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  PASTOR AND THE PRELATE
  by David Calderwood
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A comparison of Reformation and Conformity by the standards of God's Word,
church antiquity, the ancient Kirk of Scotland, and the welfare of souls.
Calderwood defends Presbyterian church government against the imposition of
prelacy.

  Chapters: 10

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 1. The Pastor and the Prelate
    2. 2. Introduction
    3. 3. Author's Preface
    4. Notes.
    5. Part I.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by the Word of God
    6. Part II.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by Antiquity, and the Proceedings of the Ancient Kirk
    7. Part III.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared in their Judgment and Practice about Things Indiff...
    8. Part IV.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by the Reformation and Proceedings of Our Own Kirk
    9. Part V.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by the Weal of the Kirk and the People's Souls
   10. Part VI.  The Pastor and the Prelate Compared by the Good of the Commonwealth and of our Outward ...

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  CHAPTER 1: 1. THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE
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THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE OR REFORMATION AND CONFORMITY SHORTLY COMPARED BY THE
WORD OF GOD, BY ANTIQUITY AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANCIENT KIRK, BY THE NATURE
AND USE OF THINGS INDIFFERENT, BY THE PROCEEDINGS OF OUR OWN KIRK, BY THE WEAL
OF THE KIRK AND OF THE PEOPLE’S SOULS, AND BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND
OF OUR OUTWARD ESTATE; WITH THE ANSWER OF THE COMMON AND CHIEF OBJECTIONS
AGAINST EVERY PART:

SHOWING WHETHER OF THE TWO IS TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN AND PATRIOT.
BY THE REV. DAVID CALDERWOOD, AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses . And they said, We are
witnesses.—Joshua 24:22 But,1 Kings 18:21, it is said, And the people answer him
not a word.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL AGNEW.

SOLD BY WM. S. MARTIEN, PHILADELPHIA; ROBERT CARTER, NEW YORK AND PITTSBURGH;
DAVID OWEN AND SONS, BALTIMORE.

1844.


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  CHAPTER 2: 2. INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION TO THE EDINBURGH EDITION OF 1844.

There are few events connected with the ecclesiastical history of Scotland more
interesting to the student of Church History than those which happened during
the greater part of the seventeenth century. The reformation from Popery was a
glorious and happy consummation of religious liberty and truth to the people,
who had so long been held in bondage and ignorance under the iron yoke of the
Romish Church, and there followed after that eventful epoch a season of
comparative rest and tranquillity to the Reformed Church. The Church of England,
although reformed in point of doctrine from the errors and corruptions of the
Church of Rome, still retained the rites and ceremonies of that
church,—ceremonies which were highly obnoxious to the Presbyterians of Scotland,
and which they looked upon with the utmost horror.

King James VI. during his minority, and at the commencement of his reign,
professed a strong attachment to the Presbyterian Church, and affected great
dislike to episcopacy; but, after his accession to the throne of England, the
splendid ceremonies of her church, and the flattery of her bishops, soon
captivated his mind and pleased his vanity. The strictness and severity of the
Presbyterian form of church discipline so annoyed him, that he determined to
bring the Church of Scotland into conformity with that of England, and, with
this view, resolved to place the Scottish Church under the dominion and
jurisdiction of bishops; but his tyranny met with the most firm and vehement
opposition, and he soon found he had to deal with men who were not afraid to
stand up resolutely in defence of their rights and liberties, and to uphold and
maintain the purity and simplicity of their church government against such
tyrannical innovations, and the whole period of the conflict was marked by
scenes of controversy, contention, strife and bloodshed. Among those who opposed
those oppressive measures of the king and the government, none were more zealous
in endeavouring to thwart them than the author of this treatise,— which is now
for the first time reprinted,—a brief sketch of the more prominent parts of
whose public life may not be uninteresting.

DAVID CALDERWOOD was born in the year 1575. Of his birth-place, parentage, and
early life, we have no means of correctly ascertaining. It has been stated that
he was by birth a gentleman, which, indeed, is very probable, as few, except
those in the higher ranks of life, received so liberal an education as
Calderwood appears to have possessed. Being early destined for the church, he
was sent to the university of Edinburgh to be educated for that end, where he
applied himself with great assiduity and attention to the study of Theology,
critical and practical, and devoted much of his time to the investigation of
Ecclesiastical History. Being possessed of talents of a very high order, he took
his degree of A.M. so early as 1593, and in 1604 he was appointed to a church in
Crailing, near Jedburgh, where, by his virtues, public and private, and his
faithfulness to his office, he gained the esteem and respect of all who knew
him.

Calderwood, during his labours in the parish of Crailing, manifested great
dislike to the episcopal form of church government, and few were more strenuous
in their efforts to maintain the purity of the kirk. With a view to reconcile
the minds of the people to the change intended to be imposed on them, the King
sent the Earl of Dunbar, Lord High Treasurer, down to Scotland, accompanied by
two or three ecclesiastics, in furtherance of that purpose. In 1808, when Law,
Bishop of Orkney, came endowed with the office of visitor to the presbyteries of
Merse and Teviotdale, Calderwood, along with George Johnstone, minister of
Ancrum, firmly and solemnly declined the bishop’s jurisdiction, and protested
against his authority,—information of which coming to the King’s ear, his
commands to the privy council were, that they should be punished in an exemplary
manner. Their punishment was, however, by the influence of the Earl of Lothian,
mitigated to confinement within the limits of their own parishes. In June 1617
Calderwood was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court, on the 8th
of July, at St. Andrews. He accordingly obeyed the summons and appeared at the
appointed time. The King himself attended, and entered into a long discussion
with him regarding the protestation, in which he used many arguments and threats
to bring him over to his own party, but he found Calderwood too firm and true to
his cause to be intimidated even by a kingly authority. He was then removed and
sent to the tolbooth of St. Andrews, but was afterwards brought to the jail of
Edinburgh. The privy council then ordered that he banish himself from the
kingdom before the following Michaelmas, not to return till it was the King’s
pleasure; and, on his giving security to that effect, he was liberated, and
allowed in the meantime to go back to Crailing, but was forbidden to preach.
Lord Cranston, who was his security, made an application to the King to have bis
punishment changed to confinement within his own parish; but without effect. He
then petitioned that his banishment might be delayed till the end of April
following, as the season was dangerous for a sea voyage, and also that he might
have time to get up his year’s stipend. The King replied, that “Howbeit he
begged, it were no matter, he would know himself better the next time; and, for
the season of the year, if he drowned in the seas, he might thank God that he
had escaped a worse death.” Cranston, however, being so eager in his
importunities, the King at last told him that he would advise with his bishops.
The time was thus delayed till the 29th of August, 1619, when he set sail for
Holland. In the meantime he had taken advantage of the delay thus afforded him
of writing a book called “Perth Assembly,” which was condemned by the council in
December following, when the author was fortunately out of the way. During his
exile in Holland he wrote several works of a controversial nature, and, among
others, appeared his celebrated treatise called “Altare Damascenum.” The title
of this work is founded on 2 Kings 16:10-11. It is one of great learning and
research, and gives a complete view of the question at issue between the
Presbyterians and Episcopalians, as to church government, discipline and
worship. It is said that King James, after perusing it, sat for some time
looking very pensive, and when asked by one of his bishops what ailed him, he
told what book he had been reading. “Let not that trouble your Majesty,” said
the bishop, "I shall soon answer it.” “Answer what, man?” replied the King.
“There is nothing here but Scripture, reason, and the fathers.” In 1624,
Calderwood returned to his native country, and remained privately a considerable
time in Edinburgh. In 1638 he was appointed minister of Pencaitland, in East
Lothian, and continued during the remainder of his, life to take an active part
in the ecclesiastical affairs of the period, and devoted himself to the
investigation and arrangement of all the memorials and decuments which could be
found connected with the history of the Church of Scotland. The General Assembly
of 1648 were very desirous that he should proceed with, and complete, his
History of the Church; and to enable him to carry on the work, they voted him
yearly a pension of eight hundred pounds Scots. He accordingly completed the
design, and has left behind him a work of great research and immense importance
and utility. There were four manuscripts left of this valuable work. One of them
is in the College Library of Glasgow; another is in the Advocates’ Libiary of
Edinburgh; a third was in the possession of the family of General Calderwood
Durham of Largo, but has now been presented to the British Museum; and the
fourth belongs to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.* An abridgment
of this work, called “The True History of the Church of Scotland,” was drawn up
by Calderwood, and printed in 1678, under the auspices of Mr. John Carstairs,
Mr. Robert M’Ward, and two or three others. In 1651, when the English army was
lying in East Lathian, Calderwood removed to Jedburgh. He had not been there
long when he took unwell and died, having ettamed his 76th year. He was a man of
undoubted piety and virtue, and was one of the greatest champions for the cause
of Presbyterianism the church could boast of. In learning and acuteness in
controversy, few in his time could equal him, which his works abundantly
testify. Besides his Church History, he wrote several other works connected with
the controversies of the times. The following is presumed to be a tolerably
correct list of them. They were mostly published anonymously, and printed in
Holland. The list is drawn up by the Rev. Thomas McCrie, and forms an appendix
to the Life of Henderson, by the late Dr. McCrie.

Perth Assembly, 4to., 1619;

Parasynagma Perthense, 1620; The Course of Conformity, 4to. 1622;

Defence of our Arguments against Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the
Sacramental Elements of Bread and Wine, impugned by Dr. Michelsone, Svo. 1620;
The Solution of Dr. Resolutus his Resolutions for Kneeling, 4to. 1619;

Queries concerning the State of the Church of Scotland, Svo. 1621; The Altar of
Damascus, l2mo. 1621;

Altare Damascenum, 4to. 1623; [This is an enlargement of the last-mentioned
work.] An Exhortation of the particular Kirks of Christ in Scotland, to their
Sister Kirk in Edinburgh, Svo. 1624; The Pastor and the Prelate, or Reformation
and Conformity shortly compared, &c. 4to. 1628; A Dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus
and Theophilus, Svo. 1620; The Speech of the Kirk of Scotland to her beloved
Children, Svo. 1620; A Reply to Dr. Morton’s General Defence of three Nocent
Ceremonies, 4to. 1623; A Reply to Dr. Morton’s Particular Defence of three
Nocent Ceremonies, 41o. 1623; An Epistle of a Christian Brother, Stc. Svo. 1624;
A Dispute upon Communicating at our Confused Communions, Svo. 1624; A
Re-examination of the Five Articles Enacted at Perth, 4to. 1636; The
Re-examination abridged, &c. Svo. 1636; An Answer to Mr. Forbes of Corse, his
Peaceable Warning, 4to. 1638. A very interesting and authentic memoir of
Calderwood is contained in Dr. Irving’s “Lives of Scottish Writers,” vol. 1, on
whose authority the last nine of the above-mentioned treatises are ascribed to
Calderwood.


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  CHAPTER 3: 3. AUTHOR'S PREFACE
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THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE. TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. For no other is this intended,
(not for him that readeth not, but casteth it by, or closeth his eyes lest he
see truth, judging of things controverted by his own conceits, or upon report,
and not upon trial; neither for him that is either so antichristian that he hath
not the patience to read one page written against prelates and their hierarchy,
or that is so unchristian that his earthly designs are his highest intentions,
and estoenieth all motions about religion, that cross him or comfort him not in
these, to be either seditious commotions, or nothing but idlements of
indifference,) but for him who, above all things, loves to see the truth, and,
above all things, loveth the truth, when he hath seen it, that is even for
thyself, Christian reader, have we entered into this comparison of the Pastor
and Prelate, and at thy hands do we expect the performance of two Christian
duties; one is for thine own good: That thou wilt labour with thine heart for
more feeling now than thou hadst faith at the first, when it was often foretold
from the word of God and the woeful experience of former times, “That this
transcendent hierarchy of lordly and lording prelates, brought in upon the kirk
of Christ without precept or example from himself would prove at last the ruin
of religion.” Now may be seen what was said before, that the government of the
kirk and the worship of God are like the twins spoken of by Hippocrates, and
that the one of them dwining away, and dying among us,{1} the whole face of the
other looketh pale, and pitifully proclaimeth (if the cry of our sins would
suffer us to hear), that religion herself is sick at the heart; for what is the
daily increase of old papistry, the spreading gangrene of new heresies, the
scoffing at holiness instead of imitating, the laughing at sin instead of
lamentation, but the inseparable effects of this prelacy, and the ordinary
practices of our prelates, the symptom of the sickness of Christian religion,
and the causes of this cloud of wrath that so long hangs and hovers above us.
Consider that (according to Bernard’s observation of these blind-winding stairs
that lead down to destruction){2} this hierarchy which in the beginning seemed a
weight so insupportable that they who took it upon them could not hold up their
faces for sin and for shame, did appear soon afterward, albeit heavy, yet
tolerable,—of heavy it became light, of light insensible, of insensible
delectable, and of delectable it is at last become a matter of glorying: that
which was a glory is become a shame, and that which was a shame is accounted a
glory. Of late ministers could not be found to fill the void places of prelacy,
now prelacies cannot be found to fill the void hearts of the ministers; so far
have we turned from that which we lately were, and in so fbw years, that that
which was nothinç else but a rope of disgrace is wonderfully changed into a
chain of pride. As thou lovest Jesus Christ and thine own soul, and would be
loath to communicate in all the sins, and to involve thyself into the guiltiness
of all the evils that this prelacy hath produced, take heed that thine cye be
not dazzled with the varnish and splendour that the world hath put upon it (for
in substance it is the same as it was at the beginning, and in the fruits hath
proved far worse than at the first was feared); labour to keep thy judgment
sound and affction sincere, still thinking of the painful pastor and the proud
prelate as they were thought on since the reformation, and praying to God, as
good men did of old, in the corrupt times of the kirk: that he would put to his
band and purge his vineyard; that he would whip buyers and sellers out of his
temple; that he would strike Gehazites with leprosy, and that he would bring low
such Simonites as now are so high, being lifted up by the ministry of Satan.{3}

Another Christian duty, Christian reader, we expect at thine hands for the good
of the kirk,—that whatsoever be thy place, higher or lower, farther or nearer,
unto his Majesty’s person, who gladly would acquaint his Majesty particularly
with the state of the kirk in his Majesty’s kingdom of Scotland, as what it was
once, what it might have been before this time, what it is become of late, and
what it is like to be ere long; but either cannot for want of occasion, or dare
not for awe of the prelates, whose courting is more to be feared than their
cursing,—that thou would do what thou may to make this following treatise come
to his Majesty’s hands; for we, his Majesty’s loving people of Scotland, who
both love his Majesty’s person and crown,{4}acknowledging the duty we owe, to
his Majesty, commanded in the first commandment after the first table, to come
nearest unto that religion and piety whereby we worship God himself, who neither
love schisms in the kirk,{5} nor witty reconcilements of truth and error, but
would keep the truth in peace; who neither are puritans, nor Brownists, nor
seditious, as men calumniate, but professors of the true religion as it was at
the first reformed among us; and as it hath furnished unto us all the hope that
we have of eternal happiness, we would show his gracious Majesty that, according
to the saying of Solomon, “When the righteous are in authority the people
rejoice,” &c.{6} Our hearts were filled with joy add our mouths with laughter
when, at the first beginnings of his reign, we did not only bear the fame of his
princely inclination to equity and righteous judgment, but did perceive the
noble proofs thereof in trying the truth of things controverted, while his
Majesty, with that worthy king, kept still one ear shut for the other party, and
with that wiser king, when he declared that the wisdom of God was in him to do
judgment, would have both parties to stand before him at once, that, hearing
both, they might speed best, and go out most cheerful from his Majesty’s face,
who had the best cause. By this we were confident that his throne should be
established, the nations swayed by his exalted sceptre, and our cause, which is
no particular man’s, but Christ’s own cause, should be heard at last, and
righteously determined, that every thing in the house of the God of heaven might
be done after the will of the God of heaven, than which there can be nothing
more reasonable, and which is the sum of all our desires. Our adversaries, upon
the contrary, out of the experience they find of his Majesty’s disposition to
equity, and out of the consciousness they have of the iniquity of the cause that
they maintain only because it maintaineth their greatness, have used all means
to prevent his trial, have stopped, so far as may be, all ways of information,
and, according to the crafty counsel given to Pericles, not being able to make
account, have done what they can that they be not called to account.{7}When
commissioners were to go to his Majesty they would have none but their own, and
when some that were not their own were chosen by a meeting of the kirk, they
would not have then; to go, which hath made us, after long waiting in silence,
and many essays to resolve in end, there being no other way left unto us, with
all submission of mind, to send up our Pastor and Prelate in print, who have
been impeded by the prelates to come together in person; neither can it offend
the prelate that the pastor speak the truth this one time for himself and the
prelate, since the prelate so many times hath spoken his pleasure for both. Our
silence and ceasing in the cause would give great worldly ease to ourselves, and
greatest contentment to our adversaries, who now cry nothing but Peace, peace,
that is, a peaceable possession of their honours and wealth and a cruel
oppression of their brethren, but withal would prove us to be unfaithfhl both to
our God and to our king;{8} for beside the obligation that is common to us with
other reformed kirks, we stand bound by solemn oath, covenant and subscription,
published in the world, to defend the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and
to oppose the hierarchy and all rites and ceremonies added to the worship of
God. Silence in such a cause may be sin to other kirks, but to us it is perjury
in the sight of God, and would also wove us unfaithful to our king; for
howsoever the prelates proless in public, “That no ceremony no bishop, no bishop
no king,” and do suggest in secret the service that they can do to monarchy,
they do but mind themselves and their own idol. That government of the kirk is
most useful for kings and kingdoms which is best warranted by the word of God,
by whom kings reign and kingdoms are established. The pillars of his Majesty’s
throne are of God’s own making, —religion upon the right hand and righteousness
upon the left The pomp of ceremonies and pride of prelacy are pillars
artificially wrought by the wit of man for setting up and supporting the Pope’s
tyranny, “No ceremony no prelate, no prelate no pope.” When his Majesty’s wisdom
hath searched all the crooks of this controversy, let us be reputed the worst of
all men, let us all be censured, silenced, confined, deprived or exiled, as some
of us are, and have been for a long time, if the cause that we maintain shall be
found any other but that we desire that God be served and his house ruled
according to has own will, and if it shall not be found that the kirk of God,
perfect in order and office bearers without prelates and their ce.emonies, may
be governed upon a small part of their great rents, with more honour to God,
with more hearty obedience to the king’s majesty, with greater riches and glory
to the crown, with greater contentment to the body of the whole kirk and
kingdom, greater peace amongst ourselves, and greater terror to Satan and all
his train of heresy, profane. ness and persecution, as we shall be ready to
demonstrate particularly, if this which followeth be not sufficient, whensoever
his Majesty shall be pleased to require; and which we are assured his Majesty
will perceive upon small consideration; for a mind inclined by divine power to
religion and piety will at first sight discern and be possessed with the love of
the heavenly beauty of the house of God, they both proceeding ftom the same
spirit God, all-sufficient, bless his Majesty, both in peace and war, both in
religion and justice, with such success as may be seen, even by the envious eye
of the enemy, to be from the finger and favour of God, and may he also make his
happy government to be a matter of congratulation to the godly, and to be
admired and remembered by posterity as the measure and example of their desires,
when they shall be wishing for a religious and righteous king. THE PASTOR AND
THE PRELATE.


