do they innovate or renounce their Commission from the Lord by receiving the Magistrates superadded mission or command and legal warrant nor do they therefore cease to be Christs Ministers or Ambassadors in his name or become Council-Curates as some opprobriously and injuriously alledg because the King by his Council adds his civil Sanction to the Authority they have of Christ Who can say their Levites were Jehoshaphats Curates and not the Lords Ministers for undergoing the like appointment of his power Does the Magistrates supervenient Authority diminish or enervate the antecedent intrinsick power and spiritual authority of their office or alter its nature Is Christs Commission to his Ambassadors and the Magistrates adding his Civil Warrant kissing and serving the Son of God therein as Psal 2.11 12. destructive and subversive and not rather corroborative one of another and may sweetly conspire together as being though Diversa yet not Adversa and contrary one to another Subordinata subservientia non pugnant Add to all this that several of your General Assemblies the supreme Court of Christ in your Church when they were as oft they were Indicted and Convocate by the Kings Authority and upon his Command and Proclamation did sit were they pray you therefore but Erastian Courts and Synagogues deriving all their Authority from the King and acting in his Name like other Civil Judicatories of the Kingdom i. e. the Session or Parliament were they in this case not at all Christs Court nor acting in his name as his Ambassadors and not the Kings was this in them a renouncing of Christs Headship and an acknowledging of another Lord and Master and a taking of Commission from the Civil Magistrate c. We hope none will be so absurd as to affirm it or to think that the Magistrates Auxiliary deed and their making use of it was derogatory either to Christs Kingly Office or to the Assemblies intrinsick power or altered their nature from being purely spiritual Courts of Christ Even so what more does the Prince his permitting or appointing actual Ministers to exercise their Office here or there in this broken state of the Church constitute them his Curates or Delegates or state them guilty of Homologating an Erastian power and establishing a spiritual supremacy in the Magistrate or infer them to be such as may not say to people Over you hath the Holy Ghost made us overseers but the King Certainly if the superaddition of the Magistrates Authority do not innovate nor prejudice the Assemblies Authority in the exercise of Government neither doth it the Ministers in the Exercise of their Function The Magistrate herein but serves the Lord and his Christ and his Spouse the Church and her Ministry but acts not as in Christs stead as her Head and Lord. Q. The Magistrate his interposing his Authority in this case what place holds it then say ye Answ It is not constitutive of their Office as was in the case of these Priests whom Jeroboam did make and constitute of the lowest of the people but cumulative to it Accumulando jura juribus in a subservient and extrinsick way and corroborative of its Exercise and determineth them in the exercise thereof as to some circumstances namely the place or places of the Land where they are to exercise their work Now this power aforesaid being not improper to Kings under the Old Testament why may they not under the New put forth the like as your own Divines hold and none but the Papists and Anabaptists deny And if they may in some cases appoint much more permit as your Indulgence is as hereafter shall be made to appear To this Scriptural Doctrine agreeth 1 That general Assertion That to the Prince it belongeth as Nurse-father of the Church to take care and do what in him lyes in ways and by means congruous to his capacity and sphere that indigent people be provided with a godly and well-qualified Ministry as learned Mr. Gillespy that noble Antagonist of the Erastian Exorbitancies of the Civil power hath it in his hundred and eleven Propositions Propos 41. And before him famous Mr. Welsh in his Epistle Dedicatory to King James prefixed to his piece against Popery speaking of the forementioned practices of Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat saith to the King Follow these Examples Sir send Pastors through all the borders of your Kingdom to teach your Subjects the Law of the Lord their God c. We hope ye will not think or say that eminent man of God who suffered so much for asserting the Churches rights and withstanding the incroachments of the time doth here teach the King Erastian Principles or practices or Papal and Spiritual Supremacy and yet as much doth he teach as your Indulgence amounts unto in what of it is accepted by the Brethren 2 Ponder how particularly your Church concedeth to the Magistrate a power to put Ministers to particular Charges when the Church is not in her ordinary or well setled case as in the second Book of Discipline Chap. 10. § last they say That Kings and Princes that be godly may by their Authority when the Kirk is corrupted and all things out of order place Ministers and restore the true service of the Lord after the example of some godly Kings of Judah c. So blessed Mr. Welsh in the formentioned Epistle to King James approves of the King his being desirous as he had professed in two Assemblies to plant every Parish