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
one and the other being of one and the same grain piece and kind though differing in measure Upon all that is said then ye see it still plain that this indulged Liberty in so far as it is accepted hath nothing to do with this asserted Supremacy But say ye Many are of the opinion that this power of so Indulging though pre-existent before yet now is included in the Assertion of the Supremacy Answer Though this be not evident but much appears to the contrary by what is said yet suppose it were so that the clean and unclean power of civil and spiritual Supremacy were compacted together in the same assertive Law and declared Inherent to the same Crown what then Being in it self lawful does its Neighbourhood in eodem subjecto with what is counted unlawful defile it Does the Accession or Conjunction of an Incompetent power nullifie or corrupt the whole Systeme of the Regal Authority And consequently even that just power which did without controversie belong to the Crown before that unjust Superaddition And that to such a Degree as neither he may exerce nor ye make use without sin of the Effluxes of the just power till first he disclaim and lay by the Addition of what is undue How Irrational were this For as Lawyers tell Accedente injustitiâ non decedit nec corrumpitur justa potestas For example An Husband Father or Master usurping the power of a Magistrate or Minister does he therefore lose and fall from his Marital Paternal or Masterly Authority Or is it a sin in the Wife Son or Servant to submit unto or make use of the exercise of the one while he doth not disclaim the other Sic-like Uzzah's going beyond his Line intrenching upon the Priestly Office did it evacuate or vitiate his Levitical Power so as had he lived no man might lawfully have made use of his Levitical Service Or did Saul and Uzzah their Invading the Priests Office yea or Jeroboam's usurping that sinful Supremacy in the matters of God render all their Regal Power circa sacra null or unclean so as no use might be made of it no not to the best ends What a strange Principle were this And consequently it cannot be admitted which some but few of you have bigotly alledged that it is not lawful either to seek or take any Indulgence or Benefit of the Magistrates power about the matters of Religion until he Renounce what he has by Law or Practice assumed of Ecclesiastical Supremacy Moreover were this Principle admitted how desperate would it render the case betwixt your Church and the Magistrate It not being likely he may be readily induced to Rescind that new asserted Supremacy which he takes for a Flower of his Crown And it not being lawful for you according to this principle during the Non-Retractation of that Supremacy to receive any favour of his hand were it even to an Universal Indulgence or Establishment of the Presbyterian party and Government among themselves or in all the Land Dear Friends Have your Senses exercised to discern betwixt things that differ and separate what is separable in their Nature and Exercise Distinguish betwixt Gods Ordinance viz. the Magistrates Civil Supremacy and Mans annexed Corruption viz. his Spiritual and Ecclesiastick Supremacy And when the former acteth its part purely without the mixture of the latter and contains it self intra Sphaeram Debitae Activitatis within its proper bounds as it did in the matter of this Indulged Liberty abstracted from the Restrictions and Impositions annexed and in so far only it is accepted what hinders but ye and your Brethren might take the benefit of its favourable Acts notwithstanding it lodgeth in the same Crown with the other Yea though they did put forth both their Actings beside other in different points in one and the same Complex Law As was in that Ordinance of the English Parliament Anno for setting up of Presbyterian Government with Reservation of Appeals from the Church-Judicatories to the Parliament Here is an Act of that mixture and complexion we speak of yet your Brethren in England wisely distinguished and separated the Good from the Evil Embracing the one and Rejecting the other § If any be against Distinguishing and Separating betwixt these things so vastly different which they suppose to be so confounded and complicated now in the same Supremacy that they cannot well be put asunder we crave leave to tell them two things One is as is said already That different Powers and Principles of Acting may very well remain distinguishable and separable in their Natures and Actions notwithstanding their Conjunction in the same Subject as the former Instances shew So that in this case it is almost just as in the case of Jordan running through the Lake of Genesareth with which notwithstanding it mixeth not but remains pure and separate The other thing is that when Folk begin to cast at just distinguishing and separting the precious from the vile as mere notional and metaphysical Abstractions unfit for Christians or Men as some of you are pleased to talk We fear they be found Builders of Babel not of Salem but love who will to be Masters of Confusion far be it from you But here some Object That the Indulgence oweth all its Legal Being Life and Warranty to the Act of Supremacy now established by Law and therefore it cannot be abstracted from nor the Indulgence considered without it whereon it so much depends as its Patron and Protector in Law it being for the sake and safety of the Indulgence that this Supremacy was established in the King Thus we confess some Argue who would seem very Nose-wise and prying drawing if their Assertion will pass for proof enough all things done by the Magistrate about matters of Religion to have either directly or indirectly Kindred and Relation to the Supremacy Alledging what Indulgence was after the Supremacy to be an efflux of it and designed for support of it and what Indulgence was born before the Supremacy must be drawn back to crouch under the Supremacy for shadow and shelter in Law But to the Objection we answer 1. This Alledgance if true says that the Supremacy and Indulgence must needs be of a civil nature not spiritual seeing as ye assert both its fountain and end are civil For first being of the Parliaments bestowing who never pretended to have any other but a Civil Legal power and more than themselves had they could not bequeath upon their Prince thence it appears upon this ground of yours to be but of a civil alloy Again the end and use for which ye say this Supremacy was Enacted was for warranting and securing the King and Council in Law for what was past and done in the Indulgence being a dispensing with some poenal Statutes and allowing some a liberty to preach contrary to such standing Laws and for inabling him and them to do more of that in the future Whereupon ye say the Indulgence owes all its Legal
