PART III. (continued 2)

VI. They must not only be such as we can join with in the ordinances as to the matter of them, but in the manner also they must be such administrators, as we are obliged in charity to think the Lord will approve of them, and their administrations, and of us in our communion with them; or at least, that, in their manner of dispensing ordinances, they be not such as we find are under a recorded sentence of dreadful punishment, both against them and their partakers: for if it be so, it is as sufficient a ground to withdraw from them, as for men to withdraw from a company staying in a house, that they see will fall and smother them in its ruin; yea it is as warrantable to separate from them, as for Israel to separate themselves from the congregation of the rebels who were to be consumed in a moment, Numb. xvi. 21. or for the Lord's people to come out of Babylon, that they receive not of her plagues, Rev. xviii. 4. Now we find that not only the prophets of Baal, and enticers to idolatry, and leaders to error upon the matter are threatened, and the people for adhering to them, but we find also (as is observed by Rectius Instruendum confut. dial chap. 1. pag. 21.) many terrible charges and adjurations laid upon ministers, in reference to a faithful diligence in their ministerial function, and a suitable testimony concerning the sin and duty of the time, that they are commanded to cry aloud and shew the people their sin, Isa. lviii. 1. and as they would not have the blood of souls upon them, to give faithful warning touching the peoples case and hazard, sin and duty, especially in times of great sin and judgment, when God is terribly pleading his controversy with them, Ezek. iii. 17. therefore they must be instant in season and out of season, 2 Tim. iv. 2. And for their negligence and unfaithfulness herein, we find many scripture woes and threatenings thundered against them. When in the deceit of their own heart they promise assured peace, when the Lord is pleading against a generation, they are threatened to be consumed with sword and famine, and the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets, Jer. xiv. 13, 15, 16. therefore we dare not admit them to prophesy to us. When they strengthen the hands, and harden the hearts of evil doers, that none doth return from his wickedness, the Lord threatens to feed them with wormwood, and commands not to hearken to them, Jer. xxiii. 14.-16. their blood shall be required at their hands, Ezek. iii. 18. one builds a wall, and another daubs it with untempered morter, then ye, O great hailstones shall fall, and they shall be consumed in the midst thereof, Ezek. xiii. 10, 11, 14, 18, 22. we dare not join with either builders or daubers of such a work, as is carried on to the dishonour of Christ and ruining of reformation, nor by our countenance and concurrence strengthen either builders or daubers; lest we also be consumed in the midst thereof. When there is a conspiracy of the prophets, and the priests violate the law, and profane holy things, and shew no difference between the unclean and the clean, then the Lord will pour out his indignation upon all, Ezek. xxii. 25,—to the end. We would endeavour to keep ourselves free of having any hand in that conspiracy. These scriptures do give the perfect pourtracture of our curates, in the conviction of all that know them. Hence we draw a complex argument: such ministers as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to their hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of a jealous God, are not to be heard; but the curates are such as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to their hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of the jealous Lord: therefore they are not to be heard. The connexion of the major is clear from what is said above. The minor is also evident from the application of these scriptures, thus: they that in the deceit of their own heart promise peace to, and strengthen the hands of evil doers, and give them not warning, but seduce them by daubing their wickedness, and shew no difference between the unclean and the clean, &c. are such as can do no good by their ministry, but a great deal of hurt to hearers, and expose themselves and them both to the indignation of God; but the curates are such, and all others, who are so unfaithful as to give no warning against, but justify the sins of the times. To be short, the minor of both these foregoing arguments is evident from the experience of all that go to the curates, who wrong thereby their own souls, mar their edification; and run to cisterns without water. What blessing can be expected upon the labours of such, who having perjured themselves in taking on with the prelates, are prosecuting that course of defection, and making themselves captains to lead the people back to Egypt, encouraging profanity and wickedness, being themselves patterns and patrons of the times corruptions? And seeing a blessing cannot be expected upon their labours, but rather a curse, as daily experience maketh good, when instead of any work of conversion or conviction among people, there is nothing seen but a fearful hardening in profanity, ignorance and atheism: so that many that seemed to have somewhat like religion before, through hearing of them, are turned loose and lax in all duties: yea never can it be instanced these twenty-seven years, that they have brought one soul to Christ, from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God: but many instances might be given of their murdering souls, as indeed they cannot be free of it, who cannot warn nor declare the whole counsel of God. Hence these who cannot but be soul-murderers, may not be heard nor entertained as soul-physicians; but the curates cannot but be soul-murderers. Again, we can expect no good from them, but a great deal of hurt; seeing their ministry is not the Lord's ordinance, which he will approve, and no performances can be acceptable unto the Lord which are not, in manner as well as in matter, agreeable to his will: hence the wickedness even of the Lord's lawful priests, not only caused the people to abhor the offerings of the Lord, but even the Lord himself to abhor his sanctuary, and to account their incense an abomination, so that he could not away with the calling of their assemblies, which yet upon the matter were duties. Should not we then hate that which the Lord hates, and withdraw from that which he hath forsaken? But the meetings of the curates for administration of ordinances in their way, the Lord hates, and hath signally forsaken: therefore we should hate and forsake them. This is confirmed by what Mr. Durham says in that digression about hearing, Rev. 1. page 55. in quarto, 'Seeing edification is God's gift, can it be expected but in his way, or can that be accounted his way which he hath not warranted.'

VII. As we would not partake of their judgment in countenancing of their administration of ordinances, so we would keep ourselves free from all participation of their sin; for we must not be partakers with any in sin, nor have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, that we must reprove, and that we find the Lord reproves and condemns, Eph. v. 7, 11. and not only ministers in ordaining, but people in hearing, may be in hazard of partaking of some mens sins, who enter into the ministry, 1 Tim. v. 22. we must keep at the greatest distance from sin: hence if we hear the curates without partaking of their sin, then we must not hear them; but we cannot hear the curates without partaking of their sin: therefore we must not hear them. The minor I prove. If hearing of them be a tessera of our incorporation with them, a test of our submission to them, a badge of our compliance with them, and sign of our approbation of them, then we cannot hear them without partaking of their sin; but hearing of them is such: the major cannot be denied, if prelacy and conformity therewith be sin, as is in part proven above: for if these be sins, then we must not incorporate with, nor submit to them, nor comply with them, nor approve them. The minor I prove by parts. 1. Hearing of curates is a tessera of our incorporation with them; for communion in sacred things doth infer an incorporation of the communicants or joiners in all cases, both in lawful and unlawful communions, 1 Cor. x. 17.-20. All partakers of the bread are one body, and they which eat of the sacrifices are partakers of the altar; and also they that partake of the sacrifice offered to devils, though they do not offer it so themselves, yet they are incorporate, and have fellowship with devils. And 2 Cor. vi. 14.-17. where they that do not come out, and are separate from unlawful communions, are expostulated with, as making an unequally yoked fellowship between righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness, Christ and Belial, the temple of God and idols: hence then, if we cannot partake of their sacred things, without partaking of their altar, and becoming one body with them, and making such an unequally yoked mixture with them, then we must be separate; but the first is true from these places. This argument concludes with equal force, against joining with any deeply engaged in the gross defections of the time. 2. Hearing of curates is a test of our submission to them, and compliance with them: for so it is required by law, as the acts themselves say, 'That a chearful concurrence, countenance, and assistance given to such ministers, and attending all the ordinary meetings for divine worship, is an evidence of a due acknowledgment of, and hearty compliance with his majesty's government ecclesiastical and civil, as now established by law within this kingdom,' Act of Parl. July 10, 1663. And themselves look on all such as obey this act as their friends. Hence, if this be sinful to submit to them, and comply with their establishment, in obedience to a sinful act of parliament, then it is sinful to hear them; but the former is true, as hath been shown: Therefore——3. Hence it follows, by native consequence, that hearing of curates is a sign of our approbation of them: for he that gives that which is required, and accepted, and interpreted as an evidence of a due acknowledgment, and of compliance with the government ecclesiastical, gives the sign of his approbation of it; but the hearer of curates does that in obedience to the act requiring accepting, and expresly interpreting it so: therefore, &c.