within his Kingdom with a Pastor Which expressions of placing and planting used in the foresaid Citations albeit they mean not of Ordaining and making of Ministers constitutively but only a setling of Ministers already Ordained in particular places yet surely they import no less than the word Appoint in the first Indulgence and more than the Grant of the second which only permits Ministers to Preach in such and such vacant Congregations Yea further in the first Book of Discipline pag. 37. it is expresly allowed to the Magistrate in such a case to appoint Ministers to certain Provinces and Charges § If any except here that this power is ascribed only to Godly Magistrates such as Hezekiah c. was To this we say three things 1 Is it not hard to seclude any Prince professing the Gospel and being a member of the Visible Church from the claim at least of Foederal Holiness notwithstanding he have his own personal faults see Job 34.18 2 Ye know it is a Popish principle to say Dominium fundatur in gratia that Soveraignty and power is grounded on Grace and Piety Whence it is when Kings change their Religion and turn Protestant which they call Heresie the Pope declareth them fallen from their Regality exauctorats and deposeth them Your Confession of Faith teacheth otherwise Chap. 23. § 4. That Infidelity or difference of Religion does not make void the Magistrates just and Legal Authority Hence Mr. Calderwood Mr. Rutherford and others of your Writers teach that neither doth Piety add nor Impiety
your selves judg a meer Civil Supremacy about Ecclesiastical persons and things but exalted to a dangerous height devolving all the Legal power about matters of Religion into the Kings hand making him absolute and intirely supreme Quo ad Statum Politicum that is in point of Civil Prerogative Arbitrary so as he may do in Church-matters in point of Law or Civil capacity as he thinks fit without advice or consent of the Estates of Parliament or whether it be as most others judg a Caesarec-Papatus as they speak or a Papal Spiritual Supremacy that is a power to dispose absolutely in a Soveraign Arbitrary Despotical way as well in genere Ethico as in genere Politico upon the matters mentioned in that Act Particularly to settle what kind or Form of Government in the Church he pleaseth and in whose hands he pleaseth as if all the spiritual power of Church-Government were in him as Head and Fountain and Modellable by him at pleasure even as the Civil perhaps at first was and consequently it be an high incroachment upon Christs Crown to whom alone as the only King Head and Monarch of his Church such a transcendent power and priviledg does belong We say we judg it not necessary to examine that matter now But this we may offer to be considered That whatever Overstretch of the Soveraigns power be made in that Act of Supremacy as upon the one hand none of the Indulged alloweth thereof more than any others but lament as much as any the extravagancies of this or any other Acts of Parliament tending to the prejudice of our Lord Jesus Christ his Rights or of the intrinsick Rights and Liberties of his Church so upon the other hand who can with any reason affirm that this Indulged Liberty in so far as it is accepted by your Brethren hath any affinity with such a Papal Supremacy or is a part of the unclean thing that might not be touched Any that aver it to be so we humbly beg their Reasons for hitherto we have seen few but some quirks and iniquous lame similitudes and comparisons which are not Argumentative as all Scholars know however taking they be with the vulgar and you know too that Affirmanti incumbit probatio the burden of probation is incumbent to the pursuer Nevertheless for exculpation we shall lay before you five reasons which we humbly judg may weigh much with any sober and unprejudicate persons to evidence the contrary 1 Consider the nature of this Toleration or Indulgence It is as hath been shewed already meerly an Act of supreme Civil power Circa Sacra and therefore differs toto genere as far as Heaven from Earth from Spiritual Supremacy and is nothing of kindred to it though somewhat of the name 2 A Politico-Papatus or Papal spiritual Supremacy seated in Caesar consists as Writers define it in a power to alter and dispose arbitrarily upon Christs Institutions and to pervert the frame of Religion at pleasure and to set up Humane Institutions in their room as Jeroboam did But this Indulged Liberty is not of that nature but rather an act of his power as Nurse-Father to the Church Isa 49.23 being for restoring and countenancing Christs own Ministers and Ordinances and not of Humane inventions for promoving not subverting of Religion for the good not the hurt of the Church an Auxiliary not a privative exercise of his power Therefore being an Act of the Magistrates kissing the Son of God Psal 2.12 and ministring to the Church in her distress as Isa 60.10 surely it can be no act of that Papal Supremacy derogatory to Christs Prerogative Who can with the least grain of reason say that the restoring in any part of Christs Ministers and Ordinances is a taking of Christs Crown off his head as some of you call the Indulgence and not rather an helping to put it on 3 Manifest it is that the Supremacy asserted in that Act of Parliament relates directly only to the matter of Church-Government the disposal