WE salute you heartily in the Lord: Grace and Peace, through Jesus Christ be mul­tiplied unto you. And be in­treated, we pray you, to al­low us liberty to use a little freedom with you, being constrained in duty to lay some things before you, concerning your late Differences, which are like to run to such a la­mentable height, and to have such sad effects, as [Page 2] may make you the astonishing wonder as well of your selves, as of others. An Address, which we confess may seem strange, upon divers conside­rations, especially that such as we should pre­sume to interpose with such as you, of whom it becomes us to learn, rather than to warn and ad­monish.

But our Apology is, Necessity has no Law. Were your Malady like to heal of it self, (as we once expected time should have cooled your Fe­ver, worn out such distempers, and not augmen­ted them), or were it tolerable, and not like to be a sickness unto death; or, were others (of whom there are many fitter than we) underta­king the Task, to apply Balm to your bleeding wounds: We should have been glad to have stood by, and let better hands deal with you, and we to be joyful spectators of your Cure, as we have been, and are sad witnesses of your Disease.

We know also how dangerous and thankless an office it is (usually) to meddle with Divisions; how ready such are (like parters of a Fray) to get the redding-stroke, and be divided themselves, and torn in pieces by those who are most out of humour, whether most in the right or not, Act. 7.27. Who can meddle with such a flame as is kindled amongst you, and not burn his face or fingers, even when he casteth water to quench it? To get behind the hedg, and lye under the wind, were more easie and secure for us, than to stand up in the gap, and offer to pacifie the quarrel; the contentions of Brethren being (like [Page 3] that of the Ephramites, Judg. 12.1.) sharper and harder to be composed than the jars and embroil­ment of an offended City, Prov. 18.19.

Moreover, true is Solomons word, Prov. 26.17. He that medleth with strife belonging not unto him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. But, dear Friends, our interest in you, and near relation to you, makes that we cannot but think our selves concerned: Is not every man called to bring water, and put to his hand to help, when his Neighbours house is on fire? Hear us therefore in a few words of soberness and truth, and let no prejudice or byass preoccupy your ear.

Ah! the noise of your condition, courses, and temper, hath come abroad, and filled all sober and tender hearts with amazement! Serious and solid spectators wonder what all this stir and bussle among you meaneth; and it putteth them sadly to enquire thereinto, since their concern­ment in you as fellow-members of the same my­stical body calleth them to sympathize and prof­fer their help, and not look unconcernedly upon your matters. It is not long since we bled for your sufferings and oppressions under the gall­ing yoke, which reared up it self upon the ruins of so much of the Lords precious inte­rests, and the casting out and crushing of so ma­ny worthy Ministers of Christ, and harassing so many godly people for their non-compliance with that course of defection. Yet herein we thought you happy, that you found mercy to be faithful, and to keep your integrity, bearing the Cross with patience, and adhering to the way [Page 4] of truth, with zeal and constancy; until the Lord should arise and plead for himself, his Altars and People; expecting he would make your patient suffering in due time mollifie the hearts of your Rulers towards you, and be crowned with an happy outgate.

But alas! no sooner find we the Most High ex­tending mercy to you, in granting you some fa­vour in the eyes of Authority, inclining them to relent of the former rigors, and begin to take off restraints under which ye groaned, and lay by almost useless; and to revive the stones out of the rubbish, by granting a liberty to some of your outed Ministers to return to Jerusalem, to build the Sanctuary; but alas! soon (almost) we find you splitting among your selves! Behold what heats, ruptures and animosities have broken up a­mong you, like to consume the blessed remnant into ashes! giving your Zion cause to complain, Behold the wounds that I have received, even in the house of my friends!

When your first Indulgence was granted, how much was we refreshed to see a little reviving, and none of you casting at a day of small things, but rejoicing that any nail was got in the holy place; and none that were in Providence kept still in the Captivity, envying them who in Provi­dence were permitted to return; nor those that were returned, forgetting their Brethren who were detained in Babylon behind them, but thirst­ing, praying, and endeavouring for their delive­ry. But since a second Indulgence unhappily at­tended [Page 5] with several Grievances, what dividings and jarrings have arisen! some being free to make use of that liberty, accounting it a mercy that the Legal restraints which debarred them from the publick, free, peaceable exercise of their Mi­nistry, were taken off; and that it was their duty to take hold of the indulged liberty, with a re­solution to give Testimony in their station against what their acceptance of the same might be lyable to be mistaken in, or be reputed to Homologate of faults in the Magistrate; as also, not to observe any unlawful Injunctions imposed, or to be im­posed upon them; judging that thus they wise­ly separated the precious from the vile, and were obliged to hold fast that which was good, as well as to refuse the evil. Others of you were unclear to make use of the foresaid liberty, some upon one account, some upon another; of which here­after.

And had your different apprehensions of that matter been managed with sobriety and modera­tion, and no soul-wasting and Church-ruining contests been raised thereabout; but God waited upon, and mutual forbearance exercised, till your different measures of light had come to some happy accommodation; Blessed had ye been, Psal. 133.1, 2. And some, we grant, yea a good many, have obtained mercy to do so.

But others, alas! have carried otherwise, not contenting themselves to enjoy and follow their own light, have also laid, and still lay sore at those who differ from them. What woful heart-burnings, rentings, alienations, fierce and fiery [Page 6] clamours, and pitiful confusions, are fallen in a­mong you! as if a judicial spirit of Division were poured out upon you, (ah! the anger of the Lord hath divided them! and will he no more regard them?) Which who can look upon, and not be pained at the very heart with sorrow! Who can hold their peace at such a doleful thing! Whose tongue would not loose, as Croesus his Son's did, in a like case, and cry, Spare! Under­standing therefore such exorbitant heats and extra­vagant courses to be in some of you against others, meerly for their following their light in use-ma­king of that License to exercise the Ministry which they have and hold of the Lord; Albeit we may not presume to be Palaemon or Umpire betwixt you, yet (judging the part of a Monitor not in­competent unto us) we cannot but interpose, and with the tear in our eye, cry, What mean ye to fall at such odds!

Dear Brethren! Can there be no difference a­mong you without division? no diversity of ap­prehensions of things without running into Par­ties and contests about them? Is difference of judg­ment in every lesser thing, inconsistent with uni­ty and peace, concord and communion in things wherein ye are aggrieved? And may ye not be of one heart, till ye be of one way in things wherein ye differ? Must ye cast out and con­tend, when ye cannot all be of the same mind, in such inferiour things, albeit ye agree in the Main? Are ye not united in Doctrine, Worship, Principles of Discipline and Government? and will ye rent at such a rate about the Application [Page 7] of one principle to a particular case? Will ye fall out among your selves, while ye are jointly ingaged in one common cause against a common adversary, who watcheth for your halting, and saith of your jarrings, Aha! so would we have it! Have ye forgotten the former Persecution, that ye are so soon fallen by the ears among your selves? Are ye not under their eye, who rejoice at the sport, clap hands and cry, Hui to the fray? Could ye gratifie them, and disadvantage your selves more than by such reelings? Is not this that which their very souls longed for?Hoc Itha­cus velit, & magno mercentur Atridae. and now you grant them their desire, as Lam. 2.15, 16. You are ri­ven with a wedg of your own timber, whom all the enemies fury could not undo! Are ye not become the scorn of the Adversary, the shame and sorrow of your friends? Ah! tell it not in Gath, &c. How much also of the indignation of the Lord doth Schis­matizing import? What fatal judgments doth it portend? Jer. 13.13, 14. And what a scandal is it to see the Sons of Peace, as it were, intoxi­cated with the waters of Massah and Meribah? Will not this be Marah, bitterness in the end? Is it not your great plague to be thus disjointed, Isa. 9.19—21? Were it not your rich blessing to be composed, and unite, for the better follow­ing of common duties, Isa. 11.13, 14? And will not your foes carefully improve such advantages against you? And being broken among your selves, are ye not become weak and contempti­ble, and expose your selves a prey to all the [Page 8] beasts of the field that please to devour? And utterly incapacitate your selves for Duty or Outgeate? What will probably become of such a distracted divided company; crumbled into so many Atoms and Fractions? Yea, Subdivisi­ons and new debates starting daily, fra once Di­vision beginneth, being like the letting forth of water, breaches multiplying and waxing wider and wider, Prov. 17.14. What will this sickness terminate into? We need no Galen nor Hypocra­tes to foretel its event. A wiser than they, telleth us, A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand. May ye not remember your last rupture, how the wild Boar of Devastation came in at that gap over all your bellies, which might have been prevented, had not your renting open­ed a door for it, and incapacitated you to oppose it? and what may come in at this, is not hard to foresee! Is not Popery, that devouring Leviathan, at your gates, ready to be ushered in by it? Was not Hannibal ad Portas, a strange alarm to the Romans to lay by their private jars, and unite against their common danger? And will no such hazard induce you to let alone your intestine embroilments? Will neither by-past experience (the School-master of very fools) nor present fears and peril warn you? Will ye still dash up­on that Rock on which the Church of Christ hath so oft split, and God hath set up so many Beacons of his Displeasure? Shall Schism be a­gain the bane and blemish of the Presbyterian party; and your comely parity be any more like the mother of confusion, and so the way of God [Page 9] be evil spoken of through you? Or, Is this the way for the Gospel's prospering? Can they be excel­lent Architects, who build the Lords house by fi­ring it, or pulling it in pieces? Or, These good Chirurgeons who know no other method or means to heal, but by Dislocation, Amputation, or other the like dogged Cures? Is this the mean to make Christs Kingdom and Crown flourish, by setting his faithful Friends and Subjects at variance? Did ever Religion indeed thrive by such dividings and strivings of Ministers or People? Is not Division al­ways distempering, and the very Moth and Can­ker-worm of the life of Piety? Look, whatever Religion seemeth to gain in a parcel, doth it not lose much more in the Bulk, in a factious time? And how much Profession enlargeth her Phylacte­ries, Practice, Power, Life, and Tenderness, a­bateth as much in reality: See Psal. 122. v. 7. James 3.16. Verily the mischief of dividing is un­speakable.

Again, Are ye not Brethren? and the Canaanite and the Perizite in the Land? And will ye yet con­tend in the very face of the Enemy, and Jaws of devouring-like danger? Will ye not cease your Ani­mosities, till the Popish Sword end the quarrel? Will ye be like those of Jerusalem in the Siege, wasting and weakning your selves by furious intestine Con­flicts, while the Roman Enemy lyeth about your Walls, ready to swallow you up both? Or like di­stracted Mariners falling by the ears together, while the swelling Sea and raging Storm is like to sink the Ship and you both? (Oh how fatal-like and demented!) Moreover, Is not Schism a breach of [Page 10] your Covenant, as well as Prelacy? abjured with that same breath wherewith ye renounce it and Popery? And will ye cry out of others for breach of Covenant, and yet violate the same so grosly your selves? Be astonished, O Heaven! and tremble thou Earth! to see men so careful to run from one evil, and so little tender to hold off another? What, are there no healing Medicines, nor healing men among you? None to stand in the Gap? Can there be no accommodating your differences? Is your Breach wide as the Sea? your wound incurable? Does any of you think it their glory to blow the Bellows, and to be ambitious who shall act highest in opposition one to another? Then shall our Soul weep in secret for your misery, and soon may your Fate be read, Hos. 10.2. Their Heart is divided, now shall they be found faulty: Rent, and Ruin, Psal. 55.9. Dividers are certainly Subverters; and will ye burn down the Sanctuary into Ashes, while ye pretend to defend and uphold it? Ah, how is al­most every Bottle filled, not with Wine and strong drink, but a reeling Spirit mingled in, to make them stagger and fall? Are they not like a wild Bull in a Net, full of the fury of the Lord, and of the rebuke of their God? How may here our Pen stop, and our eye trickle down with Tears!— Ah Tragedy beyond Lamentation! — What shall we do for our little Sister with her can­cered Breasts?

Yet the Most High is to be blessed, that the so­lid, godly, grave, and experienced of you, are not for fomenting, but for sopiting and quashing the differences. But oh! the heat and inconsiderate­ness [Page 11] of the unsolid, unstudied, younger sort, and a few eager of the Elder! What unbridled intem­perancy of Tongue and Actions stand they guilty of, before the Lord! And may not every sober Person say, what Jacob left for Levi's Legacy, Gen. 49.7. Wo is us for their Anger, for it is fierce; and their wrath, for it is cruel! O our Soul, come not thou into their secret, and unto their Assembly our Honour be not thou united! What will such distractions re­solve into at last, if the Healer of the Nations pre­vent it not? See Gal. 5.15. If ye bite and devour one another, take heed ye be not consumed one of ano­ther. Will ye be like the foolish Knights of Cad­mus, who never ceased Fighting among themselves, while there were any to maintain the quarrel?

We mean not by this to disparage any's zeal and good affection, but the preposterous, irregular, immoderate prosecutions of that zeal, which some seem to be transported in, we cannot approve, Gal. 4.17, 18. We doubt if such of you as are most busie and greatest sticklers in such an unhappy bu­siness, will find neither thanks or reward from the Prince of Peace, Psal. 105.14, 15. But happy they who being persecuted, suffer it; being defa­med, intreat; and study by patience, meekness, and long-suffering, to conquer their Brethren, and to bring them to a better understanding together, rather than to meet humour with humour, heat with heat, railing with railing, &c. Such are likest their ever blessed Lord, 1 Pet. 2.23.

It is said, these quiet indulged men are not such Dunces, but they could well repay their Antago­nists; but (whatever disadvantage they lye at o­therwise) [Page 12] yet in this they seem to have the advan­tage, that while others are for War, they are for Peace, (Psal. 120.6, 7.) They seek peace and pursue it, they follow these their angry Brethren with love, while they run from them; they pray for them, some of whom to their power persecute them, (Jer. 18.20.) and instead of holding up Debates, they love rather to let them fall for peace-sake, and to give their Backs to the Smiters, and their Cheeks to them that pluck off the Hair, and hide not their Face from shame and spitting; counting nothing dear to them, so they may fi­nish their course with fruitfulness, and fulfil the Ministry they have received of the Lord.

But, dear Friends, could ye give us leave (and not take it ill) to use a little freedom with you, we would humbly adventure to proffer a word of Ad­vice to you all, which perhaps may be not unsea­sonable at such a juncture.

First of all, Study Reconciliation with God. We fear your breach among your selves has begun here at distance with God; you especially hath he known beyond others, and therefore will not let you go unpunished. What higher provocations are there, than those of Sons and Daughters? And what sorer scourge can there be, than to be left of him to bite and devour one another? By this means ye do the Bishops work, and the Papists work, to their hands: Now ye see nothing will unite you, till ye unite in God; a common cause and com­mon interest will not unite you, a Furnace will not unite you, no Bonds will cement you, until ye be One in him who is the Corner-Stone, in [Page 13] whom both sides of the Building meet.

II. Get more of the power of Grace into your hearts, and walk in his fear. Did Grace, not hu­mour predominate, and the fear of God awe you, durst some take the latitude they do? Get heart-distempers (the cause of heart-delusions) purged away. Mortifie pride and self-conceit (the usual fault of men of parts, 1 Cor. 8.2. and the snare of Novices, 1 Tim. 3.6. yet the usual Makebait of contention, Prov. 13.10.) As also passion, peevishness, male-contentedness, self-seeking, pe­remptoriness, &c. (which are not seldom inci­dent to sufferers), and all other dividing-co [...]up­tions, lay them aside; and get Love, humility, sobriety, meekness, moderation, self-denial, and such like uniting Graces to possess your hearts and minds. It is our Lords advice, Mark 9.50. Have salt in your selves, and peace one with another. What is it but the corruptions, not the Graces of good men, which maketh them jar? see Jam. 4.1. 1 Cor. 3.3, 4. Let therefore your furnace refine you, and purge away your dross; be not the boiling pot, retaining the scum; homogene­ous things unite easily and well.

III. Study the practice of that excellent duty of mutual forbearance: Read Eph. 4.2, 3. Gal. 6.1, 2. Col. 3.12, 13. and seriously ponder what there is inculcated by the wisdom of God. Do not cen­sure, nor rigidly strain or wrest one anothers words or deeds, commenting and putting glos­ses upon them, or wringing consequences from them (as prejudice useth to do, 1 Cor. 13.5, 6.) which they never dreamed of, nor is there per­haps [Page 14] native ground for, Prov. 30.33. Psal. 56.5. Backbite not one another, talk not of one ano­thers failings, real or supposed, (Tit. 3.2. Jam. 4.11.) but pity and pray over them, Gal. 6.1. Chuse rather to weep in secret for the same, than to tell them for news. Ye know Constantine the Great, his famous word and deed at the Council of Nice, when delations and complaints were preferred to him by the Ministers one of ano­ther, I had rather, said he, hide a Ministers fault with my Robe, than eliminate them; and according­ly he burn'd their Libels and Accusations, for the Gospels sake. O let love cover (1 Pet. 4.8.) and not carnal zeal divulge, much less coin faults and misreports one of another. What would ye give the Adversaries leave to do but to make you odious with slanders, that your Cause may stink, and your name rot above the ground? And shall any of you (as some do) take that trade off their hand, blasting (so far as they can) every bodies Reputation not of their way? Is this the Spirit of the Lord? Are these his Doings? See Jam. 3.14, 15. Psal. 50.19, 20. Gal. 5.21, 22, 23. Luk. 54.55. Is this acceptable service to the Prince of Pastors? see Numb. 12.8, 9, 10. Wherefore were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses, says the Lord, &c. Weigh also, Psal. 120.3, 4. Is Shimei's vice now become a a virtue? would it not become you better, in Christian tenderness faithfully to admonish one another, than by word or writing in publick or private to traduce and load one another with Legends of false stories, and groundless mistakes? [Page 15] and yet what greater engine is used by some to breed and feed your Differences, than this arti­fice? Prov. 16.28. But will not wo be to them who widen breaches by evil whispers, and cun­ning surmises? Prov. 6.14. Much more sin they, who dare preach such things for the Oracles of God.

IV. Fall into serious dislike of Divisions, as most of all your grave and solid, tender and serious Ministers and Christians abhor them. Know the sin and evil of them, what bitter fruits and sad consequences they are of. O! read carefully what these excellent Divines have written (from experience) upon that subject, who bleeding over the Churches wounds in their time, did essay in love to lay out the sore, and furnish cure: name­ly famous Paraeus in his Irenicum, and learned Junius upon Psal. 133. But if over-Sea Divines writings seem strangers to you, read some of those at home, specially Judicious and Holy Mr. Durham your Country-man, in the last part of his excellent Treatise of Scandal; and God [...]y Mr. Burroughs your Neighbour, in his Treatise of Heart-Divisions. Read, consider, and lay to heart what these Chrysostoms of their age, have by their Golden mouths and Silver pens deliver­ed against dividings; and see if ye will dare to make light of rentings any more.—Godly men may for a time through infirmity and ten­tation be led upon that snare, (O sad snare!) as Act. 15.39. Luk. 9.49, 50. yet it is not the better for that: It is their infirmity, not their du­ty, even to be in the least overtaken with it; [Page 16] but of what untender (not to say deboshed) Con­sciences must they be, who (like Salamanders) take pleasure in the fire, and love to kindle or inflame the combustion? Prov. 6.14, 15, 16, 19. Is it not sad when some who seem strict and tender in other things, yet are nothing tender of renting the seamless Coat of Christ, and take a strange liberty to accuse and calumniate their Brethren? Did ye ponder the woful evil and mischief of such practices, we think ye would abhor them little less than the sacrificing to the Dagon of Rome! And yet alas, how prone are some to pride themselves in such untowardly ways, as if it were a piece of Religion, yea the Shibboleth and Culmen of Honesty! thus glory­ing in their shame!—We know, and all Israel may know the certainty of these sad things; We are not such strangers to your Israel, but we have seen of your bitter Papers, and otherwise had good information of some's strange Anoma­lies, wherein we have wondered to see them so transported with prejudice and passion (as Saul was in his zeal against the Gibeonites) unto spee­ches and practices which might have made any sober and tender heart break in pieces.

If any say, May and ought we not to testifie against the corruption which we suppose to be in the Indulgence? And if others say, may not we defend that which we suppose to be a lawful liberty, against all attackers of it? We confess, we hear not much Din of any defences, as if the In­dulged trusted so much to the merits of their cause, that they think its own Innocency might [Page 17] bear it out, and therefore resolved by patience and prayer to wait on God, until he bring forth their Righteousness as the light, &c. But all the noise we hear, is of impugning them, Axes and Hammers breaking down that restored piece of the carved work, as many take it to be.

Wherefore in order to your bearing Testimo­ny, might we adventure without your offence to advise you, we would humbly offer these three things to be considered: (1) Be sure it be a sin before ye appear against it; lest ye condemn Truth and Duty instead of error and sin. And in this, remember ye must not too much indulge your own notions, nor every light scruple, which though they may suspend you from approving, yet may prove too weak a ground for condemn­ing, see Rom. 14.3, 23. and how groundlesly did those contend with Peter, in Act. 11.1? What if you be in a mistake as those were? Consult therefore the Oracles of God; hear what your Brethren has to say for themselves; and con­demn nothing peremptorily but what the Scrip­ture evidently condemneth; and in intricate and debateable points (which are controverted even amongst the learned, godly, and orthodox) be not rash and positive in condemning all that are not of your mind. Let the Church define and determine the Controversie before ye conclude any thing peremptorily about it, as to the judg­ing of others; and that part of the question which they own, what ye are unclear in, and boggle at, forbear to practice it your selves; but con­demn not others who are not of the same appre­hensions, [Page 18] Rom. 14.13. what if your unclearness be your infirmity? shall your infirmity warrant you to censure others perfection?

(2) Being once sure the thing is a fault, Be sure also your Brethren be guilty thereof, before ye condemn them for it. What if they be innocent of that you charge upon them? Think not jea­lousies, whispers, or uncharitable constructions, and rash and rigid Imputations, or far-fetched, and not certain consequences, sufficient to fix guilt upon them. How did Jobs Friends thus mi­stake him, and rashly condemn him as wicked, and but an hypocrite, and many a threatning (true in the general) did they misapply to him in particular? and so their dispute and argu­ments were like Arrows shot at rovers, missing the mark, by mistaking him for the man he was not. Thus innocency often suffers sadly upon mistake. Whence the Reformed Divines com­plain of it as a great injustice done them by their Adversaries, That such and such odious Dogmata of Doctrines, which their soul abhors, should be imputed unto them, and fastened upon them as theirs, which are denied by them, yet gathered (by their Adversaries) by some sort of probable-like consequences, from Principles which they hold: Even as ye do charge your Brethren with Erastianism, and Communion with the Kings transcendent Supremacy, &c. while yet they disclaim these as much as ye do, only by some remote and violent consequences ye would infer it from their practice of accepting the indulged liberty. Nihil injustius (saith Maresius ▪ loc. 17. [Page 19] §. 13.) quam alicui imputare tanquam illius Dog­ma, (add vel praxiu) id quod ipso detestat [...] ex­presse, eo quod, non evidente, proximâ, & necessari [...], consequentiâ, sed longe petitis Argutiolis, putes te id ex ejus pla [...]itis (vel praxi) confecturum. All so­ber men condemn this as a dividing Principle, and a most iniquous practice. See Learned Dave­nant in his Sententia de pace inter Evangelicos pro­curanda, pag. 65. And Burroughs in his Irenicum, pag. 185. What are your racked Inferences, for­ced Imputations, and strained misconstructions, but fancies of your own brains? not the real guilt of your Brethren? which Chimera's when ye impugn, ye but fight with your own sha­dow. And what are your uncertain Historiolae, Tit­tle-tattle's, and groundless surmises of your Bre­threns practices, but a sandy-foundation to build the weight of such heavy charges upon, as much of that guilt is ye charge upon them? O let ne­ver your zeal and witness-bearing run at ran­dom, and flie at a venture.

(3) Suppose ye be clear both in Questione ju­ris, and in Questione facti, i. e. suppose the thing evil, and them guilty, yet let your zeal and witness-bearing against it keep due proportion; and not exceed the bounds of sobriety. Sure ye may, and should testifie against it in all due ways, manner and measure; yet how will that justifie irregular and exorbitant courses of opposition? or allow you to over-do or divide? May it not suffice you to do that in your station which ser­veth to exonerate your Consciences, and deliver your soul from the guilt of accession? But must [Page 20] ye over-stretch and go beyond your line and measure? Go tell the indulged your thoughts of it, in seriousness and love plead with them, ex­postulate, obtest them. But think not that every fault, real or supposed in them, will be found before God or man a relevant ground to war­rant contention, separation and division from them. If ye over-do, ye may undo; and your right side (as ye take it to be) become the wrong side by mismanagement. Do ye think there can be no sinful excess of heat, violence and disorder, in prosecuting a good cause? so no less than Jehu's furious march sufficient to exonerate you? Is there no golden mediocrity betwixt fiery zeal and Laodicean luke-warmness? Did not worthy Luther once spoil his cause much by over-acting, and excess of fervour? Let right things be done in a right manner. And know, that notwithstan­ding the right were upon your side, the guilt and blame of the division may nevertheless be yours; for, even truth and righteousness may be factiously and indiscreetly pleaded and con­tended for, as in Act. 15.39, Job 13.4, 7, 8. If ye think and lay it down for a principle, that every thing ye conceive to be evil, is to be op­posed and impugned to the yondmost extremity and renting, and nothing supposed amiss is to be tolerated and forborn for the good of the Go­spel, for peace and unities sake, ye may see, that abundantly confuted by Mr. Burroughs in his Irenicum, Chap. 8, & 9. but especially by your most grave, wise, tender and faithful Mr. Durham in his Book of Scandal, Part 3. Chap. 8. [Page 21] Confine your selves therefore within the just bounds of holy zeal, and think it no lukewarm­ness to be sober; and many of your extravagan­cies will hereby be cut off.

V. Consider in sober sadness, what cause is there for all your outcry? What has these indulged men done, that ye rate them, and persecute them more largely and briskly than ye do any of the other? What is the quarrel? your edginess a­gainst them would make the world believe they were monsters of men, and have committed some horrible iniquity in going to feed the flocks of God, to which people called them, and the Ma­gistrate granted them his Legal leave. Why, what crime is this? Ye debacchat against them, and yet when we search into the matter, we can find no such ground of stumbling at them; be­ing in their Qualifications not the meanest of your party; in their lives holy and blameless, in their Ministry faithful and painful lovers of truth and peace, piety and purity.

And for their simple taking occasion of the Magistrates grant of Civil Liberty to return to their charges, or to officiate and supply in ano­ther vacant place, being called thereunto by the people, until God should open a door of regress to their former charges, we wonder what fault this should be thought!