VIII. As we would be free of their sin, in approving of, and complying with their course; so we must endeavour to stand at the greatest distance from all appearance of sin in ourselves, either by commission or omission, in which our joining with them in these circumstances would involve us. For we must abstain from all appearance of evil, 1 Thess. v. 22. and from every thing that circumstances may make sinful: for otherwise, suppose a thing might be materially lawful and not sinfully sinful, yet circumstances may make it sinful, and a countenancing it so circumstantiated, doth infer a communion in these circumstances that makes it sinful. They that eat of the sacrifice are partakers of the altar, and if the altar be not of God's approbation, the thing offered, though otherwise lawful to be eaten, cannot justify the eaters, so circumstantiated. An idol is nothing, and that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is nothing, yet they who eat of it, when they know it is so circumstantiated, have fellowship with devils, 1 Cor. x. 18, 19, 20, 21. And it is called idolatry, comp. verse 14. which provokes the Lord to jealousy, verse 22. Especially when an action is so circumstantiated, that it would infer an omission of our duty, and a declining from or denying of our testimony, then it is clearly sinful. For whosoever shall deny the Lord before men, him will he deny before his Father, Matth. x. 33. And we must 'hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering,' Heb. x. 23. and 'keep the word of his patience,' if we would be kept in the hour of temptation, and hold it fast that no man take our crown, Rev. iii. 10, 11. 'All truth must be avowed, and practically avowed, on the greatest hazard: and as this testimony must be full so must it be also constant. It was Demas's shame, that the afflictions of the gospel made him forsake the apostle, after great appearances for Christ: and therefore whatever truth or duty is opposed, that becomes the special object of this testimony.' Rectius instruend. confut. 3. Dial. Chap. 1. Pag. 18, 19. Hence, if hearing of the curates would infer and involve us under the guilt both of commission of sin, and omission of duty, then we cannot hear them without sin; but the former is true; therefore also the latter. I prove the minor by parts. First, That it would infer and involve us under the guilt of commission of sin, all that is said above doth evince it; and besides, palpable breach of covenant, hereafter to be charged and cleared: and idolatry is a great sin of that nature; but the hearing of the curates doth infer this. Which may be made out thus; the breach of the second commandment is idolatry, (for to make the sins against that command odious, they are all comprehended under that odious name of worshipping images, as the sins against the seventh are called adultery, comprehending all unchaste thoughts, words, and actions); hearing of curates is a breach of the second command: Ergo——The minor I prove thus: Every worship, not according to Christ's appointment, is a breach of the second commandment; but hearing of curates is a worship not according to Christ's appointment. Which I prove thus: a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law, establishing a human ordinance in the church, besides and against the institution of Christ, is a worship not according to Christ's appointment; but the hearing of curates is a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law establishing a human ordinance, to wit Diocesan Erastian prelacy, with the curates their substitutes. Hence also the second doth follow by necessary consequence, that it would infer and involve us under the guilt of omission of duty. For, first, If reductively it may involve us under the guilt of idolatry and breach of the second commandment, then it will infer the guilt of omission of these necessary duties incumbent to the Lord's people with a reference to idolatry; to make no covenant with them nor with their gods, nor let them dwell in the land, lest they make us sin, Exod. xxiii. 32. 33. Exod. xxxiv. 14, 15. to overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and destroy the names of them out of the place, Deut. xii. 3. Judg. ii. 2. I do not adduce these precepts, to stretch them to the full measure of the demerit of the grossest of idolaters: for as there are degrees of breaches of the commandment, some grosser, some smaller, so there are also degrees of punishment, and as to the manner of destroying and extirpating all pieces of idolatry; but that the commands being founded upon a moral ground, lest they be sins and snares unto us, do oblige us to some endeavour of expelling, extirpating and overthrowing all pieces of idolatry, according to the word and our covenants; 'and that the true and right zeal of God should and would not only inspire all with an unanimous aversion against the profane intruding curates, but animate us as one man to drive away these wolves and thieves, and to eradicate these plants which our heavenly Father never planted,' Naph. Prior edit. pag. 108. The least duty that can be inferred is that of the apostles, flee from idolatry, 1 Cor. x. 14. which idolatry, there mentioned to be avoided, is to eat of the sacrifices offered to idols: whence we infer, that if to eat of things consecrated to idols be idolatry, then also to partake of sacred things consecrated by idols must be idolatry; as the curates dispensing of ordinances is consecrated by, and hath all its sanction from an idol of Diocesan Erastian prelacy; but we see the apostle expresses the former: therefore we may infer the latter. Further, It will also infer a declining from, and denying a necessary testimony, in the case circumstantiated. Even the smallest matter is great, when a testimony is concerned in it, were it but the circumstance of an open window; Daniel durst not omit it upon the greatest hazard. And now this is clearly come to a case of confession, when there is no other way to exoner our 'consciences before God and the world, and declare our non-conformity to this course of backsliding, no getting of wrongs redressed, or corruptions in the ministry removed, but by this practice; and certainly some way we must give public testimony against these courses, and there is no other way so harmless and innocent as this, though suffering follow upon it,' Apol. Relat. Sect. 14. 272, 273. And now there is no other way apparent, whereby the difference shall be kept up betwixt such as honestly mind the covenanted work of reformation, and the corrupt prelatical and malignant enemies; but this argument also will infer the expediency of withdrawing from all ministers, with whom our circumstantiate joining would involve us in a participation with their defections.

IX. As we would endeavour to avoid sin in ourselves; so we must have a care to give no occasion of others sinning, by our taking liberty in a promiscuous joining in church communion, whereby we may offend and stumble the conscience of others: for to that, in this as well as in other things, we must have a special respect, and forbear things, not only for our own unclearness, but for the sake of others also. If therefore the hearing of curates be a scandal, we must refuse it, be the hazard what will: for 'whoso shall offend one of Christ's little ones, it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck,' Matth. xviii. 6. 'No man must put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his brother's way,' Rom. xiv. 13. They that 'sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, they sin against Christ,' 1 Cor. viii. 12. we must forbear some things for conscience sake. Conscience, I say, not our own, but of others, giving none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God,' 1 Cor. x. 28, 29, 32. and so 'cut off all occasion from them that desire occasion,' 2 Cor. xi. 12. 'These commands discharge whatever practice gives occasion of our brother's sinning, of calling truth in question, of acting with a doubting conscience, or which weakens his plerophory or assurance; and neither the lawfulness nor indifferency of the thing itself, nor mens authority commanding it, nor the weakness, yea, or wickedness of those in hazard to be stumbled, will warrant the doing of that out of which offence arises,' Rectius Instruend. Confut. 3. Dial. chap. 1. p. 19. Mr. Durham in that forecited place saith, 'It carries offence along with it; in reference to the party who runs unsent, it proves a strengthening and confirming of him, and so a partaking of his sin; in reference to others, either strengthens them by that example, to cast themselves in that snare, which possibly may be their ruin; or it grieves them, and makes them sad, who are tender of such things, or gives occasion to make all difference of that kind to be thought light of.' Hence, if hearing of the curates be an offence or scandal, both in reference to malignants, and in reference to the godly, and in reference to the posterity, then it must be avoided; but the former is true: which is evidenced by parts. First, in reference to malignants, it hardens and encourages them in their opposition to the work of God, and all backsliders and compliers with them in their apostacy; this strengthens their hands in their wicked courses, when they see how they are countenanced by all, and that there is no disrespect put upon them, nor dissatisfaction evinced against their courses, then they conclude that they are approven of all: and this hardeneth them, so that they never once think of the evil of their ways. Next, in reference to the godly, stumbles the truly tender, by encouraging them to do contrary to their light and conscience, even when they are not clear to hear them, then they are emboldened thereunto when they see others doing so; and so it tends to the wounding of their peace, and makes them halt in the ways of the Lord. Lastly, With reference to posterity, it would prejudge them very much: though now the honest party be not in a capacity to transmit the work of reformation unto their posterity, in such a manner as were to be wished: yet they should do something for keeping fresh the memory of the good old cause, by keeping up some footsteps of a standing controversy for Zion's interest against the common enemy: but now let all join with, and own the curates, what appearance of this shall the posterity see? shall not they conclude that the day is lost, and the cause is gone, when they see that this generation hath fled the fields, or rather sold and betrayed the cause, by owning, countenancing, and complying with the enemy, and no standing testimony against these corruptions? whereas if there were but this much of a standing difference, betwixt the people of God and the common enemies of God, to be seen, posterity shall in some measure be kept from being deceived, and shall see the interest of Christ not killed nor buried quick, but living, though in a bleeding condition, and this will occasion their engaging for Christ, and interesting themselves in the quarrel; and it is far better to see the cause of Christ owned, though by suffering and blood, than sold and betrayed by base flenching and complying with persecutors. This argument may also sound and infer a withdrawing from the addressing ministers, who, to the great scandal of presbyterians, give forth their addresses in the name of all of that persuasion.

X. Our duty to themselves, yea our greatest office of love we owe to them, in order to their conviction, does oblige us to withdraw from them. This may seem a paradox, yet it will be apparent, if we search the scriptures, to see what we owe to scandalous brethren. There we find it is a duty, to endeavour by all lawful means to shame them out of their sin; and it is an argument of hatred, when we do not rebuke our neighbour, or when we suffer sin upon him, Lev. xix. 17. If we consider them then as neighbours and friends, we must use endeavours to take away their sin from them; if we consider them not as such, but as enemies, then we must avoid them, and not be mingled with them, as I could adduce many scriptures for that. But I suppose all that will oppose my thesis, would have them considered as friends. Well then, if they be scandalous brethren, this is the way prescribed by the apostle to deal with them, in order not to suffer sin upon them, that we should withdraw from them our company; and if we must withdraw our company, then also a fortiori, we must deny them our religious communion: for that must either be included there, or necessarily inferred. He writes, not to keep company: If any man that is called a brother (mark that especially) be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat, 1 Cor. v. 11. And I presume they that know them best will grant, that it would not be hard to prove, that all the curates in Scotland were chargeable with some of these, or at least partakers with them; and that if they were all impartially impannelled, they would be rare ones, whom an honest jury would not bring in guilty of this libel. Then we are expresly commanded 'in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw ourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the received tradition. And if any man obey not the word, to note him, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed,' 2 Thess. iii. 6, 14. Sure neither their office nor their innocency can exempt them from these rules. For either they must be considered as our brethren; or not; if not, then we own no church communion with them; for that is only among brethren that are so in sympathy and affection, and affinity, having one father and one mother, if they be brethren, then all scandalous brethren are to be withdrawn from; but they are scandalous brethren: therefore they are to be withdrawn from. The minor will not be doubted by any, but such as are strangers to them, who both in their ministerial and personal capacity are so scandalous to the conviction of all, that profaneness hath gone forth from them into all the land, and they as much as ever the profane sons of Eli, have made men to abhor the offering of the Lord, 1 Sam. ii. 17. But even strangers, that are unacquaint with their personal profligateness and ignorance, &c. cannot be altogether ignorant of the scandal of prelacy and erastianism, in which they are involved, of the scandal of apostasy, perjury, and breach of covenant, which is their brand, and the nation's bane, that hath countenanced them. And none can doubt, but if our church were duly constitute, and invested with the orderly power of Christ, and in capacity to exercise and improve it, they would soon be censured every soul of them as scandalous, as they have been also previously sentenced as such, by the acts of our general assemblies. This argument levels also against all complying, indulged, addressing ministers, who by these courses have incurred the character of disorderly brethren.

