Part V. The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by the Weal of the Kirk and the People's Souls

PART V. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WEAL OF THE KIRK AND THE PEOPLE’S SOULS. The good estate of the kirk, the end of kirk policy.—The prelate abuseth the people three ways in determining what is the good estate of the kirk.—The pastor careibi to preserve the purity of doctrine for the good of the kirk; the prelate cares more for his own things.—The pastor, in the matter of ceremonies, looks to the edification of the kirk, which the prelate disregardeth.—The pastor, in the whole course of his ministry, intends the feeding of the flock; the prelate to feed himself.—The pastor subject to the discipline of the kirk himself, and oxerciseth it for the good of the people; the prelate, neither subject to the discipline himself, nor exerciseth it for the good of others, nor suffereth the pastor to exercise it.—The pastor would have all things be done for the good of the kirk by the free assemblies of the kirk; the prelate will rule all by himself; whether in assembly or out of assembly.—The pastor planteth the kirk with the best men, with consent of the people, and without hurting the conscience of the entrant; the prelate with such as please himself, without consent of the people or presbytery, and with hurting of the conscience of the entrant.—.-The pastor by all means seeketh the peace of the kirk; the prelate seeketh his own peace and prosperity.—The pastor contents himself with his competent stipend; the prelate is a master of the kirk’s patrimony,— Objection, Parity is anarchy and confusion.—Answer, Showing, by many particulars, that the order of the ministry appointed by Christ is far from confusion. The safety and good of the state was the main end of Roman policy, and the fundamental law by which that people squared all their other laws, according to their own maxim, “Let the safety of the people be the sovereign law.”{1} The kirk of Jesus Christ hath better reason to think that the safety of the kirk should be the rule and end of all ecclesiastical policy, although the form of external worship and of the government of the house of God were not prescribed by the Lord himself in his word, but left arbitrary to men, to be framed by their canons and constitutions, yet this must be held as infallible, that it is the best form of government which, by reason and experience, is found to be best for the weal and safety of the kirk. Unto this general, both prelate and pastor will, without question, condescend; but they differ in the particular, what this is wherein the good and weal of the kirk doth consist; for the prelate places the weal of the kirk in her outward peace and prosperity, and thinketh the kirk well constituted, and in good case, when she flourishes in wealth and worldly dignities; but herein he abuseth the Christian world three ways, first, that he measures and determines the good estate of the kirk by her outward face, and not by her inward grace, by the health of her body rather than of her soul, by that which is accidental to the kirk, and which she may either have or want and yet continue a true kirk, and not by that which is essential and proper to the very nature and being of a kirk; secondly, that he judgeth that to be the weal of the kirk which hath many times proved her wreck, being abused, as commonly it hath happened: he taketh poison for a preservative, and surfeit of peace and prosperity, excess of wealth and worldly honours, which are her deadly disease, to be her health and best constitution. Too large bestowing of riches and preferments upon the ministers of the kirk bred that contagion within her bowels, which turned almost to her death in the end; for thereby defection grew by degrees, till at last, under the man of sin, it came to the height. Thirdly, That he measures the good estate of the kirk by himself and the rest of the members of that hierarchical body, as though it went well with the whole kirk when bishops stand and reign like the kings of the nations, and as though the min istry were sufficiently vindicated from poverty and contempt when twelve or thirteen of the number have climbed up, like apes, to the highest places, that, with their evil-favoured minions, they may move to laughter all that behold theni from below, or like fowls flown up to the highest roofs, shooting down their filthy excrements upon the rest that sit in the lower rooms. But the pastor esteems the good and weal of the kirk by her spiritual estate, that is, by a sound faith, a pure worship, and a holy conversation; as she stands or decays in these so is she either in a good constitution or languishing, and as she is furnished with all the means that may preserve and increase these, so she either prospers or decays. This judgwent of the pastor is grounded upon very good reasons; for upon this estate of the kirk necessarily depends the glory of God and the salvation of souls, which are the two things that make the difference betwixt the kirk of God and all other societies of men in the world, and, therefore, the pastor hath reason to think, that all the riches of the earth, and all the glory of all the kingdoms of the world, are not to be put in balance with the glory of God and the salvation of souls—that which God with his own blood hath purchased and redeemed. Now whether the good of the kirk in these things be better procured and preserved by the prelate or by the pastor, let them be typed by comparing them in the particulars following.

