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 Calderwood, David, 
 
 1575-1650. 
 
 Pastor and the prelate : or, 
 Reformation and conformity 
 ... with the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
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THE 
 
 PASTOR AND THE PRELATE 
 
 OR 
 
 REFORMATION AND CONFORMITY 
 
 SHORTLY COMPARED 
 
 % ~ 
 
 BY THE WORD OF GOD, BY ANTIQUITY AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE AN¬ 
 CIENT KIRK, BY THE NATURE AND USE OF THINGS INDIFFERENT, BY 
 THE PROCEEDINGS OF OUR OWN KIRK, BY THE WEAL OF THE 
 KIRK AND OF THE PEOPLE’S SOULS, AND BY THE GOOD OF 
 THE COMMONWEALTH AND OF OUR OUTWARD ESTATE; 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE ANSWER OF THE COMMON AND CHIEF OBJECTIONS 
 
 AGAINST EVERY PART: 
 
 SHOWING WHETHER OF THE TWO IS TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE 
 TRUE CHRISTIAN AND PATRIOT. 
 
 ■ r 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. DAVID CA 
 
 i / Cf 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 O n •? 
 
 u v « > ^ 
 
 And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnes'sfe^ttcairfl^ 
 said, We are witnesses.—J osh 
 
 But, 1 Kings xviii. 21, it is said, And the people answere 
 
 imi hot si word. 
 
 /W'N/\y'VW\ 
 
 FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 I 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL AGNEW. 
 
 SOLD BY WM. S. MARTIEN, PHILADELPHIA; ROBERT CARTER, NEW YORK AND 
 PITTSBURGH; DAVID OWEN AND SONS, BALTIMORE. 
 
 1844. 
 
WILLIAM S. MARTIEN 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE EDINBURGH EDITION OF 1844. 
 
 There are few events connected with the ecclesiastical his¬ 
 tory of Scotland more interesting to the student of Church 
 History than those which happened during the greater part 
 of the seventeenth century. The reformation from Popery 
 was a glorious and happy consummation of religious liberty 
 and truth to the people, who had so long been held in bond¬ 
 age and ignorance under the iron yoke of the Romish Church, 
 and there followed after that eventful epoch a season of com¬ 
 parative 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,—ceremo¬ 
 nies 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 com¬ 
 mencement of his reign, professed a strong attachment to 
 the Presbyterian Church, and affected great dislike to episco¬ 
 pacy ; 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 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 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 sim¬ 
 plicity 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 endea¬ 
 vouring to thwart them than the author of this treatise,— 
 which is now for the first time reprinted,—a brief sketch of 
 the more prominent parts of whose public life may not be 
 uninteresting. 
 
 David Calderwood was born in the year 1575. Of his 
 birth-place, parentage, and early life, we have no means of 
 correctly ascertaining. It has been stated that he was by 
 birth a gentleman, which, indeed, is very probable, as few, 
 except those in the higher ranks of life, received so liberal 
 an education as Calderwood appears to have possessed. Be¬ 
 ing early destined for the church, he was sent to the univer¬ 
 sity of Edinburgh to be educated for that end, where he ap¬ 
 plied himself with great assiduity and attention to the study 
 of Theology, critical and practical, and devoted much of 
 his time to the investigation of Ecclesiastical History. Being 
 possessed of talents of a very high order, he took his degree 
 of A. M. so early as 1593, and in 1604 he was appointed to 
 a church in Crailing, near Jedburgh, where, by his virtues, 
 public and private, and his faithfulness to his office, he gained 
 the esteem and respect of all who knew him. 
 
 Calderwood, during his labours in the parish of Crailing, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 manifested great dislike to the episcopal form of church go¬ 
 vernment, and few were more strenuous in their efforts to 
 maintain the purity of the kirk. With a view to reconcile 
 the minds of the people to the change intended to be imposed 
 on them, the King sent the Earl of Dunbar, Lord High Trea¬ 
 surer, down to Scotland, accompanied by two or three eccle¬ 
 siastics, in furtherance of that purpose. In 160S, when Law, 
 Bishop of Orkney, came endowed with the office of visitor 
 to the presbyteries of Merse and Teviotdale, Caldenvood, 
 along with George Johnstone, minister of Ancrum, firmly 
 and solemnly declined the bishop’s jurisdiction, and protested 
 against his authority,—information of which coming to the 
 King’s ear, his commands to the privy council were, that 
 they should be punished in an exemplary manner. Their 
 punishment was, however, by the influence of the Earl of 
 Lothian, mitigated to confinement within the limits of their 
 own parishes. In June 1617 Calderwood was summoned to 
 appear before the High Commission Court, on the 8th of 
 July, at St. Andrews. He accordingly obeyed the summons 
 and appeared at the appointed time. The King himself at¬ 
 tended, and entered into a long discussion with him regard¬ 
 ing the protestation, in which he used many arguments and 
 threats to bring him over to his own party, but he found 
 Calderwood too firm and true to his cause to be intimidated 
 even by a kingly authority. He was then removed and sent 
 to the tolbooth of St. Andrews, but was afterwards brought 
 to the jail of Edinburgh. The privy council then ordered 
 that he banish himself from the kingdom before the follow¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 A 2 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 effect. He then petitioned that his banishment might be de¬ 
 layed till the end of April following, as the season was dan¬ 
 gerous for a sea voyage, and also that he might have time 
 to get up his year’s stipend. The King replied, that “ How- 
 beit he begged, it were no matter, he would know himself 
 better the next time; and, for the season of the year, if he 
 drowned in the seas, he might thank God that he had escaped 
 a worse death.” Cranston, however, being so eager in his 
 importunities, the King at last told him that he would advise 
 with his bishops. The time was thus delayed till the 29th 
 of August, 1619, when he set sail for Holland. In the mean¬ 
 time 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 
 u Alta?’e DamascenumA The titlq of this work is founded 
 on 2 Kings xvi. 10, 11. It is one of great learning and re¬ 
 search, 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 pen¬ 
 sive, and when asked by one of his bishops what ailed him, 
 he told what book he had been reading. “ Let not that trou¬ 
 ble your Majesty,” said the bishop, “ I shall soon answer 
 it.” “ Answer what, man?” replied the King. “ There is 
 nothing here but Scripture, reason, and the fathers.” 
 
 In 1624; Calderwood returned to his native country, and 
 remained privately a considerable time in Edinburgh. In 
 1638 he was appointed minister of Pencaitland, in East Lo¬ 
 thian, and continued during the remainder of his life to take 
 an active part in the ecclesiastical affairs of the period, and 
 devoted himself to the investigation and arrangement of all 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 11 
 
 the memorials and documents which could be found connect¬ 
 ed with the history of the Church of Scotland. The General 
 Assembly of 1648 were very desirous that he should pro¬ 
 ceed 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 belongs to the General Assembly of the Church 
 of Scotland.* An abridgment of this work, called “ The 
 Ti 'ue History of the Church of Scotland was drawn up 
 by Calderwood, and printed in 1678, under the auspices of 
 Mr. John Carstairs, Mr. Robert McWard, and two or three 
 others.'l' 
 
 In 1651, when the English army was lying in East Lo¬ 
 thian, 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 testify. Besides his Church 
 History, he wrote several other works connected with the 
 controversies of the times. The following is presumed to 
 be a tolerably correct list of them. They were mostly pub- 
 
 * Calderwood’s larger History is now being printed for the first 
 time by the Wodrow Society. 
 
 f See Appendix to the late Dr. McCrie’s Memoirs of Vcitch and 
 Brysson, p. 495, &c. 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lished anonymously, and printed in Holland. The list is 
 drawn up by the Rev. Thomas McCrie, and forms an appen¬ 
 dix to the Life of Henderson, by the late Dr. McCrie. 
 