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  CHAPTER 4: NOTES.
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FOOTNOTES

PREFACE {1} Perth Assembly, Preface.

{2} Quid non evertat consuetudo? quid non assiduitate duretur? quid non usui
cedat? Primum tibi importabile videtur aliquid, processu temporis, si assuescas,
judicabis non adeo grave, paulo post et leve senties, paulo post nec senties,
paulo post etiam delectabit. Ita paulatim in cordis duritiam itur, et ex illa in
aversionem. Bernard. ud Eugen.

{3} Expurga Domine vineam tuam sentibus undique et labruscis oppletam: fac ut
olim flagellum de funiculis et de templo tuo sancto nummularios expelle,
vendentes ejice, ementes exturba, cunctos impios mercatores, nisi pœnitentiam
egerint. Giezitas lepra percute, Simonitas alto volantes, Satanæque ministerio
in excelsum elevatos illide, ac dejice, &c. Nicol. Clemangis.

{4} Ephestion Φιλαλεξανδρος, Craterus Φιλοζασιλευς

{5} 1 Timothy 5:4.

{6} Proverbs 29:2.

{7} Pericle dicente, non invenire se quo pacto ministerii rationem redderet,
atque ideo conflictari: ergo inquit Alcibiades, quære potius quemadmodum
rationem non reddas. Valer. Max. lib 3. cap. 2.

{8}Si pacem non potost habere cum fratre nisi subdito ostendit se non tam pacem
cupere, quam sub pacis conditione vindictam. Hieron, ad Theop.

PART I.

{1} Polycleti regula ad reges. Lesbia regula ad aquitatem opus. Bodinus in
method.

{2} Jure divino disciplinam hierarchicam tuentur alli, alii jute humano tantum:
alit non jute divino, sed apostolico, alius, και αποστολικη κτισυ και πνεθματικη
Ηεσις, alii episcopalem majoritatem mutabilem contendunt, alii tuentur
immutabilern, ut ex Judo, Saravia, Hookero, Dounamo, Barleo, Bilsono, Bancrofto
Tileno, et allis hierarchicis satis est manifestum.

{3} Quid litigamue? fratres sumus. Non intestatus mortuus eat pater, fecit
testamentum, a sic mortuus cat et resurrexit. Tamdiu conteuditur de hereditate
mortuorum, quamdiu testamentum proferatur in publicum, et cum testamentum fuerit
prolatum in publicum, tacent omnes ut tabulæ apeniantur, et recitentur. Judex
intentus audit, advocati silent, præcones silentium faciunt, &c.—Augustine in
Psalms 21:1-13.

{4} 1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11

{5} Barnabas is called an apostle, Acts 14:4; Acts 14:14, because he was an
apostle as Paul was; Titus and other two, 2 Corinthians 8:23, and Epaphroditus,
Php 2:25, are apostles or meseengers of the kirks. Acts 20:28; Php 1:1; 1
Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7; where in the Syriac for the name of bishop is put the
word that signifies the elder, 1 Peter 5:1-2.

{6} Only Christ Lord in his own house, John 13:13; Hebrews 3:6; Matthew 20:25;
κατακυρισθειν κατιξουσιαζυν; but Luke 22:23, the simple word, κυριευειν, that is
denied to the apostles which was granted to kings, which the sons of Zebedeus
sought and for which the apostles did contend.

{7} Acts 15:2; Acts 20:17; Phillipians 1:1; l Peter 5:1.

{8}Kirks of Judea, Galatians 1:22; kirks of Galatia, Galatians 1:2; of Asia,
Macedonia, &c. ever in the number of multitude; as for Acts 7:38, it is apoken
of the whole nation of the Jews in the wilderness camping about the ark.

{9} 1 Timothy 4:14. Neither doth the apostle deny that to presbyters which he
did himself with them, and which he ascribeth to Timothy. 1 Timothy 5:22, 2
Timothy 1:6. Neither the prelate himself denieth the power of ordination to the
presbyter, but the exercise of the power which he arrogateth to himself: Ordinat
Deus per ecclesiam, ordinat ecclesia per presbyterium, ordinat presbyterium per
episcopos, et pastores suos; singuli conferunt in unum quæ sin sunt—Jun. animad.
1187

{10} Acts 15:6; Acts 16:4; Acts 20:28-29; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 1 Corinthians
14:32; 1 Corinthians 14:40; 1 Thessalonians 5:12; 1 Timothy 5:17; Titus 1:9;
Hebrews 13:17.

{11} Deciding of controversies, making of canons for order, or censuring of
offences.

{12} By Scripture no apostle hath power over another apostle, nor evangelist
over another evangelist nor elder over another elder, not deacon over another
deacon; but all are equal.

{13} Deuteronomy 33:8; Ezekiel 33:7; Zechariah 11:17; Matthew 23:9; Luke 9:59;
Luke 12:13; Luke 22:24; John 21:15; Acts 6:2; Romans 1:1; 2 Timothy 2:4.

{14} Matthew 6:7-9, &c.; Luke 11:1; Exodus 32:11; Numbers 14:13; Acts 2:5; Acts
16:16, &c.

{15} Acts 28:23; Romans 10:15; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 9:16; l Peter
4:11; 2 John 1:10; 1 Corinthians 3:12, &c.

{16} 2 Chronicles 29:25. Not in the synagogues, but at the temple. and for that
time of ceremonial worship. 1 Corinthians 14:19; 1 Corinthians 14:26; Ephesians
5:18-19; Colosians 3:16.

{17} Matthew 28:19, and all other places showing baptism to be a note discerning
Christians from Infidels. 1 Peter 3:21, and such places proving baptism to be a
sign of Christian profession. Matthew 3:1-17 the baptism at Jordan solemn, and
what was done privately by the apostles, as sometimes was in the infancy of the
kirk, which cannot now be a rule to us in a kirk constituted.

{18} Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23 : out of which,
compared together, the whole institution is to be learned, and not from the last
place alone, since it containeth not all things belonging to the institution,
Matthew 14:13; Luke 24:30; 1 Corinthians 10:1-33.

{19} Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:1-26; Deuteronomy 5:1-33; Numbers 15:32; Nehemiah
13:15; Isaiah 56:2; Isaiah 58:13; Joel 1:14; Psalms 110:3; John 20:16; John
20:26; Acts 2:1; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1; Galatians 4:9-10; Colossians
2:16-17; Revelation 1:10.

{20} Caranza proveth the necessity of the residence of bishops, by five places
of the Old Testament, by three out of the evangelists, and five out of the
apostolic writings; and how can he be a bishop, a shepherd, a watchman, &c.,
that is a non-resident?

{21} 2 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Timothy 3:2-8; 1 Timothy 4:12; 2 Timothy 1:13; Titus
1:6; Titus 2:7.

{22} 1 Timothy 1:19; Jeremiah 12:10; Jeremiah 23:1-5; Ezekiel 34:2-23 ;
Zechariah 11:15-17; 2 Peter 2:15-16; Jude 1:11; Revelation 2:14.

{23} κατα τα ιθη τας ακροασυς συμγαινυν. Dixit Arist. in Metaphys.

PART II.

{1} Licet Christus post cænam instituerit, et suis discip. ministraverit sub
utraque specie penis et vini hoc venerible Sacramentum: tamen hoc non obstante,
sacrorum canonum auctoritas et approbata consuetudo ecciesiam servavit et tenet,
&c. Carenza summa conc. Const. sess. 13. distinguitor a Juristis, ipsa primativa
ecclesia in primam et secundam.

{2} Whitgiftus Socratem Novatianum et Puritanum vocat. Saravia contra Bez. dicit
Hieronimum aperte Arianum ease, Dounamus contra omnes patres, negat Petrum Romæ
epiacopum fuisse, &c.

{3} Quales sunt, auctor libri, qui canoncs Apostolorum inscribitur, Clemens,
Romanus, Ignatius. Dyonisius, Areopagits, Egesippus, Dorotheus &c. De quibus,
Mortanus contra pontificios, Larvati isti auctores pueris terriculamento one
possunt, viris autem cordatis, ease ludibrio debent.

{4} Vitium malignitatis humanæ, ut vetera aemper in 1aude preaentia sint in
ftstidio. Tacit. Miraturque nihil, nisi quod Libitina sacravit. Horat. Nes nos
nani, nec illi gigantes, sod omnes ejusdem staturee et quidem nos altius evecti,
eorum beneficio, maneat modo in nobis quod in illis studium, attentlo animi,
vigilantæ et amor veri, quæ si absint, jam non nani sumus, nec in gigantum
humeros sedemus, sod homines instar magnitudinis humi prostrati. Ludov. vivis de
causis corrup. art. lib. 1.

{5} Mutato sacerdotio mutatur et lex. Hebrews 7:12. Ex figura communi, sine
exemplo, nihil concludi necessario potest. Jun. de pontif.

{6} Apost. et evang. primum officia, deinde duo extraordinaria, significant
officium apostoli et evang. continet in se officium presbyteri eminenter, sed
non formaliter officium autem episcopi hierarchici, nec eminenter, quia non
datur episcopatus extra apostolatum, quem contineat etninenter, sicut datur
presbyteratus.

{7} In gradum nemo successit apostolis et evang. in caput succedunt pastores
ordinarii.

{8} Intervalium illud ab ult. c. Act. apost. ad medium, Trajani imperium plane
cum Varrone αδυλον vocari potest. Joseph. Scalig. prolegom. in Chronicon
Eusebii.

{9} Ut hiatum expleret Euseb. εκ τοιν υποθεσεων, Clementis nescio cujus (non est
enim ille eruditus Alexandrinus ο στραματευς) και εκ της πυταγιγλου Hegesippi,
non melioris scriptoris sinc delectu, ea deprompsit. Idem.

{10} Who dare condemn all those worthy ministers of God that were never ordained
by presbyters, in sundry kirks of the world, at such times as bishops, in those
parts where they lived, opposed themselves against the truth of God. Field, book
iii, cap. 39.

{11} Paulatim quamvis patribus nihil minus cogitantibus, gradui episcopali
aditus humanitus apertus, per quem mox ingressa ambitio, gradum istam initio
quidem in Oligarchiam, ac tandem in horrendam illam Antichristianam tyrannidem
œcumenicam evexit, haud satis scio an unquam abolendam nisi semel sublatis
quibus eo ascendit gradibus, in ordinem divinæ institutionis redigatur. Ben de
grad. cap. 23.

{12} Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima, amara prius in nece martyrum,
amarior post in conflictu hereticorum, amarissima nunc in moribus domesticorum,
&c. Bern. super. Cant.

{13} Devotio peperit divitias, et filia devoravit matrem. Bern. supor. Cant.

{14} Olim fuerunt hignei calices, et aurei sacerdotes: nunc contra sunt aurei
calices et lignei sacerdotes, vulgo jactitatum.

{15} Olim habuisse Christianos obscura temple, sed lucida corda: nunc contra
habere lucida templa sed obscure corda. Et sequentia.

{16} Dr. Reynold’s letter to Sir Frands Knowles, concerning Dr. Bancroft’s
sermon, 1588, maketh this clear.

{17} Ætas parentum, pejor avis tulit noe nequiores, mox daturus progeniem
vitiosiorem. Horat.

{18} Ex his Ambrosii et Hieronimi constat primum, in ipsis ecclesiæ primordiis
nullos tales episcopos fuisse, quales postea instituti fuere, scilicet qui suo
jure reliquis e clero præessent; unde colligitur et non esse id ipsum a Christo,
a apostolis institutum: et (quando quidem in eccl. id sit optimum quod primum)
ecciesiæ fore consultius, ut omnes presbyteri pari censerentur et jure et gradu.
Secundo constat ne turn quidem, cum hic episcoporum a presbyteris distinctorum
ordo, sive gradus est censtitutus, fuisse episcopos tamquam monarchos, &c.
Chamier de œoumen. pontif lib. 18, cap. 5, sect. 6. Respondeo patrum
auctoritatem nihil efficere, ratio, quia non ostendunt nullum unquam tempus
extitisse cum essent episcopi pares presbyteris, sed tantum inæqualitatem esso
vetustissimam, ac vicinam apostolorum temporibus, quod nos ultro fatemur. Idem
Chamier, lib. 10, cap. 6, sect. 24.

PART III

{1} Exodus 10:6

PART IV

{1} Magnum est hoc Dei munus quod una et religionem puram και κυταξιαν doctrine,
tiz. retinendæ vinculum in Scotiam intulistis. Sic obsecro et obtestor hæc duo
simul retinete, ut uno amisso, alterum diu permanere non posse semper
memineritis. Sicut episcopi papatum pepererunt, itapseudo episcopos, papatus
reliquias, epicureismum terris invecturos: hanc pestem caveant, qui salvam
ecciesiam cupiunt, et quum illam in Scotia in tempore profligaris ne quæso illam
unquam admittas, quantumvis unitatis retinendæ specie, quæ veteres etiam optimos
multos fefellit blandiatur. Bez. epist. lxxix.

{2} Est mud ecciesiæ Scotanæ privilegium rarum præ multis, in quo etiam, ejus
nomen apud exteros fuit celebre, quod circiter anos plus minus 54 sine schismato
nedum heresi, unitatem cum puritate doctrinæ servaverit et retinuerit. Hujus
unitatis adminiculum ex Dei misericordia maximum fuit; quod paulatim cum
doctrina Christi et apostolorum disciplinam, sicut ex verbo Dei est prescripta
una fuit recepta, et quam proxime fieri potuit, secundum earn totum regimen
ecciesiasticum, fuit administratum. Hac ratione omnia schismatum, atque errorum
semina quam primum pullulare, aut se exerere visa sunt, in ipsa quasi herba et
partu sunt suffocata et extirpata. Det Dominus Deus pro immensa sua bonitate
Regiæ Majestati serenissimiæ, omnibusque ecelesiarurn gubernatoribus,
potestatibus ecclesiæ nutritiis, ut ex Dei verbo illam unitatem, et doctrinæ
puritatem perpetuo conservent. Amen. Corpus Confess. fidei, p. 6.

{3} King James’s Basilicon Doron.

{4} Books of Discipline.

{5} Anno 1566.

{6} Beza to Knox, 1571.

{7} To these the superintendents were subject by an Act of Assembly, 1562.

{8} Leith, 1571.

{9} Edinburgh, 1575.

{10} Dundee, 1580.

{11} Tranent, 1604.

{12} Perth, 1596.

{13} Dundee, 1597, May, and March following; Falkiand, 1598; Holyrood House,
1599; Montrose, 1600.

{14} Lintlithgow, 1606.

{15} February, 1610.

{16} Glasgow, Junej 1610.

{17} November, 1610.

{18} Aberdeen, 1616. St. Andrew’s, 1617.

{19} Perth, 1618.

{20} Edinburgh, 1621.

PART V.

{1} Salus populi suprema lox. eversa domo, interdum rei publicæ status manere
potest: urbis ruina, penates omnes secum trahat necesse est. Valer. Max., 1. v.
c. 6.

{2} As Christ’s real descent into hell, and many Lutheran, Arminian and popish
errors.

{3} Dignitatibus viros dandos, non dignitates hominibus dicere solitis. Æneas
Syl. Platina. Magistratus alios mereri et non habere: alios habere, et non
mereri. Ib.

{4} Presidentia non ex virtute sed mailtia æstimatur, non dignorum sed
potentiorum sunt throni, cathedra sine ullo acquiritur labore, et prelati sunt
qui nihil ad gradum præterquam velle, adferunt. Nazianz.

Si percunctari velles quis eos præfecerit, sacerdotes respondent mox, et dicunt,
ab archiepiscopo nuper sum episcopus ordinatus, centunique ei solidos dedi, ut
episcopalem gradum assequi meruissem, quos si minime dedissem, hodie episcopus
non essem. Ambros. citante Bulling. decad. 5, serm. 4.

Curritur ad curas ecciesiasticas, a doctis pariter at indoctis, quasi quisque
sine curis victurus sit, cum ad curas pervenerit. Bern. epist. 42.

{5} Sicut olim pestiferam illam bestiam, quæ per Ariam primo do infernis
extulerat caput, cupiditas episcopatus induxit: sic hodiernam hæresin (nimirum
pontificis Romani primatum) præcipue nutriunt, quos jam mendicare suppudet,
Æneas Syl.

{6} Distinguendum inter suctoritatem meriti et potestati.

PART VI.

{1} Isaiah 49:23

{2} Psalms 2:11

{3} Quomodo ergo reges domino serviunt in timore, nisi ea quæ contra juasa
domini sunt, religiosa severitate prohibendo atque plectendo? aliter enim servit
quia home est, aliter quia etiam rex est: quia homo est ei servit fideliter
vivendo, quia vero etiam rex est, servit leges justa præcipientes, et contraria
prohibentes, convenient rigore sanciendo sicut servivit Ezechias lucos, et
templa idolorurn, et illa excelsa quæ contra præcepta Dei fuerunt constructs,
destruendo. Sicut sertivit Josias talia et ipse faciendo. Sicut servivit rex
Ninevitarum universam civitatem ad placandum Dominum compellendo. Sicut servivit
Darius idolum frangendum in potestatem Danieli dando, et inimicos ejus leonibus
ingerendo. Sicut servivit Nebuchad. omnes in regno suo positos, a blasphemando
Deo lege terribili prohibendo. In hoc ergu serviunt Domino reges, in quantum
sunt reges, cum ea faciunt ad serviendum illi, quæ non possunt facere nisi
reges. August. epist. serm. ad. Bonifacium.