XI. Our faithfulness to God, and to one another, engaged in our covenants, doth oblige us to turn away from them who have broken it, and so classed themselves among these truce breaking traitors, who make our times perilous, from whom we must turn away, 2 Tim. iii. 1,—5. It appears from the foregoing deduction, how solemnly these nations were engaged, both to keep out and put out this generation of prelatists, now prevailing; the obligation of which yet lies upon all the inhabitants of the land, with a binding force, both in regard of their form, and object and end. Hence, if the curates be covenant-breakers, and we also in owning them, then we cannot own them without sin; but the curates are covenant-breakers, and we also in owning them: Ergo——The minor may be manifest by an induction of all the articles of the solemn league and covenant, broken by them, and all that own them. 1. That doctrine, worship, discipline and government in the 1st article, sworn to be preserved and propagated, was the presbyterian then established, which our church was in possession of, which they have opposed, and their owners refiled from, and have not maintained. 2. We are engaged in the 2d article, to endeavour the extirpation of prelacy, and its dependents; which is diametrically opposite to owning of curates: can we own them whom we are bound to abhor? and submit to them whom we are bound to extirpate? Surely this were to rebuild what we have destroyed, see Napht. p. 104. and since in relation to popery, heresy and schism, this article obliges us to disown, and not to hear papists and schismatics, why not also in relation to prelatists, who are greatest schismatics? 3. They have established and homologated an erastian supremacy, to the prejudice of true religion, and the liberties of the church and kingdom; and their owners have abetted and countenanced the same, and not preserved either the liberties of church or kingdom, contrary to the 3d article. 4. They have not only concealed and countenanced malignant enemies to this church and kingdom, but have themselves been real incendiaries, hindering the reformation of religion, making factions and parties among them contrary to this league and covenant: and their hearers are so far from bringing them to condign punishment, that they have strengthened their hands in their avowed opposition to the covenants, contrary to the 4th article. 5. They have broken our conjunction in firm peace and union, and yet their hearers have not marked and avoided these causers of divisions, contrary to scripture, and the 5th article. 6. Instead of assisting and defending all these that entered into this league and covenant, &c. they have been the greatest persecutors of all them that adhered to it; and their owners have suffered themselves, by combination, or persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from their suffering brethren, and have made defection to the contrary part, and given themselves to a detestable indifferency in this cause, contrary to the 6th article. 7. Instead of humbling themselves for their sins, and going before others in the example of a real reformation, they have obstinately defended their breach of covenant, and have been patrons and patterns of all deformations; and their owners and hearers have not repented of that neither, when they countenance such covenant-breakers and profane persons, nor of their not labouring for the purity and power of the gospel when they seek it from such impure hands: neither do they go before others in reformation, when they are such bad examples of defection, contrary to the conclusion of the covenant. This argument will also strike against hearing of such ministers, that have made themselves guilty of the same, or equivalent breaches of covenant.

XII. Finally, for union's sake, and to avoid schism in the body, we must withdraw from them. This may seem another paradox; but it is apparent, if we consider, 'That there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another,' 1 Cor. xii. 25. And that for to prevent and remeid this, the apostle 'beseeches us to mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which we have learned, and avoid them,' Rom. xvi. 17. Now then, if the prelates and their curates be schismatics and separatists, and dividers, then we must avoid and withdraw from them, but so it is, that the prelates and their curates are schismatics and separatists, and dividers: therefore we must avoid and withdraw from them. The minor I prove from all the constituents of a formed schism, separation and sinful division. 1. They that start out from under due relations to a church, and from her ministry, are schismatics, separatists and dividers; but the prelates and their curates have started out from under due relations to the covenanted church of Scotland, and from her ministry, in being so unnatural rebellious children, as have broken their mother's beauty and bands, order and union, and razed her covenanted reformation in doctrine, worship, discipline and government. 2. These who withdraw from the communion of a true church, and therefore are censurable by all her standing acts, are schismatical separatists; but the prelates and their curates have withdrawn from the communion of the true church of Scotland, and therefore are censureable by all her standing acts, in that they have made a faction and combination repugnant to the communion of this church, and all her established order. 3. Those who separate from a church, whose principles and practices are subservient to that church's true union and communion, and right establishment, are properly schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have separated from this church, whose principles and practices are subservient to its true union and communion, and right establishment: for they could never yet impeach or challenge any principle or practice, contrary to the word of God, or not subservient to true union and order, but their principles and practices are stated in opposition to her purity and reformation. Those who innovate the worship and government, owned and established in a true church, are schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have innovated the worship and government of the true church of Scotland, in bringing a doctrine new and odd, and not the voice of this church; and their worship, over and above the corruption adhering to it, is the worshipping of an innovating party, contrary to our church's established order. 5. They that make a rent in the bowels of the true and genuine church, are the schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have made a rent in the bowels of this church, and have caused all the divisions in this church. 6. Those that divide themselves from the fellowship of a pure church, either in her ministry, lawful courts and ordinances, are the schismatics; but the prelates and their curates have divided themselves from the fellowship of this pure church, in her ministry, lawful courts and ordinances, in that they have caused the ejection of her ministry, dissipation of her assemblies, and subversion of her pure ordinances. 7. Those that break union with such, to whom they were under obligations to adhere, are schismatical dividers; but the prelates and their curates have broken union with such to whom they were under obligations to adhere, both from the antecedent morally obliging duty, and from the superadded obligation of the covenants, neither could they ever pretend any thing that might loose the obligation. 8. That party in a reformed church, which having overturned her reformation, hath shut out, laid aside, and persecute away sound adherers thereunto, both ministers and professors, and will not admit ministers to officiate, but upon the sinful terms of compliance with their way, are schismatics; but the prelates and their curates are that party in this reformed church, which having overturned her reformation, hath shut out, laid aside, and persecute away sound adherers thereunto, &c. therefore they are the schismatics to be withdrawn from, and their way is the schism, which we are bound to extirpate in the covenant.

HEAD II.

The sufferings of many for refusing to own the tyrant's authority vindicated.