 Perth Assembly, 4to., 1619; Parasynagma Perthense, 
 1620; The Course of Conformity, 4to. 1H22Defence of our 
 Arguments against Kneeling in the Act of Receiving the Sa¬ 
 cramental Elements of Bread and Wine, impugned by Dr. 
 Michelsone, 8vo. 1620 ; The Solution of Dr. Resolutus his 
 Resolutions for Kneeling, 4to. 1619; Queries concerning the 
 State of the Church of Scotland, 8vo. 1621; The Altar of 
 Damascus, 12mo. 1621; Altare Damascenum, 4to. 1623; 
 [This is an enlargement of the last-mentioned work.] An 
 Exhortation of the particular Kirks of Christ in* Scotland, to 
 their Sister Kirk in Edinburgh, 8vo. 1624; The Pastor and 
 the Prelate, or Reformation and Conformity shortly com¬ 
 pared, &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 Nocent Ceremonies, 4to. 1623; 
 A Reply to Dr. Morton’s Particular Defence of three Nocent 
 Ceremonies, 4to. 1623; An Epistle of a Christian Brother, 
 &c. 8vo. 1624; A Dispute upon Communicating at our Con¬ 
 fused Communions, 8vo. 1624; A Re-examination of the 
 Five Articles Enacted at Perth, 4to. 1636; The Re-exami¬ 
 nation abridged, &c. 8vo. 1636; An Answer to M. J. Forbes 
 of Corse, his Peaceable Warning, 4to. 1638. 
 
 A very interesting and authentic memoir of Calderwood is 
 contained in Dr. Irving’s “ Lives of Scottish Writers,” vol. 
 1, on whose authority the last nine of the above-mentioned 
 treatises are ascribed to Calderwood. 
 
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE. 
 
 i ' - ' 
 
 TO THE CHRISTIAN READER. 
 
 For no other is this intended, (not for him that readeth not, but cast- 
 eth it by, or closeth his eyes lest he see truth, judging of things con¬ 
 troverted 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 inten¬ 
 tions, and esteemeth all motions about religion, that cross him or com¬ 
 fort him not in these, to be either seditious commotions, or nothing 
 but idlements of indifference,) but for him who, above all things, loves 
 to see the truth, and, above all things, loveth the truth, when he hath 
 seen it, that is even for thyself, Christian reader, have we entered 
 into this comparison of the Pastor and Prelate, and at thy hands do 
 we expect the performance of two Christian duties; one is for thine 
 own good: That thou wilt labour with thine heart for more feeling now 
 than thou hadst faith at the first, when it w T as often foretold from the 
 word of God and the woeful experience of former times, “That this 
 transcendent hierarchy of lordly and lording prelates, brought in upon 
 the kirk of Christ without precept or example from himself, would 
 prove at last the ruin of religion.” Now may be seen what was said 
 before, that the government of the kirk and the worship of God are 
 like the twins spoken of by Hippocrates, and that the one of them 
 dwining away, and dying among us,i the whole face of the other 
 looketh pale, and pitifully proclaimeth (if the cry of our sins would 
 suffer us to hear), that religion herself is sick at the heart; for what 
 is the daily increase of old papistry, the spreading gangrene of new" 
 heresies, the scoffing at holiness instead of imitating, the laughing at 
 sin instead of lamentation, but the inseparable effects of this prelacy, 
 and the ordinary practices of our prelates, the symptom of the sick¬ 
 ness of Christian religion, and the causes of this cloud of wrath that 
 so long hangs and hovers above us. Consider that (according to Ber¬ 
 nard’s observation of these blind-winding stairs that lead down to de¬ 
 
 i Perth Assembly, Preface. 
 
14 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 struction) i this hierarchy which in the beginning seemed a weight 
 so insupportable that they who took it upon them could not hold up 
 their faces for sin and for shame, did appear soon afterward, albeit 
 heavy, yet tolerable,—of heavy it became light, of light insensible, ot 
 insensible delectable, and of delectable it is at last become a matter 
 of glorying: that which was a glory is become a shame, and that 
 which was a shame is accounted a glory. Ot late ministers could not 
 be found to fill the void places of prelacy, now prelacies cannot be 
 found to fill the void hearts of the ministers; so far have we turned 
 from that which we lately were, and in so few years, that that which 
 was nothing else but a rope of disgrace is wonderfully changed into a 
 chain of pride. As thou lovest Jesus Christ and thine own soul, and 
 would be loath to communicate in all the sins, and to involve thyself 
 into the guiltiness of all the evils that this prelacy hath produced, take 
 heed that thine 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 pastor and the proud prelate as they were 
 thought on since the reformation, and praying to God, as good men 
 did of old, in the corrupt times of the kirk: that he would put to his 
 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 Simonites as now are so high, being 
 lifted up by the ministry of Satan. 2 
 
 Another Christian duty, Christian reader, we expect at thine hands 
 for the good of the kirk,—that whatsoever be thy place, higher or 
 lower, farther or nearer, unto his Majesty’s person, who gladly would 
 acquaint his Majesty particularly with the state of the kirk in his 
 Majesty’s kingdom of Scotland, as what it was once, what it might 
 have been before this time, what it is become of late, and what it is 
 like to be ere long ; but either cannot for want of occasion, or dare not 
 for awe of the prelates, whose courting is more to be feared than their 
 cursing,—that thou would do what thou may to make this following 
 treatise come to his Majesty’s hands; for we, his Majesty’s loving 
 people of Scotland, who both love his Majesty’s person and crown, 3 
 
 1 Quid non evertat consuetudo? quid non assiduitate duretur ? 
 quid non usui cedat? Primum tibi importabile videtur aliquid, pro- 
 cessu temporis, si assucscas, judicabis non adeo grave, paulo post et 
 leve senties, paulo post nec senties, paulo post etiam delectabit. Ita 
 paulatim in cordis duritiam itur, et ex ilia in aversionem. Bernard, 
 ad Eugen. 
 
 2 Expurga Domine vineam tuam sentibus undique et labruscis 
 oppletam: fac ut olim flagellum de funiculis et de templo tuo sancto 
 nummularios expelle, vendentes ejice, ementes exturba, cunctos im- 
 pios mercatores, nisi poenitentiam egerint. Giezitas lepra percute, 
 Simonitas alte volantes, Satanseque ministerio in excelsum elevatos 
 illide, ac dejice, &c. Nicol. Clemaligis. 
 
 3 Ephestion Craterus <bikoG*<nhii><;. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 15 
 
 acknowledging the duty we owe to his Majesty, commanded in the 
 lirst commandment after the first table, to come nearest unto that re¬ 
 ligion and piety whereby we worship God himself, who neither love 
 schisms in the kirk, l nor witty reconcilements of truth and error, but 
 would keep the truth in peace; who neither are puritans, nor Brown- 
 ists, nor seditious, as men calumniate, but professors of the true re¬ 
 ligion as it was at the first reformed among us; and as it hath 
 furnished unto us all the hope that we have of eternal happiness, we 
 would show his gracious Majesty that, according to the saying of 
 Solomon, “When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice,” 
 &c.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 princely inclination to equity and righteous judgment, 
 but did perceive the noble proofs thereof in trying the truth of things 
 controverted, while his Majesty, with that worthy king, kept still one 
 ear shut for the other party, and with that wiser king, when he de¬ 
 clared 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 scep¬ 
 tre, 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 alter the will 
 of the God of heaven, than which there can be nothing more reasona¬ 
 ble, and which is the sum of all our desires. Our adversaries, upon 
 the contrary, out of the experience they find of his Majesty’s disposi¬ 
 tion to equity, and out of the consciousness they have of the iniquity 
 of the cause that they m intain only because it maintaineth their 
 greatness, have used all means to prevent his trial, have stopped, so 
 far as may be, all ways ot information, and, according to the crafty 
 counsel given to Pericles, not being able to make account, have done 
 what they can that they be net called to account. 3 When commis¬ 
 sioners 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 many essays to resolve in end, there being 
 no other way left unto us, with all submission of mind, to send up our 
 Pastor and Prelate in print, who have been impeded by the prelates 
 to come together in person; neither can it offend the prelate that the 
 pastor speak the truth this one time for himself and the prelate, since 
 the prelate so many times hath spoken his pleasure for both. Our 
 silence and ceasing in the cause would give great worldly ease to 
 ourselves, and greatest contentment to our adversaries, who now cry 
 nothing but Peace, peace, that is, a peaceable possession of their 
 
 l 1 Tim. v. 4. 2 Prov. xxix. 2. 
 
 3 Pericle dicente, non invenire se quo pacto ministerii rationem 
 redderet, atque idee conflictari: ergo inquit Alcibiades, qurere potius 
 quemadmodum rationem non reddas. Valer. Max. lib. 3. cap. 2. 
 