{4} Hostis Herodes impie, Christum venire quid times? non eripit mortalia, qui
regna dat cœlestia. Sedulius Hymn.

{5} Omne sub regno gravior, regnum est. Senec. Traged.

{6} Non tam numerorum simulacra inania, ant Solis et siderum immutabilis ratio
urbes et regna perdunt: quam impietas primum, deinde injustitia, et virtutum
expultrix luxuria. Dom. de la None. discurs. polit. 1.

Causas eversionis reipublicæ quærunt in ipsa republica. Arist. polit. 5. Bodin.
de repub. lib. 4. Daneus politi. cap. 5.

Και ασεζεστερους παριθεους, και ανοσιοτερους περι συγγενεις και αδικωτερουσ περι
τους αλλους, και ανανδρωτερους, περι τα υς τον πολεμον νυν η προσθεν
ανοδεδυχθαι. Xenoph. Cyropæd. 8.

Felix respublica esse non potest, stantibus mœnibus, ruentibus moribus. Chokier.

Hæc nisi urbe aberunt, centuplex murus rebus servandis parum eat. Plaut

{7} Ante omnia optandum principi ut pius videatur, non tamen ut sit. Oportet
principem semper adversarium in se alere, ut eo oppresso potentior videatur.
Religio animos hominum deprimit, sævitia subditos in officio continet. Tuta est
civitas qu dissidia et factiones nutrit. Machiav. de princ. et comment in
Livium.

{8} Alter Urbina tern, alter Mediolanensem Ducatum artibus Machiavellieis
invasit, et ad tempus tenuit, uterque Machiavellicæ politiæ exemplar
perfectissimum misere periit. Dune. path. præfat.

{9}Εις προς εν. Aristot. polit. 4.

{10}Nemo sapiens existimat se posse simul Æneam et Heotorem, Catonom, et
Scipionem in theatro civitatis agere. Cas. polit. lib. 2.

{11}Romani, Macedones, Lacedæmenii legem tulerunt, ut nemo duobus simul fungatur
officiis. Metiothus exercitium ducit, Metiothus viss curat, Metiothus furinam
tractat, Metiothus cunetis aliis præest, Metiothus itaque plorabit. Plutarch

{12} Hæc coercio ad Christi normam dirigitur, latenter primum et ainice, deinde
paulo acerbius: tunc nisi pares, sequitur interdictio sacrorum gravis et
efficax, interdictionem animadversio magistratus. Ita fit ut quæ legibus nusquam
vindicantur, illic sine vi et tumultu coerceantur, igitur nulla mendici, nullæ
ebrietates, nullæ saltationes, nulli mendici, nulli otiosi in ea civitate
reperiuntur. Bodin. de rep. Genevens. meth. hist. cap. 6

{13} Non est studendum ut plurimi sint in repub. magiatratus, sed ut quam
commodissime et optime gerant remp. ii qui erunt necessarii.

{14} Quales schola exhibet homines, tales habitura est respublica. Dan. polit.

Hinc major pars salutis vel corruptionis reip. pendet, et ex scholarum fontibus,
divini et humani juris præsidium vel expugnatio oritur; ibi enim discuntiar
prima literarum monuments, artes ingenuæ, mores, jura divina et humana, quæ
omnia permaxime interest incontaminata servati, &c. Greg. Tholos. lib. 13. cap.
3.

Plebeiis argenti, nobilibus auri, principibus gemmarum loco literas esse debere.
Æneas Syl. Platina.

Indoctus Episcopus asino comparandus. Idem.

{15} Possunt judicare, non possunt præjudicare, habent vim charitatis, non
habent vim authoritatus. Hugo de S. Victore de sacram. part 2.

{16} Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem et Dioclesianum, et
Julianum apostatam ac Valentem Arianum et similes, id fuit quit deerant vires
temporales Christianis. Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. 1. 5. c. 7. pessime sed ut
Hierarchicum decebat.

{17} Virtute decrescente crescit vanitas, et titulorum arrogantia; proverbium de
repub. Veneta cum usurparetur titulus, Domine, simpliciter, tunc facta est resp.
cum Domine stabilita est, Magnifice Domine, tunc eversa est.

Plebelos ex humili genere natos, si ad dignitates et honores pervenerint,
immemores suæ sortis, plerumque ambitione insolentes se efficere aliosque
deprimere conari constat: iidem multo insolentiores et propemodum
intolerabiliores magna cum jactura reip. esse solent. quam qui nobili, celebri
et vetere stirpe geniti sunt, ita ut veterum ille recte dixerit: Bajuli imperant
et mali sunt superiores bonis; metuo ne navem fluctus opprimat. Camer, cent. 2.
Μυποτι δουλευσασα γυνη δεοποινα γενοιτο. Epig. Graec.

{18} Fortiter ille tacit qui miser ease potest.

{19} Aliud est injusta potestate juste nile velle uti aliud est justa potestate
injuste velle uti. August de bono conjug. cap. 14.


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  CHAPTER 5: PART I.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WORD OF GOD
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PART I. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WORD OF GOD. The form of worship
and government to be learned from the Word.—What, then, is the Kirk’s part?—The
prelates agree not among themselves—They halt betwixt twa—They would make a new
ceremonial law.—The perpetual and due office-bearers in the kirk.—No difference
in Scripture between a pastor and a bishop.—No lord.bishop in Scripture.—No
bishop of bishops or pastors in Scripture.—Every pastor in Scripture bath his
own particular flock; none is without a flock, nor with a diocese.—Tbe pastor
hath power of ordination, which the prelate appropriateth.—The pastor bath the
power of jurisdiction, which the prelate usurpeth and appropriateth.—No such
majority of power of one pastor over another, as the prelate claimeth.—The
pastor meddleth not with matters civil, but the prelate is more in the world
than about Christ.—The pastor and prelate’s form of praycr.—Their
preaching.—Music.— Baptism.—Celebration of the Lord’s supper.—Observation of the
Sabbath.—Residence.—Life and conversation.—The presence and blessing of
God.—Objection, Bishops are warranted by the Word.— Answer, Showing that the
prelate hath no warrant in the Word and the manifold difference betwixt the
divine and diocesan bishop. That the worship of God, and the government of the
kirk, which is the house of God, are to be learned out of his own word, is a
truth against which the gates of hell shall never prevail. For we ought to give
this glory to God, that all his books are full, and written on both sides. As
the book of nature, the book of providence, and the book of conscience is
perfect, alsoihe Scripture, which is the book of grace, is perfect. We ought to
give this glory to the Son of God, that, as he is a perfect high priest for
reconciliation, he is also a perfect prophet for revelation, and a perfect king
and lawgiver for ruling of his own kirk and kingdom. We ought also to give this
glory to the Spirit of God, that as he purposed to set down a covenant, a
testament, and a perfect canon, so in fulness of wisdom he hath performed his
purpose. We ought humbly to acknowledge, that the kirk hath no power (whether by
translation of divine ordinances from the Old to the New Testament, under
pretext of piety, or by imitation of the enemy, seem it never so charitable, or
by man’s invention, let it appear never so plausible) to make new laws, or to
institute any new office or office-bearer, any minister, or part of ministration
in the house of God. But that it is her part to see the will of God obeyed, and
to appoint canons and constitutions for the orderly and decent disposing of
things before instituted.{1} We call here the prelates and pastors of conformity
to a threefold consideration. First, That they agree not among themselves about
the matters in question: some of them affirming that their hierarchy is
warranted by divine authority; others confessing it is only by ancient custom;
and a third sort defending neither of the two, but that it is apostolic.{2}
Again, some of them make the form of kirk government to be universal and
perpetual; others holding it to be conformable to civil policy, as if man might
prescribe unto God what form of government is fittest for his house: for that
which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. He that
hath the seven eyes seeth better in his own matter than man that seeth nothing
but by his light. Wisdom, that hath built her house, and hewn out her seven
pillars, cannot be content that man’s wisdom should devise and hew out the
eighth pillar. Secondly, they should consider, that the arguments and answers
that we give to them against their hierarchy and oeremonies, are the same that
they are forced to use in defence of the truth against the papists; and the
answers and arguments that the papists give them for traditions, for the pope’s
monarchy, and for their will-worship, they are forced to use against us in
defence of their cause: resting thus in their lukewarmness, and halting betwixt
two, for the love of the world; which hath made the papists to say, that the
prelates disputing against them are puritans, and while they dispute against the
puritans they are papists, and turn to their side. Thirdly, they should consider
that the form of government and divine ceremonies under the law, were not
removed to give place to the inventions of man under the gospel. What is beside
the particular precepts of God in Scripture is against the general commandment,
“Thou shalt not add to the word that I have commanded,” &c.; and therefore let
us say with Augustine, "We are brethren, why strive we? our Father died not
intestate, but made a testament, and died and rose again; the father lieth in
the grave without sense, and yet his words are in force; Christ sitteth in
heaven, and his testament is contradicted on earth,—let it be read,” &c. {3} Let
the pastor and the prelate be presented before the law and testimony; let the
authority of the one and the other be pondered,—not in the weights of worldly
avarice and ambition, but in the balance of the sanctuary; and let us measure
their callings and carriage, —not by the cord of the canon law, but by the
golden reed of the temple, and we shall soon see whether of the two hath warrant
from God.

1. The PASTOR acknowledgeth no offices in the kirk after the extraordinary of
the apostles, prophets and evangelists, but the ordinary of pastors, teachers,
elders and deacons, appointed by Christ, {4} as sufficient for the weal of the
kirk, and of every member thereof, in all things spiritual and temporal. The
PRELATE setteth up one hierarchy of archbishops and lord-bishops,—having for the
head the Roman antichrist, and for the train, suffragans, deans, achdeacons,
officials, &c., never named in Scripture, nor known in the purer times of the
kirk, against the weal of the kirk, and of every member thereof, both in things
spiritual and temporal.

2. The PASTOR, according to the Scripture, putteth difference betwixt the names
of the office bearers in the New Testament, never calling the ordinary by the
name of the extraordinary, nor the inferior by the name of the superior,{5} as
the pastor by the name of the apostle or evangelist; but never putteth
difference at all betwixt a pastor and a bishop,—making every pastor to be a
bishop, and taking the pastor and bishop always for one. The PRELATE maketh a
confusion of names, that he may put himself in the place of the apostle, as the
pope will be in the place of Christ; and, against all Scripture, will make so
great difference betwixt a pastor and a bishop, that he will have no pastor to
be a bishop, and that there be no bishop but the prelate.

3. The PASTOR can see no lord-bishop in Scripture, but the Lord’s bishop only, a
name of labour and diligence, and not of honour and ease. The PRELATE will admit
no other bishop but a lord-bishop, which he hath made a name of honour and ease
without labour or diligence.

4. The PASTOR is a bishop set over a flock, in respect whereof he is called a
bishop, and not in relation to other pastors.{7} The PRELATE setteth himself as
a bishop over pastors, and in respect of them is called a bishop, and not in
relation to any particular flock.

5. The PASTOR is set over a particular flock,{8} that may convene together in
one place, amongst whom he is to exercise the whole parts of the ministry,—as
preaching, prayer, ministration of the sacraments and discipline, according to
the trust committed to him by the Son of God, in whose name he is ambassador,
from whom he deriveth his power, on whom he depends in the exercise of his
ministry, and to whom he must be accountable, and to no other pastor or bishop.
The PRELATE both ordaineth pastors at large, without assignation of a particular
flock (as if he were either making masters of art and doctors of physic, or as
if ordination should go before election, which is as absurd as first to crown a
king, or install a magistrate, and there to choose him,) and setteth himself as
a proper pastor over a whole province, and over many kirks in divers provinces,
as well of those that he never saw, as of that where his seat is,—esteeming the
pastors to be but his helpers and substitutes; as having their power from him,
being obliged to render account to him, and whom he may continue and displace at
his pleasure.

6. The PASTOR, with his fellow-presbyters, as he is put in trust with the
preaching of the word and ministration of the sacraments, hath received also of
Christ the power of ordination of pastors, where presbytery,{9} never used in
the New Testament to signify the office of priesthood or order of a presbyter,
can be no other thing but the persons or company of pastors laying on their
hands, and that not only for consent, but for consecration, of which number any
one may pronounce the words of blessing. The PRELATE, for the honour of the
priesthood, that is, out of his ambitious humour, taketh the power of ordaining
pastors to himself,—denying that a whole presbytery without him may ordain a
pastor, excepting the case of extreme necessity, as women are admitted to
baptise; whereby in a manner he calleth in question the lawfulness of our
piinistry, these sixty years past, since the Reformation.

7. The PASTOR hath committed to him, by Jesus Christ, not only the keys of the
inward and private court of conscience, but also of the outward and public court
of jurisdiction,{10} for deciding controversies, making of constitutions, and
inflicting of censures, they being both but one and the same power of binding
and loosing. He hath the shepherd’s staff in his hand as well as the shephetd’s
pipe at his mouth. The PRELATE keepeth the staff in his own hand, and arrogateth
to himself, even amongst them who never heard him, all power of jurisdiction
(whether dogmatic, didactic, or critic, as it is distinguished,{11}) which the
apostles themselves, notwithstanding their extraordinary gifts, would never do,
but in all these parts of jurisdiction behaved themselves as presbyters.

8. The PASTOR findeth it to be so far against the word of God to claim any
authority over his brethren, that albeit there be a divine order in the kirk,
whereby there is one kind of ministry, both ordinary and extraordinary, in
degree and dignity before another, as the apostles before all others, the pastor
before the elder and deacon, yet he can find no minister, ordinary or
extraordinary, that hath any majority of power over other inferior ministers of
another kind,— as the pastor over the elder and deacon, far less over other
ministers of the same kind, as the pastor or bishop over the pastor.{12} The
PRELATE findeth it to be so far against his place to quit his authority over his
brethren, that albeit he hath no warrant for any other kind or degree of
ministry than the pastor, yet he usurpeth majority of power over pastors, and
taketh upon him both direction and correction; and that not social, but
authoritative, to beat them at his pleasure.

9. The PASTOR is separate from the world to the kingdom of Christ, which is not
of this world:{13} he will not be called gracious lord, nor strive for the right
hand or the left; he should not follow the pomp of the world, but must shine in
knowledge, diligence, and godly simplicity; he may not assume another
ecclesiastical office, far less take upon him a secular charge; he may not
divide the inheritance, nor burden himself with worldly affairs. The PRELATE is
separate from the kingdom of Christ, and thrusteth himself into the throng of
the world, he would be called My Lord, and Your Grace; and, without respect of
age or gifts, preferreth himself to the most reverend pastors: he robbeth the
nobility and magistrates of their places and dignities, and will have his
cushion, his coach, and his courtly train: he is a lord of parliament, of
council and session, a baron, a steward, a judge of civil and criminal causes;
and why not bishop of the order of the garter, and count palatine, that at last
he may have both swords and the triple crown, as the Abimelech-like brambles of
the world have done before.

10. The PASTOR taketh the sum and forms of prayer from the directions of God,
from the Lord’s prayer, and from the prayers of the godly in divers places of
Scripture, the particular arguments and petitions from the present purposes,
persons, places, times, and occasions, which, as the mouth of the congregation,
according unto the grace given unto him from the Holy Ghost, he presenteth
before the throne of God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ.{14} The
PRELATE would tie the pastor, (albeit he had the tongue of an angel,) and
occasions never so contrary, to certain words, and a set form of liturgy, and
would divide the prayer betwixt pastor and people, and by many idle repetitions,
would bring both pastor and people under the guiltiness of vain babbling and
popish superstition.

11. The PASTOR thinketh it the principal part of his ministry to labour in the
word and doctrine, because woe is unto him if he preach not the gospel. And when
he preacheth he will have God’s word only to sound in his own house,—reading
nothing but the canonical text, and comparing scripture with scripture for
edification, that he may save himself and those that hear him. The PRELATE
thinketh of preaching as accessory, and would have it worn out of use by a long
dead liturgy. In reading he would have no difference betwixt the Apocrypha and
the canonical Scripture, and liketh best such sermons as are stuffed with
philosophers, poets, orators, schoolmen, and ancients in Greek and Latin, that
he may preach himself, and be admired of those that hear him.

12. The PASTOR loveth no music in the house of God but such as edifieth,{16} and
stoppeth his ears at instrumental music, as serving for the pedagogy of the
untoward Jews under the law, and being figurative of that spiritual joy
whereunto our hearts should be opened under the gospel. The PRELATE loveth
carnal and curious singing to the ear, more than the spiritual melody of the
gospel, and therefore would have antiphony and organs in the cathedral kirks,
upon no greater reason than other shadows of the law of Moses; or lesser
instruments, as lutes, citherns, or pipes, might be used in other kirks.

13. The PASTOR ministereth baptism in the place of the public assemblies of
God’s people,{17}—it being a note of our Christian profession, and a
protestation of our faith, and therefore should be celebrated publicly, as well
as ordination of ministers, excommunication, confession of converts, or
reconciliation of penitents. The PRELATE hath given place to private
baptism,{18} and thereby entertaineth the superstitious conceit of the necessity
of baptism, bringeth in the absurdity of conditional baptism, and maketh a ready
way for private persons and midwives to baptise.

14. The PASTOR, as the words of the institution prescribe, and after the example
of Christ and his apostles, hath a table prepared for the celebration of the
Lord’s Supper: he sitteth down in a public communion with the congregation, in
the most customable and comely form of sitting, far from all danger of idolatry;
when he hath given thanks, he breaketh the bread sacramentally; when he
delivereth the elements he uttereth the words of promise, This is my body, this
is my blood, demonstratively; the people distribute the bread and cup among
themselves lovingly; they eat and drink in such measure as they may find
themselves refreshed sensibly; and as before the action they were prepared by
diligent examination and powerful sermons, for trying themselves, so in the time
of the action their ears and their hearts are filled with pertinent readings and
pithy exhortations, and, after the action, dismissed with joy, with strength,
and with spiritual resolution, to the great honour of God, the enlargement of
the kingdom of Christ, the terror of antichrist, the peace of the kirk, and the
unspeakable comfort of their own souls. The PRELATE pretending the words of the
ninety-fifth Psalm, and, after the example of antichrist and his followers, hath
turned the table into an altar-like cupboard,—the table gesture of sitting into
the adoring gesture of kneeling (with no better excuse of idolatry than is
expressed in the obscure term of abstractive ab objecto, and objectum a quo
significative),—the public communion into a private action betwixt him and the
communicant,—the sacramental breaking into a preparative carving before the
action,—the enunciative words of the institution into a form of a prayer or
oblation,—the Christian distribution into a steward-like partition,—the
refreshment of eating and drinking into a pinched tasting,—the preparatory
examination and preaching into a schismatical disputation about kneeling and
sitting,—the spiritual exhortations in the time of the action, either in a dumb
guise and comfortless deadness, or in a confusion of the readers reading, and
his own speaking at the giving of the elements, both at one time,—and the
spiritual joy, strength and resolution after the action, into tenors of
conscience in some, the opinion of indifference in all matters of religion in
others, and of looseness of life in many, to the mocking of God, the re-entry of
antichrist, rending of the kirk, obduring of the papist, stumbling of the weak,
and grief of the godly.