thereof and of persons to be imployed therein and matters to be treated therein And so whatever disposal of the Key of Discipline it put into the Prince his hand yet no ways medleth with the Key of Doctrine and power of Order i. e. the investing of men with the power of Preaching and Ministring the Sacraments for the Act expresly limits the Supremacy to the ordering and disposal of the external Government of the Church But so it is that this Indulged Liberty as the Copies of the Act which we have happened to see bears is only a permission to Preach including virtually a permission to administer the Sacraments also but no License is mentioned therein to exercise Church-Government albeit they venture upon some parts of Government also competent to a Congregation being connived at therein whence it followed the Indulgence granted them can be no efflux of that Supremacy being not ad Idem Or if the Act of Indulgence be of this tenor as is said some other Copies bear permitting them to preach and exercise other parts of their Ministry thence it is evident that the Act of Indulgence presupposes their power and right to Preach c. and that they have a Ministry and intrinsick right to exercise all its parts antecedently to that Indulged Liberty but no way confers a new Copy-hold of their Ministry Only it says the exercise thereof was under a Civil Inhibition or Legal Restraint which this Indulgence takes off But so it is that the Supremacy as it is asserted is a power of conferring power of the matters therein expressed as ye your selves grant as if the Prince were head and fountain thereof Sith therefore by the Indulgence the power of Preaching and exercising the other parts of the Ministry is not delegate nor derived unto them but only the free and peaceable exercise thereof permitted and restraints removed plain it is that the Indulgence is no Act of that Supremacy And that even the power of Kirk-Sessions or Consistorial parts of Government exercised by them differs specifically and in kind from what the Supremacy can pretend to give 4. Power of Indulging is a thing which the Magistrate uncontrovertedly had and did exercise anteriorly to the foresaid Assertion of Supremacy for the first Indulgence was before it and your selves grant that that Act Assertory of the Supremacy is not declarative only though it run in that Style as the Stylus Curiae but Collative and Constitutive conferring upon him more than ever he had before else why did not ye and your Church Resent it before that Assertion of it Whence it follows that the Indulging Power is not a proper part of that new Supremacy being existent before it had a Being nor the Act of Indulgence a Native Product of that Supremacy but the Efflux of a power prior unto it 5. The Act of Indulgence does not in any the least Syllable or Jot of its Tenor Refer unto or Bottom it self upon the asserted Supremacy but runs
fast for strife and debate supposing to add affliction to your griefs and to detract from your esteem yet rejoice ye that Christ is Preached and that sincerely by the most Phil. 1.15 16 17 18. Eighthly Both of you Take heed ye bring not your differences any more unto publick nor otherwise put them among the people Keep them amongst your selves where they may abide with less hurt Rom. 14.1 22. Considering the mischiefs of evulgating them it will evidently appear happy to bury them in silence or oblivion If ye interess and engage the people therein then are ye gone and beside other inconvenients thereof ye shall not get leave to unite again without their consent which may be hard to gain How long shall any affect popularity and thereby subject their Ministerial Authority to the humours of men and women for drawing them to their side to strengthen their party by which means people are taught to domineer over Ministers and may fore-run you and cast at your selves next when ye begin to sit up and not go along with all their notions and inclinations Ye may perhaps find no small difficulty to regulate and bridle their humours being once aloft Fortur equis auriga non audit currus habenas Moreover what do ye by filling peoples heads with such intangling controversies but divert their minds and take them off the main thing and turn Religion into factions and debates and wear them out of heart-tenderness real exercise of Conscience and the serious study of universal Holiness If any make it their work to kindle in Religious Hearers a factious opinionative zeal you may thereby trouble their heads not better their hearts and may sooner make them fire-brands to burn down the peace purity and order of the Church than living polished stones for the New Jerusalem Yea likely you may unhinge them so as to tempt them to cast at all Ministers at all Religion and turn either Atheists or Seekers and Sectarians as woful experience hath many times proved even in our own days so small a friend to the promoting of piety is division Avoid then carefully to discover your intestine jars and animosities before the people in publick or private Bear not your nakedness to their eyes Teach them not to meddle with things above their sphere and beyond their line Psal 131.1 2. and turn them not aside unto vain janglings Tit. 3.9 2 Tim. 2.17 18. 1 Tim. 1.6 7. 