16 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 honours and wealth and a cruel oppression of their brethren, but 
 withal would prove us to be unfaithful both to our God and to our 
 king; l for beside the obligation that is common to us with other re¬ 
 formed kirks, we stand bound by solemn oath, covenant and subscrip¬ 
 tion, published in the world, to defend the doctrine and discipline of 
 this kirk, and to oppose the hierarchy and all rites and ceremonies 
 added to the worship of God. Silence in such a cause may be sin to 
 other kirks, but to us it is perjury in the sight of God, and would 
 also prove us unfaithful to our king; for howsoever the prelates pro¬ 
 fess in public, “ That no ceremony no bishop, no bishop no king,” and 
 do suggest in secret the service that they can do to monarchy, they 
 do but mind themselves and their own idol. That government of the 
 kirk is most useful for kings and kingdoms which is best warranted 
 by the word of God, by whom kings reign and kingdoms are estab¬ 
 lished. The pillars of his Majesty’s throne are of God’s own making, 
 —religion upon the right hand and righteousness upon the left. The 
 pomp of ceremonies and pride of prelacy are pillars artificially 
 wrought by the wit of man for setting up and supporting the Pope’s 
 tyranny, “No ceremony no prelate, no prelate no pope.” When his 
 Majesty’s wisdom hath searched all the crooks of this controversy, 
 let us be reputed the worst of all men, let us all be censured, silenced, 
 confined, deprived or exiled, as some of us are, and have been for a 
 long time, if the cause that we maintain shall be found any other but 
 that we desire that God be served and his house ruled according to 
 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 ceremonies, 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 our¬ 
 selves, and greater terror to Satan and all his train of heresy, profane¬ 
 ness and persecution, as we shall be ready to demonstrate particularly, 
 if this which followeth be not sufficient, whensoever his Majesty shall 
 be pleased to require; and which we are assured his Majesty will 
 perceive upon small consideration; for a mind inclined by divine 
 power to religion and piety will at first sight discern and be possessed 
 with the love of the heavenly beauty of the house of God, they both 
 proceeding from the same spirit. God, all-sufficient, bless his Ma¬ 
 jesty, both in peace and war, both in religion and justice, with such 
 success as may be seen, even by the envious eye of the enemy, to be 
 from the finger and favour of God, and may he also make his happy 
 government to be a matter of congratulation to the godly, and to be 
 admired and remembered by posterity as the measure and example of 
 their desires, when they shall be wishing for a religious and righteous 
 king. 
 
 i Si pacem non potest habere cum fratre nisi subdito ostendit se 
 non tam pacem cupere, quam sub pacis conditione vindictam. Hie- 
 ron. ad Theop. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY TIIE 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 
 ceremonial law.—The perpetual and due office-bearers in the kirk. 
 —No difference in Scripture between a pastor and a bishop.—No 
 lord-bishop in Scripture.—No bishop of bishops or pastors in Scrip¬ 
 ture.—Every pastor in Scripture hath his own particular flock; 
 none is without a flock, nor with a diocese.—The pastor hath power 
 of ordination, which the prelate appropriateth.—The pastor hath 
 the power of jurisdiction, which the prelate usurpeth and appro¬ 
 priateth.—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 difference betwixt the divine and diocesan bishop. 
 
 That the worship of God, and the government of the 
 kirk, which is the house of God, are to be learned out 
 of his own word, is a truth against which the gates of 
 hell shall never prevail. For we ought to give this 
 
 1 
 
18 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 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 per¬ 
 fect 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 cove¬ 
 nant, a testament, and a perfect canon, so in fulness 
 of wisdom he hath performed his purpose. We ought 
 humbly to acknowledge, that the kirk hath no power 
 (whether by translation of divine ordinances from the 
 Old to the New Testament, under pretext of piety, 
 or by imitation of the enemy, seem it never so charita¬ 
 ble, or by man’s invention, let it appear never so plaus¬ 
 ible) to make new laws, or to institute any new office 
 or office-bearer, any minister, or part of ministration 
 in the house of God. But that it is her part to see 
 the will of God obeyed, and to appoint canons and 
 constitutions for the orderly and decent disposing of 
 things before instituted . 1 We call here the prelates 
 and pastors of conformity to a threefold consideration. 
 First , That they agree not among themselves about 
 the matters in question: some of them affirming that 
 their hierarchy is warranted by divine authority; 
 others confessing it is only by ancient custom; and a 
 third sort defending neither of the two, but that it is 
 
 1 Polycleti regula ad reges. Lesbia regula ad aquitatem opus. 
 Bodinus in method. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 19 
 
 apostolic . 1 Again, some of them make the form of 
 kirk government to be universal and perpetual; others 
 holding it to be conformable to civil policy, as if man 
 might prescribe unto God what form of government 
 is fittest for his house: for that which is highly 
 esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of 
 God. He that hath the seven eyes seeth better in his 
 own matter than man that seeth nothing but by his 
 light. Wisdom, that hath built her house, and hewn 
 out her seven pillars, cannot be content that man’s 
 wisdom should devise and hew out the eighth pillar. 
 Secondly , They should consider, that the arguments 
 and answers that we give to them against their hier¬ 
 archy and ceremonies, are the same that they are 
 forced to use in defence of the truth against the pa¬ 
 pists; and the answers and arguments that the papists 
 give them for traditions, for the pope’s monarchy, and 
 for their will-worship, they are forced to use against 
 us in defence of their cause: resting thus in their luke¬ 
 warmness, and halting betwixt two, for the love of the 
 world; which hath made the papists to say, that the 
 prelates disputing against them are puritans, and while 
 they dispute against the puritans they are papists, 
 and turn to their side. Thirdly , They should con¬ 
 sider that the form of government and divine ceremo¬ 
 nies under the law, were not removed to give place to 
 
 i Jure divino disciplinam hierarchicam tuentur alii, alii jure hu- 
 mano tantum: alii non jure divino, sed apostolico, alius, jc m a.7ro<r<To- 
 xtKn xtivu jwj 7rviujuart>in Sio-u, alii episcopalem majoritatem rnutabi- 
 lem contendunt, alii tuentur immutabilem, ut ex Juello, Saravia, 
 Hookero, Dounamo, Barleo, Bilsono, Bancrofto Tileno, et aliis hier- 
 archicis satis est manifestum. 
 
20 
 
 THE TASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 the inventions of man under the gospel. What is 
 beside the particular precepts of God in Scripture is 
 against the general commandment, “ Thou shalt not 
 add to the word that I have commanded/ 7 &c.; and 
 therefore let us say with Augustine, a We are brethren, 
 why strive we? our Father died not intestate, but 
 made a testament, and died and rose again; the father 
 lieth in the grave without sense, and yet his words 
 are in force; Christ sitteth in heaven, and his testa¬ 
 ment is contradicted on earth,—let it be read/ 7 & C .. 1 
 Let the pastor and the prelate be presented before the 
 law and testimony; let the authority of the one and 
 the other be pondered,—not in the weights of worldly 
 avarice and ambition, but in the balance of the sanc¬ 
 tuary; and let us measure their callings and carriage, 
 —not by the cord of the canon law, but by the golden 
 reed of the temple, and we shall soon see whether of 
 the two hath warrant from God. 
 
 1. The Pastor acknowledgeth no offices in the 
 kirk after the extraordinary of the apostles, prophets 
 and evangelists, but the ordinary of pastors, teachers, 
 elders and deacons, appointed by Christ, 2 as sufficient 
 for the weal of the kirk, and of every member there¬ 
 of, in all things spiritual and temporal. 
 
 The Prelate setteth up one hierarchy of arch- 
 
 1 Quid litigamus? fratres sumus. Non intestatus mortuus est pa¬ 
 ter, fecit testamentum, et sic mortuus est et resurrexit. Tamdiu 
 contenditur de hereditate mortuorum, quamdiu testamentum profera- 
 tur in publicum, et cum testamentum fuerit prolatum in publicum, 
 tacent omncs ut tabulae apcriantur, et recitentur. Judex intentus 
 audit, advocati silent, praecones silentiuin faciunt, &c.— Augu. in 
 Psal. 21. 
 