Whether is it better to Preach with the Magi­strates good leave, or without it? Seeing both those ways of Preaching differ only in circumstan­ces, which of the two are most desirable, judg ye. When God makes him do the work of a Nurse-Fa­ther [Page 22] so far, as to permit and allow them the free exercise of the Ministry, which they have of Christ Jesus their Lord and Master; does the Prince his civil License vitiate their Ministry, or make it un­cleanly, even to that height (as some in their Pa­roxisms drive it) that they may not be heard nor owned, but rejected and separated from, as the height of Abominations? Is the exercise of their Function the worse, that the liberty thereof is not taken at their own hand? We hope none of you do nor will allow your selves to think so; therefore ye will do well to take heed, that your just offence at the Magistrates faults in other things, do not diminish your respect to the Ordinance of God, (viz. that just Right and Authority he is clothed with) and unjustly prejudge you at the lawful Acts and Favours thereof; and while ye dislike the abuse of his power, stumble not at the right use thereof. Shall any think nothing pleaseth now, but what is cross the grain of Authority? We doubt not but Ministers have a Right to Preach, and in some cases may and must make use of that Right, even when the Magistrate denies his permissi­on: yet is it not much more desirable to have his leave than to want it? Specially when the peaceable Preaching of the Gospel is not feasible without it, be­cause of Legal Restraints backed with force, as was their case. Does not the Lord himself direct Moses (Exod. 3.18. with 5.1, 3.) to desire leave e­ven of Pharaoh, to let Israel to go and Sacrifice to their God in the Wilderness, Let my People go, that, &c. Not that their Liberty did depend absolutely and Quo ad jus ad rem, or in point of Right, upon [Page 23] Pharaoh's good will; but such respect would the Lord put upon the Magistrates leave, though a Tyrant and Oppressor: And to teach all men how desirable it is, to have the permission and allow­ance of Authority to the free exercise of Religion, if it can be obtained; therefore would the Lord have this liberty intreated for. And did not Moses and all Israel accept this Liberty when it was granted? Exod. 12.31. Or did any blame him for seeking and accepting it? It is true this Liberty was full as to Persons and Things, Moses being specially appoint­ed of God not to leave one hoof behind, nor a little one, nor to sacrifice in the Land, Exod. 8.25, 26, 27. Exod. 10.8, 9. Exod. 10.24, 25, 26. yet that does not say, but others may accept of a more nar­row Liberty, till they get more; not having such peremptory Injunctions and Reasons for the con­trary, as Moses had, as hereafter shall be made to appear, nor being in poss [...]ss [...]rio, as He and Israel was, and therefore was not to quit one hoof; but you are in petitorio, as Esdras was, and the Children of the Captivity, and therefore may take what ye can get till more come, which is no quitting of what is not received, as afterwards shall be evinced. However, this Instance proveth that the Magistrates civil permission is no blemish, but a desirable mercy to the publick, solemn, free Exercise of Religion, Ministry and Ordinan­ces; and the more full the Liberty be, the better it is; whence also it followeth, that a snatch, a parcel of that Liberty cannot be in it self sinful, being all of one kind, though differing in Measure and Degree.

[Page 24]Moreover, See how Paul did obtest the very Heathen Governour for this Favour, Acts 21.39. I beseech thee (says he) suffer me to speak to the Peo­ple: And when he gave him License, he made use of it and Preached. We should not think it a fault in you, to beg such a Liberty upon your knees, much less to take it when offered; and did not Paul (Acts 28.30, 31.) Preach for some years at Rome, upon a Negative Permission, no man forbidding him, viz. neither Emperour nor Senate, &c. as is there marked? And Acts 26.1. upon a Positive Permissi­on, he not only Apologized, but Preached to A­grippa. Now, surely, if to Preach Occasionally upon such a Warrant, be not ill, neither can it be to Preach in a more stated way (as your Brethren do) upon a stated permission.

And who can deny, but that Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, their Grants of Liberty (recorded by Esdras) to go up to Jerusalem, and build the House of the Lord, and offer Sacrifice, &c. there, was a mercy, and more valuable than for the Children of the Captivity to have gone up and done this at their own hand? And is this your like piece of Li­berty, though of a lesser size, not at all to be em­braced? What would the Protestants in Hungary and Spain esteem of the like favour?

Further, Did not your selves generally allow of the first Indulgence? counted it an hopeful begin­ning of good to your poor afflicted Church? (as can be attested.) How come ye then now to con­trovert it? And would ye not yet (as is informed) accept of a general Indulgence? much more of a complete Restauration of the Church to her former [Page 25] Integrity? And is it such a sin to take part of that Liberty, till God put it into the heart of the Ma­gistrate to grant more? Doth magis & minus vari­are speciem? Will ye either have all or nothing, and despise a day of small things? (contrary to the Saints humble and good way of old, Esdras. 3. v. 10, 11. and 9.8, 9.) And will ye cast at the kind, because of defect in the measure?

Add to this, that ye did all unanimously submit to the Magistrates outi [...]g you of your Charges, by his banishing you therefrom, as Solomon did Abia­thar (though here it was just, but in your case un­deserved.) Now, sith this was the exercise of a privative power about the matters of God, and consequently near in kin to that Papal Supremacy which ye so stumble at; strange it is to find you opponing against this Grant of Indulgence, which is but an Act of his Cumulative or Auxiliary Power, like a Nurse-father, opening the door again which he had formerly shut. Ye know that Dictate of Natures light, Ejus est Restituere, Cujus est Desti­tuere, without doubt much more rightfully may he License you to return to your Watch-Towers, than beat you from them; and more laudably may ye submit to the one than to the other. If ye say, It was your fault to submit to his ejecting you, and therefore no Argument can be drawn from it to allow his Reponing you: Beside that, herein ye condemn your selves, and the rest of the Generation of the Righteous in Scotland, England, and Ireland; and much may be said from Scripture and Reason, to justifie that submission; we humbly beg further to be informed, If ye repent of it, where is your [Page 26] Confession? and where are the Fruits of your Re­pentance? Why do you not go to your charges again, but persist in submission to your Ejection?

But to come nearer the purpose: What is it dis­pleaseth you at your Brethrens deed?

I. Is it the Name of Indulgence? Answ. We hope ye will not contend about Names and Words, 1 Tim. 6.4. Were not such Litigations a bogling at Shadows? and would savour of Levity or Cap­tiousness? What is such an Indulgence, but a dis­pensing with the severity of the Law, letting them have access to the publick, peaceable exercise of their Ministry, from which the Law did debar them? And may not the Magistrate dispense with his own Law, in whole or in part, and call this very properly an Indulgence? But away with striving about words! Call it a Permission, Tole­ration, or License, or what ye will, so ye but a­gree about the thing.

II. Does it offend you that the Magistrate inter­medleth with Church-affairs? Answ. We expect also this not to be your scruple; judging ye still adhere to the Doctrine of your Church, and of all the Reformed, expressed in their Confessions of Faith, and the Writings of their Worthies against the Papists, Anabaptists, and Erastians; who (tho' against Erastians) they deny the Magistrate any power in Sacris, or formally and intrinsecally Ec­clesiastical, called in Scripture the Power of the Keys, yet (against the Papists and Anabaptists) they attribute unto him an Imperative Power circa sacra, about the matters of God, formally civil, and only objectively Ecclesiastical, and to be put forth [Page 27] modo civili, in a civil way, and by civil means: so that there is nothing so sacred in the visible matters of Religion, but it is the object of his care and Procuratorship, and his power to be conversant about it, in manner competent, (as Amesius tells, Cas. consc. lib. 5. cap. 25. thes. 8.) He being custos & vindex utrius (que) tabulae, keeper of both Tables of the Law, of the first as well as of the second, as the fourth Command appoint­eth; whence it is called by some eminent Di­vines, the Magistrates Charter for taking care of Religion; which is also confirmed from Deut. 31.9. & Deut. 17.18, 19. with Josh. 1.7, 8, 9. This power, and by virtue of it, his just intermedling for the good of Religion, is uncontroverted by Orthodox Divines, and confirmed by that ap­plauded practice of Artaxerxes, Decreeing, Ezra 7.23. Whatsoever is commanded by the God of Hea­ven, let it be diligently done for the House of the God of Heaven, &c. Which power (if through error or wickedness) the Magistrate imploy for the hurt, rather than for the good of the Church, (though that be a fault) yet we judg ye will not call it Erastianism, or an usurpation of an un­lawful power, but an abuse or misapplication of a lawful; and will count him peccant in the matter, not in the Authority or power.

Now this power of his is extended by Divines to no less, if not to more, than your Indulgence (in so far as it is accepted by the Brethren) a­mounts unto. And that, conform to the word of God in the commended practices of several Kings mentioned in Scripture, who warrantably [Page 28] took upon them by vertue of their calling to do as much and more, without the least imputati­on of invading the Priestly or Spiritual power; Aarons Rod, and Judahs Scepters, remaining still distinct notwithstanding. Particularly, did not Hezekiah in 2 Chron. 29.3. Open the doors of the house of the Lord, which had been shut for a long time, as v. 7. and v. 4. it is said, He brought in the Priests and Levites.—And v. 5. he puts them to their work, to sanctifie and cleanse the house. And v. 21. To offer sacrifices is commanded by him.—And v. 25. he set (or restored to their place) the Levites in the house of the Lord with Cymbals, &c. And v. 30. Commanded them to sing praise, &c. Now in all these things the Priests and Levites did give obedience not only out of duty to God, as obliged to do these things by vir­tue of their office, but also out of respect to the Kings Commandment, as ye find v. 15, 24. The like is said, 2 Chron. 35.2. that Josias set the Priests in their Charges. From these Citations Note three things:

(1) That as it is proper to the Spiritual Offi­cers of the House of God Operari in Sacris, or elicitively to act in the exercises of Religion; so it is not incompetent to the Civil Ruler to com­mand, and put forth his authority about the same imperatively, but jure he may, yea ex Officio he ought to do so; even to put the Church-Offi­cers to their duty and work, when need requi­reth; and that not only by removing Restraints and Impediments, nor by naked permission on­ly, but even by way of Authoritative order and [Page 29] command. As there, the Prince appointeth, and the Priest acteth.

(2) That this is especially competent, yea in­cumbent to him, In statu Ecclesiae Turbato, vel corrupto, in a perturbed or corrupted state of the Church, such as then was, and as yours was and is.

(3) That it is no crime for the Ministers of the Lord to obey the Magistrate in such a case. As the Magistrate acteth no Erastianism, nor Papal Supremacy in this kind of doing; so nei­ther does the Minister homologate or involve himself in any such crime, nor is to be loaded with such Imputations in and for going along (in his place) with such appointments of the Magistrate. However Uzziah was faulty in the one sort (as 2 Chron. 26.16, 18.) and Jeroboam in the other sort of solecisms in the exercise of Magistratical power about Religion, (as 1 King. 12.28, 29, 31, 32, 33.) Uzziah invading the Priests Office, like an Erastian indeed, and Jeroboam usurping that unlawful Supremacy like Lord and Head of the Church; yet good Hezekiah did neither of them: Nor does any other Prince, who contains himself within his line, as Hezekiah did. And the Licensing of your Ministers to return to their publick stations, is no other, (as afterward shall be cleared) but most like unto Hezekiahs pra­ctice in several points above rehearsed. And con­sequently no fault in your Ministers acceptance thereof in so far as it is accepted by them.

Add to this Jehoshaphats approved practice in 2 Chron. 17.7, & where we find he sent the Le­vites [Page 30] to teach the Lords word in divers places of the land; who went accordingly. Whence it is evident,

(1) That it is not repugnant to the Word of God, that in some cases, specially in a lapsed case of the Church, the Magistrate may dispose upon Ministers, as to place and parts of a Land, where they may exercise their Ministry, at least for a time; may send them here and there, the Chur­ches need calling for it: And that this is no pro­per Ecclesiastical planting or transplanting of Ministers (as some invidiously term it), but only a Civil Authorization as to exercising their fun­ction in such a place for longer or shorter time, as need may be.

(2) It is evident also here, that in such a case, the Pastors Ministerial Mission or Commission to Teach and Preach, is not from the Magistrate, but from the Lord; nor 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 [Page 31] 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? [Page 32] 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 [Page 33] 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 [Page 34] 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 [Page 35] 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 [Page 36] (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?

[Page 37]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 [Page 38] 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: [Page 39] 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 thing con­trary to the standing Laws, in all Law it is under­stood to exempt and priviledge these Persons from the said Laws, and to indulge them a Liberty and immunity from these Statutes. Now, this is the present Indulgence; the Native Effect and Opera­tion whereof is, to dispense with the Legal Inhibi­tion these Ministers were under, but not at all to invest them with new spiritual power to officiate, as some invidiously alledge. And by this dispen­sation, the Indulged to their own Charges are re­ally and in effect restored in integrum, and put in statu quo prius, as to any Liberty the Laws debar­red them from, in respect of their Ministry there; and these indulged to other parts, are so far restored, as to be indempnified and licensed to Preach there, [Page 40] being before interdicted to Preach any where.

And by virtue of this Indulgence, neither the one nor the other sort of these Ministers do Offici­ate upon a new Ministerial Title (as is unjustly al­ledged) the Indulgence conferring or pretending to confer no such thing; only it gives them a new Legal Immunity to exercise their old Ministry in such and such places. Any that wrest the Inter­pretation of this Indulged Liberty to any other Sense, seems to us, and all unprejudiced men, to put a sinister and malicious gloss upon it.

But in the third place, perhaps ye will say, it is not the simple taking a License from the Magi­strate, which offends you; but it is the particu­lar Nature and Tenour of this Indulgence, as un­der such and such sinful Circumstances, which seems to illegitimate it.

Ans. What are these?

O, say ye, First, In General, Are not these Acts of Council, wherein the Indulgence consists and is comprehended, very ugly in several points, and various respects? Is not their Deed then, in accepting such an ill circumstantiated Liberty, most disallowable?

For Answer to this, Let us 1. Consider, What these Acts are? (Next) How far the Indulged Mi­nisters has accepted, or not accepted, the same. And (3.) What your Exceptions are, against what they have done.

As for the Acts of Council relating to this Li­berty, they are namely two. The one Ordereth the Ministers therein named, to Repair to such and such Parishes as are therein expressed, and there to [Page 41] remain confined, permitting them to Preach in the said Parishes, and exercise their Ministry there. This is properly the Act of Indulgence.

The other Act, which followed the former, appointeth the Indulged to observe several things, which they call Rules, viz. 1. Not to Baptize any Children, except of the Parishes to which they are confined, or of their Neighbour-Parishes, if vacant. 2. To Celebrate their Communions all in one day. 3. That they Preach only in the Kirk, and not in the Kirk-Yard, nor in other places of the Parish, under an heavy pain. 4. That they depart not forth of their Parishes without leave. 5. That in their Exercise of Discipline, the Cases formally referrable to Presbyte­ries, be by them referred to the Conformists Meetings, which now are in place of Presbyteries. 6. To pay the Bursars and Clarks their Fees, as formerly wont to be. This Act is not of Indulgence, but rather of Restrictions.

Now say ye, How could the Magistrate law­fully make, or Ministers accept, such an Indul­gence, namely, so clogged?

To Answer this, It is necessary (in the next place) to consider what these Ministers have done, and what is the true state of the Controversie between you and them. To which we say in the general, that it is no small injury done to them, to charge them with all and every thing comprehended in these Acts, as if they had swallowed all down in gross, without exception of any. And conse­quently, it is a great mistake to think, whatever may be justly objected against sundry of those things so enacted, does militate against them and [Page 42] their deed, seeing they disclaim and never owned most of these things more than those do who re­ject all. And is it not hard from their acceptance of a part, viz. the naked permitted liberty, to in­fer and cast upon them an Homologation of the whole contents of these acts?

Here then it would be remembred what the true state of the Question is: Which is not, (1) Whether these acts forementioned be in all things approvable and rightly done? But what in all or any of these acts might be and is law­fully done? Particularly, Whether or not the Magistrate might and did jure order these Mini­sters, and repair unto, and grant them a permis­sion to Preach and exercise the other parts of their Ministry in such and such places as are men­tioned in the Act? In a complex Act there may be many things largely censurable, and very sinful, upon the Magistrates part; yet may there be other things not unwarrantable. And in that case the one are not to be condemned out of di­staste at the other. And certainly, whatever in­competency or iniquity may be alledged to be in other points of these Acts, it will be hard to find any in the particular forementioned, viz. the Indulged liberty.

(2) It is not so much to be Queried, what is Lawfully, as what is Legally done in this by the Magistrate; for a thing (for example, the con­finement of a Godly Minister for no fault) may be very unlawfully and unjustly done, and a real sin upon the Magistrates part, like other acts of Injustice; yet may it be legally done, that is [Page 43] to say, not Heterogeneous and incompetent to his Office, not beyond the bounds of his power; and therefore cannot therein be counted an Usur­per (or Erastian), though perhaps not free of Ini­quity. This consideration well observed, may help to clear a frequent mistake in many simple people who count every act of injustice real or supposed in the Ruler about matters of Religion, an act of Erastianism or Papal Supremacy.

(3) Neither is the Question so much, What has the Magistrate done in all this, as, What has the Ministers accepted, or submitted unto? For, perhaps there are many more things enacted by him, than imbraced by them. Now what are the Ministers concerned farther, than as to what they have accepted, or yielded submission unto? Let each bear their own burden, and not every thing, wherein it is supposed the Magistrate hath done amiss, be charged upon the Ministers.—

(4) It is not the Question either, Whether or not it be lawful for Ministers to have closed with the whole complex of both these Acts? This ye know they never did; nor do they allow of all contained in these Acts more than you do. But the Question is, Whether might they lawfully accept of, or submit unto any thing contained therein, rejecting the rest as evil, or inconvenient; Particularly, whether they might upon the above­mentioned order, repair to such and such Parishes, and there Preach the Gospel, and exercise the other parts of their Ministry, being permitted by the Magistrate, and also called thereunto by the people, and this for such time only (in case it be [Page 44] not their former charge) until they should have regress to their former Parishes? This ye know is all they did embrace. And in a complex busi­siness, why might not the good be taken hold of, and the evil abstracted from, waved, and laid by? as is directed in the like cases, 1 Thes. 5.21. Prove all things, says the Apostle, and held fast that which is good. And commended in Isa. 7.15. Heb. 5. ult. and recommended in Phil. 1.9, 10. And whatever the Magistrate did overstretch in, what is it to the Ministers if they did not close with these excesses, as they did not? If ye say, the circumstances, or concomitants or parts of an action cannot be morally abstracted from, or se­parated the one from the other, seeing all con­curs to make up the morality of the action; Therefore no circumstances or parts of the Ma­gistrates deed can be by the indulged separate, more than by himself.

Ans. Howbeit the circumstances of the action cannot be justly waved by the Agent, as relating properly to him; yet no doubt but the Patient well may; and false it is to say, all the circum­stances upon the Agents part, does also terminate upon the Patient, and reflect upon the one as well as upon the other; as both Philosophy and Divinity teacheth. It is not therefore to be doub­ted but a complex frame of Indulgence, clothed with vicious circumstances, and stuffed with ill ingredients upon the granters part, might very well be divided by the accepters, and the good separated from the bad, very warrantably; and this to be counted no more Logical abstraction, [Page 45] but wise and Christian discretion and discrimina­tion; and consequently they ought not to be char­ged in this case, with accepting the Indulgence as circumstantiat in the Magistrate. But more of this after. And so they are not accessary to the guilt may be complicated in it, as it comes from the Magistrate.

From all which ye see, It is no small perversion of the state of the Question, as it is moulded by some in their Papers, making it to be this; Whether the Magistrate, by virtue of his Office, may, of him­self, and immediately without the Church, and the previous Election of the People, assign and send Mini­sters to particular Churches, to take the Fixed and Pastoral Oversight of them? And prescribe Rules and Directions to them, for the exercise of their Ministry, and confine them to the said Congregations? And then Impugning this multiplex Question, renders their exceptions against it, as Reasons why they could not embrace the Indulgence, as their Bre­thren have done: As if Exceptions at any part of the Magistrates Deed, did justifie their refusing of the whole, and reflected guilt upon those who did not wholly reject it as they did; or as if their Bre­thren embraced all and whole of it, not separating the good from the evil. What unfair dealing is this? And among the many iniquities observable in this framing of the Question (whereof severals shall be spoken to afterwards, namely, concern­ing the Confinement, and Act of Regulation) these two at present would be noticed. I. That more is charged upon the Magistrate, than really he hath [Page 46] done, namely, 1. It is supponed, that by the Indul­gence he gives the Ministers a spiritual potestative mission (as they call it) for Preaching to such Con­gregations, and taking Pastoral Charge thereof: Hence they frame their Arguments to militate a­gainst the Indulgence, as if therein the Magistrate took upon him the Spiritual Power of the Church in Ordination and Admission. Whereas all his Mis­sion or Assignment is purely Civil and Local (as ap­peareth by the Tenor of the Act) ordering them to repair to such Parishes, and be confined there­in; only (for mitigation of their Confinement) he permits and allows them also liberty to Preach there, yet leaving it to peoples liberty to call them, and to their own liberty to embrace that call, to exercise their Ministry there, or not, as they pleas­ed; (for their Freaching is not enjoyned, but per­mitted.) Whence it is plain, there was no Moral or Spiritual Mission, nor Ecclesiastical Admission and Setting of these Ministers over these Congregations, like that in Tit. 1.5. Acts 14 23. (unless ye call confinement to the place, with a civil permission to Preach there, a spiritual and potestative Mission which were absurd.) And therefore all the Argu­ments mustered up (upon this account) against the Indulged Liberty cum larvis luctantur, fights with their own Fancy only, and makes nothing a­gainst the true question. Yea further, Suppose there had been some sort of Political Mission, or Appointment and Command, such as Jehoshaphat gave to the Levites, and Hezekiah to the Priests, as aforesaid; yet that differs toto genere from an Ecclesiastical Mission, such as the Church gave Bar­nabas [Page 47] and Paul, Act. 13.2, 3.

The Magistrates political Appointment in this case, being not a Spiritual Authorization in the Name of Christ, but merely a Legal Warrant; not conferring intrinsick power and right to Preach, or be Pastors to these people, but only warranting them (in point of Law) to exercise their Ministry to and among them. 2. It is supponed here, that the Ministers are sent to take the Fixed and Pasto­ral Charge of these Congregations; whereas there is no such thing in the Act; but simply a confining, with a License to Preach, without defining in what capacity, whether as a stated Pastor of that people, or in occasional way only, as they and the people should agree: So that as their Assignment is but lo­cal, their Liberty but legal and permissive, their capacity also of Preaching there is left undetermi­ned by the Magistrate. Thus ye see, more is al­ledged (in this sort of stating the question) to be done by the Magistrate, than indeed He hath done. How unequal is this, that men should put their Commentary and Sense of the Matter, for the Text! And state the Question according to their mistaken Notion, and not according to Truth?

The Second Enquiry in this stating of the Que­stion, and in determining and impugning thereof as so stated, is, That it is supposed the Contents of the Councils Acts were proposed to be accepted all and whole together, or else none, and nothing at all: And that these who have embraced the In­dulged Liberty, have joyned with all. Whereas, so notorious it is, that neither the one nor the other is true, that we need not insist to demonstrate the [Page 48] same. And if any be so bold, as to affirm the con­trary, it is incumbent to them to prove it, before their asserting can merit any credit with Rational Men. In sum then, the genuine and plain state of the question is, Whether or no, when the Law had outed you all of your Charges, and restrained you most severely from all publick, free, and peaceable Exercise of your Ministry, in any part of the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland; whether or not (I say) did the Magistrate lawfully dispense with, and take off that Restraint, as to some Persons and Places? And the Ministers thereby Licensed, did they lawfully make use of that liberty, being withal most seriously called thereunto by the People? Now, what is exceptable against this? This is the true state of the Contro­versie betwixt you and your Brethren; what is your quarrel at it?

There are nine particular Objections (the most material and most usual, so far as we can learn) which here we shall consider and answer, finding them not Relevant to prove the conclusion they drive at.

1. Some say, This Indulgence it is mere Era­stianism, and an Homologation of the Supremacy.

2. They object the Rules and Instructions fore­mentioned.

3. Some alledg this Preaching with the Magi­strates permission and allowance, to be a Renoun­cing of their former Commission from Jesus Christ, and a taking of a new one from the Magistrate, and an holding of their Ministry of him with sub­jection unto him, and dependance upon him, like other Civil Judges of the Land.

[Page 49]4. Divers offend at the Magistrates intent and design in this Indulgence.

5. Others stumble at the narrowness of the Li­berty, as to Persons and Places; and also as to the extent of the Exercise of Government permitted to these Ministers.

6. The manner of their Entry is quarrelled by some, as not being called by the people, nor ad­mitted by Order of Presbytery, as wont to be.

7. Other some cry out for want of a Testimo­ny against the Magistrates Incroachments, and o­ther sad grievances, in these and other of his Acts.

8. Some exagitates them for their confinement, yea for their fixing at all, though it be in their former Charge.

9. Others stumble at this, that so many other zealous and godly Ministers and people are against it, and all the Godly divided about it.

To all these we shall say somewhat shortly, to clear the mistakes therein.

As to the First, O says some, Is not this Indul­gence a Master-piece of the States Erastianism, and of the Prince his sinful Supremacy now asserted by Law? And consequently the accepting thereof, an homologa­ting and supporting of both?

Upon this Head, how admirably do some Tri­umph, insult, yea and anathematize the Indul­gence, and all that has accepted thereof, or hears the Indulged Men! What fierce Outcryes are made, especially by some Novices and Vulgars, harping continually (almost) upon this String, as their most melodious Musick to please themselves [Page 50] with, and their greatest Argument to decry these Licensed Brethren by; canting these jingling Vo­cables of Supremacy, Homologat, Erastian, ad Ra­vim usque: And yet knows not perhaps what they say, nor whereof they affirm; nor are able at all to rid marches, and distinctly tell what power about Ecclesiastick matters does of right belong to the Magistrate, and what not; nor what is Erastianism, or sinful Supremacy, or Homolo­gating of either. Experti loquimur.

But let all that quarrel upon this score, seri­ously ponder these few things, which we presume to lay before them▪ to take off their offence as to this: (1) Be ye well assured, your indulged Bre­thren and ye agree well enough in Thesi (in the general), That no Erastianism, nor unlawful Su­premacy (properly and truly so called) is to be complied with? They abhor both as much as you do. All the difference is about the Hypothesis (or particular application); that they cannot call every thing so, which you do call so; particu­larly, that in this indulged liberty, as accepted by them, they can see neither of these. If you see further than they, bring forth your strong reasons, plead with them in love, and labour to convince them. Mean time be sober till ye prove your As­sertions demonstratively, and not [...]y confident averring, nor by weak and unconcluding Rea­sons. Certainly Fortia, non Phalerata, soft words and hard arguments were your best for convin­cing and reclaiming your honest Brethren, in case they err here.