1. The PASTOR’S principal care is to preserve the purity of doctrine in the kirk, that Christ’s flock may be fed with the wholesome word of life, and to oppose all contrary and unprofitable doctrine as poisonous and pernicious to the people’s souls, and for that purpose entertaineth in weekly meetings the exercise of the word, where the doctrine delivered by one is judged by all the rest whether it be sound and profitable, and taketh such order with the papists, the great corrupters of doctrine and enemies to the people’s souls, that either he converteth them, or cutteth them off from the communion of the kirk with the spiritual sword, and exhorteth the magistrate to execute the laws made against them; whereby it came to pass that contrary doctrine, and vain and curious teaching, either entered not into our kirk, or was suddenly repressed and put to the door, and papistry, that had place before, was well nigh put out of the land. The PRELATE hath neither leisure nor liking to look to such exercise, and accounts no heresy so worthy his animadversion as the alleged heresy of Anus and his followers. It is manifest in history, from the beginning, that the heresies that most have endangered the kirk, have either been devised by the engines, or favoured and borne out by the authority and credit, of prelates; and even now divers false and dangerous doctrines are partly vented and partly winked at by them;{2} neither thinketh he papists great enemies to the kirk; but as the Jewish priests entertained the Sadducees, albeit enemies to true religion, and hated Christians as their deadly foes, and as the papist can agree with the formal protestant, but thinks the unconformable Calvinist his irreconcileable enemy, so the prelate could agree with the common papist, for all his blasphemous doctrine and profession, because lie is a friend to his hierarchy, but the reformed Christian, whom he calleth the Calvinist and puritan, he can by no means bear, because he is professedly unfriendly to his hierarchy. A prelate, as a prelate, is not opposite to the papist but to the protestant.

2. The PASTOR, knowing that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, thinketh it dangerous for the people’s souls to borrow either the substance or the ceremony of religion from antichristian corruption, and, therefore warneth the people to beware of the least beginnings or appearances of evil; and, while he deliberates about ceremonies fittest for order and decency, he intends nothing of his own, but the edification of the kirk, and in the practice of ceremonies and circumstances orderly appointed, he looketh to the peace of the kirk, that it be not broken, and to the consciences of the weak, that they be not offended. The PRELATE liketh to symbolize with antichrist’s ceremonies, putting the papists in hope that the body and substance of their superstition may be resumed by time, where the shadows and ceremonies are so highly regarded. He intends nothing in appointing them but the maintenance of his own estate and dignity, because he seeth and saith, “No ceremony, no bishop;” and in practice is more earnest in urging of ceremonies than of obedience to the greatest things of the law, and by the canons about matters which they themselves call indifferent, doth violence either to the bodies or consciences of the people that think otherwise, and maketh them to serve as rods to scourge and whip out of the kirk and ministry whom and when they think good.

3. The PASTOR, considering that he is called to feed the flock of Christ, and to care for the people’s souls, in his entry to the ministry will be loath to undertake a greater charge than he can in some measure overtake; and the less his charge is the greater is his contentment, not that he desireth to be idle, but to be faithful. When he is entered, he hath the work of the ministry in singular regard, as the most honourable and laborious work that he can be employed about, whereof the best man is not worthy, and unto which the whole man is not sufficient, and, therefore, is resident among the people, serving not by deputies and suffragans, but in his own person, and is altogether taken up with the pastor’s duties, of preaching, praying, catechising, visiting, exhorting, rebuking, comforting, &c., but labours most diligently in the word and doctrine, because faith cometh by the word preached. The PRELATE, intending nothing but to feed himself, at his entry to his prelacy regards not so much the number of souls he should feed, as the number of chalders, the large revenues, and the great dignities tie is to feed upon, and the larger his diocese the better for him; hence it is that he ascends from a diocesan to an archbishop and a primate. After he is entered he disdaineth the work of the ministry, as base and unworthy of his grace and great lordship; he serveth by his deputies and suifragans, and thinks it a more honourable and necessary employment to attend and reside at court, or at the places of civil judgment, as council, session, exchequer; and although he appropriates to himself the reward of double honour due to them who labour in the word and doctrine, yet he thinks that he is not bound to take the pains of that work unto which the double honour is annexed. So the pastor must labour in the work and the prelate must reap the reward; and, what is more prejudicial to the people’s souls, he maintaineth that learned and qualified preachers are not so necessary in congregations as curates and readers, that there is too much preaching and too little reading and praying,—meanlug nothing else than their confused liturgy.

