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PASTOR AND THE PRELATE 
 
 REFORMATION AND CONFORMITY 
 
 SHORTLY COMPARED 
 
 BY THE WORD OP GOD, BY ANTIQUITY AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANCIENT KIRK, BY THE NATURE AND 
 
 USE OF THINGS INDIFFERENT, BY THE PROCEEDINGS OF OCR OWN KIRK, BY THE WEAL OF THE KIllK 
 
 AND OF THE PEOPLE'S SOULS, AND BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND OF OUR 
 
 OUTWARD ESTATE ; 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE ANSWER OF THE COMMON AND CHIEF OBJECTIONS AGAINST 
 EVERY PART; 
 
 WHETHER OF THE TWO IS TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN 
 AND PATRIOT. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. DAVID CALDERWOOD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLANI 
 
 Joshua xxiv. 22. 
 
 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves. And they said, We are 
 
 witnesses." 
 
 But, 1 Kings xviii. 21, it is said, 
 
 " And the people answered him not a word." 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 ROBERT OGLE AND OLIVER & BOYD. 
 
 M. OG-LE & SON AND WILLIAM COLLINS, GLASGOW. 
 
 D. DEWAR, PERTH. A. BROWN & CO., ABERDEEN. W. M'COMB, BELFAST. 
 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO., AND JAMES NISBET & CO., LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXLIII. 
 
Reprinted from the Original Edition of 1628. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 PRINTED BT A. MURRAY, MILNE SQVARE. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There are few events connected with the ecclesiastical history of Scotland more interest- 
 ing to the student of Church History than those which happened during the greater part of 
 the seventeenth century. The reformation from popery was a glorious and happy consum- 
 mation of religious liberty and truth to the people, who had so long been held in bondage 
 and ignorance under the iron yoke of the Romish Church, and there followed after that 
 eventful epoch a season of comparative rest and tranquillity to the Reformed Church. The 
 Church of England, although reformed in point of doctrine from the errors and corruptions 
 of the Church of Rome, still retained the rites and ceremonies of that church, — ceremonies 
 which were highly obnoxious to the presbyterians of Scotland, and which they looked upon 
 with the utmost horror. 
 
 King James VI. during his minority, and at the commencement of his reign, professed 
 a strong attachment to the Presbyterian Church, and affected great dislike to episcopacy ; 
 but, after his accession to the throne of England, the splendid ceremonies of her church, 
 and the flattery of her bishops, soon captivated his mind and pleased his vanity. The 
 strictness and severity of the presbyterian form of church discipline so annoyed him, that he 
 determined to bring the Church of Scotland into conformity with that of England, and, 
 with this view, resolved to place the Scottish Church under the dominion and jurisdiction of 
 bishops ; but his tyranny met with the most firm and vehement opposition, and he soon 
 found he had to deal with men who were not afraid to stand up resolutely in defence of 
 their rights and liberties, and to uphold and maintain the purity and simplicity of their 
 church government against such tyrannical innovations, and the whole period of the 
 conflict was marked by scenes of controversy, contention, strife and bloodshed. Among 
 those who opposed those oppressive measures of the King and the Government, none were 
 more zealous in endeavouring to thwart them than the author of this treatise, — which is now 
 for the first time reprinted, — a brief sketch of the more prominent parts of whose public 
 life may not be uninteresting. 
 
IV. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 David Calderwood was born in the year 1575. Of his birth-place, parentage and 
 early life, we have no means of correctly ascertaining. It has been stated that he was by 
 birth a gentleman, which, indeed, is very probable, as few, except those in the higher 
 ranks of life, received so liberal an education as Calderwood appears to have possessed. Be- 
 ing early destined for the church, he was sent to the university of Edinburgh to be educated 
 for that end, where he applied himself with great assiduity and attention to the study of 
 Theology, critical and practical, and devoted much of his time to the investigation of 
 Ecclesiastical History. Being possessed of talents of a very high order, he took his degree of 
 A.M. so early as 1593, and in 1604 he was appointed to a church in Crailing, near Jed- 
 burgh, where, by his virtues, public and private, and his faithfulness to his office, he gained 
 the esteem and respect of all who knew him. 
 
 Calderwood, during his labours in the parish of Crailing, manifested great dislike to the 
 episcopal form of church government, and few were more strenuous in their efforts to main- 
 tain the purity of the kirk. With a view to reconcile the minds of the people to the 
 chano-e intended to be imposed on them, the King sent the Earl of Dunbar, Lord High 
 Treasurer, down to Scotland, accompanied by two or three ecclesiastics, in furtherance of 
 that purpose. In 1608, when Law, Bishop of Orkney, came endowed with the office of 
 visitor to the presbyteries of Merse and Teviotdale, Calderwood, along with George John- 
 stone, minister of Ancrum, firmly and solemnly declined the bishop's jurisdiction, and pro- 
 tested against his authority, — information of which coming to the King's ear, his commands 
 to the privy council were, that they should be punished in an exemplary manner. Their 
 punishment was, however, by the influence of the Earl of Lothian, mitigated to con- 
 finement within the limits of their own parishes. In June 1617 Calderwood was sum- 
 moned to appear before the High Commission Court, on the 8th of July, at St An- 
 drews. He acconlingly obeyed the summons, and appeared at the appointed time. 
 The Kin«- himself attended, and entered into a long discussion with him regarding the I 
 protestation, in which he used many arguments and threats to bring him over to his own \ 
 party, but he found Calderwood too firm and true to his cause to be intimidated even 
 by a kingly authority. He was then removed and sent to the tolbooth of St Andrews, 
 but was afterwards brought to the jail of Edinburgh. The privy council then ordered that 
 he banish himself from the kingdom before the following Michaelmas, not to return till 
 it was the King's pleasure ; and, on his giving security to that effect, he was liberated, 
 and allowed in the meantime to go back to Crailing, but was forbidden to preach. Lord 
 Cranston, who was his security, made an application to the King to have his punishment 
 changed to confinement within his own parish ; but without effect. He then petitioned 
 that his banishment might be delayed till the end of April following, as the season 
 was dangerous for a sea voyage, and also that he might have time to get up his year's 
 
INTRODUCTION. V. 
 
 stipend. The King replied, that " Howbeit he begged^ it were no matter, he would 
 know himself better the next time ; and, for the season of the year, if he drowned in the 
 seas, he might thank God that he had escaped a worse death." Cranston, however, being 
 so eager in his importunities, the King at last told him that he would advise with lu's 
 bishops. The time was thus delayed till the 29th of August 1619, when he set sail 
 for Holland. In the meantime he had taken advantage of the delay thus afforded 
 him of writing a book called " Perth Assembly," which was condemned by the council 
 in December following, when the author was fortunately out of the way. During his exile 
 in Holland he wrote several works of a controversial nature, and, among others, appeared 
 his celebrated treatise called " Altare Damascenum" The title of this work is founded 
 on 2 Kings xvi. 10, 11. It is one of great learning and research, and gives a complete 
 view of the question at issue between the presbyterians and episcopalians, as to church 
 government, discipline and worship. It is said that King James, after perusing it, sat 
 for some time looking very pensive, and when asked by one of his bishops what ailed him, 
 he told what book he had been reading. " Let not that trouble your Majesty," said the 
 bishop, " I shall soon answer it." " Answer what, man?" replied the King. "There 
 is nothing here but Scripture, reason, and the fathers." 
 
 In 1624 Calderwood returned to his native country, and remained privately a consider- 
 able time in Edinburgh. In 1638 he was appointed minister of Pencaitland, in East Lo- 
 thian, and continued during the remainder of his life to take an active part in the eccle- 
 siastical affairs of the period, and devoted himself to the investigation and arrangement of 
 all the memorials and documents which could be found connected with the history of the 
 Church of Scotland. The General Assembly of 16-18 were very desirous that he should 
 proceed with, and complete, his History of the Church ; and to enable him to carry on 
 the work, they voted him yearly a pension of eight hundred pounds Scots. He accordingly 
 completed the design, and has left behind him a work of great research and immense 
 importance and utility. There were four manuscripts left of this valuable work. One of 
 them is in the College Library of Glasgow ; another is in the Advocates' Library of 
 Edinburgh ; a third was in the possession of the family of General Calderwood Durham of 
 Largo, but has now been presented to the British Museum ; and the fourth belono-s to the 
 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.* An abridgement of this work, called 
 " The true History of the Church of Scotland," was drawn up by Calderwood, and 
 printed in 1678, under the auspices of Mr John CarsUirs, Mr Robert M'Ward, and two 
 or three otliers.f 
 
 ■ Calderwood's larger History is now being printed for the first time by the WofWow Society. 
 t See Appendix to the late Dr M'Crie's -Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson, p. 415. &c. 
 
VI. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In 1651, when the English army was lying in East Lothian, Calderwood removed to 
 Jedburgh. He had not been there long when he took unwell and died, having attained 
 his 76th year. He was a man of undoubted piety and virtue, and was one of the greatest 
 champions for the cause of presbyterianism the church could boast of. In learning and 
 acuteness in controversy, few in his time could equal him, which his works abundantly tes- 
 tify. Besides his Church History, he wrote several other works connected with the contro- 
 versies of the times. The following is presumed to be a tolerably correct list of them. 
 They were mostly published anonimously, and printed in Holland. The list is drawn 
 up by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, and forms an appendix to the Life of Henderson, by 
 the late Dr M'Crie. Perth Assembly, 4<o. 1619 ; Parasynagma Perthense, 1620 ; 
 The Course of Conformity, 4fo. 1622 ; Defence of our Arguments against Kneeling in 
 the Act of Receiving the Sacramental Elements of Bread and Wine, impugned by Dr 
 Michclsone, 8vo. 1620 ; The Solution of Dr Resolutus his Resolutions for Kneeling, 
 4ito. 1619 ; Queries concerning the State of the Church of Scotland, 8vo. 1621 ; The 
 Altar of Damascus, \2mo. 1621 ; Altare Damascenum, Ato. 1623 ; [This is an en- 
 largement of the last-mentioned work.] An Exhortation of the particular Kirks of 
 Christ in Scotland, to their Sister Kirk in Edinburgh, 8vo. 1624 ; The Pastor and the 
 Prelate, or Reformation and Conformity shortly compared, t)-c. 4to. 1628; A Dialogue 
 betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus, 8vo. 1620 ; The Speech of the Kirk of Scotland 
 to her beloved Children, 8vo. 1620 ; A Reply to Dr Morton's General Defence of 
 three Xoccnt Ceremonies, 4to. 1623 ; A Reply to Dr Morton's Particular Defence of 
 three Xoccnt Ceremonies, 4to. 1623; An Epistle of a Christian Brother, 8fC. 8vo. 
 
 1624; A Dispute upon Communicating at our Confused Communions, 8vo. 1624; 
 A Re-examination of the Five Articles Enacted at Perth, 4to. 1636 ; The Re-examina- 
 tion abndged, fyc. 8vo. 1636 ; An Answer to M. J. Forbes of Corse, his Peaceable 
 
 Warning, -ito. 1638. 
 
 A very interesting and authentic memoir of Calderwood is contained in Dr Irving's 
 " Lives of Scottish "Writers," vol. 1, on whose authority the last nine of the above-men- 
 tioned treaties are ascribed to Calderwood. 
 
[THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE] 
 
 TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. 
 
 For no other is this intended, (not for him that 
 readeth not, but casteth it by, or closeth his eyes 
 lest he see truth, judging of things controverted by 
 his own conceits, or upon report, and not upon trial ; 
 neither for him that is either so antichristian that 
 he hath not the patience to read one page written 
 against prelates and their hierarchy, or that is so 
 unchristian that his earthly designs are his highest 
 intentions, and esteemeth all motions about reli- 
 gion, that cross him or comfort him not in these, 
 to be either seditious commotions, or nothing but 
 idlements of indifference,) but for him who, above 
 all things, loves to see the truth, and, above all 
 things, loveth the truth, when he hath seen it, that 
 is even for thyself, Christian reader, have we en- 
 tered into this comparison of the pastor and pre- 
 late, and at thy hands do we expect the perfor- 
 mance of two Christian duties ; one is for thine 
 own good : That thou wilt labour with thine heart 
 for more feeling now than thou hadst faith at the 
 first, when it was often foretold from the word of 
 God and the woeful experience of former times, 
 " That this transcendent hierarchy of lordly and 
 lording prelates, brought in upon the kirk of 
 Christ without precept or example from himself, 
 would prove at last the ruin of religion." Now 
 may be seen what was said before, that the govern- 
 ment of the kirk and the worship of God are like 
 the twins spoken of by Hippocrates, and that the 
 one of them dwining away, and dying among us, 1 
 the whole face of the other looketh pale, and piti- 
 fully proclaimeth (if the cry of our sins would 
 suffer us to hear), that religion herself is sick at 
 the heart ; for what is the daily increase of old 
 papistry, the spreading gangrene of new heresies, 
 the scoffing at holiness instead of imitating, the 
 laughing at sin instead of lamentation, but the in- 
 separable effects of this prelacy, and the ordinary 
 practices of our prelates, the symptom of the 
 sickness of Christian religion, and the causes of 
 this cloud of wrath that so long hangs and hovers 
 above us. Consider that (according to Bernard's 
 observation of these blind-winding stairs that lead 
 down to destruction) 2 this hierarchy which in the 
 beginning seemed a weight so insupportable that 
 they who took it upon them could not hold up their 
 faces for sin and for shame, did appear soon af- 
 terward, albeit heavy, yet tolerable, — of heavy it 
 became light, of light insensible, of insensible de- 
 
 1 Perth Assembly, preface. 
 
 2 Quid non evertat consuetudo? quid non assi- 
 duitate duretur ? quid non usui cedat ? Primum 
 tibi importabile videtur aliquid, processu ternpo- 
 ris, si assuescas, judicabis non adeo grave, paulo 
 post et leve senties, paulo post nee senties, paulo 
 post etiam delectabit. Ita paulatim in cordis du- 
 ritiam itur, et ex ilia in aversionem. Bernard, 
 ad Eugen. 
 
 lectable, and of delectable it is at last become a 
 matter of glorying : that which was a glory is be- 
 come a shame, and that which was a shame is ac- 
 counted a glory. Of late ministers could not be 
 found to fill the void places of prelacy, now pre- 
 lacies cannot be found to fill the void hearts of the 
 ministers ; so far have we turned from that which 
 we lately were, and in so few years, that that which 
 was nothing else but a rope of disgrace is wonder- 
 fully chained into a chain of pride. As thou lovest 
 Jesus Christ and thine own soul, and would be 
 loath to communicate in all the sins, and to involve 
 thyself into the guiltiness of all the evils that this 
 prelacy hath produced, take heed that thine eye be 
 not dazzled with the varnish and splendour that 
 the world hath put upon it (for in substance it is 
 the same as it was at the beginning, and in the 
 fruits hath proved far worse than at the first was 
 feared) ; labour to keep thy judgment sound and 
 affection sincere, still thinking of the painful pas- 
 tor and the proud prelate as they were thought 
 on since the reformation, and praying to God, as 
 good men did of old, in the corrupt times of the 
 kirk : that he would put to his hand and purge his 
 vineyard ; that he would whip buyers and sellers 
 out of his temple ; that he would strike Gehazites 
 with leprosy, and that he would bring low such Si- 
 monites as now are so high, being lifted up by the 
 ministry of Satan. 1 
 
 Another Christian duty, Christian reader, we 
 expect at thine hands for the good of the kirk, — 
 that whatsoever be thy place, higher or lower, 
 farther or nearer, unto his Majesty's person, who 
 gladly would acquaint his Majesty particularly 
 with the state of the kirk in his Majesty's king- 
 dom of Scotland, as what it was once, what it 
 might have been before this time, what it is be- 
 come of late, and what it is like to be ere long ; 
 but either cannot for want of occasion, or dare 
 not for awe of the prelates, whose courting is 
 more to be feared than their cursing,. — that thou 
 would do what thou may to make this following 
 treatise come to his Majesty's hands ; for we, his 
 Majesty's loving people of Scotland, who both 
 love his Majesty's person and crown, 2 acknow- 
 ledging the duty we owe to his Majesty, com- 
 manded in the first commandment after the first 
 table, to come nearest unto that religion and pi- 
 
 i Expurga Domine Vineam tuam sentibus un- 
 dique et labruscis oppletam : fac ut olim flagel- 
 lum de funiculis et de templo tuo sancto nummu- 
 larios expelle, vendentes ejice, ementes exturba, 
 cunctos impios mercatores, nisi pcenitentiam ege- 
 rint. Giezitas lepra percute, Simonitas alte vo- 
 lantes, Satanaeque ministerio in excelsum elevatos 
 illide, ac dejice, &c. Nicol. Clemangis. 
 
 2 Ephestion <t>;A«>.e|«vSjof, Craterus <t>i\o£a- 
 
ety whereby we worship God himself, who neither 
 love schisms in the kirk, 1 nor witty reconcile- 
 ments of truth and error, but would keep the 
 truth in peace ; who neither are puritans, nor 
 Brownists, nor seditious, as men calumniate, but 
 professors of the true religion as it was at the 
 first reformed among us ; and as it hath furnished 
 unto us all the hope that we have of eternal hap- 
 piness, we would show his gracious Majesty that, 
 according to the saying of Solomon, " When the 
 righteous are in authority the people rejoice," &c. 2 
 Our hearts were filled with joy and our mouths 
 with laughter, when, at the first beginnings of his 
 reign, we did not only hear the fame of his prince- 
 ly inclination to equity and righteous judgment, 
 but did perceive the noble proofs thereof in try- 
 ing the truth of things controverted, while his 
 Majesty, with that worthy king, kept still one ear 
 shut for the other party, and with that wiser king, 
 when he declared that the wisdom of God was in 
 him to do judgment, would have both parties to 
 stand before him at once, that, hearing both, they 
 might speed best, and go out most cheerful from 
 his Majesty's face, who had the best cause. By 
 this we were confident that his throne should be 
 established, the nations swayed by his exalted 
 sceptre, and our cause, which is no particular 
 man's, but Christ's own cause, should be heard at 
 last, and righteously determined, that every thing 
 in the house of the God of heaven might be done 
 after the will of the God of heaven, than which 
 there can be nothing more reasonable, and which 
 is the sum of all our desires. Our adversaries, 
 upon the contrary, out of the experience they find 
 of his Majesty's disposition to equity, and out of 
 the consciousness they have of the iniquity of the 
 cause that they maintain only because it main- 
 taineth their greatness, have used all means to 
 prevent his trial, have stopped, so far as may be, 
 all ways of information, and, according to the 
 crafty counsel given to Pericles, not being able to 
 make account, have done what they can that they 
 be not called to account. 3 When commissioners 
 were to go to his Majesty they would have none 
 but their own, and when some that were not their 
 own were chosen by a meeting of the kirk, they 
 would not have them to go, which hath made us, 
 after long waiting in silence, and mrny essays to 
 resolve in end, there being no other way left unto 
 us, with all submission of mind, to send up our 
 Pastor and Prelate in print, who have been im- 
 peded by the prelates to come together in person ; 
 neither can it offend the prelate that the pastor 
 speak the truth this one time for himself and the 
 prelate, since the prelate so many times hath 
 spoken his pleasure for both. Our silence and 
 ceasing in the cause would give great worldly ease 
 to ourselves, and greatest contentment to our ad- 
 versaries, who now cry nothing but Peace, peace, 
 that is, a peaceable possession of their honours 
 
 i 1 Tim. v. 4. 2 Prov. xxix. 2. 
 
 3 Pericle dicente, non invenire se quo pacto 
 ministerii rationem redderet, atque ideo conflic- 
 tari : ergo inquit, Alcibiades, quaere potius que- 
 madmodum rationem non reddas. Valer. Max. 
 lib. 3. cap 2. 
 
 and wealth and a cruel oppression of their breth- 
 ren, but withal would prove us to be unfaithful 
 both to our God and to our king j 1 for beside the 
 obligation that is common to us with other re- 
 formed kirks, we stand bound by solemn oath, 
 covenant and subscription, published to the world, 
 to defend the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, 
 and to oppose the hierarchy and all rites and cere- 
 monies added to the worship of God. Silence in 
 such a cause may be sin to other kirks, but to us 
 it is perjury in the sight of God, and would also 
 prove us unfaithful to our king : for howsoever 
 the prelates profess in public, " That no cere- 
 mony no bishop, no bishop no king," and do sug- 
 gest in secret the service that they can do to mo- 
 narchy, they do but mind themselves and their 
 own idol. That government of the kirk is most ' 
 useful for kings and kingdoms which is best war- 
 ranted by the word of God, by whom kings reign 
 and kingdoms are established. The pillars of his ' 
 Majesty's throne are of God's own making, — reli- 
 gion upon the right hand and righteousness upon 
 the left. The pomp of ceremonies and pride of 
 prelacy are pillars artificially wrought by the wit 
 of man for setting up and supporting the Pope's 
 tyranny, " No ceremony no prelate, no prelate no 
 pope." When his Majesty's wisdom hath searched 
 all the creeks of this controversy, let us be re- 
 puted the worst of all men, let us all be censured, 
 silenced, confined, deprived or exiled, as some of 
 us are, and have been for a long time, if the cause 
 that we maintain shall be found any other but I 
 that we desire that God be served and his house 
 ruled according to his own will, and if it shall not , 
 be found that the kirk of God, perfect in order ' 
 and office-bearers without prelates and their cere- 
 monies, may be governed upon a small part of 
 their great rents, with more honour to God, with 
 more hearty obedience to the king's majesty, with 
 greater riches and glory to the crown, with greater 
 contentment to the body of the whole kirk and 
 kingdom, greater peace amongst ourselves, and 
 greater terror to Satan and all his train of heresy, 
 profaneness and persecution, as we shall be ready 
 to demonstrate particularly, if this which follow- 
 eth be not sufficient, whensoever his Majesty shall 
 be pleased to require ; and which we are assured 
 his Majesty will perceive upon small considera- 
 tion ; for a mind inclined by divine power to reli- 
 gion and piety will at first sight discern and be 
 possessed with the love of the heavenly beauty of 
 the house of God, they both proceeding from the 
 same spirit. God, all-sufficient, bless his Majesty, 
 both in peace and war, both in religion and jus- 
 tice, with such success as may be seen, even by 
 the envious eye of the enemy, to be from the fin- 
 ger and favour of God, and may also make his 
 happy government to be a matter of congratula- 
 tion to the godly, and to be admired and remem- 
 bered by posterity as the measure and example of 
 their desires, when they shall be wishing for a re- 
 ligious and righteous king. 
 
 1 Si pacem non potest habere cum fratre nisi sub- 
 dito ostendit se non tam pacem cupere, quam 6ub 
 pacis conditione vindictam. Ilieron. ad Theop. 
 
PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 THE FIRST PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR -VXD TRELATE COMPARED BY THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 The form of worship and government to be learned from the Word. — What, then, is the Kirk's part? — 
 The prelates agree not among themselves. — They halt betwixt two.— They would make a new cere- 
 mouial law.— The perpetual and due office-bearers in the kirk. — No difference in Scripture between a 
 pastor and a bishop. — No lord-bishop in Scripture. — No bishop of bishops or pastors in Scripture. — 
 Every pastor in Scripture hath his own particular flock ; none is without a flock, nor with a diocese. — 
 The pastor hath pow?r of ordination, which the prelate appropriate^.— -The pastor hath the power of 
 jurisdiction, which the prelate usurpetli and appropriateth. — -No such majority of power of one pastor 
 over another, as the prelate claimeth.— The pastor meddleth not with matters civil, but the prelate is 
 more in the world than about Christ. — The pastor and prelate's form of prayer. — Their preaching. — 
 Music. — Baptism. — Celebration of the Lord's supper. — Observation of the Sabbath. — Residence. — Life 
 and conversation. — The presence and blessing of God. — Objection, Bishops are warranted by the Word. 
 — Answer, Showing that the prelate hath no warrant in the Word, and the manifold differeucc betwixt 
 the divine and diocesan bishop. 
 
 That the worship of God, and the go- 
 vernment of the kirk, which is the house 
 of God, are to be learned out of his own 
 word, is a truth against which the gates of 
 hell shall never prevail. For we ought to 
 give this glory to God, that all his books are 
 full, and written on both sides. As the book 
 of nature, the book of providence, and the 
 book of conscience is perfect, so also the 
 Scripture, which is the book of grace, is per- 
 fect. We ought to give this glory to the 
 Son of God, that, as he is a perfect high 
 priest for reconciliation, he is also a perfect 
 prophet for revelation, and a perfect king 
 and lawgiver for ruling of his own kirk and 
 kingdom. We ought also to give this glory 
 to the Spirit of God, that as he purposed to 
 set down a covenant, a testament, and a per- 
 fect canon, so in fulness of wisdom he hath 
 performed his purpose. We ought humbly 
 to acknowledge, that the kirk hath no power 
 (whether by translation of divine ordinances 
 from the Old to the New Testament, under 
 pretext of piety, or by imitation of the ene- 
 my, seem it never so charitable, or by man's 
 invention, let it appear never so plausible) 
 to make new laws, or to institute any new 
 office or office-bearer, any minister, or part 
 of ministration in the house of God. But 
 
 that it is her part to see the will of Go d 
 obeyed, and to appoint canons and constitu- 
 tions for the orderly and decent disposing of 
 things before instituted. 1 We call here the 
 prelates and pastors of conformity to a three- 
 fold consideration. First, That they agree 
 not among themselves about the matters in 
 question : some of them affirming that their 
 hierarchy is warranted by divine authority ; 
 others confessing it is only by ancient cus- 
 tom ; and a third sort defending neither of 
 the two, but that it is apostolic. 2 Again, 
 some of them make the form of kirk «'o- 
 vernment to be universal and perpetual ; 
 others holding it to be conformable to civil 
 policy, as if man might prescribe unto God 
 what form of government is fittest for his 
 house : for that winch is highly esteemed 
 among men is abomination in the sight of 
 God. He that hath the seven eyes seeth 
 
 i Polycleti regula ad reges. Lesbia regula ad 
 aquitatem opus. Bodinus m method. 
 