15. The PASTOR thinketh it no Judaism nor superstition, but a moral duty to
observe the Sabbath.{19}

Because, first, the observation of one day of seven, albeit it be positively
divine, yet it is not ceremonial nor for a time, but unchangeable, and obligeth
perpetually, as is manifest by the time when it was appointed before the fall,
when there was no type of redemptiou by Christ, and by numbering it among the
ten precepts of the moral law, written by the finger and proclaimed by the voice
of God, which cannot be said of any changeable law. Neither can it be called
perpetual and moral in this sense, that a certain time is to be allotted to
divine worship; for then the building of the tabernacle and temple, the new
moons, and other legal festivities, containing in them a general quity, might as
well be accounted moral. Secondly, the change of the Sabbath from the last to
the first day of the week is by divine authority, from Christ himself, from whom
it is called the Lord’s day, who is Lord of the Sabbath, who did institute the
worship of the day, and rested from his labours that day, whereon all things
were made new by his resurrection, and sanctified it, even as in the beginning
God rested from all his works on the seventh day, and blessed it. He thinketh it
no more contrary to Christian liberty than it was to Adam, in his innocence, to
keep one of the seven, and therefore he laboureth to make the Sabbath his
delight,—observeth it himself— and by his doctrine, example and discipline,
teacheth others to do the like; and to cease not only from all servile works
which require great labour of the body, but from all our own works whatsoever,
drawing our minds from the exercises of religion, and serving for our own gain
and commodity, except in the case of necessity, caused by divine providence. He
would have it well considered wherein the Jews were more strictly obliged than
Christians, and what liberty we have that they had not. Beside the Sabbath he
can admit no ordinary holidays appointed by man, whether in respect of any
mystery, or of difference of one day from another, as being warranted by mere
tradition, against the doctrine of Christ and his aposs ties, but account.eth
the solemn fasts and humiliations unto which the Lord calleth, to be
extraordinary sabbaths, warranted by God himself. The PRELATE, by his doctrine,
practice, example, and neglect of discipline, declareth that he hath no such
reverend estimation of the Sabbath. He doteth so upon the observation of Pasche,
Yule, and festival days appointed by men, that he preferreth them to the
Sabbath, and hath turned to nothing our solemn fasts and blessed humiliations.

16. The PASTOR findeth that every part of his office, and every name whereby be
is called in Scripture, doth call upon him to be personally resident,{20} and
where he resideth, to be a terror to the wicked and a comfort to the godly. The
PRELATE either waiteth upon council, session, or court, or dwelleth so far from
his charge, that the speech of Caranza (proving the necessity of the personal
residence of bishops), may be applied to him: “He is a bishop, but without
overseeing,—an ambassador, but runneth where his errand lieth not,—a captain and
soldier, but far from his station,—a father and steward, but suffereth the
children to perish for want of food.” Or if he happen to be resident, his
lordship is a protection to the papist, to the carnal professor, and to the
idol-minister and idle-belly, and such a vexation to the vigilant pastor, that
he had much rather he were a non-resident.

17. The PASTOR must be so unblameable, that he have a good testimony of them
that are without,{21} he must rule well his own house, having his children in
subjection, with all gravity, not accused of riot, or unruly. He must be sober,
not given to wine; he must not be greedy of filthy lucre, nor covetous; he must
not be a brawler, a striker, or fighter. The PRELATE mocketh at conscience,
gravity, sobriety, modesty, patience, painfulness, &c., and calleth them
puritanising.

18.—The PASTOR laboareth to keep faith in a good conscience, and, by the
blessing of God upon his labours; findeth the increase of the gifts of God in
his old age, and the grace of God growing in the hearts of the people.{22} The
PRELATE, by losing a good conscience, maketh shipwreck of faith, and by the
curse of God upon his sloth and defection, may find himself like Balaam, who
seeking horns did lose his ears—that is, seeking preferment he lost the gift of
prophesy, and may see grace decayed, and worn out of the hearts of the people.
The Prelate’s objection.—The PRELATE will object, notwithstanding all the evil
that hash been said;, or tbat ye can say against him, that the name, the
calling, the power, and the life of the bishop, is set down in the Word. The
Pastor’s answer.—The question is not of the bishop, but of the prelate or
diocesan bishop, whether he be the divine bishop. Haman could think upon no man
but himself, when the man was named whom the king would honour; even so the
prelate imagineth no other bishop to be spoken of in Scripture but himself. And
as Alexander the great took Jupiter’s ominous salutation, ω παιδιον, [O child or
babe,] for ω παι Διος [O son of Jupiter,]{23} even so in the prelate’s ambitious
ear, every word of a bishop sounds honour unto him. But the truth is, that the
pastor, and not the diocesan bishop, is the bishop divine.

1. The diocesan bishop is but one, in a diocese, over many kirks. The divine
bishops may be many in one city, and over one kirk.

2. The diocesan bishop hath a form of ordination of his own, different from the
ordination of the pastor. The divine bishop hath no other but the ordination of
the pastor.

3. The diocesan bishop preacheth at his pleasure, and is not obliged to preach
by the nature and necessity of his calling. The divine bishop is bound by his
calling to preach with all diligence.

4. The diocesan bishop hath no particular congreation for his flock, to feed
with the word and sacraments. The divine bishop is tied to a particular flock.

5. The diocesan bishop is, for the greater part, a secular person. The divine
bishop is a person merely ecclesiastical.

Therefore the diocesan bishop is not the divine bishop, neither doth the word of
God acknowledge any diocesan kirk, or any prelate or diocesan bishop charged
with the care of many particular congregations, and having majority of power to
direct and correct other pastors.


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  CHAPTER 6: PART II.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED BY ANTIQUITY, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANCIENT KIRK
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PART II. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY ANTIQUITY, AND THE PROCEEDING OF THE
ANCIENT KIRK.

Antiquity, and the primitive kirk, the fathers of two sorts—The maintainers of
conformity forget themselves about antiquity three ways.—The pastor is not older
than the New Testament, the prelate would fetch his prelacy from the Old
Testament.—The pastor, and not the prelate, warranted by Christ.—The pastor, and
not the prelate, warranted by the apostles—The pastor keepeth his place and
authority in the primitive kirk, when the prelate beginneth to work, and to be
constant moderator, or perpetual president—The pastor seeketh no honour but by
his doctrine and life; the prelate forsaketh this way, and taketh him to the
world.—The pastor witnesseth for the truth, in the time of defection, which is
wrought by the prelate, perverting all after he is once entered.—The pastor
complained of that which he could not mend, and the prelate persecuted them that
complained—The pastor desired, and urged a reformation, which, by all means, the
prelate refused.—Objection, The Christian kirk, fbr three hundred years, had
such bishops as we have now.—Answer, Showing, in many particulars, the
difference between the primitive bishops and our prelates, who are like unto the
Roman bishops, in the most corrupt times.

We reverence the hoary head and name of antiquity, but, withal, we know that
there is antiquity of truth and antiquity of error, and therefore would make
difference betwixt original antiquity, or that which was from the beginning, and
of the first institution and antiquity of custom, or that which is of long
continuance. They that take themselves wilfully to custom, against the first
institution, resolve, not unlike the Council of Constaiice, when they set down
their blasphemous act, Non obstante.{1} We do not disregard the practice of the
primitive kirk after the apostles, especially it being compared with the ages
following, but would have it, in comparison of the apostolic kirk, to be
esteemed but derivative, as which admitted many changes, from better to worse,
both in doctrine and discipline. We honour the fathers, but so that we give the
first honour to the Father of fathers, besides whom we have no father—to his Son
Jesus Christ, the only prophet, whom we should hear—to the Holy Ghost, who only
teacheth us the truth, and to the Holy Scripture, which only carrieth their
divine authority. Wishing all that are studious of the truth, in the point of
the controversy in hand, to take notice of these two things: First, that the
maintainers of conformity many ways forget themselves in the matter of the
authority of the fathers, for albeit they daub us with the fathers, the
ancients, and all antiquity, yet they themselves will not hear the voice of the
fathers in their disputes, whether against papists, whom they answer with the
same exceptions against the fathers which we bring in this cause against them,
or in their disputes with us, when the fathers make against them;{2} and, thus,
while they profess that they honour the fathers, they do but mock them,
sometimes putting upon them the purple robe of authority, and at their pleasure
pulling it off again. Next, they forget themselves in this, that albeit they bow
that the witness and not the testimony, is to be believed, they allege,
notwithstanding, some counterfeit, some corrupted authors, and some late
schoolmen,{3} for the ancient fathers, against us. Becanus, Calvin, Beza,
Martyr, Juell &c., bring them against the papists, who deny not their authority.
And, thirdly, they disregard the order of divine dispensation in the course of
time, not without ingratitude to God for his gifts, and to good men for their
labours, by profaning the meanest, that carrieth the name of antiquity,{4} unto
the worthiest instruments of that blessed work of Reformation, who had, above
all that went before them, many great helps of the languages of human literature
and of printing, and to whom many secrets were made known by the accomplishment
of prophecies, espe. daily concerning the antichrist, who, being conceived in
the apostles’ times, was brought forth and brought up unwittingly by the
fathers, who looked for the antichrist from another quarter, which maketh them
to be incompetent judges in the matter of hierarchy and ceremonies thereof. The
Romanists themselves, who profess to be the greatest ibvourers of the ancient
fathers, are forced to blush at many of their gross and shameful absurdities,
and to confess, that many things that were of old either doubtful or altogether
unknown, are now to the meanest become dear and certain. Some of them have
exploded it as an impertinent similitude, that we, being compared to the
ancients, are as dwarfs upon the shoulders of giants. The other thing that we
would have the studious reader to take notice of is this, that of the prelates
and maintainers of conformity seeking the fountain of antiquity, and uncertain
where to find it, some go back to the Old Testament, to bring the prelate’s
pedigree from thence; some would bring his descent from Christ; some from the
apostles; and a fourth sort from the primitive kirk. But before they get a sight
of their own prelate in his pomp, in his power, and in his busk of ceremonies,
they must go farther down the stream, till they come in sight of the antichrist,
and there they shall see him not far off, waiting on, as may be apparent by this
which followeth:—

1. The PASTOR acknowledgeth the difference of the kirk and ministry of the Old
and New Testaments; seeketh neither type nor pattern of his office from the
Levitical priesthood, but bringeth his oldest warrant from Christ and his
apostles, and exponeth the ancients, as Jerome and others, who insist on the
similitide of the ministers of the Old and New Testaments,{5} as speaking by the
way of allusion, and not from any warrant of divine translation. The PRELATE,
searching the fountains of Nuns, would bring his descent as high as from Levi,
as if the chief priests, who had no episcopal authority over their brethren,
were turned now into prelates; the inferior priests into pastors; and the
Levites, who had no proper care of the poor, were changed into our deacons. He
bringeth the ancients to reckon this genealogy, but with such success as the
sons of Habaiah had, when they failed in reckoning their line from Aaron, and so
proved unworthy of the priesthood, Nehemiah 7:63-64.

2. The PASTOR hath an ordinary and perpetual office appointed by Christ, but the
office of the apostle end evangelist was extraordinary, and to continue but for
a time. So that howsoever antiquity useth the words of apostle and bishop amply,
calling the apostles bishops, and bishops or pastors apostles, and suecenon to
the apostles, yet neither is the one kind of office compatible with the other,
nor can the one properly be said to succeed the other, so different are they, as
well in respect of charge as of gifts and discharge of duty;{6} for the superior
doth not only do that which the inferior may not do, but his manner of doing of
that which is common to both, is far higher and more eminent. The PRELATE,
repelled by the office-bearers of the Old Testament, seeketh to enter with his
directive power and jurisdiction among the ministers of the gospel, but with
like success. For a pastor and doo tor, his power over pastors and doctors
suffereth them not to be. He urgeth to be taken in with the apostle or
evangelist, and to be esteemed successor to them,{7} but his office and theirs
is not compatible; for formerly their office was extraordinary and without
succession, and materially his office is not contained in their offices, as is
the office of a pastor; there being no example in Scripture, without the office
of apostle or evangelist, of such power as the prelate claimeth. Whether his
life and form of ministration be apostolical, all that know him may discern.

3. The PASTOR, and not the prelate, is the first minister (by the prelate’s own
confession) whom the apostles appointed in kirks when they first planted them.
The pastor, and not the prelate, is the minister whom the apostles in their time
did approve; and the pastor, and not the prelate, is the last minister to whom
the apostles, when they were to remove, or were near unto death, did recommend
the care of the kirks; and therefore the pastor, and not the prelate, is the
minister warranted by the apostles. The PRELATE, denied of Christ, would father
himself upon the apostles, and finding no warrant from their doctrine or
practice in Scripture, albeit the Acts of the apostles contain the history of
many years after Christ’s ascension, he seemeth to be sure of the ecciesiastioal
history recorded in the apostles’ times,{8} and by apostolic institution, a
begun succession of bishops in Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, &c. But he
also be standeth without, because the bishops of those places were either
apostles, and therefore could not be properly bishops, or else ordinary pastors,
of no greater place nor power, except for age and gift, than other presbyters
labouring with them. Such were Linus, Clemens, Cletus, Anacletus,—fellow
presbyters at Rome at one time,—one of them living some space after another;
and, to show the order of succession from the apostles against heretics who
urged it, they were numbered as if they had not lived at one time; and in the
line of succession were called bishops by Eusebius, and others after him,
agreeable to the corruption of their own times,{9} when now men had, of their
own head, put a difference betwixt a bisbop and a pastor, and not according to
the purity of the primitive times, of which they did write, when a pastor and a
bishop was one and the same.

4. The PASTOR is the divine and apostolic bishop, of the lawfulness of whose
calling and power in the primitive kirk, after the apostles, there was no
question. The pastor by consent of antiquity, (when now, by human wisdom, the
constant moderator was brought in and called the bishop) had right and power,
not by grant, but by his office, not only to preach the word, minister the
sacraments, and use the keys in binding and loosing the conscience, but also,
with the fellow presbyters, to ordain ministers,{10} and in the presbyterial,
provincial, and national assemblies, to decide controversies, to make
constitutions, to inflict censures, even upon bishops, and, by his pastoral
authority, to do all things necessary for the edification of the kirk; and this
right and power, that God gave him, he maintained in some kirks in the most
corrupt times, when now antichrist was set in his chair, and prelacy, for the
most part, of human was become satanical. The PRELATE, holden at the door by
Christ and his apostles, after their times, by the ambition of some pastors and
simplicity of others,{11} when he had long hung on, got in the foot to be
constant moderator; but not finding entry at the first for his great head, made
up of sole ordination, of monarchial jurisdiction, of civil power, worldly pomp
and superstitious ceremonies, he hideth his mitre in the mystery of iniquity,
going on with it foot for foot, and draweth in, by fraud and force, one limb
after another, till at last, after many ages and much working (for he attained
not to the degree of an archbishop till after the Council of Nice) he showeth
himself lord in the house of God, having no more of the first institution of a
bishop, than the ship Argo had of her first building, when, after her
expedition, she had lain at a full sea some hundreds of years, or the beggar’s
cloak, patched with many clouts and colours, that hath passed through some
generations, which he, it maybe, makes more of than of a parliament robe of the
first shaping.

5. The PASTOR, as became the humble servant of Christ and a minister of the New
Testament, procured and maintained the dignity and true honor of his ministry,
by holding forth the glorious light of the gospel in his doctrine, and the
shining light of holiness in his conversation; esteeming the preaching of the
glad tidings of peace to be the beauty of ministers, and righteousness their
robe and ornament The PRELATE took him to the contrary course for his credit,
and transformed the beautiful simplicity of Christ’s kingdom into the glory of
the kingdom of the world. Albeit when he was of his old stamp his greatest
dignity was his chair, and faithful teaching the flower of his garland, yet now,
degenerating from his flrst sincerity, and being infected with secular smoke, he
came to the east in the mould of the first beast. His chair gave place to his
consistory and throne. His jurisdiction and government, honoured with the title
of pre-eminence, carried all the credit. Teaching, as a base work, was given
over to the petty presbyters, and every office in the kirk was counted a dignity
worthy of honour, less or more, as it had more or less jurisdiction annexed; as
those are more or less honourable in the commonwealth, that have more or less
civil authority; and thus prelacy came up, and preaching came down, and the kirk
became more worldly than the world itself.

6. The PASTOR, when all was going wrong, some raising contentions, others gaping
after honours, the brains of many being big with heresies, all given to heap up
superstition and atheism; end the prelate, with his popish hierarchy, possessing
both the holy city and outward court, he then gave testimony to the truth, kept
still the temple, and, withih the temple, kept in the light, as two olive trees
growing up by the sides of the candlestick, and dropping down from the branches
oil into the lamps, for the comfort of such as Jehovah-Shammah had chosen for
life, and would save from the deluge of defection. The PRELATE, once possessed
into the kirk, never ceased till he had changed the kirk into a court; power
ecclesiastical into civil policy; the Scripture into tradition; the truth into
heresy; sincerity into superstition; the worship of God into idolatry—as the
worship of images, saints and bread-worship; the pure ordinances of God into
masses, altars, images, garments, fasting, and follies of Paganism and Judaism,
like a smoke out of the bottomless pit, growing grosser and thicker every day;
and, in the midst of the mist, built up his greatness upon the ruins not only of
the kirks, but of the commonwealths of the world; for when the stars of heaven
fell into the earth, the mountains and islands were moved out of their places;
and as this unhappy wilt swelled big in the body with wealth and honour, the
life of religion became faint, the princes and nobles of the earth, like the
noble parts in the body, decayed, and the meaner ones, like the hands and feet,
withered away. The Pope’s felicity was the whole world’s misery, and so was the
prelate’s to several nations and provinces.