4. The PASTOR dare not do harm to the people’s souls, because he is subject both in calling and conversation to the discipline of the kirk, which striketh upon the pastor as well as upon the people; and to bring the transgressors to repentance he sitteth with his brethren in session, presbytery and assembly, administering the holy discipline holly, that is, in sincerity and faithfulness, without prejudice or partiality, and never ceasing till the scandal be removed, the kirk be purged, and the offender, if it be possible, be won unto God; and all this, as being Christ’s own work, he doth with Christ’s own weapons, that is, with the spiritual sword of the word, which is mighty through God to subdue every thing exalting itself against God, and to bring sinners to repentance. The PRELATE may do what harm he will for his own tyrannical custom and practice, but not by any law either of kirk or state. He exempteth himself, in respect of his episcopal administration and as he is a prelate, from all censure, and scorneth to submit himself to any ecclesiastical judicature, albeit the chief apostles submitted themselves unto the kirk, arid albeit there be no subject in a kingdom, of whatsoever quality or condition, but in every respect he is under the control of some judicature in the land where he liveth; and as he is thus singularly lawless of himself, so, pietending the sole power of proceeding to belong to him by virtue of his place and office, he swayeth the course of discipline as best pleaseth his lordship; processes begun for trying of slanders, if the party, never so wicked, have argument of weight for my lord or his receiver, are incontinently, by the word of his monarchical authority; stricken dead. Hereby it cometh to pass, that where prelates rule sin reigneth, and the nearer the bishop’s wings the greater liberty for sin, as is seen in their own houses and trains. And for this reason is it that both atheists and papists like the episcopal discipline better than the pastoral, which they call strait-laced, because it troubleth their corruption, whereas the other layeth the reins upon their necks. And if the prelate happen to proceed against offenders, his discipline consists not so much in spiritual censure as in worldly power and civil punishment, as fining, confining, imprisoning, &c,, which have no power to work upon the consciences of sinners to bring them to repentance, though this be what is sought by the preachers of the gospel, and the chief end of kirk discipline.

5. The PASTOR, for the good of the kirk, is desirous that the assemblies of the kirk, provincial and national, be often held and well kept, knowing how necessary they are for redressing things amiss, for fulfilling things omitted, and for preventing evils that are like to ensue; and when the assembly is convened he carrieth himself toward his brethren as toward the servants of Christ and colleagues of equal authority, none premiming to any place or pre-eminence, though of order only and not of power, without the calling and consent of his fellow brethren. There every one bath liberty to utter his mind, and every one is ready with the gift that God bath given him, as the divers members of one body, for the good of the whole kirk: meek Moses and burning Elias, Isaiah with his trumpet and Aaron with his bells, Boanerges and Barjonah, the son of thunder and the son of the dove, all moved by one spirit, with mutual respect, reverence and brotherly love, join together in one conclusion, and if at any time they be of different judgments, they are not sudden and summary in concluding things of importance that concern the whole, but that all may be done with uniform consent, after the example of the apostles, Acts 15:1-41, the conclusion is delayed till all objections be satisfied, and God give greater light to such as are otherwise minded; and so, to the great good of the kirk, both peace and truth are preserved. The PRELATE is as averse to a free assembly as the Pope is to a free general council, and, therefore, will either have none at all, or will have them so slavish as if they were but his ecclesiastical courts, convened under him and in his name. When this assembly is convened, at his own hand, without calling or election, he taketh upon him to preside and moderate. There no man hath liberty to utter his mind before him who hath power to raise up and cast down, to enlarge and restrain, to prefer and postpone, or put in and put out at his pleasure; and, therefore, no man’s gift in such meetings doth good to the kirk. And if it happen that his course be crossed, and the best sort oppose, then he rageth, and by his pioud boastings and unreasonable railings he playeth the prelate indeed, using Christ’s ministers and the kirk’s commissioners no better than if they were his slaves or lackeys, convened to say amen to all his intentions, and to wait upon oracles falling from his mouth. In the end the plurality of voices of the weaker sort, and for the most part either emendicated or extorted, carrieth away the sentence which must oblige all, and, therefore, besides the tyrannies and unjust proceedings, proveth afterward, to the great hurt of the kirk, to be the cause of many evils and great divisions.