 3 Jure divino disoiplinam hierarchicam tuentur 
 alii, alii jure humano tantum : alii non jure divino, 
 sed apostolico, alius, xa , aTerroXixn ururi, kk, tv.-j^'- 
 arixn Sso-zs, alii episcopalem majoritatem mutaui- 
 lcin contendunt, alii tuentur iminutabilcm, ut < x 
 Juello, Saravia, Hookero, Dounamo, Barleo, Bil- 
 sono, Bancrofto Tilelio, ct aliis hierarchicis salis 
 est manifest urn. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 better in his own matter than man that 
 seeth nothing but by his light. Wisdom, 
 that hath built her house, and hewn out 
 her seven pillars, cannot be content that 
 man's wisdom should devise and hew out 
 the eighth pillar. Secondly, They should 
 consider, that the arguments and answers 
 that we give to them against their hierarchy 
 and ceremonies, are the same that they are 
 forced to use in defence of the truth against 
 the papists ; and the answers and argu- 
 ments that the papists give them for tra- 
 ditions, for the pope's monarchy, and for 
 their will-worship, they are forced to use 
 against us in defence of their cause : rest- 
 ing thus in their lukewarnmess, and halt- 
 ing betwixt two, for the love of the world ; 
 which hath made the papists to say, that the 
 prelates disputing against them are puritans, 
 and while they dispute against the puritans 
 they are papists, and turn to their side. 
 Tldrdly, They should consider that the 
 form of government and divine ceremonies 
 under the law, were not removed to give 
 place to the inventions of man under the 
 gospel. What is beside the particular pre- 
 <v[irs of God in Scripture is against the ge- 
 neral commandment, " Thou shalt not add 
 to the word that I have commanded," &c. ; 
 and therefore let us say with Augustine, 
 " We are brethren, why strive we ? our Fa- 
 ther died not intestate, but made a testa- 
 ment, and died and rose again : the father 
 lieth in the grave without sense, and yet his 
 words arc in force ; Christ sitteth in heaven, 
 and his testament is contradicted on earth, — 
 let it be read," &C. 1 Let the pastor and the 
 prelate be presented before the law and tes- 
 timony ; let the authority of the one and 
 the other be pondered, — not in the weights 
 of worldly avarice and ambition, but in the 
 balance of the sanctuary; and let us measure 
 their callings and carriage, — not by the cord 
 of the canon law, but by the golden reed of 
 the temple, and we sliall soon see whether 
 of the two hath warrant from God. 
 
 1. Tlie Pastor acknowledged no offices 
 in the kirk after the extraordinary of the 
 apostles, prophets and evangelists, but the 
 
 i Quid litigamus ? fratres sumus, Non intestatus 
 mortuus est pater, fecit testamentum, et sic mortuus 
 est et resurrexit. Tamdiu contendjtur de heredi- 
 tate mortuorum, quamdiu testamentum proferatur 
 in publicum, et cum testamentum fuerit prolatum 
 in publicum, tacent omnes ut tabula: aperiantur, et 
 recitentur. Judex intcntus audit, advocati silent, 
 prse'eones silentium faciunt, &c. — Augu. in Psal. 21. 
 
 ordinary of pastors, teachers, elders and dea- 
 cons, appointed by Christ, 1 as sufficient for 
 the weal of the kirk, and of every mem- 
 ber thereof, in all things spiritual and tem- 
 poral. 
 
 The Prelate setteth up one hierai-chy of 
 archbishops and lord-bishops, — having for 
 the head the Roman antichrist, and for the 
 train, suffragans, deans, archdeacons, offi- 
 cials, &c, never named in Scripture, nor 
 known in the purer times of the kirk, 
 against the weal of the kirk, and of every 
 member thereof, both in things spiritual 
 and temporal. 
 
 2. The Pastor, according to the Scrip- 
 ture, putteth difference betwixt the names 
 of the office-bearers in the New Testament, 
 never calling the ordinary by the name of 
 the extraordinary, nor the inferior by the 
 name of the superior, 2 as the pastor by the 
 name of the apostle or evangelist ; but never 
 putteth difference at all betwixt a pastor 
 and a bishop, — making every pastor to be a 
 bishop, and taking the pastor and bishop al- 
 ways for one. 
 
 The Prelate maketh a confusion of 
 names, that he may put himself in the 
 place of the apostle, as the pope will be 
 in the place of Christ ; and, against all 
 Scripture, will make so great difference be- 
 twixt a pastor and a bishop, that he will 
 have no pastor to be a bishop, and that 
 there be no bishop but the prelate. 
 
 3. The Pastor can see no lord-bishop in 
 Scripture, but the Lord's bishop only, 3 — a 
 name of labour and diligence, and not of 
 honour and ease. 
 
 The Prelate will admit no other bishop 
 but a lord-bishop, which he hath made a 
 name of honour and ease without labour or 
 diligence. 
 
 4. The Pastor is a bishop set over a 
 flock, in respect whereof he is called a bi- 
 shop, and not in relation to other pastors. 4 
 
 i 1 Cor. xii. 28 ; Eph. iv. 11. 
 
 2 Barnabas is called an apostle, Acts xiv. 4, 14, 
 because he was an apostle as Paul was ; Titus and 
 other two, 2 Cor. viii. 23, and Epaphroditus, Philip, 
 ii. 25, are apostles or messengers of the kirks. 
 Acts xx. 28; Philip, i. 1; 1 Tim. iii. 2; Tit, i. 7 ; 
 where in the Syriac for the name of bishop is put 
 the word that signifies the elder, 1 Pet. v. 1, 2. 
 
 3 Only Christ Lord in his own house, John xiii. 
 13 : lleb. iii. 6 ; Matt. xx. 25 ; KuraKuyivuv x.u.?x\ov- 
 ffiu^nv ', but Luke xxii. 23, the simple word kvdiiuuv, 
 that is denied to the apostles which was granted to 
 kings, which the sons of Zebedeus sought, and for 
 which the apostles did contend. 
 
 * Acts xv. 2 ; xx. 17 ; Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Pet. v. 1. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 3 
 
 The Prelate setteth himself as a bishop 
 aver pastors, and in respect of them is called 
 a bishop, and not in relation to any particu- 
 lar flock. 
 
 5. The Pastor is set over a particular 
 Hock, 1 that may convene together in one 
 place, amongst whom he is to exercise the 
 whole parts of the ministry, — as preaching, 
 prayer, ministration of the sacraments and 
 discipline, according to the trust committed 
 to him by the Son of God, in whose name 
 he is ambassador, from whom he deriveth 
 his power, on whom he depends in the ex- 
 ercise of his ministry, and to whom he must 
 be accountable, and to no other pastor or 
 bishop. 
 
 The Prelate both ordaineth pastors at 
 largej without assignation of a particular 
 flock (as if he were either making masters 
 of art and doctors of physic, or as if ordina- 
 tion should go before election, which is as 
 absurd as first to crown a king, or instal a 
 magistrate, and then to choose him), and 
 setteth himself as a proper pastor over a 
 whole province, and over many kirks in di- 
 vers provinces, as well of those that he never 
 saw, as of that where his seat is, — esteeming 
 the pastors to be but his helpers and substi- 
 tutes; as having their power from him, be- 
 ing obliged to render account to him, and 
 whom he may continue and displace at his 
 pleasure. 
 
 6. The Pastor, with his fellow-presbyters, 
 as he is put in trust with the preaching of 
 the word and ministration of the sacraments, 
 hath received also of Christ the power of 
 ordination of pastors, where presbytery, 2 
 never used in the New Testament to signify 
 the office of priesthood or order of a pres- 
 byter, can be no other thing but the per- 
 sons or company of pastors laying on their 
 hands, and that not only for consent, but 
 for consecration, of which number any one 
 may pronounce the words of blessing. 
 
 i Kirks of Judea, Gal. i. 22; kirks of Galatia, 
 Gal. i. 2; of Asia, Macedonia, &c. ever in the num- 
 ber of multitude ; as for Acts vii. 38, it is spoken of 
 the whole nation of the Jews iu the wilderness camp- 
 ing about the ark. 
 
 2 1 Tim. iv. 14. Neither doth the apostle deny that 
 to presbyters which he did himself with them, and 
 which he'ascribeth to Timothy. 1 Tim. t. 22, 2 Tim. 
 i. 6. Neither the prelate himself deuieth the power 
 of ordination to the presbyter, but the exercise of 
 the power which he arrogateth to himself. Ordinat 
 Deus per ecclesiam, ordinat ecclesia per presbyte- 
 rium, ordinat presbyterium per episcopos, et pastores 
 suos ; singuli conferunt in uuum quae sua sunt. — 
 Jun. animad. 1187. 
 
 The Prelate, for the honour of the priest- 
 hood, that, is, out of his ambitious humour, 
 taketh the power of ordaining pastors to him- 
 self, — denying that a whole presbytery with- 
 out him may ordain a pastor, excepting the 
 case of extreme necessity, as women are ad- 
 mitted to baptise ; whereby in a manner he 
 calleth in question the lawfulness of our 
 ministry, these sixty years past, since the 
 reformation. 
 
 7. The Pastor hath committed to him, 
 by Jesus Christ, not only the keys of the in- 
 ward and private court of conscience, but 
 also of the outward and public court of juris- 
 diction, 1 for deciding controversies, making 
 of constitutions, and inflicting of censures, 
 they being both but one and the same power 
 of binding and loosing. He hath the shep- 
 herd's staff in his hand as well as the shep- 
 herd's pipe at his mouth. 
 
 The Prelate keepeth the staff in his 
 own hand, and arrogateth to himself, even 
 amongst them who never heard him, all 
 power of jurisdiction (whether dogmatic, di- 
 dactic, or critic, as it is distinguished 2 ), which 
 the apostles themselves, notwithstanding their 
 extraordinary gifts, would never do, but in 
 all these parts of jurisdiction behaved them- 
 selves as presbyters. 
 
 8. The Pastor findeth it to be so far 
 against the word of God to claim any au- 
 thority over his brethren, that albeit there 
 be a divine order in the kirk, whereby there 
 is one kind of ministry, both ordinary and 
 extraordinary, in degree and dignity before 
 another, as the apostles before all others, the 
 pastor before the elder and deacon, yet he 
 can find no minister, ordinary or extraordi- 
 nary, that hath any majority of power over 
 other inferior ministers of another kind, — 
 as the pastor over the elder and deacon, far 
 less over other ministers of the same kind, 
 as the pastor or bishop over the pastor. 3 
 
 The Prelate findeth it to be so far 
 against his place to quit his authority over 
 his brethren, that albeit lie hath no warrant 
 for any other kind or degree of ministry 
 than the pastor, yet he usurpeth majority 
 
 i Acts xv. 6 ; xvi. 4 ; xx. 28, 29 ; 1 Cor. v. - xiv. 
 32, 40 ; 1 Thess. v. 12 ; 1 Tim. v. 17 ; Tit. i. 9 ;Heb. 
 xiii. 17. 
 
 2 Deciding of controversies, making of canons for 
 order, or censuring of offences. 
 
 3 By Scripture no apostle hath power over another 
 apostle, nor evangelist over another evangelist, nor 
 elder over another elder, nor deacon over another 
 deacon ; but all are equal. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 of power over pastors, and taketh upon him 
 ljotli direction and correction ; and that not 
 social, but authoritative, to beat them at his 
 pleasure; 
 
 9. The Pastor is separate from the 
 world to the kingdom of Christ, which i9 
 not of this world i 1 he will not be called 
 gracious lord, nor strive for the right hand 
 or the left ; he should not follow the pomp 
 of the world, but must shine in knowledge, 
 diligence, and godly simplicity ; he may not 
 assume another ecclesiastical office, far less 
 take upon him a secular charge ; he may 
 not divide the inheritance^ nor burden him- 
 self with worldly affairs. 
 
 The Prelate is separate from the king- 
 dom of Christ, and thrusteth himself into 
 the throng of the world, — he would be call- 
 ed My Lord, and Your Grace ; andj without 
 respect of age or gifts, preferreth himself 
 to the most reverend pastors : he robbeth 
 the nobility and magistrates of their places 
 and dignities, and will have his cushion, his 
 coach, and his courtly train : he is a lord 
 of parliament, of council and session, a ba- 
 ron, a steward, a judge of civil and criminal 
 causes ; and why not bishop of the order of 
 the garter, and count palatine, that at last 
 lie may have both swords and the triple 
 crown, as the Abimelech-like brambles of 
 the world have done before. 
 
 10. The Pastor taketh the sum and 
 forms of prayer from the directions of 
 God, from the Lord's prayer, and from the 
 prayers of the godly in divers places of 
 Scripture, the particular arguments and 
 petitions from the present purposes, per- 
 sons, places, times, and occasions-, which, as 
 the mouth of the congregation ■, according 
 unto the grace given unto him from the 
 Holy Ghost, he presenteth before the throne 
 of God the Father, in the name of Jesus 
 Christ.* 
 
 The Prelate would tie the pastor, (albeit 
 he had the tongue of an angel;) and occasions 
 never so contrary, to certain words, and a 
 set form of liturgy, and would divide the 
 prayer betwixt pastor and people, and by 
 many idle repetitions, would bring both 
 pastor and people under the guiltiness of 
 vain babbling and popish superstition. 
 
 i Dent, xxxiii. 8; Ezck. xxxiii. 7; Zeoli. xi. 17; 
 Matt, xxiii.9; Luke ix. 89j xii. 13', Xxii. 21; John 
 xxi. 15; Acts vi. 2; Rom. i. 1 : 2 Tim. ii. 4. 
 
 a Matt.vi.7— 9, &c. ; Lukexi.l; Exod.xxxii.il; 
 Num. xiv. 13 ; Acts ii. .3; xvi. 16, &C. 
 
 1L The Pastor thinketh it the princi- 
 pal part of his ministry to labour in the 
 word and doctrine, because woe is unto him 
 if he preach not the gospel. 1 And when he 
 preacheth he will have God's word only to 
 sound in his own house, — -reading nothing 
 but the canonical text, and comparing scrip- 
 ture with scripture for edification, that he 
 may save himself and those that hear him. 
 
 The Prelate thinketh of preaching as 
 accessory, and would have it worn out of use 
 by a long dead liturgy. In reading he 
 would have no difference betwixt the Apo- 
 crypha and the canonical Scripture, and 
 liketh best such sermons as are stuffed with 
 philosophers, poets, orators, schoolmen, and 
 ancients in Greek and Latin, that he may 
 preach himself, and be admired of those 
 that hear hint; 
 
 12. The Pastor loveth no music in the 
 house of God but such as edifieth, 2 and stop- 
 peth his ears at instrumental music, as serv- 
 ing for the pedagogy of the untoward Jews 
 under the law, and being figurative of that 
 spiritual joy whereunto our hearts should 
 be opened under the gospel. 
 
 The Prelate loveth carnal and curious 
 singing to the ear, more than the spiritual 
 melody of the gospel, and therefore would 
 have antiphony and organs in the cathedral 
 kirks, upon no greater reason than other 
 shadows of the law of Moses ; or lesser in- 
 struments, as lutes, citlietiisj or pipes, might 
 be used in other kiiks. 
 
 13. The Pastor minister'eth baptism in 
 the place of the public assemblies of God's 
 people, 3 — it being a note of our Christian 
 profession, and a protestation of our faith, 
 and therefore should be celebrated publicly, 
 as well as ordination of ministers, excommu- 
 nication, confession of converts, or reconcili- 
 ation of penitents. 
 
 The Prelate hath given place to private 
 baptism, and thereby entertaineth the su- 
 perstitious conceit of the necessity of bap- 
 tism, bringeth in the absurdity of conditional 
 
 1 Actsxxviii.23; Rom. X. 15; 1 Cor. i. 21 ; ix.16; 
 1 Pt?t. iv. 11 ; 2 John X : 1 Cor. Hi. 12, &c. 
 
 2 2 Chron. xxix. 25. Not in the synagogues, but 
 at the ti-inple, anil for that time of Ceremonial wor- 
 ship. 1 Cor. xiv. 19. 26 ; Eph. v. 18, 19 ; Col. ill. 16. 
 
 3 .Matt. xXviii. 19, ahd all other places showing 
 baptism to be a note discerning Christians from in- 
 fidels. 1 Pet. iii. 21, and such places proving bap- 
 ti-m to he a sign of Christian profession Matt, iii., 
 the baptism at Jordan solemn, and what was done 
 privately by the apostles, as sometirties was in the 
 infancy of the kirk, which callnot now be a rule to 
 us in a kirk constituted. 
 
THE PASTOR VXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 baptism, and maketh a ready way for private 
 persons and midwives to baptise. 
 
 14. The Pastor, as the words of the in- 
 stitution prescribe, and after the example of 
 Christ and his apostles, hath a table pre- 
 pared for the celebration of the Lord's sup- 
 per :*■ he sitteth down in a public commu- 
 nion with the congregation, in the most 
 customable and comely form of sitting, far 
 from all danger of idolatry ; when he hath 
 given thanks, he breaketh the bread sacra- 
 mentally ; when he delivereth the elements 
 he uttereth the words of promise, This is 
 my body, this is my blood, demonstratively; 
 the people distribute the bread and cup 
 among themselves lovingly ; they eat and 
 drink in such measure as they may find 
 themselves refreshed sensibly; and as before 
 the action they were prepared by diligent 
 examination and powerful sermons, for try- 
 ing themselves-, so in the time of the action 
 their ears and their hearts are filled with per- 
 tinent readings and pithy exhortations, and, 
 after the action, dismissed with joy, with 
 strength, and with spiritual resolution, to 
 the great honour of God, the enlargement 
 of the kingdom of Christ, the terror of anti- 
 christ, the peace of the kirk, and the unspeak- 
 able comfort of their own souls. 
 
 The Prelate pretending the words of 
 the ninety-fifth Psalm, and, after the ex- 
 ample of antichrist and his followers, hath 
 turned the table into an altar-like cupboard, 
 — the table gesture of sitting into the ador- 
 ing gesture of kneeling (with no better ex- 
 cuse of idolatry than is expressed in the ob- 
 scure terms of abstractive ab objecto, and 
 objectum a quo significative), — the public 
 communion into a private action betwixt 
 him and the communicant, — the sacramen- 
 tal breaking into a preparative carving be- 
 fore the action, — the enunciative words of 
 the institution into a form of a prayer or 
 oblation, — the Christian distribution into a 
 steward-like partition, — the refreshment of 
 eating and drinking into a pinched tasting, 
 — the preparatory examination and preach- 
 ing into a schismatical disputation about 
 kneeling and sitting, — the spiritual exhor- 
 tations in the time of the action, either in a 
 dumb guise and comfortless deadness, or in 
 
 i Matt. xxvi. 26; Mark xiv. 22; Luke xxii. 19; 
 1 Cor. xi. 23 : out of which, compared together, the 
 whole institution is to be learned, and not from the 
 last place alone, since it containeth not all things 
 belonging to the institution, Matt. xiv. 13; Luke 
 xxiv. 30 ; 1 Cor. x. 
 
 a confusion of the readers reading, and his 
 own speaking at the giving of the elements, 
 both at one time, — and the spiritual joy, 
 strength and resolution after the action, in- 
 to terrors of conscience in some, the opinion 
 of indifference in all matters of religion in 
 others, and of looseness of life in many, to 
 the mocking of God, the re-entry of anti- 
 christ, rending of the kirk, ohduring of the 
 papist, stumbling of the weak, and grief of 
 the godly-. 
 
 15. The Pastor thinketh it no Judaism 
 nor superstition, but a moral duty to observe 
 the Sabbath. 1 Because, _/?j\s*f, the observation 
 of one day of seven, albeit it he positively 
 divine, yet it is not ceremonial nor for a 
 time, but unchangeable, and obligeth per- 
 petually, as is manifest by the time when it 
 was appointed before the fall, when there 
 was no type of redemption by Christ, and 
 by numbering it among the ten precepts of 
 the moral law-, written by the finger and 
 proclaimed by the voice of God, which can- 
 not be said of any changeable law. Neither 
 can it be called perpetual and moral in this 
 sense, that a certain time is to be allotted to 
 divine worship ; for then the building of the 
 tabernacle and temple, the new moons, and 
 other legal festivities, containing in them a 
 general equity, might as well be accounted 
 moral-. Secondly, the change of the Sab- 
 bath from the last to the first day of the 
 week is by divine authority, from Christ 
 himself, from whom it is called the Lord's 
 day, who is Lord of the Sabbath, who did 
 institute the worship of the day, and rested 
 from his labours that day, whereon all things 
 were made new by his resurrection, and 
 sanctified it, even as in the beginning God 
 rested from all his works on the seventh 
 day, and blessed it. He thinketh it no 
 more contrary to Christian liberty than it 
 was to Adam, in his innocence, to keep one 
 of the seven, and therefore he laboureth to 
 make the Sabbath his delight, — observeth 
 it himself — and by his doctrine, example and 
 discipline, teacheth others to do the like ; 
 and to cease not only from all servile works 
 which require great labour of the body, but 
 from all our own works whatsoever, drawing 
 our minds from the exercises of religion, and 
 serving for our own gain and commodity, 
 
 i Gen. ii. 2, 3 ; Exod. xx. ; Deut. v. ; Numb. xv. 
 32; Neh. xiii. 15; Isa. lvi. 2; lviii. 13; Joel i. 14; 
 Psal. ex. 3; John xx. 16, 26; Acts ii. 1; xx. 7; 1 
 Cor. xvi. 1 ; Gal. iv. 9, 10 ; Col. ii. 16, 17 ; Rev. i. 10. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 except in the case of necessity, caused by 
 divine providence. He would have it well 
 considered wherein the Jews were more 
 strictly obliged than Christians, and what 
 liberty we have that they had not. Beside 
 the Sabbath he can admit no ordinary holi- 
 days appointed by man, whether in respect 
 of any mystery, or of difference of one day 
 from another, sis being warranted by mere 
 tradition, against the doctrine of Christ and 
 his apostles, but accounteth the solemn fasts 
 and humiliations unto which the Lord call- 
 eth, to be extraordinary sabbaths, warranted 
 by God himself. 
 
 The Prelate, by his doctrine, practice, 
 example, and neglect of discipline, declareth 
 that he hath no such reverend estimation of 
 the Sabbath. He doteth so upon the ob- 
 servation of Pasche, Yule, and festival days 
 appointed by men, that he preferreth them 
 to the Sabbath, and hath turned to nothing 
 our solemn fasts and blessed humiliations. 
 
 16. The Pastor findeth that every part 
 of his office, and every name whereby he is 
 called in Scripture, doth call upon him to 
 be personally resident, 1 and where he resid- 
 eth, to be a terror to the wicked and a com- 
 fort to the godly. 
 
 The Prelate either waiteth upon coun- 
 cil, session, or court, or dwelleth so far from 
 his charge, that the speech of Caranza 
 (proving the necessity of the personal re- 
 sidence of bishops), may be applied to him : 
 " He is a bishop, but without overseeing, — 
 an ambassador, but runneth where his errand 
 lieth not, — a captain and soldier, but far 
 from his station, — a father and steward, but 
 suffereth the children to perish for want of 
 food." Or if he happen to be resident, his 
 lordship is a protection to the papist, to the 
 carnal professor, and to the idol-minister and 
 idle-belly, and such a vexation to the vigi- 
 lant pastor, that he had much rather he were 
 a non-resident. 
 
 17. The Pastor must be so unblameable, 
 that he have a good testimony of them that 
 are without. 2 He must rule well his own 
 house, having his children in subjection, 
 with all gravity, not accused of riot, or un- 
 ruly. He must be sober, not given to wine ; 
 
 1 Caranza proveth the necessity of the residence 
 of bishops, by five places of the Old Testament, by 
 three out of the evangelists, and five out of the apos- 
 tolic writings ; and how can he be a bishop, a shep- 
 herd, a watchman, &c, that is a non-resident. 
 
 2 2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Tim. iii. 2—8; iv. 12; 2 Tim. 
 i. 13 ; Tit. i. 6, and ii. 7. 
 
 he must not be greedy of filthy lucre, nor 
 covetous ; he must not be a brawler, a stri- 
 ker, nor fighter. 
 