(2) As for the charge of Erastianism, let it be [Page 51] considered what is Erastianism, but when the Ma­gistrate usurps in whole or in part the internal; proper, formal spiritual power of Church-Go­vernment (called in Scripture, The power of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven)? and so wrest­ing these Keys out of the Kirks hand, and in­grossing them to himself, accordingly exerciseth them, or delegates them to others. Now who can warrantably say, this indulged liberty is of that nature? being meerly a Civil or Legal per­mission to exercise their Ministry, notwithstanding the Laws to the contrary. Whatever may be deemed of the Act of Instructions so called, (wherein they are not much concerned, as after may be cleared), surely this Act of Licensing them to Preach in such and such places, is no proper, formal, intrinsick Act of the power of the Keys (no more than the Roman Governours permitting of Paul to Preach, Act. 21.39, 40. & 26.1.) But rather an Act of the Regal Scepter; and is only objectively Ecclesiastical: And con­sequently no Erastianism, nor without the verge of the Prince his just power, as hath been former­ly shewed. Any that are contrary minded, we hum­bly judg their Brethren will think themselves much obliged to them, if they will convince them of their mistake in this, if there be any. Mean time it is hoped these Opponents will not ob­trude big words, or bold Assertions, or crafty insinuations, instead of solid probations. Let School Doctors digladiat nimbly among themselves, contending for the palm of Victory, rather than for Verity; and let them dictate to their Disci­ples, [Page 52] as if their [...], their bare authority were enough to rest upon. It is hoped Divines and Christians will be far from such humours and practices; and will know, that every man must live by his own faith, and not implicitely upon anothors word. Convince your Brethren then of what Erastianism, or overstretch of the Magi­strate his power is in this particular, as accepted by them, if ye find any in it; and hear what they have to say for themselves, before ye condemn them, and divide from them, as is taught you, Joh. 8.46. & 7.51. Act. 25.16. Yea, suppose the Magistrate had stretched a little beyond his ordinary line, in the permission granted (which yet we see not), nevertheless may not the extra­ordinary case of the Church do much to excuse, yea purge it of crime? in which case the most strict Presbyterians and Anti-Erastian Divines are loth to charge him with the odious imputation of Erastianism. Read your worthy Mr. Gillespy, Aarons Rod, pag. 182. In extraordinary cases (says he) when Church-Government doth degenerate into Tyranny (as under Popery it is for the most part) then—the Christian Magistrate may and ought to do divers things in and for Religion, and inter­pose his Authority divers ways, so as doth not be­long unto his—Administration, ordinarily in a Reformed and well constituted Church: Because ex­extraordinary Diseases must have extraordinary Remedies. To this same purpose speaks blessed Mr. Rutherford in his Due Right of Presbytery, pag. 416. Here more is conceded by your strict­est Writers, than the accepted liberty amounts unto.

[Page 53](3) As for the Supremacy, as it is now estab­lished by Law, Parliament 2d, Caroli 2. Sess. 1. Act. 1. We shall not at present scan the nature of it, whether it be only (as some of 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, [Page 54] 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 [Page 55] 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 [Page 56] 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 [Page 57] 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 in common Form and Style of other Civil Acts of the Council.

Whereas it is observable, that the Act of Re­stitution of the Bishops, and the Act anent Con­stitution of their National Synod, are expresly Founded upon the Kings Supremacy, as the Nar­ratives thereof bear. Whence it is manifest, that even the Magistrate himself did not grant the In­dulgence as an Act of that spiritual Supremacy, that new Jewel of his Crown, but merely as an Act of his ordinary Supreme Civil Power. Why then will ye Strain, Force, and Father it upon [Page 58] that his Transcendent Supremacy, when himself does not so?

Upon all which Reasons, ye see that the Indul­gence, in so far as accepted by the Brethren, hath no Consanguinity nor Affinity with that Suprema­cy as now asserted, and as expounded by you of a spiritual Supremacy.

From all these Considerations also it is plain, that the Argument used of late by some of you, to prove the Affinity of the Indulgence with the Supremacy, is but a very Sophism, viz. To Enact, Settle, and make Constitutions, concerning Matters, Meetings, and Persons Ecclesiastical, according to Royal Pleasure, is the very substanee and defini­tion of the Supremacy, expressed in the Act Asser­tory of it: But the Indulgence is to Enact, &c. therefore it is the very substance and definition of the Supremacy. How do some Triumph in this, as a Demonstration, and Achillean Argument▪ But, Beloved in the Lord, take with us a second look of it, and weigh it in the Ballance of Right Reason, and see the weakness and fallacy of it in these few particulars.

1. The Major Proposition is an unfaithful ac­count of the Supremacy, as defined by the Act of Parliament; for the Act expresly restricts it to Matters, Meetings, and Persons of Eeclesiastical Jurisdiction and Government, as is before observed. And yet the Argument ampliates and extends it indefinitely unto all Matters, Meetings, and Per­sons Ecclesiastical, of what kind soever, even of Worship as well as Government▪ And indeed it could not otherwise suit with the Subsumption, [Page 59] which comprehends these. Now, In this gene­ral Comprehension, it is a very great mistake; and if ye Limit it to matters of Government, (as it should be) then it varies the Supposition, and does not quadrate with the Subsumption; and would be ex majori particulari in prima figura, which is bad Logick.

2. As for the Minor Proposition, wherein ye apply your foresaid definition of Supremacy to the Indulgence, observe these mistakes in it.

1. That it meaneth of the whole Complex and full Latitude of the Indulgence, as comprehend­ing all the parts and pendicles of it, the Act of Restrictive Rules and all; for so the Reverend Au­thor in his Paper (called Mr. B. Testimony) la­bours to prove his Charge, by adducing these Rules and Canons, &c. as witnesses of it.

Whereas ye know (as was abovesaid) that is not the State of the Question betwixt you and your Brethren; distinguish betwixt the Indulgence as Enacted, and as Accepted: And know, that whatever the Indulgence, as Enacted by the Ma­gistrate in its full Latitude, may be charged with, or judged to comprehend, yea or not; sure ye'll find that part of it, which is accepted by your Brethren, not to be as is by you alledged, being only a permission or allowance of Liberty to Preach and Exercise the other parts of their Mi­nistry, wherein no Vestige of the Supremacy (as expounded of a Papal, Arbitrary, Architectonick, Spiritual Supremacy) is to be found, as hath been already cleared. And for further clearing of which, consider,

[Page 60]2. That in this grant of Liberty, the Magistrate acteth not merely according to pleasure (except it be in genere politico, that is, as to his own deed, doing it without constraint, controul, or counta­bleness to any person) but rather against his mind in genere Ethico, permitting that which he does not approve, as Moses did the Bill of Divorce: So that herein he acts not as a Coesareo-Papa, or Head of the Church, and Fountain of Church-Of­fices, Enacting what he will in disposal of Church-matters, as modellable by his pleasure; but only and simply, as a Supreme Civil Magistrate, he suspends and dispenses with the Laws which cur­bed and hedged in your Brethren, and permits them now to enjoy a portion of their wonted Li­berty, for Reasons of State expressed in his Act; so that while the major Proposition of the Argu­ment tells us, that, to Enact, Settle, and make such Constitutions about Matters, &c. Ecclesiastick, according to Royal Pleasure; that is, to make any Acts anent them he will, as modellable, in their kind, at his Arbitriment, is the Definition of the Su­premacy, (for in this Sense only it is truly so defi­ned, as Apollonius and others tell.) And then subsumes, that this Act of Indulgence, even as ac­cepted by the Brethren, is of that Nature; it is ap­parently a very great mistake; which might give us occasion to Remark what multiplyed Sophistry is in this Argument, a compositione & divisione, ab [...] ad [...], ab Homonymia, &c. But these we pass, as also to criticise upon that strange con­clusion here inferred, That the Indulgence is the very substance and definition of the Supremacy; [Page 61] and consequently the All of it, and convertible with it, as if the Supremacy and this Indulgence were reciprocal Terms, and whatsoever the Su­premacy can pretend to, to that same is this In­dulgence applicable, according to the Rule, cui competit definitum, ei competit definitio; & vice versa. But such Logical Remarks we forbear; only we are sorry to find such paralogizing among you in a matter so grave and serious: But more sorry that such a caption should deceive and insnare the simple. Had this Syllogism been applyed to the Act of Ejecting you, and that of demolishing the Church-Government, and erecting Prelacy in its stead, we should have thought it more perti­nent and considerable. These being Acts of his Privative and Despotical power, and savouring of a more Dominative Supremacy: But while ye ap­ply it to this Indulged Liberty, which is but a Cumulative and Auxiliary Act of his power, as Nurse-Father, and call this the very Essence, Exercise, and Application of the Supremacy (mean­ing Spiritual and Architectonick) who may not with half an eye see it a visible mistake? And pray you if the King should write down to the Coun­cil, and thereupon a Proclamation be made, for permitting, yea appointing and commanding that no Government be exercised in your Church, but the Presbyterian, and that forthwith it be set up and exercised, and all outed Ministers be allowed access to the free exercise of their Ministry any where; would you say, This were the Enact­ing, Settling, and Emitting Constitutions about Matters, Meetings, and Persons Ecclesiastick, ac­cording [Page 62] to Royal pleasure, and the very substance and definition of the Supremacy, and so cast at it, as a thing vile, not to be touched? If not, (as no sober, rational, man, will think ye should) why judge ye otherwise of this partial Liberty? Both the 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 [Page 63] 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 [Page 64] 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 [Page 65] 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 [Page 66] 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 life and being to this Act of Supremacy as its Charter. Whence it is plain, that ye make the Act of Su­premacy to be but a Legal and Civil security for the King to grant, and Ministers to accept this Indulgence: and consequently, that the In­dulgence derives nothing but Legality, not any Spirituality from that Act of Supremacy. And therefore no efflux of any Ecclesiastick Archite­ctonick power is judged to be in it, nor does not [Page 67] Homologat the same; owning only what is Ci­vil, for its Legal protection.

But passing this, know, 2. That this Alledg­ance of yours, is but a meer fiction to cast an odium upon the Indulgence. How instruct ye this to have been the drift and end of that Act? Does not all that know the mystery of that matter, know that it was upon another occasion, and for another end? viz. to curb the insolency of the Prelates, who thinking themselves and their Church-dignities and power cock-sure in Law, were become bold to speak liberally of the King, and against his Minions, as the Archbishop of Glasgow has done. Therefore to keep them in awe and d [...]endance, as wholly in the Kings reverence, and consequently obnoxious to his Minions, that Act was made, inabling the King with his Council to alter their established frame of Church-Government, and loose the pins of their Fabrick at his pleasure; which then was threatned to them by some Statesmen, to keep them sober; and therefore the Bishops were ve­ry backward to consent to the passing of that Act, till awed thereunto. That this was the professed end of the Act, can (as we are surely informed) be attested by the prime movers in it. So that, whether the Indulgence had been or not, this Act would have been to put the disposal of the Church-Government in the Kings lurch. False and groundless therefore is it, and non causa pro causa, to say the Indulgence was the rise of this Act, or that it was done in reference to the same. 3. Suppose the Indulgence had been Illegal with­out [Page 68] this, or some other Act to warrant it, yet seeing ye judg the Laws that were opposite to this liberty were not just upon the matter, it seems strange to us, that ye, who so much justi­fie, yea magnifie the liberty of Conventicling (which your Brethren do not condemn if right­ly managed) taken at your own hand, against the same Laws, and many more, and consequently as illegal, though not unlawful; should so de­cry the Magistrates deed, in dispensing with these Laws, and granting your Brethren liberty of their Ministry. Maugre them. Is your liberty taken so Divine? and theirs granted, an illegiti­mate or Bastard-brood, as in your papers ye call it? may not theirs be just and lawful, though not according to Law, as well as yours? does not this unequal dealing say, nothing of this sort pleases you but what is taken at your own hand? and that your quarrel at the Indulgence is, that it is granted, not taken?

4. Whether the King had such a Prerogative or not (before the Act) as to indulge Nonconfor­mist Ministers liberty of their Ministry, beside the Laws allowance, we humbly judg is not theirs, nor your concern to debate; being jus tertii, viz. the Parliaments interest. If the thing was just and right in it self, you and your Brethren were not to ask quo jure, the King took it on him? Let the Parliament ask that; was it not enough for your Ministers acceptance of it, that the thing was good and right in it self, and not sin­ful upon the matter; the King being to answer for the legality of his own deed? and whatever [Page 69] hazard the indulged might have incurred for want of the alledged legality, yet we hope ye will not say they sinned in taking their hazard upon the Magistrates allowance.

5. We humbly suppose the objecters of the King his not being instructed with Legal power to indulge, before the Act of Supremacy was made, may find themselves much in a mistake. Whoever questioned it to be a part of your Kings Prerogative to dispense with poenal Statutes (we mean in foro soli) at least as to the execution of them? Hath it not been his uncontroverted pra­ctice, past memory of man, as to other poenal Laws? and why should it be denied him in this kind more than in others? is not a current, un­controverted custom, equivalent to a Law? Whereupon you know the King did several times write down before, for allowing liberty to some Ministers, but it was obstructed and suppressed by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and his Com­plices; till at last one of you, Mr. John Smith, was by special and peremptory command of the King to the Council, allowed to preach at— and some years hereafter, your first more gene­ral Indulgence came; all this while the King and Council never doubting, nor any other question­ing this power of indulging. How then can ye say, that to this Act of Supremacy the Indulgence oweth its whole legal being?

Upon all therefore that hath been said, is it not most evident to be a meer mistake to think, and a groundless assertion to affirm, as ye do, That the foundation, basis, fountain, and ground-right [Page 70] of the Indulged liberty, is this Act of Su­premacy; seeing (besides the reasons forementi­oned to disprove their affinity) this liberty did, and doth subsist without the Supremacy, and borroweth neither its natural nor moral being from this assertion of Supremacy, and hath nei­ther Legal nor Spiritual dependance upon it? Nor is it the exercise of any other but a lawful civil Supremacy, competent to the Magistrate, before ever that new Act had a being, and for whose cause that new Act was not at all hatched, as ye would fain bear the world in hand.

Having thus cleared, that in the Indulgence (abstractly considered, as it is accepted by the Brethren) there is nothing of Erastianism, nor any sibness unto, or homologation of the so much talked of Supremacy; let none stumble at them, nor divide from them upon that score; nor de­claim impetuously against them, as supporters of the unlawful Supremacy; for how groundless that imputation is, the premises may abundant­ly shew. For our part we cannot see how their Preaching with the Magistrates Tolerance and leave, can be a pillar and prop to his Ecclesiasti­cal Supremacy, more nor your Preaching with­out his leave is. If ye fancy any accidental influ­ence that may redound from theirs to uphold it; as ye can hardly name that, so may not the like be found to flow from yours, by its occasioning the setling of a military force to maintain the Supremacy, and the Hierarchy depending there­upon, and to suppress your liberty? which is the States fault, we grant; yet by you occasioned. [Page 71] Consider seriously then, that their Preaching with the Magistrates Civil permission, is not so much, let be more, a prop to this Decantated Supre­macy, than your Preaching without permission is: (Though it can be justly attributed to nei­ther.) And let out-crys on this head, go, and indulge not your humours, while ye cry out up­on this Indulgence! nor state your selves Judges paramount and infallible, as if you had a Supre­macy over all persons, and in all causes, while ye go about unjustly to task your Brethren with Communion with this justly lamented Suprema­cy.

But if still some cannot part with that high-sounding word of Supremacy, and still will be im­puting the indulged liberty to Supremacy, using that ambiguous word as a Gorgons Head, or Bug­bear to fright the vulgar by, and scare people at the Licensed Ministers; will they be intreated to deal as candidly in their discourses, as some of you have done in their publick Papers, to distin­guish betwixt the Civil Supremacy (whence the Indulgence flows), and the Ecclesiastical Supre­macy (with which it hath no affinity), and then the snare were broken. But to talk of Supremacy in the general, and thence to insinuate a compli­ance by the accepted Indulgence, with the Ec­clesiastical Supremacy in special, is to argue a genere ad speciem, affirmative, (from a general to a particular, affirmatively), which is fallacious and unfair dealing.

And finally, what better reasoning is it to say (as some do), That because the Magistrate no­minates [Page 72] in the second Indulgence such and such Ministers to preach in such or such a place, if they and the people please to have it so, without imposing a necessity or compulsion upon them thereunto; therefore he takes upon him the Ele­ction of Ministers, and judging of their Qualifi­cations and fitness for these places, and conse­quently (say ye) he acts in this Erastianism and Supremacy.

For removing this mistake, first, as to the No­mination, consider, (1) This doth not concern these of the first Indulgence, who were pitched upon, nominate, presented, and petitioned for, by some representing the Parish, before the Coun­cil Licensed them to the place.

Consider (2) that the Nomination of Ministers in the second Indulgence, was primarily a No­minating of them to confinement in the place, and but secondarily to the free liberty of Exercise of their Ministry there; but not to state them in the relation of Pastors to those people. The peo­ples call doth this.

(3) Suppose in this troubled and unsetled state of the Church, the Magistrate had nominate them to be Pastors there, what is that but what the Books of Discipline of the Church of Scotland al­lows in such Exigents, as in the forecited place, Book 1. pag. 37. For this present (say they) we think it expedient, that either your Honours by your selves Nominate so many as may serve the forewrit­ten Provinces, or that ye give Commission to such men as ye suppose the fear of God to be in, to do the same. And the same men being called into your pre­sence, [Page 73] shall be by you, and such as your Honours plea­ses to call unto you for consultation in that case, Ap­pointed to their Provinces. Where you see the No­mination of the Superintendents, and the Desig­nation of their Province is given to the Council for that juncture, yea, and they to be called Co­ram, and in praesentia, in the face of Council to be appointed to their Charges. And Charges were they much beyond what your Brethren pretend to in the places of their confinement. Nor was it here thought a subjecting the Ministry to the Magistrate, or putting on him an Erastian power, or a renouncing Christ, and a taking of the Mi­nistry from the Magistrate by a new Commissi­on, For Ministers to appear Personally before the Council, and be appointed to Provinces: Will you say, your Church here establisheth Erastianism, or a sinful Supremacy? or allows an encroachment upon the Church and peoples Right? And does not your Presbyterian Writers, such as Mr. Bowels in his Pastor Evangelicus, Lib. 1. Cap. 1. allow the like?

(4) Whatever pretence this Nomination might have of oppressing the liberty of the people; yet we wonder ye count it Erastianism, being no Act of Church-Government, no exercise of the pow­er of the Keys; else when people, to whom no power of the Keys belongs more than to the Ma­gistrate, does nominate and elect a Minister to themselves, they should Erastianly usurp and in­vade the Government of the house of God. Your own Divines assert Election to be a matter of Li­berty or priviledg, not a power of Jurisdiction.

[Page 74] Next, as for the Magistrates alledged judging of Ministers Qualifications and fitness for places, we presume to propose four things to be consi­dered:

(1) Whereupon ground ye this plea? what Act of Judicial cognition, or definitive Determi­nation concerning your Brethrens gifts, did the Magistrate put forth?

(2) What judging upon Ministers Qualificati­ons did the Council here exercise more than in the forecited case of their Nominating and Ap­pointing the Superintendents to their Provinces? or, then people does, when they elect a Minister to themselves?

(4) To clear all, distinguish betwixt a Cha­ritative, or Discretive judgment, and a Judicial, Forensick, Definitive judgment. The former (viz. a judgment of Discretion) is not, ye know, to be denied to any man or people concerned, much less to a Christian Magistrate: and more than that, yours did not take upon them; yea, nor that either, but supposed these Ministers able and qualified, being before tried and ordained by Presbyteries, to no less eminent Charges than now they were indulged unto. And for the lat­ter, (viz. the judgment of Jurisdiction, which is properly the work of Church-Judicatories) they medled not therewith. What then did they in this matter, without their sphere? If ye say, by his Majesties Letter they were appointed to License only Sober and Peaceable men; and is not this to judg of their Qualifications?

Ans. Manifest it is, that that is meant only of [Page 75] some Civil or Moral Qualifications, not of Pasto­ral Gifts; and this also they considered and cog­nosced upon only Discretively, not by a Judici­al and Declarative sentence. Did they at all, in foro, Institute a trial and cognition of these or any other their Qualifications? not at all, but contented themseves with a Negative Testimony thereof, that is, if no body objected against their peaceableness. What Erastianism then, or Eccle­siastical Supremacy was here?

But finally, suppose the Magistrate had over­reached and gone beyond his line, in nominating these Ministers to such places, and judging of their Ministerial parts and fitness: What is that against the Ministers themselves, who did not, does not preach to such people upon the Magi­strates Nomination or Designation (except in so far as it imported a taking off their civil Restraints) but upon their own office (as their Missio Potesta­tiva) and the peoples call (as the Determiner of them to officiate in that place)? neither did they submit the trial of their Ministerial Qualifications and fitness for such a place to the Magistrates cognition: But as the Magistrate presumed they were competently fit; so, they (without any Ju­dicial Recognition of their abilities and suitable­ness) condescended upon the peoples earnest call to imploy their Talents, whatever their measure were, for the edifying of that people for an inte­rim. Now, upon all this, what just ground of out-cry is there against your honest Brethren? wherein have they homologate Erastianism, or a Spiritual Supremacy?

[Page 76]The Second Objection is, Concerning the Act of Rules or Instructions (so called) wherein the Magistrate does, by his Civil Authority, Statute and Ordain, that such and such things (already mentioned) be done and observed by the Indul­ged, under Civil pains.

This Act is Represented unto People (in odium of the Indulged Ministers) as both most censurable upon the Matter, and Erastian in its Nature, and as inseparable Clogs, yea Conditions, of their Li­berty. But, Dear and Worthy in the Lord, con­sider in sober sadness, what can be justly charged upon these Brethren in this matter, and what not. For our part, we cannot apprehend; and therefore wave to examine, whether this Act be formally civil, and only objectively Ecclesiasti­cal, and that only in a few particulars, the rest being Civil; or whether the Magistrates Error here be in the Form, usurping an unjust Power; or only in the Matter, abusing his just power, and misapplying it to unjust purposes, as sometimes he may do in civil cases; which we think, the inverting of these Rules to their contrary, may help to clear. Nor is it necessary to dip into that Que­stion, Whether it be altogether heterogeneous and incompetent, as well as it may be inconveni­ent, for the Civil Ruler to make Civil Laws and Constitutions about the Circumstances, Order, and Exercise of matters of Religion, without the previous cognizance and pre-determination of the Church thereupon; And that even in the most broken and ruined State of the Church, when there is no Governing-Church existent, that can [Page 77] be owned. Passing also to consider, whether or no this Act be properly an Act of Pastoral Instru­ctions (such as only Christ Jesus, and no mortal man can give to his Embassadors)? or, whether they be properly Ecclesiastical Canons (of the same formal and specifical Nature with Church-Decrees, about matters of Order)? Or, whether, they be only improperly and abusively called Instructions and Rules: As in some sense, all Laws, even Ci­vil, are said to be Regulative and Directive of Pra­ctice? Whatever may be said to these Questions, upon the one side or the other, to excuse or con­demn the Magistrates Deed, seemeth little to con­cern the purpose in hand, seeing your Indulged Ministers, looking upon these Statuted Rules, at least ways, as unjust upon their matter, have ne­ver embraced nor observed them, except it be in some civil points (inflicted on them as penal); and that only so far as they judged might be lawfully submitted unto, however unjustly impo­sed. What ground then is there, of stumbling at them, upon this Head? Does not their non-accept­ance, and non-observance, of these Rules, free them of all crime supposed to be therein?

But to satisfie the Objection more fully, consi­der in serious sobriety, That, be this Act of Re­gulation as censurable as you will, yet was and is it quite extrinsick and accidental to the granting and accepting of the Indulgence; and therefore the vitiousness of the one, cannot defile the other; nay nor be so much as the Ministers personal guilt, unless they had closed with it, which ye know they did not. But to evidence this consideration [Page 78] to be true and considerable, ponder these two things which serves to clear the point of this Act of Regulation its being extrinsick and accidental to the Indulgence.

(1) That Act of Rules is no part of the Act of Indulgence, but a distinct Act by it self, Enacted after the Indulgence, even in another meeting of the Council (as is informed) though the same day: nor was it at all legally intimated to the indulged (but lay dormant in the Council-Books) until a considerable time after their entry to their Char­ges. Now who can with reason think, that a Po­sterior Law, imposed only subsequently to their acceptance of their Liberty (for how soon so ever it was past in the Council-Books, is nothing to them, seeing Lex non promulgata est quasi non lata, a Law not legally intimated signifies nothing) how can it, we say, be thought to affect, burthen, and prejudice their acceptance of their Liberty, and to constitute it sinful, which was long in be­ing before that Act of Rules came forth by Pub­lication into the world? Hence plainly appear­eth, that it is no Constituent part of the Indul­gence, nor an Inseparable attendant; much less Terms and Conditions of the same, as some invidi­ously call them. Had it been intimated to them conjunctly with the Act of Indulgence, there had been some more appearance of its being an Onus Libertatis; but since it was not so, who can say with any shew of reason, that it was a burthen affecting their liberty, and that their accep­tance of the one was a compliance with the other? Suppose a man purposed to dispone his [Page 79] Estate to another, with such or such a provision or burden of Legacy, Debt, or service upon it; if this Clause was not inserted into the Disposition, nor therewith delivered in a Paper apart unto the Successor; but the Disposition was at first sine onere, pure, free, and unconditional, as it was drawn up, subscribed and delivered unto the man; yet sometime the Rester, the Cedent, thinks fit to add in a new Paper apart, such a burden and clog to his former disposition, intending to affect his As­signee with it. Now who will not think such a Posterior oneration altogether extrinsick to the disposition, and no ways to affect the Estate or Successor? And that the As­signee's acceptance of, or adherence to the fore­said disposition, does no ways Homologate that subsequent addition, nor oblige him in Law to own it (if gratitude and kindness constrain him not thereto); but still he stands free of, and un­concerned in that new-added burden? It signi­fies nothing here to say, that the Disponent never intended to dispone his Estate otherwise than with that burden; but in his mind, or some pri­vate personal deed lying by him, he purposed from the beginning to have his Successor affected with it, as a condition annexed to the disposition; yea, and perhaps talked of it to many; so that the Cessioner was not Physically ignorant of his mind and matter. What then? does his purpose, or private separate deed, infer any obligation upon his As­signee? or private significations of his mind, im­port any thing in Law without Legal and ti­mous Intimation? No surely. The Cessioner is [Page 80] still free. Is it not just so in your Brethrens case? How can they be said to have accepted their Li­berty cum onere, seeing there was no such terms proposed to them in the Act of Indulgence deli­vered to them, nor with it at their acceptance? (as the extracts of their Licenses sent to them will testifie.) And these Instructions (so called) was not intimated to them, till long after they were in possession of their liberty; and when intimated, refused; nor was it equitable they should have abandoned the favour of their liberty, upon the intimation of these Rules to them; because not proposed (even then) as terms, but imposed as Laws. And also being supervenient, like a super­foetation, and consequently extrinsick and acciden­tal to the favour. If ye say, The Magistrates im­posing them by way of Laws, was but out of State, as counting it below him to seek their con­sent thereunto.