 2 1 Cor. xii. 28; Eph. iv. 11. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 21 
 
 bishops and lord-bishops,—having for 'the head the 
 Roman antichrist, and for the train, suffragans, deans, 
 achdeacons, officials, &c., never named in Scripture, 
 nor known in the purer times of the kirk, against the 
 weal of the kirk, and of every member thereof, both 
 in things spiritual and temporal. 
 
 2. The Pastor, according to the Scripture, putteth 
 difference betwixt the names of the office-bearers in 
 the New Testament, never calling the ordinary by the 
 name of the extraordinary, nor the inferior by the 
 name of the superior, 1 as the pastor by the name of 
 the apostle or evangelist; but never putteth difference 
 at all betwixt a pastor and a bishop,—making every 
 pastor to be a bishop, and taking the pastor and bishop 
 always for one. 
 
 The Prelate maketh a confusion of names, that 
 he may put himself in the place of the apostle, as the 
 pope will be in the place of Christ; and, against all 
 Scripture, will make so great difference betwixt a pas¬ 
 tor 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, 2 —a name of labour and 
 diligence, and not of honour and ease. 
 
 1 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 Epa- 
 phroditus, 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, l .Pet. v. 
 1 , 2 . 
 
 2 Only Christ Lord in his own house, John xiii. 13; Heb. iii. 6; 
 Matt. xx. 25 ; kcltakv^huuv KaT^ai/Tict^uv , but Luke xxii. 23, the simple 
 word Kv^uvuv, that is denied to the apostles which was granted to 
 
 l* 
 
22 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 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 re¬ 
 spect whereof he is called a bishop, and not in rela¬ 
 tion to other pastors. 1 
 
 The Prelate setteth himself as a bishop over pas¬ 
 tors, and in respect of them is called a bishop, and not 
 in relation to any particular flock. 
 
 5. The Pastor is set over a particular flock, 2 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 de¬ 
 pends in the exercise of his ministry, and to whom 
 he must be accountable, and to no other pastor or 
 bishop. 
 
 The Prelate both ordaineth pastors at large, with¬ 
 out assignation of a particular flock (as if he were 
 either making masters of art and doctors of physic, or 
 as if ordination should go before election, which is as 
 absurd as first to crown a king, or instal a magistrate, 
 and then to choose him,) and setteth himself as a pro¬ 
 per pastor over a whole province, and over many 
 
 kings, which the sons of Zebedeus sought, and for which the apostles 
 did contend. 
 
 1 Acts xv. 2; xx. 17 ; Phil. i. 1; 1 Pet. v. 1. 
 
 2 Kirks of Judea, Gal. i. 22; kirks of Galatia, Gal. i. 2; of Asia, 
 Macedonia, &c. ever in the number of multitude; as for Acts vii. 38, 
 it is spoken of the whole nation of the Jews in the wilderness camp¬ 
 ing about the ark. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 23 
 
 kirks in divers provinces, as well of those that he 
 never saw, as of that where his seat is,—esteeming 
 the pastors to be but his helpers and substitutes; as 
 having their power from him, being obliged to render 
 account to him, and whom he may continue and dis¬ 
 place 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 pres¬ 
 bytery, 1 never used in the New Testament to signify 
 the office of priesthood or order of a presbyter, can be 
 no other thing but the persons or company of pastors 
 laying on their hands, and that not only for consent, 
 but for consecration, of which number any one may 
 pronounce the words of blessing. 
 
 The Prelate, for the honour of the priesthood, 
 that is, out of his ambitious humour, taketh the power 
 of ordaining pastors to himself,—denying that a whole 
 presbytery without him may ordain a pastor, except¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 1 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. v. 22, 2 Tim. i. 6. Neither the prelate himself denieth the 
 power of ordination to the presbyter, but the exercise of the power 
 which he arrogateth to himself. Ordinat Deus per ecclesiam, ordinat 
 ecclesia per presbyterium, ordinat presbyterium per episcopos, et pas- 
 tores suos; singuli conferunt in unum quse sua sunt.— Jun. animad, 
 1187. 
 
24 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 Christ, not only the keys of the inward and private 
 court of conscience, but also of the outward and pub¬ 
 lic court of jurisdiction, 1 for deciding controversies, 
 making of constitutions, and inflicting of censures, 
 they being both but one and the same power of bind¬ 
 ing and loosing. He hath the shepherd’s staff in his 
 hand as well as the shepherd’s pipe at his mouth. 
 
 The Prelate keepeth the staff in his own hand, 
 and arrogateth to himself, even amongst them who 
 never heard him, all power of jurisdiction (whether 
 dogmatic, didactic, or critic, as it is distinguished, 2 ) 
 which the apostles themselves, notwithstanding their 
 extraordinary gifts, would never do, but in all these 
 parts of jurisdiction behaved themselves as presby¬ 
 ters. 
 
 8. The Pastor findeth it to be so far against the 
 word of God to claim any authority over his brethren, 
 that albeit there be a divine order in the kirk, where¬ 
 by 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, ordi¬ 
 nary or extraordinary, that hath any majority of 
 power over other inferior ministers of another kind,— 
 as the pastor over the elder and deacon, far less over 
 other ministers of the same kind, as the pastor or 
 bishop over the pastor. 3 
 
 1 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 cen¬ 
 suring of offences. 
 
 3 By Scripture no apostle hath power over another apostle, nor 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 25 
 
 The Prelate findeth it to be so far against his 
 place to quit his authority over his brethren, that albeit 
 he hath no warrant for any other kind or degree of 
 ministry than the pastor, yet he usurpeth majority of 
 power over pastors, and taketh upon him both direc¬ 
 tion and correction; and that not social, but authori¬ 
 tative, to beat them at his pleasure. 
 
 9. The Pastor is separate from the world to the 
 kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world: 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 bur¬ 
 den himself with worldly affairs. 
 
 The Prelate is separate from the kingdom of 
 Christ, and thrusteth himself into the throng of the 
 world,—he would be called My Lord, and Your 
 Grace; and, without respect of age or gifts, preferreth 
 himself to the most reverend pastors: he robbeth the 
 nobility and magistrates of their places and dignities, 
 and will have his cushion, his coach, and his courtly 
 train: he is a lord of parliament, of council and ses¬ 
 sion, a baron, a steward, a judge of civil and criminal 
 causes; and why not bishop of the order of the garter, 
 and count palatine, that at last he may have both 
 
 evangelist over another evangelist, nor elder over another elder, nor 
 deacon over another deacon; but all are equal. 
 
 1 Deut. xxxiii. 8; Ezek. xxxiii. 7; Zech. xi. 17; Matt, xxiii. 9; 
 Luke ix. 59; xii. 13; xxii. 24; John xxi. 15; Acts vi. 2; Rom. i. 1; 
 2 Tim. ii. 4. 
 
26 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 swords and the triple crown, as the Abimelech-like 
 brambles of the world have done before. 
 
 10. The Pastor taketh the sum and forms of prayer 
 from the directions of God, from the Lord’s prayer, 
 and from the prayers of the godly in divers places of 
 Scripture, the particular arguments and petitions from 
 the present purposes, persons, places, times, and occa¬ 
 sions, which, as the mouth of the congregation, ac¬ 
 cording 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. 1 
 
 The Prelate would tie the pastor, (albeit he had 
 the tongue of an angel,) and occasions never so con¬ 
 trary, to certain words, and a set form of liturgy, and 
 would divide the prayer betwixt pastor and people, 
 and by many idle repetitions, would bring both pastor 
 and people under the guiltiness of vain babbling and 
 popish superstition. 
 
 11. The Pastor thinketh it the principal part of his 
 ministry to labour in the word and doctrine, because 
 woe is unto him if he preach not the gospel. 2 And 
 when he preacheth he will have God’s word only to 
 sound in his own house,—reading nothing but the 
 canonical text, and comparing scripture with scripture 
 for edification, that he may save himself and those 
 that hear him. 
 
 The Prelate thinketh of preaching as accessory, 
 and would have it worn out of use by a long dead 
 
 1 Matt. vi. 7—9, &c.; Luke xi. 1; Exod. xxxii. 11; Num. xiv. 13 ; 
 Acts ii. 5; xvi. 16, &c. 
 
 2 Acts xxviii. 23; Rom. x. 15; 1 Cor. i. 21; ix. 16; 1 Pet. iv. 11; 
 
 2 John x; 1 Cor. iii. 12, &c. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 27 
 
 liturgy. In reading he would have no difference be¬ 
 twixt the Apocrypha and the canonical Scripture, and 
 liketh best such sermons as are stuffed with philoso¬ 
 phers, poets, orators, schoolmen, and ancients in Greek 
 and Latin, that he may preach himself, and be ad¬ 
 mired of those that hear him. 
 