6. The PASTOR, in planting of kirks and placing of ministers without respect to any man’s private judgment or affection, with common consent maketh choice of the best qualified for graces and manners, and most fit for the people he is to be set over, and that with their own special advice and desire; so that he giveth not the kirk to the minister but the minister to the kirk; and in the act of ordination, at the place where he shall serve, and in presence of the whole congregation, he requireth of the entrant neither oath nor promise but what is appointed of the assemblies of the whole kirk, as constancy in the faith, obedience to the king, and fidelity in his calling; and, after he is admitted, he respecteth him as the conjunct ambassador of Christ, equd in power and authority with himself, with no difference but of age and gifts. The PRELATE, excluding both the flock whom the pastor is to feed, and the fellow-ministers with whom he is to labour in the work,—except it be superficially and for the fashion, when now the prelate and his domestics (who have greater hand in the planting of kirks than both presbytery and people,) have brought the matter to the point of ordination,—giveth the kirk to the minister rather than the minister to the kirk,{3} whereof there flow such innumerable evils, that the kirk hath as just cause to complain now of the placing of ministers by bishops as the kirk had of old of the planting of bishops through the corruption of archbishops and metropolitans. The ordination must be at the place of the prelate’s residence, and not at the kirk where he shall serve, nor in presence of the congregation:{4} then is the entrant forced, without any pretext of warrant from the kirk, to give his oath and subscription to articles of the prelate’s devising, for maintenance of his episcopal authority, even as the Pope doth in consecrating bishops and archbishops, for the establishing of his universal supremacy. When he is admitted, albeit for gifts and in all other respects he be worthy of double honour, far above the prelate himself, yet the prelate contemneth him and his brethren, as poor presbyters, with double contempt. Whereupon we see, that the prelates and others, by their example and doing, esteem not ministers for their worth and their work’s sake, but as they are in places of preferment, and as they are clothed with offices and titles of dignity above their fellows; and this, again, makes worldly-minded ministers to seek esteem by greatness rather than by goodness.

7. The PASTOR procureth the peace of the kirk by following after the things which make for peace; Romans 14:1-23; for by the discipline and assemblies of the kirk he preserveth verity, without which there is either no unity, or such unity as is but a conspiracy, and resisteth heresy, the mother of the greatest divisions. So long as our assemblies had their liberty, there could arise no heresy among us; if it had broken out in a parish, a consistory or presbytery would have borne it down; or if it had proceeded further, then the synod, or if it bad not been able, the national assembly, would have suppressed it. For the same reason the Kirk of France, which was nearest to ours, hath been free of heresy. In the low countries, if the kirks had enjoyed the liberty of their assemblies, which they wanted for a long time, Arminianism had neither troubled them nor their neighbours. He never can find in his heart to urge or enforce unprofitable and untimely ceremonies upon the kirk, if it were for no other cause but that they have been the apples of contention, and the cause of many schisms, and will choose rather, with Jonah, to redeem the quietness and safety of the kirk with tile loss of himself, than for his own particular ends to raise the smahest tempest that may peril her peace; he carrieth himself no otherwise in his miuistry than becometh the humble servant of the kirk, and feareth to be affected with Diotrephes’ ambitious humour of aspiring above his brethren, which is a special preservative of peace: he studieth to preserve holiness, without which there can be no sound nor wholesome peace; he is ever at war with that which is contrary to holiness, and sendeth away all scandalous livers with the workers of iniquity, that peace may be upon the Israel of God, Psalms 25:1-22. The PRELATE is accounted a peaceable man, and pretends always the peace of the kirk, but indeed seeketh his own peace and prosperity, and opposeth the things that make for peace; for, if it serve for his own particular end, he can overlook papists and heretics, and suffer heresy to rise and spread itself, that the kirk may have some other thing to think upon than his episcopacy, and may have himself to run unto, instead of assemblies: he careth not to make schism, and will fight with tooth and nail for unlawful and unprofitable ceremonies, which have ever proved the cause of schism, and, ere be redeem the kirk’s peace, by casting out these cumbersome wares, he will rather cast overboard many worthy ministers, suffer numbers of souls, for whom Christ hath died, to perish, and the kirk of Christ, tossed with troubles by occasion of that noisome baggage, to sink at last tinder the burden. Contention also cometh by his pride and ambition; for, first, great places make great emulation and hot competition, as may be seen in Christ’s own apostles, and history maketh known in many others what debate and contention, that war and bloodshed, prelacy hath brought forth in the Christian world, between kirk and kirk contending for primacy, prelate and prelate for presidency, pope and pope for papacy, between kings and bishops for sovereignty,—as between the Roman emperors and Roman bishops, the kings of England and the primates of England.{5}