4.7 6.4 5. Make it rather your work to edifie them in the Substantials of Religion and Vitals of Piety such as Faith and Repentance Humility Sobriety Mortification Self-denial Love and new Obedience c. How much better were it to fire their hearts with the love of God and man than to heat their heads with puzling debates which do but perplex not edifie and are far out of the way of their Salvation or Duty and doth not at all concern their practice What profit reap they by being inveigled into such quick-sands we have seen many unfleeced of their wool yea torn in their flesh by being involved in such thorns but never any advantaged Ninthly Study Moderation in all things Let not Christian prudence pass with you for wisdom of the flesh nor Christian Moderation for Laodicean lukewarmness Let your moderation be known to all men let it be visible and apparent both in your passions opinions and discourses 1 st Moderate your Affections let not wild-fire take the place of zeal nor zeal turn passionate pickish peevish and bitter What is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor does the wrath of man work the Righteousness of God 2 ly Be moderate in your Opinions This Moral Idol of the mind Opinion is too apt to be adored and oversway Put a temper to it and hang a Ballance upon it to keep it in poise and course for true is that in common experience though a fallacy indeed that Opinio est veritate major And for Moderation in Opinion study well 1 Your Fallibility and aptness to mistake and consequently to dwell in a constant self-jealousie and suspicion We like not to allow of fluctuating and Pyrronian doubting about necessary and vital points nor to hang all opinions either like Mahomets Tomb between the two Loadstones in an aequilibrio Yet too much confidence in matters of meer opinion is oft a vanity refuted sufficiently by the new discoveries time and industry produces compelling us to alter But what one thing does contribute more to beget and continue ruptures than conceit and Idolizing of self-wisdom and self-opinion with an undervaluing of all that differ from us while yet perhaps they may hit nearer the mark of truth than we and have better advantages to discover it than we 2 Study self-reflection to consider how oft ye have found in time your once confident opinions to have failed you that you have been necessitate to change and take up new Measures And this will help you to much moderation experience being the Schoolmaster of very fools 3 Be moderate in your Diâ—coursâ—s how are some's tongues dipt in gall and set on fire of Hell and instead of edifying Communication that may minister grace to the hearers little other than rigid censuring and bitter back-biting of one another O when shall our tongue be our glory not our shame but to bridle the intemperancy of the tongue study to speak nothing but what God may hear and as in his hearing speak of others as of your selves and this will make you speak sparingly charitably and with due moderation And were tongues once well governed and that unruly evil tamed no doubt but differences would soon diminish Let your moderation then in all things be known to all men the Lord is at hand Moderaion in our way is like the symmetry in the humours of the body which keeps all in health and happiness Tenthly Seeing ye are generally reputed the best of Ministers let both of you prove your selves to be such indeed by shining in the exercise of real goodness and of a lively Ministry as ye have access to it Let not the world be mistaken of you They judg you pious painful sober grave learned judicious and truly zealous for God making his Statutes not humour nor interest the men of your counsel and rule of your actings They take you for excellent heart-warming Preachers c. O deceive not their good opinion and expectation of you Let them have a proof that ye may be ill wanted from the work of the Lord and that it is no small loss to the Church for you to be laid by and creep into corners Take not meer Non-conformity for Religion enough nor honest-heartedness for a ground to justifie miscarriages or to excuse weaknesses much less for Canonizing all your practices and opinions as Sacred as if ye were infallible because honest It is believed there are not so many able and godly Ministers and Christians in any party proportionally to your number Yet if any
should causelesly or for trivial or tolerable faults Excommunicate you would ye not judg it their sin and can ye be innocent when as groundlesly or for frivolous reasons ye cast them off and in a sort depose them 2 It will be as well your heavy judgment as your sin What a plague is it to be thus alienated from feeding besides the Shepherds Tents or to refuse to go forth by the foot-steps of the Flocks as Christ directs to feed in the Pastures where he feeds and makes his flocks rest at noon Cant. 1.7 8 will ye not then be scorched wax lean and wither and be in hazard to turn aside by the flocks of the Companions Do ye not then put your selves out from under his leading and feeding hand and tempt the Lord to refuse to feed you except it be with wormwood yea to break his staff of Beauty seeing ye break the staff of Bands Zach. 11.7 8 9 with 10. Certainly God is the God of order not of confusion of peace not of jarring He dwelleth not in Babel but in Salem Besides is not Schism and Separation readily the fruit of other sins such as pride Isa 65.5 formality wantonness waywardness