 12. The Pastor loveth no music in the house of 
 God but such as edifieth, 1 and stoppeth his ears at 
 instrumental music, as serving for the pedagogy of the 
 untoward Jews under the law, and being figurative 
 of that spiritual joy whereunto our hearts should be 
 opened under the gospel. 
 
 The Prelate loveth carnal and curious singing to 
 the ear, more than the spiritual melody of the gospel, 
 and therefore would have antiphony and organs in 
 the cathedral kirks, upon no greater reason than other 
 shadows of the law of Moses; or lesser instruments, as 
 lutes, citherns, or pipes, might be used in other kirks. 
 
 13. The Pastor ministereth baptism in the place 
 of the public assemblies of God’s people, 2 —it being a 
 note of our Christian profession, and a protestation of 
 our faith, and therefore should be celebrated publicly, 
 as well as ordination of ministers, excommunication, 
 confession of converts, or reconciliation of penitents. 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxix. 25. Not in the synagogues, but at the temple, and 
 for that time of ceremonial worship. 1 Cor. xiv. 19. 26; Eph. v. 18, 
 19 ; Col. iii. 16. 
 
 2 Matt, xxviii. 19, and all other places showing baptism to be a note 
 discerning Christians from Infidels. 1 Pet. iii. 21, and such places 
 proving baptism to be a sign of Christian profession. Matt, iii., the 
 baptism at Jordan solemn, and what was done privately by the apos¬ 
 tles, as sometimes was in the infancy of the kirk, which cannot now 
 be a rule to us in a kirk constituted. 
 
28 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The Prelate hath given place to private baptism, 
 and thereby entertaineth the superstitious conceit of 
 the necessity of baptism, bringeth in the absurdity of 
 conditional baptism, and maketh a ready way for pri¬ 
 vate persons and midwives to baptise. 
 
 14. The Pastor, as the words of the institution 
 prescribe, and after the example of Christ and his 
 apostles, hath a table prepared for the celebration of 
 the Lord’s Supper i 1 he sitteth down in a public com¬ 
 munion with the congregation, in the most-custom¬ 
 able and comely form of sitting, far from all danger 
 of idolatry; when he hath given thanks, he breaketh 
 the bread sacramentally; when he delivereth the ele¬ 
 ments he uttereth the words of promise, This is my 
 body, this is my blood, demonstratively; the people 
 distribute the bread and cup among themselves lov¬ 
 ingly; they eat and drink in such measure as they 
 may find themselves refreshed sensibly; and as before 
 the action they were prepared by diligent examina¬ 
 tion and powerful sermons, for trying themselves, so 
 in the time of the action their ears and their hearts 
 are filled with pertinent readings and pithy exhorta¬ 
 tions, and, after the action, dismissed with joy, with 
 strength, and with spiritual resolution, to the great 
 honour of God. the enlargement of the kingdom of 
 Christ, the terror of antichrist, the peace of the kirk, 
 and the unspeakable comfort of their own souls. 
 
 1 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. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 29 
 
 The Prelate pretending the words of the ninety- 
 fifth Psalm, and, after the example of antichrist and 
 his followers, hath turned the table into an altar-like 
 cupboard,—the table gesture of sitting into the ador¬ 
 ing gesture of kneeling (with no better excuse of 
 idolatry than is expressed in the obscure terms of 
 abstractive ab objecio , and objectum a quo significa¬ 
 tive), —the public communion into a private action 
 betwixt him and the communicant,—the sacramental 
 breaking into a preparative carving before the action, 
 —the enunciative words of the institution into a form 
 of a prayer or oblation,—the Christian distribution 
 into a steward-like partition,—the refreshment of eat¬ 
 ing and drinking into a pinched tasting,—the prepara¬ 
 tory examination and preaching into a schismatical 
 disputation about kneeling and sitting,—the spiritual 
 exhortations in the time of the action, either in a 
 dumb guise and comfortless deadness, or in a confu¬ 
 sion of the readers reading, and his own speaking at 
 the giving of the elements, both at one time,—and 
 the spiritual joy, strength and resolution after the 
 action, into 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 antichrist, rending of the kirk, obdur- 
 ing of the papist, stumbling of the weak, and grief of 
 the godly. 
 
 15. The Pastor thinketh it no Judaism nor super¬ 
 stition, but a moral duty to observe the Sabbath. 1 
 
 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. IQ* 
 
 2 
 
30 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 Because, first , the observation of one day of seven, 
 albeit it be positively divine, yet it is not ceremonial 
 nor for a time, but unchangeable, and obligeth perpe¬ 
 tually, as is manifest by the time when it was appoint¬ 
 ed before the fall, when there was no type of redemp¬ 
 tion by Christ, and by numbering it among the ten 
 precepts of the moral law, written by the finger and 
 proclaimed by the voice of God, which cannot be 
 said of any changeable law. Neither can it be called 
 perpetual and moral in this sense, that a certain time 
 is to be allotted to divine worship; for then the build¬ 
 ing 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 Sabbath from the last to the first 
 day of the week is by divine authority, from Christ 
 himself, from whom it is called the Lord’s day, who 
 is Lord of the Sabbath, who did institute the worship 
 of the day, and rested from his labours that day, 
 whereon all things were made new by his resurrec¬ 
 tion, 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 Chris¬ 
 tian liberty than it was to Adam, in his innocence, to 
 keep one of the seven, and therefore he laboureth to 
 make the Sabbath his delight,—observeth it himself— 
 and by his doctrine, example and discipline, teacheth 
 others to do the like; and to cease not only from all 
 servile works which require great labour of the body, 
 but from all our own works whatsoever, drawing our 
 minds from the exercises of religion, and serving for 
 our own gain and commodity, except in the case of 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 31 
 
 necessity, caused by divine providence. He would 
 have it well considered wherein the Jews were more 
 strictly obliged than Christians, and what liberty we 
 have that they had not. Beside the Sabbath he can 
 admit no ordinary holidays appointed by man, 
 whether in respect of any mystery, or of difference 
 of one day from another, as being warranted by mere 
 tradition, against the'doctrine of Christ and his apos¬ 
 tles, but accounteth the solemn fasts and humiliations 
 unto which the Lord calleth, to be extraordinary 
 sabbaths, warranted by God himself. 
 
 The Prelate, by his doctrine, practice, example, 
 and neglect of discipline, declareth that he hath no 
 such reverend estimation of the Sabbath. He doteth 
 so upon the observation of Pasche, Yule, and festival 
 days appointed by men, that he preferreth them to 
 the Sabbath, and hath turned to nothing our solemn 
 fasts and blessed humiliations. 
 
 16. The Pastor findeth that every part of his 
 office, and every name whereby he is called in Scrip¬ 
 ture, doth call upon him to be personally resident, 1 
 and where he resideth, to be a terror to the wicked 
 and a comfort to the godly. 
 
 The Prelate either waiteth upon council, session, 
 or court, or dwelleth so far from his charge, that the 
 speech of Caranza (proving the necessity of the per¬ 
 sonal residence of bishops), may be applied to him: 
 “ He is a bishop, but without overseeing,—an am- 
 
 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 apostolic writings ; and how can he be a bishop, a shep¬ 
 herd, a watchman, &c., that is a non-resident. 
 
32 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 bassador, but runneth where his errand lieth not,—a 
 captain and soldier, but far from his station,—a father 
 and steward, but suffereth the children to perish for 
 want of food.” Or if he happen to be resident, his 
 lordship is a protection to the papist, to the carnal 
 professor, and to the idol-minister and idle-belly, and 
 such a vexation to the vigilant pastor, that he had 
 much rather he were a non-resident. 
 
 17. The Pastor must be so unblameable, that he 
 have a good testimony of them that are without. 1 
 He must rule well his own house, having his children 
 in subjection, with all gravity, not accused of riot, or 
 unruly. He must be sober, not given to wine ; he 
 must not be greedy of filthy lucre, nor covetous ; he 
 must not be a brawler, a striker, or fighter. 
 