The other grand ordinance of God, magistracy, which he hath in his sovereign wisdom, justice, and goodness, appointed, ordained, and consecrated, for the demonstration, illustration, and vindication of his own glory, and the communication, conservation, and reparation of the peace, safety, order, liberty, and universal good of mankind, is next to that of the ministry of great concern: wherein not only the prudence, policy, property, and liberty of men, but also the conscience, duty, and religion of Christians, have a special interest. And therefore it is no less important, pertinent, profitable, and necessary for every one that hath any of these to care and contend for, keep and recover, to inquire into and understand something of the institution, constitution, nature, and boundaries of the sacred ordinances of magistracy, than into the holy ordinance of the ministry; so far at least as may consist with the sphere of every one's capacity and station, and may conduce to the satisfaction of every one's conscience, in the discharge of the duties of their relations. Every private man indeed hath neither capacity, concern, nor necessity, to study the politics, or search into the secrets, or intrigues of government, no more than he is to be versed in all the administrations of ecclesiastical policy, and interests of the ministry; yet every man's conscience is no less concerned, in distinguishing the character of God's ministers of justice, the magistrates, to whom he owes and owns allegiance, that they be not usurping tyrants, everting the ordinances of the magistracy, than in acknowledging the character of Christ's ministers of the gospel, to whom he owes and owns obedience, that they be not usurping prelates or impostors, perverting the ordinance of the ministry. The glory of God is much concerned, in our owning and keeping pure and entire, according to his will and word, both these ordinances. And our conscience as well as interest is concerned in the advantage or hurt, profit or prejudice, of the right or wrong, observation or prevarication, of both these ordinances; being interested in the advantage of magistracy, and hurt of tyranny in the state, as well as in the advantage of the ministry, and hurt of diocesan, or erastian supremacy in the church; in the advantage of liberty, and hurt of slavery in the state, as well as in the advantage of religion, and hurt of profaneness in the church; in the profit of laws, and prejudice of prerogative in the state, as well as in the profit of truth, and prejudice of error in the church; in the profit of peace and true loyalty, and prejudice of oppression and rebellion in the state, as well as in the profit of purity and unity, and prejudice of defection, and division or schism in the church. So that in confidence, we are no more free to prostitute our loyalty and liberty absolutely, in owning every possessor of the magistracy; than we are free to prostitute our religion and faith implicitly, in owning every pretender to the ministry. This may seem very paradoxical to some, because so dissonant and dissentient from the vulgar, yea almost universal and inveterate opinion and practice of the world, that hitherto hath not been so precise in the matter of magistracy. And it may seem yet more strange, that not only some should be found to assert this; but that any should be found so strict and strait laced, as to adventure upon suffering, and even to death, for that which hath hitherto been seldom scrupled, by any that were forced to subjection under a yoke, which they had no force to shake off, and wherein religion seems little or nothing concerned; for not owning the authority of the present possessors of the place of government: which seems to be a question not only excentric and extrinsic to religion, but such a state-question, as for its thorny intricacies and difficulties, is more proper for politicians and lawyers to dispute about, (as indeed their debates about this head of authority, have been as manifold and multiplied as about any one thing) than for private christians to search into, and suffer for, as a part of their testimony. But if we will cast off prejudices, and the tyranny of custom, and the bondage of being bound to the world's mind in our inquiries about tyranny, and suffer ourselves to ponder impartially the importance of this matter; and then to state the question right; we shall find religion and conscience hath no small interest in this business. They must have no small interest in it, if we consider the importance of this matter, either extensively, objectively, or subjectively. Extensively considered, it is the interest of all mankind to know and be resolved in conscience, whether the government they are under be of God's ordination, or of the devil's administration? Whether it be magistracy or tyranny? Whether it gives security for religion and liberty, to themselves and their posterity? Or whether it induces upon themselves, and entails upon the posterity, slavery as to both these invaluable interests? Whether they have matter of praise to God for the blessings and mercies of magistracy, or matter of mourning for the plagues and miseries of tyranny, to the end they may know both the sins and snares, duties and dangers, cases and crisis, of the times they live in? All men, that ever enjoyed the mercy of a right constitute magistracy, have experienced, and were bound to bless God for the blessed fruits of it: and, on the other hand, the world is full of the tragical monuments of tyranny, for which men were bound both to search into the causes, and see the effects of such plagues from the Lord, to the end they might mourn over both. And from the beginning it hath been observed, that as people's sins have always procured the scourge of tyranny; so all their miseries might be refounded upon tyrants encroachments, usurping upon or betraying their trust, and overturning religion, laws and liberties. Certainly mankind is concerned in point of interest and conscience, to inquire into the cause and cure of this epidemic distemper, that hath so long held the world in misery, and so habitually, that now it is become, as it were, natural to ly stupidly under it; that is, that old ingrained gangrene of the king's evil, or compliance with tyranny, that hath long afflicted the kingdoms of the world, and affected not only their backs in bearing the burden thereof; but their hearts into a lethargic stupor of insensibleness; and their heads in infatuating and intoxicating them with notions of the sacredness and uncontroulableness of tyranny; and their hands in infeebling and fettering them from all attempts to work a cure: or else it hath had another effect on many that have been sensible of a touch of it; even equivalent to that, which an ingenious author, Mr. Gee, in his preface to the divine right and original of the civil magistrate, (to which Mr. Durham is not absonant) expounds to be the effect of the fourth vial, Rev. xvi. 8, 9. when in these dog days of the world, power is given to the sun of imperial, especially popish, tyranny, by their exorbitant stretches of absolute prerogative, to scorch men with fire of furious oppressions, they then blaspheme the name of God which hath power over these plagues, in their male-content complaints, grumblings, grudgings, and murmurings under the misery, but they do not repent, nor give him glory, in mourning over the causes promeriting such a plague, and their own accession in exposing themselves to such a scorching sun, nakedly without a sconce. Certainly this would be the remedy that conscience would suggest, and interest would incite to, an endeavour either of allaying the heat or of subtracting from it under a shelter, by declining the oblique malignity of its scorching rays. But will the world never be awakened out of this dream and dotage, of dull and stupid subjection to every monster that can mount a throne? Sure at length it may be expected, either conscience from within as God's deputy, challenging for the palpable perversion of this his excellent ordinance, or judgments from without, making sensible of the effects of it, will convince and confute these old inveterate prejudices. And then these martyrs for that universal interest of mankind, who got the fore-start and the first sight of this, will not be so flouted as fools, as now they are. And who knoweth, what prelude or preparative, foreboding and presaging the downfal of tyranny, may be in its aspirings to this height of arbitrary absoluteness, and in the many questions raised about it, and by them imposed upon consciences to be resolved. If we consider the object of this question; as conscience can only clear it, so in nothing can it be more concerned. It is that great ordinance of God, most signally impressed by a very sacred and illustrious character of the glorious majesty of the Most High, who hath appointed magistracy; in which, considering either its fountain, or dignity, ends, or effects, conscience must have a very great concern. The fountain, or efficient cause of magistracy, is high and sublime. The powers that are, be of God, not only by the all-disposing hand of God in his providence, as tyranny is, nor only by way of naked approbation, but by divine in-institution; and that not only in the general, by at least a secondary law of nature, but also the special investiture of it, in institution and constitution, is from God; and therefore they are said to be ordained of God, to which ordinance we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake: which is the great duty required in the fifth commandment, the first commandment with promise; that hath the priority of place before all the second table, because the other commandments respect each some one interest, this hath a supereminent influence upon all. But tyrannical powers are not of God in this sense. And it were blasphemy to assert they were of the Lord's authorization, conscience cannot bind to a subjection to this. Again, the dignity of magistracy, ordained for the maintenance of truth and righteousness, the only foundations of people's felicity, whether temporal or eternal, including the bonds and boundaries of all obedience and subjection, for which they are intended, and to which they refer, is supereminent; as that epithet of higher, added to the powers that are of God, may be rendered; making them high and sublime in glory, whose highest prerogative is, That, being God's ministers, they sit in the throne of God, anointed of the Lord; judging not for man, but for the Lord, as the scripture speaks. To this conscience is concerned in duty to render honour as due, by the prescript of the fifth commandment; but for tyranny, conscience is bound to deny it, because not due, no more than obedience, which conscience dare not pay to a throne of iniquity, and a throne of the devil, as tyranny may be called, as really as magistracy is called the throne of God. Next, conscience is much concerned in the ends of magistracy, which are the greatest, the glory of God, and the good of mankind. And, in the effects of it, the maintenance of truth, righteousness, religion, liberty, peace, and safety, and all choicest external blessings; but the ends and effects of tyranny are quite contrary, domineering for pleasure, and destroying for profit. Can we think that conscience is nothing concerned here, that these great ends shall be subverted, and the effects precluded; and to that effect, that tyranny not only be shrouded under a privilege of impunity, but by our subjection and acknowledgement of it, as a lawful power, encouraged into all enormities, and licensed to usurp, not only our liberties, but God's throne by an uncontroulable sovereignty? But if we consider the subjective concern of conscience, it must be very graat, when it is the only thing that prompts to subjection, that regulates subjection, and is a bottom for subjection to lawful powers. If it were not out of conscience, men that are free born are naturally such lovers of liberty, and under corruption such lusters after licentiousness, that they would never come under the order of this ordinance, except constrained for wrath's sake: but now, understanding that they that resist the power, resist the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, they must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. If conscience were not exercised in regulating our duty to magistrates, we would either obey none, or else would observe all their commands promiscuously, lawful or unlawful, and would make no difference either of the matter commanded, or the power commanding: but now, understanding that we must obey God rather than man, and that we must render to all their dues, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour, conscience regulates us what and whom to obey. And without conscience there is little hope for government to prove either beneficial or permanent; little likelihood of either a real, regular, or durable subjection to it. The discernible standing of government upon conscientious grounds, is the only thing that can bring in conscience, and a conscientious submission to it; it being the highest and most kindly principle of, and the strongest and most lasting obligation to any relative duty. It will not be liberty of conscience, (as saith the late declaration for it) but reality of conscience, and government founded upon a bottom of conscience, that will unite the governed to the governors, by inclination as well as duty. And if that be, then there is needful a rule of God's revealed preceptive will, (the only cynosure and empress of conscience), touching the founding and erecting of government, that it have the stamp of God's authority. It must needs then follow, that conscience hath a very great concernment in this question in the general, and that before it be forced to an abandoning of its light in a matter of such moment, it will rather oblige people that are conscientious to suffer the worst that tyrants can do; especially when it is imposed and obtruded upon conscience, to give its sufferage and express acknowledgment that the present tyranny is the authority of God, which is so visible in the view of all that have their eyes open, that the meanest capacity that was never conversant in laws and politics can give this verdict that the constitution and administration of the government of the two royal brothers, under whose burden the earth and we have been groaning these twenty-seven years past, hath been a complete and habitual tyranny, and can no more be owned to be magistracy, than robbery can be acknowledged to be a rightful possession. It is so plain, that I need not the help of lawyers and politicians to demonstrate it, nor launch into the ocean of their endless debates in handling the head of magistracy and tyranny: yet I shall improve what help I find in our most approved authors who have enlarged upon this question, (though not as I must state it) to dilucidate the matter in Thesi, and refer to the foregoing deduction of the succession of testimonies against tyranny, to clear it in Hypothesi. Whence we may see the occasion, and clearly gather the solution of the question, which is this:

Whether a people, long oppressed with the encroachments of tyrants and usurpers, may disown their pretended authority; and, when imposed upon, to acknowledge it, may rather choose to suffer than to own it?

