in Parliament having a just indignation of such horrid and unchristian Villanies thought fit to brand the same with a signal mark of displeasure And this Act of the Date Aug. 1670. is the first that punisheth with Death and confiscation of Goods 13. It is true indeed the King and his Estates of Parliament filled with indignation at the scandalous sin which procured this former Penal Law and understanding from thence that the specious pretences of Religion were altogether false and taken up by seditious Persons They immediately pass'd another Act against Conventicles the Preamble of which last Act declares That such Meetings were the ordinary Seminaries of Rebellion as well as Separation that they tended to the alienating the Hearts of the Subjects from their Duty and Obedience they owe to his Majesty and the Publick Laws and by consequence to the reproach of the Authority of the King and Parliament as well as the prejudice of Gods publick Worship and the scandal of the Reformed Relâ—gion And therefore they were obliged in reason of State as well as for the Peace of the Church to make the Penalty of this Law fall heavy upon the Transgressors thereof 14 And the Penalties therein contained as nigh as I can value Scottish Mony by the current Coin in England are these following That every Minister preaching at a Conventicle should be imprisoned till he find surety for 275 l. that he should not do the like thereafter or else oblige himself by Bond to remove out of the Kingdom and never to return without his Majesties leave that every one of any Inheritance should pay the fourth part of his yearly Estate that every Servant should pay the fourth part of his yearly Wages that every Farmer should pay Forty Shillings and every Tenant under them Twenty 12. Further His Majesty understanding that divers disaffected Persons had been so maliciously wicked and disloyal as to convocate his Subjects to open Meetings in the Fields and considering that those Meetings were the rendezvous of Rebellion and tending in a high measure to the disturbance of the publick Peace declares that those who in Arms did convocate in Field Conventicles should be punishable by Death and confiscation of Goods and that those present at them should be punished in double the respective Fines appointed against House-Meetings This Act is dated Aug. the 30th 1670. 13. These acts against Separation in Meeting-houses or in the Fields were appointed to endure only for the space of three years unless his Majesty should think fit to continue them longer wherefore his Majesty considering that they had not received due Obedience and that the execution thereof had not been so prosecuted as by the Tenor of the same is prescribed found it necessary with the advise of his Estates in Parliament in Sept. 1672. that they should remain in force for other three Years to come 14. These are the Penal Laws in Scotland against the Presbyterians made by divers free Parliaments against their sinful Separation from the Church to frequent Meeting-houses or Field-Conventicles upon mature consideration of the inconsistency of it with Religion towards God Affection to the Laws Loyalty to the King or Study of the publick Peace of the State And three Rebellions in 23 years from the year 1663 to the year 1686 have justifyed the Justice and Wisdom of these Parliaments But none ever suffered for meer Separation but in purse and never any was punished that way but such as came to Church to save their Money notwithstanding all their pretended scruples of Conscience Wherefore unless we derogate from the Authority of King and Parliament justify Rebellion and prefer private Humour to publick Peace the impartial Resolution of the present Question is this That the Penal Laws against the Scotch Presbyterians had nothing of Persecution in them QUESTION VI. Whether the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland from the Year 1662 to the Year 1686 shewed any thing of the Spirit of Persecution against Presbyterians 1. NOtwithstanding that the Presbyterians are pleas'd to say they were dragoon'd by the Bishops and Episcopal Clergy alluding to that way of Conversion in France which indeed was procur'd by an Address of the Assembly of the Clergy of that Kingdom yet this is a palpable Injustice and Calumny For certain it is that all these twenty four years never produced one Address of the Presbyterial Diocesan Provincial or National Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland either beseeching the High Court of Parliament or the Lords of the Privy Council to make or execute Laws against Protestant Dissenters Wherefore notwithstanding all the passionate Exhortations in private and the publick Sermons in the Church concerning the guiltiness of Schism and the necessity of Union among Protestants against their common Adversaries the Inferiour Clergy there cannot be possibly charged with the Spirit of Persecution against Presbyterians Nay upon the contrary our Clergy were so averse from giving obedience to the Act that enjoyned them to present written Lists of the Dissenters in their respective Parishes and so very inflexible to the Publick Order for their Judicial informing upon Oath against Separatists that the Judges competent and Officers of State chid them in Publick for disaffection to the Royal Government so that under that Imputation they had nothing but their Innocency to support them in the Spirit of Meekness and Charity to their sworn Enemies 2. Again it were a great Injustice to the Lords Spiritual the Bishops to charge any of them as having been the first movers of those Penal Laws against Separation but since the repeated Rebellions of Forty Years past convinced all Mankind of the necessity of those Laws for the security of Religion and the Peace of