 The Prelate mocketh at conscience, gravity, so¬ 
 briety, modesty, patience, painfulness, &c., and call- 
 eth 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. 2 
 
 The Prelate, by losing a good conscience, maketh 
 shipwreck of faith, and by the curse of God upon his 
 sloth and defection, may find himself like Balaam, 
 who seeking horns did lose his ears—that is, seeking 
 preferment he lost the gift of prophesy, and may see 
 
 1 2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Tim. iii. 2—8 ; iv. 12; 2 Tim. i. 13 ; Tit. i. 6, 
 and ii. 7. 
 
 2 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. 14. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 33 
 
 grace decayed, and worn out of the hearts of the 
 people. 
 
 The Prelate's objection. —The Prelate will ob¬ 
 ject, 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 ansiver. —The question is not of the 
 bishop, but of the prelate or diocesan bishop, whether 
 he be the divine bishop. Haman could think upon 
 no man but himself, when the man was named whom 
 the king would honour ; even so the prelate imagin- 
 eth no other bishop to be spoken of in Scripture but 
 himself. And as Alexander the great took Jupiter’s 
 ominous salutation, z naidiov [0 child or babe,] for 
 iZ rtai Aios [0 son of Jupiter,] 1 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 neces¬ 
 sity of his calling. 
 
 l Kxrx m tQn ret; xx^oatru; cnijj.Cx.tvuv. Dixit Arist. in Metaphys. 
 
 2 * 
 
34 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The divine bishop is bound by his calling to preach 
 with all diligence. 
 
 4. The diocesan bishop hath no particular congre¬ 
 gation for his flock, to feed with the word and sacra¬ 
 ments. 
 
 The divine bishop is tied to a particular flock. 
 
 5. The diocesan bishop is, for the greater part, a 
 secular person. 
 
 The divine bishop is a person merely ecclesiastical. 
 
 Therefore the diocesan bishop is not the divine 
 bishop, neither doth the word of God acknowledge 
 any diocesan kirk, or any prelate or diocesan bishop 
 charged with the care of many particular congrega¬ 
 tions, and having majority of power to direct and cor¬ 
 rect other pastors. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY ANTIQUITY, AND TIIE PROCEED¬ 
 INGS OF THE ANCIENT KIRK. 
 
 Antiquity, and the primitive kirk, the fathers of two sorts.—The main- 
 tainers of conformity forget themselves about antiquity three ways. 
 —The pastor is not older than the New Testament, the prelate 
 would fetch his prelacy from the Old Testament.—The pastor, and 
 not the prelate, warranted by Christ.—The pastor, and not the pre¬ 
 late, warranted by the apostles.—The pastor keepeth his place and 
 authority in the primitive kirk, when the prelate beginneth to 
 work, and to be constant moderator, or perpetual president.—The 
 pastor seeketh no honour but by his doctrine and life; the prelate 
 forsaketh this way, and taketh him to the world.—The pastor wit¬ 
 nessed 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 per¬ 
 secuted them that complained.—The pastor desired, and urged a 
 reformation, which, by. all means, the prelate refused.— Objection , 
 The Christian kirk, for three hundred years, had such bishops as 
 we have now.— Answer, Showing, in ma^iy particulars, the differ¬ 
 ence between the primitive bishops and our prelates, who are like 
 unto the Roman bishops, in the most corrupt times. 
 
 We reverence the hoary head and name of antiquity, 
 but, withal, we know that there is antiquity of truth 
 and antiquity of error, and therefore would make dif¬ 
 ference betwixt original antiquity, or that which was 
 from the beginning, and of the first institution and 
 
36 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 antiquity of custom, or that which is of long continu¬ 
 ance. They that take themselves 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 compared with the ages following, 
 but would have it, in comparison of the apostolic kirk, 
 to be esteemed but derivative, as which admitted 
 many changes, from better to worse, both in doctrine 
 and discipline. We honour the fathers, but so that we 
 give the first honour to the Father of fathers, besides 
 whom we have no father—to his Son Jesus Christ, 
 the only prophet, whom we should hear—to the 
 Holy Ghost, who only teacheth us the truth, and to 
 the Holy Scripture, which only carrieth their divine 
 authority. Wishing all that are studious of the truth, 
 in the point of the controversy in hand, to take notice 
 of these two things: First, that the maintainers of 
 conformity many ways forget themselves in the mat¬ 
 ter of the authority of the fathers, for albeit they daub 
 us with the fathers, the ancients, and all antiquity, yet 
 they themselves will not hear the voice of the fathers 
 in their disputes, whether against papists, whom they 
 answer with the same exceptions against the fathers 
 which we bring in this cause against them, or in their 
 
 l Licet Christus post crenam instituerit, et suis discip. minislrave- 
 rit sub utraque specie panis et vini hoc venerible Sacramentum: 
 tamen hoc non obstante, sacrorum canonum auctoritas et approbata 
 consuetudo ecclesiam servavit et servat, &c. Caranza summa cone. 
 Const, sess. 13. distinguitur a Juristis, ipsa primativa ecclesia in pri- 
 mam et secundam. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 37 
 
 disputes with us, when the fathers make against them; 1 
 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 them¬ 
 selves in this, that albeit they know that the witness 
 and not the testimony, is to be believed, they allege, 
 notwithstanding, some counterfeit, some corrupted 
 authors, and some late schoolmen, 2 for the ancient 
 fathers, against us. Becanus, Calvin, Beza, Mar¬ 
 tyr, 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 mean¬ 
 est, that carrie.th the name of antiquity, 3 unto the wor¬ 
 thiest instruments of that blessed work of Reforma¬ 
 tion, who had, above all that went before them, many 
 
 1 Whitgiftus, Socratem Novatianum et Puritanum vocat. Saravia 
 contra Bez. dicit Hieronimum aperte Arianum esse, Dounamus contra 
 omnes patres, negat Petrum Romse episcopum fuisse, &c. 
 
 2 Quales sunt, auctor libri, qui canones Apostolorura inscribitur, 
 Clemens, Romanus, Ignatius, Dyonisius, Areopagita, Egesippus, Do- 
 rotheus, &c. De quibus, Mortonus contra pontificios, Larvati isti 
 auctores pueris terriculamento esse possunt, viris autem cordatis, 
 esse ludibrio debent. 
 
 3 Vitium malignitatis humanee, ut vetera semper in laude, prce- 
 sentia sint in fastidio. Tacit. Miraturque nihil, nisi quod Libitina 
 sacravit. Horat. Nec nos sumus nani, nec illi gigantes, sed omnes 
 ejusdem statures, et quidem nos altius evecti, eorum beneficio, maneat 
 modo in nobis quod in illis studium, attentio animi, vigilanti® et 
 amor veri, quee si absint, jam non nani sumus, nec in gigantum hu- 
 meros sedemus, sed homines instar magnitudinis humi prostrati. 
 Ludov. vivis de causis corrup. art. lib. 1. 
 
38 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 great helps of the languages of human literature and 
 of printing, and to whom many secrets were made 
 known by the accomplishment of prophecies, espe¬ 
 cially concerning the antichrist, who, being conceived 
 in the apostles’ times, was brought forth and brought 
 up unwittingly by the fathers, who looked for the anti¬ 
 christ from another quarter, which maketh them to be 
 incompetent judges in the matter of hierarchy and 
 ceremonies thereof. The Romanists themselves, who 
 profess to be the greatest 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 imper¬ 
 tinent similitude, that we, being compared to the an¬ 
 cients, 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 an¬ 
 tiquity, and uncertain where to find it, some go back to 
 the Old Testament, to bring the prelate’s pedigree from 
 thence; some would bring his descent from Christ; 
 some from the apostles; and a fourth sort from the pri¬ 
 mitive kirk. But before they get a sight of their own 
 prelate in his pomp, in his power, and in his busk of 
 ceremonies, they must go farther down the stream, till 
 they come in sight of the antichrist, and there they 
 shall see him not far off, waiting on, as may be appa¬ 
 rent by this which followeth:— 
 
 1. The Pastor acknowledgeth the difference of the 
 
 kirk and ministry of the Old and New Testaments; 
 
 % 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 39 
 
 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 an¬ 
 cients, as Jerome and others, who insist on the simili¬ 
 tude of the ministers of the Old and New Testaments, 1 
 as speaking by the way of allusion, and not from any 
 warrant of divine translation. 
 