To clear this question: I shall premit some concessions, and then come more formally to resolve it.

1. It must be granted the question is extraordinary, and never so stated by any writer on this head; which makes it the more difficult and odious, because odd and singular, in the esteem of those who take up opinions rather from the number of votes than from the weight of the reasons of the asserters of them. It will also be yielded, that this was never a case of confession for Christians to suffer upon. And the reason of both is, because, before these seven years past, this was never imposed upon private and common subjects to give an account of their thoughts and conscience about the lawfulness of the government they lived under. Conquerors and usurpers sometimes have demanded an acknowledgment of their authority, from men of greatest note and stroke in the countries they have seized; but they never since the creation urged it upon common people, as a test of loyalty; but thought always their laws and power to execute them on offenders, did secure their subjection. Or otherwise to what purpose are laws made, and the execution of them committed to men in power, if they be not thought a sufficient fence for the authority that makes them; except it also have the actual acknowledgment of the subjects to ratify it? Men that are really invested with authority, would think it both a disparagement to their authority, and would disdain such a suspicion of the questionableness of it, as to put it as a question to the subjects, whether they owned it or not. But the gentlemen that rules us, have fallen upon a piece of unprecedented policy; wherein they think both to involve the nation in the guilt of their unparalelled rebellion against the Lord, by owning that authority that promotes it; and so secure their usurpations, either by the suffrage of all that own them, or by the extirpation of the conscientious that dare not, with the odium and obloquy of being enemies to authority; by which trick they think to bury the honour of their testimony. Yet in sobriety without prophesying it may be presumed, at the long run, this project will prove very prejudicial to their interest: and herein they may verify that Scots proverb, 'o'er fast o'er loose,' and accomplish these divine sayings, 'He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.' For as they have put people upon this question, who would not otherwise have made such inquiries into it, and now finding they must be resolved in conscience to answer it, whenever they shall be brought before them; upon a very overly search, they see terrible tyranny written in legible bloody characters almost on all administrations of the government, and so come to be fixed in the verdict that their conscience and the word of God gives of it; so it may be thought, this question now started, for as despicable beginnings it hath, yet ere it come to a full and final decision, will be more enquired into through the world, and at length prove as fatal to tyranny, as ever any thing could be, and then they may know whom to thank. But however, though the question be extraordinary, and the sufferings thereupon be unprecedented, and therefore, among other contradictions that may be objected, that neither in history nor scripture we can find instances of private people's refusing to own the authority they were under, nor of their suffering for that refusal; yet nevertheless it may be duty without example. Many things may be done, though not against the law of God, yet without a precedent of the practice of the people of God. Though we could not adduce an example for it, yet we can gather it from the law of God, that tyranny must not be owned, this will be equivalent to a thousand examples. Every age in some things must be a precedent to the following, and I think never did any age produce a more honourable precedent, than this beginning to decline a yoke under which all ages have groaned.

2. It will be also granted, it is not always indispensibly necessary, at all times, for a people to declare their disclaim of the tyranny they are under, when they cannot shake it off; nor, when they are staged for their duty before wicked and tyrannical judges, is it always necessary to disown their pretended authority positively; when either they are not urged with questions about it, then they may be silent in reference to that; or when they are imposed upon to give their judgment of it, they are not always obligated, as in a case of confession, to declare all their mind, especially when such questions are put to them with a manifest design to entrap their lives, or intangle their conscience. All truth is not to be told at all times; neither are all questions to be answered when impertinently interrogate, but may be both cautiously and conscientiously waved. We have Christ's own practice, and his faithful servant Paul's example, for a pattern of such prudence and Christian caution. But yet it were cruel and unchristian rigour, to censure such as, out of a pious principle of zeal to God and conscience of duty, do freely and positively declare their judgment, in an absolute disowning of their pretended authority, when posed with such questions, though to the manifest detriment of their lives, they conscientiously looking upon it as a case of confession. For where the Lord hath not peremptorily astricted his confessors to such rules of prudence, but hath both promised, and usually gives his Spirit's conduct, encouraging and animating them to boldness, so as before hand they should not take thought how or what they shall speak, and in that same hour they find it given them, it were presumption for us to stint them to our rules of prudence. We may indeed find rules to know, what is a case of confession; but hardly can it be determined, what truth or duty we are questioned about is not, or may not be, a case of confession. And who can deny, but this may be in some circumstance, a case of confession, even positively to disown the pretended authority of a bloody court or council? when either they go out of their sphere, taking upon them Christ's supremacy, and the cognizance of the concerns of his crown, whereof they are judges noways competent; then they must freely and faithfully be declined. Or when, to the dishonour of Christ, they blaspheme his authority, and the sacred boundaries he hath prescribed to all human authority, and will assert an illimited absolute authority, refusing and discharging all offered legal and scriptural restrictions to be put thereupon, (as hath been the case of the most part of these worthy though poor martyrs, who have died upon this head) then they must think themselves bound to disown it. Or when they have done some cruel indignity and despite to the Spirit of God, and to Christ's prerogative and glory, and work of reformation, and people, in murdering them without mercy, and imposing this owning of their king, by whose authority all is acted, as a condemnation of these witnesses of Christ their testimony, and a justification of their bloody cruelties against them, which hath frequently been the case of these poor people that hath been staged upon this account: in this case, and several others of this sort that might be mentioned, then they may be free and positive in disowning this test of wicked loyalty, as the mark of the dragon of the secular beast of tyranny. And in many such cases, when the Lord gives the spirit, I see no reason but that Christ's witnesses must follow his pattern of zeal in the case of confession, which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate in asserting his own kingship, as they may in other cases follow his pattern of prudence. And why may we not imitate the zeal of Stephen who called the council before whom he was staged stiff-necked resisters of the Holy Ghost, persecutors of the prophets, and betrayers and murderers of Christ the just one, as well as the prudence of Paul? But, however it be, the present testimony against this pretended authority lies in the negative, which obliges always, for ever and for ever; that is to say, we plead, that it must never be owned. There is a great difference between a positive disowning and a not owning; though the first be not always necessary, the latter is the testimony of the day, and a negative case of confession, which is always clearer than the positive. Though we must not always confess every truth, yet we must never deny any.

3. It is confessed, we are under this sad disadvantage besides others, that not only all our brethren, groaning under the same yoke with us, will not take the same way of declining this pretended authority, nor adventure, when called, to declare their judgment about it, (which we do not condemn, as is said, and would expect from the rules of equity and charity, they will not condemn us when we find ourselves in conscience bound to use greater freedom) but also some when they do declare their judgment, give it in terms condemnatory of, and contradictory unto our testimony, in that they have freedom positively to own this tyranny as authority, and the tyrant as their lawful sovereign: and many of our ministers also are of the same mind. And further, as we have few expressly asserting our part of the debate, as it is now stated; so we have many famous divines expresly against us in this point, as especially we find in their comments upon, Rom. xiii. among whom I cannot dissemble my sorrow to find the great Calvin, saying, Saepe solent inquirere, &c. 'Men often enquire, by what right they have obtained their power who have the rule! it should be enough to us that they do govern; for they have not ascended to this eminency by their own power, but are imposed by the hand of the Lord.' As also Pareus saying too much against us. For answer to this, I refer to Mr. Knox's reply to Lethington, producing several testimonies of divines against him upon this very head; wherein he shews, that the occasions of their discourses and circumstances wherein they were stated, were very far different from those that have to do with tyrants and usurpers, as indeed they are the most concerned, and smart most under their scourge, are in best case to speak to the purpose. I shall only say, mens averment, in a case of conscience, is not an oracle, when we look upon it with an impartial eye, in the case wherein we are not prepossessed: it will bear no other value, than what is allayed with the imperfections of fallibility, and moreover is contradicted by some others, whose testimony will help us as much to confirm our persuasion, as others will hurt us to infirm it.