Ans. May ye not say the same of all Laws? and so threap upon the subjects, that they are terms, though no consent be explicitely sought? which were absurd. Again, know, that when the Council minds to deal with any, even a single person, by way of terms, they do not count it below them to require consent, yea subscription: As in some of your banished Ministers case, who was required to, and did subscribe their own Act of Banishment; and some others of you at home, for redeeming their Liberty from Process, were required, and did take the Oath of Supremacy. But to leave this: we only add, If ye by your a­vowed and bold alledging the Indulgence to be [Page 81] granted and accepted upon the terms of observing their Rules, do teach the Bishops▪ (who will like well to confirm you in your Arguments and Ob­jections, thereby to blow at the coal of your Animosities and Contentions) and put it in their heads to speak in the same language, blame your selves for it, but use it not as a Testimony against your Brethren, not being witnesses (in the case) without just exception.

If, finally, ye Object, that the Kings Letter con­cerning the first Indulgence, comprehended in the bosom of it an order also concerning the Instru­ctions which after followed; and consequently these Instructions cannot be divided from the Act of Indulgence, in considering Ministers accept­ance thereof.

Ans. That Letter of his Majesties to the Council, was to them directed (not to the Mini­sters) as the Councils Rule and Warrant, not the Ministers Legal Act of Indulgence; and there­fore (whatever was in it) it did concern the Mini­sters no further than was legally communicate unto them; and this at first was only in a very simple and unconditionate, or unclogged Act of License, as the Copies thereof under the Clerks hand sent unto them, evidenceth. The Injuncti­ons were not intimated unto them till upwards of a year thereafter. Now it's only the Councils Act put into the Ministers hand, which is the publick legal deed wherein they are concerned; the Kings Letter, though Registrate in the Council-Books, is a private matter as to them, as for any thing not intimate unto them. Whatever they did [Page 82] Physically know thereof (by private information), which these not indulged also knew) signifies no­thing; at least no more to them than to others. So that still it is plain the Indulgence was sine onere.

If it be said, The Kings Letter was read to the first Ten indulged, when they were called before the Council; and did not their silence, and not bearing Testimony against these Injunctions, and other things of the like nature, import an Homologation thereof?

Ans. Besides that the matter of fact alledged is much questioned, yea plainly denied as false, let us suppose the Letter to have been all and whole read to them, yet the speech delivered by one in name of the rest, by shewing positively how they held their Ministry, did (in all sober mens judgment) sufficiently (though indirectly) intimate their disallowance of all things repug­nant thereunto; for, Rectum est norma, & index sui & obliqui. But suppose they failed in not being plain, full and free enough in their Testimony, is that a ground sufficient to charge the odious im­putation of Erastianism on them? or to illegiti­mate their indulged Liberty, or their Ministry, so as it were unlawful to hear them? or what is it to the rest of the Brethren, who were never call­ed before the Council, nor the Letter and its Contents read to them? must the failing of some few be cast upon all? and all alike condemned as guilty? what partial and unjust dealing is this?

(2) Consider the form or quality of these Sta­tuted Rules; viz. That they were not proposed [Page 83] to them, as prerequired, or simultaneous, or fu­ture conditions of their Liberty; but imposed as Laws, and authoritatively enjoined under Civil pains, Penalties and Certifications, like other Laws.

Suppose then they had been antecedently unto, or conjunctly with the grant of their Liberty, in­timated unto them (which yet was not); yet see­ing they were not proposed as terms, by way of Bargain required to be approved and consented unto, or observed as Irritant conditions of their li­berty, nor promise to observe them, sought or given, nor at that time pretended or declared to be Conditions upon which the Indulgence was granted; but were simply imposed upon them as Laws, but not consented unto, nor accepted by them: Who can think the very making and being of such an Act, did justly bar them up from making use of the liberty granted? or doth now so affect it, or the Exercise of their Ministry by it, as that they are wholly polluted thereby? or, that the bare acceptance of that Liberty, doth necessarily and natively involve them in the guilt of that Act, and of all comprehended in it, even albeit they observe it not? Will not equita­ble Judges think these Rules so Enacted, were and are only the Law-givers, not the Ministers sin, no more than the Law enjoining and ap­pointing the Declaration, or Abjuration of your Covenants, to be taken by all Magistrates of Burghs, can be justly interpreted to six guilt up­on every one that happeneth to bear that Office, albeit he conform not to that Law? Who will [Page 84] charge such a Magistrate as guilty of accepting the Office cum onere, with the burden of the legally annexed Declaration? and that his separating between the Office and the Declaration, is mo­rally impossible, and but a cheat? or, that his bearing Office in this case is an Homologating the Act anent the taking of the Declaration, as ye do charge your Brethrens acceptance of the indulged liberty, in reference to that Act of Rules? Certainly it were no small wrong to such honest Magistrates, your selves being judges, to charge them with that guilt. And is not your Brethrens case just the same? Add hereto, put the case the Council emitted an Edict licensing and allowing Conventicles to be kept in House or Fields (while there is no access to your Churches) adding withall, certain Rules and Restrictions of an Erastian nature, and savouring of the asserted Supremacy, in its most spiritual part; would ye therefore have judged your selves obliged to have forborn Conventicling upon that account, or yet to give it over? or, that ye sinned if ye did Con­venticle, meerly because of the Injunction of those Rules, albeit ye observed them not? We suppose not. And is not this a like case with your Brethrens, as to the point in hand? pray you then, have not divers weights, and divers mea­sures.

And yet the more strongly does this defence militate for your Brethren, that these restrictive and encroaching Impositions were not antece­dent unto, nay nor concomitant with their In­dulgence, (as is before said) but subsequent even [Page 85] to their entry, and long after, even for some years after the first Indulgence, and many a Month after the second. And do ye think in rea­son, that upon the intimation thereof unto them at that after-time, they should have given over their Ministry for that very cause? If that were a Relevant reason, then were it easie for the Ma­gistrate, when he pleased, to lay aside all Mini­sters, you as well as them, by making and im­posing such kind of Laws and Acts of Rules upon you. Was and is not non-obedience sufficient to discharge them of compliance therewith, as is reckoned in the case of other Laws, albeit pub­lickly and solemnly promulgated? Yea, to this non-observance of these Instructions, remember to add this, that in July—Anno— 1673, in face of Council, when those Rules were inti­mated unto many of them, it was declared by them, that they could not observe them, but should rather submit to whatsoever penalty or punishment, as the written Narrative of their carriage at that time doth attest. So that when they were intimated unto them, if ye call them the condition of their Liberty, you see that Re­cusabant onus & conditionem repudiabant.

All which things impartially considered, it is hoped whatever evil be in that Act, ye will let it rest upon the Authors, and not impute it to the Ministers, being so innocent of compliance with it by any Rule of Scripture or right reason. Oh then away with these hideous out-crys, which are made amongst the people upon this score, by some Trafficking Novices, and their Pragmatical [Page 86] Followers; who teazle up this Act to the height of all imaginable wickedness, and then Applyes it to the Ministers, to make them odious; dealing herein with them, as the Heathen did with some Christians in the Primitive Persecutions, who first clothed them up in Wolves Skins and Bears Skins, and then hunted their Mastives at them, which did run upon them, as not men, but wild Beasts of the Wilderness, and so did tear them into pie­ces. Ah sad! to see the like done to honest men, by pretending Friends, but herein real Foes, dres­sing them up in soul mis-representations, to egg on peoples envy and wrath against them, and all to break and tear their Ministry down! Is there any persecution or grief like to this? Oh that our Heads were Rivers of Tears, to mourn for such unparallel'd Animosities, which, all things consi­dered, hath scarce ever had its like!

The Third Objection is, Some alledge this In­dulged Preaching with the Magistrates permission and allowance, to be a Renouncing their former Commission from Jesus Christ, and their depen­dance upon him, and a taking from the Magistrate a new Commission, and an holding of their Mini­stry of him, with subjection to him, and depend­ance upon him, like other Civil Judges of the Land, and Ministers of State.

Answ. Ah bitter and groundless Censure! nor could we have believed such an Imputation would have been laid upon the Indulged by any Person of a spark of Reason and Religion, yea or of com­mon sense, had not our Eyes seen, and our Ears heard it. But to the matter we say,

[Page 87]1. Dear Friends, How prove ye this charge? Is confident asserting, enough to ground such an heavy Accusation? If your Brethren have una­wares committed such an Abomination, O why do ye not run to them, and plead with them a­bout it, to save them from the Error of their Way? Why have ye not ere now seriously Remonstrated this dreadful guilt to themselves, and not whis­pered it in corners unto others? Certainly, to deal with them at this rate behind theit backs, to speak or write this of them unto others, First, for a long time by private Suggestions and Surmises a­mong the People, then by Missive Letters and Li­bellous Papers; and yet never to have waired a Word or Line upon themselves, with any reason, to evince the Charge: What Spirit savoureth this of, and to what good can it tend, even your selves being Judges? And till the Charge be proved, is it not a sufficient answer to deny it? But for fur­ther Vindication and Satisfaction (for we hope it is but a mistake, there are such hard thoughts taken up of them) we humbly propose to you,

2. Were the Priests and Levites in Hezekiah's days guilty of this Charge, because they had, by the Magistrates Authority, access to their service of the Temple, and did make use of the same? Was their Office altered or innovate, and quite spoiled thereby, as if they renounced their depen­dance upon God, their Lord, and Head, and Ma­ster, and subjected their Function to the Civil Ru­ler, and took it holden of him, because of his Su­pervenient Civil Liberty granted them? Or, were the Levites subordinate to Jehoshaphat, like other [Page 88] Civil Judges, because of his, not only permitting, but appointing them to go Preach through the Land? And does not your Ministers hold as little of the Magistrate as these did? Can any with truth say, that the Prince his Permission or Ratification of the exercise of their Office, or their use-making of the same, implies a Renunciation of Christ, or Resignation of their Office into the Kings hands for a Novodamus? How will such a Paradox-Point be made out?

3. Will you say, Because ye were outed of your Charges by the Magistrates Interdict of the Act at Glasgow, Anno 1662. or other the like, and did Ced thereunto, that therefore you did hold your Ministry of him (like other Judges and Officers of State) and were deprived of it by him? If not, What more does your Brethrens Civil License state them in subordination unto, and depend­dance upon him, than your quitting of your Cha [...] ­ges at his command did you? For, outing and ining of Ministers seems to be of the same Catego­ry, and to argue a like dependance.

4. Distinguish (as Apollonius and other Anti-Erastian Divines do) betwixt the Substance of the Ministry, or the Function it self, and the Exercise thereof. Your Ministers, by their Indulgence, has not their Function or Office derived from the Magistrate; by it they do not Renounce their old Office, Master, and Head, Jesus Christ, nor get any new Office, or Ministerial Power conferred upon them by the Magistrate, prove the contrary if ye can: Yea, the Tenor of the Act of Indulgence will declare it; being a permitting them to Preach, [Page 89] not a giving them power to Preach; and therefore false is the Charge above alledged▪ All that they hold of the Magistrate, is only somewhat about the exercise of their Function; somewhat like an Embassadors getting a Pass from another Prince, to pass through or stay in his Territories without Lett or Molestation; or to discharge his Embassy within that Dominion, unto some certain Persons he is sent unto. Does that Embassador, by taking this safe Conduct or Leave of the Prince of the Bounds, quit his own proper Master, and take Commission-power of that other Prince? No, no. Now as to this sort of Dependance which Ministers have upon the Magistrate, in the Actual Discharge of their Office, for clearing thereof, distinguish next between the exercise of the Ministry simply and in it self considered, and the circumstances of that Exercise: Or, Distinguish Subordination into that which is Absolute, and that which is only secundum quid, or in some certain respects. Now, as by this Indulgence, your Ministers do not depend upon the Prince Essentially and Derivatively, as to their Office, and Authority, and Matter of their Embas­sage; so neither simply and absolutely for the exer­cise of it (both these they have and hold immedi­ately of Christ alone) but only and merely in re­gard of the Circumstance and Adjunct of the peace­ableness and Legal Immunity of the publick exer­cise of it in such and such places of his Realm: Even as the exercise of the Protestant Religion, being Authorized by Law, dependeth upon him; and as the exercise of your Ministry within any Family, dependeth upon the Master of the Fami­ly. [Page 90] And your selves, in your Papers upon this Subject, acknowledge this kind of Subordination and Dependance (viz. in respect of the publick, free, peaceable, exercise of the Ministry) to be not unlawful. To this Apollonius also accordeth, Part last, Sect. 2. Cap. 3. Neither is it to be thought that this does subject the Ministry, but the Man; not the Function, but the Person, to the Civil Power; except it be (as some of your selves say) in obliquo, Indirectly, and Objectively, even as the other matters of God are, being Objects about which his Imperative and Coercive Power is con­versant.

Thus ye see that it is only in respect of Circum­stances of the exercise of their Ministry (at most) wherein the Indulged depend upon the Magistrate, and that that is no absurdity, nor no ground for your objected Alledgance: being not unlike to this case; as if an Embassador of another King or State, were sent to your King, or any part of his People; albeit in his Authority and Embassy he depend not upon your King, but allanerly upon his own Master; yet is it not in your King's power, and dependeth upon him, whether he will admit him in his Territories to discharge that Message? Or, when and where he shall have Audience, &c? Ay, but your Parallel of Civil Judges and their Offices depending on the King, corresponds not adequately unto this, but is of a different nature and wider extent, being otherwise subordinate unto, and depending upon the Prince, viz. Di­rectly and Derivatively as well as Objectively; and consequently he hath a power over them, which [Page 91] he hath not over Indulged Ministers, viz. to ex auctorate and divest them of their Office at his plea­sure, as well as to thrust them from the exercise thereof within his Dominions; whereas, as he doth not make the Indulged to be Ministers, so neither can he unmake and unminister them: All he can take from them is, what he giveth, viz. his own Civil Toleration.

From all which it is apparent, How groundless this Objection is; They retaining and exercising their very former Ministry which they had of Christ; and getting no other, no new Ministry from the Magistrate, no more than your selves do, and consequently are Christs Embassadors and Sent-servants still, even as you are; only they have the peaceableness and civil freedom of the publick exercise of their Function from the Ruler: A thing they were and are bound to pray for, 1 Tim. 2.1, 2.—That under him they may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; and con­sequently, or by parity of Reason, in the exercise of their Ministry. And if this may and should be prayed for, as it is his duty to grant it, so it can­not be their crime to accept it.

The Fourth Objection is, From the Magistrates design in granting this Indulgence, which design ye suppose to have been evil, and consequently its fruit evil, and not to be medled with.

Answ. What is that Project ye suspect? And how is your Alledgance verified and made out? Surely, Liberty to Preach the Gospel, in it self (and ex conditione operis) could be of no ill tenden­cy, natively. Whatever then may be deemed [Page 92] to have been the Finis Operantis, or Sinister Inten­tion of the Granter, what is that to the thing it self, being so good, so necessary? And the Agents Design being altogether extrinsick to it? Doth the Permitters Latent Intention defile the mercy, that it might not be touched? Or, what is it to any that takes the favour, and makes good use of it, and concurreth not with the alledged ill Design? When Julian the Apostate gave an universal illi­mited Toleration to all Religions, and among the rest, to all Sects of Christians, on purpose that the several parties among the Christians, being hot in their Differences and Animosities amongst them­selves, might by their mutual Digladiations and Contests, weaken and wear out one another, and so consume the Christian Religion at last with their own hands; did the Orthodox Christians ever scru­ple, or ought they to have refused, to take their share of that Tolerated Liberty, either because of the Sin of the vast extent of it to all Sects, or because of the evil design thereof? No, no, but accepted and improved what was their part, not being concerned in the Emperors part (further than to sympathize with Gods Honour and Inte­rest wronged by him) but leaving the sin of his ill designs upon himself.

But to be more particular: What suppose ye the Evil Design to be? And why do ye not con­vince your Brethren of it? And of their Accession to it, if any be? We find some talk of three seve­ral Designs: Let us consider them severally.

First, Some say, It was designed to be a Wedg of Division.

[Page 93]To this we Answer, 1. How could a thing, in it self so innocent, have any just and native ten­dency to such an end? Doth the permitting or ta­king of Liberty to Preach the Gospel, intrinsically, and ex natura Rei, level at dividing the Ministers and Professors of the Gospel? What a Paradox were it to assert that? Any Tendency then if might be supposed to have hereunto, must be on­ly ex Accidenti, through your Corruptions, Op­position, and Discontents, which might have been imagined likely to stir thereupon; at least, through the weakness and proneness to mistake, that some of you might be under. And thus the best of things may be an occasion to mens humors and mistakes to work upon, and so become a Ball of Contenti­on. But should the innocent Object bear the blame of your Corruptions rising? Moreover, If ye took this to be the Design, Why were and are ye so unwise and unjust, as your selves to co-operate with that design with both your hands, and car­ry it on so eagerly by Renting and Separation? Why are ye so subservient thereunto by your con­tradiction and contention about the Indulgence? Had it not been as well your wisdom as duty, to have defeated their Design by your constant Unity, (though ye could not be of Unanimity?) Sith then, this Indulged Liberty is not properly a Cause, but simply an Occasion of dividing (as Christ our Lord himself sometime was, John 9.16.) but the true and proper cause is your Corruptions, such as Male-content, Short-sightedness, &c. who can justly quarrel at that which in it self is a mercy, be­cause of the ill use Dividers and their ill humors [Page 94] make of it, more than at the Gospel, which is oft a Stumbling-stone and Rock of Offence, set for the falling of many? And who are most to be blamed? whether these who are Active in Dividing upon this occasion, Rom. 16.17. or, the Indulged, who are more passive, and an innocent occasion of the same, through their necessary use-making of the liberty of the exercise of their Calling? Matth. 15.12. Certainly, the Indulged and Unindulged might well have abode in Unity, notwithstanding of the difference of their Lots, and various capaci­ties of Acting in the Gospel, as well as those that go abroad Conventicling; and those that necessa­rily stay at home, may and should remain never­theless one in the Lord, and in Christian Love and Peace.

But to remove the Objection further, we de­mand, 2. How does it appear that this was the scope of granting the Indulgence? May every man abound in his own Sense, and fasten that upon it which his roving Fancy leads him to dream to have been the purpose of it? De occultis non judicat Ec­clesia; Secret things belong to the Lord, revealed things only to us; De non-entibus & non-apparentibus, idem judicum: Surely, the Ruler professed no such end, as the Act declares; and secret ends fall not under our Judgment, nor alters the nature of things. Since then, the Patent, not the Latent ends of things; their certain and declared Scope, and not our imaginary, fictitious, or conjectural Suspicions, are the just measure of Judging and Acting; it is hoped that upon serious review of this, ye will cease quarrelling your Brethren [Page 95] upon this Head. Otherwise, if still you make the latent and conjectured ends of Agents, the mea­suring-line of the goodness of things, as to others use-making thereof, what if some sagacious peo­ple or Ministers should take up that same Argu­ment against your selves, and tell you they are jealous (not without pregnant presumptions) of no good ends in some of your Preachers and their Preachings, and therefore judgeth it unlaw­ful to hear them, join with them, or any way countenance them therein? Would you think it valid reasoning? And were ye not but met with your own Ell-wand?

2. Some are bold to say, The intent of the In­dulgence was to subject the Ministry and things of God unto, and bring them all into dependance upon the Civil Magistrate; and, therefore not lawful to meddle with that that serves for such an end.

Ans. Had this been said of the Outing of you, it might had more colour; the Exercise of, and submitting unto the Magistrates privative power, circa sacra, tending more natively hereunto. But how this can be justly alledged of the Exercise and acceptance of the benefit of his Auxiliary power and act of his Nurse-Fathership, in indulg­ing part of that liberty formerly taken from you, we see not.

Again, as ex natura rei, it puts Ministers into subjection unto, and dependance upon the Ma­gistrate, not in regard of their Function, nor of the Exercise of it simply; but only in regard of the free and undisturbed Exercise thereof, [Page 96] (which the Objectors themselves grant to be not incongruous), so neither doth this end appear (by any Demonstrative Evidence) to have been the Project. No mans guessing, and Magisterial Al­ledgances, sufficeth here for proof. Non-constat's and Non-liquet's may very well be repell'd as Non-entities, specially if there are presumptions to the contrary, as here there are.

3ly. Some more colourably Object, That the very professed end of this Indulgence (as the Act beareth) is to remedy (or remove) Conventicles, which the Act calls Disorders. And is not this an evil end? And to accept that Indulgence, is it not to comply with that end?

For Answer to this, consider, (1) That the Act calleth Conventicles Disorders, only in a Ci­vil sense, or in point of Law, being against the standing Laws; not in a moral sense, or in point of Conscience, this is abstracted from; as the former cannot be denied to be de facto true, though the Law forbidding them is not indeed to be justified.

Consider (2) that this excluding of Conventi­cles by the Act, seems rather the intent of the Confinement, as the Tenor of the Act manifests; but the intent of the Indulgence plainly appears to be, to mollifie the confinement. And therefore though the Argument might plead against strict observing of the confinement, yet no ways against the Indulgence.

Consider, (3) That suppose this to have been the intention of the Granter of the Indulged Li­berty, yet it cannot be the native tendency of the [Page 97] thing granted, seeing Liberty of publick Preach­ing is not contrary unto, but may well consist with private Conventicling too, when need and occasion requireth. Subordinata non pugnant. If any assert them incompatible and destructive the one to the other, either in the same person, or in divers, do they not injure and reflect upon Con­venticling, as well as upon the indulged free ex­ercise of publick Preaching?

(4) Giving and not granting, that this indul­ged Liberty did exclude Conventicling pro tanto, that is, in so far as it gets place, (and further it cannot be supposed to be intended to sec [...]ude them than in these places who get the benefit of it), what prejudice were this to the Pastor or people who enjoy it? being no other but a com­mutation or exchange of a lesser good for a grea­ter? For clearing this, remember that Conventi­cling (so called) and Indulged Preaching differ, not in substance▪ but in mode, accidents, and circumstances only, viz. the one is a publick, peaceable, free, allowed way of Preaching, without hazard of the Law or violence; the o­ther a private way; or if publick, lyable to the lash of the Law, and the violence and distur­bance that may happen thereupon: the one hath the conveniency of a publick Meeting-house; the other hampered in a private corner, or exposed in the fields to the injuries of the weather. The one has access to the legal maintenance; the other is cast upon peoples benevolence, and bur­densome to their private purse, &c. Now which of these Circumstances are most eligible to enjoy [Page 98] the Gospel in? Who will say then, that there is any wrong done to a Minister or people, if in lieu of their hazardous, &c. Conventicling, they get Indulgence of free, &c. Preaching?

The fault then here seems to be, not that there is an Indulgence instead of Conventicling in some places, but that the Indulgence is not extended to all persons and places without exception, that so all might enjoy the liberty of publick, peace­able Preaching and Hearing of the Gospel, with­out molestation or hazard, as these few do. And thus your selves say, in your Professions and Pe­titions to the Magistrate for a General Liberty, that that granted, Conventicles would cease a while; meaning in so far as they are in opposi­tion, and not in subordination unto the publick Ordinances, according to the Rule, Desiderium boni imperfectioris cessat, acquisito perfectiori. Doubt­less, when publick liberty is denied, House-Preach­ing (rightly gone about) cannot be condemned. But if any take up the conceit, that as these Modes of Preaching are in themselves lawful, and in some cases necessary; so are they always ne­cessary, yea and perferable to the most extended Indulged Liberty: who will not think them under some dotage? And indeed, if Conventicling (so called) were so preferable, much more if it were the only blessed way (as some talk), then would it follow, that the Magistrate had done you no wrong in thrusting you from your publick stati­ons into corners and trouble; nor yet did they you wrong in keeping you there, casting you thereby upon the necessity of so Conventicling; [Page 99] nor should he do well to restore you and the Church to your former state, because it would infer a wearing out of Conventicles. How unrea­sonable then must this principle and exception of yours be, judg ye your selves!

(5) Consider, that howbeit this Remedying of Conventicles as Legal Disorders, be put into the Narrative of the Act, and suppose it were ill, (as indeed we will be far from justifying any that condemn those honest meetings of the Lords people, which have been so much owned of him), yet Ministers compliance with that part of the Statutary part of the Act, which permits them liberty of Preaching, cannot rationally be judged to involve them in the guilt of what is in the Nar­rative. Because Narratives of Laws express on­ly the grounds and reasons moving the Magi­strate to enact such a Law, not the reason of the subjects. And consequently, if the Ratio motiva, or motive inducing the Legislator to such a Sta­tute be sinful, the guilt thereof rests with him­self, but doth not reflect upon the subject; as might be cleared by several examples. And in­deed, otherwise it were easie for the Magistrate to bind you up in Conscience from all necessary Duties of Religion, by commanding or permit­ing them upon bad Narratives and ends. Know, that the Law tells us, Quod continetur in Lemma­te legis, ad Caesarem, non ad subditum proprie spe­ctat. It sufficeth then to warrant the subject to give obedience, if the Statutary part be lawful as to the Matter, and the Authority enjoining the same be competent. Specially if withal they com­petently [Page 100] declare and testifie their disallowance of these grounds the Magistrate goes upon.

(6) This holds yet more strongly, when the case is not of a preceptive, but a permissive Law: and the thing permitted, not an indifferent thing, but a necessary duty, as in this case it is. For example, let us suppose the Ruler had made an Act, like that of Darius's, Dan. 6.7. discharging all Preaching, (as he did Prayer to God), and the Rester should grant liberty of all sort of Con­venticling, upon this ground and intent, to wear out and put away all Preaching in a setled way, would ye think he that should Preach, were it but in a corner, were guilty of this sinful Narra­tive and end? we suppose not. Or, if he should discharge all Family-prayer, and the Rester li­cense it, upon this Narrative, and with respect to this end, that it might satisfie people, and exclude all seeking after publick Preaching, &c. would it in that case be unlawful to perform Fa­mily-Prayer? Or, would doing the same, con­clude you under the guilt of compliance with the Narrative and grounds whereupon the Ruler permits it? we suppose ye will not say it. And why any more should ye aver it in this case of the indulged Preaching, which is no less a ne­cessary and commanded duty, than that of in­dulged Praying, &c?

Thus you see how little ground there is to scruple at the Indulgence, or question the In­dulged upon this score, of a supposed all design in it.

The Fifth Objection is, The narrowness of the [Page 101] Indulged Liberty, both as to Persons and Privi­ledges; not all the outed Ministers being com­prehended in that favour, nor all places made partakers, nor liberty of the whole Presbyterian Government had; but only a part of Ministers and people has it vouchsafed on them; and no more of the Government restored, but only Con­gregationl Sessions at most. And is it not a fault to accept of such a straitned liberty?