7. The PASTOR, and with him the godly of the time, wearied with long opposition,
poured out their heavy complaints, that the grief of the kirk was more bitter in
peace than either under persecution or heresy:{12} that she had brought up and
exalted her sons, and they had despised her. If a professed here. tic should
arise, she could cast him forth of her bosom; if a violent enemy, she could hide
herself from him; but now, whom could the kirk cast out, or from whom shall she
hide herself? All are friends, and yet all are enemies; all are domestics, and
yet none seek her true peace, for all seek their own things, and not the things
of Jesus Christ. They are the ministers of Christ, and serve the antichrist. He
complaineth that devotion had brought forth riches, and the mother had devoured
her daughter:{13} that of old the bishops were of gold, and the cups of wood,
but now the bishops have changed their metal with the cups:{14} that of old,
Christians had dark kirks but lightsome hearts; but now, lightsome kirks and
dark hearts:{15} that the prelates Inquired what rent the bishopric rendered,
and not how many souls were to be fed in it: that their bodies were clad with
purple and silk, but they had threadbare conscierwes: that their care was
greater to empty men’s purses than to extirpate their vices: that when they
consecrate a prelate, they kill a good man by advancing him: that no greater
evil could be wished to any man, than that he be made Pope: that in the estate
of the kirk, heaven is below and earth is above; the spirit obeyeth, and the
flesh commandeth: that in the mouths of the prelates was the law of v!tnity, and
not the law of verity; aud that the lips of the priests under them, kept
secular, and not spiritual knowledge; and when he searched the causes of the
kirk’s misery, he condescended upon the neglecting of Scriptures and
multiplication of men’s inventions; the ignorance and idleness of prelates, like
dumb dogs that could not bark,—their covetousness above the Pharisees’. They
suffered doves to be sold in the temple, but these sell both kirk affd
sacrifice. Their pride and ambition declared in their great horses, and other
superfluous pump, and that, as sons of Belial, they have cast off the yoke, not
enduring that any shoultask them, why they do so and so: the unequal proportion
seen in the kirk, when one is hungry and another dtunk; some so enormously
overgone in riches and pomp, that the weakness of the rest is not able to bear
them. The PRELATE, still mad of avarice and ambition, stood upon the four
corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth that they should not
blow, and opposed himself against the doctrine and complaint of the
pastors,—condenining them for heretics, giving out against them decrees of
corrupt councils, thundering them with anathematisms, and persecuting them by
fire and sword. He punished the clergy under him more severely for the neglect
of a ceremony than for sacrilege or adultery; and finally, lest his fraud and
falsehood should be known, he forbade all men the reading and using of the holy
Scriptures.

8. The PASTOR, and all good men that longed and laboured for the Reformation of
the Christian kirk, for the space of five hundred years, as the Waldenses,
Marsilius Patavinus, Wickliffe and his scholars, Husse and his followers, and
all such as the Lord used for instruments in working the Reformation, as Luther,
Calvin, Brentius, Bullingerus, Musculus, &c., did teach that all pastors are of
equal authority by the word of God, and all that space of time urged this point
of reformation, as without which no success could be expected in the reformation
of the doctrine and worship.{16} The PRELATE knowing (as it was often preached
and written all that time of five hundred years) that the main cause of the
corruptions of the kirk was his own place, his pride, and his avarice, and that
the desired and urged reformation of the kirk, which was now brought to that
pass, that as one says well, she could neither bear her own disease nor yet
sudden remedy, behoved to begin at himself, the greatest bile in all the body,
by all means held off reformation as his own ruin; and when several nations were
bringing it about, he could never be moved to give his consent, so dear was his
mitre and belly unto him. The Prelate’s objection—The PRELATE will confess, that
it were better to have no bishops than such monsters as the Roman kirk brought
forth, but prideth himself in antiquity, and affirrneth that the Christian kirk
in all places, for the space of three hundred years after Christ and his
apostles, bad bishops in every thing like himself, and that afterwards the
shepherds became wolves. The Pastor’s answer.—That which Tertullian in his time
said unto the Gentiles, may be replied to our prelates,— "Ye boast of antiquity,
but your daily life is after the new fashion.” Mr. Phantastico at Athena,
whensoever he perceived any ships entering into the harbour, strongly
apprehended that they were his own, and used to seize upon them, as if they had
been his own indeed. So deal our prelates with the ancient bishops, they come no
sooner in their sight, but they take them for their own, albeit they be very
unlike unto them, for were they living, they would blush and be ashamed that
such should be called their successors; as Angelo, the famous Italian painter,
portrayed Peter and Paul, for the use of a cardinal at Rome, with red and
high-coloured faces, showing thereby that if they were living, they would blush
at the pomp and pride of the prelates of that time. Our prelates are rather of
the late Roman cut, and not so like unto the primitive as unto the popish
bishop’s who, comparing themselves with others before, and ours now come
.afteitheth, might say with the poet:{17} Our parent’s age, worse than their
predecessors, Math brought us forth more wicked, their successors;

Ere it be long, if we continue thus, We will brihg forth a brood more vicious.

1st, For the primitive bishops (after that the name of bishop, common to all
pastors, began to be inape propriate) were neither ordained by bishops nor
metropolitans, but only chosen by pastors, to be their constant moderators, or
perpetual presidents, but without warrant from God or his truth.{18} Our prelate
must first, by a simulate form of election, be made my lord elect, and then
receive a new consecration, with a new guise of ceremonies drawn from the Roman
pontifical, as little known to pure antiquity as the words themselves of
ordination, consecration, &c.

2d, The primitive bishops, looking more to the beauty than dignity, suffered
violence, and were constrained, by pastors and people, whether they would or
not, to receive the charge. Our prelate, when the bishop is an old man, then he
standeth diligently and learneth fast, but only how to make credit at court, and
when after long expectation the place is void, by posting, promising, and
propining, he procureth himself to be chosen, first without the knowledge, and
then against the will both of pastors and people.

3d, The primitive bishops knew not such a creature as was designed afterwards by
the proud name of an archbishop, who should be a bishop of bishops, having power
over comprovincial bishops, his suffragans. Our prelate prideth himself in this
proud title, and will have one and the same creature to be metropolitan
archbishop and primate, that what he may not do as metropolitan, he may do as
archbishop, and what he may not as archbishop, he may as primate, and as another
pope.

4th, The primitive bishop was in the presbytery, like the consul in the
senate,—as first among the prosbyters, he moderated in their meetings, reported
matters previously done, and asked the voters what they concluded: he saw it
executed upon others, and was subject to it himself. Our prelate, in the
presbytery, will be like a king in his council, and thinketh his authority no
less without the presbytery than with it; and what the synod may do with the
archbishop, that he may do without the synod.

5th, The primitive bishops dwelt so near together, that six of them convened in
a cause that concerned an elder, and three for a deacon. In a synod they
convened in great numbers. Privatus was condemned by ninety bishops. Against
Novatus were convened eighty-four bishops. In some synods two hundred and
seventeen; in some two hundred and seventy. Our prelate spreadeth his wings over
several hundreds of kirks, lying in divers provinces, wide as Merse, Lothian,
Fife, Angus, Mearns, &c.

As, therefore, our prelate was shown before not to be the Lord’s bishop,
authorized by Scripture, so is he not man’s bishop, made up - in the primitive
times of the kirk, but the same that we had before the Reformation, the same
with the Italian, Spanish, or French prelate under the Pope, and the same with
the anti-christian prelates in the most corrupt times of the kirk, especially
the last five hundred years; excepting his subordination to the Pope, by which
exception our princely prelate is made greater than the popish; and what was
written of the popish prelate in those times, is now again reverified of ours,
as of their civil offices and advocations:

Vintoniensis armiger, Præsidet ad scacarium;

Ad computandum impiger, Piger ad evangelium Sic lucrum Lucam superat, Marcam
marco præponderat Et libræ librum subjicit.

Some bishops metropolitan Preside at the Exchequer; For counting he’s a busy
man, To preach the gospel slacker.

Lucre worth is more than Luke, And merks tban Mark weigh better;

He sets the pound above the book, And cares not for the matter. Of their zeal in
urging ceremonies upon others, while they failed in substance themselves, the
old poem called Asini Prenitentiarius, wherein the wolf confesseth himself to
the fox; and the fox to the wolf, and both are absolved; but the poor ass,
trusting to his innocence for absolution, was condemned to die by the other two,
for no other cause but that, in his extreme hunger, he had been so profane as to
eat the straw garters of a religious pilgrim.

Immensum scelus est injuria, quam perigrino Fecisti: stramen surripiendo sibi.

Non advertisti, quod plura pericula passus, Plurima passurus, quod peregrinus
erat?

Non advertisti, quod el per maxima terræ

Et pelagi spatia sit peragranda via?

Totius ecciesiæ fuerit cum nuncius iste, Pertulit abstracto stramine damna viæ.

Cum sis confessus, cum sis couvictus, habes no Quo tales noxas occuluisse qucas?

Es fur, ignoto cum feceris hoc peregrino:

Scis bene, fur quali debet honore mori.

How great a sin were this to thee A pilgrim poor to wrong;

Hadst thou not mind what dangers he Had travelled far among?

Couldst thou not think that he, dull ass, B’hov’d pass through sea and land;
That nunce of holy kirk he was, Running at their command.

Thou hast confess’d, convinced thou art, Nothing thy crime can hide;

Thief, thou didst eat his straw garters, Death shall thee now betide.


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  CHAPTER 7: PART III.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED IN THEIR JUDGMENT AND PRACTICE ABOUT THINGS INDIFF...
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PART III. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED IN THEIR JUDGMENT AND PRACTICE ABOUT
THINGS INDIFFERENT.

Many controversies and contentions about things indifferent—The pastor resteth
not in the estate of a kirk that is indifferently good, but would be at further
reformation; the prelate inclineth to defection.—The pastor thinketh not that
indifferent which doth good or evil to the people’s souls; the prelate
accounteth that indifferent which doth neither good nor evil to his worhily
estate.—The pastor thinketh nothing indifferent that is warranted by the word;
the prelate every thing that is not fundamental.—The pastor findeth the
direction for ceremonies to be as perfect under the gospel as it was under the
law; but the prelate addeth unto it as if it wee irnperfect—The pastor
appointeth no new thing in the worship of God; but the prelate is a new
lawgiver.—The pastor is so limited that he thinketh nothing to be in use
indifferent; but the prelate accounteth that to be preciseness and
puritanism.—The pastor feareth to give offence in things indifferent; but the
prelate is bold and scandalous.—Objection, None but puritans are precise in
matters indifferent.—Answer, Distinguishing between two sorts of precisians or
puritans.

Besides the speculations of the schoolmen, divided amongst themselves in their
subtleties about things indifferent, which work mightily upon men’s wits, but
more weakly upon their affections than to make any great division, there hath
been much ado in the kirk since the beginning about adiaphorisms and things
indifferent.

First, In the infancy of the Christian kirk the heat and the contention was
great betwixt the converted Jews and Gentiles, about the keeping of the
ceremonies of the law, which before were commanded, afterwards were forbidden,
but in that tract of time were in a manner indifferent, concerning which we find
that the apostles never imposed them upon any people or person that judged them
unlawful, that they thought that every man should be persuaded in his own mind,
and should do nothing against or without the warrant of his conscience; that by
alt means scandal should be avoided, as that which bringeth wo upon him by whom
it cometh, and destruction upon him upon whom it cometh; and many such rules of
conscience and Christian prudence, which serve to the kirk for direction in
matters indifferent, to the coming of Christ.

Secondly, There was great business about ceremonies, and things called
indifferent, in the infancy of the reformed kirks, in the time of the interim,
when, with so great power and persecution, the Romish corruptions were forced
again upon them, under the name of indifference. At that time, politics and
worldly men, more careful of their own wealth than of God’s truth, gave
themselves to serve the time, and received all that was obtruded under the said
cloak of indifference. These were accounted friends to Augustus. Others of great
gifts and esteem in the kirk wished from their beans that these ceremonies had
never been urged, yet thought it a less evil to admit some thing in the external
part of God’s worship, and thereby uniformity in religion with their enemies,
than by stoical stiffness, as they called it, and an obstinacy to provoke
authority, and thereby to bring upon themselves banishment, and upon kirk and
commonwealth desolation. Such men, looking more to unity than to verity, and
more to the event than to their own duty, were called prudent, wise and peace
able men. A third sort, setting aside all sophistication, and clashing with the
enemy, taught plainly by word and writ from Scripture, and not from the grounds
of policy, that when any part of God’s worship is in danger, that then, for the
honour of God, confirmation of the truth, and edification of the kirk,
confession is necessary. “He that confeseeth not me;" “He that is ashamed of me
before men,” &c. They taught that it was not lawful to symbolize with the enemy;
that in the case of confession the smallest ceremonies are not indifferent; that
at such times the kirk should stand fast to her liberty against such as would
bring her into bondage; that yielding to such ceremonies was a great scandal,
—it being a returning to the vomit, the patching of an old clout upon a new
garment,—and making ,the weak to think that the reformation of the kirk was not
a work of God, but of man; that the untimely change of ceremonies was a show of
defection from the whole reformation; that when the enemy urgeth uniformity, his
intention should be looked to, because he never rests, but proceeds from the
corruption of outward worship to corrupt the doctrine, and to leave nothing
sound. Men that taught after this manner were accounted, by the former,
politicals, and by peaceable formalists, to be contentious spirits and troublers
of the peace of the kirk.

Thirdly, Albeit the reformed kirks agree for the most part in the general about
the nature and use of things indifferent, yet they go fhr asunder in the
application of the general to their particular practices. The Lutheran kirks
hold some things for indifferent which the kirk of England receiveth not; and
England holdeth a multitude of ordinances about discipline and ceremonies for
indifferent which we take to be unlawful and beside the word: every kirk
judging, or at least practising, according to their own measure of reformation.
All crept not forth of that Roman deluge equally accomplished. No marvel that
some of them should smell of the wine of fornication wherewith they all for so
many years were drunk. But obstinacy against the incoming light, and the
refusing of, a further degree of reformation is fearful; what is it, then, to
draw others back from the reformation, and to bind them up again into their old
chain of darkness! These manifold contentions about things indifferent, and
ceremonies, have proved so pernicious, by defacing the kingdom of Christ,
setting up the tyranny of antichrist, dividing pastors, offending people,
dismembering the kirk, and almost putting out the life of true piety, that we
may truly say, Nothing hath proved less indifferent to the kirk than the
contentions about things indifferent; and many have been more hot for them than
for the heart of true religion, because they concern the face of the kirk, and,
as Erasmus said in another case, “the crowns and bellies of kirkmen.” Whether
our old pastor or new prelate hath here the greatest guiltiness will appear by
this little that followeth:

1. The PASTOR ever feareth defection, and still urgeth reformation, till every
thing be done in the house of God according to the will of God. He accounteth
the constitution of a kirk that is but indifferently good, or midway betwixt
idolatry and reformation, to be but like the lukewarmness of Laodicea The
PRELATE pleaseth himself in this, that there be many kirks in worse case; he
reeteth in his indifference and lukewarmness, and rather inclineth downward to
further defection, than aimeth at any higher reformation; like the priests of
Samaria, that were as earnest against the true worship at Jerusalem, as they
were against Baal and his idolatry.

2. The PASTOR looketh not to the world, but to religion, in matters of religion,
and therefore thinketh not that indifferent in religion, which bringeth
spiritual good or evil upon the kirk and the souls of the people, albeit that in
their worldly estate it doth them neither good nor evil. The PRELATE esteemeth
many things indifferent in religion, because they bring neither good nor evil to
his worldly estate, albeit they do good or evil to the kirk, and to the souls of
the people, and looketh more to the World than to religion in matters of
religion.

3. The PASTOR acknowledgeth three degrees of matters of faith; some to be of the
foundation at first principles of the doctrine of faith; some to be near the
foundation, as the conclusions clearly blowing upon the former; and the third to
be of all other matters warranted by the word; and what is of this third rank,
were it never so far from the foundation, and never so small in our eyes, not to
be a matter indifferent, but to bind the conscience, and to be a matter of
faith. The PRELATE profeseeth the first and second to be matters of faith, but
when he cometh to the third, he esteemeth them to be no matters of faith, but
indifferent; and wondereth that a wise man shonid be so precise and puritanical,
as to stand upon matters that are not fundamental, but indifferent. For so he
distinguisbeth, making every thing either fundathental or indifferent.

4. The PASTOR, comparing the worship of God under the gospel with the worship
under the law, findeth that the commandment, Deuteronomy 12:32, “Every word that
I command you, that ye shall observe to do; thou shalt not add unto it, neither
shall ye diminish from it,” doth equally concern both: that the mind of man, if
left to itself, would prove as vain and foolish under the gospel as under the
law, and that Jesus Christ was faithful as a son in all the house of God, above
Moses, who was but a servant; and therefore, albeit the ceremonial observations
under the law were many, which was the burden of the kirk under the Old
Testament, and ours be few, which is our benefit, yet the determination from
God, in all the matters of his worship, he fladeth to be all particular; the
direction of all the parts of our obedience to be as clear to us that now live
under the gospel, as it was to them that lived under the law. The PRELATE, as if
either it were lawful now to add to the word, or man’s mind were in a better
frame, or the Son of God was not so faithful as Moses the servant, or as if
direction in few oeremonies could not be as plain as in many, would bring into
the kirk a new ceremonial law, made up of translations of divine worship, of
imitations of false worship, and of inventions of will-worship, to succeed to
the abolished ceremonies under the law, which he interpreteth to be the liberty
and power of the Christian kirk in matters indifferent, above the kirk of the
Old Testament, but is indeed the great door whereby himself and others, (strange
office-bearers, whereby days, altars, vestures, cross, kneeling, and all that
Romish rabble’s shadow,) have entered into the kirk of Christ, and which will
never be shut again till himself be shut out, who, while he is within, holdeth
it wide open.