4. But now when tyrants go for magistrates, lest my plea against owning tyranny, should be mistaken, as if it were a pleading for anarchy, I must assert, that I and all those I am vindicating, are for magistracy, as being of divine original, institute for the common good of human and Christian societies, whereunto every soul must be subject, of whatsoever quality or character, and not only for wrath but also for conscience sake (though as to our soul and conscience, we are not subject) which whosoever resisteth, resisteth the ordinance of God, and against which rebellion is a damnable sin, whereunto (according to the fifth commandment, and the many reiterated exhortations of the apostles) we must be subject, and obey magistrates, and submit ourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake, whether it be unto the king as supreme, &c. And we account it a hateful brand of them that walk after the flesh, to despise government, to be presumptuous, self-willed, and not afraid to speak evil of dignities: and that they are filthy dreamers, who despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities: and of those things which they know not. We allow the magistrate, in whatsoever form of government, all the power the scripture, laws of nature and nations, or municipal do allow him; asserting, that he is the keeper and avenger of both the tables of the law, having a power over the church, as well as the state, suited to his capacity, that is, not formally ecclesiastical, but objectively, for the church's good; an external power, of providing for the church, and protecting her from outward violence, or inward disorder, an imperate power, of commanding all to do their respective duties; a civil power of punishing all, even church-officers, for crimes; a secondary power of judicial approbation or condemnation; or discretive, in order to give his sanction to synodical results; a cumulative power, assisting and strengthening the church in all her privileges, subservient, though not servile, co-ordinate with church-power, not subordinate (though as a christian he is subject) in his own affairs, viz. civil; not to be declined as judge, but to be obeyed in all things lawful, and honoured and strengthened with all his dues. We would give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's; but to tyrants, that usurp and pervert both the things of God and of Caesar, and of the peoples liberties, we can render none of them, neither God's, nor Caesar's, nor our own: nor can we from conscience give him any other deference, but as an enemy to all, even to God, to Caesar, and the people. And in this, though it doth not sound now with court-parasites, nor with others, that are infected with royal indulgencies and indemnities, we bring forth but the transumpt of old principles, according to which our fathers walked when they still contended for religion and liberty, against the attemptings and aggressions of tyranny, against both.

5. It must be conceded, it is not an easy thing to make a man in the place of magistracy a tyrant: for as every escape, error, or act of unfaithfulness, even known and continued in, whether in a minister's entry to the ministry, or in his doctrine, doth not unminister him, nor give sufficient ground to withdraw from him, or reject him as a minister of Christ: so neither does every enormity, misdemeanor, or act of tyranny, injustice, perfidy, or profanity in the civil magistrate, whether as to his way of entry to that office, or in the execution of it, or in his private or personal behaviour, denominate him a tyrant or an usurper, or give sufficient ground to divest him of magistratical power, and reject him as the lawful magistrate. It is not any one or two acts contrary to the royal covenant or office, that doth denude a man of the royal dignity, that God and the people gave him. David committed two acts of tyranny, murder and adultery; yet the people were to acknowledge him as their king (and so it may be said of some others, owned still as kings in scripture) the reason is, because though he sinned against a man or some particular persons, yet he did not sin against the state, and the catholic good of the kingdom, subverting law; for then he would have turned tyrant, and ceased to have been lawful king. There is a great difference between a tyrant in act, and a tyrant in habit; the first does not cease to be a king. But on the other hand, as every thing will not make a magistrate to be a tyrant; so nothing will make a tyrant by habit a magistrate. And as every fault will not unminister a minister; so some will oblige the people to reject his ministry, as if he turn heretical, and preach atheism, Mahometanism, or the like, the people, though they could not formally depose him, or through the corruption of the times could not get him deposed; yet they might reject and disown his ministry: so it will be granted, that a people have more power in creating a magistrate, than in making a minister; and consequently they have more right, and may have more light in disowning a king, as being unkinged; than in disowning a minister, as being unministred. It will be necessary therefore, for clearing our way, to fix upon some ordinary characters of a tyrant, which may discrimate him from a magistrate, and be ground of disowning him as such. I shall rehearse some, from very much approved authors; the application of which will be as apposite to the two brothers, that we have been burdened with, as if they had intended a particular and exact description of them. Buchanan de jure regni apud Scotos, shews, 'That the word tyrant was at first honourable, being attributed to them that had the full power in their hands, which power was not astricted by any bonds of laws, nor obnoxious to the cognition of judges; and that it was the usual denomination of heroes, and thought at first so honourable, that it was attributed to the gods: but as Nero and Judas were sometimes among the Romans and Jews names of greatest account, but afterwards by the faults of two men of these names, it came to pass, that the most flagitious would not have these names given to their children, so in process of time, rulers made this name so infamous by their wicked deeds, that all men abhorred it, as contagious and pestilentious, and thought it a more light reproach to be called hangman than a tyrant.' Thereafter he condescends upon several characters of a tyrant. 1. 'He that doth not receive a government by the will of the people, but by force invadeth it, or intercepteth it by fraud, is a tyrant; and who domineers even over the unwilling (for a king rules by consent, but a tyrant by constraint) and procures the supreme rule without the peoples consent, even tho' for several years they may so govern, that the people shall not think it irksome.' Which very well agrees with the present gentleman that rules over us, who, after he was by public vote in parliament secluded from the government, of which the standing laws of both kingdoms made him incapable for his murders, adulteries and idolatries, by force and fraud did intercept first an act for his succession in Scotland, and then the actual succession in England, by blood and treachery, usurping and intruding himself into the government, without any compact with, or consent of the people; though now he studies to make himself another Syracusan Hiero, or the Florentine Cosmo de medices, in a mild moderation of his usurped power; but the west of England, and the west of Scotland both, have felt the force of it. 2. He does not govern for the subjects welfare, or public utility, but for himself, having no regard to that, but to his own lust, 'acting in this like robbers, who cunningly disposing of what wickedly they have acquired, do seek the praise of justice by injury, and of liberality by robbery; so he can make some shew of a civil mind; but so much the less assurance gives he of it, that it is manifest, he intends not hereby the subjects good, but the greater security of his own lusts, and stability of empire over posterity, having somewhat mitigated the peoples hatred, which when he had done, he will turn back again to his old manners; for the fruit which is to follow, may easily be known, both by the seed and by the sower thereof.' An exact copy of this we have seen within these two years, oft before in the rule of the other brother.