To this we say these five things: (1) This Objection supponeth the Indulgence in its nature not unlawful: else, how can the Objectors plead for its inlargement, or complain of its straitned­ness? for, were it intrinsecally evil, the more ample it were, the worse it were.

But (2) know, that its straitnedness is the Ma­gistrates fault, but the Ministers affliction only; and should not the Magistrates fault rest with himself, and not be imputed to the Ministers? Let every man bear his own burden, Gal. 6.5.

And (3) as his not granting all he should, did not make it simply unlawful to grant a part; so who can rationally say, that Ministers might not take, and make use of that part, till God should incline him to grant more? Grieved was their souls that the liberty was not universal, and all persons and places concerned not, made sharers, all their own rights not fully restored. And their hearts desire to God, and endeavour with man, was and is to have it extended. They sit not down upon their priviledg, careless of their Bre­thren, who were secluded and debarred for the time; but sympathizes and laments their hard [Page 102] lot, praying for redress, even as they who re­turned out of the Captivity before the rest, for­got not those who were detain'd in Babylon be­hind them, Psal. 126.1, 2, with 4. But who will say, that because in Providence others bonds are not taken off, therefore they should have casten at the mercy of their liberty? or, that it was their sin to take hold of it and improve it? no more than it was Pharaoh's Butlers fault to ac­cept of his Liberty and Restauration, though the Baker and Joseph were left still in prison behind him, Gen. 40? Did Joseph quarrel or discharge the Butler to accept of his liberty, unless all his fellow-prisoners were partakers of the like? no, but only says, When it is well with thee, then re­member me.

To state this for a Principle, That it is not law­ful for any man to preach the Gospel, having li­berty, while his neighbour gets not the like liber­ty; or, to preach in any one place, because he is not licensed equally to all places; or, that one place should say, I will not be rained upon while other places and fleeces are dry; it seemeth to savour more of humour than of solid and justifi­able reason. Was it a crime for the Children of Judah and Benjamin to come up out of their Captivity to Jerusalem and build the Temple, offer Sacrifice, &c. (as Ezra 1.5.) because their Brethren of the Ten Tribes were not also per­mitted to return to their land, and concur in the Building? yea, or that part of the Jews who came up at first with Zerubabel, did they sin, be­cause they returned, while others stayed still in [Page 103] Babylon, (perhaps detained, notwithstanding Cy­rus his Proclamation) till afterwards Esdra obtai­ned of Artaxerxes liberty for himself and them? (as Esdra 7.6, 7.) or, if twenty of you were in­carcerate for the Gospel, and in providence the Civil Power were moved to liberate ten of them, ought these ten necessarily to reject their offered Liberty; or were it their sin to go forth of Prison, because their Fellow Prisoners obtain not the like? Or might, and should one Nation refuse the liber­ty of the Gospel, because all other Nations has not the like? In a word, where no Law is, there is no Transgression; and what Divine Precept is bro­ken, in accepting Liberty to Preach in the West, because Orkney, Shetland, and the High-Lands, &c. are not provided for, nor priviledged with the liberty of a Presbyterian Ministry? But fur­ther, Consider, (4.) That it is not left at Mini­sters Option or Choice, to Preach or not (having liberty) as they please. A Dispensation is commit­ted unto them, 1 Cor. 9.16, 17. and wo apon them if they preach not, having an open door from the Lord set before them, by the means of the Magi­strate, who had shut it. It was and is therefore not indifferent unto them, to accept or reject the liberty and open-door of Preaching, as seemed best to them; but was, and is a necessary, indis­pensable duty to take hold of it. Hence it follows, that whatever Neighbourliness and Kindliness might seem to plead for Refusing, yet surely it was and is no breach of Conscience to accept, nay rather were it not a sinful, fond Affection, to slight such an opportunity of serving God in the Gospel [Page 104] of his Son? Because, forsooth, some Neighbours get not the like liberty, were not this too high a complement of kindness to your Neighbour, to prefer the taking an unnecessary share in a com­mon suffering with them, unto a sinless liberty of necessary serving of God in the highest Sphere of Gospel-acting? In like manner, (5.) As for taking the liberty of all Christs Ordinances, competent to a Congregation, without liberty of Classical Presbyteries, Provincial Synods, or General As­semblies? What Scripture or Reason pleads against this, or proveth the Accepters Sin? Namely, what is withheld; being their Involuntary, and not con­sented-unto want. Must ye have all, or will ye take nothing? Yea, and count it an unpardona­ble crime to accept of a Day of small things, till God incline the hearts of Rulers to condescend to further? Had it been unlawful to Zerubabel, to have accepted a considerable part of the Vessels of the Temple, if the other part had been kept back? By this ground was not Esdra in a mistake, when he blessed God for a Nail in the Holy Place? Esdra 9. And was not your own Church far out, when in the late Usurpers time, and afterwards, her liberty of General Assemblies was broken; yet kept Synods, Presbyteries, and Sessions, holding fast what of her Liberty she could, while the o­ther part was infringed? Is aut Caesar, aut nihil, your Principle? We hope such Axioms ye will not own; nor charge the contravention thereof, as a fault upon your Brethren. Were Christs Cloaths taken from him, what forbids, but ye might law­fully receive back his Coat to put upon him, un­til [Page 105] ye get his Cloak also? Remember here, that what part of the Churches Liberties is kept back from your Ministers, is not discharged nor quail by them; nor what they have got accepted in lieu of the whole; but only taken as a part of the Churches right, till more come: Like a Credi­tor's receiving part of his Sum, to be doing with, for the time, until he get the rest. In all this De­tension, are not your Ministers merely passive? And what they receive, is cumulative, and but praejudice, not privative unto what remains to be sought and granted thereafter, when God giveth occasion.

From all these Considerations, is it not plain, what a groundless stumbling there is at Ministers accepting this straitned Liberty, Lame and Nar­row as it is? which imperfection of it, should be, and is indeed a Gravamen, a grief of heart, and burden to their Spirits; but could be no just Liga­men Conscientiae, a thing to have hedged up Con­science from making use of it, or that imports a violation of the Law of God, and a Breach upon the Conscience, if it be made use of.

If any say, The accepting of this partia [...] Indul­gence precludes from, and stands in the way of a more general; and if this had been refused, a full Liberty would have been granted e're now.

Answ. We confess these are Politicks strongly as­serted by some who would seem very prying; but founded upon so little Reason or Religion, yea or common Sense, that it transcends our capacity to comprehend them. What probability or ground of Assurance can ye produce for such an expecta­tion? [Page 106] By what Almanack do ye Divine this? yea, suppose some weak probables might be adduced for it, yet how can it be thought that such uncer­tain, conjectural Politicks, relating unto Future Contingencies, should justly have debarred these Ministers from entertaining a present, certain Mercy and Duty? But, Dear Friends, Did ye find the first Indulgence bar the door upon, and not rather make way for, the second? And if we might take a liberty to foretel, as you do, might it not be said upon no less Reason, that, had the Second been kindly entertained and well impro­ved, the good effects thereof might have induced many to seek, and the Magistrate to grant, a third, more ample than any of the former: But your carping disobligeth him, and your reeling makes you contemptible, and thought unworthy of Fa­vour.

If again any say, How can we be content, when some are thus favoured, and get leave to dwell at ease under their Vine, while others are hunted and harassed? We will never be right, till all be in one condition again, either all out, or all in.

Answ. May not people object the same against one another, to whom Providence carves out va­rious Lots? And what, Shall there be, should there be no peace, until all be of the same out­ward Lot and Condition? O Salamandrin Para­dox! And what is this else but the very foam of envy, like the Patriarchs envying Joseph for their Fathers kindness unto him beyond them? or, as if Joseph should have grudged at the Butler his get­ting and accepting of Liberty, while himself lay [Page 107] still in prison, till the Irons entred into his Soul? Or, as if the rest of the Children of the Captivity should have quarrelled at Daniel and his Fellows promotion, while their Brethren sate by the Banks of Babel weeping? Why should your eye be evil where the Lords Hand is good? Are ye worse that it's well, or any whit better with others? Count ye what is granted to your Brethren, detracted from you? and their Liberty, your Misery? Why grudge ye? Do ye well to be angry? might not the suffering part of the people grudg and quarrel in like manner, that all their Neighbours are not in Prison with them? or, that one or more gets out of Prison, while others are detained? Should there be no peace among you, unless all be in the same case, and have the same Lot? Is not this much like the fault of the Corinthians, who schis­matized and rent the Body of Christ, because of their different places and employments in the Church, that all was not Eye, or Ear, or Hand; 1 Cor. 12.8, 9, 10, 11. with 15, 16, 17, 18, 25? And shall there be no concord, but a standing mutiny in an Army, because some are put up into Quar­ters, others in Garison, some to lye in the Fields, others to range abroad in parties, &c. In Acts 8.1. we read, There was a great persecution at Je­rusalem against the Church, and all were scattered a­broad except the Apostles: And v. 4. They that were scattered abroad, went every where preaching the word. Here are different Lots, and different em­ployments; some persecuted, some spared; some going abroad to preach at their peril, others stay­ing at Jerusalem in a more fixed way, as James [Page 108] and other Brethren did, as is clear by comparing this place with Acts 21.18. yet who finds any dis­cord among them upon this account? Remem­ber, that it is the Magistrates fault, not your Bre­threns, that ye are not all equal sharers: Why then do ye let forth your Crab at the Innocent? O look higher than Man in this! Is it not the dif­ferent dispensation of his Soveraign Providence, who is not countable to us of any of his matters, Prov. 29.26. 1 Cor. 12.18. and may do with his own what he will, Matth. 20.15. may set up one Star to shine, and let another better lye by? Who may say to him what dost thou? Is not this diffe­rence of dealing to be stooped unto and adored, and not to be quarrelled? Tolle quod tuum est, ut vade, Matth. 20.13, 14. Submission unto, and Improvement of, your own Lot and Case, and not to dive much into others, is your blessed Duty, John last. v. 21, 22. But to say no more, not a few, and these none of the simplest, do judge, if your fierce Divisions and brisk Animosities did not so much serve the bad Designs of some, who bear sway in Affairs (who therefore love to cherish them, by fretting you with exclusion from favours, while others get) belike you might soon have your desire of a general liberty. But your contendings are too good a game (for promoting their ends) to let them die out for want of fewel: O then let not this defectiveness and lameness of the favour, be a bone of Contention any more!

The Sixth Objection is, the manner of their en­try unto these Charges, wherein they Officiate, not being called by the people (as is alledged) [Page 109] nor admitted by the Presbytery, as wont to be, and so they seem not to come in at the door, (in an orderly way) but at the Window, or by a by-way.

Answ. Here indeed, there are strange, but groundless, and unjust outcryes made against them: For evincing whereof, and satisfying the mis-informed, let these following Considerations be pondered.

First, As to the alledged want of the peoples previous Election and Call, we say these things.

1. What needed these Ministers any new Electi­on or Call, who were, by the Indulgence, return­ed to their own former Charges?

2. As for these who were licensed unto other parts, we affirm, it is a great mistake to say they came without the call and consent of the people: For, in the first Indulgence, Licenses passed not but upon Address first made to the Council for the same, by some in Name of the Parish; and as re­presenting them, which after the License passed, was backed by a second and more ample Call, and most serious Invitation by the Elders, Gentlemen, Masters of Families, and other such most consi­derable parts of the people, in their own name, and of the rest of the Parish; earnestly beseeching these Indulged Ministers to come and labour a­mong them in the Gospel, till God should open a door for their return to their former Charges: So that they had the Election of the People dou­bly, both Prior and Posterior, unto the Councils License; and always anterior to their own mint­ing, in the least, to come to the Charges they were Licensed unto. Sic like in the second Indulgence, [Page 110] albeitt the Magistrate waited not upon Peoples Election, but supponing all these outed Ministers men of approved qualifications, (being formerly ordained by Presbytery, and in no less eminent charges, than he allocated them unto; and also much flocked after by people, when they Conven­ticled:) And thinking his Grant of License or Act of Toleration, did no more (stricto jure) depend upon peoples call, than their call doth upon his Toleration; did therefore do his part anteriorly to the Peoples call, (a method indeed, though not simply and intrinsecally sinful, yet full of hazard, and liable to many inconvenients in a constitute Church;) yet none of these so indulged did offer to come to bestow their labours in these Parishes, without the Parishes call first had. Now, what doth it import to the Ministers, whether the Peo­ples call did precede or follow the Prince his Civil License? Or what reason hath any to object, if the people was satisfied with the Minister Licen­sed, and did cordially call him? If any think the Prince his Nomination, was a taking upon him the peoples right of Calling, it is a great mistake; being only a Civil and Legal Licentiating, not an Ecclesiastick Calling.

If ye say, It praelimited the people in their free­dom.

Answ. Not at all: They were still left to their freedom, as well as when a Presbytery giveth them a List, as often wont to be. Hence some peo­ple called others, and obtained the Licensing of them too, and passed by such as the Council did nominate for them, as less fit for them. How­ever, [Page 111] if the Prince did in this method prelimit, and incroach upon the peoples freedom; as ye will readily find it an Act of Oppression only, not of Usurpation; so is it his fault alone, but doth not cencern the Minister, nor can be any just excep­tion against him whom the People acquiesced in, and cordially called; and hitherto we have heard of none of them repenting of their choice. More­over, Suppose the Magistrate had nominated and elected such and such Ministers to such and such places (which yet he did not) in this broken State of the Church, we desire to know what wrong were done thereby, more than when your States and Council did nominate and chuse the Super­intendents for such and such Provinces, as your Church alloweth in her shattered case, in the first Book of Discipline, p. 37. Sic like, did not all the Ministers in the Church of Scotland, before the year 1649. enter by Presentations from the Pa­trons, without the Election or Call of the People? But was this ever counted a Relevant Objection against their Ministry, or for separating from them against the lawfulness of hearing them? Why then are the Indulged mens entry quarrelled as sinful, and their Ministry as defiled, who yet wanted not the peoples full call? Thus ye see it is a mistake, to alledg their want of a due and va­lid call: And for the quibbles about the method of it, how weak a ground are they to cast at them, and plead for Separation from them, for the same; sith they militate only against the Magistrates pre­cipitant or preposterous proceeding (if so you judg it) but makes nothing against the Ministers; it [Page 112] being all one to them (as to the validity of their Call) whether the Peoples Election was antece­dent or subsequent to the Rulers License: See A­mes. Cas. Consc. Lib. 4. Chap. 25. Th. 29. Yea, Di­vines tell us, that peoples consent subsequent to a Ministers entry (though it absolve him not of disorderliness, yet) doth ratifie and make good his right to labour among them as their Pastor; even as Leah (unjustly obtruded upon Jacob) did by his consequent consent become his Wife; and might no more after that be repudiate, than his beloved Rachel, whom he choised before he mar­ried her.

But here, some as we understand, Object, How can Ministers having another people, to whom they have a prior standing relation, be counted, though elected and called, the Pastors of these people, to whom they are indulged? Can a man have two charges at once? To this we answer, (1) That they may very well be called, counted, and submitted unto by the indulged people, as their own Ministers, just as your honest Mini­sters Mr. Robert Blair, and Mr. John Livingston, and others, became Pastors of Churches in Scot­land, notwithstanding their relation to their for­mer charges in Ireland, from which they were driven away by the violence of the time. And as famous Mr. Welsh did take charge of a Congre­gation in France, being banished Scotland. And as we suppose your banished Brethren in Holland would not scruple to take charges there, if Pro­vidence offered the same, even as others of your number has accepted of Charges in Ireland, and [Page 113] that without the consent of your Church in Scot­land, and also without your quarreling at them. We wonder why ye impugn those indulged men so briskly, when others of the same practice as to this are allowed. Shall it be counted vice in the one, which is counted virtue in the other?

(2) Not to debate, if when by violence of a time, a Minister is incapacitate to exercise his Ministry among his people, (as your Ministers were by Law, and that backed with force), and so it became morally impossible to discharge his Office unto them; whether in that case he be Ci­viliter mortuus, dead in Law unto them, and his Ministerial tye and relation, Divino nutu loosed, or Providentially broken and dissolved, as Ames. asserts in his Cas. consc. lib. 4. cap. 25. §. 35. We are made to understand that some of these who impugn their Brethren most hotly, are of this opi­nion, and therefore count not themselves obliged to look after their old Charges, more than after any other. Whereupon we wonder at their call­ing their Brethren men of Pluralities of Charges, whilst themselves take the whole Church univer­sal for their charge, at least all the Parishes in Scotland indefinitely, & aequo jure. But let us sup­pose the relation to stand undissolved quo ad ha­bitum, or jus ad rem; yet seeing there is a Super­sedeas put, by the times to the actual exercise of it, what hinders but they may and should law­fully bestow their labours in any other part of the Lords Vineyard, being called thereunto, un­til Providence open a door of regress to their for­mer Charge? In which case, though they be not [Page 114] simpliciter and absolutely the fixed, stated Pastors of these people, yet are they conditionally, and for that interim; and not like meer itinerant and occasional Preachers. Their call determineth them unto, and stateth their relation to these people, until occasion of regress. Nor is it absurd for them to have relation to two different flocks at the same time in a different manner, viz. to the one habi [...]u, to the other actu; or thus, to the one [...], or by way of propriety, to the other [...], or by way of loan and use for the time.

Next, as to the plea of their not being admit­ted to these places by the Presbytery, as wont to be. For taking off this, know (1) that they being Ministers already, needed no new Ordina­tion or Mission. As for that solemnity of admissi­on used formerly in Transportations, what is it as to the stating the man Pastor of that people, but a publick solemn Declaration of the peoples consent and subjection unto him? and a solemn Introduction of him into his work? and was ma­terially had by the indulged in the peoples express and full calling of them, and practical subjection to their Ministry:Which they did exhibit, not only de futuro, as when they call an expe­ctant; but de presenti. That so­lemnity therefore of Ad­mission (so called) being at most, and in best times, not necessary ad esse, but only expedient ad bene esse, that is to say, not essential and absolutely necessa­ry, but only for solemnity and conveniency of stating the relation, (as learned Voetius shew­eth in his Desperata causa Papatus, pag. 263.) [Page 115] What hinders but it may be wanted without any detriment to the relation? like marriage consum­mate without some of the Rites and Solemnities, ordinary, and fit when they may be had. Can any with reason say, that Preaching of the Go­spel by actual Ordained Ministers, invited and earnestly called thereto by people, dependeth so absolutely and essentially upon that punctilio of order; and Substance is such an underling to Form, that if this be not (nor possible to be had) that should not, may not be in no case, no not of much extremity, and urgent necessity, as this was? Sure what Divines say of Baptism, may be applied here, Non privatio, sed contemptus damnat, so not the bare want, but the neglect of Admissi­on is a fault and marring defect, being only a point of order, which in such a broken time could not be had. And therefore the want of it dero­gates nothing from the validity of their interest in that people, nor from the lawfulness of their labouring among them. And to object it against them, seems to favour more of prejudice than of any real scruple.

But (2) remember this was a broken state of the Church wherein ordinary Formalities and Solemnities (fit to be observed in a constituted Church) could not be obtained; for, seeing there were no Presbyteries in being, who can justly quarrel these Ministers for want of the Presbyte­ries solemn concurrence? Namely, if Brethrens consent and approbation was generally had dis­junctly (as far as there was access to acquaint them with the matter in the scattered condition [Page 116] they were in) either formally and expresly, or tacitely and in some equivalent way. What more could have been done in such an extraordinary case? and the extraordinariness of the case, did it not sufficiently dispense with, and excuse the want of that usual point of Order? which there­fore in this case is no irregularity and disorder, privative.

(3) It meriteth Consideration, that the indul­ged did not come unto these Parishes like trans­ported Ministers, to fix with them without an eye of return to their former Charges; but only for an interim, till access to their old flocks be granted; and consequently there was no necessi­ty of the Solemnities usual in the admission of transported men.

From all this is it not plain, that their manner of entry is not so culpable as it is by some repre­sented to be? and we hope these probationers and others who come and Conventicle within the Indulged mens bounds, or in other places, not only without, but perhaps against the con­sent or due call of the Ministers or Elders, and people of these bounds, let be without any Pres­byteries Mission, as wont regularly to be, accor­ding to the Acts of your General Assemblies, will not think it fair and just to make use of this ex­ception, lest it fall heavier upon themselves. Shall it be a right door for the one to enter in at, which is reckoned wrong in the other? or contrary?

The Seventh Objection is, The want of a full and free Testimony (as is alledged) against the [Page 117] Incroachments and Usurpations made upon the Churches Rights, and Christs Prerogative, in and by this Indulgence, and otherwise.

Ans. (1) Sith the Indulgence as accepted by the Brethren, is free of all Erastianism, or Homo­logation of the Supremacy, as is already clear­ed; what are these Incroachments where anent the Indulged were concerned to bear witness more, than the rest of you? why then single ye them out, and make them the Butt of this Ob­jection?

(2) We are informed, that at the first Indul­gence, sufficient was said by one of their number, in name of himself and the rest, before the Kings Council, to clear that they hold their Ministry only of Christ, and did not at all allow of, or comply with any jot of Erastianism. And further, that all of them, both of the first and second In­dulgence (the most part having no immediate access to declare before the Magistrate) did at their entry to their several Charges, publickly declare to their people to the same purpose. As also, that divers of them being convented before the Council in June—Anno— 1673, did ex­press their sense of that Act of Rules then inti­mated to them, to the satisfaction of all sober and unprejudiced persons, as the Narrative of their carriage at that time at more length bears. Though it be true, we grant, enough was not said to stop the mouths of all Cavillers, whom no­thing would satisfie, except it had amounted to have produced the effect of Imprisonment, as be­fell one of them, &c. Yet sure it was more than [Page 118] any others of you did, when ye were Convented before the Council for not repairing to the places of your Confinement, &c. Does it not then savour of prejudice and partiality to accuse only the Licensed Brethren as deficient in a Te­stimony, when no others had done so much, let be out-stripped them, except it be in a corner among some vulgar people?

Moreover, it is credibly informed, that the in­dulged upon all competent occasions, testifies a­gainst the iniquities of the times in their Sermons, as well as others do; (though not indiscreetly to irritate, rather than edifie); and particularly, they have not been wanting to testifie against all things contrary to Christs Prerogative of being the alone King and Head of his Church; as their constant Hearers can witness. Whence it is appa­rent they are not so sinfully silent (as some alledg) though they make it not their ordinary Theme as some others do. Neither are they involved in any Interpretative compliance, or symbolizing with the evils under consideration, so far as a just Testi­mony can exonerate them thereof. And moreo­ver they are not wanting to give Practical Testi­mony for God against the evils of the time, in re­fusing all practical conforming thereunto, or com­pliance therewith; and is not this more than much Verbal Testimony?

Yet (3) because many do force misconstructi­ons upon their accepted liberty, and have been ready to take offence that so little has been said or done by way of Testimony against the in­croachments of the time, it could have been [Page 119] wished, that (besides your Nonconformity there­unto, and suffering upon that score which the sober cannot but think a real, material, great, practical Testimony of far more importance and significancy than much verbal; as is plain from Luk. 21.12, 13. Matth. 10.17, 18.) We wish there had also been, or yet were, a formal, so­lemn, express Testimony, in ample and discreet form, agreed upon, and published by both the indulged and unindulged Ministers and people jointly, being jointly concerned therein as a mat­ter of common interest, that the world might see plainly your mind and harmony in this. And this ye know the Indulged were never refractory unto, more than others; yea, was forward for it; but ye know by whom it was obstructed, and who did draw back and decline to concur with them, and so by deserting them, discouraged them from proceeding in so choice a duty. But albeit this general concurrence in a full Testimo­ny, seems necessary for sundry grave Reasons, namely for the benefit of posterity and after-ages; yet seeing nothing of this kind is done, yea coun­ted by some scarce practicable in the Circumstan­ces ye are in, let all of you join in lamenting the defect; and seeing the unindulged are no less short in giving the Magistrate a true information and just representation of the sinfulness of these matters, and have stood as little up to witness and plead for God before the Ruler as the in­dulged, let both the one sort and the other, lay their hand on their mouth, and confess fainting and failing, and pity and pray for one another. [Page 120] But none to upbraid it to another. How­ever, be it supposed, the Indulgent were de­ficient in this point of duty, even beyond others, yet what were that but their personal failing, but nothing justly to reflect upon their liberty, nor to cast at their Ministry, unless ye make every personal failing of that consequence; which were a wild and dangerous principle?

The Eighth Objection is taken from their obser­ving of their Confinement (as is alledged), yea, their setling at all in a fixed Ministry, and not rather continuing loose of all particular charge to serve the Church in an indefinite itinerant way, as others do in this time of her need.

As to the matter of their Confinement, we say, (1) The Act of Confinement, being not of a Spiritual, but of a Civil nature, like Imprison­ment, however unjust it be, yet we hope ye will not call it Erastianism, nor Spiritual Supremacy in the Magistrate to impose it; nor an Homolo­gation of that Supremacy, if Ministers submit to it; it being in its kind not extra f [...]rum civile, or illegal and incompetent; no more nor other Ci­vil punishments and pressures unjustly inflicted upon, and submitted unto by the Godly in all Generations. And surely, to confine one particu­lar Minister, or the whole party, is all of one kind, differing only in magis & minus, which varieth not the kind, whatever Incommoda or ill consequents follow upon the one more than on the other, that also makes no Intrinsecal differ­ence.

[Page 121](2) We would fain know why ye quarrel your Brethrens submitting unto, and observing of their confinement (though exercising their Mi­nistry in the place, to the edification and service of this poor Church not a little), more than ye quarrel others submitting unto, and observing inviolably their Banishment from their former Charge, yea and others their Banishment from Scotland, by which means this Church is wholly deprived of their service?

(3) We hope, ye will not say, that it is simply and absolutely unlawful to submit, even to un­just confinement, or to observe it for any time; for that were both against Scripture and Reason, and to condemn the Generation of the Righte­ous, who have submitted to the like, yea to more hard and prejudicial sufferings. Did not John the Apostle submit to his Confinement unto Patmos? Rev. 1. and Paul to his at Rome, Act. 28. Did not your worthy Mr. R. Bruce submit to his Con­finement unto Innerness? Others also to theirs, in Kintyre, Boot, Arran, &c? and Mr. D. Dickson, to his at Toraff? Mr. Rutherford to his at Aber­den? when yet their Ministry was no less need­ed else-where, yea much more than your Bre­threns is now. And if any Confinement or other prejudice redound to the Gospel, through the re­straint laid upon their persons, they being passive therein, and only the Magistrate active, what guilt lyes at their door, more than if they were imprisoned? are not sufferers to be held inno­cent? Is not Confinement (upon their part) a sad piece of suffering? and shall they be counted [Page 122] sinners for suffering? Look on it then henceforth as their affliction, not their sin.