 The Prelate mocketh at conscience, gra- 
 vity, sobriety, modesty, patience, paiiifulness, 
 &c, and calleth them puritanising. 
 
 18. The Pastor laboureth to keep faith 
 in a good conscience, and, by the blessing of 
 God upon his labours, findeth the increase of 
 the gifts of God in his old age, and the grace 
 of God growing in the hearts of the people. 1 
 
 The Prelate, by losing a good conscience, 
 maketh shipwreck of faith, and by the curse 
 of God upon his sloth and defection, may 
 find himself like Balaam, who seeking horns 
 did lose his ears — that is, seeking prefer- 
 ment he lost the gift of prophesy, and may 
 see grace decayed, and worn out of the hearts 
 of the people. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will object, notwithstanding all the evil that 
 hath been said, or that ye can say against 
 him, that the name, the calling, the power, 
 and the life of the bishop, is set down in the 
 Word. 
 
 The Pastor's answer. — The question is 
 not of the bishop, but of the prelate or dio- 
 cesan bishop, whether he be the divine 
 bishop. Hainan could think upon no man 
 but himself, when the man was named 
 whom the king would honour ; even so the 
 prelate imagineth no other bishop to be 
 spoken of in Scripture but himself'. And 
 as Alexander the great took Jupiter's omi- 
 nous salutation, w kuiOiov [O child or babe,] 
 for u vat Aiog [0 son of Jupiter,] 2 even so 
 in the prelate's ambitious ear, every word of 
 a bishop sounds honour unto him. But the 
 truth is, that the pastor, and not the diocesan 
 bishop, is the bishop divine. 
 
 1. The diocesan bishop is but one, in a 
 diocese, over many kirks. 
 
 The divine bishops may be many in one 
 city, and over one kirk. 
 
 2. The diocesan bishop hath a form of 
 ordination of his own, different from the 
 ordination of the pastor. 
 
 The divine bishop hath no other but the 
 ordination of the pastor. 
 
 3. The diocesan bishop preacheth at his 
 pleasure, and is not obliged to preach by the 
 nature and necessity of his calling. 
 
 1 1 Tim. i. 19; Jer. xii. 10; xxiii. 1—5; Ezek. 
 xxxiv. 2—23; Zee. xi. 15—17; 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16; 
 Jude xi. ; Rev. ii. 1-t. 
 
 2 Kara to. I6n fas ax^oxtrm oufi&aiiuv. Dixit 
 Arist. iu Metaphys. 
 
THE TASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 The divine bishop is bound by his calling 
 to preach with all diligence. 
 
 4. The diocesan bishop hath no particular 
 congregation for his flock, to feed with the 
 word and sacraments. 
 
 The divine bishop is tied to a particular 
 flock. 
 
 5. The diocesan bishop is, for the greater 
 part, a secular person. 
 
 The divine bishop is a person merely 
 ecclesiastical. 
 
 Therefore the diocesan bishop is not the 
 divine bishop, neither doth the word of God 
 acknowledge any diocesan kirk, or any pre- 
 late or diocesan bishop charged with the 
 care of many particular congregations, and 
 having majority of power to direct and cor- 
 rect other 
 
 THE SECOND PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR AXD PRELATE COMPARED BY ANTIQUITY, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANCIENT 
 
 KIRK. 
 
 Antiquity, and the primitive kirk, the fathers of two sorts. — The maintainers of conformity forget themselves 
 about antiquity three ways. — The pastor is not older than the New Testament, the prelate would fetch 
 his prelacy from the Old Testament. — The pastor, and not the prelate, warranted by Christ. — The pas- 
 tor, and not the prelate, warranted by the apostles. — The pastor keepeth his place and authority in the 
 primitive kirk, when the prelate beginneth to work, and to be constant moderator, or perpetual presi- 
 dent. — The pastor seeketh no honour but by his doctrine and life ; the prelate forsaketh this way, and 
 taketh him to the world. — The pastor witnessetli for the truth, in the time of defection, which is wrought 
 by the prelate, perverting all after he is once entered. — The pastor complained of that which he could 
 not mend, and the prelate persecuted them that complained. — The pastor desired, and urged a refor- 
 mation, which, by all means, the prelate refused. — Objection, The Christian kirk, for three hundred 
 years, had such bishops as we have now. — Answer, Shewing, in many particulars, the difference betwixt 
 the primitive bishops and our prelates, who are like unto the Roman bishops, in the most corrupt 
 times. 
 
 We reverence the hoary head and name 
 of antiquity, but, withal, we know that there 
 is antiquity of truth and antiquity of error, 
 and therefore would make difference betwixt 
 original antiquity, or that which was from 
 the 5 beginning, and of the first institution 
 and antiquity of custom, or that which is of 
 lono- continuance. They that take them- 
 selves wilfully to custom, against the first 
 institution, resolve, not unlike the Council of 
 Constance, when they set down their blas- 
 phemous act, Non obstante. 1 We do not 
 disregard the practice of the primitive kirk 
 after the apostles, especially it being com- 
 pared with the ages following, but would 
 have it, in comparison of the apostolic kirk, 
 to be esteemed but derivative, as wliich ad- 
 mitted many changes, from better to worse, 
 both in doctrine and discipline. We hon- 
 our the fathers, but so that we give the first 
 honour to the Father of fathers, besides whom 
 we have no father — to his Son Jesus Christ, 
 
 l Licet Christus post caenam instituerit, et suis 
 discip. ministraverit sub utraque specie panis et vini 
 hoc venerible Sjacramontum: tamen hoc non obstante, 
 sacrorum canonum auctoritas etapprobataconsuetu- 
 do ccclesiam servavit et servat, &c. Caranza summa 
 cone. Const, sess. 13. distinguitur a Juristis, ipsa pri- 
 mativa ecclesia in priinam et secundam. 
 
 the only prophet, whom we should hear — to 
 the Holy Ghost, who only teacheth us the 
 truth, and to the Holy Scripture, which only 
 carrieth their divine authority. Wishing all 
 that are studious of the truth, in the point of 
 the controversy in hand, to take notice of 
 these two things: First, that the main- 
 tainers of conformity many ways foi'get 
 themselves in the matter of the authority of 
 the fathers, for albeit they daub us with the 
 fathers, the ancients, and all antiquity, yet 
 they themselves will not hear the voice of 
 the lathers in their disputes, whether against 
 papists, whom they answer with the same 
 exceptions against the fathers which we 
 bring in this cause against them, or in 
 their disputes with us, when the fathers 
 make against them ; l and, thus, while they 
 profess that they honour the fathers, they 
 do but mock them, sometimes putting upon 
 them the purple robe of authority, and at 
 their pleasure, pulling it off again. Next, 
 they forget themselves in this, that albeit 
 they know that the witness and not the tes- 
 
 i "NVhitgiftus, Socratem Novatianum et Purita- 
 num vocat. Saravia contra Bez. dicit Ilieroniinum 
 apertc Arianum esse, Dounamus contra omnes pa- 
 tres, negat Petrum Romae cpi3Copum fuisse, &c. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 timony, is to be believed, they allege, not- 
 withstanding, some counterfeit, some cor- 
 rupted authors, and some late schoolmen, 1 
 for the ancient fathers, against us. Becanus, 
 Calvin, Beza, Martyr, Juell, &c, bring 
 them against the papists, who deny not 
 their authority. And, thirdly, they disre- 
 gard the order of divine dispensation in the 
 course of time, not without ingratitude to 
 God for his gifts, and to good men for their 
 labours, by preferring the meanest, that 
 carrieth the name of antiquity, 2 unto the 
 worthiest instruments of that blessed work 
 of Reformation, who had, above all that 
 went before them, many great helps of the 
 languages of human literature and of print- 
 ing, and to whom many secrets were made 
 known by the accomplishment of prophecies, 
 especially concerning the antichrist, who, 
 being conceived in the apostles' times, was 
 brought forth and brought up unwittingly 
 by the fathers, who looked for the antichrist 
 from another quarter, which maketh them 
 to be incompetent judges in the matter of 
 hierarchy and ceremonies thereof. The Ro- 
 manists themselves, who profess to be the 
 greatest favourers of the ancient fathers, 
 are forced to blush at many of their gross 
 and shameful absurdities, and to confess, 
 that many things that were of old either 
 doubtful or altogether unknown, are now 
 to the meanest become clear and certain. 
 Some of them have exploded it as an im- 
 pertinent similitude, that we, being com- 
 pared to the ancients, are as dwarfs upon 
 the shoulders of giants. The other thing 
 that we would have the studious reader to 
 take notice of is this, that of the prelates 
 and maintainers of conformity seeking the 
 fountain of antiquity, and uncertain where 
 to find it, some go back to the Old Testa- 
 ment, to bring the prelate's pedigree from 
 thence ; some would bring his decent from 
 Christ ; some from the apostles ; and a 
 
 1 Quales sunt, auctor libri, qui canones Aposto- 
 lorum inscribitur, Clemens, Romanus, Ignatius, Dyo- 
 nisius, Areopagita, Egesippus, Dorotheus, &c. De 
 quibus, Mortonus contra pontificios, Larvati isti 
 auctores pueris terriculamento esse possuut, Yiris 
 autem cordatis, esse ludibrio debent. 
 
 3 Vitium malignitatis humanae, ut Vetera semper 
 in laude, praesentia sint in fastidio. Tacit. Mira- 
 turque nihil, nisi quod Libitina sacravit. Ilorat. Nee 
 nos sumus nani, nee illi gigantes, sed omues ejusdem 
 staturae, et quidem nos altius evecti, eorum bene- 
 ficio, maneat modo in nobis quod in illis stndium, 
 attentio animi, vigilantiae et amor veri, qua? si absint, 
 jam non nani sumus, nee iu gigantum humeros sede- 
 mus, sed homines instar maguitudinis humi pro- 
 strati. Ludov. vivis de causis corrup. art. lib. 1. 
 
 fourth sort from the primitive kirk. But 
 before they get a sight of their own pre- 
 late in his pomp, in his power, and in his 
 busk of ceremonies, they must go farther 
 down the stream, till they come in sight of 
 the antichrist, and there they shall see him 
 not far of, waiting on, as may be apparent 
 by this which followeth : — 
 
 1. The Pastor acknowledged the differ- 
 ence of the kirk and ministry of the Old 
 and New Testaments : seeketh neither type 
 nor pattern of his office from the Levitical 
 priesthood, but bringeth his oldest warrant 
 from Christ and his apostles, and exponeth 
 the ancients, as Jerome and others, who in- 
 sist on the similitude of the ministers of the 
 Old and New Testaments, 1 as speakino- by 
 the way of allusion, and not from any war- 
 rant of divine translation. 
 
 The Prelate, searching the fountains of 
 Nilus, would bring his decent as high as 
 from Levi, as if the chief priests, who had 
 no episcopal authority over their brethren, 
 were turned now into prelates ; the inferior 
 priests into pastors ; and the Levites, who 
 had no proper care of the poor, were 
 changed into our deacons. He bringeth 
 the ancients to reckon this genealogy, but 
 with such success as the sons of Habaiah 
 had, when they failed in reckoning their 
 line from Aaron, and so proved unworthy 
 of the priesthood, Nehem. vii. 63, 64. 
 
 2. The Pastor hath an ordinary and per- 
 petual office appointed by Christ, but the 
 office of the apostle and evangelist was ex- 
 traordinary, and to continue but for a time. 
 So that howsoever antiquity useth the words 
 of apostle and bishop amply, calling the apos- 
 tles bishops, and bishops or pastors apostles, 
 and successors to the apostles, yet neither 
 is the one kind of office compatible with the 
 other, nor can the one properly be said to 
 succeed the other, so different are they, as 
 well in respect of charge as of gifts and dis- 
 charge of duty ; 2 for the superior doth not 
 only do that which the inferior may not do, 
 but his manner of doing of that which is com- 
 mon to both, is far higher and more eminent. 
 
 1 Mutato sacerdotio mutatur et lex. Heb. vii. 12. 
 Ex figura communi, sine exemplo, nihil concludi ne- 
 cessario potest. Jun. de pontif. 
 
 2 Apost. et evang. primum officia, deinde duo ex- 
 traordinaria, significant ofEcium apostoli et evang. 
 continet in seofficium presbyteri eminenter, sed non 
 formaliter, ofneium autem episcopi hierarchic], nee 
 eminenter, quia non datur episcopatus extra aposto- 
 latum, quern contiueat eminenter, sicut datur pres- 
 byteratus. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The Prelate, repelled by the office- 
 bearers of the Old Testament, seeketh to 
 enter with his directive power and jurisdic- 
 tion among the ministers of the gospel, but 
 with like success. For a pastor and doctor, 
 his power over pastors and doctors suffereth 
 them not to be. He urgeth to be taken in 
 with the apostle or evangelist, and to be 
 esteemed successor to them, 1 but his office 
 and theirs is not compatible ; for formally 
 their office was extraordinary and without 
 succession, and materially his office is not 
 contained in their offices, as is the office of 
 a pastor ; there being no example in Scrip- 
 ture, without the office of apostle or evange- 
 list, of such power as the prelate claimeth. 
 Whether his life and form of ministration 
 be apostolical, all that know him may dis- 
 cern. 
 
 3. The Pastor, and not the prelate, is 
 the first minister (by the prelate's own con- 
 fession) whom the apostles appointed in kirks 
 when they first planted them. The pastor, 
 and not the prelate, is the minister whom 
 the apostles in their time did approve ; and 
 the pastor, and not the prelate, is the last 
 minister to whom the apostles, when they 
 were to remove, or were near unto death, 
 did recommend the care of the kirks ; and 
 therefore the pastor, and not the prelate, is 
 the minister warranted by the apostles. 
 
 The Prelate, denied of Christ, would 
 father himself upon the apostles, and find- 
 ing no warrant from their doctrine or prac- 
 tice in Scripture, albeit the Acts of the 
 apostles contain the history of many years 
 after Christ's ascension, he seemeth to be 
 sure of the ecclesiastical history recorded in 
 the apostles' times, 2 and by apostolic insti- 
 tution, a begun succession of bishops in Je- 
 rusalem, Rome, Alexandria, Autioch, &c. 
 But here also he standeth without, because 
 the bishops of those places were either apos- 
 tles, and therefore could not be properly 
 bishops, or else ordinary pastors, of no 
 greater place nor power, except for age and 
 gift, than other presbyters labouring with 
 them. Such were Linus, Clemens, Cletus, 
 Anacletus, — fellow-presbyters at Rome at 
 one time, — one of them living some space 
 after another ; and, to show the order of 
 
 1 In gradum nemo suceessit apostolis et evaug. in 
 caput succedunt pastores ordinarii. 
 
 2 Intervallum illud ab ult. c. Act. apost. ad me- 
 dium, Trajani imperium plane cum Varrone «S)jXov 
 vocari potest. Joseph. Scalig. prolegom. in Cliro- 
 nicon Eusebii. 
 
 succession from the apostles against heretics 
 who urged it, they were numbered as if they 
 had not lived atone time ; and in the line of 
 succession were called bishops by Eusebius, 
 and others niter him, agreeable to the cor- 
 ruption of their own times, 1 when now men 
 had, of their own head, put a difference be- 
 twixt a bishop and a pastor, and not acccord- 
 ing to the purity of the primitive times, of 
 which they did write, when a pastor and a 
 bishop was one and the same. 
 
 4. The Pastor is the divine and aposto- 
 lic bishop, of the lawfulness of whose calling 
 and power in the primitive kirk, after the 
 apostles, there was no question. The pas- 
 tor, by consent of antiquity, (when now, by 
 human wisdom, the constant moderator was 
 brought in and called the bishop) had right 
 and power, not by grant, but by his office, 
 not only to preach the word, minister the 
 sacraments, and use the keys in binding 
 and loosing the conscience, but also, with 
 the fellow-presbyters, to ordain ministers ; 2 
 and in the presbyterial, provincial, and na- 
 tional assemblies, to decide controversies, to 
 make constitutions, to inflict censures, even 
 upon bishops, and, by his pastoral authority, 
 to do all things necessary for the edification 
 of the kirk; and this right and power, that 
 God gave him, he maintained in some kirks 
 in the most corrupt times, when now anti- 
 christ was set in his chair, and prelacy, for 
 the most part, of human was becom 
 nical. 
 
 The Prelate, holden at the door by 
 Christ and his apostles, after their times, by 
 the ambition of some pastors and simplicity 
 of others, 3 when he had long hung on, got in 
 the foot to be constant moderator ; but not 
 finding entry at the first for his great head, 
 made up of sole ordination, of monarchial 
 
 1 T't hiatum expleret Euseb. «* rw vrofariuv. 
 dementis nescio cujus (non est enim ille ernditus 
 
 Alexandrians o <rrgay.ar'.vs) uai m rnt ■xwraiAXtij 
 Hegesippi, non meiioris scriptoria sine delicti;, ea 
 deprompsit. Idem. 
 
 - Who dare condemn all those worthy ministers 
 of God that were never ordained by presbyters, in 
 sundry kirks of the world, at such times as bishops, 
 in those parts where they lived, opposed themselves 
 against the truth of God. Field, book iii, cap. 39. 
 
 3 Paulatim quamvis patribus nihil minus cogitan- 
 tibus, gradui episcopali aditus huraanitua apertus, 
 per quem raos ingressa ambitio. gradum istom ini- 
 tio quidem in Oligarchiam, ae tandem in horrendam 
 illam Antichristianam tyrannidem cecumenicam 
 evexit, baud satis scio an unquam abolendam nisi 
 semel sublatis quibus eo ascendit gradibus, in ordi- 
 uem divinse institutionis redigatur. Btza de grad. 
 
10 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 jurisdiction, of civil power, worldly pomp 
 and superstitious ceremonies, he hideth his 
 mitre in the mystery of iniquity, going on 
 with it foot for foot, and draweth in, by 
 fraud and force, one limb after another, till 
 at last, after many ages and much working 
 (for he attained not to the degree of an 
 archbishop till after the Council of Nice), he 
 showeth himself lord in the house of God, 
 having no more of the first institution of a 
 bishop, than the ship Argo had of her first 
 building, when, after her expedition, she had 
 lain at a full sea some hundreds of years, or 
 the beggar's cloak, patched with many clouts 
 and colours, that hath passed through some 
 generations, which he, it may be, makes 
 more of than of a parliament robe of the 
 first shaping. 
 
 5. The Pastor, as became the humble 
 servant of Christ and a minister of the New 
 Testament, procured and maintained the 
 dignity and true honour of his ministry, by 
 holding forth the glorious light of the gos- 
 pel in his doctrine, and the shining light of 
 holiness in his conversation ; esteeming the 
 preaching of the glad tidings of peace to be 
 the beauty of ministers, and righteousness 
 their robe and ornament. 
 
 The Prelate took him to the contrary 
 course for his credit, and transformed the 
 beautiful simplicity of Christ's kingdom in- 
 to the glory of the kingdom of the world. 
 Albeit when he was of his old stamp his 
 greatest dignity was his chair, and faithful 
 teaching the flower of his garland, yet now, 
 degenerating from his first sincerity, and 
 being infected with secular smoke, he came 
 to be cast in the mould of the first beast. 
 His chair gave place to his consistory and 
 throne. His jurisdiction and government, 
 honoured with the title of pre-eminence, 
 carried all the credit. Teaching, as a base 
 work, was given over to the petty presby- 
 ters, and every office in the kirk was count- 
 ed a dignity worthy of honour, less or more, 
 as it had more or less jurisdiction annexed ; 
 as those are more or less honourable in the 
 commonwealth, that have more or less civil 
 authority ; and thus prelacy came up, and 
 preaching came down, and the kirk became 
 more worldly than the world itself. 
 
 6. The Pastor, when all was going 
 wrong, some raising contentions, others gap- 
 ing alter honours, the brains of many being 
 big with heresies, all given to heap up super- 
 stition and atheism ; and the prelate, with 
 his popish hierarchy, possessing both the 
 
 holy city and outward court, he then gave 
 testimony to the truth, kept still the tem- 
 ple, and, within the temple, kept in the 
 light, as two olive trees growing up by the 
 sides of the candlestick, and dropping down 
 from the branches oil into the lamps, for the 
 comfort of such as Jehovah-Shammah had 
 chosen for life, and would save from the de- 
 luge of defection. 
 
 The Prelate, once possessed into the 
 kirk, never ceased till he had changed the 
 kirk into a court ; power ecclesiastical into 
 civil policy ; the Scripture into tradition ; 
 the truth into heresy ; sincerity into super- 
 stition ; the worship of God into idolatry — as 
 the worship of images, saints and bread-wor- 
 ship ; the pure ordinances of God into masses, 
 altars, images, garments, fasting, and tollies 
 of Paganism and Judaism, like a smoke out 
 of the bottomless pit, growing grosser and 
 thicker every day ; and, in the midst of the 
 mist, built up his greatness upon the ruins 
 not only of the kirks, but of the common- 
 wealths of the world ; for when the stars 
 of heaven fell into the earth, the mountains 
 and islands were moved out of their places ; 
 and as this unhappy milt swelled big in the 
 body, with wealth and honour, the life of 
 religion became faint, the princes and no- 
 bles of the earth, like the noble parts in 
 the body, decayed, and the meaner ones, 
 like the hands and feet, withered away. 
 The Pope's felicity was the whole world's 
 misery, and so was the prelate's to several 
 nations and provinces. 
 
 7. The Pastor, and with him the godly 
 of the time, wearied with long opposition, 
 poured out their heavy complaints, that the 
 grief of the kirk was more bitter in peace 
 than either under persecution or heresy i 1 
 that she had brought up and exalted her 
 sons, and they had despised her. If a pro- 
 fessed heretic should arise, she could cast 
 him forth of her bosom ; if a violent enemy, 
 she could hide herself from him ; but now, 
 whom could the kirk cast out, or from whom 
 shall she hide herself? All are friends, and 
 yet all are enemies ; all are domestics, and 
 yet none seek her true peace, for all seek 
 their own things, and not the things of Jesus 
 Christ. They are the ministers of Christ, 
 and serve the antichrist. He complaineth 
 
 1 Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima, amara 
 prius in nece martyrnm, amarior post in conflictu 
 hereticorum, amarissima nunc in moribus domcsti- 
 corum, &c. Bern, super. Cant. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PKELATE. 
 
 11 
 
 that devotion had brought forth riches, and 
 the mother had devoured her daughter -, 1 
 that of old the bishops were of gold, and 
 the cups of wood, but now the bishops have 
 changed their metal with the cups: 2 that 
 of old, Christians had dark kirks but light- 
 some hearts ; but now, lightsome kirks and 
 dark hearts: 3 that the prelates inquired 
 what rent the bishopric rendered, and not 
 how many souls were to be fed in it : that 
 their bodies were clad with purple and 
 silk, but they had threadbare consciences : 
 that their care was greater to empty men's 
 purses than to extirpate their vices : that 
 when they consecrate a prelate, they kill 
 a good man by advancing him : that no 
 greater evil could be wished to any man, 
 than that he be made Pope : that in the 
 estate of the kirk, heaven is below and 
 earth is above ; the spirit obeyeth, and the 
 flesh commandeth : that in the mouths of 
 the prelates was the law of vanity, and not 
 the law of verity ; and that the lips of the 
 priests under them, kept secular, and not 
 spiritual knowledge ; and when he searched 
 the causes of the kirk's misery, he condes- 
 cended upon the neglecting of Scripture, 
 and multiplication of men's inventions ; the 
 ignorance and idleness of prelates, like dumb 
 dogs that could not bark, — their covetousness 
 above the Pharisees'. They suffered doves 
 to be sold in the temple, but these sell both 
 kirk and sacrifice. Their pride and ambi- 
 tion declared in their great horses, and other 
 superfluous pomp, and that, as sons of Belial, 
 they have cast off the yoke, not enduring 
 that any should ask them, why they do so 
 and so : the unequal proportion seen in the 
 kirk, when one is hungry and another drunk ; 
 some so enormously overgone in riches and 
 pomp, that the weakness of the rest is not 
 able to bear them. 
 
 The Prelate, still mad of avarice and 
 ambition, stood upon the four corners of the 
 earth, holding the four winds of the earth 
 that they should not blow, and opposed him- 
 self against the doctrine and complaint of 
 the pastors, — condemning them for heretics, 
 giving out against them decrees of corrupt 
 
 1 Devotio peperit divitias, et filia devoravit rai- 
 fcrem. Bern, super. Cant. 
 
 2 Olim fuerunt lignei calices, et aurei sacerdotes : 
 nunc contra sunt aurei calices et lignei sacerdotes, 
 vnlgo jactitatum. 
 
 3 Olim liabuisse Christianos obscura templa, sed 
 lucida corda : nunc contra habere lucida templa sed 
 obscura corda. Et sequentia. 
 
 councils, thundering them with anatbema- 
 tisms, and persecuting them by fire and 
 sword. He punished the clergy under him 
 more severely for the neglect of a ceremony 
 than for sacrilege or adultery ; and finally, 
 lest his fraud and falsehood should be known, 
 he forbade all men the reading and using 
 of the holy Scriptures. 
 