 The Prelate, searching the fountains of Nilus, 
 would bring his descent as high as from Levi, as if 
 the chief priests, who had no episcopal authority over 
 their brethren, were turned now into prelates; the 
 inferior priests into pastors; and the Levites, who had 
 no proper care of the poor, were changed into our 
 deacons. He bringeth the ancients to reckon this 
 genealogy, but with such success as the sons of Ha- 
 baiah had, when they failed in reckoning their line 
 from Aaron, and so proved unworthy of the priest¬ 
 hood, Neliem. vii. 63, 64. 
 
 2. The Pastor hath an ordinary and perpetual 
 office appointed by Christ, but the office of the apostle 
 and evangelist was extraordinary, 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 suc¬ 
 cessors to the apostles, yet neither is the one kind of 
 office compatible with the other, nor can the one pro¬ 
 perly 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 
 
 1 Mutato sacerdotio mutatur et lex. Ileb. vii. 12. Ex figura com- 
 muni, sine exemplo, nihil concludi necessario potest. Jun. de pontif. 
 
 2 Apost. et evang. primum officia, deinde duo extraordinaria, sig- 
 
40 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 that which the inferior may not do, but his manner of 
 doing of that which is common to both, is far higher 
 and more eminent. 
 
 The Prelate, repelled by the office-bearers of the 
 Old Testament, seeketh to enter with his directive 
 power and jurisdiction among the ministers of the 
 gospel, but with like success. For a pastor and doc¬ 
 tor, his power over pastors and doctors suffereth them 
 not to be. He urgeth to be taken in with the apostle 
 or evangelist, and to be esteemed successor to them, 1 
 but his office and theirs is not compatible; for for¬ 
 merly their office was extraordinary and without suc¬ 
 cession, and materially his office is not contained in 
 their offices, as is the office of a pastor; there being 
 no example in Scripture, without the office of apostle 
 or evangelist, of such power as the prelate claimeth. 
 Whether his life and form of ministration be apostoli¬ 
 cal, all that know him may discern. 
 
 3. The Pastor, and not the prelate, is the first 
 minister (by the prelate’s own confession) whom the 
 apostles appointed in kirks when they first planted 
 them. The pastor, and not the prelate, is the minister 
 whom the apostles in their time did approve; and the 
 pastor, and not the prelate, is the last minister to whom 
 the apostles, when they were to remove, or were near 
 unto death, did recommend the care of the kirks; and 
 
 nificant officium apostoli et evang. continet in se officium presbyteri 
 eminenter, sed non formaliter, officium autem episcopi hierarchici, 
 nec eminenter, quia non datur episcopatus extra apostolatum, quern 
 contineat eminenter, sicut datur presbyteratus. 
 
 i In gradum nemo successit apostolis et evang. in caput succedunt 
 pastores ordinarii. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 41 
 
 therefore the pastor, and not the prelate, is the minis¬ 
 ter warranted by the apostles. 
 
 The Prelate, denied of Christ, would father him¬ 
 self upon the apostles, and finding no warrant from 
 their doctrine or practice in Scripture, albeit the Acts 
 of the apostles contain the history of many years after 
 Christ’s ascension, he seemeth to be sure of the eccle¬ 
 siastical history recorded in the apostles’ times, 1 and 
 by apostolic institution, a begun succession of bishops 
 in Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, &c. But 
 here also he standeth without, because the bishops of 
 those places were either apostles, and therefore could 
 not be properly bishops, or else ordinary pastors, of 
 no greater place nor power, except for age and gift, 
 than other presbyters labouring with them. Such 
 were Linus, Clemens, Cletus, Anacletus,—fellow- 
 presbyters at Rome at one time,—one of them living 
 some space after another; and, to show the order of 
 succession from the apostles again'st heretics who 
 urged it, they were numbered as if they had not lived 
 at one time; and in the line of succession were called 
 bishops by Eusebius, and others after him, agreeable 
 to the corruption of their own times, 2 when now men 
 had, of their own head, put a difference betwixt a 
 bisbop and a pastor, and not according to the purity 
 
 1 Intervallum illud ab ult. c. Act. apost. ad medium, Trajani impe- 
 rium plane cum Varrone olS»\gv vocari potest. Joseph. Scalig. pro- 
 legom. in Chronicon Eusebii. 
 
 2 Ut hiatum expleret Euseb. at rav umQicncev, dementis nescio cujus 
 
 (non est enim ille eruditus Alexandrinus o a-^^ty.a.'xiuz) me 
 
 mnciCtChcu Ilegesippi, non melioris scriptoris sine delectu, ea depromp- 
 sit. Idem. 
 
 3 
 
42 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 of the primitive times, of which they did write, when 
 a pastor and a bishop was one and the same. 
 
 4. The Pastor is the divine and apostolic bishop, 
 of the lawfulness of whose calling and power in the 
 primitive kirk, after the apostles, there was no ques¬ 
 tion. The pastor by consent of antiquity, (when now, 
 by human wisdom, the constant moderator was 
 brought in and called the bishop) had right and power, 
 not by grant, but by his office, not only to preach the 
 word, minister the sacraments, and use the keys in 
 binding and loosing the conscience, but also, with 
 the fellow-presbyters, to ordain ministers; 1 and in 
 the presbyterial, provincial, and national assemblies, 
 to decide controversies, to make constitutions, to in • 
 diet 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 1 antichrist was set in his chair, and 
 prelacy, for the most part, of human was become sa- 
 tanical. 
 
 The Prelate, holden at the door by Christ and his 
 apostles, after their times, by the ambition of some 
 pastors and simplicity of others, 2 when he had long 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 Paulatim quamvis patribus nihil minus cogitantibus, gradui epis- 
 copali aditus humanitus apertus, per quern mox ingressa ambitio, gra- 
 dum istum initio quidem in Oligarchiam, ac tandem in horrendam 
 illam Antichristianam tyrannidem cecumenicam evexit, baud satis scio 
 an unquam abolendam nisi semel sublatis quibus eo ascendit gradibus, 
 in ordinem divinre institutionis redigatur. Beza de grad. cap. 23. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 43 
 
 hung on, got in the foot to be constant moderator; but 
 not finding entry at the first for his great head, made 
 up of sole ordination, of monarchial jurisdiction, of 
 civil power, worldly pomp and superstitious ceremo¬ 
 nies, 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 hun¬ 
 dreds 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 honor of his min¬ 
 istry, by holding forth the glorious light of the gospel 
 in his doctrine, and the shining light of holiness in his 
 conversation; esteeming the preaching of the glad 
 tidings of peace to be the beauty of ministers, and 
 righteousness their robe and ornament. 
 
 The Prelate took him to the contrary course for 
 his credit, and transformed the beautiful simplicity of 
 Christ’s kingdom into the glory of the kingdom of 
 the world. Albeit when he was of his old stamp his 
 greatest dignity was his chair, and faithful teaching 
 the flower of his garland, yet now, degenerating from 
 his first sincerity, and being infected with secular 
 
44 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 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 abase work, was given over to the petty 
 presbyters, and every office in the kirk was counted a 
 dignity worthy of honour, less or more, as it had more 
 or less jurisdiction annexed; as those are more or less 
 honourable in the commonwealth, that have more or 
 less civil authority; and thus prelacy came up, and 
 preaching came down, and the kirk became more 
 worldly than the world itself. 
 
 6. The Pastor, when all was going wrong, some 
 raising contentions, others gaping after honours, the 
 brains of many being big with heresies, all given to 
 heap up superstition and atheism; 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 temple, 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 deluge of defection. 
 