(4) Whatever sinfulness might be alledged in submitting unto this sentence of Confinement in an absolute way, as being obstructive to several necessary duties that lye upon them, which can­not be followed with a peremptory observation of Confinement; yet what doth that say against a limited observation thereof, viz. in so far as may be consistent with necessary Duties to the Church and Gospel, and in as far as they are not called by any duty to break it? what fault is it to ob­serve it, while it doth not compet with any duty? that is, while no duty occurs which cannot be gone about without transgressing it? And who of all the indulged did ever submit further unto it? being ready to disobserve it, when ever duty otherwise called them so to do. Only they love not to trample upon the Magistrates Authority, to transgress without just cause his hardest sen­tences. Yet so far only, and no further, do they regard such sentences, as that when the Autho­rity of God interposes, disobliging them to ob­serve them, they scruple not to say with the Apo­stles, Better obey God than man.

(5) Seeing the Confinement is a Civil sentence, though mollified with a liberty of Preaching, questionless the transferring that Confinement to another place with the same liberty, is of the same very nature; and no pure exercise of Ec­clesiastical power and Government; whence it is evident that it is a great mistake to say, it is a planting and transplanting of Ministers Ecclesiasti­cal; [Page 123] but a meer civil and local mutation of their Personal abode, which only consequently draws along with it the Exercise of their Ministry, where­soever their persons go; even as if they were translated from one Prison to another. And who but Papists will say, but Ministers bodies and per­sons are under the Magistrates Jurisdiction as o­ther mens? and that it is no Erastianism at all to dispose of them?

(6) What reason is there to say this Cantoni­zing of those places and Ministers, and confining of the Gospel, is their sin? for, albeit it be the Magistrates fault to shut them up thus into cor­ners, yet who can justly lay it to Ministers charge being sufferers therein? and albeit they be put under chains and fetters of Corporal confinement, as Paul was at Rome, and John in Patmos, yet the word of God is not bound, 2 Tim. 2.9. but may have, and has free course, notwithstanding people not being debarred from coming to them, though they like Jeremiah be shut up (as it were) in the Court of the Prison that they cannot go far abroad among people, see Act. 28.30, [...]1. Fur­ther know, that Ministers (as above said) submit no further to their Confinement than may con­sist with the duties of their calling; so that when God calls them to go visit or Preach to other parts, in that case they observe it not, nor stick to transgress it, God calling them thereto, as he did Peter to go forth out of Prison, Act. 5.19, 20. when yet Paul and Silas having the same open doors, but not the same call to go forth, lay still till Authority put them forth, Act. 16. 26, 28, 37. [Page 124] As to all this, that it seems a strange conceit, to say the Gospel is quite confined and shut up where­ever the persons of so many Ministers are confined; as if there were no Gospel to be had in the Land, but from them; no not from the hand of the rest of Non-Conform Ministers not comprehended in this confinement.

Next, As to their fixing, and that in this case, when there is such paucity of honest Ministers, and the necessity of the Church is great, calling for mens labours to be extended throughout all the Land; observe,

1. That this Objection militates nothing against the use-making of the Indulged Liberty, in the general, but only against the containing the exer­cise of their Ministry within these Parishes; an Ob­jection common against all fixed Ministers, what way soever they enjoy it: And therefore it is won­dred at, that the Indulged only should be pressed with it, and all the out-cry made upon them; when they are not alone in the fault, if a fault it be. How many of the outed Ministers lye by in corners, less extensive in their usefulness to the Church, than the Indulged? And yet the edge of the Objection is whetted only against the Licensed Brethren: what this savoureth of, we leave to your selves to judge.

2. We demand, What is this great necessity, so much decantated and objected against the Indul­ged's Fixing? What, are ther [...] not enow of hands besides to overtake that work, were they all put to it, and regularly disposed of? Sure, the princi­pal Objectors, however they make clamour of the [Page 125] necessity of desolate and indigent parts, to cast odium upon fixed Ministers, yet seem they to be able enough of themselves alone for that work; yea and to spare now and then a visit also to Indul­ged mens bounds, or near their Confines, whither their People may resort. What necessity is there of this? And why do not these Objectors go and labour in a more permanent way, in these needy places, and not be so oft where there is so little need?

3. If the Harvest be great, and Labourers few; Christs Direction is, Pray the Lord of the Harvest to raise up, and thrust out Labourers into his Vine­yard, as in Matth. 9. But where doth he advise, that till all the Vineyard be cultivated and dressed equally well in all its parts, at least provided with Labourers, none should fix to a particular Station or Charge? Do we not know, that in the pri­mitive times there were no less necessities of the People, and paucity of Ministers; the Church then being but in her Infancy, and much of the Countrey Pagan? Yet did they not settle Pastors in every Church and every City, as they could have access? As in Acts 14.23. Tit. 1.5. And in the times of your first Reformation, was it not your Church her care (though her need was seven­fold more than now) to settle and fix a Ministry, by degrees, as it could be attained? Settling, and not unsettling, being ever accounted the great [...] perfection of the Church.

4. Consider, That the Indulged, as upon the one hand, they look upon themselves not as be­ing Apostles, or actually universal Ministers of the [Page 126] Universal Church (though Ministers of the Church Universal, habitu & actu primo;) neither as Pastors at large, in the Prelatick way, to take a whole Province for their Charge and Diocy, as the Pre­lates do; but for ordinary, and statedly, they are Watchmen, to stand at a particular Post; or like Shepherds, to feed a particular flock, of which the Holy Ghost hath made them Overseers, (Acts 20.28.) And consequently, that the charge of all the Churches doth not lye equally upon them; Pastors being, by Office, fixed Stars: And it being proper to the great Luminaries, Apostles, Pro­phets, Evangelists, to have no definite Sphere to move in; so upon the other hand, they do not fix in their Charges in the Independent way, as pe­remptorily tyed and limited to that particular People; but they fix in the good old Primitive and Presbyterian way, viz. ordinarily, and in a stated way, to labour in a particular charge; yet so as they may, and will, upon a sufficient occasi­on and call, go and Preach any where for a time, for the Church's good. And who can look upon this qualified and scriptural fixing, as a fault?

5. The Indulged (we judg) do exceedingly compassionate the need of other places, so dark and desolate; and are willing to concur to pro­pagate the Gospel in these places, so far as may be competent unto them, Rom. 1.14, 15. But they may perhaps humbly desire to be consider­ed these few things, which seem to plead excuse for their not going so much abroad, as some would have them, who complain of their not doing as others do.

[Page 127]First, Until all the Ministers out of charge (who have no other work to do) be put to it, to supply needy places in a way of watering, at least; and that done, it be apparent, that the work of the Gospel cannot otherwise be carried on, unless the Indulged relinquish their present Station, and go forth and Travel in an Evangelistical way to pro­mote it: They think the need of them not so very great.

Secondly, It would be considered, they are not idle where they are, they are at work in the Lords Vineyard in this Land; (not wholly useless to this needy Church, as some worthy Brethren in exile are) yea and in a peculiar sort, tyed to labour in these places before others; and these places needing and desiring all they can do and more, How then can it be any other, than to Rob Peter to pay Paul; to put them from their present nee­dy people (who think they cannot, without loss and prejudice, want them almost a day) to go and travel among others? And would it not give Ministers just ground of complaining in the words of the Spouse, Cant. 1.6. My mothers children were angry with me, and made me keeper of the Vineyards, but mine own Vineyard have I not kept. Look what advantage ye think their going abroad would do to other places; would it not damnifie their own people as much? And should they rob their own, to supply others?

Add to this, Thirdly, That the Indulged Mini­sters stand in such Circumstances, that if they ad­venture, were it but to go for a time, to labour among other people, contrary to the Rulers leave; [Page 128] ye know what inevitable hazard they are in, not only of personal prejudice, as others are, but of loss of that publick peaceable exercise of their Ministry they now enjoy: A priviledge, which all the good may be done by their excursions to preach here and there, will not countervail the damage of losing it; specially, sith many of the Indulged, were they deprived of their Liberty, and laid by, would be certainly rendred useless and unservice­able to the Church, at least much less capable; being unable to traverse up and down, and preach in the Fields, as others do. And what advantage will redound to the Church, by hudling them up again in a corner, who now are steadable in their publick Station to whole Country-sides about them, who resort to hear them, though they go not forth unto them? Since therefore it is doubt­ed by them, if it be in majus bonum Ecclesiae, for the greater good, and not rather for the greater detriment, of the Church, to adventure upon that which inevitably draweth the ruin of their present liberty along with it; who can blame them not to be rash therein? Namely, considering, that if Hazard be a sufficient argument to excuse the ba­nished Ministers their not returning to the work, and others their lurking when looked after by the Magistrate; certainly it cannot but plead as strong­ly, and more, for excusing the Indulged for not going to preach otherwhere; their hazard being more than any's, viz. not only Personal, but Mi­nisterial. And further, the people over whom they now are, being particularly interessed in them, it seems they are not sui juris, i. e. not free to dis­pose [Page 129] of themselves to preach where they may (upon all perils, as other Ministers are) without their Flocks consent, to whom they owe all they can do, as Ministers; and whom they may not adventure to rob of their Ministry, by exposing themselves to the danger of that itinerant preach­ing, without their leave: Till therefore their peo­ples consent be had, pardon them to be shy of this matter.

Fourthly, Since this general way of Preaching, which some would put them unto, if practised by them, would doubtlesly infer the forfaultry and loss of their present Liberty; and they may Preach their Valedictory to their present Charge that day they go forth to the new: We would fain know who shall put them to run this Risk? And who shall direct them where to go unto? or for how long? We think ye will not say, they should run at random uncalled or unsent. Sure, they need such a Relevant Call and Mission as may war­rant them to hazard their present freedom, and may quiet their Conscience in case of suffering the loss of it, besides personal sufferings, which may by and attour happen them. Now, what is the call or mission they have to that work? Will ye say they should go proprio motu, of their own heads? What a door might that open to Confu­sion? And will that satisfie their Conscience, when it is said to them, as to Elijah, What dost thou here?

If ye say, they should go to satisfie their Bre­thren, who grudgeth at their tarrying at home, and be disposed of, and ordered by them.

[Page 130] Answ. Who made these Rulers over their Bre­thren? And were not this to set them up as Pre­lates and Dictators to their Brethren? And to pro­stitute their Ministry to gratifie the humors of men, even to sacrifice it to their discontents? Wherein what peace or answer of a good Consci­ence they would have, namely, if suffering come, we see not.

All which Premises being seriously weighed in the Ballance of Christian Sobriety, who can justly wonder that they stick so closely by their present Stations? Neither need this difference of practise make any Division, no more than the different employments of Soldiers in an Army, allows them to mutiny; some being allocate to stay in Gari­son, some to lie in the Fields, others to scout forth here and there, as the Prince pleases to order. As the Indulged wishes a blessing upon the Labours of their honest Brethren, who visit needy places; so it were fit those, who, in providence, are loose of all particular charge, would be doing at that general, indefinite, itinerant way of Preaching, unto these needy parts, till God otherwise provide; and not grudge at their Brethren, who are not i­dle at home, though they be not free to come a­broad with them. And, least of all, should peo­ple make it an exception against hearing them; to say I will not, should not, hear such a man Preach within his Parish, because I get him not al­so abroad elsewhere to hear, How ridiculous were that!

If it be said, Then what shall be done to supply the needy parts of the Land?

[Page 131] Answ. If there be not enow of hands among the Unindulged (who seems lyes nearest that work, wanting other work) then let an orderly way be taken, by common consent, to provide for that; and it is not (we judg) to be doubted, but the In­dulged will submit unto whatever shall, by com­mon counsel and consent, be determined and laid upon them, as competent unto them, and consist­ent with their present Ministry; yea and albeit it tend to undo their present Liberty, if it be judg­ed by the Judicatory more for the good of the Gos­pel; they are willing to be Ruled by the common advice and determination of Brethren. But to un­hinge and cast themselves loose upon no other war­rant, than to please some male-contented Spirits, will ye not think it very pardonable in them to forbear it? Specially, while all others not in their condition, are not put to work; who seem to be more nearly concerned in that itinerant way of Ministry, having no access unto a settled Ministry, as your Brethren have.

If ye say, Peoples Necessity is Call enough to determine Ministers to go and Preach to them.

Answ. 1. Then must ye go to the Indies rather than stay in Scotland; and to the Highlands, rather than Lowlands of Scotland, because the necessity there is greater, yea and access also, if ye will but try it.

2. Necessity alone is only Relevant to determine idle men, or Freemen, that are at their own dis­posal; such as the Indulged are not, being tyed to particular charges, as others are not. Should they commit Injustice, in robbing other Churches [Page 132] of their Labours, (whose debtors they are in a special way) to the intent they may charitably re­lieve the necessities of others? Ought not Justice to preponderate to works of Charity?

Now Ninthly and Lastly, It is Objected, That this Indulged Liberty is, and could not but be, of direful consequence and effects; and the Indulged in accepting it, have done more ill than all the Bishops and Curates in Scotland: What an unhap­py, unhallowed Hemlock must it then be? Not a plant of Gods planting?

Answ. Pitiful it is, what a deal of Hue and Cry is here set against honest men by virulent passion! We are astonished at such rage and raving! why, what are these bad effects the acceptance of their liberty doth natively produce? Ye say, more ill have they done thereby to the Church, than all the Prelates and their Party. Were this true, why then has the Prelates and their Friends such an antipathy against it? Do not all know it was gran­ted over their Bellies, and sore against their Mind? It is their eye-sore as it is yours; and to this day never did they like it, except in so far as ye made it an Apple of Contention among your selves, and thereby diverted your edge of them. Did not many of them say, it was the high way to break, undermine, and wear out their Govern­ment? Thinking that as Dagon could not stand before the Ark, neither Prelacy beside any little of Presbytery, without losing ground daily? Did they not exclaim against it as a reviving, perpe­tuating, and rivetting the Presbyterian Interest, which they thought had been quite broken and [Page 133] bvried? Sure they have other thoughts of it, than you.

Again, What one point of the received Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland, has your Brethren, by their Indulgence receded from? whilst the Prelatick party have overturned the whole Fabrick of her Government, and bears down all that joyn not issues with them therein? Does your Brethren per­secute you as they do? do they not rather plead for you, excuse your extravagancies; protect and shelter and feed you, so far as they can? Or is the pure and free Preaching of the Gospel by them, any harm to the Church? Is the restoring of so much of an honest Ministry to the free exercise of their Ministry, a Nail of the Lords Interest, in the Holy Place, such an intollerable evil? The Pre­lates indeed count it no small evil, and are you and they in so far agreed? But while ye charge them so heavily, what if they should retort and tell you, that as Hereticks destroy the Fundamen­talia Doctrinae; so do Schismaticks and Dividers, Fundamentalia Ecclesiae, by dissolving the Compa­ges of Christs Mystical Body into so many fracti­ons; and that a Mutiny in an Army is no less de­structive, than Treachery; and cutting and wound­ing of a mans body, may be no less fatal to his life, than stripping him of his Cloaths and Orna­ments, yea or some grains of poison.

But because Dolus versatur in Generalibus, we pray you condescend upon the evils particularly, which their acceptance of this Liberty hath done: And because Si accusasse satis esset, quis erit innocens, [Page 134] we pray you prove what ye assert and alledge up­on them. If ye strike upon the old string of their setting up Erastianism, homologating the Supre­macy, &c. that is refuted, and they vindicated there­from already. But there are three Instances fur­ther, we hear somewhat of.

1. Say ye, By this means the rest of their Bre­thren are exposed to suffering, who are not free to accept that liberty, or are secluded from it; did all stick together, it might be more safe.

Answ. Here is strange Policy, instead of sound Divinity: What trouble cometh on any for refu­sing or not getting a share in the Liberty? On this score who are put to suffering? What accession then hath Brethrens acceptance, to the trouble of the Refusers? If trouble befal them upon other ac­counts, what is that to the Indulgence? Or, would the Indulged, their refusal of their Liberty, leni­fied the Magistrates offence, and protected all the rest from suffering? or rather irritated him more, and drawn on suffering on themselves with others? Who will say, those of the Children of the Capti­vity, who returned to Jerusalem, when Liberty was granted, did expose the rest who stayed still, or were detained in Babylon, to further bondage and suffering? Will ye not be pleased if suffering befal you, unless all drink of that same Cup; al­beit in Providence they be not called unto it? Must your Brethren tarry and take part with you, mere­ly for company-sake, and let the Lords work, to which they have a call and free access, stand? and refuse a lawful Liberty of a necessary duty, only because others are not pleased, or not parta­kers? [Page 135] But, as we think they wrong the Indulged who look upon them as altogether free of suffer­ing, seeing their very Liberty is annexed to Con­finement; so we bless God to see the Generality of other Ministers as yet meeting with so easie a mea­sure; and some of those that make the greatest noise of complaint, enjoying their own accom­modations (God so providing) every way compa­rable, if not preferable, to these so much magni­fyed, falling to the share of the Indulged. But in fine, while ye speak of their exposing you to the Magistrates displeasure by their acceptance of the favour, think how ye can clear your selves of ex­posing your Brethren to the Peoples obloquy and fury, by your non-acceptance.

2. Some say, It tends to shut up the Gospel in a corner, and to harden the Magistrate in his Era­stian Incroachments.

Answ. As for the former of these, it is taken off already in answer to the Eighth Objection: Sure their confinement is a grievance, an affliction, but not their sin: If the Magistrate, who has power over their persons, do shut them up not only in one Province, but in one Parish, yea in one Pri­son; and if they submit and yield their bodies to the power of the Magistrate, what fault in all this can be charged upon them, who are merely suf­ferers in the case? And as for the alledged hard­ning the Magistrate; unless ye prove that their ac­ceptance of the Liberty is either in it self sinful, or at least but indifferent, and no ways necessary; what doth your Hypothesis and arguing reprove? Must duty be deserted because any stumble on it? [Page 136] But besides, your Hypothesis, we humbly suppose, is groundless, and merely alledged by you, who pick quarrels at, and strain all Topicks to sugillat their foresaid acceptance: Sure it hath no native tendency to such an effect. But see if your refu­sing to accept, do not harden the Magistrate in his hard thoughts of you, and of the perswasion ye own, and in the severe resolutions and courses used, or may be used, toward you and the Cause.

3. Some do criminate the accepted Liberty, as a [...], has occasioned much Division and Difference, and is much disliked by many godly; and therefore cannot be sonsy, but some woful, unhappy thing.

Answ. This was briefly cleared before in an­swer to the fourth Objection; and therefore we shall now say no more to it, but these five things.

1. That there are as many, and far more, god­ly, not against it, as are against it: Is it not too Pharisaical a Censure, to monopolize the Title and Reputation of Godliness to you and your party that be against it, and to condemn all as ungodly and backslidden that are for it? Good Information says, the generality of the grave, ju­dicious, serious, and sober godly, are not against it, as it is accepted by your Brethren; yea and that fewer are for dividing and renting from their Brethren upon that score. It is by good hands said, there are not above ten or twelve Ministers, and but few also of the old Christians, in all the Land, against the liberty as it is accepted, but only against the Complex of the Business, which [Page 137] the Indulged are not for either, as was cleared in stating of the Question: Neither are there many of these Ten or Twelve for making it a ground of Division or Separation.

The only persons that be simpliciter against it, and for dividing, (so far as we can learn) are a very few, and those mostly of the younger incon­siderater sort, both of Preachers and Professors.

(2) As for difference of practice, that needs no more breed division or animosity, nor Jephtha's was a just ground of Ephraims quarrel, Judg. 12. 1, 2, 3. Or these Disciples was for the rest their snarling at it, in Luk. 9.49, 50. When some of the Children of Judah returned to Jerusalem up­on Cyrus his Proclamation, and others stayed still, or were some way detain'd in Babylon, what ground of division or out-cast was this? or should difference of lots divide your hearts and affecti­ons? See what was said to this before in answer to the fifth Objection. And further, suffer us to tell you, that as when the generality of Non-con­form Ministers were ejected, some were in Provi­dence overlooked and spared, and that without the envious eye or grudg of heart of those who were thrust out; so we wonder how this differ­ence of lots when some are favoured with liber­ty, others not, should make any breach among sober men.

Is not God to be eyed and stooped unto in this, and to be waited on by faith and pati­ence till it be otherwise?

[Page 138](3) Do we not find our Lord Jesus himself, his Gospel, and Gracious Miracles, sometimes a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence, matter of division to many visible professors of Religion? as Luk. 2.34, 35. Joh. 9.16. Joh. 10.19, 20, 21. Mat. 10.34, 35, 36. Luk. 12.49, 51, 52, 53. Joh. 7.40, 41, 42, 43. Act. 13.45. Act. 28.22, 24, 25. But who will therefore say, they were not of God, but unhappy things being the mat­ter of such disturbances, obloquy and contradi­ction, every where spoken against, and occasion­ing sad consequents? they that take offence, when no just ground of offence is given, let them see to it, the blame lyes at their own door, Mat. 15.12, 13. Suffer us to say, like as Christ said of himself, Mat. 11.6. Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended at a thing so innocent, so necessary as this permitted liberty (in so far as it is accepted) is.

(4) Sith, as was said before, your Brethrens acceptance of that liberty is in it self a guiltless practice, then sure, however it be an occasion, yet can it be no culpable cause of division. The only cause (that should bear the blame) is mens mi­stakes and corruptions, whereof even professors are not free. These are the wedges of Division which actively rents you asunder.

(5) We are made to understand that any of the truly serious Godly their being against this matter, is through want of right Information, yea some's industrious practising upon, and daubing them with most injurious representations of the state of the matter, and odious calumnies of their Bre­thren, [Page 139] done on purpose to draw honest people a­way after them, Act. 20.30. Who (almost) of all these good people understand the Controver­sie or true state of the Question, but are led, not by light, but prejudices, and byassed affection? Are they not made to believe that the Indulged have closed with all the whole Complex of the Magistrates Acts forementioned, and have Homo­logated the Spiritual Supremacy, and joined issues with Erastian Incroachments, and other such like false and foul alledgances, whereof the Brethren are free, as is above cleared? How have we oft been ashamed upon your behalfs, to find in your writings, private discourses, and publick Sermons, your greatest Topick, and Achillean Arguments to be Reproaches, and groundless Accusations of your Brethren? and these born in upon people as Divine Oracles, and certain Truths? Thus good people have been and are abused by some Ardelio's, who make it their work to infuse into their minds prejudi­ces at the Brethren, as guilty of a defection, and then to work upon their misinformed zeal, to turn their edg against the Brethren? How many can attest these undeniable Verities? whence it is evident how much honest peoples case is to be pitied and lamented, as hugely abused and im­posed upon for strengthening of a party, and making up a faction, the tendency whereof is not seen by well-meaning people, who are led like Absaloms followers in the simplicity of their hearts. And had not the indulged Brethren been too silent for peace-sake, to speak for themselves, [Page 140] expecting that God and Time would have clear­ed people of their mistakes and misapprehensions, much of all this misleading of people into such rancors and rage, might have been happily pre­vented by a full and true stating and vindicating of their practice. And if this mean Essay of ours do contribute clearing unto any one, even the least of Saints, and shall provoke some of these Brethren to do such a necessary work better and more fully, being better able for it, we shall not repent our adventure, but bless the Father of Lights for it, Jam. 5.19, 20.

Now, Dear Friends, all these things consider­ed, how little ground seems there to be for ma­king so great a stir, as ye do? as if the All of Religion lay at the stake in all this matter, and these honest men had made the vilest defection! Whereas lay aside prejudice, byass, and perso­nal slanders, and let any weigh their cause in an even Ballance, the Ballance of the Sanctuary, they will be found in it not so black by far, as some take them to be. Be intreated therefore in the Lord to hearken to that warning, Act. 10.15. What God hath cleansed, that call not ye common or unclean. We hope ye will tremble to be found perverters of the right ways of the Lord. Call not light darkness, no more than darkness light. Is not as well he that condemneth the just, as he that justifieth the wicked, an abomination to the Lord? Prov. 17.15.

And suppose all that is said, do not meet with, nor fully clear every scruple (it being hard to sa­tisfie where prejudice is great; and a quibling [Page 141] wit may start more Objections than we have heard of, or has leisure to speak unto), yet con­ceive by what is said (though weakly), more cha­ritable thoughts of your Brethren, and of what they have done; and let them not stand con­demned with you under so gross a character as hitherto; Rom. 14.3, 4. 1 Cor. 10.30. But u­nite in the Lord, notwithstanding your Differences, the Grounds thereof being so inconsiderable as hath been seen.

We doubt not but themselves could, and would, give you a more convincing vindication, were not their aversation even from seeming to contend, and their hopes that their Integrity will defend it self, makes them loth to enter the lists. However our ardent desire to beget a good un­derstanding between you, has thus far carried us forth unto, not an Eristick debate, but a serious disquisition for discovery and removal of mi­stakes.

To return then to our proposed course of Advices.

Advice 6. In the sixth place, let us lay this before you, That however your judgment stand in the matter contraverted (for we are to impose upon no bodies judgment, but to leave every one to their own light), yet ye who are against the Indulgence, as accepted, and fomenters of the Division, consider, though ye be but few, yet the stir ye make is great, and one man will easily raise more fire than twenty will be able to extin­guish. [Page 142] Therefore be exhorted in the fear of God to carry the difference more soberly. Are your Brethren willing to let you enjoy your judgments, and serve your light in your own practice? and to live in peace with you, notwithstanding the dif­ference? And as to things wherein ye and they are agreed to join with you therein, till God in his time clear up the mistake that is betwixt you, and shew upon whose side it is? and will not ye be content, unless ye impose your apprehensions upon them, and have them conform unto, and lackey after your opinion and practice? must your judgment be the Standard and Canon to every bodies else? and all be Anathematized that differ in the least from you? Can there be no peace with you, unless ye have leave to trail them at your heels? will ye agree with none that are not of your mind in every thing? then Actum est de pace, peace is gone for ever on this side of time; for, Non datur intellectus Averroisti­cus, mens minds to jump to an Ace in all things is hardly to be expected. While we know only in part, will there not be perpetually different measures of light? and diversity of Apprehensi­ons in many things? Theology having its own Problems, even in greater points than this, which calleth for sobriety and mutual Tolerance.