 8. The Pastor, and all good men that 
 longed and laboured for the reformation of 
 the Christian kirk, for the space of five hun- 
 dred years, as the Waldenses, Marsilius Pa- 
 tavinus, Wickliffe and his scholars, Husse 
 and his followers, and all such as the Lord 
 used for instruments in working the refor- 
 mation, as Luther, Calvin, Brentius, Bullhi- 
 gerus, Musculus, &c. did teach that all pas- 
 tors are of equal authority by the word of 
 God, and all that space of time urged this 
 point of reformation, as without which no 
 success could be expected in the reformation 
 of the doctrine and worship. 1 
 
 The Prelate knowing (as it was often 
 preached and written all that time of five 
 hundred years) that the main cause of the 
 corruptions of the kirk was his own place, 
 1 lis pride, and his avarice, and that the de- 
 sired and urged reformation of the kirk, 
 which w r as now brought to that pass, that as 
 one says well, she could neither bear her own 
 disease nor yet suffer remedy, behoved to 
 begin at himself, the greatest bile in all the 
 body, by all means held off reformation as 
 his own ruin ; and when several nations 
 were bringing it about, he could never be 
 moved to give his consent, so dear was his 
 mitre and belly unto him. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will confess, that it were better to have no 
 bishops than such monsters as the Roman 
 kirk brought forth, but prideth himself in 
 antiquity, and affirmeth that the Christian 
 kirk in all places, for the space of three hun- 
 dred years after Christ and his apostles, had 
 bishops in every thing like himself, and that 
 afterwards the shepherds became wolves. 
 
 The Pastor's answer. — That which Ter- 
 tullian in his time said unto the Gentiles, 
 may be replied to our prelates, — " Ye boast 
 of antiquity, but your daily life is after the 
 new fashion." Mr Phantastieo at Athens, 
 whensoever he perceived any ships enter- 
 ing into the harbour, strongly apprehended 
 
 1 Dr Reynold's letter to Sir Francis Knowles, 
 concerning Dr Bancroft's sermon, 1688, maketb this 
 clear. 
 
12 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 that they were his own, and used to seize 
 upon them, as if they had been his own 
 indeed. So deal our prelates with the an- 
 cient bishops, they come no sooner in their 
 sight, but they take them for their own, 
 albeit they be very unlike unto them, for 
 were they living-, they would blush and be 
 ashamed that such should be called their 
 successors ; as Angelo, the famous Italian 
 painter, pourtrayed Peter and Paul, for the 
 use of a cardinal at Rome, with red and 
 high-coloured faces, showing thereby, that 
 if they were living, they would blush at the 
 pomp and pride of the prelates of that time. 
 Our prelates are rather of the late Roman 
 cut, and not so like unto the primitive as 
 unto the popish bishops, who, comparing 
 themselves with others before, and ours now 
 come after them, might say with the poet : l 
 
 Our parents' age, worse than their predecessors, 
 Hath brought us forth more wicked, their successors; 
 Ere it be long, if we continue thus, 
 AVe will bring forth a brood more vicious. 
 
 1st, For the primitive bishops (after that 
 ■ the name of bishop, common to all pastors, 
 began to be inappropriate) were neither or- 
 dained by bishops nor metropolitans, but 
 oidy chosen by pastors, to be their constant 
 moderators, or perpetual presidents, but 
 without warrant from God or his truth. 2 
 
 Our prelate must first, by a simulate 
 form of election, be made my lord elect, 
 and then receive a new consecration, with 
 a new guise of ceremonies drawn from the 
 Roman pontifical, as little known to pure 
 antiquity as the words themselves of ordina- 
 tion, consecration, &c. 
 
 2d, The primitive bishops, looking more 
 to the beauty than dignity, suffered violence, 
 
 1 ^Etas parentum, pejor avis tulit nos nequiores, 
 mox daturus progeniem vitiosiorem. Horat. 
 
 2 Ex his Ambrosii et Hieronimi constat primum, 
 in ipsis eeclesias primordiis nullos tales episcopos 
 t'uisse, quales postea institute fuere, scilicet qui suo 
 jure reliquis e clero prseesseut: unde colligitur et 
 non esse id ipsum a Christo, et apostolis institu- 
 tum : et (quando quidem in eccl. id sit optimum 
 quod primum) ecclesiae fore consultius, ut omnes 
 pr< sbvteri pari censerentur et jure et gradu. Se- 
 cuudo constat ne turn quidem, cum hie episcoporum 
 a prcsbyteris distiuctorum ordo, sive gradus est con- 
 stitutus", fuisse episcopos tamquam monarchos, &c. 
 < 'liamier de cecumon. pontif. lib. 18, cap. 5, sect._6. 
 Respondeo patrum auctoritatem nihil efficere, ratio, 
 quia nou ostendunt nullum unquam tempus exti- 
 tisse cum essent episcopi pares presbyteris, sed 
 tautum inaequalitatem esse vetustissimam, ac Viet- 
 nam apostolorum temporibus, quod nos ultro fate- 
 mur. Idem Chamier, lib. 10, cap. 6, sect. 24. 
 
 and were constrained, by pastors and people, 
 whether they would or not, to receive the 
 charge. 
 
 Our prelate, when the bishop is an old 
 man, then he standeth diligently and learn- 
 eth fast, but only how to make credit at 
 court, and when after long expectation the 
 place is void, by posting, promising, and 
 propining, he procureth himself to be cho- 
 sen, first without the knowledge, and then 
 against the will both of pastors and people. 
 3d, The primitive bishops knew not such a 
 creature as was designed afterwards by the 
 proud name of an archbishop, who should be 
 a bishop of bishops, having power over com- 
 provincial bishops, his suffragans. 
 
 Our prelate prideth himself in this proud 
 title, and will have one and the same crea- 
 ture to be metropolitan archbishop and pri- 
 mate, that what he may not do as metropo- 
 litan, he may do as archbishop, and what he 
 may not as archbishop, he may as primate, 
 and as another pope. 
 
 4th, The primitive bishop was in the pres- 
 bytery, like the consul in the senate, — as 
 first among the presbyters, he moderated m 
 their meetings, reported matters previously 
 done, and asked the voters what they con- 
 cluded : he saw it executed Upon others, 
 and was subject to it himself. 
 
 Our prelate, in the presbytery, will be 
 like a king in his council, and thiuketh his 
 authority no less without the presbytery 
 than with it ; and what the synod may do 
 with the archbishop, that he may do with- 
 out the synod. 
 
 5th, The primitive bishops dwelt so near 
 together, that six of them convened in a 
 cause that concerned an elder, and three 
 for a deacon. In a synod they convened in 
 great numbers. Privatus was condemned 
 by ninety bishops. Against Novatus were 
 convened eighty-four bishops. In some sy- 
 nods two hundred and seventeen ; in some 
 two hundred and seventy. 
 
 Our prelate spreadeth his wings over se- 
 veral hundreds of kirks, lying in divers pro- 
 vinces, wide as Merae. Lothian, Fife, Angus, 
 Mearns, &c. 
 
 As, therefore, our prelate was shown be- 
 fore not to be the Lord's bishop, authorised 
 by Scripture, so is he not man's bishop, 
 made up in the primitive times of the kirk, 
 but the same that we had before the refor- 
 mation, the same with the Italian, Spanish, 
 or French prelate under the Pope, and 
 the same with the antichristian prelates in 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 13 
 
 the most corrupt times of the kirk, especi- 
 ally the last rive hundred years ; excepting 
 his subordination to the Pope, by which ex- 
 ception our princely prelate is made greater 
 than the popish ; and what was written of 
 the popish prelate in those times, is now 
 again reverified of ours, as of their civil of- 
 fices and advocations; 
 
 Vintoniensis armiger, 
 
 Praesidi t ad scacarium ; 
 Ad computandum impiger, 
 
 Piger a.l evangclium. 
 Sic lucrum Lucam superat, 
 
 Marcam marco praepooderat 
 Et libra; librura subjieit. 
 
 Some bisbops metropolitan 
 
 Preside at the Exchequer ; 
 For counting he's a busy man, 
 
 To preach the gospel slacker. 
 Lucre worth is more than Luke, 
 
 And merits than Mark weigh better ; 
 He sets the pound above the book, 
 
 And cares not for the matter. 
 
 Of their zeal in urging ceremonies upon 
 others, while they failed in substance them- 
 selves, the old poem called Asini Pcsnitenti- 
 wrius, wherein the wolf confesseth himself to 
 the fox, and the fox to the wolf, and both are 
 
 absolved ; but the poor ass, trusting to his 
 innocence for absolution, was condemned to 
 die by the other two, for no other cause but 
 that, in his extreme hunger, he had been so 
 profane as to eat the straw garters of a reli- 
 ligious pilgrim i 
 
 Immensnm scelus est injuria, quam perigriuo 
 
 Fecisti : stramen surripiendo sibi. 
 Non advertisti, quod plura pericula passns, 
 
 Plurima passurus, quod peregrinus erat ? 
 Non advertisti, quod ei per maxima terrae 
 
 Et pelagi spatia sit peragranda via ? 
 Totius ecclesia3 fuerit cum nuncius iste, 
 
 Pertulit abstracto stramine damna viae. 
 Cnm sis confessus, cum sis convictus, habes ne 
 
 Quo tales noxas occuluisse queas ? 
 Es fur, iguoto cum feceris hoc peregrino : 
 
 Scis bene, fur quali debet honore mori. 
 
 How great a sin were this to thee 
 
 A pilgrim poor to wrong ; 
 Hadst thou not mind what dangers he 
 
 Had travelled far among ? 
 Couldst thou not think that he, dull ass, 
 
 B'hov'd pass through sea and laud ; 
 That uunce of holy kirk he was, 
 
 Running at their command. 
 Thou hast confess'd, convinc'd thou art, 
 
 Nothing thy crime can hide ; 
 Thief, thou didst eat his straw garters, 
 
 Death shall thee now betide. 
 
 THE THIRD PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR -AND PRELATE COMPARED IX THEIR JUDGMENT AXD PRACTICE ABOUT 
 THINGS INDIFFERENT. 
 
 Many controversies and contentions about things indifferent. — The pastor resteth not in the estate of a 
 kirk that is indifferently good, but would be at further reformation ; the prelate inclineth to defection. — 
 The pastor thinketh not that indifferent which doth good or evil to the people's souls ; the prelate ac- 
 counted that indifferent which doth neither good nor evil to his worldly estate.— The pastor thinketh 
 nothing indifferent that is warranted by the word ; the prelate everything that is not fundamental. — The 
 pastor findeth the direction for ceremonies to be as perfect under the gospel as it was under the law ; 
 but the prelate addeth unto it as if it were imperfect. — The pastor appointeth no new thing in the wor- 
 ship of God ; but the prelate is a new lawgiver. — The pastor is so far limited that he thinketh nothing to 
 be in use indifferent ; but the prelate accounteth that to be preciseness and puritanism. — The pastor 
 feareth to give offence in things indifferent ; but the prelate is bold and scandalous. — Objection, None 
 but puritans are precise in matters indifferent. — Answer, Distinguishing between two sorts of precisians 
 or puritans. 
 
 converted Jews and Gentiles, about the 
 keeping of the ceremonies of the law, which 
 before were commanded, afterwards were 
 forbidden, but in that tract of time were in 
 a manner indifferent, concerning which we 
 find that the apostles never imposed them 
 upon any people or person that judged them 
 unlawful, that they thought that every man 
 should be persuaded in his own mind, and 
 should do nothing against or without the 
 
 : the speculations of the schoolmen, 
 divided amongst themselves in their subtle- 
 ties about things indifferent, which work 
 mightily upon men's wits, but more weakly 
 upon their affections than to make any 
 great division, there hath been much ado 
 in the kirk since the beginning about adia- 
 phorisms and things indifferent. First, In 
 the infancy of the Christian kirk the heat 
 and the contention was great betwixt the 
 
14 
 
 THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 warrant of his conscience ; that by all means 
 scandal should be avoided, as that which 
 bringeth woe upon him by whom it cometh, 
 and destruction upon him upon whom it 
 cometh ; and many such rules of conscience 
 and Christian prudence, which serve to the 
 kirk for direction in matters indifferent, to 
 the coming of Christ. Secondly, There was 
 great business about ceremonies, and things 
 called indifferent, in the infancy of the re- 
 formed kirks, in the time of the interim, 
 when, with so great power and persecution, 
 the Romish corruptions were forced again 
 upon them, under the name of indifference. 
 At that time, politics and worldly men, more 
 careful of their own wealth than of God's 
 truth, gave themselves to serve the time, 
 and received all that was obtruded under 
 the said cloak of indifference. These were 
 accounted friends to Augustus. Others of 
 great gifts and esteem in the kirk wished 
 from their hearts that these ceremonies had 
 never been urged, yet thought it a less evil 
 to admit some thing in the external part of 
 God's worship, and thereby uniformity in 
 religion with their enemies, than by stoical 
 stiffness, as they called it, and an obstinacy 
 to provoke authority, and thereby to bring 
 upon themselves banishment, and upon kirk 
 and commonwealth desolation. Such men, 
 looking more to unity than to verity, and 
 more to the event than to their own du- 
 ty, were called prudent, wise and peaceable 
 men. A third sort, setting aside all sophis- 
 tication , and clashing with the enemy, taught 
 plainly by word and writ from Scripture, and 
 not from the grounds of policy, that when 
 any part of God's worship is in danger, that 
 then, for the honour of God, confirmation of 
 the truth, and edification of the kirk, con- 
 fession is necessary. " He that confesseth 
 not me ;" " He that is ashamed of me be- 
 fore men," &c. They taught that it was not 
 lawful to symbolize with the enemy ; that 
 in the case of confession the smallest cere- 
 monies are not indifferent ; that at such 
 times the kirk should stand fast to her li- 
 berty against such as would bring her into 
 bondage ; that yielding to such ceremonies 
 was a great scandal, — it being a returning 
 to the vomit, the patching of an old clout 
 upon a new garment, — and making the 
 weak to think that the reformation of the 
 kirk was not a work of God, but of man ; 
 that the untimely change of ceremonies was 
 a show of defection from the whole reforma- 
 tion ; that when the enemy urgeth unifor- 
 
 mity, his intention should be looked to, be- 
 cause he never rests, but proceeds from the 
 corruption of outward worship to corrupt 
 the doctrine, and to leave nothing sound. 
 Men that taught after this manner were 
 accounted, by the former, politicals, and by 
 peaceable formalists, to be contentious spi- 
 rits and troublers of the peace of the kirk. 
 Thirdly, Albeit the reformed kirks agree 
 for the most part in the general about the 
 nature and use of things indifferent, yet 
 they go far asunder in the application of the 
 general to their particular practices. The 
 Lutheran kirks hold some things for indif- 
 ferent which the kirk of England receiveth 
 not ; and England holdeth a multitude of 
 ordinances about discipline and ceremonies 
 for indifferent which we take to be unlawful 
 and beside the word : every kirk judging, or 
 at least practising, according to their own 
 measure of reformation. Allcrej)t not forth 
 of that Roman deluge equally accomplished. 
 No marvel that some of them should smell of 
 the wine of fornication wherewith they all 
 for so many years were drunk. But obsti- 
 nacy against the incoming light, and the 
 refusing of a farther degree of reformation 
 is fearful ; what is it, then, to draw others 
 back from the reformation, and to bind them 
 up again into their old chain of darkness ! 
 These manifold contentions about things in- 
 different, and ceremonies, have proved so 
 pernicious, by defacing the kingdom of Christ, 
 setting up the tyranny of antichrist, dividing 
 pastors, offending people, dismembering the 
 kirk, and almost putting out the life of true 
 piety, that we may truly say, Nothing hath 
 proved less indifferent to the kirk than the 
 contentions about things indifferent ; and 
 many have been more hot for them than 
 for the heart of true religion, because they 
 concern the face of the kirk, and, as Eras- 
 mus said in another case, " the crowns and 
 bellies of kirkmen." Whether our old pas- 
 tor or new prelate hath here the greatest 
 guiltiness will appear by this little that fol- 
 loweth : — 
 
 1. The Pastor ever feareth defection, and 
 still urgeth reformation, till every thing be 
 done in the house of God according to the 
 wdl of God. He accounteth the constitu- 
 tion of a kirk that is but indifferently good, 
 or midway betwixt idolatry and reformation, 
 to be but like the lukewarmness of Laodicea. 
 
 The Prelate pleaseth himself in this, 
 that there be many kirks in worse case ; he 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 15 
 
 resteth in his indifference and lukewarm- 
 ness, and rather inclineth downward to fur- 
 ther defection, than aimeth at any higher 
 reformation ; like the priests of Samaria, 
 that were as earnest against the true wor- 
 ship at Jerusalem, as they were against Baal 
 and his idolatry. 
 
 2. The Pastor looketh not to the world, 
 but to religion, in matters of religion, and 
 therefore thinketh not that indifferent in 
 religion, which bringeth spiritual good or 
 evil upon the kirk and the souls of the 
 people, albeit that in their worldly estate it 
 doth them neither good nor evil. 
 
 The Prelate esteemeth many things in- 
 different in religion, because they bring- 
 neither good nor evil to his worldly estate, 
 albeit they do good or evil to the kirk, and 
 to the souls of the people, and looketh more 
 to the world than to religion in matters of 
 religion. 
 
 3. The Pastor acknowledged three de- 
 grees of matters of faith ; some to be of the 
 foundation and first principles of the doc- 
 trine of faith ; some to be near the founda- 
 tion, as the conclusions clearly following upon 
 the former ; and the third to be of all other 
 matters warranted by the Word ; and what 
 is of this third rank, were it never so far 
 from the foundation, and never so small in 
 our eyes, not to be a matter indifferent, but 
 to bind the conscience, and to be a matter of 
 faith. 
 
 The Prelate professeth the first and 
 second to be matters of faith, but when he 
 cometh to the third, he esteemeth them to 
 be no matters of faith, but indifferent ; and 
 wondereth that a wise man should be so pre- 
 cise and puritanical, as to stand upon mat- 
 ters that are not fundamental, but indiffer- 
 ent. For so he distinguished, making every 
 thing either fundamental or indifferent. 
 
 4. The Pastor, comparing the worship 
 of God under the gospel with the worship 
 under the law, findeth that the command- 
 ment, Deut. xii. 32, " Every word that I 
 command you, that ye shall observe to do ; 
 thou shalt not add unto it, neither shall 
 ye diminish from it," doth equally concern 
 both : that the mind of man, if left to it- 
 self, would prove as vain and foolish under 
 the gospel as under the law, and that Jesus 
 Christ was faithful as a son in all the house 
 of God, above Moses, who was but a servant ; 
 and therefore, albeit the ceremonial observa- 
 tions under the law were many, which was 
 the burden of the kirk under the Old Testa- 
 
 ment, and ours be few, which is our bene- 
 fit, yet the determination from God, in nil 
 the matters of his worship, he findeth to be 
 all particular ; the direction of all the parts 
 of our obedience to be as clear to us that 
 now live under the gospel, as it was to them 
 that lived under the law. 
 
 The Prelate, as if either it were lawful 
 now to add to the word, or man's mind were 
 in a better frame, or the Son of God was 
 not so faithful as Moses the servant, or as if 
 direction in few ceremonies could not be as 
 plain as in many, would bring into the kirk 
 a new ceremonial law, made up of transla- 
 tions of divine w r orship, of imitations of false 
 worship, and of inventions of will-worship, to 
 succeed to the abolished ceremonies under 
 the law, which he interpreteth to be the li- 
 berty and power of the Christian kirk in 
 matters indifferent, above the kirk of the 
 Old Testament, but is indeed the great door 
 whereby himself and others, (strange office- 
 bearers, whereby days, altars, vestures, cross, 
 kneeling, and all that Romish rabble's sha- 
 dow,) have entered into the kirk of Christ, 
 and which will never be shut again till him- 
 self be shut out, who, while he is within, 
 holdeth it wide open. 
 
 5. The Pastor giveth no power to the 
 kirk to appoint other things in the worship 
 of God, than are appointed already by 
 Christ, the only lawgiver of his kirk, but 
 to set down canons and constitutions about 
 things before-appointed, and to dispose the 
 circumstances of order and decency that are 
 equally necessary in civil and religious ac- 
 tions, and therefore resolveth, first, that no- 
 thing positive, or that floweth merely from 
 institution, can be indifferent, or can be ap- 
 pointed by the kirk ; secondly, that reason 
 may be given from Christian prudence, why 
 things are appointed by the kirk thus, and 
 no other way ; and thirdly, that the consti- 
 tutions of the kirk about things indifferent, 
 cannot be universal for all times and kirks, 
 and therefore cannot be concluded upon any 
 moral or unalterable ground, which made 
 the ancients to observe, that albeit Christ's 
 coat had no seam, yet the kirk's vesture 
 was of divers colours ; and that unity is one 
 thing, and uniformity another. 
 
 The Prelate, as a new lawgiver, will 
 appoint new rites and mystical signs in the 
 kirk, that depend upon mere institution, and 
 are not concluded upon any reason of Chris- 
 tian prudence for such a time and place, but 
 upon grounds unchangeable, and therefore 
 
16 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 obliging at all times and places, as is evi- 
 dent by the reason that he bringeth for fes- 
 val days, kneeling in the sacrament, &c. 
 
 6. The Pastor distinguished betwixt 
 the nature and use of things indifferent, and 
 confesseth with all the learned, that albeit 
 many actions be in their nature indifferent, 
 yet that all our actions in particular (at least 
 such as proceed from deliberation, which is 
 the exception of some of the schoolmen) are 
 either good or evil, and not one of them all 
 is indifferent, in matters most indifferent, 
 which obligeth him to seek a warrant from 
 God for that which he doeth, that he may 
 do it in faith, to walk circumspectly, to take 
 heed to his words, gestures, &c, and to do 
 all that lie doth to the glory of God. 
 
 The Prelate abhorreth this doctrine as 
 the foundation of puritanism, the restraint 
 of his licentiousness, and the ruin of his 
 monarchy ; and, therefore, to the contrary, 
 sinneth with a bold conscience, and maketh 
 the people to sin, some with erring, some 
 with doubting, and some with a contradict- 
 ing conscience. 
 
 7. The Pastor giveth ear to the Holy 
 Ghost, charging that we put no occasion to 
 fall, nor stumbling-block before our breth- 
 ren, (for that is to destroy him for whom 
 Christ died) commanding the strong to bear 
 with the infirmities of the weak, and not to 
 please themselves with the neglect of their 
 brethren, and threatening woe to them by 
 whom offences come — against which no au- 
 thority of man can stand, because it can 
 neither make scandal not to be, nor not to 
 be sin, nor not to be his sin that giveth the 
 scandal. 
 
 The Prelate, stopping his ear against the 
 commandment, charge, and threatening of 
 the Holy Ghost, whether he intend to 
 give scandal or not, by his manifold abuse 
 of things indifferent, and especially by re- 
 ceiving into the kirk again things called in- 
 different, which, for their great abuse, were 
 abolished, giveth offence to all sorts ; as 
 the boldness and increase of papists, the 
 contempt and mocketh of the profane, the 
 superstition and perplexity of the simple, 
 and the grief and crosses of the godly do 
 declare, against which he never had any 
 excuse but the pretext of authority. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will still object, that ye were more wise to 
 quit the name of conscience in matters so 
 indifferent, as the controverted articles and 
 others of that sort be, than still to talk of 
 
 conscience, conscience, and that ye are but a 
 part of puritans, that are so precise and sin- 
 gular beyond your neighbours in matters in- 
 different. 
 
 The Pastor's answer. — The prelate, per- 
 suading to put away conscience, is not unlike 
 the fox, who, through his evil guiding, hav- 
 ing lost his tail, would have persuaded all 
 his neighbours to part with theirs, as an 
 uncomely and unprofitable burden, that all 
 being like himself, his deformity might no 
 more appear. A good conscience would 
 please God in all tilings, in substance and 
 ceremony, but with due proportion. It first 
 and most standeth at camels, and yet next it 
 straineth at gnats, when the light of God's 
 truth makes them discernible. When he 
 calleth us precisians, he is quite mistaken ; 
 for he that is so self-precise that he will 
 rather part with the purity of God's wor- 
 ship, and a good piece of the truth too, than 
 want a compliment of his lordly dignity, or 
 piece of his worldly commodity, or dish of 
 his delicacy ; and not he that is so precise 
 in the matters of God's worship, (wherein 
 he hath no power to be liberal), that he 
 will forsake all to follow Christ: he and 
 no other is the right precisian. He call- 
 eth our pastors and our professors puritans, 
 and consequently heretics; but, blessed be 
 God, cannot name their heresy. They are 
 still in profession that which he was not 
 long since, when he was farther from heresy 
 than he is now. This calumny constraineth 
 us to distinguish betwixt two sorts of puri- 
 tans ; the one is the old heretical puritan, 
 who, from the author of his sect, was called 
 Novatian, and from his heresy, Catharist or 
 Puritan — such a one our pastor is not, for, 
 
 1st, The puritan denied the baptism of 
 infants. 
 