5. The. PASTOR giveth no power to the kirk to point other things in the worship
of God, than are appointed already by Christ, the only lawgiver of his kirk, but
to set down canons and constitutions about things before appointed, and to
dispose the circumstances of order and decency that are equally necessary in
civil and religious actions, and thereibre resolveth, first, that nothing
positive, or that floweth merely from institution, can be indifferent, or can be
appointed by the kirk; secondly, that reason may be given from Christian
prudence, why things are appointed by the kirk thus, and no other way; and
thirdly, that the constitutions of the kirk about things indifferent, cannot be
universal for all times and kirks, and therefore cannot be oncluded upon any
moral or unalterable ground, which made the ancients to observe, that albeit
Christ’s coat had no seam, yet the kirk’s vesture was of divers colours; and
that unity is one thing, and uniformity another. The PRELATE, as a new lawgiver,
will appoint new rites and mystical signs in the kirk, that depend upon mere
inititution, and are not concluded upon any reason of Christian prudence for
such a time and place, but upon grounds unchangeable, and therefore obliging at
all times and places, as is evident by the reason that he bringeth for fesval
days, kneeling in the sacrament, &c.

6. The PASTOR distinguisheth betwixt the nature and use of things indifferent,
and confesseth with all the learned, that albeit many actions be in their nature
indifferent, yet that all our actions in particular (at least such as proceed
from deliberation, which is the exception of some of the schoolmen) are either
good or evil, and not one of them all is indifferent, in matters most
indifferent, which obligeth him to seek a warrant from God for that which he
doeth, that he may do it in faith, to walk circumspectly, to take heed to his
own words, gestures, &c., and to do all that he doth to the glory of God. The
Paztsrz abhorreth this doctrine as the foundation of puritanism, the restraint
of his licentiousness, and the ruin of his monarchy; and, therefore, to the
contrary, sinneth with a bold conscience, and maketh the people to sin, some
with erring, some with doubting, and some with a contradicting conscience.

7. The PASTOR giveth ear to the Holy Ghost, charging that we put no occasion to
fall, nor stumbling-block before our brethren, (for that is to destroy bim for
whom Christ died) commanding the strong to bear with the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please themselves with the neglect of their brethren; and
threatening wo to them by whom offences come—against which no authority of man
can stand, because it can necher make scandal not to be, nor not to be sin, nor
not to be his sin that giveth the scandal The PRELATE, stopping his ear against
the commandment, charge, and threatening of the Holy Ghost, whether he intend to
give scandal or not, by his manifold abuse of things indifferent, and especially
by receiving into the kirk again things called indifferent, which, for their
great abuse, were abolished, giveth offence to all sorts; as the boldness and
increase of papists, the contempt and mocketh of the profane, the superstition
and perplexity of the simple, and the grief and crosses of the godly do declare,
against which he never had any excuse but the pretext of authority. The
Prelate’s objectione. The Prelate will still object, that ye were more wise to
quit the name of conscience in matters so indifferent, as the controverted
articles and others of that sort be, than still to talk of conscience,
conscience, and that ye are but a part of puritans, that are so precise and
singular beyond your neighbours in matters indifferent The Pastor’s answer.—The
Prelate, persuading to put away conscience, is not unlike the fox, who, through
his evil guiding, having lost his tail, would have persuaded all his neighbours
to part with theirs, as an uncomely and unprofitable burden, that all being like
himself, his deformity might no more am pear. A good conscience would please God
in all things, in substance and ceremony, but with due proportion. It first and
most standeth at camels, and yet I next it straineth at gnats, when the light of
God’s truth makes them discernible. When he calleth us presicians, he is quite
mistaken; for he that is so self-precise that he will rather part with the
purity of God’s worship, and a good piece of the truth too, than want a
compliment of his lordly dignity, or piece of his worldly commodity, or dish of
his delicacy; and not he that is so precise in the matters of God’s worship,
(wherein he hath no power to be liberal), that he will forsake all to follow
Christ: be and no ocher is the right precisian. He calleth our pastors and our
professors puritans, and consequently heretics; but, blessed be God, cannot name
their heresy. They are still in profession that which he was not long since,
when he was farther from heresy than he is now. This calumny constraineth us to
distinguish betwixt two sorts of puritazs; the one is the old heretical puritan,
who, from the author of his sect, was called Novatian, and from his heresy,
Catharist or Puritan—such a one our pastor is not, for, 1st, The puritan denied
the baptism of infants. The pastor waiteth on baptism, as a special part of his
calling, which the prelate doth not.

2d, The puritans had their own prelates, and liked of prelacy. The pastor in
this is no puritan, but the prelate the puritan.

3d, The puritan condemned second marriage as unlawful. The pastor maintaineth
the honour of marriage against the puritan, the papist, and the prelate’s
manifold matrimonial transgressions.

4th, The puritan denied reconciliation, in some cases, to penitents. The pastor
would be glad to seethe prelate’s repentance, notwithstanding his great
defections, and that in the time of peace, without the least essay of
persecution; and, thereibre, our pastor is not a puritan. The other sort is the
new nicknamed puritan in our times, wherein the papist calleth it puritanism to
oppose the Roman hierarchy; the Arminian accounteth it puritanism to defend
God’s free grace against man’s free will; the formalist thinketh it puritanism
to stand out against conformity; the civilian, not to serve the time, and the
profane thinketh it essential to the puritan to walk precisely, and not to be
profane,—and so essential is it, indeed, that if all were profane there would be
no puritan, for the profane and the puritan are opposed. He then is the new
puritan that standeth for Christ against antichrist, that defendeth God’s free
grace against man’s free will, that would have every thing done in the house of
God according to the will of God, (which is his greatest heresy,) that seeketh
after the power of religion in his heart (and this is his intolerable
singularity,) and that stands at the staff’s end against the sins of the time
(and this is his pride); and thus, after this way that the world calleth heresy,
serveth he the God of his fathers, who have all been puritans of this stamp
since the beginning. Abel, who was hated for his holiness; Enoch, that walked
with God; Noah, that was a perfect man in his generation; Heber, that made
Peleg’s name a testimony that he was free of the building of Babel; Moses, that
stood upon an hoof;{1} Mordecai, that would not bow his knee; Daniel, that would
hot hold his window shut; Eleazar, that would not eat one morsel; Paul, that
would not dispense with one hour, nor with an appearance of evil; Marcus
Arethusas, that would not redeem his life with the giving of an halfpenny to
idolatry; Caius Sulpithis, who was ever esteemed by the pagans a good man, but
that he was a Christian, &c., were they living at this time they would not
escape this censure, and would be accounted good men if they were not puritans.
The widow of Sarepta who entertained Elijah,—the Shunammite, the hostess of
Elisha,— Hannah, who, for multiplying prayers and pouring out her heart before
God, was rashly censurdd to be a daughter of Belial,—Anna, the widow that served
God with fasting and prayer night and day, and spake of Christ,—the godly women
that waited on Christ, ministered unto him of their substance, and told the
apostles of -his resurrection,—Lydia, that constrained the apostles to abide
with her,—Lois and Eunice, that had a care that their children should have
grace,—the elect lady, the famous Hildgardis, who lived in the twelfth
century,—Mechthilcles, Elisabeth the German, and many more who censured the
corruptions of the kirk, and especially of the prelates of those times, and
prophesied of the Reformation, which they longed to see, were they now living,
would be censured for holy sisters and doting puritans, and that the rock and
spindle had been fitter for them. Can any man or woman be vexed with the filthy
conversation of the wicked, 2 Peter 2:1-22; be stirred up in spirit against
idolatry, Acts 17:1-34; be hot in religion, Revelation 3:1-22; fervent in
spirit, Romans 12:1-21; walk precisely, Ephesians 5:1-33; fear an oath, make the
Sabbath his delight, Isaiah 58:1-14; love the brotherhood, 1 Peter 2:1-25; take
the kingdom of God by violence, Matthew 11:1-30; and keep a good conscience in
all things, Acts 24:1-27, and not be made the drunkard’s song, the by-word of
the people, and mocked for a puritan? It was the saying of Petrarch, "Simplicity
carrieth the name of foolishness, malice the name of wisdom, and good men are so
mocked that almost none can be found to be mocked.”


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  CHAPTER 8: PART IV.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED BY THE REFORMATION AND PROCEEDINGS OF OUR OWN KIRK
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PART IV. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE REFORMATION AND PROCEEDINGS OF
OUR OWN KIRK. The discipline and government of the kirk at the first began to be
reformed, and the prelate to be cast out.—The pastor proceedeth in this point of
reformation and the prelate in his avarice and ambition.—At last prelacy is
rooted outt with consent of the whole kirk—The kirk, now reformed in doctrine
and discipline, useth her authority against all sorts of sin till men of
episcopal disposition make a new division again.—The pastor standeth to the
reformation against episcopatus, which the prelate attaineth to at last by many
degrees and much working—The way of the pastor’s reformation, and the prelate’s
defection, very contrary.—The pastor beareth witness against the several degrees
of defection, and feareth a change in the worship of God, which the prelate
entereth upon so soon as the government is altered, and he come to his
power.—The pastor resolveth to be constant to the end against all heresy aad
corruption, which is entering every day by the prelate’s
misgovernment—Objection, The superintendents in the beginning were
prelates.—Answer, Showing particularly that the superintendents were not
prelates. As no family or civil society where the fundamental laws are
neglected, and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life are followed, can continue long except it be reformed, even so the kirk of
God, through the disregard of the laws of God and direction of Scripture, and
through the ambition and covetousness of kirkmen, did fall away so far from the
first integrity that there was a necessity of reformation, and nothing more
certainly looked fin, and more plainly foretold, a long time before any of our
reformers, or Luther himself, came into the world. This reformation, that could
no longer be delayed, was often urged, but never likely to be obtained in a
general council, nor with consent of the clergy and court of Rome, to whom
reformation was a certain ruin; and, thereibre, in several kingdoms, countries
and states of the Christian world, it was wonderfully wrought by the Lord’s
mighty power in his weak servants. Such were, amongst others, Baldus of
Francfort, Huss of Bohemia, Jerome of Prague, Luther of Germany, Wickliffe of
England, and our Knox of Scotland; whereupon it came to pass, that although one
part of Christiandom knew not what another was doing, yet they all agreed (as
may be seen in the Harmony of Confessions, published to the world) in the most
essential and fundamental matters of faith, because the Lord was master of that
work, but had also their own differences and degrees of reformation, because men
were the instruments, and they were not angels but men that were to be wrought
upon; for whose divers dispositions in sundry nations there behoved to be divers
disadvantages to the work. We are not rigid censurers of other reformed kirks,
nor are we separatists from them; but this we think, that a twofold duty lieth
upon us and them all, whatsoever be the measure of reformation. One is, (albeit
there be ever some catholic moderators that will be trysters betwixt us and
Rome, and think to agree Christ and antichrist,) that we all with one heart
praise God for separating us from Sodom, resolving never to return again where
there be so many heresies both against the common principles and particular
articles of faith, so manifold idolatry both against the first and second
commandment, so proud .a hierarchy as can neither stand with the spiritual
kingdom of Christ nor the civil kingdoms of princes, and so bloody a tyranny
against alt who believe their heresies, to practice their idolatry, and to be
slavish to their hierarchy. Returning to any point of their pipfession is an
approbation of their cruelty against them that have denied it; and whosoever
approve their worship they bring upon themselves the blood of so many saints and
faithful martyrs of Christ, who have testified the word of God, and have washed
their robes in the blood of the Lamb. The other duty is, that aLbeit there be
ever some adiaphorists, who for their own particular ends make many things, and
show more thiup to be indifferent in the worship of God, that under this pretext
they may bring them back that have been advanced before them in the work of
reformation; that we all praise God with one heart for the measure that every
one bath attained unto; and they that are behind in reformation, whatsoever
their outward splendour be, envy not them who have run before, or study to draw
them backto their degree, lest both return to Rome; but that all, against all
impediments, press forward to farther perfection, ever reforming somewhat
according to the pattern,—there being no staying neither for the Christian nor
for the kirk. The kirk of Scotland hath little cause to be pleased with herself
when she looketh upon her late sudden and shameful defection, but great and
angular cause to praise God when she looketh to his gracious dispensation. For
as Scotland, albeit far from Jerusalem, was one of the first nations that the
light of the gospel shone on when it appeared to the Gentiles, and one of the
last that kept the light when the shadows of the hills of Rome began to darken
the earth; so when the sun came about again at the Reformation, if this blessed
light shone upon others, all that had eyes to see, both at home aad abroad, have
seen and said, that it shone 6irest upon us. Divine providence delighting to
supply the defect of nature with abundance of gtace, and to make this other side
of the earth, lying behind the visible sun, by the clear and comforting beams of
the Sun of righteousness, to be the sunny side of the Christian world, whereof
these following testimonies are sufficient proof:

One of Mr. George Wishart, martyr.—"This realm shall be illuminated with the
light of Christ’s gospel as clearly as ever was realm since the days of the
apostles. The house of God shall be built in it, yea, it shall not lack
(whatsoever the enemy imagine to the contrary) the very top-stone; the glory of
God shall evidently appear, and shall once triumph in despise of Satan. But,
alas! if the people shall be after unthankful, then fearful and terrible shall
the plagues be that after shall follow.”—Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 108.

Another of Beza.—"This is a great gift of God, that ye have brought into
Scotland together pure religion and good order, which is the band to hold fast
the doctrine. I heartily pny and beseech for God’s sake, bold fast those two
together, so that ye may reaember that if the one be knt the other cannot long
remain. As bishops brought forth popery, so false bishops the relics of popery,
tall bring into the world epicureanisn Whosoever would have the kirk safe let
them beware of this pest; and, seeing ye have timely dispatched it in Scotland,
I beseech you never admit it again, albeit it flatter with show of the
preservative of unity, which hath deceived many of the best of the ancients."{1}
A third of the body of "Confessions of Faith.”— “It is the rare privilege of the
Kirk of Scotland befor . many, in which respect her name is famous even among
strangers, that about the space of four and fifty years, without schism, let be
heresy, she hath kept and held fast unity with ty of doctrine. The greatest help
of this unity of the mercy of God. was, that with the doctrine the discipline of
Christ and his apostles, as it is prescribed in the word of God, was, by little
and little together, resumed; and according to that discipline, so near as might
be, the whole government of the kirk was disposed. By this means all the seeds
of schisms and errors, so soon as they began to bud and show themselves, in
their very breeding and birth were smothered and rooted out The Lord God, of his
infinite goodness, grant unto the king’s most gracious majesty, to all the
rulers of the kirk, to the powers that are nurses of the kirk, that, according
to the word of God, they may keep perpetually that unity and purity of doctrine!
Amen.”{2} The fourth is of king James our late sovereign.— “The religion
professed in this country, wherein I was brought up, and ever made profession
of, and wishes my son ever to continue in the same, as the only true rm of God’s
worship, &c. I do equally love and honour the learned and grave men of either of
these opinions, that like better the single form of policy in our kirk than the
many ceremonies in the kirk of E’land, &c. I exhort my son to be beneficial to
the good men of the ministry, praising God that there are presently a sufficient
number of good men of them in this kingdom, and yet are they all known to be
against the form of the English kirk.”

He praised God that he was born to be a king in the sincerest kirk in the world,
&c. Assembly, 1590. The prelates themselves, and the maintainers of conformity,
dare not for shame open their mouths against the work of God in the reformation,
and against the purity of their mother kirk, and therefore would have her open
her mouth in the defence of their hierarchy and ceremonies, and do wrest her
authority and proceedings to that sense. Let us then ask of herself whether she
liketh the pastor or the prelate.

1. The PASTOR and men of God, at the acceptable time of reformation, as they
were moved by the Spirit of God, laboured to reform not only the doctrine,
sacraments and whole worship of God, but also the discipline and whole
government of the house of God, by abolishing the jurisdiction of prelates, and
all that Roman hierachy; as is manifest by their acknowledging no other ordinary
and perpetual office-bearers in the kirk but pastors, doctors, elders and
deacons;{4} by their petitioning that the rents of the prelates and of their
traiu should be converted to other uses; by their. subscribing the Helvetic
Confession,{5} which censureth prelacy for the invention of man, and by the
letters which they received from foreign kirks, congratulating that they had
timely purged the kirk of this proud prelacy, that they had received with the
doctrine the discipline of Christ and his apostles, and willing and obtesting
them to beware of the pest of prelacy as they loved the weal of the kirk.{6} The
PRELATE, not only in respect of his popish religion, but also in respect of his
papal and eplopal jurisdiction, was one of the great evils that cried tin
reformation of the kirk; and, therefore, albeit he kept still the title, the
rent and civil place of the prelate’s (which the kirk could not take from him,
and which inaketh many to mistake his descent) ecclesiastical authority was so
far abolished that neither were their successors designed to such prelates as
continued obstinate papists, nor was episcopal authority continued in their
persons that were convened, nor were superintendents ordained to be new
prelates. Only some of the converted prelates, for want of means to furnish
others, were designed to be commissioners of the kirk, as other ordinary pastors
were, but with bad success; for never one of them did good to the kirk.

2. The PASTOR and men of God, proceeding in the work of reformation,
acknowledged no government of the kirk by the lordly domination of prelates, but
by the common consent and authority of assemblies, which were of four
sorts,—national, provincial, parochial and presbyterial. The lineaments of the
last were drawn at the first when the weekly assemblies were appointed for
exercise of discipline and interpretation of the Scriptures, but were not, nor
could not be, accomplished and perfectly established till the light was spread,
and particular kirks were planted in the several quarters and corners of the
land, that they might make a number, and conveniently assemble in presbyterial
meetings.{7} The PRELATE is restless, proceeds whither his avarice and ambition
carry him, and willing, in those times, rather to be a titular or a tulchan{8}
(as he was then named) than to be nobody above his brethren. He taketh upon him
the title of bishop, with a small part of the rent, permitting the greater part
to my lord, whose bishop he was, and proudly again arrogates authority over the
kirk.