As we are not for Scepticism, nor sinful Syncre­tisms; so we tremble at the vanity of Dogma­tizing in things of this nature. But whatever ye deem it, Treat not your Brethren undiscreetly. Speak or write to them, rather than of them. Ar­gue the case with them, convince them if ye can, [Page 143] Luk. 19.17. But usurp not a Magistery over them; presume not to be Dictators to them more, than ye would take it well they should impose on you, Jam. 3.1. Remember they must serve their own Consciences, and be guided by their own light, and not yours, Rom. 14.12. Ye think them wrong, so do they, no doubt, you: But how would ye take it, if they served you as ye do them, with outrageous out-crys, virulent Epi­stles, and Philippick Declamations? What if they did Preach against you, your Divisive Principles, and unbrotherly practices, as Erroneous and Do­natistical (if not worse), as ye call theirs Erastian? What a pitiful taking would ye and they be in by such Contradictions and Invectives? Do there­fore no otherwise than ye would be done unto, Mat. 7.12. Think ye are but men fallible, and may be mistaken in not a few of your confident notions; and that it is possible they may have as much of the mind of Christ as you. Therefore reverence their Judgments, so far at least as not lightly to trample upon the same: Or, if ye were sure they were in the wrong, yet think, surely they mind honestly (as they judg ye do) and have not wickedly departed from the Lord, Psal. 18.21. If they be stept aside, it is but for want of light, which ye (who think ye see more) should pity and bemoan to God, and labour to discover their mistake unto them, (for as yet ye cannot charge them with contumacy, sufficient convicti­on never being yet held forth unto them.)

But, O! reproach them not; rate them not be­hind their backs; go not to Preach them down, [Page 144] nor out of the hearts of honest people, much less to Preach their own people from them! What service were that to Christ, or his Kingdom? or what edification unto people? Sure ye do more hurt than ye are aware of by this course, stag­gering and unsetling people, weakening your honest Brethrens hands in the Gospel, and mar­ring the success of their labours what ye can. See Jam. 3.16. Gal. 5.14, 15. But what? are not ye and they agreed in chiefest Principles and Theses? What's your difference then but about the application of Principles to some Hyp [...]theses or particular cases and practices? The Intricacy whereof, with the sense of your short-sightedness, may teach you to think, speak, and act more soberly, and with all due respect to them that differ from you.

O fall not into a stated Schism upon so small and disputable a matter! nor lift up your selves in conceit above your fellows! Are ye Preachers of Christ? so are they: Have ye the seal of your labours, so have they; and that they have not more, is perhaps through your fault, your con­tending with them, thereby confounding and distracting their people; and taking them off their souls ease, by your perplexing controversies and exceptions against their Ministers. And if ye continue by this contending, to discourage your Brethren, and enervate the work of God in their hands, fear lest ye be found guilty of destroying so much of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and countable for the blood of these souls whose edi­fication ye mar, by abusing and amusing them [Page 145] with your bartering at their Ministers, and bring­ing them and their Preaching into disesteem, so far as ye can, as Zach. 13.7. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. And what have ye gained when this is done? What advantage is it to the Gospel, to break so many faithful mens Ministry? And what peace will it yield you when accomplished? Bella geri placuit, nullos ha­bitura triumphos. It were but a Cadmean victory. What! may still the old question be put unto you, Does your piety aed zeal lye all in Negatives? (as theirs in Col. 2.21.) Are ye only skilful to destroy? and bold to treat the friends of Christ like foes? Preach the Gospel, and propagate real Godliness as much as ye can: but O! be­ware of hurting the Lords work and vineyard in your Brethrens hands! Will it not be but a poor vassalage to preach down you [...] Brethren, while ye should preach up Christ? and to propagate your private opinions more than the power of Piety? or to draw Disciples after you more than after Christ? Were it not better make one real Christian, then proselyte twenty to your side and party? Ye complain of your Brethrens want of success, as Peninnah upbraided Hannah with her barrenness; but do not ye much mar their fruit­fulness? O be tender of them, for the Gospel's sake! Go, we pray you, convert the prophane to Piety, rather than preach Professors into faction and parties. Mind the great interest of the Go­spel more than your particular debates, or per­sonal interests. Away with selfish designs under a spiritual mask! Beware of giving ground for [Page 146] that old complaint, Faciunt causam suam, causam publicam. Let not not your excellent parts, fer­vor, zeal and spitits, be spent upon so unprofita­ble a task, as this of jangling, plunging, and con­founding is. And tempt not people to any un­happy courses, which your selves may repent of in the end, and come off with that inconsiderate Warriours word in your mouth, Non putarum— It is easie to kindle a fire, but not so easie to set bounds unto it, when and where ye list, saying, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. Nay, once kindled, it may rage whither soever the winds and aptness of the matter to take with it, may carry it, till all be burned down to ashes.— And finally, let not your Brethren have cause to take up that sad regrate of the Psalmists, Psal. 55.12, 13, 14. Had it been an enemy, &c. How bitter is this? Were it Rampant Romanists, or Inimical Prelatists, or foul mouth'd Sectaries, who thus battered at honest Ministers, it were more tolerable? But to see Brethren at such odds, tearing the flesh (as it were) off the bones of their Brethren, by bitter railings and reproaches, (which are as drawn swords, Psal. 57.4.) how incongruous and unkindly is that? and may not the world wonder at it? What! shall all your edg and sting be turned against them, no less up­right than your selves? Shall they have no such Adversaries as you whom they love and desire to be at peace with? and with whom they agree in all things (almost) else? Will ye do the Pre­lates work for them, in breaking that little liber­ty which at first they trembled at, till they saw [Page 147] you made it a bone of contention? and so more likely to break your selves and it both than to hurt them, while ye stumble so upon it. What thanks will ye get for joining issues with them? See Obad. v. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. And will ye so positively condemn your Brethren unheard, (Joh. 7.51.) and persecute them as Apostates, before ever ye wair an admonition on them? It is our admiration and astonishment, that some of you (as is informed) takes the confidence to baffle them in Sermons, Letters, and private Discour­ses to the people and others; and yet to this day never used the brotherliness to write or speak un­to themselves, what might have sufficed to con­vince them of their error, if any be. The gross­est of Hereticks are not allowed by the rules of the word to be so hardly dealt with, Tit. 3.10. Pronounce no Anathema upon them, till ye first take pains sufficient to reclaim them, and find them obstinate. Shall ye be sharper scourges in their sides, and thorns in their eyes, than any others? Do ye like it, to put them to cry to God against you, and (like Job) to complain of their friends mockage, injustice, and cruel usage? Shall not God visit for these things? Zeph. 2.8. Obad. v. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Beware of inventing, or venting Stories and Reproaches of such friends of Christ! And make not calumnies the strongest Arguments you plead against them with. Mono­polize not the reputation of honesty to your selves; give your Brethren charity, and treat them not disrespectively. To stigmatize your Brethren with black Characters, and odious Im­putations, [Page 148] consider again and again what spirit it cometh from, Jam. 3.9, 10, 11, 12.

Upon all these Grounds, and many more which might be added, be intreated (in the bowels of Christ) to remit and relent of your Acrid fervor, and bring your dispositions and differences to some temper, and manage your discord with more sobriety. We think we may say, the two part of your differences lyes more in the Acri­mony of your spirits and alienation of affection, than in the distance of your Principles. Would ye let go the misunderstanding and prejudices that are between you, and God heal your dispo­sitions and distempers, the two part of your Di­sease were away.

Advice 7. Ye who are Indulged, a word next to you: O bear with your Brethrens differing from you; and judg charitably of them, as to the most part at least. Construct it want of light, not sinist­rousness of intention or affection. He that keep­eth a day, keepeth it to the Lord; and he that keepeth it not to the Lord, he keepeth it not. In Problematick questions not defined by the Church, allow others a latitude, and continue your bro­therly forbearance. If even with Infidels and He­reticks the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle, &c. (as 2 Tim. 2.24, 25.) how much less with sick and feverish Brethren? If any mans inconsiderate and opinionative zeal carry them unto any unbrotherly word or deed to­ward you, be not ye overcome of their evil, but overcome their evil with your good. Pack up [Page 149] their Reproachings, and say, Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing. Let not their vexing you fret you into a wearying of your work, (Psal. 55.6, 7, 8.) nor unto any disaffe­ction or lessening of your respect unto them. Love them as Brethren, notwithstanding all in­juries (as Joseph did his), and honour their zeal in the Lord, and pray he may channel it right, and set its bounds; for so it might do him excel­lent service.

Tolerate also good peoples Infirmities; let none of their capricious humours (which these reeling times tempts them unto) diminish your tender care of them. Seek that which strayeth, heal the diseased, and by gentle dealing convince them that ye walk in the Spirit of Jesus, whom ye serve.

Hard things (we confess) are cut out for you; but put on patience and holy resolution, stand your ground notwithstanding all Batteries, and do your work over the belly of all discourage­ments, (Heb. 12.2, 3.) What though ye be the Witnesses Prophesying in Sackcloth, (Rev. 11.3.) your Crown will be the massier.

Serve the Lord through good report, and ill report, honour and dishonour; and make full proof of your Ministry, which is thought so con­siderable by Satan, else he would not oppugn and oppose it so, upon the right hand and the left. You are the eye-sore of the Prelates and their party, and the Butt of those your Brethrens mi­staken zeal. Be strong therefore in the Lord, &c. Our soul pities you, being as the speckled Bird [Page 150] among the Birds of the field, laid at upon all hands, and grinded as betwixt two Mill-stones, viz. the Prelatick parties enmity upon the one hand, and the fierceness of these male-contented friends upon the other, (and who may stand be­fore envy? Prov. 27.4.) But learn of your Ma­ster to endure Contradiction, and to be set for a sign to be spoken against, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed, (Luk. 2.34, 35.) Endure the Cross, and despise the shame. Wounds in the house of Friends as well as of foes, must be born till he arise and plead your cause, and bring forth your Righteousness as the light, &c. This is the day of your trial, and these are the Instru­ments chosen of the Lord for that end; acquit your selves like men, like Christians, like Mini­sters in it. Bear the indignation of the Lord pa­tiently, because perhaps ye have sinned. If Shimei rail, he may be a good Monitor, though a bad Judg.

Take your vexations as so many whetstones, to keep you in an holy edg, that ye blunt not in these up-sitting times, and as spurs in your sides, to prick you up to diligence in duty; and so may you get meat out of the eater, &c. Stoop to your lot, there may be a blessing in it, (2 Sam. 16.10, 11, 12.) But bitter though your life and labour be, yet faint not, O faint not! but ap­prove your selves to God and man in your Ma­sters service; and by piety, painfulness and pow­erfulness in the Gospel, convince gain-sayers, stop the mouths of those that speak evil of you falsly, and Preach home again all the respect and affe­ction [Page 151] which these times of difference has deroga­ted from you. What? have ye not the seal of your Ministry (a witness of Gods approbation) upon the hearts of many? even of some who perhaps are now alienated from you, who once spake of a blessedness in your Ministry, and re­ceived you as Angels, though now in the hour of tentation, they are become as an enemy? Gal. 4.15, 16.

Though Conversion of Sinners be not so frequent (and yet some there is) yet has not God been evi­dently with you for Confirmation and building up of the Saints, and for Conviction upon all, who, whether they be better of you or not, yet are for­ced to say, God is in you and with you, and a Prophet hath been among them? as Ezek. 2.4, 5. Now, may not these eminent Divine Assistances, Successes, and Proofs of acceptance, abundantly compense all your tears, sufferings, and sorrows? and answer the questioning of your being sent of God, being proofs of Christ speaking in you? Consider, the priviledge of your liberty, and think, is not service to God and his people (which here­by ye get done) well worth the enduring much contradiction, obloquy and heart-breaking re­proach?

Remember also your Brethrens sufferings are sad at other hands, though none at yours; and let your sympathizing with them sweeten your own at their hands.

And Oh! be stirred up to make good use of your Liberty which costs you so dear. Let your people find through Gods help, that it has been [Page 152] their mercy, that ever ye were sent among them; or whether they hear or forbear, that there has been a Prophet among them. Keep in good terms with your Master, stand in his counsel, know the Times, and tell what of the Night, and what Israel ought to do; be faithful in all his house as servants; and good Stewards of the Mysteries of God.

Bear burden with your Brethren in their tedi­ous sufferings constantly. And pray for a blessing upon their Preaching of the Gospel, albeit some of them would ruin yours: And whosoever of them may preach Christ out of contention, or 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 [Page 153] 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 [Page 154] 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.

1st. 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.

2ly. 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, [Page 155] 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 Di [...]cours [...]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 [Page 156] 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 [Page 157] able and godly Ministers and Christians in any party, proportionally to your number. Yet if any of you be found weak, raw, unstudied Divines, will it not reflect upon all, and blemish the party? Be not satisfied then with the applause of those that follow you, who may in their charity com­mend you, while others, impartial or inimical, may observe censurable weaknesses. O study hard, read and pray much, that you may be found Champions for God, and accomplished Divines, 1 Tim. 4.15, 16. O that some of your Novices, Itinerants especially, would take more pains in study, that they might be well furnished Scribes, &c. and not be rash, to bring forth crude, undige­sted Preachings or Resolutions of Cases of Con­science. It grieveth souls to get (at any time) empty, unedifying Harrangues of Railing or Re­flections, instead of soul-feeding Sermons or Dis­courses. Beware of a Ga'd of venting your pas­sions, rancour, bitterness, under pretext of Preach­ing against the sins of the time. Subtle are the tentations of Sin and Satan!

Eleventhly, Exercise your selves unto stedf [...]stness, and repentance: Be men of Principles, and understand your Principles, and stand to them, Rev. 3.3. Quit not easily good old Principles for any plausible new ones. Hold fast by the Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government of the Church of Scot­land, to which ye are so solemnly and strictly ty­ed. And let not new interests start new Principles, nor put you out of the good old way. Take the Law and the Testimony for your only supreme Judg of Controversies, Rule of Faith, and Dire­ctory [Page 158] of Duty. Cleave to the Lord with full pur­pose of heart; and be not soon shaken in your minds with any blast of tentation, nor bewitched with any Novelty, (Gal. 3.1, &c.) Keep your Gar­ments clean in all Revolutions; and change not Articles of your Creed and Duty, with change of times, as most of Conformists do. Ecebolius's (or Weather-cocks) are hateful to the Lord, Jer. 2.11. It becometh honest men to be no time-servers, or fickle Changelings, 1 Cor. 16.13. & 15.58. Col. 1.22, 23. 2.5, 6, 7. Add to this fixedness, the ex­ercise of Repentance. Be sharp upon your own, even severer against your own faults, than against any others. Witness against the publick ills of the time, as ye have access in your station; but neg­lect not your own iniquities, for which God is contending so hotly. For what cause is his Con­troversie pleaded so long against you, but for the provocations of Sons and Daughters, and the ini­quities of your holy things? Is there no accursed thing among you, which makes you fall before the Adversary? Blame no [...] one another, but ra­ther each suspect himself, saying, Is it I? Is it I? Every one of you, no doubt, hath laid to your coal to make up this great indignation. Therefore let every one be mourning as the Doves of the Valleys, each one for his own iniquity (persons and families apart) as well as keeping publick Fasts for the Abominations of the Land. What a Token for good would this be? and would put you in case to sigh and cry, and wrestle with God for the Nations sins. And were ye thus lying in the dust before the Lord for your selves and Zion, [Page 159] and running with your Censer in your hand, be­tween the living and the dead, for Atonement, crying, Spare, O Lord, &c. we doubt not but your heats and animosities among your selves would soon cool and calm.

Twelfthly, Guide wisely and tenderly honest people, yet so as still to keep your own place; to be their Guides, and not let them guide you. Cherish their good, bear with their infirmities; but humour them not in their conceits and follies. Let never Popularity be your snare. Spare not to admonish and rebuke with dis­cretion and authority, when need is. Take pains as well to inform their Consciences rightly, as to raise their affections keenly. Study prudently to cross and cure what may be healed, and patiently to endure what cannot be cured. But clap no persons heads in their mistakes, or irregularities, for fear ye lose them if ye cross them; else ye may be made to lose them upon a worse account, with an ill conscience to boot. Despise not the counsel or admonition of any, Job 31.13.) Yet if you permit them to turn Dictators and Leaders to you, your well-days and peace are gone, (Prov. 29.21.) Luther said, there is a Pope in every mans belly; ye may find a Bishop in every man and womans breast; each inclineth to think themselves infallible, and would be a Lawgiver unto others, and cannot endure others not to con­form to their mind in every thing: Which usurping disposition in people would be checked. Be sure if once ye give up your selves to serve humours, as it will put you out of Service to God, Gal. 1.10. so will your servitude be a sort of Egyptian bon­dage; and if ye sing not to every tune of theirs, the [Page 160] upshot will be as bad, as if ye had never gratified them at all. O be tender of their Consciences, and wisely regulate their humours, not by servile com­pliance, but by happy conviction, or canny diversi­on. Austerity and fondness are (almost) equally dangerous. And that ye may manage them rightly, not only seek Gods good guiding, but also be deni­ed to their applause, and dead to their censure. The sober and wise will approve you, when perhaps the peevish or proud kick at you. But it is enough if wisdom be justified of her children.

Thirteenthly, Live daily in the prospect of further sufferings, and therefore unite so far as ye can; lest the enemy finding you in a divided, distracted condition, prey easily upon you. Doubtless your trial is not at an end. The furnace is heating sevenfold more. Think not at every respite the bitterness of death is over, and the worst is past; and so begin to pluck up your Crist, and wax wanton and secure; if ye do, it says a new storm is near, 1 Thes. 5.3. Psal. 30.6, 7. The Prelatick violence is indeed sad enough; but what in comparison of the Papistick, which is at your door? And is dividing, biting, and devouring one another, fit providing for such a storm? Were it not more your wisdom and happiness to be hear­kening to the Apostles Rule, Phil. 3.15, 16. to be composing rather than heightening differences; and wherein ye agree, uniting, and forbearing one ano­ther in points of difference, till the Lord decide the Controversie? otherwise the enemy may perhaps decide it with the broad sword. Will ye be like Ar­chimedes, who while he was busie at his Mathemati­cal Lines, the Enemy entered the Town, and killed him at his Skeams? Or like the Zealots in Jerusalem, [Page 161] who while they wasted one another within the Walls, Vespasian and his Army are ready without to invade and destroy both? Shall it be that Dum aguntur partes, perit Saguntum? How weak are ye, and a ready prey to every beast of the field that pleaseth to devour, while thus disjointed and sepa­rate! Vis unita, fortior. If ever ye mind to stand effectually to the maintenance of the Gospel, unite in time, it will be too late when the Papist is got upon your back.

Fourteenthly, Notwithstanding the severity of those in Authority, unto you, be not ye tempted to slight duty unto them. Let not their commanding unlawful things diminish your readiness of obedience in things lawful. Remember they are the Ordinance of God, and reverence them accordingly, (Rom. 13.1, 2, 4.) Pray for them, (1 Tim. 2.1, 2, 3, 4.) Else if ye cast them out of your prayers, God may just­ly leave them to be a sadder scourge unto you; and ye may have little peace of Conscience there-under, considering how little ye wrestle with God upon their behalf, that he would guide them right. Ye might perhaps rule your Kings heart, Counsels and Courses, were ye Nehemiah-like, or Ezra-like, high in Court with God, and plying the Throne of Grace hard for him. Be admonished withal not to speak evil of Dignities, (Exod. 22.28. Act. 23.5.) Despise not Dominions, (Jud. v. 8.) However they miscarry, lament ye that to God, yet speak not disrespective­ly of them. Bear all due reverence to them, for the Lords sake, as the fifth Command obligeth; and while they gall you, do not ye fret your selves to any reciprocal exorbitancy. Let not sharp sufferings canker and imbitter you. Learn to be subject and [Page 162] respective, not only to the good and gentle, but to the bad and afflictive, 1 Pet. 2.13, 14, 15. Obey none of their unlawful commands, yet submit (not uncheerfully) molesting of you, bearing the Cross patiently, meekly, contentedly, 1 Pet. 2.18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. And who knows what mollifying influ­ence upon the heart of Rulers, your meekness in suffering might have? see Prov. 25.15. Eccles. 10.4. However, we are perswaded in the Lord, your pa­tient Christian bearing of hardest things, will adorn the Gospel, and in end be victory to your cause, come of persons and particular interests what will, see Revel. 12.11. Rom. 8.36, 37. Often has the Church and Truth of God conquered more by sufferings, than by actings. Sanguis Martyrum, semen Ecclesiae. Crescit sub pondere virtus. But beyond many other things, beware of wronging your Conscience and Cause by being tempted by your sufferings to take up either ill Principles, or ill practices against the Magistrate. Let none dare to think, as we hear some one or two begins to mussitate, that the Magistrates miscarria­ges about the matters of Religion, does forfault him of his right to govern, and so cadens titulo, is no more to be owned as King. A principle which all sound Presbyterians abominate, as witness your Confession of Faith, cap. 23. §. 4. Sure none but Pa­pizantes, or Novaturientes, will own such unwarran­table Principles. O let no severities byass your judg­ment unto error, nor tempt you to put forth your hand to iniquity; if any unhappy one or other, by so doing, bring an odium upon an honest cause and party, whose soul hateth to espouse such things, they have much to answer to God for. And no less inju­stice will it be for any to lay the dotages of one or [Page 163] two bearing your name, to the charge of the whole. We heartily wish in so far as may be without sin, (and farther we desire it not), that Friends of Re­formation (as you pretend highly to be) would in­stead of irritating, stretch themselves to insinuate upon the Magistrate; and to set what value they lawfully may upon any thing of favour from him. Whatever the Rulers have done, or are, (for which ye are to beg repentance and remission, and refor­mation to them), nevertheless they are the Ordi­nance of God to be submitted unto, tendered and re­spected for Conscience-sake. And though we are not to set limits to the Soveraign Grace, Wisdom and Power of God, who can deliver his people and inte­rests when and by what means he pleases; yet we are sure ye are in the way of your duty, when ye look to God for deliverance by their means, by the returning of Judgment to Righteousness; being sensible that if he take not that method readily, he will plead both with Rulers and people, which will rather increase spiritual Plagues than diminish them. And in order to this, it is your duty and wisdom not to foster the Magistrates jealousie that Christs inte­rests cannot rise but to their prejudice, which (it is feared) hath no small influence upon them; but ra­ther by all your deportment, to convince them, that they do well consist together, and that the promoting of Christs interest, and shewing favour to the friends thereof, is the security and stability of the Throne. Dear Brethren! we doubt not but all these counsels are your study and care, yet pardon us to stir your pure minds, and let that of 2 Pet. 1.12, 13. be Apo­logy for our presumption. And hoping God writeth his Laws in your hearts, and after the hour and [Page 164] power of darkness is over, will recover you from your distempers, we shall therefore supercede to say any more, a word to wise men being enough.

Only in the last place we would speak a word or two to you the good people, who adhers to the Truth, and labours to keep your Garments clean of the publick pollutions. Verily, your resolution, courage, constancy, and zeal for God, your affecti­on to the purity and power of Ordinances, your re­spect to an honest Ministry, &c. are most commen­dable; your adventuring to suffer hardest things, rather than stain your integrity in the meanest point; your taking joyfully the spoiling of your Goods, and tedious Imprisonments, exile from your Native land, and other severities, and all for the sake of Christ; is no small document of much good in you. Pity it were such a choice Generation of forward Christians were not always rightly acted, or did in any thing stumble. Yet alass! who that looks with an impartial eye, may not see several things to be lamented in you? To meet with, and amend which, suffer us, dear friends, to propose a few coun­sels unto you, in like manner. We hope ye shall not find them dissonant from the mind of Christ, nor find cause to refuse to follow them, as causing to err.

First of all, Let not all your Religion consist in pub­lick matters. Make sure your personal interest in God; neglect not your own Vineyard, your own souls case; and werr not out of Heart-exercise, and self-judging, &c. while ye are so much taken up about the publick; but let Personal Godliness be happily joined with publick-mindedness; else your selves may be cast-aways, after ye have done and [Page 165] suffered much for the name of Christ, 1 Cor. 9. ult. 1 Cor. 13.2, 3. Particularly, let never your pub­lick sufferings, or the Righteousness of your Cause (as to man) hide from you your Personal failings and guiltinesses before God. Neither pride your self in being strict and tender in publick matters, and mean time lax enough in your Personal Walk and Moral Duties. Will ye not hear a Conformist? and yet make no conscience of lying, slandering your Neighbour? &c. will ye run after Preaching? and yet make little conscience to practise what ye hear? O place not the sum of your Religion in publick things, though true it be, they are much to be re­garded. Beware also of spending your time and spi­rits in debates, and vain janglings one with another, to be tentations one to another, raising your own and others passions and corruptions, instead of holy Conference that might minister Grace to the Hear­ers. Mind well the Apostles Caveats in 1 Tim. 1.4, 5, 6, 7. & 5.13. & 6.3, 4, 5. 2 Tim. 2.16, 17. 1 Thess. 4.11. Is it not observable, that the greatest sticklers in differences, the greatest disputers and contenders are usually the most distempered and barren hear­ted? like the mountains of Gilboa, high and hot in­deed, but dry and unfruitful; warm, but withered; the unkindly, foolish, heat of division and debate, eating out the life, sap, and native heat of real Re­ligion, which evanisheth then into airy notions and litigious strivings, whereof no edification cometh. O let not Religion fly up from your hearts to your heads, and evaporate into airy foams and forms, and turn vappid and insipid. Be sure by Questions and Disputes, as well the power of Religion is ener­vate, as the Majesty of it infringed. The many [Page 166] Disputes about Religion, commonly overthrows the practice of it, which consisteth not in Discourses, but in doing. It is easie for a Formal, moth-eaten Christian to hold up in the one, while he cannot bear up in the other, as Seneca observed anent Mo­ral Virtue, Omnes disputare malunt, quam vivere, more prone are people to debate about the things of God, than to practise what is uncontroverted. If Heaven could be obtained, and God pleased with jangling and debates, a prophane Sophister should sooner have the one, and do the other, than a holy Christian, who knows that it is not talking of, but walking in the ways of Gods Commandments, that is most acceptable in his sight. But to say no more, listen to the Apostles Oracle in 1 Cor. 11.16. If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Churches of God. Love perverse dis­putings who will, (which ever corrupteth the mind), flee ye them as death, 1 Tim. 6.5.

II. See, that while ye resist one evil, ye run not up­on another; and that fleeing one extremity, ye fall not upon another: Is it not preposterous to be hot a­gainst Prelacy and Erastianism, (sad ills indeed!) and yet friendly enough toward Schism, Error, and some other things repugnant to the Word of God, and your Covenants, as well as these? Let your zeal be universal and impartial against all evil, ha­ting every false way; and while ye shun Scylla, dash not upon Charybdis.

III. Meddle not with every Controversie that falls in among your worthy Teachers. Many a Litigation may fall in among them, wherein ye are no further con­cern'd, than to sympathize and bewail. Mourn for contestings, but do not interess your selves therein, [Page 167] to engage with them; nor dip in disputable points; too nice and high for your heads, and nothing edi­fying for your hearts; much less foment the diffe­rences by factious siding, tale-bearing, or otherways begetting misunderstandings betwixt them, Prov. 26.20, 22. rather carry water to quench the flame, than blow at the spark. He or She that intermedleth be­yond their Sphere, will find it a snare, Prov. 26.17▪ And they that sow discord, or blow the Bellows, and stir up strife and alienation, will find it no blessed employment, Prov. 6.14, 15, 16, 19. whereas to the Counsellors of Peace is joy, Matth. 5.9.