8. The PASTOR contents himself with such a competent stipend as is assigned to him for his service, whereby he bath neither the means to swell in pride and wealth- nor matter of excess or superfluity. And as he hath but one body, so he undertaketh but one cure, where he must be resident, and one kirk-living, which, for fear of the censures of the kirk, albeit he would, he dares not dilapidate, but must leave the kirk patrimony in as good or better case than he found it at his entry. The PRELATE hath a lord’s rent out of the revenues of the kirk, which at the first was destined, and should be employed for better uses, and this he hath not for the service of the kirk, but partly for his unlawful attending civil affairs, and, partly, for bearing out a lordly port in himself, his lady, their children and followers. He uniteth kirks far distant to make the morsel the greater for his wide gorge: he alloweth and defendeth pluralities and non-residencies, by setting long tacks without knowledge or consent of the kirk, and by setting of few forms and taxwards he raketh up all, and stinteth the minister to a poor stipendiary portion of five hundred nierks; so that the most sacrilegious persons in the land are the bishops themselves,—eating the meat out of the mouths of many worthy pastors that labour in the Lord’s work. The Prelate’s objection.—The PRELATE will object, that there shall never be any form of kirk government or discipline which bringeth not with it some dangers and discommodities, and that that must be the best which hath the fewest. It cannot be denied but the episcopal government hath also its own inconveniences, whether we consider the salvation of souls, or the outward constitution of the kirk and worship of God, or the patrimony of the kirk; but the anarchy and confusion which ever attendeth the parity maintained by the pastor, is an inconvenience greater than all, and showeth plainly that the panty of pastors is neither of God, nor can serve for the good of the kirk; for God is not the God of confusion, but of peace, and most of all in the kirks of the saints. The Pastor’s answer.—The government and order appointed by Christ can have no danger, discommodity nor inconvenience but such as men bring upon it, and which, through the neglect or contempt thereof, they bring upon themselves. That, therefore, must be the best which is best warranted by Christ and approacheth nearest to the simplicity of the apostles and the discipline of their times. Malignant wits have ever been ready to lay imputations upon God’s ordinances,—as that his inward worship, according to the gospel of Christ, hath rio wisdom, that the outward bath no majesty, that his order of the kirk is but anarchy, because it is not a monarchy; but, as the natural phiiosopher seeth the order of nature to be full of beauty, and the wise statesman seeth the beauty of the order of a wise policy, so the Christian, when he seeth the order of the house of God, shall, with the apostle (Colossians 2:1-23) rejoice to seeit, and will prefer the beauty thereof to the wise government of the house and court of Solomon, as being appointed by a wiser than he; even Balaam, albeit disposed to curse, when his eyes were opened to behold this wise order and marvellous beauty, shall be forced to open his lips, and to say, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! For a house full of silver and gold I would not curse; for how shall I curse whom the Lord hath not cursed? or how shall Idefy whom the Lord bath not defied?” Numbers 23:24. And that there is no confusion in the parity maintained by the pastor, is manifest to him that desireth to see; for, 1st, Confusion hath no subordination for disposing of things, and setting everj thing in its own place. The parity maintained by the pastor hath a lawful subordination of elders to pastors, of deacons to elders, of a kirk-session to a presbytery, of a presbytery to a synod, and of a synod to a national assembly.

2nd, Confusion hath no priority in respect of precedency nor of order.

Parity of pastors so shunneth ambition, that it maintaineth a priority of precedency and respect for age, for zeal, for gifts, &c.,{6} and a priority of order, whereby one is moderator of others in all their synods and meetings, such as was amongst the apostles themselves, but without priority of power or jurisdiction above the rest.

3d, Confusion admitteth no commandment nor subjection.

Parity of pastor admitteth both; for every pastor conducteth his own flock, and every pastor is subject to a joint fellowship of pastors in presbyteries and synods.

4th, Confusion is abhorred, both by nature and by all societies, as their greatest enemy, which overturneth all where it hath place.

Parity of pastors hath the like parity both in nature and all sorts of society; for in nature one eye hath not power over another, nor one hand over another, nor one foot over another, only the head hath power over all. In the commonwealth and kingdom there is a parity without a priority of power or jurisdiction betwixt one baron and another, and betwixt one nobleman and another, and in all the collegial jurisdictions in the land under the king himself; in the world panty betwixt one king and another; in the Roman kirk equality betwixt one lord bishop and another, and betwixt two archbishops, patriarchs, &c.; and in the kirk of Christ, betwixt apostle and apostle, &c.; why, then, shall the divine parity of pastors be accounted a confusion?