 The pastor waiteth on baptism, as a spe- 
 cial part of his calling, which the prelate 
 doth not. 
 
 2d, The puritans had their own prelates, 
 and liked of prelacy. 
 
 The pastor in this is no puritan, but the 
 prelate the puritan. 
 
 3d, The puritan condemned second mar- 
 riage as unlawful. 
 
 The pastor maintaineth the honour of 
 marriage against the puritan, the papist, 
 and the prelate's manifold matrimonial 
 transgressions. 
 
 4th, The puritan denied reconciliation, in 
 some cases, to penitents. 
 
 The pastor would be glad to see the pre- 
 
THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 17 
 
 late's repentance, notwithstanding his great 
 
 defections, and that in the time of peace, 
 without the hast essay of persecution ; and, 
 therefore, our pastor is not a puritan. 
 
 The other sort is the new nicknamed pu- 
 ritan in our times, wherein the papist calleth 
 it puritanism to oppose the Roman hierar- 
 chy ; the Arminian accounteth it puritan- 
 ism to defend God's free grace against man's 
 free will ; the formalist thinketh it puritan- 
 ism to stand out against conformity ; the 
 civilian, not to serve the time, and the pro- 
 fane thinketh it essential to the puritan to 
 walk precisely, and not to he profane, — and 
 so essential is it, indeed, that if all were pro- 
 fane there would be no puritan, for the pro- 
 fane and the puritan are opposed. He then 
 is the new puritan that standeth for Christ 
 against antichrist, that defendeth God's free 
 grace against man's free will, that would 
 have every thing done in the house of God 
 according to the will of God (which is his 
 greatest heresy), that seeketh after the 
 power of religion in his heart (and this is 
 his intolerable singularity), and that stands 
 at the staff's end against the sins of the 
 time (and this is his pride) ; and thus, after 
 this way that the world calleth heresy, serv- 
 eth he the God of his fathers, who have all 
 been puritans of this stamp since the begin- 
 ning. Abel, who was hated for his holi- 
 ness ; Enoch, that walked with God ; Noah, 
 that was a perfect man in his generation ; 
 Heber, that made Peleg's name a testimony 
 that he was free of the building of Babel ; 
 Moses, that stood upon an hoof; 1 Morde- 
 cai, that would not bow his knee ; Daniel, 
 that would not hold his window shut ; Ele- 
 azar, that would not eat one morsel ; Paul, 
 that would not dispense with one hour, nor 
 with an appearance of evil ; Marcus Arethu- 
 sas, that would not redeem his life with the 
 giving of an halfpenny to idolatry ; Caius 
 
 i Exodus x. 26. 
 
 Sulpitius, who was ever esteemed by the pa- 
 gans a good man, but that he was a Chris- 
 tian, &c, were they living at this time they 
 would not escape this censure, and would be 
 accounted good men if they were not puri- 
 tans. The widow of Sarepta who enter- 
 tained Elijah, — the Shunammite, the hostess 
 of Elislia', — Hannah, who, for multiplying 
 prayers and pouring out her heart before 
 God, was rashly censured to be a daughter 
 of Belial, — Anna, the widow that served 
 God with fasting and prayer night and day, 
 and spake of Christ,— the godly women that 
 waited on Christ, ministered unto him of 
 their substance, and told the apostles of his 
 resurrection, — Lydia, that constrained the 
 apostles to abide with her, — Lois and Eu- 
 nice, that had a care that their children 
 should have grace, — the elect lady, the fa- 
 mous Hildgardis, who lived in the twelfth 
 century, — Mechthildes, Elisabeth the Ger- 
 man, and many more who censured the cor- 
 ruptions of the kirk, and especially of the 
 prelates of those times, and prophesied of 
 the reformation, which they longed to see, 
 were they now living, would be censured for 
 holy sisters and doting puritans, and that 
 the rock and spindle had been fitter for 
 them. Can any man or woman be vexed 
 with the filthy conversation of the wicked, 
 2 Pet. ii. ; be stirred up in spirit against 
 idolatry, Acts xvii. ; be hot in religion, 
 Rev. iii. ; fervent in spirit, Rom. xii. ; walk 
 precisely, Eph. v, ; fear an oath, make the 
 Sabbath his delight, Isa. lviii. ; love the 
 brotherhood, 1 Pet. ii. ; take the kingdom 
 of God by violence, Matt. xi. ; and keep a 
 good conscience in all things, Acts xxiv., 
 and not be made the drunkard's song, the 
 byword of the people, and mocked for a pu- 
 ritan ? It was" the saying of Petrarch, — 
 " Simplicity carrieth the name of foolish- 
 ness, malice the name of wisdom, and good 
 men are so mocked that almost none can be 
 found to be mocked," 
 
18 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 THE FOURTH PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE REFORMATION AND PROCEEDINGS OF 
 OUR OWN KIRK. 
 
 The discipline and government of tlie kirk at the first began to be reformed, and the prelate to be cast out. 
 — The pastor proceeded* in this point of reformation, and the prelate in his avarice and ambition. — At 
 last prelacy is rooted out with consent of the whole kirk.— The kirk, now reformed in doctrine and disci- 
 pline, usetli her authority against all sorts of sin, till men of episcopal disposition make a new division 
 again. — The pastor standeth to the reformation against episcopatus, which the prelate attaineth to at 
 last by many degrees and much working. — The way of the pastor's reformation, and the prelate's defec- 
 tion, very contrary. — The pastor beareth witness against the several degrees of defection, and feareth a 
 change in the worship of God, which the prelate entereth upon so soon as the government is altered, and 
 he come to his power. — The pastor resolveth to be constant to the end against all heresy and corruption, 
 which is entering every day by the prelate's misgovernment — Objection, The superintendents in the begin- 
 ning were prelates. — Answer, Showing particularly that the superintendents were not prelates. 
 
 censurers of other reformed kirks, nor are 
 we separatists from them ; but this we think, 
 that a twofold duty lieth upon us and them 
 all, whatsoever be the measure of reforma- 
 tion. One is, (albeit there be ever some 
 catholic moderators that will be trysters be- 
 twixt us and Rome, and think to agree 
 Christ and antichrist,) that we all with one 
 heart praise God for separating us from So- 
 dom, resolving never to return again where 
 there be so many heresies both against the 
 common principles and particular articles of 
 faith, so manifold idolatry both against the 
 first and second commandment, so proud a 
 hierarchy as can neither stand with the spi- 
 ritual kingdom of Christ nor the civil king- 
 doms of princes, and so bloody a tyranny 
 against all who believe their heresies, to 
 practise their idolatry, and to be slavish to 
 their hierarchy. Returning to any point of 
 their profession is an approbation of their 
 cruelty against them that have denied it ; 
 and whosoever approve their worship they 
 bring upon themselves the blood of so many 
 saints and faithful martyrs of Christ, who 
 have testified the word of God, and have 
 washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. 
 The other duty is, that albeit there be ever 
 some adiaphorists, who for their own parti- 
 cular ends make many things, and show 
 more things to be indifferent in the wor- 
 ship of God, that under this pretext they 
 may bring them back that have been ad- 
 vanced before them in the work of reforma- 
 tion ; that we all praise God with one heart 
 for the measure that every one hath attained 
 unto ; and they that are behind in refor- 
 mation, whatsoever their outward splendour 
 be, envy not them who have run before, or 
 
 As no family or civil society where the fun- 
 damental laws are neglected, and the lust of 
 t'le flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride 
 of life are followed, can continue long except 
 it be reformed, even so the kirk of God, 
 through the disregard of the laws of God 
 and direction of Scripture, and through the 
 ambition and covetousness of kirkmen, did 
 fall away so far from the first integrity that 
 there was a necessity of reformation, and 
 nothing; more certainly looked for, and more 
 plainly foretold, a longtime before any of our 
 reformers, or Luther himself, came into the 
 world. This reformation, that could no long- 
 er be delayed, was often urged, but never 
 likely to be obtained in a general council, 
 nor with consent of the clergy and court of 
 Rome, to whom reformation was a certain 
 ruin ; and, therefore, in several kingdoms, 
 countries and states of the Christian world, 
 it, was wonderfully wrought by the Lord's 
 mighty power in his weak servants. Such 
 were, amongst others, Raldus of Francfort, 
 Huss of Rohemia, Jerome of Prague, Lu- 
 ther of Germany, Wickliffe of England, and 
 our Knox of Scotland ; whereupon it came 
 to pass, that although one part of Christian- 
 dom knew not what another was doing, yet 
 they all agreed (as may be seen in the Har- 
 mony of Confessions, published to the world) 
 in the most essential and fundamental mat- 
 ters of faith, because the Lord" was master 
 of that work, but had also their own differ- 
 ences and degrees of reformation, because 
 men were the instruments, and they were 
 not angels but men that were to be wrought 
 upon ; for whose divers dispositions in sun- 
 dry nations there behoved to be divers dis- 
 advantages to the work. We are not rigid 
 
THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 19 
 
 study to draw them back to their degree, 
 lest both return to Rome ; but that all, 
 against all impediments, press forward to 
 farther perfection, ever reforming somewhat 
 according to the pattern, — there being no 
 staying neither for the Christian nor for the 
 kirk. The kirk of Scotland hath little cause 
 to be pleased with herself when she looketh 
 upon her late sudden and shameful defection, 
 but great and singular cause to praise God 
 when she looketh to his gracious dispensa- 
 tion. For as Scotland, albeit far from Je- 
 rusalem, was one of the first nations that 
 the light of the gospel shone on when it ap- 
 peared to the Gentiles, and one of the last 
 that kept the light when the shadows of the 
 hills of Rome began to darken the earth ; so 
 when the sun came about again at the re- 
 formation, if this blessed light shone upon 
 others, all that had eyes to see, both at 
 home and abroad, have seen and said, that 
 it shone fairest upon us. Divine providence 
 delighting to supply the defect of nature 
 with abundance of grace, and to make this 
 other side of the earth, lying behind the vi- 
 sible sun, by the clear and comforting beams 
 of the Sun of righteousness, to be the sunny 
 side of the Christian world, whereof these 
 following testimonies are sufficient proof : 
 
 One of Mr George Wishart, martyr. — 
 " This realm shall be illuminated with the 
 light of Christ's gospel as clearly as ever 
 was realm since the days of the apostles. 
 The house of God shall be built in it, yea, 
 it shall not lack (whatsoever the enemy ima- 
 gine to the contrary) the very top-stone ; 
 the glory of God shall evidently appear, 
 and shall once triumph in despite of Satan. 
 But, alas ! if the people shall be after un- 
 thankful, then fearful and terrible shall the 
 plagues be that after shall follow." — Hist. 
 of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 108. 
 
 Another of Bcza. — " This is a great gift 
 of God, that ye have brought into Scot- 
 land together pure religion and good order, 
 which is the band to hold fast the doctrine. 
 I heartily pray and beseech for God's sake, 
 hold fast those two together, so that ye may 
 remember that if the one be lost the other 
 cannot long remain. As bishops brought 
 forth popery, so false bishops, the relics of 
 popery, shall bring into the world epicu- 
 reanism. Whosoever would have the kirk 
 safe let them beware of this pest ; and, see- 
 ing ye have timely dispatched it in Scot- 
 land, I beseech you never admit it again, 
 albeit it flatter with show of the preserva- 
 
 tion of unity, which hath deceived many of 
 the best of the ancients." 1 
 
 A third of the body of Confessions of 
 Faith. — " It is the rare privilege of the 
 Kirk of Scotland before many, in which re- 
 spect her name is famous even among stran- 
 gers, that about the space of four and fifty 
 years, without schism, let be heresy, she 
 hath kept and held fast unity with purity of 
 doctrine. The greatest help of this unity 
 of the mercy of God was, that with the 
 doctrine the discipline of Christ and his 
 apostles, as it is prescribed in the word of 
 God, was, by little and little together, re- 
 sumed ; and according to that discipline, so 
 near as might be, the whole government of 
 the kirk was disposed. By this means all 
 the seeds of schisms and errors, so soon as 
 they began to bud and show themselves, in 
 their very breeding and birth were smoth- 
 ered and rooted out. The Lord God, of 
 his infinite goodness, grant unto the King's 
 most gracious Majesty, to all the rulers of 
 the kirk, to the powers that are nurses of 
 the kirk, that, according to the word of 
 God, they may keep perpetually that unity 
 and purity of doctrine ! Amen." 2 
 
 The fourth is of King James our late 
 sovereign. — " The religion professed in this 
 country, wherein I was brought up, and 
 ever made profession of, and wishes my son 
 ever to continue in the same, as the only 
 
 1 Magnum est hoc Dei munus quod una et reli- 
 gionem puram zai wruliat doctrinae, viz. retinendae 
 vinculum iu IScotiam iutulistis. Sic obsecro et ob- 
 testor kaec duo simul retinete, ut uno amisso, alte- 
 ram diu per man ere non posse semper memineritis. 
 Sicut episcopi papatum pepererunt, itapseudo epis- 
 copos, papatus reliquias, epicureismum terris invec- 
 turos : hauc pestem caveant, qui salvam eeclesiam 
 cupiunt, et quum illam in Scotia in tempore profli- 
 garis ne quaeso illam unquam admittas, quantumvis 
 unitatis retinendae specie, quae veteres etiam opti- 
 mos multos 1'efellit blandiatur. Bez. epist. lxxix. 
 
 2 Est illud ecclesiae Scotauae privilegium rarum 
 prae multis, in quo etiam, ejus nomen apud exteros 
 fuit eelebre, quod circiter annos plus minus 54 sine 
 schismate nedum heresi, unitatem cum puritate doc- 
 trinae servaverit et retinuerit. Hujus unitatis admi- 
 niculuni ex Dei miscricordia maximum fuit ; quod 
 paulatim cum doctrina Christi et apostolorum dis- 
 ciplinam, sicut ex verbo Dei est praescripta una fuit 
 recepta, et quam proxime fieri potuit, secundum earn 
 totum regimen ecclesiasticum, fuit administratum. 
 Hac ratione omnia schismatum, atque errorum se- 
 mina quam primum pullulare, aut se exerere visa 
 sunt, in ipsa quasi herba et partu sunt suffoeata, et 
 extirpate. Det Dominus Deus pro immensa sua bo- 
 nitate Regiae Majestati serenissimae, omnibusque ec- 
 clesiarum gubernatoribus, potestatibus ecclesiae nu- 
 tritiis, ut ex Dei verbo illam unitatem, et doctrine 
 puritatem perpetuo conservent. Amen. Corpus 
 Confess, fidei, p. 6. 
 
20 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 true form of God's worship, &c. I do 
 equally love and honour the learned and 
 grave men of either of these opinions, that 
 like better the single form of policy in our 
 kirk than the many ceremonies in the kirk 
 of England, &c. I exhort my son to be 
 beneficial to the good men of the ministry, 
 praising God that there are presently a suf- 
 ficient number of good men of them in this 
 kingdom, and yet are they all known to be 
 against the form of the English kirk." 1 
 
 He praised God that he was born to be a 
 king in the sincerest kirk in the world, &c. 
 Assembly, 1590. The prelates themselves, 
 and the maintainors of conformity, dare not 
 for shame open their mouths against the 
 work of God in the reformation, and against 
 the purity of their mother kirk, and there- 
 fore would have her open her mouth in the 
 defence of their hierarchy and ceremonies, 
 and do wrest her authority and proceedings 
 to that sense. Let us then ask of herself 
 whether she liketh the pastor or the prelate. 
 
 1. The Pastor and men of God, at the 
 acceptable time of reformation, as they were 
 moved by the Spirit of God, laboured to re- 
 form not only the doctrine, sacraments and 
 whole worship of God, but also the disci- 
 pline and whole government of the house of 
 God, by abolishing the jurisdiction of pre- 
 lates, and all that Roman hierarchy ; as is 
 manifest by their acknowledging no other 
 ordinary and perpetual office-bearers in the 
 kirk but pastors, doctors, elders and dea- 
 cons ; 2 by their petitioning that the rents of 
 the prelates and of their train should be con- 
 verted to other uses; by their subscribing 
 the Helvetic Confession, 3 which censureth 
 prelacy for the invention of man, and by 
 the letters which they received from foreign 
 kirks, congratulating that they had timely 
 purged the kirk of this proud prelacy, that 
 they had received with the doctrine the dis- 
 cipline of Christ and his apostles, and willing 
 and obtesting them to beware of the pest of 
 prelacy as they loved the weal of the kirk.* 
 
 The Prelate, not only in respect of his 
 popish religion, but also in respect of his 
 papal and episcopal jurisdiction, was one of 
 the great evils that cried for reformation of 
 the kirk ; and, therefore, albeit he kept still 
 the title, the rent and civil place of the pre- 
 
 i King James's Basilicon Doron. 
 
 2 B ioks of Discipline. 
 
 3 Anno 1566. 4 Boza to Knox, 1571. 
 
 late's (which the kirk could not take from 
 him, and which maketh many to mistake 
 his descent) ecclesiastical authority was so 
 far abolished that neither were their succes- 
 sors designed to such prelates as continued 
 obstinate papists, nor was episcopal authority 
 continued in their persons that were con- 
 verted, nor were superintendents ordained 
 to be new prelates. Only some of the con- 
 verted prelates, for want of means to furnish 
 others, were designed to be commissioners 
 of the kirk, as other ordinary pastors were, 
 but with bad success ; for never one of them 
 did good to the kirk. 
 
 2. The Pastor and men of God, pro- 
 ceeding in the work of reformation, acknow- 
 ledged no government of the kirk by the 
 lordly domination of prelates, but by the 
 common consent and authority of assemblies, 
 which were of four sorts,— national, provin- 
 cial, parochial and presbyterial. The line- 
 aments of the last were drawn at the first 
 when the weekly assemblies were appointed 
 for exercise of discipline and interpretation 
 of the Scriptures, but were not^ nor could 
 not be, accomplished and perfectly estab- 
 lished till the light was spread, and parti- 
 cular kirks were planted in the several quar- 
 ters and corners of the land, that they might 
 make a number, and conveniently assemble 
 in presbyterial meetings. 1 
 
 The Prelate is restless, proceeds whither 
 his avarice and ambition carry him, and will- 
 ing, in those times, rather to be a titular or 
 a tulchan 2 (as he was then named) than to 
 be nobody above his brethren. He taketh 
 upon him the title of bishop, with a small 
 part of the rent, permitting the greater 
 part to my lord, whose bishop he was, and 
 proudly again arrogates authority over the 
 kirk. 
 
 3. The Pastor and men of God, learn- 
 ing not from Geneva, but from Scripture 
 and daily experience, that the government 
 of prelates was full of usurpation and of all 
 sorts of corruption, whereof many did com- 
 plain that it had no warrant, and was never 
 like to have any blessing from God, resolved 
 at last to strike at the root ; 3 and, therefore, 
 after many disputations in private and pub- 
 lic, consultations with the greatest divines of 
 other reformed kirks, and after long and 
 mature deliberations, the Second Book of 
 
 1 To those the superintendents were subject by 
 an Act of Assembly, 15G2. 
 
 » Leith, 1571. 3 Edinburgh, 1575. 
 
THE FASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 21 
 
 Discipline, pronouncing the jurisdiction and 
 office of the prelate to be unlawful, was re- 
 sumed by consent of the whole kirk ; an or- 
 dinance made that bishops betake themselves 
 to the charge of one congregation, and that 
 tiny exercise no civil jurisdiction ; the Con- 
 fession of Faith sworn and subscribed, where- 
 in they oblige themselves to continue in the 
 doctrine and discipline of this kirk. The 
 same year it was declared in the General 
 Assembly, that the office of the prelate was 
 unlawful in itself, and had no warrant in 
 the word of God, thereafter renewed in co* 
 venant. 1 
 
 The Prelate and men of that disposi- 
 tion, having in the end nothing to oppone, 
 professed that they agreed in their con- 
 sciences, consented to the Acts of the kirk, 
 swore to and subscribed the Confession of 
 Faith, renewed the covenant with the kirk, 
 and helped to put on the cope-stone of the 
 kirk of God with their own hands ; like as 
 the same Confession of Faith was subscribed 
 by those that are now in the proudest places 
 of prelacy, and who have proved since the 
 chief instruments of all the alterations in 
 the discipline and external worship of God, 
 and ring-leaders in the defection of the kirk, 
 with what conscience may be seen by their 
 dishonest excuses, their poor shifts and their 
 shameless railings against that which they 
 did once so much reverence, all to be seen, 
 as they are published in print. 2 
 
 4. The Pastor and men of God, desiring 
 to testily their thankfulness for so singular 
 favour vouchsafed upon this kirk and nation, 
 and to employ the benefit of the discipline- 
 now established for the liberty of the king- 
 dom of Christ and against the tyranny of sin 
 and Satan, addressed themselves, all as one 
 man, with great fidelity and courage for the 
 work of God, urged residence and diligence 
 in ministers, kept, with success from heaven, 
 their public and solemn humiliations, made 
 the pulpits to sound against papistry and pro- 
 faneness, and set all men on work, as they 
 had grace or place, for purging the country 
 of all corruptions, and defending the kirk 
 against her professed enemies, who never 
 ceased, by negotiating with the Pope and 
 the Spanish king, unnaturally to labour for 
 their own and her ruin, whereof the divine 
 providence had disappointed them in 1588. 
 
 The Prelate's authority at this time lay 
 
 Dundee, 1580. 
 
 2 Tranent, 1C04. 
 
 dead, and men of that disposition made no 
 great din. But the kirk then (unlike that 
 which she is now), comely as Jerusalem, 
 terrible as an army with banners, against all 
 her enemies did stand whole and sound in 
 unity and concord of her ministers, autho- 
 rity of her assemblies, divine order of her 
 ministry, and purity of external worship, 
 with great power and presence of the Spirit 
 of God in many congregations of the land, 
 till, at last, for unity, division entered into 
 the kirk, prelacy, that had slept before, was 
 wakened again, and this mystery beginneth 
 to work anew, neither by any cause offered 
 by the pastors of the kirk at the 17th of De- 
 cember (as the enemy calumniates), for after 
 long trial they were found faultless and 
 faithful by his Majesty's own testimony, nor 
 yet upon that occasion, for the meetino; of 
 the kirk for making that charge was indict- 
 ed before the 17th day ; a but the cause was 
 a plot contrived before for procuring peace 
 to the popish lords, to make war among the 
 ministry and to divide them among them- 
 selves. For tins effect fifty-five problems 
 were framed to call the established disci- 
 pline of the kirk in question, and, at one and 
 the same time, way was made for reconcili- 
 ation of the popish lords, and for restitution 
 of the popish prelates. And the schism of 
 our kirk, so well compacted before, began at 
 that time, not upon their part who stand 
 for the discipline, but by some of the pre- 
 late's disposition, that is, of flattering and 
 worldly-minded ministers, who gave other 
 answers to thirteen of the fifty -five articles 
 concerning the government of the kirk than 
 their worthy brethren desired ; so that, if 
 the cause or occasion maketh the schismatic, 
 the prelate is the schismatic and not the 
 pastor. 
 
 5. The Pastor and men of God, as they 
 had been diligent to establish the govern- 
 ment of the kirk according to the will of 
 Christ, and after it was, by the blessing of 
 God, established, were faithful in using it 
 for the honour of God and good of the 
 kirk ; so now, when it began craftily to be 
 called in question, were careful, according to 
 their office and oath, to stand to the de- 
 fence thereof, both against professed enemies 
 and against the schism begun by their own 
 brethren ; albeit they could not at the first 
 have been persuaded that their brethren 
 
22 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 would ever so foully forget themselves, as, 
 against their great oath hi the sight of God 
 and the world, to take upon them the do- 
 minion of prelates, and, for their own back 
 and belly, to trouble the kirk, and mar all 
 the worship of God as they have done. 
 
 The Prelate, through the schism at that 
 time begun by himself, savouring the sweet- 
 ness of wealth and honour, forgetteth his 
 oath, his office and all, followeth greedily 
 upon the scent, and climbeth craftily, by 
 degrees and betimes, to the height that he 
 could not advance himself to at once. First, 
 With much ado, and many protestations 
 that he meant nothing against the discipline 
 established, but desired to vindicate the mi- 
 nistry from poverty and contempt, he gets 
 liberty to vote in parliament for the kirk, 
 but with such caveats as would have kept 
 him from his present prelacy if he had kept 
 them as he was obliged. 1 Secondly, Five 
 years thereafter he was made constant mo- 
 derator, and that of the presbytery only 
 where he was resident, and not of the sy- 
 nods, upon as fair precepts, and with the 
 like protestations and cautions. 2 Thirdly^ 
 Being lord of parliament, lord of council, 
 patron of benefices, modifier of minister's 
 stipends, he was armed also with the power 
 of the high commission, and, having two 
 swords, might do against the kirk what he 
 pleased. 3 "Thereafter incontinent, he usurp- 
 ed the power of ordination and jurisdiction ; 4 
 and, at last, albeit without consent or know- 
 ledge of the kirk of Scotland, went and re- 
 sumed consecration in England, 5 and, since 
 that time, hath taken upon him, and hath 
 exercised, the plenary power and office of a 
 bishop in the kirk, no less than if the assem- 
 bly of this kirk had chosen him to the name 
 and office of a bishop, which, as yet, they 
 have never done, — the most corrupt of their 
 own assemblies granting only the negative 
 power of ordination and jurisdiction to them, 
 who were never called bishops by any war- 
 rant from the kirk, but only in the vulgar 
 speech, from the the titles they had to be- 
 nefices, in which respect civil persons bene- 
 ficed were called bishops in former times. 
 