IV. Usurp never to be Teachers of your Teachers, o [...] Guides of Guides. Take not, like Corah and his com­pany, too much upon you, albeit ye are not to fol­low any man blindly in matters of Religion, but humbly and seriously to examine all things (like the noble Bereans) and hold fast that which is good, 1 Thess. 5. yet your Teachers ye are to reverence and humbly learn from them, Heb. 13.7, 17. and have them so far in regard, as not rashly to oppone your judgment to theirs, much less to dictate and prescribe unto them, and not let them have your peace, un­less they follow all your opinions. What intolerable Arrogance is it, for weak heads of Men or Women (whom God has set to learn, not to teach) to leave the place of Disciples, and presume unto the Chair, to teach and give Laws unto their Governors and Guides? Has he not said, Mal. 2.7. The Priests Lip [...] shall preserve knowledg, and men should seek the Law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts? But where hath he said that Ministers are to be tutor­ed and led by the people? Is it not an high degree of pride, for persons of your Station and understand­ing, [Page 168] to arrogate to your selves to be wiser and judi­ [...]iouser than your best Ministers, who make it their [...]aily work to read, meditate, and pray; to stand [...] the Lords Counsel, and learn his Mind, and like Watchmen stand on their Watch-tower to know what [...]f the Night? With whom is this Urim and Thummim [...]ore than with his holy ones? If ye find them fail in [...]ny thing, admonish them gravely and discreetly: Tell Archippus your thoughts humbly and seriously, [...]et presume not to impose your apprehensions on [...]m, nor to censure him shrewdly, if he do not forth­ [...]ith become of your opinion; for ye are fallible, [...]nd may be in the mistake. Brethren (says James, [...]ap. 3. v. 1.) be not many Masters. This Spirit savours [...]tle of sober-mindedness or self acquaintance; suffer [...] to tell you, that as for your sincerity, zeal, and [...]fectionateness, many of you are your Teachers [...]y, and that it is not a little they have done and suf­ [...]red for your sakes, and their Bowels yern to have [...]ore and more of Christ formed in you; so for un­ [...]ilfulness in the word of Righteousness, for being [...]ch Babes in knowledge, and inability to scan in­ [...]icacies and discern between things that differ, not [...] few of you are their shame and grief; and yet will [...]e be their Leaders? Ye know, it is the blindest who [...]sually are the boldest and most confident, Prov. [...]4.16. Be not therefore high-minded, but fear, and [...] self-jealous: The holy Ghosts rule is, Be swift to [...]ar, slow to speak, slow to wrath, James 1. Think [...]ey do but flatter you, who would puff you up with [...]lf-conceit, as if it were people who keep Ministers [...]ght, and not Ministers the people, and would teach [...]ou to usurp over your Leaders.

V. How much soever constant Adherers to the Truth [Page 169] ye should be, yet be not therein turbulent and unruly; else that may be to your profession a bane, and to your cause, as the dead Fly: Wherein ye differ from your Pastors, or from one another, carry it humbly and soberly, with meekness of wisdom; and be not seditious, untractable, or too peremptory. Shall your Ministers be put (like Moses, Numb. 11. v. 10, 11, 14, 15.) to sigh over you, and groan under you, and complain to God for your ticklishness, frowardness, and stiff-neckedness? And that your reeling is like to undo all? Be not a snare and tentation to your Ministers, but an encouragement and strengthning of their hands. Be neither too facil, nor yet like the untamed Heifer; be neither coldrife, like Laodicea, nor drive furiously like Jehu. Stupid dulnes [...] and unconcernedness (upon the one hand) and frothy light farraudness and fraziness (upon the other) are both to be shun'd; and destroy not the true interest of the Gospel by either, while ye pretend to b [...] the great pillars of its support.

VI. Take the Law and the Testimony for your alon [...] Oracle in all things, Isa. 8.20. Set not up your own imaginations, nor yet take any mans bare assertion [...] for the Supreme Judg of Controversies, or rule o [...] right, and directory of your way. Listen to Ministers, and be not lightly suspicious of their Judgment, but take nothing upon trust; but see with your own eyes, as they Acts 17.11. well said, Ambrose, de fid [...] ad Gratian. lib. 1. cap. 4. Noli argumento credas Imperator & nostrae disputationi: Scripturas interrogemus▪ interrogemus Apostolos, interrogemus ipsum Christum▪ Prove all things by the Word, and if any, were he an Angel from heaven, speak not according thereun­to, think there is no light in them.

[Page 170]Let nothing that wants a Scripture-warrant, pass currant with you, nor condemn nothing which the O­racles of God condemneth not: Take never the vi­sions of your own heart, nor the dictates of them, for your Bible. Gods word alone, and not Mans, [...], is the unerring Rule of Faith and Duty, Rom. 3.4. Stick therefore close by it in all things, without declining to the right hand or the left, Deut. 5. ult. If any thing be brought unto, and pressed up­on you, without a real Thus saith the Lord, receive it not, 2 Thess. 1, 2. Tremble to give an ear unto, or to be swayed by sophistical and unscriptural Rea­sonings about any matter; hold fast by the sure word of Prophecy, and be safe, 2 Pet. 19.

If ye state your selves into parties, as the Corin­thians did, how will ye avoid being puffed up for one against another? And what one says, be taken as an Oracle, and what another says, cryed down according to Interest and Affection? Cum res transit in affectum, perit judicium. Beware of a wrong Byass upon your affection, for that will byass and bribe your judgment, and forbear rash judgings and spurn­ing at Ministers, 1 Cor. 4.5. Censure only what the Scripture censureth, and approve only what it ap­proves; else ye may soon take Light for Dark­ness, &c.

VII. Cleave close to your Reformed Religion and co­venanted Duties, against defections on all hands. Con­sent never by word, write, or deed, to any thing contrary thereunto, specially what is expresly and plainly renounced thereby: Yet take heed of capti­ous glosses, and sinistrous applications of your Cove­nant: It may be wrested, as some do the Scriptures; always stick to its true intent and native meaning▪ [Page 171] faithfully; and resolve to follow the Lamb whither­soever he goes, through thick and thin; and be ra­ther arming your selves for suffering, than contend­ing in the very fire. A common Prison, or burning at one Stake together, may perhaps be made to a­gree you (as it did Ridley and Hooper) who would not in your liberty accord, and serve the Lord with one consent, without a jar, as was your duty to have done.

VIII. Next to Fidelity towards God, study to adorn your Cause with Loyalty to your King, in the Lord, Rom. 13.1, 5. Prov. 24.21. 1 Pet. 2.13. Give unto God the things which are Gods, and unto Cesar the things which are Cesars; that hereby ye may stop the mouths of them that falsly speak evil of the Presby­terian Interest and Party, as inimical to Kings Crowns, 1 Pet. 2.15. Did he not in the Usurpers time find you the most faithful party to him of any? And albeit ye be but ill Requat, yet discourage not to follow your duty for the Lords sake. We are apt to believe, if any other party in the Nation had been so crushed and harassed by his Power as ye, none would have born it better. Let him still find that no discouragement will fret or tempt you from your duty, and that for conscience-sake, without by-ends; yea, bear due Allegiance to him, so far as may stand with your Allegiance to the King of kings, and Lord of lords. And who knows what a con­viction this may produce in end? 1 Sam. 24.17, 18. testifying to him and all men, your Cause is of God, which leads you to be so conscientious toward man; and that you are the only fast and faithful friends to Authority, who will cleave to it in a stormy day, out of the fear of God, when all its self-seeking [Page 172] friends will desert it, when their Interest parts with it; and that it is not humour, but conscience, which keeps you off from complying with his will in the matters of your God, wherein ye differ from him.

IX. Spend more time in praying together about what is amiss in the Publick, than in empty talking about it, Jer. 50.4. Remember you have somewhat else a­do, than to be idle News-mongers. Go spread ay your sad matters before the Lord, as good Nehemi­ah and Hezekiah did; Table all your complaints in Heaven. This would be both a present ease to your mind, and the compendious way to a blessed Remedy. How much sooner might ye get a good account of matters, if ye did put them more in Gods hand, who has the Balm of Gilead for such sores? And it would sweeten your spirits and car­riage thereunder. Bleed with Zion in all her bleed­ings. Do not laugh while she sighs; nor yet look idly on, and only talk; but be her careful Remem­brancers before the Throne; especially let the di­visions of Reuben breed great thoughts of heart. Let your Pastors differences (which are your great judgment and skaith) be your sorrow, and lye heavy, heavy, upon your spirits. They who bear them lightly, or rejoice in them, what a deserted and distempered frame must they be in? But would ye oftner meet and pray about these lamentable matters, who knows but ye might pray away your Ministers differences, and cement your own hearts in greater Christian union, by uniting and concen­tring in God? And might pray home the Ark out of Captivity, and get the Lord to arise and build Zion as in the days of old!

[Page 173]X. Be not easily tempted to cast at your Ministers, of whose heart-honesty you have had sufficient demonstra­tion. If once Satan get you to begin a little to spurn at them, he will not cease tempting, and Providence may justly let snares be rained on you, occasions of stumbling be afforded you, till ye turn quite off, and become wild. Notorious it is, that peoples idoli­zing, inamouredness with some, and rooted preju­dice at others, upon partialities and by-respects, are both a cause, foment, and consequent of woful divi­sions, 1 Cor. 1.11, 12. and 3.3, 4. O esteem your Pa­stors highly in love for their works sake, and let not every petty difference cast you and them out: Keep not distance with them, but go and lovingly confer with them anent what ye and they differ in: And if ye get not satisfaction, recommend the matter to God, but let Love and Peace stand intire notwithstanding. What is Satans great Engine, and consequently his design for marring your good of Ministers; but by stating prejudices in your minds at them? Shut your ears and hearts then to all charms that would suggest ill thoughts of your honest Ministers, Receive not lightly ill reports of them, spread perhaps industri­ously to make them odious, (Jer. 20.10.) to alienate you from them, as Gal. 4.15, 16. Be not then too cre­dulous, try e're ye trust, and admit no bad impressi­ons of them, before ye have found that truly they deserve.

To add no more, In the XI and last place, Care­fully avoid the Sin of Separation, as well as Conformity, so called. Is not Schism one of your abjured ills, and contrary to the Word of God, as well as Prelacy? O run not upon the one rock, while ye shun the o­ther: Guard well against complyance with the Pre­lacy, [Page 174] and all Erastianism too, (which ye see by what is said, your Ministers are free of) but stand no less at distanee from dividing and separating, either from Communion with your Ministers, or with the Con­gregations whereof ye are stated Members. We hope we need not insist to convince you of the evil of Schism, what a sinful, and what an hurtful ill it is! Nor when, and in what cases it is that Separation is un­lawful. Read precious Mr. Rhetorfoord his Piece against the Separatists, entituled, Peaceable Plea, Chap. 10. Also the eminently, godly, and Learned Mr. Durham, in his Commentary upon the Revelation, Ch. 2. Pag. 172, 173. and his Treatise of Scandal, part 4. chap. 7 nor dare we think ye will contemn to peruse also some of the En­glish Presbyterian Writers upon Schism, who treat thereof judiciously, and with tenderness; such as learn­ed Cartwright, holy Hildersham, pious Mr. Bayn; but namely Mr. Bradshaw his Book of the Unreasonableness of Separation; and Mr. Ball his Tryal of the Grounds tending to Separation: As also Mr. Hales Tractate of Schism, Brinsley his Arraignment of Schism, and Mr. Baxter in his Christian Directory, part 3. cap. 8. These and such others will inform you, in what cases Se­paration is unlawful, how unwarrantable and weak many pleas for Separation are, (and yet perhaps more plausible and stronger-like than yours) and what is the lamentable mischief of it. Read them carefully, and ponder what of the mind of Christ they hold forth, and see it no Presbyterian, but a Brownistical, and Independent Principle, to be either for rigid or moderater Separation, where Communion may be kept without either natural or moral Bars in the way, as there are none such in your case. Referring you therefore to such Writings, we shall say the less, only [Page 175] this to the case in hand, that if any of you, through instability or seduction, be tempted to separate from, and shake off, your Indulged Ministers, so as merely upon account of their Indulged Liberty, you shall re­fuse to hear them, or communicate in the Sacraments and other Ordinances of God dispensed by them; spe­cially if your separation be usual and ordinary, total, and perhaps also out of contempt; and withal not only Negative, statedly withdrawing your self from them, but also positive, erecting altare contra altare, setting up in distinct and opposite societies by your selves, tempting others also perhaps to desert them, and that both by word and deed; we dare be bold to affirm before the Lord, and intreat you to believe it, that it will be your grievous sin, your fearful judg­ment, and a woful sign.

1. It will be your Sin, being a voluntary, ground­less, unjust, rash Separation; in regard you are not fugati, but fugitivi; not driven away by any violent or sinful conditions of Communion imposed upon you, (as your Fathers were when they separated from the Church of Rome) but run away of your own accord, and that without any Relevant Cause, which may hold weight in the Ballance of the Sanctuary; for joyning with them in Church-Communion, is neither upon sinful terms (there being none at all required of you) neither of it self doth it involve you in any sin, their Ministry being lawful, valid, and without stain (as hath been before evinced.) What spot, we pray you, can you prove to be in their Of­fice, or its exercise, which may prove it unclean to you, or justifie your withdrawing and casting at them? The usual Alledgances are confuted and wi­ped off before, and we take no pleasure eandem cram­ben [Page 176] saepius recoquere & rep [...]nere, as some of yours, ad nauseam usque, do. Consider what is said to the nine Objections, and ye'll find the most material excepti­ons taken off, and both their office, their investiture with it, and their access to the exercise of it, justified and fairly acquit from all Homologation of Erastian­ism, or the sinful Supremacy, &c. But beside, suppose there were some petty Defects or Irregularities in their entry to the exercise of their Ministry (which yet ap­peareth not from any reasons which hitherto we have seen) yet ye should know, it is not every lighter fault of that nature, which will warrant Separation; but only such attrocious crimes as either destroys the Essence of the Ministry, and makes it null and void (as your Reverend Mr. Browne teacheth in the Preface to his Book against Wolrogen, and excellent Mr. Bowels in his Pastor Evangelicus, lib. 1. cap. 4.) for recte fieri is one thing, and ratum esse is another, and multa impediunt Matrimonium contrahendum, quae non dirimunt con­tractum;) or else does so vitiate their Ministry, as peo­ple cannot joyn therewith in its Ministerial acts with­out real and native participating in the sin, in Gods account, and in the construction of his holy Law: Otherwise if there be any pollution adherent to their Ministry, which neither evacuates the essence there­of, nor so intrinsecally leprosieth it, but ye may com­municate in its Acts abstractly from and without touching the spot; the sin resteth on the Men them­selves, and ye are not concerned therein farther than to lament it, but not to be skared and debarred by it from joyning in their Ministerial Administrations, they being to you clean, whatever they be to the men themselves.

[Page 177]Now plain and sure it is, neither of these evils has place in the case in hand; nor can ye instruct the contrary. Your bare alledgance or apprehension of Homologation, accession, &c. will not serve the turn here. Therefore since ye may communicate with them without sin, it will be sin in you to sepa­rate. O shake not off these lightsome Guides whom God has set up and over you, by the warrantable Instrumentality or means of men. Leave it to the adversary to cast down these blessed stars; let the Philistines stop those Wells God has opened for you; but make not ye it your work. Forsake not lightly the Shepherds Tents, lest ye meet with the Wolf in your wandering. If these Ministers 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 [Page 178] 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 [Page 179] 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 [Page 180] 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 [Page 181] 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 and do harm; yea, and plainly be­wray it to be faction or humour, not Conscience, which acteth you. Calvin c [...]ntra Anabaptistas, Act. 2. says, Cum sub specie studii perfectionis imperfectionem nullam tolerare possumus, tunc Diabolum nos tume fa­cere superbiâ, & hypocrisi se ducere, moneamur. Sup­pose your Ministers were guilty (as they are not) of most of things ye lay to their charge; Yet what an unparalleld, unheard of, unexamplified Separa­tion is yours from them as to any warrantable pre­cedent?

(7) Make nothing necessary to the unity of the Church, or to the Communion of Pastors and people, but what God has made necessary in his word, or directed you to make. Put not every new opinion into your Creed, nor every new course be added to the Decalogue; as if ye were to impose them upon, or require them of others, as such substantial Articles of Faith, or ne­cessary duties, that ye must renounce all Religious fellowship with them who are not of that way, Act. [Page 182] 15.10. There is not a greater divider or separater than this tantizing or screwing up of debateable points, wherein God has left us so much latitude, as not to make either the one or the other part of the Controversie, a necessary condition of Church-communion. O take no burden of strictness on you, that is not of his imposing, Rev. 2.24, 25.

(8) Enslave not your selves to any person or party, so as to be over-desirous to please them, or over-fearful of their censures. Is it not servile man-pleasing, and cowardize to do so? and leads many to sinful com­pliance with dividing courses? when therefore any fervent self-conceited person or people would carry all down by their censoriousness and passions, it is high time for Pastors, and the aged, graver, and ma­turer sort of Christians, openly to rebuke them, to appear against them, and stand their ground (as Paul did, Gal. 2.11.) and not to comply with the mis­guided sort (though well-meaning), and their pre­posterous zeal, that by connivance or compliance ye may escape their Censures and Reproaches. He that thus saveth his name, shall lose it, and perhaps on a worse account. Be not therefore cowed to si­lence or Amen to their way, for fear of the scourge of Tongues. Be valiant for the Truth, and against such ills; else fainting will feed their humour, and invite them to be more insolent. Put on Authority and Gospel-austerity to check their petulancy and untowardliness.

(9) As well should ye beware of real ills, so be not scarred from good by the name of evil. What a trick has some of stigmatizing things with odious and terrifying names, thereby to boggle simple and well-meaning people? If the ratling and canting names of [Page 183] Erastianism, Supremacy, Homologate, &c. falsly appli­ed, serve to fright you from Indulged Ministers, your skittishness is to be lamented. And it may be said of them as of old the Apologist said of Christianity, in like manner branded and bogled at, Tolle Nomen Criminis, & nihil erit criminis, nisi Nomen.

(10) Beware of suffering prejudice or fancy to be to you for Reason or Religion, or to raise in your minds un­justifiable distasters at your Pastors. Separation is a thing not to be lightly ventured upon. And yet what are oft-times peoples exceptions against union with, and pleas for dividing from their Ministers, but light and frivolous, when weighed in the Ballance of the Sanctuary? yea, suppose ye seem to have Scripture to plead, what if you be mistaken of the sense or application, or wrest the same? Be not so arrogant as to set up your apprehensions thereof for infallible Oracles. Humble, sober, self-jealous folk, get usu­ally most of the mind of God, Psal. 25.9. Where­as the confident are most readily in the mistake, Prov. 26.12, 16.

(11) Charge not upon your selves unwarrantedly other mens faults, but look to your own ways and du­ties. Labour to understand distinctly what it may be on your part, that may constitute you a partaker in the sins of your Ministers (if any be), lest through ignorance hereof, ye be led to take improper cour­ses, & unlawful midv's for avoiding Communion with their (imagined) guilt, and so run upon real guilt of your own in seeking to shun accession to theirs. Sup­pose there be some faults in your Ministers personal actings, or in their way of entry to their Ministry, or in their Ministerial Administrations (such as want of due freedom against the evils of the time, &c.) [Page 184] yet know ye will hardly find a ground in Scripture for it, that your simple hearing them, and not sha­king off their Ministry, doth natively render you adopters of their sin. It is not enough that you and others think so, unless the Lord construct it so, and declare it so by the Rules of his word. Now search all the Rules of the Word, wherein he declareth how men communicate in others sins, and ye will find none of them quadrate with this case. Are their (al­ledged) failings meerly Personal? such as neglect of duty to their Brethren, &c. These (ye know) doth not vitiate their Ministry, nor have ye any Communion therewith, in communicating in their Ministry; for as your own Divines teach, personal faults rest on the person, and doth not pollute the Office. Or, are their faults some les­ser failing in the discharge of their Ministry? such as not being so free and full in Preaching and wit­nessing against the sins of the time, &c. do not these also sist upon themselves? and not render it unlaw­ful for you to hear them Preach the Gospel to good purpose? Is the Ministers defect the Hearers sin? Or, is it not lawful to own the Minister who cometh not up all the length we would, in testifying a­gainst publick corruptions, but thorough pusillani­mity faints, and falls short? What if you require more than is really expedient? or, what Scripture requireth you to separate from one of that deficien­cy? To his own Master he standeth or falleth; you will not be holden answerable to God for it, meer­ly for your joining in the Ordinances dispensed by him, though with that want, especially if ye admo­nish him of his short-coming, Col. 4.17. Do ye not read how defective many of the Angels in the Chur­ches [Page 185] of Asia were, in fidelity against sins of the time? yet not a word from our Lord to People to desert them therefore, Rev. 2, & 3 Chap. Or, are their (al­ledged) faults in the way of their coming to the pub­lick, free exercise of their Ministry? such as neglect of a testimony against the Erastian Usurpations of the time, which some judg to involve them in a con­structive compliance therewith, &c. Yet is not that only their own personal guilt? but defileth not their Ministry to you. Nor does your joining with their Ministry involve you in the guilt of their (sup­posed) irregularities or Homologations committed in coming to the peaceable exercise of it by the In­dulgence. For your participating in the Acts of their Ministry does not terminate upon, intermedle with, or natively imply a joining with, or approving of these faults (which are altogether extrinsick and ac­cidental to their Ministry and its exercise, and rests upon their persons alone), for ye hear and join with them simply as Ministers, and your Ministers being called by you; but not as such and such Mini­sters reduplicatively under such and such Formalities and Considerations as ye apprehend to be faulty in them, (even as these who Mat. 23.2, 3. heard them that sat in Moses Chair, whom all know to have enter­ed with many Irregularities, nevertheless did not hear them under such notions and respects, but sim­ply as Moses Successors in the Chair); and therefore your deed involveth you not in any accession unto, or participation in their (pretended) sin; not infer­ring or importing (in Gods construction, signified in the Rules of the Word) your consent unto, or allow­ance and approbation of that their sin. It is no coun­tenancing of them in their (alledged) sin, but in their [Page 186] Ministry simply, which ye cannot deny to be sound and lawful, abstractly considered from these supposed disorders or defects in their coming by the free ex­ercise thereof with you. Ye communicate only with their function, in its substance (which is the Ordinance of Christ) not in the naevi adnascentes, or sinful circum­stances. And the more evident yet is the needlesness of your separating in this case, if ye testifie to them your dissatisfaction with, and disowning of the (ap­prehended) transgressions in their way of coming by the licensed exercise of their Ministry; which draw­eth a line of Separation between you and those ills; and consequently stateth you guiltless, albeit still ye imbrace the benefit of their Ministry in it self. Nei­ther is this, as ye say, protestatio facto contraria, the protestation and deed being not ad idem, not relating to the same thing, and consequently doth not cross and destroy one another. Doubtless if bare hearing and joining with a Ministry, having such Naevos, ble­mishes, adhering thereunto, doth make the people Homologaters of, and communicaters in these defile­ments, our blessed Lord would never have insinuate (in Mat. 23.2, 3.) his approbation of partaking in such a Ministry. If further ye scruple and think your hear­ing the Indulged Ministers may harden them in their (deemed) sin, which to be accessary unto thereby, ye judg would be your sin. We answer, doth the spotless and holy Lords making his Sun to shine, and rain to fall as well upon the unjust as the just, tend to harden them? what more doth your hearing tend (natively) to harden and encourage those Ministers? We grant it may be abused thereunto (were they in a course of sin as ye suppose) yet that is but accidental, not natural to your deed, and therefore you are in­nocent; [Page 187] especially your deed being otherwise necessa­ry. Surely it makes you no more guilty of their har­dening (in case they harden themselves upon it) nor subjects loyalty and duty to their Prince (who having a righteous title, yet hath used some indirect means to attain possession of the Crown and Government) does render them guilty of hardening him in impe­nitency for these evil arts used for getting into the Throne. Ought ye not to remember that whatever forbearance of matters of Liberty and Indifferency (such as intimate personal unnecessary converse, or the like) another mans abuse thereof calleth you un­to; yet necessary and weighty duties (such as your keeping Church-communion is, Heb. 10.25.) may not, must not, be omitted upon such a score, of an ac­cidental emergency; for as evil is not to be done that good may come of it; so, nor duty to be left un­done, for avoiding such an accidental abuse thereof; else it were in the power of others by their stumb­ling upon, and abusing of our doing of duties, might vacate us from them all, and so make all the Com­mandments of God of non-effect; yea, the Scripture it self should be (on that reason) laid by, because ma­ny wrest it to their own destruction. If they will har­den themselves upon your not separating, your fol­lowing of duty is meerly the innocent object and oc­casion thereof; themselves only are the transgressors, because you are purely passive, they active in the case. Thus ye see, that supposing there were such real faults in your Ministers access to the publick undi­sturbed exercise of their Ministry as ye talk of, (whereas in sober and unprejudiced search you will find none), albeit these should call you to mourn to God for them, and endeavour their conviction and [Page 188] reformation, yet not to separation. Since without accession to these faults, ye may join with the men and their Gospel-administrations; Lugendum & ferendum est, quod mederi ne­quit ▪ says Judicious and Holy Calvin. Be ye therefore Moni­tores & Correctores (if ye can) non Desertores. But blessed be God there is in truth so far as we can see, no just ground of stumbling at them; so, at least as to scare you from their Shepherd-tents. And would some lay aside prejudice, passion, self-interest, &c. and not be over righteous, nor over wise, (which the wise Solomon dehorteth from in Eccl. 7.16.) nor (by scrupulosity or censoriousness) make more sins than ever God by his Law hath made; nor seek a knot in a Rush (tho­rough niceness, or timorousness, or captiousness); we per­swade our selves your Controversies would soon be at an end, and your terrible Convulsion-fits of dividings and sepa­rating, no more overtake you.

But to draw to a close▪ We shall say no more, nor had we said so much, had not the urgency of your case compelled us. Only this we add, that having thus far presumed upon your patience and candor to speak our mind freely concern­ing your case and carriage, out of Christian compassion to your distractions and distempers, and affectionate zeal to your recovery, we humbly crave you pardon for our freedom: intreating you in the Lord to consider what is said, [...]t agnos­cere quod Dei est, & ignoscere quod bominis est. Himself give understanding in all things, which concern his honour, the good of his poor distressed Church and people, and your own duty and peace. And finally, Brethren, we bid you fare­well; wishing the Prince of Peace, after ye have suffered a while, to stablish and settle you. And to him tha [...] is able to heal your breaches, to keep you from falling, and to reco­ver the fallen, and present you spotless before the Father, be Glory.

And if in any thing we can serve your edification and peace, we willingly subscribe our selves.