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
detract any Legal power but only inable or disable to the right use of his power In vain therefore use ye the distinction here betwixt Godly and Ungodly Magistrates as if their Legal power were not the same 3 We find in Scripture even Pagan Princes warrantably claiming and exercising such-like power about matters of Religion as Cyrus Darius Artaxerxes and others From all which considerations we see it plain that the Regal Power is not augmented by the Princes Religiousness nor diminished by his Irreligion but both the Godly and ungodly Magistrate have the same power about Religion though it be true that without piety he will not have the Sanctified nor readily any discreet and good use of it And indeed if Religion were a ground of Authority and power about the matters of God then all Saints and Religious persons should have that power and be as Kings and Magistrates to act Hezekiahs part for a Quatenus ad omne valet consequentia As for the Phrase used in the forecited place of the Book of Discipline seeming to limit the power circa sacra to godly Magistrates We answer The word Godly is added there not Reduplicatively but Specificatively that is not as a Diacritical Limiting designation or restriction of the power to Piety but as a plain qualification of the Persons who find mercy to use that power well which of Right is common and equally due to Princes in the like case If again any say These Kings of Judah were Prophets and that power about Religion forementioned appertained to them as Prophets only and consequently not to any Kings now adays nor can their example be for imitation We answer This is a great mistake how will it ever be proved that Hezekiah and Jehoshaphat were Prophets or clothed with any extraordinary power incompetent to other Kings What ground in Scripture is there for this And how can ye believe it without a Scripture-Warrant Moreover we ask were the Heathen Kings forementioned Prophets And yet they intermedled in like manner about affairs of Religion If any further say Howbeit such a power to interpose so far in and about Ecclesiastical Matters to redress and settle things out of course c. be competent to other Magistrates in a broken State of the Church yet who can allow it to him who is or hath been the Troubler of the Church himself To this the Answer is 1. What Reason can there be to debar such an one from interposing to redress what himself hath overturned more than his Successor for ye grant one may justly interpose thus to Reform what his Predecessor marred What binds up a King from doing the same as to what himself hath disordered Who will say but Manasseh might have done in the case of the Church by himself corrupted whatever Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah did in her case perverted by others Would not Reason say the Prince is the more obliged to Interpone his power and extend it as far as others for her Relief that himself was the Author of her Malady And to open the door to Ministers which himself did shut And to build what he formerly did destroy Can any Relevant Exception be assigned against this If ye say This tends to incourage the Magistrate to trouble and break the Church and cast matters in confusion that he may have the more latitude of power to Act in Church-matters Answ Not at all because with no reason can it be said the allowing him power to do good and heal does natively and justly incourage and warrant him to take power to hurt and do ill We humbly suppose it rather implies a Challenge Certain it is no man may do evil that good may come of it nor does the good that results upon occasion of evil justifie Bigones nor encourage to more in the future Consider 2. That it is not properly his fault of perturbing the Church but her Necessity and his Office which alloweth him to intermeddle so far and therefore as his fault obligeth him to Repentance specially if it was done upon wicked design to get Scouthroom to act extraordinarily in restoring her again so it cannot justly be reckoned to deprive him of power to put things in order again in as far as may be congruous to any other Princes who had not injured the Church themselves But on the contrary His doing her wrong obligeth him the more to make amends A Chyrurgeon who cuts his Pupils Arm to try an experiment of his Art and Balsom upon it has he not as good right to heal it again himself as any other Yea Is he not the more concerned to do the Cure His foolish or wicked practice in being the Author of the Sore does not disoblige him from but rather oblige him unto the Cure Now lay what is said together and sith thereby it is evident that the Magistrate may in an extraordinary case put forth himself lawfully without usurping Ecclesiastical Power properly so called or encroaching upon the Churches Rights to allocate Ministers to certain places may he not much more Remove the Legal Bars in whole or in part which debarred your Ministers from the free exercise of their Office and permit them access to return to their Charges or to officiate in some other vacancies which is your very case wherein your Ministers did not take his License as sufficient to state them in a Pastoral Relation to these Congregations but beside they had the peoples call to determine and engage them to exercise their Ministry there for the time so all they owe unto and hold of the Magistrate is that Eatenus removet prohibens t. 1. He so far takes off the Legal Restraint under the force whereof they did lye and by permission and allowance of his Authority they are freed of danger of the Law in the publick exercise of their Office there a thing which He was in duty obliged to do and they to take hold of and to count it a mercy and priviledg to have it But say ye Had he Rescinded Revoked and Annulled the Act at Glasgow that outed them it had been clearer to have been so But when he lets that stand and only gives a new permission or Mandate to Preach that looks like more Ans Not only the Act of Council at Glasgow by which they were outed of their Charges but all other Acts and Laws by which they were restrained from the exercise of their Ministry any where within Scotland unless they conformed are certainly sufficiently taken off the Fyle as to them For the King having the Executive Power of the Law albeit he did not fully Repeal and Rescind those Acts and Laws yet by his Indulgence suspendeth them as to the Indulged And albeit this be not done in Terminis yet Directly Formally and Expresly yet Materially and Virtually in allowing them to exercise their Office in such and such places any Laws to the contrary notwithstanding For when the Legislative or Supreme Administrator permits or commands a