After God hath been robbed of his prerogatives, the church of her privileges, the state of its laws, the subjects of their liberty and property, he is now affecting the praise, and captating the applause of tenderness to conscience, and love of peace, by offering now liberty after all his cruelties; wherein all the thinking part of men do discern he is prosecuting that hellish project, introducing popery and slavery, and overturning religion, law, and liberty. 3. The kingly government is according to nature, the tyrannical against it; principality is the kingly government of a freeman amongst freemen; the tyrannical a government of a master over slaves. Tyranny is against nature, and a masterly principality over slaves. Can he be called a father, who accounts his subjects slaves; or a shepherd, who does not feed, but devours his flock? or a pilot, who doth always study to make shipwreck of the goods, and strikes a leak in the very ship where he fails? 'What is he then that bears command, not for the people's advantage, but studies only himself, who leadeth his subjects into manifest snares? He shall not verily be accounted by me either commander, emperor, or governor.' King James VI. also, in a speech to the parliament in the year 1609, makes this one character of a tyrant, when he begins to invade his subjects rights and liberties. And if this be true, then we have not had a king these many years: the foregoing deduction will demonstrate, what a slavery we have been under. 4. What is he then, who doth not contend for virtue with the good but to exceed the most flagitious in vices? 'If you see then any usurping the royal name, and not excelling in any virtue, but striving to exceed all in baseness, not tendering his subjects good with native affection, but pressing them with proud domination, esteeming the people committed to his trust, not for their safeguard, but for his own gain, will you imagine this man is truly a king, albeit he vapours with a numerous levee guard, and makes an ostentation of gorgeous pomp?' The learned Althusius likewise in his politics, chap. 38. Num. 15. (as he is cited by Jus Populi, chap. 16. p. 347.) makes this one character of a tyrant, that 'living in luxury, whoredom, greed and idleness, he neglecteth, or is unfit for his office.' How these suit our times we need not express; what effrontery of impudence is it, for such monsters to pretend to rule by virtue of any authority derived from God, who pollute the world with their adulteries and incests, and live in open defiance of all the laws of the universal king; with whom to exceed in all villanies is the way to purchase the countenance of the court, and to aspire to preferment? No Heligobaldus, &c. could ever come up the length in wickedness, that our rulers have professed. 5. He can transfer unto himself the strength of all laws, and abrogate them when he pleases. King James VI. in that forecited speech saith, a king degenerateth into a tyrant, when he leaveth to rule by law. Althusius also, in the forecited place, saith, 'There is one kind of tyranny, which consisteth in violating, changing, or removing of fundamental laws, specially such as concern religion; such, saith he, Philip the king of Spain, who, contrary to the fundamental Belgic laws, did erect an administration of justice by force of arms; and such was Charles IX. of France, that thought to overturn the Salic law.' All that knoweth what hath been done in Britain these twenty-seven years, can attest our laws have been subverted, the reformation of religion overturned, and all our best laws rescinded; and now the penal statutes against papists disabled and stopped, without and against law. 6. He can revoke all things to his nod, at his pleasure. This is also one part of King James VI.'s character of a tyrant, when he sets up an arbitrary power; and of Althusius, in the forecited place, 'when he makes use of an absolute power, and so breaks all bonds for the good of human society.' We allow a king an absolute power taken in a good sense, that is, he is not subaltern, nor subordinate to any other prince, but supreme in his own dominions: or if by absolute he meant perfect he is most absolute that governs best, according to the word of God; but if it be to be loosed from all laws, we think it blasphemy to ascribe it to any creature. Where was there ever such an arbitrary and absolute power arrogated by any mortal, as hath been claimed by our rulers these years past? especially by the present usurper, who, in this liberty of conscience now granted to Scotland, assumes to himself an absolute power, which all are to obey without reserve, which carries the subjects slavery many stages beyond whatever the grand Signior did attempt. 7. For by a tyrant strangers are employed to oppress the subjects: 'they place the establishment of their authority in the people's weakness, and think that a kingdom is not a procuration concredited to them by God, but rather a prey fallen into their hands; such are not joined to us by any civil bond, or any bond of humanity, but should be accounted the most capital enemies of God, and of all men.' King James, as above says, he is a tyrant that imposes unlawful taxes, raises forces, makes war upon his subjects, to pillage, plunder, waste, and spoil his kingdoms. Althusius as above, makes a tyrant, who by immoderate exactions, and the like, exhausts the subjects, and cites scripture, Jer. xxii. 13, 14. Ezek. xxxiv. 1. Kings xii. 19. Psal. xiv. 4.' It is a famous saying of Bracton, he is no longer king, than while he rules well, but a tyrant whensoever he oppresseth the people that are trusted to his care and government. And Cicero says, he loseth all legal power in and over an army or empire, who by that government and army does obstruct the welfare of that republic. What oppressions and exactions by armed force our nation hath been wasted with, in part is discovered above. 8. Althusius in the place above quoted, makes this another mark, 'When he keepeth not his faith and promise, but despiseth his very oath made unto the people.' What shall we say of him then, who not only brake, but burnt, and made it criminal to assert the obligation of the most solemnly transacted covenant with God and with the people, that ever was entered into, who yet upon these terms of keeping that covenant only was admitted to the government? And what shall we say of his brother succeeding, who disdains all bonds, whose professed principle is, as a papist, to keep no faith to heretics? 9. In the same place he makes this one character: 'A tyrant is he, who takes away from one or more members of the commonwealth the free exercise of the orthodox religion.' And the grave author of the impartial enquiry into the administration of affairs in England, doth assert, p. 3. 4. 'Whensoever a prince becomes depraved to that degree of wickedness, as to apply and employ his power and interest, to debauch and withdraw his subjects from their fealty and obedience to God, or sets himself to extirpate that religion which the Lord hath revealed and appointed to be the rule of our living, and the means of our happiness, he doth by that very deed depose himself; and instead of being owned any longer for a king, ought to be treated as a rebel and traitor against the supreme and universal sovereign.' This is the perfect portracture of our princes; the former of which declared an open war against religion, and all that professed it: and the latter did begin to prosecute it with the same cruelty of persecution, and yet continues without relenting against us; though to others he tolerates it under the notion of a crime, to be for the present dispensed with, until he accomplish his design. 10. Ibid. he tells us, 'That whoso for corrupting of youth erecteth stage plays, whore-houses, and other play-houses, and suffers the colleges and other seminaries of learning to be corrupted.' There were never more of this in any age, than in the conduct of our court, which, like another Sodom, profess it to be their design to debauch mankind into all villanies, and to poison the fountains of all learning and virtue, by intruding the basest of men into the place of teachers, both in church and university, and precluding all access to honest men. 11. Further he says. 'He is a tyrant who doth not defend his subjects from injuries when he may, but suffereth them to be oppressed, (and what if he oppress them himself?)' It was one of the laws of Edward the confessor, if the king fail in the discharge of his trust and office, he no longer deserves nor ought to enjoy that name. What name do they deserve then, who not only fail in the duty of defending their subjects, but send out their lictors and bloody executioners to oppress them, neither will suffer them to defend themselves! But Althusius makes a distinct character of this. 12. Then, in fine he must certainly be a tyrant, who will not suffer the people, by themselves nor by their representatives, to maintain their own rights, neither by law nor force; for, saith my author forecited, 'He is a tyrant who hindereth the free suffrages of members of parliament, so that they dare not speak what they would; and chiefly he who takes away from the people all power to resist his tyranny, as arms, strengths, and chief men, whom therefore, though innocent, he hateth, afflicteth, and persecuteth, exhausts their goods and livelihoods, without right or reason.' All know that our blades have been all along enemies to parliaments; and when their interest forced to call them, what means were used always to paque and prelimit them, and overawe them, and how men, who have faithfully discharged their trust in them, have been prosecuted with the height of envy and fury, and many murdered thereupon; and how all the armed force of the kingdoms have been inhanced into their hand, and the people kept so under foot, that they have been rendered incapable either to defend their own from inrestine usurpers, or foreign invaders. All that is said amounts to this, that when ever men in power to evert and subvert all the ends of government, and intrude themselves upon it, and abuse it, to the hurt of the commonwealth, and the destruction of that for which government was appointed; they are then tyrants, and cease to be magistrates. To this purpose I shall here append the words of that forecited ingenious author of the Impartial Inquiry, pag. 13, 14. 'There can be nothing more evident from the light of reason as well as scripture, than that all magistracy is appointed for the benefit of mankind, and the common good of societies; God never gave any one power to reign over others for their destruction, (unless by his providence when he had devoted a people for their sins to ruin,) but on whomsoever he confers authority over cities or nations, it is with this conditional proviso and limitation, that they are to promote their prosperity and good, and to study their defence and protection; all princes are thus far pactional——And whosoever refuseth to perform this fundamental condition, he degrades and deposes himself; nor is it rebellion in any to resist him; whensoever princes cease to be for the common good, they answer not the end they were instituted unto, and cease to be what they were chosen for.'

6. It will not be denied, but when the case is so circumstantiate, that it would require the arbitration of judgment to determine, whether the king be a tyrant or not, that then people are not to disown him: for if it be a question, whether the people be really robbed of their rights and liberties, and that the king might pretend as much reason to complain of the people's doing indignity to his sovereignty, as they might of his tyranny; then it were hard for them to assume so far the umpirage of their own cause, as to make themselves absolute judges of it, and forthwith to reject his authority upon these debatable grounds. But the case is not so with us; no place being left for doubt or debate, but that our fundamental rights and liberties civil and religious, are overturned, and an absolute tyranny, exactly characterized as above, is established on the ruins thereof. Hence we have not disowned the pretended authority, because we judged it was tyrannical, but because it was really so. Our discretive judgment in the case was not our rule, but it was our understanding of the rule, by which only we could be regulated, and not by the understanding of another, which cannot be better, nor so good, of our grievances, which certainly we may be supposed to understand best ourselves, and yet they are such as are understood every where. To the question then, who shall be judge between these usurping and tyrannizing rulers and us? We answer briefly and plainly. We do not usurp a judgment in the case pretending no more authority over them in our private capacity, than we allow them to have over us, that is none at all? Nor can we admit that they should be both judges and party; for then they might challenge that prerogative in every case, and strengthen themselves in an uncontrollable immunity and impunity to do what they pleased. But we appeal to the fundamental laws of the kingdom, agreeable to the word of God, to judge, and to the whole world of impartial spectators to read and pronounce the judgment. Lex Rex, Quest. 24. pag. 213. saith in answer to this, 'There is a court of necessity no less than a court of justice; and the fundamental laws must then speak, and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no ruler. And as to the doubtsomeness of these laws, he saith, (1.) As the scriptures in all fundamentals are clear, and expound themselves, and in the first instance condemn heresies; so all laws of men in their fundamentals, which are the law of nature and nations, are clear. (2.) Tyranny is more visible and intelligible than heresy, and it is soon discerned——The people have a natural throne of policy in their conscience, to give warning, and materially sentence against the king as a tyrant;—where tyranny is more obscure, and the thread small, that it escape the eye of man, the king keepeth possession, but I deny that tyranny can be obscure long.'