 6. The Pastor and men of God, seek- 
 ino- neither profit nor preferment to them- 
 selves, expelled the prelate and all his cere- 
 
 i Dundee, 1597, Mav, and March following ; Falk- 
 land, 1598 ; Holvrood House, 1599 ; Montrose. 1600. 
 a Linlithgow, 1606. 3 February, 1610. 
 
 * Glasgow, June, 1610. 5 November, 1610. 
 
 monies out of the kirk of Christ, by no other 
 means but such as became faithful minis- 
 ters of Christ, as preaching, praying, writ- 
 ing, advising with the best reformed kirks, 
 reasoning in assemblies, and, after liberty 
 granted to all, to oppone the consent, oath 
 and subscription of the adversaries. 
 
 The Prelate, seeking nothing but his 
 own profit and preferment, is restored again, 
 by such means as better beseem his minis- 
 ters who hath been a murderer and a liar 
 from the beginning, than the sincere minis- 
 ters of Jesus Christ ; for craft and cruelty 
 hath been their ways. Their craft was to 
 remove their strongest opponents out of the 
 country, that they might not be present in 
 assemblies to espy their proceedings, and to 
 reason against them, to abolish the true li- 
 berty and authority of assemblies, to protest 
 that they were seeking no prelacy, neither 
 of the popish nor English kind, and that 
 they had no purpose to subvert the disci- 
 pline received, but to deliver the kirk from 
 disgrace, and to be the more mighty to op- 
 pose her enemies, Jesuits and papists, who 
 falsify the acts of the kirk, to promise to 
 keep all the cautions and conditions made to 
 hold them in order, which now they profess 
 they never minded to do, &c. ; their cruelty 
 hath been to boast, to banish, imprison, de- 
 prive, confine, silence, &c. 
 
 7. The Pastor and men of God, all this 
 time of defection, gave testimony to the 
 truth, opposed the several steps of the pre- 
 late's ambition by all the means that became 
 them to use, as public preaching, supplicat- 
 ing, reasoning, protesting and suffering, and 
 when the prelate was triumphing in the 
 height of his dignity, they could not, com- 
 paring the first temple with the second, but 
 declare the grief of their hearts for the 
 change, and their great fear of alteration to 
 be made in the worship of God, when now 
 the hedge of the kirk was broken down, 
 and an open way made for all corruption. 
 
 The Prelate is of the clergy that sel- 
 dom are seen penitent, and, therefore, as 
 against all the means used by the pastor he 
 had altered the government of the kirk, so 
 he enters next upon the worship and service 
 of God, and will have a new confession of 
 faith, new catechism, new forms of prayer, 
 new observation of days, new forms of minis- 
 tration of the sacraments, 1 which he first 
 
 i Aberdeen, 1616. St Andrew's, 1617. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 23 
 
 practised himself against the Acts and or- 
 der of the kirk, and since convened an as- 
 sembly of his own making to draw on the 
 practice of others ; x and, thirdly, he hath 
 involved the honourable estates of the king- 
 dom into his great guiltiness by their ratifi- 
 cation in parliament, which hath brought 
 an inundation of evils into this kirk and 
 country. 2 
 
 8. The Pastor and men of God, con- 
 sidering what the kirk was before, and what 
 it is now, what the reformation was, and 
 what conformity is, what the proceedings of 
 the one and the other have been, — seeing 
 religion wearing away, he pitieth the young 
 ones that never have seen better times, la- 
 ments over the multitude that cannot see 
 the evils of the present, and resolveth for 
 himself to hold constant to the end, against 
 papists, prelates, Arminians, and whatso- 
 ever can arise, to wait with patience what 
 the Lord will do for his people, and, when 
 he is gone, to leave a testimony behind him 
 of the twofold misery of impiety and ini- 
 quity that he hath seen in this land. 
 
 The Prelate hath forgot what himself 
 and the kirk were once ; he hath wrought 
 a greater defection in this kirk in the short 
 time of his episcopacy than was in the pri- 
 mitive kirk for some hundreds of years, and 
 is so far yet blinded with the love of his 
 place in the world, that he maketh his 
 worldly credit the canon, and his prelacy 
 the touchstone for the trial of all religion ; 
 the Pope shall no more be antichrist, pa- 
 pistry may be borne with, Arminianism may 
 be brought in, because they can keep com- 
 pany with prelacy. The reformation is pu- 
 ritanism, preciseness, separation, and intol- 
 erable, because it cannot cohabit with pre- 
 lacy. The gods of the nations were social, 
 and could live together, but the God of Is- 
 rael is a jealous God. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will object that, albeit he can neither justify 
 all his own proceedings of late, nor yours of 
 old, as all men have their own infirmities, 
 yet that ye do him wrong by your deduc- 
 tion, in confounding times that should be 
 distinguished ; because from the reformation 
 to the coming of some scholars from Geneva 
 with presbyterial discipline this kirk was 
 ruled by prelates, and the superintendents 
 in the beginning were the same in substance 
 that the prelates are now. 
 
 i Perth, 1618. 
 
 iburgh, 1621. 
 
 The Pastor's answer. — All men have 
 their own infirmities, but good men are not 
 presumptuously bold for the love of the 
 world, to hold on in a course of defection 
 against so many obligations from themselves, 
 and so many warnings from good men. In- 
 firmity is one thing and presumption is an- 
 other. The pastors of the kirk of Scotland 
 had begun to root out bishopry, and to con- 
 demn it in their assemblies, before these 
 scholars came from Geneva, but never con- 
 demned but allowed the charge of superin- 
 tendents, appointed for a time in the begin- 
 ning of the kirk, the one and the other 
 being different in substance : For, 
 
 1st, The superintendent, according to the 
 canon of the kirk, was admitted as another 
 minister, without consecration of any bishop. 
 
 The prelate is chosen, for fashion, by 
 dean and chapter, without any canon of the 
 kirk, and with solemn consecration of the 
 metropolitan and their bishops. 
 
 2d, The superintendent appropriated not 
 the power of ordination and jurisdiction, but 
 both remained common to other ministers. 
 
 The prelate hath taken to himself the 
 power to ordain and depose ministers, and 
 to decree excommunication. 
 
 3d, The superintendents made not a hi- 
 erarchy of archsuperintendents, and others 
 inferior, some general and some provincial, 
 some primates and some snffragans, some 
 archdeans and some deans, &c. 
 
 The prelates have set up a hierarchy of 
 all these. 
 
 4th, The superintendent was subject to 
 the censure not only of the national but of 
 the provincial kirk where he superintended. 
 
 The prelate is subject to no censure, but 
 may do what, and may go whither, he will, 
 and no man ask him why he hath done so. 
 
 5th, The superintendent's charge was 
 merely ecclesiastical, and more in preachino- 
 than in government. 
 
 The prelate is more in ruling than in 
 preaching, and more in the world than in 
 the kirk. 
 
 6th, The superintendent acknowledo-eth 
 his charge to be but temporary, and often 
 desired to lay it down before the General 
 Assembly. 
 
 The prelate thinketh his office to be per- 
 petual by reason and in virtue of his conse- 
 cration. 
 
 7th, The superintendent had no greater 
 power than the commissioners of pi-ovinces, 
 and, in respect of his superintendency, was 
 
THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 rather a commissioner of the kirk than an 
 office-bearer essentially different from the 
 pastor. 
 
 The prelate neither hath received com- 
 mission from the kirk, nor meaneth to ren- 
 der a reckoning to them, nor account of 
 himself as of a commissioner, but thinketh 
 
 his office as essentially diverse from the of- 
 fice of the pastor as the pastor's office is 
 from the deacon's. The Pope may as well 
 say that the evangelists were popes as the 
 prelate, that the superintendents were pre- 
 lates. 
 
 THE FIFTH PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WEAL OF THE KIRK AXD THE 
 
 people's SOULS. 
 
 The good estate of the kirk, the end of kirk policy. — The prelate abusoth the people three ways in deter- 
 mining what is the good estate of the lark. — The pastor careful to preserve the purity of doctrine for the 
 good of the kirk ; the prelate cares more for his own things. — The pastor, in the matter of ceremonies, 
 looks to the edification of the kirk, which the prelate disregarded. — The pastor, in the whole course of 
 his ministry, intends the feeding of the flock; the prelate to feed himself. — The pastor subject to the dis- 
 cipline of the kirk himself, and exerciseth it for the good of the people; the prelate, neither subject to the 
 discipline himself, nor exerciseth it for the good of others, nor suffereth the pastor to exercise it. — The 
 pastor would have all things be done for the good of the kirk by the free assemblies of the kirk ; the pre- 
 late will rule all by himself, whether in assembly or out of assembly. — The pastor plantcth the kirk with the 
 best men, with consent of the people, and without hurting the conscience of the entrant; the prelate with 
 such as please himself, without consent of the people or presbytery, and with hurting of the conscience 
 of the entrant. — The pastor by all means secketh the peace of the kirk ; the prelate seeketh his own peace 
 and prosperity. — The pastor contents himself with his competent stipend ; the prelate is a master of the 
 kirk's patrimony. — Objection, Parity is anarchy and confusion. — Answer, Showing, by many particulars, 
 that the order of the ministry appointed by Christ is far from confusion. 
 
 The safety and good of the state was the 
 main end of Roman policy, and the funda- 
 mental law by which that people squared 
 all their other laws, according to their own 
 maxim, " Let the safety of the people be 
 the sovereign law." 1 The kirk of Jesus 
 Christ hath better reason to think that the 
 safety of the kirk should be the rule and 
 end of all ecclesiastical policy, although the 
 form of external worship and of the govern- 
 ment of the house of God were not pre- 
 scribed by the Lord himself in his word, 
 but left arbitrary to men, to be framed by 
 their canons and constitutions, yet this must 
 be held as infallible, that it is the best 
 form of government which, by reason and 
 experience, is found to be best for the weal 
 and safety of the kirk. Unto this general, 
 both prelate and pastor will, without ques- 
 tion, condescend ; but they differ in the par- 
 ticular, what this is wherein the good and 
 weal of the kirk doth consist ; for the pre- 
 
 1 Salus populi suprema lex. eversa domo, inter- 
 dum rei publicae status manere potest : urbis ruina, 
 penates omnes secum trahat necesse est. Valer. 
 Max., 1. v. c. 6. 
 
 late places the weal of the kirk in her out- 
 ward peace and prosperity, and thinketh 
 the kirk well constituted, and in good case, 
 when she flourishes in wealth and worldly 
 dignities ; but herein he abuseth the Chris- 
 tian world three ways, first, that he mea- 
 sures and determines the good estate of the 
 kirk by her outward face, and not by her 
 inward grace, by the health of her body ra- 
 ther than of her soul, by that which is ac- 
 cidental to the kirk, and which she may 
 either have or want and yet continue a true 
 kirk, and not by that which is essential and 
 proper to the very nature and being of a 
 kirk ; secondly, that he judgeth that to be 
 the weal of the kirk which hath many times 
 proved her wreck, being abused, as com- 
 monly it hath happened : he taketh poison 
 for a preservative, and surfeit of peace and 
 prosperity, excess of wealth and worldly 
 honours, which are her deadly disease, to be 
 her health and best constitution. Too large 
 bestowing of riches and preferments upon 
 the ministers of the kirk bred that contagion 
 within her bowels, which turned almost to 
 her death in the end ; for thereby defection 
 grew by degrees, till at last, under the man 
 
THE P.VSTOK AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 of sin, it came to the height. Thirdly ', That 
 be measures the good estate of the kirk by 
 himself and the rest of the members of that 
 hierarchical body, as though it went well 
 with the whole kirk when bishops stand and 
 reign like the kind's of the nations, and as 
 though the mini-try were sufficiently vin- 
 dicated from poverty and contempt, when 
 twelve or thirteen of the number have climb- 
 ed up, like apes, to the highest places, that, 
 with their evil-favoured minions, they may 
 move to laughter all that behold them from 
 below, or like fowls flown up to the highest 
 roofs, shooting down their filthy excrements 
 upon the rest that sit in the lower rooms. 
 But the pastor esteems the good and weal 
 of the kirk by her spiritual estate, that is, 
 by a sound faith, a pure worship, and a holy 
 conversation ; as she stands or decays in 
 these so is she either in a good constitu- 
 tion or languishing, and as she is furnished 
 with all the means that may preserve and 
 increase these, so she either prospers or 
 decays. This judgment of the pastor is 
 grounded upon very good reasons ; for upon 
 this estate of the kirk necessarily depends 
 the glory of God and the salvation of souls, 
 which are the two things that make the 
 difference betwixt the kirk of God and all 
 other societies of men in the world, ami, 
 therefore, the pastor hath reason to think, 
 that all the riches of the earth, and all the 
 o-lory of all the kingdoms of the world, are 
 not to be put in balance with the glory of 
 God and the salvation of souls — that which 
 God with his own blood hath purchased and 
 redeemed. Now whether the good of the 
 kirk in these things be better procured and 
 preserved by the prelate or by the pastor, 
 let them be typed by comparing them in 
 the particulars following : — ■ 
 
 1. The Pastor's principal care is to 
 preserve the purity of doctrine in the kirk, 
 that Christ's flock may be led with the 
 wholesome word of life, and to oppose all 
 contrary and unprofitable doctrine as poi- 
 sonous and pernicious to the people's souls, 
 and for that purpose entertaineth in weekly 
 meetings the exercise of the word, where 
 the doctrine delivered by one is judged by 
 all the rest whether it be sound and profit- 
 able, and taketh such order with the papists, 
 the great corrupters of doctrine and enemies 
 to the people's souls, that either he convert- 
 eth them, or cutteth them off from the com- 
 munion of the kirk with the spiritual sword, 
 
 and exhorteth the magistrate to execute the 
 laws made against them : whereby it came 
 to pass that contrary doctrine, and vain and 
 curious teaching, either entered not into our 
 kirk, or was suddenly repressed and put to 
 the door, and papistry, that had place be- 
 fore, was well nigh put out of the land. 
 
 The Prelate hath neither leisure nor 
 liking to look to such exercise, and accounts 
 no heresy so worthy his animadversion as 
 the alleged heresy of Arius and his follow- 
 ers. It is manifest in history, from the be- 
 ginning, that the heresies that most have 
 endangered the kirk, have either been de- 
 vised by the engines, or favoured and borne 
 out by the authority and credit, of prelates ; 
 and even now divers false and dangerous doc- 
 trines are partly vented and partly winked 
 at by them -, 1 neither thinketh he papists 
 great enemies to the kirk ; but as the Jew- 
 ish priests entertained the sadden es, all eif 
 enemies to true religion, and hated Chris- 
 tians as their deadly foes, and as the papist 
 can agree with the formal protestant, but 
 thinks the unconformable Calvinist his irre- 
 concileable enemy, so the prelate could agree 
 with the common papist, fir all his blasphe- 
 mous doctrine and profession, because he is 
 a. friend to his hierarchy, but the reformed 
 Christian, whom he calleth the Calvinist and 
 puritan, he can by no means bear, because 
 he is professedly unfriendly to his hierarchy. 
 A prelate, as a prelate, is not opposite to the 
 papist but to the protestant, 
 
 2. The Pastor, knowing that a little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump, thinketh 
 it dangerous for the people's souls to borrow 
 either the substance or the ceremony of 
 religion from antichristian corruption, and, 
 therefore warneth the people to beware of 
 the least beginnings or appearances of evil ; 
 and, while he deliberates about ceremonies 
 fittest for order and decency, he intends no- 
 thing of his own, hut the edification of the 
 kirk, and in the practice of ceremonies and 
 circumstances orderly appointed, he looketh 
 to the peace of the kirk, that it be not bro- 
 ken, and to the consciences of the weak, that 
 they lie not offended. 
 
 The Prelate liketh to symbolize with 
 antichrist's ceremonies, putting the papists 
 in hope that the body and substance of their 
 superstition may be resumed by time, where 
 the shadows and ceremonies are so highly 
 
 1 As Christ's real descent into hell, and many 
 Lutheran, Arminian and popisli errors. 
 D 
 
26 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 regarded. Pie intends nothing in appoint- 
 ing them but the maintenance of his own 
 I estate and dignity, because he seeth and 
 . saith, "No ceremony, no bishop;" and in 
 practice is more earnest in urging of cere- 
 monies than of obedience to the •_ 
 things of the law, and by the canons about 
 matters which they themselves call indiffer- 
 ent, doth violence either to the bodies or 
 consciences of the people that think other- 
 wise, and maketh them to serve as rods to 
 scourge and whip out of the kirk and minis- 
 try whom and when they think good. 
 
 3. The Pastor, couriering that he is 
 called to feed the flock of Christ, and to care 
 for the people's souls, in his entry to the 
 ministry will be loath to undertake a greater 
 charge than he can in some measure over- 
 take ; and the less his charge is the greater 
 is his contentment, not that he desireth to 
 be idle, but to be faithful. When he is en- 
 tered, he hath the work of the ministry in 
 singular regard, as the most honourable and 
 laborious work that he can be employed a- 
 bout, whereof the best man is not worthy, 
 and unto which the whole man is not suffi- 
 cient, and, therefore, is resident among the 
 people, serving not by deputies and suffra- 
 gans, but in his own person, and is alto- 
 gether taken up with the pastor's duties, 
 of preaching, praying, catechising, visiting, 
 exhorting, rebuking, comforting, &c, but 
 labours most diligently in the word and 
 doctrine, because faith cometh by the word 
 preached. 
 
 The Prelate, intending nothing but to 
 feed himself, at his entry to his prelacy re- 
 gards not so much the number of souls he 
 should feed, as the number of chalders, the 
 large revenues, and the great dignities he is 
 to feed upon, and the larger his diocese the 
 better for him ; hence it is that he ascends 
 from a diocesan to an archbishop and a pri- 
 mate. After he is entered he disdaineth 
 the work of the ministry, as base and un- 
 worthy of his grace and great lordship ; he 
 serveth by his deputies and suffragans, and 
 thinks it a more honourable and necessary 
 employment to attend and reside at court, 
 or at the places of civil judgment, as coun- 
 cil, session, exchequer ; and although he ap- 
 propriates to himself the reward of double 
 honour due to them who labour in the word 
 and doctrine, yet he thinks that he is not 
 bound to take the pains of that work unto 
 which the double honour is annexed. So 
 the pastor must labour in the work and the 
 
 prelate must reap the reward ; and, what 
 is more prejudicial to the people's souls, 
 he maintaineth that learned and qualified 
 preachers are not so necessary in congrega- 
 tions as curates and readers, that there is 
 too much preaching and too little reading 
 and praying, — meaning nothing else than 
 their confused liturgy. 
 
 4. The Pastor dare not do harm to the 
 people's souls, because he is subject both in 
 calling and conversation to the discipline of 
 the kirk, which striketh upon the pastor as 
 well as upon the people ; and to bring the 
 transgressors to repentance he sitteth with his 
 brethren in session, presbytery and assem- 
 bly, administering the holy discipline holily, 
 that is, in sincerity and faithfulness, without 
 prejudice or partiality, and never ceasing 
 till the scandal be removed, the kirk be 
 purged, and the offender, if it be possible, 
 In- won unto God; and all this, as being- 
 Christ's own work, he doth with Christ's 
 own weapons, that is, with the spiritual 
 sword of the word, which is mighty through 
 God to subdue every thing exalting itself 
 against God, and to bring sinners to repen- 
 tance. 
 
 The Prelate may do what harm he will 
 for his own tyrannical custom and practice, 
 but not by any law either of kirk or state. 
 He exempteth himself, in respect of his epis- 
 copal administration and as he is a prelate, 
 from ail censure, and scorneth to submit 
 himself to any ecclesiastical judicature, al- 
 beit the chief apostles submitted themselves 
 unto the kirk, and albeit there be no sub- 
 ject in a kingdom, of whatsoever quality or 
 condition, but in every inspect he is under 
 the control of some judicature in the land 
 where he liveth ; and as he is thus singu- 
 larly lawless of himself, so, pretending the 
 sole power of proceeding to belong to him 
 by virtue of his place and office, he swayeth 
 the course of discipline as best pleaseth his 
 lordship ; processes begun for trying of slan- 
 ders, if the party, never so wicked, have 
 argument of weight for my lord or his 
 receiver, are incontinently, by the word of 
 his monarchical authority, stricken dead. 
 Hereby it cometh to pass, that where pre- 
 lates rule sin reigneth, and the nearer the 
 bishop's wings the greater liberty for sin, 
 as is seen in their own houses and trains. 
 And for this reason is it that both atheists 
 and papists like the episcopal discipline bet- 
 ter than the pastoral, which they call strait- 
 laced, because it troubleth their corruption, 
 
 \ 
 
THE PASTOR VXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 ^7 
 
 whereas tlic other layeth the reins upon 
 their necks. And if the prelate happen to 
 proceed against offenders, his discipline con- 
 sists not so much in spiritual censure as in 
 worldly power and civil punishment, as lin- 
 ing, confining, imprisoning, &c., which have 
 no power to work upon the consciences of 
 shiners to bring them to repentance, though 
 this be what is sought by the preachers of 
 the gospel, and the chief end of kirk disci- 
 pline. 
 
 5. The Pastor, for the good of the kirk, 
 is desirous that the assemblies of the kirk, 
 provincial and national, be often held and 
 well kept, knowing how necessary they are 
 for redressing things amiss, for fulfilling 
 things omitted, and for preventing evils that 
 are like to ensue ; and when the assembly 
 is convened he carrieth himself toward his 
 brethren as toward the servants of Christ 
 and colleagues of equal authority, none 
 presuming to any place or pre-eminence, 
 though of order only and not of power, 
 without the calling and consent of his fel- 
 low-brethren. There every one hath liber- 
 ty to utter his mind, and every one is ready 
 with the gift that God hath given him, as 
 the divers members of one body, for the 
 good of the whole kirk : meek Moses and 
 burning Elias, Isaiah with his trumpet and 
 Aaron with his bells, Boanerges and Barjo- 
 nah, the son of thunder and the son of the 
 dove, all moved by one spirit, with mutual 
 respect, reverence and brotherly love, join 
 togeth r in one conclusion, and if at any 
 time they be of different judgments, they 
 are not sudden and summary in concluding 
 things of importance that concern the whole, 
 but that all may be done with uniform con- 
 sent, after the example of the apostles, Acts 
 xv., the conclusion is delayed till all objec- 
 tions he satisfied, and God give greater light 
 to such as are otherwise minded ; and so, to 
 the great good of the kirk, both peace and 
 truth are preserved. 
 
 The Prelate is as averse to a free assem- 
 bly as the Pope is to a free general coun- 
 cil, and, therefore, will either have none at 
 all, or will have them so slavish as if they 
 were but his ecclesiastical courts, convened 
 under him and in his name. When this as- 
 sembly is convened, at his own hand, with- 
 out calling or election, he taketh upon him 
 to preside and moderate. There no man 
 hath liberty to utter his mind before him 
 who hath power to raise up and cast down, 
 to enlarge and restrain, to prefer and post- 
 
 pone, or put in and put out at his pleasure ; 
 and, therefore, no man's gift in such meet- 
 ings doth good to the kirk. And if it happen 
 that his course be crossed, and the best sort 
 oppose, then he rageth, and by his proud 
 boastings and unreasonable railings he play- 
 eth the prelate indeed, using Christ's minis- 
 ters and the kirk's commissioners no better 
 than if they were his slaves or lackeys, con- 
 vened to say amen to all his intentions, and 
 to wait upon oracles falling from his mouth. 
 In the end the plurality of voices of the 
 weaker sort, and lor the most part either 
 emendicated or extorted, carrieth away the 
 sentence which must oblige all, and, there- 
 fore, besides the tyrannies and unjust pro- 
 ceedings, prov fch afterward, to the great 
 hurt of the kirk, to be the cause of many 
 evils and great divisions. 
 
 6. The Pastor, in planting of kirks and 
 placing of ministers without respect to any 
 man's private judgment or affection, with 
 common consent maketh choice of the best 
 qualified for graces and manners, and most 
 fit for the people he is to be set over, and 
 that with their own special advice and de- 
 sire ; so that he givetli not the kirk to the 
 minister hut the minister to the kirk ; and 
 in the act of ordination, at the place where 
 he shall serve, and in presence of the whole 
 nation, he requireth of the entrant 
 neither oath nor promise but what is ap- 
 pointed of the assemblies of the whole kirk, 
 as constancy in the faith, obedience to the 
 king, and fidelity in his calling ; and, after 
 he is admitted, he respecteth him as the 
 conjunct ambassador of Christ, equal in 
 power and authority with himself, with no 
 difference but of age and gifts. 
 