c. and can that be but a plaguy fruit that groweth off so bitter a root Moreover does it not as it were divide Christ and his Heritage into pieces afflicts his Church and Servants yea and tendeth to destroy Religion and his Kingdom and demolish them into a ruinous heap And to say no more where ever this bitter root of rigid Separation does spring up does it not defile many specially in leading unto error if not profanity for as of old it was observed Omne schisma desinit in haeresin so Ames cas consc de Shism So also Jerom. Comment on Tit. says Every Schism leads to error to patrocinate its separation In a word it is a mother-evil an inlet to an ocean of other evils 3 It will be an evil sign both Diagnostick and Prognostick will it not argue you to be much deserted of God and left to your selves and evidence much simplicity and weakness if not instability and giddiness and spiritual distemper Jud. v. 18 19. Moreover what a black Omen will it be of Gods forsaking the Land and being about to give a Bill of Divorce to your Church is it not as well a fatal-like as an unkindly thing to see the sheep kicking at pushing away or running from their Shepherds Certainly it is one of the blackest Clouds hangs over you of malignat influence for the present and unless it be removed of dangerous consequence for the future Mal. 4. ult Upon all which and the like Considerations we would obtest yea charge you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by your appearing before him to beware of Schismatizing 1 Cor. 1.10 and 12.25 Heb. 10.25 And as ye would hold off splitting on this Rock we make bold to present you with and to intreat you to observe these rules besides what are mentioned in the preceeding Advices 1 Take heed of lesser differences Small Wedges make way for great ones petty differences slighted grow up to stated Divisions and Divisions to Schism and Separation Therefore as much as in you lyeth be precise to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and crush the Cockatrice in the Egg lest a little leaven neglected leaven at length the whole lump 2 Affect not be not too much taken with novelties and new guises in Religion Itch not after Singularities nor be dazled with the busked beauty of niceties Truth and Piety is lovely in every dress no less in her old coat than a new Nothing more leads to separation than new fangleness 3 Be tender either of giving or taking offence Be not easily stumbled Mat. 18.7 Study Charity and be apt to construct doubtful matters in your Ministers into the best part 4 Labour to see God in and with them And if God be with them Christ speaking in them how will ye dare to spurn at them and kick them off If ever ye heard them ordinarily can ye deny but ye have seen it evident that God was in them and with them How oft has some of you spoken of a blessedness in their Ministry before ye were put upon your dividing notions and took up prejudices at them Have ye not found a Divine presence and assistance with them which made you cry in your hearts as Joh. 1.29 Come see a man that has told me all things c. And thereupon been made to honour them in your hearts and say as 1 Cor. 14.24 Of a truth God is in them Have you not oft been made to say the Indulged Ministers Preached best to souls cases though ye said the Field-Preachers spoke best to the Times Now how unchristian is it to depart from their Ministry with which Christ continues yet his presence Have you any warrant to leave them before Christ leave them Will ye be stricter and holier than he Will ye cast off whom the Lord casts not off When Jacob found God in Bethel he set up his Pillar there 5 Beware of having the persons of men in admiration either for gifts or grace or because of advantage Jud. v. 16. This was it which occasioned the Schisms in the Church of Corinth admiring their Teachers they were puffed up for one against another and one said I am of Paul another I of Apollo others I of Cephas c. even according as their humour and liking led them take heed of being taken in the same snare All flesh is grass none infallible and therefore none to be doted upon Ne judicemus ex personis fidem sed ex fide personas said Tertullian Let not your eyes be so dazled with whatever eminency of Parts or Graces ye apprehend to be in any as to set up their bare word for your Oracle or their example for your rule This was it which drew many of the Jews and Barnabas among the rest into a sinful Separation Gal. 2.12 13. because they saw Peter a leading man a prime and eminent Apostle going that way before them And yet that Pillar of the Church did therein halt and walked not with a straight foot and was to be blamed and consequently to be not imitated but shun'd It is dangerous to shape our course by anothers compass as many a Ship has been lost and run on Banks by following their Admirals Lanthorn Give eminent and godly men their due respect but put them not in Gods room It is Divine Rule not Humane Example we are to walk by Follow no man further than he follows Christ 1 Cor. 11.1 6 Take heed of pretending to greater purity and strictness about Church-communion than the word of God commends or the examples of Christ of the Apostles and the Primitive Church commends Nor be so extreamly rigid as not to bear with things they have tolerated Be not over-righteous lest by over-straining ye both sin