7. I shall grant that many things are yieldable even to a grassonant dominator, and tyrannical occupant of the place of magistracy; as 1. There may be some cases, wherein it is lawful for a people to yield subjection to a lawless tyrant, when groaning under his overpowering yoke, under which they must patiently bear the indignation of the Lord, because they have sinned against him, until he arise and plead his own cause, and execute judgment in the earth, (Mic. vii. 9.) until which time they must kiss the rod as in the hand of God, and own and adore the holiness and sovereignty of that providence that hath subjected them under such a slavery; and are not to attempt a violent ejection or excussion, when either the thing attempted is altogether impracticable, or the means and manner of effectuating it dubious and unwarrantable, or the necessary concomitants and consequents of the cure more hurtful or dangerous than the disease, or the like. As in many cases also a man may be subject to a robber prevailing against him; so we find the people of Israel in Egypt and Babylon, &c. yielded subjection to tyrants. But in this case we deny two things to them, (1.) Allegiance or active and voluntary subjection, so as to own them for magistrates. (2.) Stupid passive obedience, or suffering without resistance. For the first, we owe it only to magistrates, by virtue of the law, either ordinative of God, or constitutive of man. And it is no argument to infer; as a man's subjecting himself to a robber assaulting him, is no solid proof of his approving or acknowledging the injury and violence committed by the robbery, therefore a person's yielding subjection to a tyrant a public robber does not argue his acknowledging or approving his tyranny and oppression. For, the subjection that a tyrant requires, and which a robber requires, is not of the same nature; the one is legal of subjects, which we cannot own to a tyrant; the other is forced of the subdued, which we must acknowledge to a robber. But to make the parallel; if the robber should demand, in our subjecting ourselves to him, an owning of him to be no robber but an honest man, as the tyrant demands in our subjecting ourselves to him in owning him to be no tyrant, but a magistrate, then we ought not to yield it to the one no more than to the other. For the second, to allow them passive obedience is unintelligible nonsense and a mere contradiction; for nothing that is merely passive can be obedience as relative to a law; nor can any obedience be merely passive; for obedience is always active. But not only is the inaccuracy of the phrase excepted against, but also that position maintained by many, that, in reference to a yoke of tyranny, there is a time which may be called the proper season of suffering, that is, when suffering (in opposition to acting or resisting) is a necessary and indispensible duty, and resisting is a sin: for if the one be an indispensible duty, the other must be a sin at the same time, but this cannot be admitted. For, though certainly there is such a season of suffering, wherein suffering is lawful, laudable and necessary, and all must lay their account with suffering, and little else can be attempted, but which will increase sufferings; yet even then we may resist as well as we can: and these two, resistance and suffering, at the same time, are not incompatible: David did bear most patiently the injury of his son's usurpation, when he said, 'Let the Lord do to me as seemeth him good,' 2 Sam. xv. 26. chap. x. 12. and betaketh himself to fervent prayers, Psal. iii. and yet these were not all the weapons he used against him; neither did he ever own him as a magistrate. We are to suffer all things patiently as the servants of the Lord, and look to him for mercy and relief, (Psal. cxxiii. 2.); but we are not obliged to suffer even in that season, as the slaves of men. Again, suffering in opposition to resistance, does never fall under any moral law of God, except in the absolutely extraordinary case of Christ's passive obedience, which cannot fall under our deliberation or imitation; or in the case of a positive law, as was given to the Jews to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, which was express and peculiar to them, as shall be cleared. That can never be commanded as indispensible duty, which does not fall under our free will or deliberation, but the enemies will, as the Lord permits them, as the case of suffering is. That can never be indispensible duty, which we may decline without sin, as we may do suffering, if we have not a call to it; yea, in that case, it were sin to suffer; therefore, in no case it can be formally and indispensibly commanded, so as we may not shift it, if we can without sin. Suffering simply the evil of punishment, just or unjust, can never be a conformity to God's preceptive will, but only to his providential disposal; it hath not the will of the sign for its rule, but only the will of well-pleasing. All the commands that we have for suffering, are either to direct the manner of it, that it be patiently and cheerfully, when forced to it wrongfully, 1 Pet. ii. 19, 20, or comparatively, to determine our choice in an unavoidable alternative, either to suffer or sin; and so we are commanded, rather to suffer, than to deny Christ, Matth. xiii. 33. and we are commanded upon these terms to follow Christ, to take up his cross, when he lays it on his providence, Matth. xvi. 24. See at length this cleared, Lex Rex, Q. 30. page 317-320 otherwise in no case subjection, even passive, can be a duty; for it is always to be considered under the notion of a plague, judgment and curse, to be complained of as a burden, never to be owned as a duty to magistrates.

As we find the Lord's people resenting it as a servitude, under which they were servants even in their own land, which did yield increase unto the kings whom the Lord had set over them, because of their sins, Neh. ix. 36, 37. 2. In divers cases there may be some compliance with a mere occupant, that hath no right to reign; as upon this account the noble marquis of Argyle and lord Warriston suffered for their compliance with the usurper Cromwell. Such may be the warrantableness, or goodness, or necessity, or profitableness of a compliance, when people are by providence brought under a yoke which they cannot shake off, that they may part with some of their privileges, for the avoidance of the loss of the rest, and for the conveniency and profit, peace and safety of themselves and their country, which would be in hazard, if they did not comply; they may do whatsoever is due from them to the public weal, whatsoever is an office of their station or place, or which they have any other way a call unto, whatsoever may make for their own honest interest, without wronging others, or the country's liberties in their transactions with these powers, even though such a compliance may be occasionally to the advantage of the usurpers, seeing good and necessary actions are not to be declined for the ill effects that are accidental to them, and arise from the use which others make of them. But though this may be yielded in some cases to such usurpers, especially conquerors, that have no right of occupying the empire, but are capable of it by derivation from the people's consent: yet it must not be extended to such usurpers as are also tyrants, that have no right of their own, nor are capable of any, and that overturn all rights of subjects. To such we can yield no compliance, as may infer either transacting with them, or owning them as magistrates. We find indeed the saints enjoyed places under these, who were not their magistrates; as Nehemiah and Mordecai and Esther was queen to Ahasuerus. But here was no compliance with tyrants (for these heathens were not such) only some of them were extraordinary persons, raised up by an extraordinary spirit, for extraordinary ends in extraordinary times, that cannot be brought to an ordinary rule, as Esther's marriage; and all of them in their places kept the law of their God, served the work of their generation, defiled not themselves with their customs, acted against no good, and engaged to no evil, but by their compliance promoted the welfare of their country, as Argyle and Warrriston did under Cromwel. Again, we find they paid custom to them, as Neh. ix. 36, 37. and we read of Augustus' taxation universally complied with, Luke ii. 1-5. and Christ paid it. This shall be more fully answered afterwards. Here I shall only say (1.) It can never be proven that these were tyrants. (2.) Christ paid it with such a caution, as leaves the title inflated; not for conscience (as tribute must be paid to magistrates, Rom. xiii. 5, 6.) but only that he might not offend them. (3.) Any other instances of the saints taxations are to be judged forced acts, badges of their bondage, which, if they had been exacted as tests of their allegiance, they would not have yielded. Strangers also, that are not subjects, use to pay custom in their trafficking, but not as tests of their allegiance. 3. There may be also, in some cases, obedience allowed to their lawful commands because of the lawfulness of the thing commanded, or the coincidency of another just and obligging authority commanding the same. We may do many things which a tyrant commands, and which he enforces; and many things also whether he will or not; but we must do nothing upon the consideration of his command, in the acknowledgement of obedience, due by virtue of allegiance, which we own of conscience to a lawful magistrate. We must do nothing, which may seem to have an accessoriness to the tyrant's unlawful occupancy, or which depends only on the warrant of his authority to do it, or may entrench on the divine institution of magistracy, or bring us into a participation of the usurper's sin. In these cases we can neither yield obedience in lawful things, nor in unlawful: 'nor can we own absolute subjection, no more than we can absolute obedience; for all subjection is enjoined, in order to obedience: and to plead for a privilege in point of obedience, and to disclaim it in point of subjection, is only the flattery of such, as having renounced with conscience all distinction of obedience, would divest others of all privileges, that they may exercise their tyranny without controul, Naphtali, p. 28. prior edit.'] 4. There may be addresses made to such as are not rightful possessors of the government, for justice, or mercy, or redress of some intolerable grievances, without scruple of accepting that which is materially justice or mercy, or seeking them at the hand of any who may reach them out to us, though he that conveys them to us be not interested in the umpirage of them. Thus we find Jeremiah supplicated Zedekiah for mercy, not to return to prison; and Paul appealed to Caesar for justice. But in these addresses we may not acknowledge the wicked laws that brought on these grievances, nor conceal the wickedness, no more than the misery of them which we have endured; nor may we own the legal power of them that we address, to take them off, nor signify any thing, in the matter and manner of our representations, that may either import a declining our testimony, for which we have suffered these grievances, or a contradiction to our declinature of their pretended authority: only we may remonstrate, what cruelties we have endured, and how terrible it will be to them to be guilty of, or accessory to our blood, in not pitying us; which was all that Jeremiah did. And as for Paul's appeal, we find he was threatened to be murdered by his countrymen, Acts xxiii. 14. from whose hands he was rescued, and brought before the judicatory of Festus the Roman deputy, not voluntarily; thence also they sought to remand him to Jerusalem, that they might kill him, Acts xxv. 3. whereupon he demands in justice that he might not be delivered to his accusers and murderers, but claims the benefit of the heathens own law, by that appeal to Caesar, which was the only constrained expedient of saving his own life, Acts xxviii. 19, by which also he got an opportunity to witness for Christ at Rome. But, as shall be cleared further afterwards, Caesar was not an usurper over Judea; which not obscurely is insinuated by Paul himself, who asserts, that both his person, and his cause criminal, of which he was accused (it was not an ecclesiastical cause, and so no advantage hence for the supremacy) appertained to Caesar's tribunal, and that not only in fact, but of right, Acts xxv. 10. 'I stand at Caesar's judgment-seat, where I ought to be judged.' We cannot say this of any tribunal; fenced in the name of them that tyrannize over us. 5. I will not stand neither upon the names and titles of kings, &c. to be given to tyrants and usurpers, in speaking to them or of them, by way of appellation or compellation: for we find even tyrants are called by these names in scripture, being kings in fact, though not by right and indeed not impertinently, kings and tyrants for the most part are reciprocal terms. But in no case can we give them any names or titles, which may signify our love to them whom the Lord hates, or who hate the Lord, 2 Chron. xix. 2. or which may flatter them, whom Elihu durst not give, for fear his Maker should take him away, Job xxxii. 22. or which may be taken for honouring of them, for that is not due to the vilest of men, when exalted never so high, Psal. xii. ult. a vile person must be contemned in our eyes, Psal. xv. 4. nor which may any way import or infer an owning of a magistratical relation between them and us, or any covenant-transaction or confederacy with them, which is no terms with them, as such, we will say or own. Isa. viii. 12. Hence many sufferers upon this head forbear to give them their titles.