 The Prelate, excluding both the flock 
 whom the pastor is to feed, and the fellow- 
 ministers with whom he is to labour in the 
 work. — except it be superficially and for the 
 fashion, when now the prelate and his do- 
 mestics (who have greater hand in the plant- 
 ing of kirks than both presbytery and peo- 
 ple,) have brought the matter to" the point 
 of ordination, — givetli the kirk to the minis- 
 ter rather than the minister to the kirk. 1 
 whereof there flow such innumerable evils, 
 that the kirk hath as just cause to com- 
 plain now of the placing of ministers by bi- 
 
 1 Dignitatibus viros dandos, non di-i.ilntos homi- 
 nibus dicere solitus. ^Eneas Kyi, Platina. Ma»is- 
 tratus alios mereri, ct non habere: alios habere, et 
 non mereri. lb. 
 
28 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 shops as the kirk had of old of the plant- 
 ing of bishops through the corruption of 
 archbishops and metropolitans. The ordi- 
 nation must be at the place of the prelate's 
 residence, and not at the kirk where he 
 shall serve, nor in presence of the congre- 
 gation i 1 then is the entrant forced, without 
 any pretext of warrant from the kirk, to 
 give his oath and subscription to articles of 
 the prelate's devising, for maintenance of Ins 
 episcopal authority, even as the Pope doth 
 in consecrating bishops and archbishops, for 
 the establishing of his universal supremacy. 
 When he is admitted, albeit for gifts and 
 in all other respects he be worthy of double 
 honour, far above the prelate himself, yet 
 I the prelate contemneth him and his breth- 
 | ren, as poor presbyters, with double con- 
 tempt. Whereupon we see, that the pre- 
 lates and others, by their example and doing, 
 esteem not ministers for their worth and 
 their work's sake, but as they are in places 
 of preferment, and as they are clothed with 
 offices and titles of dignity above their fel- 
 lows ; and this, again, makes worldly-minded 
 ministers to seek esteem by greatness rather 
 than by goodness. 
 
 7. The Pastor procureth the peace of 
 the kirk by following after the things which 
 make for peace, Rom. xiv. ; for by the dis- 
 cipline and assemblies of the kirk he pre- 
 serveth verity, without which there is either 
 no unity, or such unity as is but a conspi- 
 racy, and resisteth heresy, the mother of the 
 greatest divisions. So long as our assem- 
 blies had their liberty, there Could arise no 
 heresy among us ; if it had broken out in a 
 parish, a consistory or presbytery would have 
 borne it down ; or if it had proceeded fur- 
 ther, then the synod, or if it had not been 
 able, the national assembly, would have sup- 
 pressed it. Fur the same reason the Kirk 
 of France, which was nearest to ours, hath 
 been free of heresy. In the low countries, 
 if the kirks had enjoyed the liberty of their 
 
 Praesidcntia non ex virtute sed malitia sestima- 
 tur, non diguorum sed potentiorum sunt tliroui, 
 cathedra sine ullo acquiritur labore, et prelati sunt 
 qui nihil ad gradum praterquam velle, adfenmt. 
 Nazianz. Si percunctari vellcs quis eos prsefecerit, 
 sacerdotes respondent mox, et dieunt, ab arcliiepis- 
 copo nuper sum episcopus ordinatus, centumque ei 
 solidos dedi. ut episcopalem gradum assequi meruis- 
 sem, quos si minime dedissem. liodie episcopus non 
 eseem. Arabros. citante Bulling, decad. 5, serin. 4. 
 Curritur ad curas tcclesiasticas, a doctis pariter et 
 indoctis, quasi quisque sine curia virturus sit, cum 
 ad curas pcrvenerit. Bern, epi.-t. 42. 
 
 assemblies, which they wanted for a long 
 time, Arminianism had neither troubled 
 them nor their neighbours. He never can 
 find in his heart to urge or enforce unpro- 
 fitable and untimely ceremonies upon the 
 kirk, if it were for no other cause but that 
 they have been the apples of contention, and 
 the cause of many schisms, and will choose 
 rather, with Jonah, to redeem the quiet- 
 ness and safety of the kirk with the loss of 
 himself, than for his own particular ends to 
 raise the smallest tempest that may peril her 
 peace : he carrieth himself no otherwise in 
 his ministry than becometh the humble ser- 
 vant of the kirk, and feareth to be affected 
 with Diotrephes' ambitious humour of as- 
 piring above his brethren, which is a special 
 preservative of peace : he studieth to pre- 
 serve holiness, without which there can be 
 no sound nor wholesome peace ; he is ever 
 at war with that which is contrary to holi- 
 ness, and sendeth away all scandalous livers 
 with the workers of iniquity, that peace may 
 be upon the Israel of God, Psal. xxv. 
 
 The Prelate is accounted a peaceable 
 man, and pretends always the peace of the 
 kirk, but indeed seeketh his own peace and 
 prosperity, and opposeth the things that 
 make tor peace ; for, if it serve for his own 
 particular end, he can overlook papists and 
 heretics, and suffer heresy to rise and spread 
 itself, that the kirk may have some other 
 thing to think upon than his episcopacy, and 
 may have himself to run unto, instead of as- 
 semblies : he careth not to make schism, and 
 will right with tooth and nail for unlawful 
 and unprofitable ceremonies, which have 
 ever proved the cause of schism, and, ere 
 he redeem the' kirk's peace, by casting out 
 these cumbersome wares, he will rather cast 
 overboard many worthy ministers, suffer 
 numbers of souls, for whom Christ hath 
 died, to perish, and the kirk of Christ, 
 with troubles _ by occasion of that 
 noisesome baggage, to sink at last under 
 the burden. Contention also cometh by his 
 [aide and ambition ; for, first, great places 
 make great emulation and hot competition, 
 as may be seen in Christ's own apostles, and 
 history maketh known in many others what 
 debate and contention, what war and blood- 
 shed, prelacy hath brought forth in the 
 Christian world, between kirk and kirk con- 
 tending for primacy, prelate and prelate 
 for presidency, pope and pope for papacy, 
 between kings and bishops tor sovereignty, 
 — as between the Roman emperors and Ro- 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 29 
 
 man bishops, the kings of England and the 
 
 primates of England. 1 
 
 8. The Pastor contents himself with 
 such a competent stipend as is assigned to 
 him for his service, whereby he hath neither 
 the means to swell in pride and wealth nor 
 matter of excess or superfluity. And as he 
 hath but one body, so he undertaketh but 
 one cure, where he must be resilient, and one 
 kirk-living, which, for tear of the censures of 
 the kirk, albeit he would, he dares not dila- 
 pidate, but must leave the kirk patrimony 
 in as good or better case than he found it at 
 his entry. 
 
 The Prelate hath a lord's rent out of 
 the revenues of the kirk, which at the first 
 was destined, and should be employe!! for 
 better uses, and this he hath not lor the ser- 
 vice of the kirk, but partly for his unlawful 
 attending civil affairs, and, partly, for hear- 
 ing out a lordly port in himself, his lady, 
 their children and followers, lie uniteth 
 kirks far distant to make the morsel the 
 greater for his wide gorge : he alloweth and 
 defendeth pluralities and non-residencies, by 
 setting long tacks without knowledge or con- 
 sent of the kirk, and by setting of few forms 
 and taxwards he raketh up all, and stinteth 
 the minister to a poor stipendiary portion of 
 five hundred merks ; so that the most sacri- 
 legious persons in the land are the bishops 
 themselves, — eating the meat out of the 
 mouths of many worthy pastors that labour 
 in the Lord's work. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will object, that there shall never be any 
 form of kirk government or discipline which 
 bringeth not with it some dangers and dis- 
 commodities, and that that must be the best 
 which hath the fewest. It cannot be de- 
 nied but the episcopal government hath also 
 its own inconveniences, whether we consider 
 the salvation of souls, or the outward con- 
 stitution of the kirk and worship of God, 
 or the patrimony of the kirk ; but the an- 
 archy and confusion which ever attendeth 
 the parity maintained by the pastor, is an 
 inconvenience greater than all, and showeth 
 plainly that the parity of pastors is neither 
 of God, nor can serve tor the good of the 
 kirk ; for God is not the God of confusion. 
 
 1 Sicut olim pestiferam illam bostiam, qua2 por 
 Arium primo dc infcmis extulerat caput, cupiditas 
 episcopatus induxit : sic bodiernam liEerosm (nimi- 
 
 .U|'aiU" JI1UUA1L . OIL UUUU11IUU1 I I ■ ■ I ' 1 1 1 \ i II 1 1 I 
 
 rum poutificis Romani prhuatuni,) praecipue nuti 
 , quos jam meiidicare suppudct, iEneas Syl. 
 
 but of peace, and most of all in the kirks of 
 the saints. 
 
 7'A, Pastors answer. — The government 
 and order appointed by Christ can have 
 no danger, discommodity nor inconvenience 
 but such as men bring upon it, and which, 
 through the neglect or contempt thereof, 
 they bring upon themselves. That, there- 
 fore, must be the best which is best war- 
 ranted by Christ, and approacheth nearest 
 to the simplicity of the apostles, and the 
 discipline of their times. Malignant wits 
 have ever been ready to lay imputations 
 upon God's ordinances, — as that his inward 
 worship, according to the gospel of Christ, 
 hath no wisdom, that the outward hath no 
 majesty, that his order of the kirk is but 
 anarchy, because it is not a monarchy ; but, 
 as the natural philosopher seeth the order 
 of nature to be full of beauty, and the wise 
 statesman seeth the beauty of the order of a 
 wise policy, so the Christian, when he seeth 
 the order of the house of God, shall, with 
 the apostle (Col. ii.), rejoice to see it, and 
 will prefer the beauty thereof to the wise 
 government of the house and court of Solo- 
 mon, as being appointed by a wiser than he ; 
 even Balaam, albeit disposed to curse, when 
 his eyes were opened to behold this wise or- 
 der and marvellous beauty, shall be forced to 
 open his lips, and to say, " How goodly are 
 thy tents, Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O 
 Israel ! For a house full of silver and gold 
 I would not curse ; for how shall I curse 
 whom the Lord hath not cursed ? or how 
 shall I defy whom the Lord hath not de- 
 fied ?" Numb, xxiii. 24. And that there 
 is no confusion in the parity maintained by 
 the pastor, is manifest to him that desireth 
 to see ; for, 
 
 1st, Confusion hath no subordination for 
 disposing of things, and setting every thing 
 in its own place. 
 
 The parity maintained by the pastor hath 
 a- lawful subordination of elders to pastors, 
 of deacons to elders, of a kirk -session to a 
 presbytery, of a presbytery to a synod, and 
 of a synod to a national assembly. 
 
 2d, Confusion hath no priority in respect 
 of precedency nor of order. 
 
 Parity of pastors so shunneth ambition, 
 that it maintaineth a priority of precedency 
 and respect for age, tor zeal, for gifts, &C., 1 
 and a priority of order, whereby one is mo- 
 
 1 Distingucudum inter auctoritatcm meriti et 
 
 potestatis. 
 
30 
 
 THE PASTOB AM) THE PRELATE. 
 
 derator of others in all their synods and 
 meetings, such as was amongst the apostles 
 themselves, but without priority of power or 
 jurisdiction above the rest. 
 
 3d, Confusion admitteth no command- 
 ment nor subjection. 
 
 Parity of pastor admitteth both ; for 
 every pastor conducteth his own flock, and 
 every pastor is subject to a joint fellowship 
 of pastors in presbyteries and synods. 
 
 4th, Confusion is abhorred, both by na- 
 ture and by all societies, as their greatest 
 enemy, which overturneth all where it hath 
 place. 
 
 Parity of pastors hath the like parity 
 both in nature and all sorts of society ; lor 
 
 in nature one eye hath not power over an- 
 other, nor one hand over another, nor one 
 foot over another, only the head hath power 
 over all. In the commonwealth and king- 
 dom there is a parity without a priority of 
 power or jurisdiction betwixt one baron and 
 another, and betwixt one nobleman and an- 
 other, and in all the collegial jurisdictions 
 in the land under the king himself; in the 
 world parity betwixt one king and another ; 
 in the Roman kirk equality betwixt one lord 
 bishop and another, and betwixt two arch- 
 bishops, patriarchs, &c. ; and in the kirk of 
 Christ, betwixt apostle and apostle, &c. ; 
 why, then, shall the divine parity of pastors 
 be accounted a confusion ? 
 
 THE SIXTH PART. 
 
 THE PASTOR AXD PRELATE COMPARED BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH AXD OF OUR 
 OUTWARD ESTATE. 
 
 It is best both for kirk and state when civil and ecclesiastical authority join together. — Civil authority doth 
 pood to religion. — Religion doth good to the whole commonwealth. — The best religion is best for the 
 state. — Tlj<' pastor preserveth the commonwealth, which the prelate ruincth. — The pastor loveth Christian 
 simplicity, and not Machiavel's policy ; the prelate liketli policy more than that simplicity. — The pastor 
 distinguisheth betwixt things civil and ecclesiastical, and holdetli him at his own calling ; the prelate con- 
 founleth all, and will rule all. — The pastor assisteth the civil magistrate; the prelate hindereth him. — 
 The pastor profitable to the commonwealth, but not chargeable ; the prelate chargeable, but not profit- 
 able. — The pastor a maintained of schools and learning; the prelate of neither. — The pastor's govern- 
 ment by assemblies fitter for a monarchy than the epi.-copal government. — The pastor taketh no man's 
 title, nor dignity, nor place ; the prelate taketh all these from the nobles and peers of the land. — The 
 pastor maketh the minds, the bodies an people fit fur war; the prelate disableth all. — 
 
 Objection, The estates of parliament cannot bear the severity of pastors, nor want the prelates to be the 
 third estate. — Answer, Showing that the faithful pastor will at some time be found comfortable to all 
 estates, and that the parliament may be perfect without the prelates. — Conclusion, A general objection 
 answered. 
 
 Albeit that sometimes the power eccle- 
 siastical be without the secular, and the 
 members of the kirk make not any civil cor- 
 poration, as in the apostles' times and long- 
 after ; and sometimes the secular power be 
 without the ecclesiastical, and the members 
 of kingdoms and corporations make not a 
 kirk, as amongst the heathen of old, and 
 many nations and societies this day ; yet is 
 it far best, both for religion and justice, 
 both for truth and peace, both for kirk and 
 commonwealth, when both are joined in one, 
 — when the magistrate hath both swords, 
 the use of the temporal sword, and the be- 
 nefit of the spiritual sword, and when the 
 kirk hath both swords, the use of the spiri- 
 tual sword and the benefit of the temporal, 
 — when the two administrations, civil and 
 
 ecclesiastical, like Moses and Aaron, help 
 one another mutually, and neither Aaron 
 and Miriam murmur against Moses, nor 
 Jeroboam stretcheth out his hand against 
 the man of God. Upon the one part, civil 
 authority maintaineth and defendeth reli- 
 gion where it is reformed, and reformeth re- 
 ligion where it is corrupted. " Kings shall 
 be thy nursing-lathers and queens thy nurs- 
 ing-mothers." 1 " Kings, serve the Lord in 
 fear." 3 " And then serve they the Lord," 
 saith Augustine, " when they serve him not 
 only faithfully as men, but as kings, and do 
 such things in serving him as none can do 
 but kings, that is, when they rest not till 
 religion be established, and God served in 
 
 Isa. xlix. -2". 
 
 2 Psal. ii. 11. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 31 
 
 their dominions according to his own word." 1 
 It hath ever been the greatest commenda- 
 tion of princes, that they have begun their 
 government with the reformation of religion, 
 as many worthy princes hath done both be- 
 fore and after the coming of Christ, (for God 
 preferreth kings above all others, and, there- 
 fore, kings should haste to honour God above 
 all others,) or, that they have exceeded all 
 who went before them in this religious and 
 royal chair. Asa took away idolatry, but 
 Jehosaphat removed the high places also ; 
 Ilezekiah went further, and brake the brazen 
 serpent, albeit a monument of God's mercy ; 
 but this was the sin of his reformation, that 
 he razed not the idol temples, which was 
 kept to good Josiah, who, therefore, hath 
 this testimony to the end of' the world, that 
 like unto him there was no king before him, 
 that turned to the Lord with all his heart, 
 with all his soul, and with all his might. 
 Upon the other part, true religion, although 
 it propone for the principal ends the glory 
 of God and the safety of the kirk, yet it 
 serveth many ways for the civil good and 
 worldly benefit of kings and kingdoms ; be- 
 cause the true religion, and no other, maketh 
 kings and kingdoms to serve that God that 
 giveth both heavenly and earthly kingdoms, 
 — who looseth the bands of kings and girdeth 
 their loins with a girdle, 2 — who is the only 
 Judge, that putteth down one and setteth up 
 another; and, therefore, godliness hath the 
 promise, and true religion hath many bless- 
 ings attending it. It is a blessed thing when 
 a king or a kingdom serveth that God by 
 whom kings reign, and who giveth and tak- 
 eth away kingdoms at his pleasure ; next, 
 
 1 Quomodo ergo rcges domino serviunt in tiraore, 
 nisi ea quae contra jussa domini sunt, religiosa se- 
 veritate proliibcudo atque plectendo? aliter enim 
 servit quia homo est, aliter quia etiam rex est : quia 
 homo est ei servit fideliter vivendo, quia vcro etiam 
 rex est, servit leges justa praecipientes, et contraria 
 prohibentes, convenienti rigore sanciendo sieut ser- 
 vivit Ezechias lucos, et terapla idolorum, et ilia ex- 
 celsa quae contra praecepta Dei fuerunt constructa, 
 destruendo. Sicut servivit .Tobias talia et ipse faci- 
 endo. Sicut servivit rex Ninivitarum universam 
 civitatem ad placandum Dominum compellendo. 
 Sicut servivit Darius idolum frangendum in potes- 
 tatem Danieli dando, et inimicos ejus leonibus in- 
 gerendo. Sicut servivit Nebuchad. omnes in regno 
 suo positos, a blasphemando, Dei lege terribili pro- 
 hibendo. In hoc ergo serviunt Domino reges, in 
 quantum sunt reges, cum ea faciunt ad serviendum 
 illi, quas non possunt facere nisi reges. August, 
 epist. serm. ad. Bonifacium. 
 
 2 Hostis Herodes impie, Christum venire quid 
 times ? non eripit mortalia, qui regna dat ccelestia. 
 Sedulius Hymn. 
 
 because it qualifieth and disposeth every 
 man for his own place ; — it maketh rulers 
 to know that every kingdom is under a 
 greater kingdom, and, as they are advanced 
 above all others, that they hare so much the 
 greater account to make -, 1 — it maketh the 
 subjects to obey for conscience sake, and 
 subdueth the people under their prince, 
 which made Theodosius to acknowledge that 
 his empire consisted more by the Christian 
 relioion than by all other means ; — it keep- 
 eth true peace, both public and private, and 
 when peace can be no longer kept, it follow- 
 eth alter it to find it again ; — it maketh 
 men just and temperate in time of peace, 
 not by restraint, which positive laws do, but 
 by mortification ; — with Christians, to think 
 that wickedness is sin. " Whether of the 
 two commandeth more fully," says Tertul- 
 lian, " he who saith, ' thou shalt not kill,' or 
 he who saith, ' thou shalt not be angry V 
 Which of the two is more perfect, to forbid 
 adultery or to restrain the eyes from concu- 
 piscence ?" &c. ; — it maketh every man to 
 practise Christianity in the particular duties 
 of his calling ; — in the time of war it mak- 
 eth men courageous, and to fear none but 
 Him that can lull the soul ; — in persecution 
 it giveth invincible patience ; — without con- 
 fusion it giveth at all times unto God that 
 which is God's, and unto Caesar that which 
 is Caesar's ; and, without usurpation or in- 
 jury to any, it giveth unto noblemen, states- 
 men, barons, burgesses, and all, from the 
 highest to the lowest in the kingdom, their 
 own places, preferments and privileges, ac- 
 cording to the sovereign law of justice. All 
 estates have need of this divine influence, 
 and of all these comfortable effects, and 
 every religion promiseth them all, but only 
 the Christian religion is able to perform 
 them, and the more Christian it is, that is, 
 the more near that it cometh to the purity 
 and simplicity of Christ and his apostles, 
 both in doctrine and discipline, and the 
 more Christianly, that is, the more power- 
 fully it be urged upon the consciences of 
 men, the more effectually it proveth for 
 these happy ones. Let us, then, upon this 
 ground, proceed to our trial whether the 
 pastor or prelate be more profitable for the 
 country and commonwealth. 
 
 1. The Pastor preserveth the prosper- 
 ous estate of the kingdom and common- 
 
 1 Omne sub regno gravior, regnum est. Sonec. 
 T raged. 
 
32 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 wealth by labouring to preserve piety, righ- 
 teousness and temperance in the land, and 
 by testifying, with all his might, against ido- 
 latry and all sorts of impiety, against un- 
 righteousness and all sorts of injury, whether 
 by craft or violence, and against intemper- 
 ance, incontinence, unlawful marriages, di- 
 vorces, and every other kind of impurities ; 
 for these three, where they reign, he know- 
 eth to be more near and certain causes, first 
 of the many calamities and judgments of 
 God, and then of the alterations and periods 
 of states and kingdoms, than either of the 
 intricate numbers of Plato, or the unchang- 
 ed course of the heavens, or whatever other 
 cause is pretended by philosophers or politi- 
 cians, because these, wherever they reign, 
 threaten a ruin from the true fatality of 
 God's providence and justice, and do shake 
 the pillars of all human society, as idolatry 
 the pillars of the kirk, unrighteousness of 
 the commonwealth, and intemperance of the 
 family, and one of the three falling, the 
 other two cannot long endure. 1 
 
 The Prelate, upon the contrary, by 
 taking in his own bauds the power of the 
 General Assembly, which was a great ter- 
 ror to sin ; by depriving some worthy pastors 
 of their places, and others of authority in 
 censuring of sin ; by destroying the disci- 
 pline of the kirk, and by his own many un- 
 lawful practices and permissions, hath given 
 way to idolatry, blasphemy, and the profan- 
 ation of the Sabbath, to all sorts of scanda- 
 lous and notorious sins of unrighteousness, 
 uncleanness, and of the abuse of God's crea- 
 tures, for which the wrath of God cometh 
 upon the world ; but most of all, by bring- 
 ing a great part of the kingdom under the 
 guiltiness of the violation of the covenant of 
 God ; and by going against their oath and 
 subscription, hath drawn on many visitations 
 from the hand of God, doth daily provoke 
 
 1 Non tarn numeroruro simulacra imtnia,aut Solis 
 ft siderum immutabilla ratio urbes et regna per- 
 dunt: quam impietaa primum, deinde injustitia, et 
 virtutum expultrix luxuria. Dom. de la None, dis- 
 eurs. polit. 1. 
 
 Cauaaa eversionia reipublicse quaerunt in ipsa, rei- 
 publica. Ariat. polit. 5. Bodian. de rcipub. lib. 4. 
 Danens politi. cap. 5. 
 
 K«u utn'uTTiowi mpfaavf, xai u\tnriiTioi>vs Vi^i cvy- 
 yivu; xai aSsxurigov's mp -rov; aAXwj, xxi avavtigwrtf- 
 ov; raci-i <m -roXifiDV vZv h •x^nuQuv axcbiiuyjui. 
 Xenoph. ( 'yropaed. 8. 
 
 Felix republira esse non potest, stantibus raoeni- 
 bus, ruentibus raoribus. Chokier. 
 
 I her nisi uibe aberunt, ccntuplex murus rebus 
 scrvandis paruin est. Plaut. 
 
 the Lord to further wrath, striketh at the 
 pillars of all societies, and posteth on the 
 periods of state and kingdom. 
 
 2. The Pastor accounteth virtue, truth, 
 righteousness, Christian simplicity and pru- 
 dence, to be the best policy, not only for his 
 own practice, but for all that are in autho- 
 rity, and for all societies, and, therefore, 
 pronounceth anathema upon the chief axi- 
 oms of Machiavel's art, whom he judgeth to 
 be as pernicious a master of policy as anti- 
 christ is for matters of religion, 1 and these 
 two to be the principal supports of Satan, 
 the direct enemy of Christian faith and obe- 
 dience, and the crafty subverters of kirks 
 and commonwealths, — unfit for all, but most 
 unfit, for us, whom grace hath favoured with 
 the light of the truth, and nature hath fa- 
 shioned to be open and plain. 
 