3. The PASTOR and men of God, learning not from Geneva, but from Scripture and
daily experience, that the government of prelates was full of usurpation and of
all sorts of corruption, whereof many did complain that it had no warrant, and
was never like to have any blessing from God, resolved at last to strike at the
root;{9} and, therefore, after many disputations in private and public,
consultations with the greatest divines of other reformed kirks, and after long
and mature deliberations, the Second Book of Discipline, pronouning the
jurisdiction and rule of the prelate to be unlawful, was resumed by consent of
the whole kirk; an ordinance made that bishops betalçe themselves to the charge
of one congregation, and that they exer else no civil jurisdiction; the
Confession of Faith sworn and subscribed, wherein they oblige themselves to
continue in the doctrine and discipline of this kirk. The same year it was
declared in the General Assembly, that the office of the prelate was unlawful in
itseif, and had no warrant in the word of God, thereafter renewed in
covenant.{10} The PRELATE and men of that disposition, having in the end nothing
to oppone, professed that they agreed in their consciences, consented to the
Acts of the kirk, swore to and subscribed the Confession of Faith, renewed the
covenant with the kirk, and helped to put on the cope-stone of the kirk of God
with their own hands; like as the same Confession of Faith was subscribed by
those that are now in the proudest places of prelacy, and who have proved since
the chief instruments of all the alterations in the discipline and external
worship of God, and ring-leaders in the defection of the kirk, with what
conscience may be seen by their dishonest excuses, their poor shifts and their
shameless railings against that which they did once so much reverence, all to be
seen, as they are published in print. {11}

4. The PASTOR and men of God, desiring to testify their thankfulness for so
singular favour vouchsafed upon this kirk and nation, and to employ the benefit
of the discipline now established for the liberty of the kingdom of Christ and
against the tyranny of sin and Satan, addressed themselves, all as one man, with
great fidelity and courage for the work of God, urged residence and diligence in
ministers, kept, with succss from heaven, their public and solemn humiliations,
made the pulpits to sound against papistry and profaneness, and set all men on
work, as they had grace or place, for purging the country of all corruptions,
and defending the kirk against her professed enemies, who never ceased, by
negotiating with the Pope and the Spanish king, unnaturally to labour for their
own and her ruin, whereof the divine providence had disappointed them in 1588.
The PRELATE’S authority at this time lay dead, and men of that disposition made
no great din. But the kirk then (unlike that which she is now,) comely as
Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners, against all her enemies did stand
whole and sound in unity and concord of her ministers, authority of her
assemblies, divine order of her ministry, and purity of external worship, with
great power and presence of the Spirit of God hi many congregations of the land,
till, at last, for unity, division entered into the kirk, prelacy, that had
slept before, was wakened again, and this mystery beginneth to woik anew,
neither by any cause offered by the pastors of the kirk at the 17th of December
(as the enemy calumniates,) for after long trial they were found faultless and
faithful by his majesty’s own testimony, nor yet upon that occasion, for the
meeting of the kirk for making that charge was indicted before the 17th day;{12}
but the cause was a plot contrived before for procuring peace to the popish
lords, to make war among the ministry and to divide them among themselves. For
this effect fifty-five problems were framed to call the established displine of
the kirk in question, and, at one and the same time, way was made for
renconciliation of the popish lords, and for restitution of the popish prelates.
And the schism of our kirk, so well compacted before, began at that time, not
upon their part who stand for the discipline, but by some of the prelate’s
disposition, that is, of flattering and worldly-minded ministers, who gave other
answers to thirteen of the fifty-five articles concerning the government of the
kirk than their worthy brethren desired; so that, if the cause or occasion
maketh the schismatic, the prelate is the schismatic and not the pastor.

5. The PASTOR and men of God., as they had been diligent to establish the
government of the kirk according to the will of Christ, and after it was, by the
blessing of God, established, were faithful in using it for the honour of God
and good of the kirk; so now, when it began craftily to be called in question,
were careful, according to their office and oath, to stand to the defence
thereof, both against professed enemies and against the schism begun by their
own brethren; albeit they could not at the first have been persuaded that their
brethren would ever so foully forgot themselves, as, against their great oath in
the sight of God and the world, to take upon them the dominion of prelates, and,
for their own back and belly, to trouble the kirk, and mar all the worship of
God as they have done. The PRELATE, through the schism at that time begun by
himself, savouring the sweetness of wealth and honour, forgetteth his oath, his
office, and all, followeth greedily upon the scent, and clirnbeth craftily, by
degrees and betimes, to the height that he could not advance himself to at once.
First, With much ado, and many protestations that he meant nothing against
discipline established, but desired to vindicate the ministry from poverty and
contempt, he gets liberty to vote in parliament fax the kirk, but with such
caveats as would have kept him from his present prelacy if he had kept them as
he was obliged.{13} Secondly, five years thereafter he was made constant
moderator, and that of the presbytery only where he was resident, and not of the
synods, upon as fair precepts, with the like protestations and cautions.{14}
Thirdly, Being lord of parliament, lord of council, patron of benefices,
modifier of ministers’ stipends, he was armed also with the power of the high
commission, and, having two swords, might do against the kirk what he
pleased.{15} Thereafter incontinent, he usurped the power of ordination and
jurisdiction; {16} and, at last, albeit without consent or knowledge of the kirk
of Scotland, went and resumed consecration in England,{17} and, since that time,
hath taken upon him, and bath exercised, the plenary power and office of a
bishop in the kirk, no less than if the assembly of this kirk had chosen him to
the name and office of a bishop, which, as yet, they have never done,—the most
corrupt of their own assemblies granting only the negative power of ordination
and jurisdiction to them, who were never called bishops by any warrant from tht
kirk, but only in the vulgar speech, from the titles they had to benefices, in
which respect civil persons beneficed were called bishops in former times.

6. The PASTOR and men of God, seeking neither profit nor preferment to
themselves, expelled the prelate and all his ceremonies out of the kirk of
Christ, by no other means but such as became faithful ministers of Christ, as
preaching, praying, writing, advising with the best reformed kirks, reasoning in
assemblies, and, after liberty granted to all, to oppone the consent, oath and
subscription of the adversaries. The PRELATE, seeking nothing but his own profit
and preferment, is restored again, by such means as better beseem his ministers
who hath been a murderer and a liar from the beginning, than the sincere
ministers of Jesus Christ; for craft and cruelty hath been their ways. Their
craft was to remove their strongest opponents out of the country, that they
might not be present in assemblies to espy their proceedings, and to reason
against them, to abolish the true liberty and authority of assemblies, to
protest that they were seeking no prelacy, neither of the popish nor English
kind, and that they had no purpose to subvert the discipline received, but to
deliver the kirk from disgrace, and to be the more mighty to oppose her enemies,
Jesuits and papists, who falsify the acts of the kirk, to promise to keep all
the cautions and conditions made to hold them in order, which now they profess
they never minded to do, &c.; their cruelty hath been to boast, to banish,
imprison, deprive, confine, silence, &c.

7. The PASTOR and men of God, all this time of defection, gave testimony to the
truth, opposed the several steps of the prelate’s ambition by all the means that
became them to use, as public preaching, supplicating, reasoning, protesting,
and suffering, and when the prelate was triumphing in the height of his dignity,
they could not, comparing the first temple with the second, but declare the
grief of their hearts for the change; and their great fear of alteration to be
made in the worship of God, when now the hedge of the kirk was broken down, and
an. open way made for all corruption. The PRELATE is of the clergy that seldom
are seen penitent, and therefore, as against all the means used by the pastor he
had altered the government of the kirk, so he enters next upon the worship and
service of God, and will have a new confession of faith, new catechism, new
forms of prayer, new observation of days, new forms of ministration of the
sacraments,{17} which he first practised himself against the Acts and order of
the kirk, and since convened an assembly of his own making to draw on the
practice of others;{18} and, thirdly, he hath involved the honourable estates of
the kingdom, into his great guiltines by their ratification in parliament, which
hath brought an inundation of evils into this kirk and country.{19}

8. The PASTOR and men of God, considering what the kirk was before, and what it
is now, what the Reformation was, and what conformity is, what the proceedings
of the one and the other have been,— seeing religion wearing away, he pitieth
the young ones that never have seen better times, laments over the multitude
that cannot see the evils of the present, and resolveth for himself to hold
constant to the end, against papists, prelates, Arminians, and whatsoever can
arise, to wait with patience what the Lord will do for his people, and, when he
is gone, to leave a testimony behind him of the twofold misery of impiety and
iniquity that he hath seen in this land. The PRELATE hath forgot what himself
and the kirk were once; he hath wrought a greater defection in this kirk in the
short time of his episcopacy than was in the primitive kirk for some hundreds of
years, and is.so’far yet blinded with the love of his place in the world, that
he maketh his worldly credit the canon, and his prelacy the touchstone for the
trial of all religion; thePope shall no more be antichrist, papistry may be
borne with, Arminianism may be brought in, because they can keep company with
prelacy. The Reformation is puritanism, preciseness, separation, and
intolerable, because it cannot cohabit with prelacy. The gods of the nations
were social, and could live together, but the God of Israel is a jealous God.
The Prelate’s objection.—The PRELATE will object that, albeit he can neither
justify all his own proceedceedings of late, nor yours of old, as all men have
their own infirmities, yet that ye do him wrong by your deduction, in
confounding times that should be distinguished; because from the Reformation to
the coming of some scholars from Geneva with presbyterial discipline this kirk
was ruled by prelates, and the superintendents in the beginning were the same in
substance that the prelates are now. The Pastor’s answer.—All men have their own
infirmities, but good men are not presumptuously bold for the love of the world,
to hold on in a course of defection against so many obligations from themselves,
and so many warnings from good men. Infirmity is one thing and presumption is
another. The pastors of the kirk of Scotland had begun to root out bishopry, and
to condemn it in their assemblies, before these scholars came from Geneva, but
never condemned but allowed the charge of superintendents, appointed for a time
in the beginning of the kirk, the one and the other being different in
substance: For,

1st, The superintendent, according to the canon of the kirk, was admitted as
another minister, without consecration of any bishop. The prelate is chosen, for
fashion, by dean and chapter, without any canon of the kirk, and with solemn
consecration of the metropolitan and their bishops.

2d, The superintendent appropriated not the power of ordination and
jurisdiction, but both remained cornmon to other ministers. The prelate hath
taken to himself the power to ordain and depose ministers, and to decree
excommunication.

3d, The superintendents made not a hierarchy of archsuperintendents, and others
inferior, some general and some provincial; some primates and some suifragans,
some archdeans and some deans; &c. The prelates have set up a hierarchy of all
these.

4th, The superintendent was subject to the censure not only of the national but
of the provincial kirk where he superintended. The prelate is subject to no
censure, but may do what, and may go whither, he will, and no man ask him why he
hath done so.

5th, The superintendent’s charge was merely ecciesiastical, and more in
preaching than in government. The prelate is more in ruling than in preaching,
and more in the world than in the kirk.

6th, The superintendent acknowledgeth his charge to be but temporary, and often
desired to lay it down before the General Assembly. The prelate thinketh his
office to be perpetual by reason and in virtue of his consecration.

7th, The superintendent had no greater power than the commissioners of
provinces, and, in respect of his superintendency, was rather a commissioner of
the kirk than an office-bearer essentially different from the pastor. The
prelate neither hath received commission from the kirk, nor meaneth to render a
reckoning to them, nor account of himself as of a commissioner, but thinketh his
office as essentially diverse from the office of the pastor as the pastor’s
office is from the deacon’s. The Pope may as well say that the evangelists were
popes as the prelate, that the superintendents were prelates.


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  CHAPTER 9: PART V.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WEAL OF THE KIRK AND THE PEOPLE'S SOULS
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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?


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  CHAPTER 10: PART VI.  THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE COMPARED BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND OF OUR OUTWARD ...
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PART VI. THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND OF
OUR OUTWARD ESTATE.

It is best both for kirk and state when civil and ecclesiastical authority join
togcther.—Civil authority doth good to religion.—Religion doth good to the whole
commonwealth.—The best religion is best for the state.—The pastor preseryeth the
commonwealth, which the prelate ruineth.—The pastor loveth Christian simplicity,
and not Machiavel’s policy; the prelate liketh policy more than that
simplicity.—The pastor distinguisheth betwixt things civil and ecclesiastical,
and holdeth him at his own calling; the prelate con. foundeth all, and will rule
all.—The pastor asaisteth the civil magistrate; the prelate bindereth him—The
pastor profitable to the commonwealth, but not chargeable; the prolate
chargeable, but not profitable—The pastor a maintainer of schools and learning;
the prelate of neither.—The pastor’s government by asaembikes fitter for a
monarchy than the episcopal government—The pastor taketh no man’s title, nor
dignity, nor place; the prelate taketh all these from the nobles and peers of
the land.—The pastor maketh the minds, the bodies and estates of the people fit
for war; the prelate disableth all.—Objection, The estates of parliament cannot
bear the severity of pastors, nor want the prelates to be the third
eetate.—Answer, Showing that the faithful pastor will at some time be found
comfortable to all estates, and that the parliament may be perlbct without the
prelates.—Conclusion, A general objection answered.

Albeit that sometimes the power ecclesiastical be without the secular, and the
members of the kirk make not any civil corporation, as in the apostles’ times
and long after; and sometimes the secular power be without the ecclesiastical,
and the members of kingkoms and corporations make not a kirk, as amongst the
heathen of old, and many nations and societies this day; yet is it far best,
both for religion and justice, both for truth and peace, both for kirk and
commonwealth, when both are joined in one,—when the magistrate hath both swords,
the use of the temporal sword, and the benefit of the spiritual sword, and when
the kirk bath both swords, the use of the spiritual sword, and the benefit of
the temporal,—when the two administrations, civil and ecclesiastical, like Moses
and Aaron, help one another mutually, and neither Aaron nor Miriam murmur
against Moses, nor Jeroboam stretcheth out his hand against the man of God. Upon
the one part, civil authority maintaineth and defendeth religion where it is
reformed, and reformeth religion where it is corrupted. “Kings shall be thy
nursing-fathers and queens thy nursing-mothers.”{1} “Kings, serve the Lord in
fear.”{2} “And then serve they the Lord,” saith Augustine, “when they serve him
not only faithfully as men, but as kings, and do such things in serving him as
none can do but kings, that is, when they rest not till religion be established,
and God served in their dominions according to his own word.”{3} It hath ever
been the greatest commendation of princes, that they have begun their government
with the reformation of religion, as many worthy princes bath done both before
and after the coming of Christ, (for God preferreth kings above all others,
and,. therefore, kings should haste to honour God above all others,) or, that
they have exceeded all who went before them in this religious and royal chair.
Asa took away idolatry, but Jehosaphat removed the high places also; Hezekiah
went further, and brake the brazen serpent, albeit a monument of God’s mercy;
but this was the sin of his reformation, that he razed not the idol temples,
which was kept to good Josiah, who, thereibre, hath this testimony to the end of
the world, that like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to the
Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might. Upon the
other part, true religion, although it propone for the principal ends the glory
of God and the safety of the kirk, yet it serveth many ways for the civil good
and worldly benefit of kings and kingdoms; because the true religion, and no
other, maketh kings and kingdoms to serve that God that giveth both heavenly and
earthly kingdoms; —who looseth the bands of kings and girdeth their loins with a
girdle,{4}—who is the only Judge, that putteth down one and setteth up another;
and, therefore, godliness hath the promise, and true religion hath many
blessings attending it. It is a blessed thing when a king or a kingdom serveth
that God by whom kings reign, and who giveth and taketh away kingdoms at his
pleasure; next, because it qualifieth and disposeth every man for his own place
—it maketh rulers to know that every kingdom is under a greater kingdom, and, as
they are advanced above all others, that they have so much the greater account
to make;{5}—it maketh the subjects to obey for conscience sake, and subdueth the
people under their prince, which made Theodosius to acknowledge that his empire
consisted more by the Christian religion than by all other means; —it keepeth
true peace, both public and private, and when peace can be no longer kept, it
followeth after it to find it again;—it maketh men just and temperate in time of
peace, not by restraint, which positive laws do, but by mortification;—with
Christians to think that wickedness is sin. “Whether of the two commandeth more
fully,” says Tertullian, “he who saith, ‘thou shalt not kill,’ or he who saith,
‘thou shalt not be angry?’ Which of the two is more perfect, to forbid adultery
or to restrain the eyes from concupiscence?” &c.;—it maketh every man to
practise christianity in the particular duties of his calling;—in the time of
war it maketh men courageous, and to fear none but Him that can kill the
soul;—in persecution is giveth invincible patience;—without confusion it giveth
at all times unto God that which is God’s, and unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s;
and, without usurpation or injury to any, it giveth uato noblemen, statesmen;
barons, burgesses, and all, from the highest to the lowest in the kingdom, their
own places, preferments and privileges, according to the sovereign law of
justice. All estates have need of this divine influence, and of all these
comfortable effects, and every religion promiseth them all, but only the
Christian religion is able to perform them, nd the more Christian it is, that
is, the more near that it cometh to the purity and simplicity of Christ and his
apostles, both in trifle and discipline, and the more Christianly, that is, the
more powerfully it be urged upon the consciences of men, the more effectually it
proveth for these happy ones. Let us, then, upon this ground, proceed to our
trial whether the pastor or prelate be more profitable for the country and
commonwealth.

1. The PASTOR preserveth the prosperous estate of the kingdom and commonwealth
by labouring to preserve piety, righteousness and temperance in the land, and by
testifying, with all his might, against idolatry and all sorts of impiety,
against unrighteousness and all sorts of injury, whether by craft or violence,
and against intemperance, incontinence, unlawful marriagesi divorces, and every
other kind of impurities; for these three where they reign, he knoweth to be
more near and certain causes, first of the many calamities and judgments of God,
and then of the alterations md periods of states and kingdoms, than either of
the intricate numbers of Plato, or the unchanged course of the heavens, or
whatever other cause is pretended by philosophers or politicians, because these,
wherever they reign, threaten a ruin from the true fatality of God’s providence
and justice, and do shake the pillars of all human society, as idolatry the
pillars of the kirk, unrighteousness of the commonwealth, and intemperance of
the family, and one of the three falling, the other two cannot long endure.{6}
The PRELATE, upon the contrary, by taking in his own hands the power of the
General Assembly, which was a great terror to sin; by depriving some worthy
pastors of their places, and others of authority in censwing of sin; by
destroying the discipline of the kirk, and by his own many unlawful practices
and permissions, bath given way to idolatry, blasphemy, and the profanation of
the Sabbath, to all sorts of scandalous and notorious sins of unrighteousness,
uncleanness, and of the abuse of God’s creatures, for which the wrath of God
cometh upon the world; but most of all, by bringing a great part of the kingdom
under the guiltiness of the violation of the covenant of God; and by going
against their oath and subscription, hath drawn many visitations from the hand
of God, doth daily provoke the Lord to further wrath, striketh at the pillars of
all societies, and posteth on the periods otstate and kingdom.

2. The PASTOR accounteth virtue, truth, righteousness, Christian simplicity
and.prudence, to be the.best policy, not only for his own practice, but for all
that are in authority, and for all societies, and, therefore, pronounceth
anathema upon the chief axioms of Machiavel’s art, whom he judgeth to be as
pernicious a master of policy as antichrist is for matters of religion,{7} and
these two to be the principal supports of Satan, the direct enemy of Christian
faith and obedience, and the crafty subverters of kirks and commonwealths,—unfit
for all, but most unfit for us, whom grace hath favoured with thelight of the
truth, and nature hath fashioned to be open and plain. The PRELATE’S practices
do proclaim what policy pleaseth him best. Simulation, dissimulation, false.hood
and flattery ate known to be the ways of his promotion. He standeth in his
grandeur and possesseth his peace by promising good service in parliament to the
king against the nobility, and blowing the bellows of dissension betwixt them:
he warmeth himself at the fire he hath raised betwixt the king and the kirk: he
beareth with men of every religion provided they be not anti-episcopal: he
urgeth ceremonies, which he himself otherwise careth nothing for, that they may
be a band of obedience to the slavish, and a buckler of episcopacy against the
opposites: he suffereth papistry to prevail and new heresies to arise, and
giveth connivance to the teachers of them, that that there may be some other
matter of disputation amongst learned men than about his mitre. If all would
follow his art and example, antichrist and Machiavel would be our chief masters,
and every Scotsman of spirit would prove another Cæsar Borgia, or Ludovicus
Sfortia.{8}

3. The PASTOR, according to the nature of things, distinguiseth betwixt the
things of God and the things of Csar, betwixt the sovereignty of Christ and the
sovereignty of man, betwixt the dignity of the statesman and honour of the elder
that labours in the word and doctrine, betwixt the palace of the prince and the
minister’s manse, the revenues of the nobleman and the minister’s stipend; and,
according to the grounds of policy, holdeth, that many offices should not be
conferred on one man except rarely by the special favour of princes,{9} upon
some that are eminent as miracles for engine, for wisdom and dexterity,—by
reason of man’s infirmity, the weight of authority, the order of policy, and the
peace of the people; that as every thing in nature doth its own part—the sun
shineth and the wind bloweth, the water moisteneth—so every man should be set to
his own task; that one man cannot be Æneas and Hector, Cato and Scipio,{10} far
less can one and the same person be sufficient for the greatest affairs both of
kirk and policy; and, therefore, the pastor keepeth himself within the bounds of
his own place and calling, and neither meddleth with civil causes, nor taketh
upon him civil offices, nor seeketh after civil honour. The PRELATE inaketh no
distInction, but confoundeth all, as compatible enough if he be the ageht; and
albeit, for any good parts, to be no miracle, but neighbourlike, yet he flndeth
himself sufficient for every thing in kirk and commonwealth,{11} and telleth all
for fish that cometh in his net, whether civil offices, civil honours, civil
causes or civil punishments. Like a prince, he hath his castle, his lordship,
his regality, vassalry, &c.: he hath power to confine, imprison, &c.; and taketh
it hardly when he is not preferred to ofikes of estate, as to chancellor,
president, &c., which his predecessors had of old. And thus, against all grounds
of good policy, he stands in pomp, as a mighty giant, with one foot in the kirk
upon the necks of the ministers, and with another in the state upon the heads of
the nobility and gentry.

4. The PASTOR assisteth the civil magistrate in planting of virtue and rooting
out of vice, partly by powerfully preaching home to the consciences of sinners,
partly by censuring lesser offeuces which the magistrate punisheth not, as
lying, uncomely jesting, rash and common swearing, talking, brawling,
drunkenness, &c.;{12} through which the passages to murder, adultery, and other
great offences, are stopped, the people prevented in many mischiefs and great
enormities, and the magistrate many ways eased; and partly in censuring of
greater sins, and purging the kingdom of foul offences; for he joineth the
censures and the spiritual sword of the kirk with the sword of the magistrate so
impartially, that none are spared; with such expedition and diligence, that sin
is censured and not forgotten; with such authority that the most obstinate hath
confessed that the kirk had power to bind and loose; with such sharpness and
severity, that malefactors have been afraid; and so universally, that, as there
is no crime censured by the kirk but the same is punishable by temporal
jurisdiction, so he holdeth no sin punishable by civil authority but the same is
also censurable by spiritual power— the one punishing the offender in his body
or goods, the other drawing him unto repentance, and striving to remove the
scandal. The PRELATE 1s unprofitable to the civil magistrate in the planting of
virtue and rooting out of vice.; for where his government bath place, preaching
hath more demonstratiorrof art for the praise of the speaker, than of the Spirit
for the censuring of sin and the conversion of the sinner. He passeth small
offences without any censure, and thereby openeth the way to the greater sins of
murder, adultery, &c., and giveth the magistrate his hands full: he vindicates
to his court and jurisdiction some crimes, as proper for his censure, which yet
he passeth lightly: the censures of the kirk and sword of excommunication in his
hand serve for small use against greater sins; ibr either they are not used at
all, or so partialy that the greatest sinners escape uncensured, or so
superficially that they are rather a matter of mocking anti boldness in sin than
of repentance to the sinner, or of removing the offence.

5. The PASTOR is chargeable to no man beside his sober and necessary maintenance
allotted unto him for bis necessary service, which the people can no more want
than they an want religion itself, or their own temporal and eternal happiness.
The PRELATE, contrary to the rules of policy against the multiplying and
maintaining of idle officebearers,{13} hath for one office, serving for no good
use neither to king, nor kirk, nor country, allowance of a large rent, is a
great burden, and is many ways chargeable to the commonwealth, and to particular
persons; by his great lands and lordahips, by actions of improbation, reduction
of fiefs, declarator of escheats, entries, nonentries, &c.; by selling of
commissariats, &c.; by raising and rigorously exacting the quotas of testaments;
by sums of money given unto them, their sons, or their servants, for
presentations, collations, testimonials of or dination or admission,—sometimes
by people who would be at a good minister, and ordinarily by the prudent friends
of the entrant, whocan find no entry but by a golden port.

6. The PASTOR would have learning to grow, and, considering that schools and
colleges are both the seminary of the commonwealth and the Lebanon of God for
building the temple,{14} desireth earnestly that there might be a school in
every congregation, that the people might be more civil, and might, more easily
learn the grounds of religion-; he would have the best engines chosen and
provided to the students’ places in universities, the worthiest and best men to
the places of teachers, who might faithfully keep the arts and sciences from
corruption, and especially the tnflh of religion,—as the holy fire that came
down from heaven was kept by the Levites: he desireth the rewards of learning to
be given to the worthiest, and, after they have received them, that they be
faithful in their places, lest by loitering and laziness they become both
unprofitable and unlearned. The PRELATE IS not so desirous of learning in
himself as of ignorance in others, that he only may be eminent both in kirk and
commonwealth, and all others may render him blind obedienct and respect. He
devoureth that himself which should .entertain particular schools: he fihleth
the places of students without trial of their engines, to please his friends and
suitors, contrary to the will of the masters and the acts of the foundations: he
filleth the places of learning not with themost learned, but the wealthiest
sort, where, for any vigilance of his, might both corrupt the human sciences and
bring strange fire into the house of God. If a learned man happen to attain to
one of their highest places, which they call the rewards of learning,
incontinent, their learning beginneth to decay, and their former gifts to wither
away. & that their great places and prelacies either find them or make them
unlearned.

7. The PASTOR, by the government of the kirk prescribed in the word, is strong
to resist or repress schisms, heiesies, corruptions, and all the spiritual power
of sin and Satan, but hath no strength to withstand the temporal power and
authority of princes.{15} The same government sorts with monarchy no less than
with aristocracy, through the wisdom of the Son of God, who fitteth the same for
all nations and divers forms of civil policy. The pastor acknowledgeth his
prince to be his only bishop and overseer, superintendent over the whole kirk in
his dominions, as being preserver of the liberties of the kirk, and keeper of
both tables; to whom also the General Assembly of the kirk, or some few
commissioners chosen by them, and convened, when it is thought expedient, by the
king’s commissioner, may give his majesty better and more speedy satisfaction in
kirk affairs, and with greater love and contentment of the whole kirk, and of
all his majesty’s loving subjects, than can be given by the thirteen prelates;
all which may be done upon a small part of the, prelate’s rent, for bearing the
charges of his majesty’s commissioner, who also may be changed at his majesty’s
pleasure. The PRELATE and his government is weak to withstand the spiritual
forces of sin and Satan but is strong to oppose the temporal power of princes,
and hath beetrof all enemies the most dangerous to monarchy; for howsoever now,
while opposition is made, he flatter and fawn upon the prince for his own
standing, yet if all ministers and the whole kingdom did acknowledge his
superiority to bind the conscience, the primate of the kirk would be more,
powerful ‘than any subject in the kingdom, and might prove as terrible to kings,
whatsoever their religion were, as popes have been to emperors, and prelates
have been to kings in former times.{16} He hath no power, for all his credit and
lordly authority, to get any thing done to his majesty’s satisfaction, and with
contentment of the kirk; for all the craft and violence that hath been so long
bended, never one whole famous congregation within the kingdom is either
conquered or like to be subdued to his conformity, but either the better or
greater part, or both, have resisted; and yet, for his lordly maintenance, he
hath impaired the rent of the crown in so far as it was aided by the collectory,
and pulleth from the king the rents of great benefices, the homage of vassals,
with their commodities, regalities, and other privileges, more proper for the
sceptre than the shepherd’s staff.

8. The PASTOR desireth no other title but to be called the minister of the town
or parish; he sttiveth with no man for precedency; be seeketh no place in the
commonwealth neither in council, session, nor exchequer, but stirreth up, and
soundeth the trumpet in the ear of the generous spirits of the kingdom, to show
themselves worthy of iher own places; and, whether he be minister in burgh or
land, he is a common servant to all, from the highest to the lowest, to parents
and children, to masters and servants, in all pastoral duties; while he liveth
he harmeth none, but helping all, procuring honour to the greater and
maintenance to the poorer sort, and, when his life is brought to a comfortable
end, every soul blesseth him, and all mourn for him as for a common parent. The
PRELATE, according to the political axiom, “When virtue waneth vanity waxeth,
and many titles much vanity,”{17} disdaining to be called any more the minister
of Christ, bath taken upon him the titles of the nobility,—My lord of Orkney, my
lord of Caithness, my lord of Murray, my lord of Argyll, &c., with the title he
taketh the place before thorn, and filleth their places in council and session,
and when, risen up from his dunghull, be is set on high places, and is drunken
with his new honours, he lifteth his ears like isis’ ass, and as handmaids when
they become mistresses, he waxeth so insolent that he cannot be borne. In his
own city he will have homage of all, overruleth the election of their
magistrates, harmeth both parents and ehildren through the country; by giving
warrant for sudden and secret marriages without proclamation, which the very
Council of Trent cannot but allow; he taketh the honour of the greater upon
himself, and spends that upon his pride which should serve for the poorer sort;
and when, after many wishes, his life at last is brought to an end, the whole
diocese is filled with joy, and his own family and friends are filled with
contempt and disgrace.

9. The PASTOR maketh the kingdom fit for war against the time that necessities
give alarm; for, by labouring to make the people truly religious he maketh them
fit for both parts of Christian fortitude, active and passive, for doing
valiantly and suffering constantly:{18} in the time of peace he stirreth them up
against softness and intemperance to diligence and labour, whereby their bodies
are the more able and durable: he strengtheneth also the nerves of war, by
contenting himself with a mean estate, and by his doctrine and example teaching
people to spare in peace for the time of war. The PRELATE maketh the kingdom
unfit for war; for by his government the people lose true fortitude with the
love of religion; that if they have any kind of courage for battle, it is not so
much the invincible courage of Christian religion as the carnal and bastard
fortitude of paganism, which, in comparison of the former, bath ever been but
pusillanimity; by his oversight of rioting and idleness their bodies become weak
and effeminate, and, by his own large rents, and his example of prodigality,
which to them is a law, he enervates the estates, and cuts asunder the sinews of
war. The Prelate’s objection.—The PRELATE will object, that if you that are
pastors understood either the manners of the people or the grounds of policy, ye
would see that neither can noblemen, and others given to their pleasure, bear
your simple and censorious form of preaching, nor your austere and precise form
of discipline and life, nor yet can the high court of parliament want the
prelates, which make up one of the three estates: that ye are but shallow and
consider not what depth this draws. The Pastor’s answer.—We know that of all
ranks there be some who love their pleasures more than God, and these, according
to the first flattering part of the objection, will say with the old verse:

“Non mihi sit servus, medicus, prophets, sacerdos.”

He is no servant fit for me, Who physician, prophet, priest will be." For such
may neither abide to be cured of their spiritual evils by the counsel of God,
nor to hear of the evils that will come if they refuse to be cured, nor to be
exhorted to repentance when the calamities are turned uion them, that they may
be turned away; but all are not such, and from which, while they are in their
pleasures, we make appellation to themselves, white they are in the pains or
terrors of death, and to be presented before the Judge, whether then the pastor
or prelate pleaseth. them better? The other part of the objection the wisdom of
the king and of the hononrable estates of parliament can answer, who know how a
parliament may be perfect without either pastor or prelate. If by the name of a
parliament, we understand a general and national meeting of the whole kingdom
and kirk by their commissioners, with their supreme magistrate and king, every
one to give his advice and judgment respective according to the nature of the
society, civil or ecclesiastical, which he represents commissioners of the kirk
to give resolution from the word of God, if need be, concerning matters civil,
but not to meddle with civil causes civilly, and to propone petitions to the
king and estates for the good of the kirk, to require their civil sanction, and
to see that nothing be concluded in things civil that may be a hinderance to the
worship of God: the nobility with the commissioners of, baronies and burghs for
civil matters, and to add the civil sanctIon in the matters of God’s worship;
kirkmen chosen and instructed by the kirk may sit in parliament after this
sense, and are bound to contribute their best help for the honour of the king
and good both of kirk and country. But if by a parliament we understand the
highest court and supreme judicature civil, meddling only with civil matters, or
with matters of religion civilly, as, to add the civil sanction, and to ratify
by civil authority what hath becn put in canon by the kirk before, then the
assembly of the kirk or their commissioners may, or should; attend the high
court of parliament, as the convocation house doth in our neighbour kingdom, but
can have no place nor vote in parliament, neither in making laws about things
civil, nor in the, civil authorizing in matters of religion; for ministers
should not judge of tbe right of inheritance, nor pronounce sentence about
forfeiture, nor make laws about, weights and measures, &c., but should exhort
the people to obey the civil powers. Without bishops or ministers laws have been
made by parliament, and may be made now no less than without abbots, priors,
&c., who had. once vote in parliament no less than they. Their benefices are
baronies in respect whereof they claim vote in parliament; but they are not
barons or proprietors, and heritable possessors thereof, to transmit them to
their heirs, or to alienate them, but only are usufructuaries, to have the use
of them for their time; neither doth it suit with the minister’s calling to have
such baronies, nor are they to be reckoned for ecclesiassical persons, but for
civil, when they have place in parliament in respect of these baronies, and,
therefore, cannot vote there in name of the kirk. To conclude, then, Whether we
look to the word of God, or to the more pure and primitive times of the kirk, or
to the nature and use of things indifferent, or to the reformation and
proceeding of our own kirk, or the good of the kirk and of the people’s souls,
or to the happiness of the commonwealth and the good of every one, from the king
that sitteth upon the throne to him that heweth the wood and draweth the water,
we may see whether the pastor or the prelate, whether reformation or conformity,
is to be followed by the true Christian and patriot; and that there is as great
difference betwixt the bishops of our times and the faithful pastors of the
reformed kirks as betwixt the light that cometh from the stars of heaven and the
thick darkness that ariseth from the bottomless pit; and it may be made manifest
that since bishops were cast in the mould of the man of sin, wheresoever they
have ruled, whether amongst the papistical and the reformed (some few excepted,
who, when they ventured upon these places, went out of their own element,). they
have been the greatest plagues, both to kirks and kingdoms, that ever had
authority in the Christian world. Neither needeth any man to object that the
comparison that we have made nrnneth all the way betwixt the good pastor and the
evil prelate, and, therefore, may be answered by the like unequal comparison
betwixt the good prelate and the evil pastor, as if the most part of the
episcopal evils abovee mentioned were only the personal faults of the men, and
not the corruptions necessarily accompanying the estate and order of prelates,
and that if good men fill these places there is no danger but the kirk may be as
well, or better, governed by prelates than by pastors; for the comparison is not
so much betwixt the pastor and prelate as betwixt the office of a pastor and the
office of a prelate or bishøp. “It is one thing,” as Augustine saith, “to use an
unlawful power lawfully, and another thing to use a lawful power
unrighteously."{19} Pastors may have their own personal infirmities, and never
so many as under the prelate’s government, and prelates may have their own good
parts, and never so many as by the occasion of the pastor’s opposition; but
neither the one nor the other are to be ascribed to their offices, nor is the
lawfulness of their offices to be judged by their persons. It is true when an
unlawful power and a lawless man meet together the case of those that are under
his authority must be the worse, as we may see in the papacy, which, beings
always evil for the kirk, yet have proved worse, when monsters, instead of men,
have sat in their seat. But it is evident that the evils which prelates and
their lordly government bring upon the kirk do flow from their sole
jurisdiction, exorbitant power, meddling in civil government, and the curse of
God upon that unlawful estate, all which are common. to the whole order, and not
.peculiar to some persons; and the corruptions which are common to all in these
places, although greater in some than in others, of necessity must flow from the
unlawfulness of the state and office itself. It is so far that good men, put in
the places of prelacy, can make the government good,—that the places of prelacy
have ever corrupted the men and made them worse. So it was with Æneas Sylvius,
who, before his popedom, seemed sound and honest, maintaining many points
against the tyranny of that seat, but, being made Pope Pius II, retracted all,
and proved as impious and antichristian as the rest; so, many that have been of
good account in the ministry, and given hope of great good by theta to the kirk
when they entered to be bishops, yet wholly degenerated from their first works,
and learned betime "ululare cum lupis," to howl with the wolves; the experience
whereof made Queen Elizabeth to say, “When she made a bishop that she marred a
good minister.” THE END.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/pastor-and-the-prelate/
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