 The Prelate's practices do proclaim what 
 policy pleaseth him best. Simulation, dissi- 
 mulation, falsehood and flattery are known 
 to be the ways of his promotion. He stand- 
 eth in his grandeur and possesseth his peace 
 by promising good service in parliament to 
 the king against the nobility, and blowing 
 the bellows of dissention betwixt them : he 
 wa i'ii : eth himself at the fire he hath raised 
 betwixt the king and the kirk : he beareth 
 with men of every religion provided they 
 be not anti-episcopal : he urgeth ceremonies, 
 which he himself otherwise careth nothing 
 for, that they may be a band of obedience 
 to the slavish, and a buckler of episcopacy 
 against the opposites : he suffereth papistry 
 to prevail and new heresies to arise, and 
 giveth connivance to the teachers of them, 
 that there may be some other matter of dis- 
 putation amongst learned men than about 
 his mitre. If all would follow his art and 
 example, antichrist and Machiavel would be 
 our chief masters, and every Scotsman of 
 spirit would prove another Caesar Borgia, or 
 Ludovicus Sibrtia. 2 
 
 3. The Pastor, according to the nature 
 of things, distin guisheth betwixt the things 
 of God and the things of Caesar, betwixt the 
 
 1 Ante omnia optandum prineipi ut phis videatur, 
 non taraen ut sit. Oportet prineipem semper ad- 
 versarium in se alere, ut eo oppresso potentior vi- 
 deatur. Relifrio animos liominuni deprimit, saevitia 
 subditos in officio continet. Tuta est civitaa quae 
 dissidia et factiones nutrit. Machiav. de princ. et 
 comment, in Livium. 
 
 2 Alter urbinatem. alter Mediolanensem Ducatum 
 artibus Maehiavellieis invasit, et ad tempus tenuit, 
 uterque Machiavel licae politiae exemplar perfectissi- 
 mum misero periit. Dane, polit. praefat. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 ^1 
 
 ;',:', 
 
 sovereignty of Christ and the sovereignty of 
 man, betwixt the dignity of the statesman 
 and honour of the elder that labours in the 
 word and doctrine, betwixt the palace of the 
 prince and the minister's manse, the reve- 
 nues of the nobleman and the minister's sti- 
 pend ; and, according to the grounds of po- 
 licy, holdeth, that many offices should be 
 conferred on one man except rarely by the 
 special favour of princes 1 , upon some that 
 are eminent as miracles for engine, for wis- 
 dom and dexterity, — by reason of man's in- 
 firmity, the weight of authority, the order 
 of policy, and the peace of the people ; that 
 as every thing in nature doth its own part 
 — the sun shineth and the wind bloweth, 
 the water moisteneth — so every man should 
 be set to his own task ; that one man can- 
 not be iEneas and Hector, Cato and Seipio, 2 
 far less can one and the same person be suf- 
 ficient for the greatest affairs both of kirk 
 and policy ; and, therefore, the pastor keep- 
 eth himself within the bounds of his own 
 place and calling, and neither meddleth with 
 civil causes, nor taketh upon him civil offices, 
 nor seeketh after civil honour. 
 
 The Prelate maketh no distinction, but 
 confoundeth all, as compatible enough if he 
 be the agent ; and albeit, for any good parts, 
 to be no miracle, but neighbourlike, yet he 
 findeth himself sufficient for every thing in 
 kirk and commonwealth, 3 and telleth all for 
 fish that cometh in his net, whether civil 
 offices, civil honours, civil causes or civil 
 punishments. Like a prince, he hath his 
 castle, his lordship, his regality, vassalry, 
 &c. : he hath power to confine, imprison, 
 &c. ; and taketh it hardly when he is not 
 preferred to offices of estate, as to chancel- 
 lor, president, &c, which his predecessors 
 had of old. And thus, against all grounds 
 of good policy, he stands in pomp, as a 
 mighty giant, with one foot in the kirk 
 upon the necks of the ministers, and with 
 another in the state upon the heads of the 
 nobility and gentry. 
 
 4. the Pastor assisteth the civil magis- 
 trate in planting of virtue and rooting out 
 of vice, partly by powerfully preaching home 
 
 i E« !T£5f in. Aristot. polit. 4. 
 
 2 Nemo sequens existimat se posse siraul /Eneam 
 et Hectorem, Catonem, et Scipionem in theatro civi- 
 tatis agere. Cas. polit. lib. 2. 
 
 3 Roraani, Macedones, Lacedaemonii legem tule- 
 runt, ut nemo duobus simul fungatur officiis. Me- 
 tiothus exercitum ducit, Metiothus vius curat, Me- 
 tiothus furinam tractat, Metiothus cunctis aliis 
 praeest, Metiothus itaque plorabit. Plutarch. 
 
 to the consciences of sinners, partly by cen- 
 suring lesser offences which the magistrate 
 punisheth not, as lying, uncomely jesting, 
 rash and common swearing, rotten talking, 
 brawling, drunkenness, &c. j 1 through which 
 the passages to murder, adultery, and other 
 great offences, are stopped, the people pre- 
 vented in many mischiefs and great enormi- 
 ties, and the magistrate; many ways eased, 
 and partly in censuring of greater sins, and 
 purging the kingdom of foul offences ; for 
 he joineth the censures and the spiritual 
 sword of the kirk with the sword of the ma- 
 gistrate so impartially, that none are spared ; 
 with such expedition and diligence, that sin 
 is censured and not forgotten ; with such 
 authority that the most obstinate hath con- 
 fessed that the kirk had power to bind and 
 loose ; with such sharpness and severity, that 
 malefactors have been afraid ; and so univer- 
 sally, that, as there is no crime censured by 
 the kirk but the same is punishable by tem- 
 poral jurisdiction, so he holdeth no sin pun- 
 ishable by civil authority but the same is 
 also censurable by spiritual power — the one 
 punishing the offender in his body or goods, 
 the other drawing him unto repentance, and 
 striving to remove the scandal. 
 
 The Prelate is unprofitable to the civil 
 magistrate in the planting of virtue and 
 rooting out of vice ; for where his govern- 
 ment hath place, preaching hath more de- 
 monstration of art for the praise of the 
 speaker, than of the Spirit for the censuring 
 of sin and the conversion of the sinner. He 
 passeth small offences without any censure, 
 and thereby openeth the way to the greater 
 sins of murder, adultery, &c, and giveth 
 the magistrate his hands full : he vindicates 
 to his court and jurisdiction some crimes, as 
 proper for his censure, which yet he passeth 
 lightly : the censures of the kirk and sword 
 of excommunication in his hand serve for 
 small use against greater sins ; for either 
 they are not used at all, or so partially that 
 the greatest sinners escape uncensured, or so 
 superficially that they are rather a matter of 
 mocking and boldness in sin than of repent- 
 ance to the sinner, or of removing the offence. 
 
 1 Ilaec coertio ad Christi normam dirigitur, la- 
 tenter primum et amiee, deiude paulo acerbius : 
 tunc nisi pares sequitur interdictio sacrorum gravis 
 et efficax, interdictionem animadversio magistratus. 
 Ita fit ut quae legibus nusquam viudicantur, illic 
 sine vi et tumultu coerceantur, igitur nulla meretri- 
 cia nullas ebrietates, nullas saltationes, uulli men- 
 dici, nulli otiosi in ea civitate reperiuntur. Bodin. 
 de rep. Genevens. meth. hist. cap. 6. 
 
34 
 
 THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 5. The Pastor is chargeable to no man 
 beside his sober and necessary maintenance 
 allotted unto him for his necessary service, 
 which the people can no more want than 
 they can want religion itself, or their own 
 temporal and eternal happiness. 
 
 The Prelate, contrary to the rules of 
 policy against the multiplying and main- 
 taining of idle office-bearers, 1 hath for one 
 office, serving for no good use neither to 
 king, nor kirk, nor country, allowance of a 
 I large rent, is a great burden, and is many 
 ways chargeable to the commonwealth, and 
 to particular persons ; by his great lands 
 and lordships, by actions of improbation, re- 
 duction of fiefs, declarator of escheats, en- 
 tries, nonentries, &c. ; by selling of commis- 
 sariats, &c. ; by raising and rigorously ex- 
 acting the quotas of testaments ; by sums of 
 money given unto them, their sons, or their 
 servants, for presentations, collations, testi- 
 monials of ordination or admission, — some- 
 times by people who would be at a good mi- 
 nister, and ordinarily by the prudent friends 
 of the entrant, who can find no entry but 
 by a golden port. 
 
 6. The Pastor would have learning to 
 grow, and, considering that schools and col- 
 leges are both the seminary of the common- 
 wealth and the lebanon of God for building 
 the temple, 2 desireth earnestly that there 
 might be a school in every congregation, 
 that the people might be more civil, and 
 might more easily learn the grounds of reli- 
 gion ; he would have the best engines chosen 
 and provided to the students' places in uni- 
 versities, the worthiest and best men to the 
 places of teachers, who might faithfully keep 
 the arts and sciences from corruption, and 
 especially the truth of religion, — as the holy 
 fire that came down from heaven was kept 
 by the Levites : he desireth the rewards of 
 learning to be given to the worthiest, and, 
 after they have received them, that they be 
 
 i Xon est stndendum ut plurimi sint in rcpub. 
 magistrate, sed ut quam comraodissime et optime 
 gcrant remp. ii qui erunt necessarii. 
 
 2 Quales scliola exhibet homines, tales habitura 
 est respublica. Dan. polit. 
 
 Hine major pars salutis vel corruptions reip. 
 pendet, et ex scholarum fontibns, divini et human! 
 juris praesidium vel expugnatio oritur ; ibi enim 
 diseuntur prima literarum monumenta, artes inge- 
 nuae mores, jura divina et humana, quae omnia per- 
 maxime interest iucontaminata servari, &c, Greg. 
 Tholos. lib. 13. cap. 3. 
 
 Plebeiis argenti, nobilibus auri, principibns gem- 
 marum loco literas esse debere. yEneas Syl. Platina. 
 
 Indoctus Episcopus asino comparandus. Idem. 
 
 faithful in their places, lest by loitering and 
 laziness they become both unprofitable and 
 unlearned. 
 
 The Prelate is not so desirous of learn- 
 ing in himself as of ignorance in others, that 
 he only may be eminent both in kirk and 
 commonwealth, and all others may render 
 him blind obedience and respect. He de- 
 voureth that himself which should entertain 
 particular schools : he filleth the places of 
 ct..rlpnts without trial of their engines, to 
 please Lis friends and suitors, contrary to 
 the will of the masters and the acts ot the 
 foundations : he filleth the places of learning 
 not with the most learned, but the wealthi- 
 est sort, who, for any vigilance of his, might 
 both corrupt the human sciences and bring 
 strange fire into the house of God. If a 
 learned man happen to attain to one of 
 their highest places, which they call the re- 
 wards of learning, incontinent, their learn- 
 ing beginneth to decay, and their former 
 gifts to wither away. So that their great 
 places and prelacies either find them or 
 make them unlearned. 
 
 7. The Pastor, by the government of 
 the kirk prescribed in the word, is strong to 
 resist or repress schisms, heresies, corrup- 
 tions, and all the spiritual power of sin and 
 Satan, but hath no strength to withstand 
 the temporal power and authority of princes. 
 The same government sorts with monarchy 
 no less than with aristocracy, through the 
 wisdom of the Son of God, who fitteth the 
 same for all nations and divers forms of 
 civil policy. The pastor acknowledged his 
 prince to be his only bishop and overseer, 
 superintendent over the whole kirk in his 
 dominions, as being preserver of the liber- 
 ties of the kirk, and keeper of both tables ; 
 to whom also the General Assembly of the 
 kirk, or some lew commissioners chosen by 
 them, and convened, when it is thought ex- 
 pedient, by the king's commissioner, may 
 give his majesty better and more speedy sa- 
 tisfaction in kirk affairs, and with greater 
 love and contentment of the whole kirk, and 
 of all his majesty's loving subjects, than can 
 be given by the thirteen prelates ; all which 
 may be done upon a small part of the pre- 
 late's rent, for bearing the charges of his 
 majesty's commissioner, who also may be 
 changed at his majesty's pleasure. 
 
 1 Possunt judicare, non possunt praejudicare, ha- 
 bent vim charitatis, non habent vim authoritatis. 
 Hugo de S. victore de sacram. part. 2. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The Prelate and his government is weak 
 to withstand the spiritual forces of sin and 
 Satan but is strong to oppose the temporal 
 power of princes, and hath been of all ene- 
 mies the most dangerous to monarchy ; for 
 howsoever now, while opposition is made, he 
 natter and fawn upon the prince for his own 
 standing, yet if all ministers and the whole 
 kingdom did acknowledge his superiority to 
 bind the conscience, the primate of the kirk 
 would be more powerful than any subject in 
 the kingdom, and might prove as terrible 
 to kings, whatsoever their religion were, as 
 popes have been to emperors, and prelates 
 have been to kings in former times. 1 He 
 hath no power, for all his credit and lordly 
 authority, to get any thing done to his ma- 
 jesty's satisfaction, and with contentment of 
 the kirk ; for all the craft and violence that 
 hath been so long bended, never one whole 
 famous congregation within the kingdom is 
 either conquered or like to be subdued to his 
 conformity, but either the better or greater 
 part, or both, have resisted ; and yet, for his 
 lordly maintenance, he hath impaired the 
 rent of the crown, in so far as it was aided by 
 the collectory, and pulleth from the king the 
 rents of great benefices, the homage of vas- 
 sals, with their commodities, regalities, and 
 other privileges, more proper for the sceptre 
 than the shepherd's staff. 
 
 8. The Pastor desireth no other title 
 but to be called the minister of the town or 
 parish ; he striveth with no man for prece- 
 dency ; he seeketh no place in the common- 
 wealth, neither in council, session, nor ex- 
 chequer, but stirreth up, and soundeth the 
 trumpet in the ear of the generous spirits of 
 the kingdom, to show themselves worthy of 
 their own places ; and, whether he be minis- 
 ter in burgh or land, he is a common servant 
 to all, from the highest to the lowest, to pa- 
 rents and children, to masters and servants, 
 in all pastoral duties ; while he liveth he 
 harmeth none, but helping all, procuring 
 honour to the greater and maintenance to 
 the poorer sort, and, when his life is brought, 
 to a comfortable end, every soul blesseth 
 him, and all mourn for him as for a common 
 parent. 
 
 The Prelate, according to the political 
 
 1 Quod si Christiani olim non deposucrunt Nero- 
 nem et Dioclesianuin, et Julianum apostatam ac 
 Valentem Arianura et similes, id fuit quia deerant 
 vires temporales Christianis. Bellarm. de Rom. 
 Pont. 1. 5. c. 7. pessime sed ut Hierarchicum dece- 
 bat. 
 
 axiom, " When virtue waneth vanity wax- 
 cth, and many titles much vanity," 1 dis- 
 daining to be called any more the minister 
 of Christ, hath taken upon him the titles 
 of the nobility, — My lord of Orkney, my 
 lord of Caithness, my lord of Murray, my 
 lord of Argyll, &c, with the title he tak- 
 eth the place before them, and filleth their 
 places in council and session, and when, 
 risen up from his dunghill, he is set on high 
 places, aid is drunken with his new honours, 
 he lifteth his ears like Isis' ass, and as hand- 
 maids when they become mistresses, he wax- 
 eth so insolent that he cannot be borne. In 
 his own city he will have homage of all, 
 overruleth the election of their magistrates, 
 harmeth both parents and children through 
 the country, by giving warrant for sudden 
 and secret marriages without proclamation, 
 which the very Council of Trent cannot but 
 allow ; he taketh the honour of the greater 
 upon himself, and spends that upon his pride 
 which should serve for the poorer sort ; and 
 when, after many wishes, his life at last is 
 brought to an end, the whole diocese is filled 
 with joy, and his own family and friends are 
 filled with contempt and disgrace. 
 
 9. The Pastor mnketh the kingdom fit 
 for war against the time that necessities give 
 alarm ; for, by labouring to make the peo- 
 ple truly religious he maketh them fit for 
 both parts of Christian fortitude, active and 
 passive, for doing valiantly and suffering 
 constantly : in the time of peace he stirreth 
 them up against softness and intemperance 
 to diligence and labour, whereby their bo- 
 dies are the more able and durable : he 
 strengtheneth also the nerves of war, by 
 contenting himself with a mean estate, and 
 by his doctrine and example teaching peo- 
 ple to spare in peace for the time of war. 
 
 The Prelate maketh the kingdom unfit 
 for war ; for by his government the people 
 
 1 Virtute decrescente creseit vanitas, et titulorum 
 arrogantia proverbium de repub. Veneta cum usur- 
 paretur titulus, Domine, simplieiter, tunc facta est 
 resp. cum riomine stabilita est : Magnifice Domine 
 tunc eversa est. 
 
 Plebcios ex humili genere natos, si ad dignitates 
 et lionores pervenerint, immemores ause sortis, ple- 
 rumque ambitione insolenter se eflicere aliosque 
 deprimere conari constat, iisdem multo insolen- 
 tiores et propemodum intollerabiliones magna cum 
 jactura reip. esse solent, quam qui nobili eelebri et 
 vetere stirpe geniti sunt, ita ut veterum ille recte 
 dixerit. Bajuli iiuperant et mali sunt superiores 
 bonis, mctuone n-ivem tluctus opprirr.at. earner, 
 cent. 2. Mn<r^n "boi/Xiv/rao-a. ywn "biircroita, yivciTs, 
 Epic, (iraec. 
 
 2 Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest. 
 
36 
 
 THE PASTOR AXD THE PRELATE. 
 
 lose true fortitude with the love of religion ; 
 that if they have any kind of courage for 
 battle, it is not so much the invincible cour- 
 age of Christian religion as the carnal and 
 bastard fortitude of paganism, which, in 
 comparison of the former, hath ever been 
 but pusillanimity ; by his oversight of riot- 
 ing and idleness their bodies become weak 
 and effeminate, and, by his own large rents, 
 and his example of prodigality, which to 
 them is a law, he enervates the estates, and 
 cuts asunder the sinews of war. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. — The Prelate 
 will object, that if you that are pastors un- 
 derstood either the manners of the people 
 or the grounds of policy, ye would see that 
 neither can noblemen, and others given to 
 their pleasure, bear your simple and censo- 
 rious form of preaching, nor your austere 
 and precise form of discipline and life, nor 
 yet can the high court of parliament want 
 the prelates, which make up one of the 
 three estates : that ye are but shallow and 
 consider not what depth this draws. 
 
 Tlie Pastor's answer. — We know that of 
 all ranks there be some who love their plea- 
 sures more than God, and these, according 
 to the first flattering part of the objection, 
 will say with the old verse : 
 
 " Xon mihi sit servus, raedicus, propheta, sacerdos." 
 
 He is uo servant fit for me, 
 
 Who physician, prophet, priest will be. 
 
 For such may neither abide to be cured of 
 their spiritual evils by the counsel of God, 
 nor to hear of the evils that will come if 
 they refuse to be cured, nor to be exhorted 
 to repentance when the calamities are turn- 
 ed upon them, that they may be turned 
 away ; but all are not such, and from which, 
 while they are in their pleasures, we make 
 appellation to themselves, while they are in 
 the pains or terrors of death, and to be pre- 
 sented before the Judge, whether then the 
 pastor or prelate pleaseth them better ? The 
 other part of the objection the wisdom of 
 the kinor and of the honourable estates of 
 parliament can answer, who know how a 
 parliament may be perfect without either 
 pastor or prelate. If by the name of a 
 parliament, we understand a general and 
 national meeting of the whole kingdom and 
 kirk by their commissioners, with their su- 
 preme magistrate and king, every one to 
 give his advice and judgment respective ac- 
 cording to the nature of the society, civil or 
 ecclesiastical, which he represents : commis- 
 sioners of the kirk to give resolution from 
 
 the word of God, if need be, concerning 
 matters civil, but not to meddle with civil 
 causes civilly, and to propone petitions to 
 the king and estates for the good of the 
 kirk, to require their civil sanction, and to 
 see that nothing be concluded in things 
 civil that may be a hinderance to the wor- 
 ship of God : the nobility with the commis- 
 sioners of baronies and burghs for civil mat- 
 ters, and to add the civil sanction in the 
 matters of God's worship ; kirkmen chosen 
 and instructed by the kirk may sit in par- 
 liament after this sense, and are bound to 
 contribute their best help for the honour of 
 the king and good both of kirk and country. 
 But if by a parliament we understand the 
 highest court and supreme judicature civil, 
 meddling only with civil matters, or with 
 matters of religion civilly, as, to add the ci- 
 vil sanction, and to ratify by civil authority 
 what hath been put in canon by the kirk 
 before, then the assembly of the kirk or 
 their commissioners may, or should, attend 
 the high court of parliament, as the convo- 
 cation house doth in our neighbour king- 
 dom, but can have no place nor vote in 
 parliament, neither in making laws about 
 things civil, nor in the civil authorising in 
 matt ere of religion ; for ministers should not 
 judge of the right of inheritance, nor pro- 
 nounce sentence about forfeiture, nor make 
 laws about weights and measures, &c., but 
 should exhort the people to obey the civil 
 powers. Without bishops or ministers laws 
 have been made by parliament, and may be 
 made now no less than without abbots, priors, 
 &c, who had once vote in parliament no less 
 than they. Their benefices are baronies 
 in respect whereof they claim vote in par- 
 liament ; but they are not barons or pro- 
 prietors, and heritable possessors thereof, to 
 transmit them to their heirs, or to alienate 
 them, but only are usufructuaries, to have 
 the use of them for their time; neither 
 doth it suit with the minister's calling to 
 have such baronies, nor are they to be rec- 
 koned for ecclesiastical persons, but for civil, 
 when they have place in parliament in re- 
 spect of these baronies, and, therefore, can- 
 not vote there in name of the kirk. 
 
 To conclude, then, Whether we look to 
 the word of God, or to the more pure and 
 primitive times of the kirk, or to the nature 
 and use of things indifferent, or to the refor- 
 mation and proceeding of our own kirk, or 
 the good of the kirk and of the people's souls, 
 
 fli 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 37 
 
 or to the happiness of the commonwealth 
 and the good of every one, from the king 
 that sitteth upon the throne to him that 
 heweth the wood and draweth the water, 
 we may see whether the pastor or the pre- 
 late, whether reformation or conformity, is 
 to be followed by the time Christian and 
 patriot ; and that there is as great differ- 
 ence betwixt the bishops of our times and 
 the faithful pastors of the reformed kirks as 
 betwixt the light that cometh from the stars 
 of heaven and the thick darkness that aris- 
 eth from the bottomless pit ; and it may be 
 made manifest that since bishops were cast 
 in the mould of the man of sin, wheresoever 
 they have ruled, whether amongst the pa- 
 pistical and the reformed (some few excep- 
 ted, who, when they ventured upon these 
 places, went out of their own element,) they 
 have been the greatest plagues, both to kirks 
 and kingdoms, that ever had authority in 
 the Christian world. Neither needeth any 
 man to object that the comparison that we 
 have made runneth all the way betwixt the 
 good pastor and the evil prelate, and, there- 
 fore, may be answered by the like unequal 
 comparison betwixt the good prelate and 
 the evil pastor, as if the most part of the 
 episcopal evils above-mentioned were only 
 the personal faults of the men, and not the 
 corruptions necessarily accompanying the 
 estate and order of prelates, and that if 
 good men fill these places there is no dan- 
 ger but the kirk may be as well, or better, 
 governed by prelates than by pastors ; for 
 the comparison is not so much betwixt the 
 pastor and prelate as betwixt the office of a 
 pastor and the office of a prelate or bishop. 
 " It is one thing," as Augustine saith, " to 
 use an unlawful power lawfully, and another 
 thing to use a lawful power unrighteously 
 and unjustly." 1 Pastors may have their 
 
 i Aliud est injusta potestate juste velle nti, et 
 aliud est justa potestate injuita velle uti. August, 
 de bouo conjug. cap. 14. 
 
 own personal infirmities, and never so many 
 as under the prelate's government, and pre- 
 lates may have their own good parts, and 
 never so many as by the occasion of the 
 pastor's opposition ; but neither the one nor 
 the other are to be ascribed to their offices, 
 nor is the lawfulness and unlawfulness of 
 their offices to be judged by their persons. 
 It is true when an unlawful power and a 
 lawless man meet together the case of those 
 that are under his authority must be the 
 worse, as we may see in the papacy, which, 
 being always evil for the kirk, yet have 
 proved worse, when monsters, instead of 
 men, have sat in their scat. But it is evi- 
 dent that the evils which prelates and their 
 lordly government bring upon the kirk do 
 flow from their sole jurisdiction, exorbitant 
 power, meddling in civil government, and 
 the curse of God upon that unlawful estate, 
 all which are common to the whole order, 
 and not peculiar to some persons ; and the 
 corruptions which are common to all in these 
 places, although greater in some than in 
 others, of necessity must flow from the un- 
 lawfulness of the state and office itself. It 
 is so far that good men, put in the places of 
 prelacy, can make the government good, — 
 that the places of prelacy have ever corrup- 
 ted the men and made them worse. So it 
 was with JEneas Sylvius, who, before his 
 popedom, seemed sound and honest, main- 
 taining many points against the tyranny of 
 that seat, but, being made Pope Pius II, 
 retreated all, and proved as impious and 
 antichristian as the rest; so, many that 
 have been of good account in the ministry, 
 and given hope of great good by them to 
 the kirk when they entered to be bishops, 
 yet wholly degenerated from their first 
 works, and learned betime ululare cum 
 lapis, to howl with the wolves ; the expe- 
 rience whereof made Queen Elizabeth to 
 say, " When she made a bishop that she 
 marred a good minister." 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 
 PKiSTED BY A. .Ml'IUIAT, MILNE SQUARE. 
 
 H. 
 

 
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