 The Prelate, once possessed into the kirk, never 
 ceased till he had changed the kirk into a court; 
 power ecclesiastical into civil policy ; the Scripture 
 into tradition; the truth into heresy; sincerity into 
 superstition ; the worship of God into idolatry—as the 
 worship of images, saints and bread-worship; the 
 pure ordinances of God into masses, altars, images, 
 garments, fasting, and follies of Paganism and Judaism, 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 45 
 
 like a smoke out of the bottomless pit, growing 
 grosser and thicker every day; and, in the midst of 
 the mist, built up his greatness upon the ruins not only 
 of the kirks, but of the commonwealths of the world; 
 for when the stars of heaven fell into the earth, the 
 mountains and islands were moved out of their places; 
 and as this unhappy milt swelled big in the body, 
 with wealth and honour, the life of religion became 
 faint, the princes and nobles of the earth, like the no¬ 
 ble 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: 1 that she had brought up and exalted her 
 sons, and they had despised her. If a professed here¬ 
 tic should arise, she could cast him forth of her bosom; 
 if a violent enemy, she could hide herself from him ; 
 but now, whom could the kirk cast out, or from whom 
 shall she hide herself? All are friends, and yet all 
 are enemies; all are domestics, and yet none seek her 
 true peace, for all seek their own things, and not the 
 things of Jesus Christ. They are the ministers of 
 Christ, and serve the antichrist. He complaineth that 
 devotion had brought forth riches, and the mother 
 
 l Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima, amara prius in ncce 
 martyrum, amarior post in conflictu hereticorum, amarissima nunc in 
 moribus domesticorum, &c. Bern, super. Cant. 
 
46 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 had devoured her daughter :* that of old the bishops 
 were of gold, and the cups of wood, but now the 
 bishops have changed their metal with the cups : 1 2 that 
 of old, Christians had dark kirks but lightsome 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 
 commanded!: 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 condescended 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 covetous¬ 
 ness above the Pharisees’. They suffered doves to be 
 sold in the temple, but these sell both kirk and sacri¬ 
 fice. Their pride and ambition declared in their great 
 
 1 Devotio peperit divitias, et filia devoravit matrem. Bern, super. 
 Cant. 
 
 2 Olim fuerunt lignei calices, et aurei sacerdotes: nunc contra 
 sunt aurei calices et lignei sacerdotes, vulgo jactitatum. 
 
 3 Olim habuisse Christianos obscura templa, sed lucida corda: 
 nunc contra habere lucida templa sed obscura corda. Et sequentia. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 47 
 
 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 hun¬ 
 gry 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 himself against the doctrine and com¬ 
 plaint of the pastors,—-condemning them for heretics, 
 giving out against them decrees of corrupt councils, 
 thundering them with anathematisms, and persecuting 
 them by fire and sword. He punished the clergy 
 under him more severely for the neglect of a ceremo¬ 
 ny than for sacrilege or adultery; and finally, lest his 
 fraud and falsehood should be known, he forbade all 
 men the reading and using of the holy Scriptures. 
 
 8. The Pastor, and all good men that longed and 
 laboured for the Reformation of the Christian kirk, for 
 the space of five hundred years, as the Waldenses, 
 Marsilius Patavinus, Wickliffe and his scholars, Husse 
 and his followers, and all such as the Lord used for 
 instruments in working the Reformation, as Luther, 
 Calvin, Brentius, Bullingerus, Musculus, &c., did teach 
 that all pastors are of equal authority by the word of 
 God, and all that space of time urged this point of 
 reformation, as without which no success could be 
 expected in the reformation of the doctrine and wor¬ 
 ship. 1 
 
 i Dr. Reynold’s letter to Sir Francis Knowles, concerning Dr. 
 Bancroft’s sermon, 1588, maketh this clear. 
 
48 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The Prelate knowing (as it was often preached 
 and written all that time of five hundred years) that 
 the main cause of the corruptions of the kirk was his 
 own place, his pride, and his avarice, and that the 
 desired and urged reformation of the kirk, which was 
 now brought to that pass, that as one says well, she 
 could neither bear her own disease nor yet 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 bring¬ 
 ing it about, he could never be moved to give his con¬ 
 sent, so dear was his mitre and belly unto him. 
 
 The Prelate’s objection .—The Prelate will con¬ 
 fess, 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 hundred 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 Tertullian in 
 his time said unto the Gentiles, may be replied to our 
 prelates ,—“ Ye boast of antiquity, but your daily life 
 is after the new fashion.” Mr. Phantastico at Athens, 
 whensoever he perceived any ships entering into the 
 harbour, strongly apprehended that they were his own, 
 and used to seize upon them, as if they had been his 
 own indeed. So deal our prelates with the ancient 
 bishops, they come no sooner in their sight, but they 
 take them for their own, albeit they be very unlike 
 unto them, for were they living, they‘would blush and 
 be ashamed that such should be called their succes¬ 
 sors; as Angelo, the famous Italian painter, pourtray- 
 
THE PASTOK AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 49 
 
 ed 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: 1 
 
 Our parent’s age, worse than their predecessors, 
 
 Hath brought us forth more wicked, their successors; 
 
 Ere it be long, if we continue thus, 
 
 We 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 inap¬ 
 propriate) were neither ordained by bishops nor me¬ 
 tropolitans, but only chosen by pastors, to be their 
 constant moderators, or perpetual presidents, but with¬ 
 out warrant from God or his truth. 2 
 
 1 iEtas parentum, pejor avis tulit nos nequiores, mox daturus pro- 
 geniem vitiosiorem. Ilorat. 
 
 2 Ex his Ambrosii et Hieronimi constat primum, in ipsis ecclesioe 
 primordiis nullos tales episcopos fuisse, quales postea instituti fuere, 
 scilicet qui suo jure reliquis e clero praeessent; unde colligitur et non 
 esse id ipsum a Christo, et apostolis institutum: et (quando quidem 
 in eccl. id sit optimum quod primum) ecclesise fore consultius, ut 
 omnes presbyteri pari censerentur et jure et gradu. Secundo constat 
 ne turn quidem, cum hie episcoporum a presbyteris distinctorum ordo, 
 sive gradus est constitutus, fuisse episcopos tamquam monarchos, &c. 
 Chamier de cecumen. pontif. lib. 18, cap. 5, sect. 6. Respondeo patrum 
 auctoritatem nihil eflicere, ratio, quia non ostendunt nullum unquam 
 tempus extitisse cum essent episcopi pares presbyteris, sed tantum 
 ineequalitatem esse vetustissimam, ac vicinam apostolorum tempori- 
 bus, quod nos ultro fatemur. Idem Chamier, lib. 10, cap. 6, sect. 24. 
 
50 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 Our prelate must first, by a simulate form of elec¬ 
 tion, be made my lord elect, and then receive a new 
 consecration, with a new guise of ceremonies drawn 
 from the Roman pontifical, as little known to pure 
 antiquity as the words themselves of ordination, con¬ 
 secration, &c. 
 
 2d, The primitive bishops, looking more to the 
 beauty than dignity, suffered violence, and were con¬ 
 strained, by pastors and people, whether they would 
 or not, to receive the charge. 
 
 Our prelate, when the bishop is an old man, then 
 he standeth diligently and learneth fast, but only how 
 to make credit at court, and when after long expecta¬ 
 tion the place is void, by posting, promising, and pro- 
 pining, he procureth himself to be chosen, first with¬ 
 out 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, hav¬ 
 ing power over comprovincial bishops, his suffragans. 
 
 Our prelate prideth himself in this proud title, and 
 will have one and the same creature to be metropoli¬ 
 tan archbishop and primate, that what he may not do 
 as metropolitan, he may do as archbishop, and what 
 he may not as archbishop, he may as primate, and as 
 another pope. 
 
 4th, The primitive bishop was in the presbytery, 
 like the consul in the senate,—as first among the pres¬ 
 byters, he moderated in their meetings, reported mat¬ 
 ters previously done, and asked the voters what they 
 concluded: he saw it executed upon others, and was 
 subject to it himself. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 51 
 
 Our prelate, in the presbytery, will be like a king 
 in his council, and thinketb his authority no less with¬ 
 out the presbytery than with it; and what the synod 
 may do with the archbishop, that he may do without 
 the synod. 
 
 if 
 
 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 whs condemn¬ 
 ed by ninety bishops. Against Novatus were con¬ 
 vened eighty-four bishops. In some synods two 
 .hundred and seventeen; in some two hundred and 
 seventy. 
 
 Our prelate spreadeth his wings over several hun¬ 
 dreds of kirks, lying in divers provinces, wide as Merse, 
 Lothian, Fife, Angus, Mearns, &c. 
 
 As, therefore, our prelate was shown before not to 
 be the Lord’s bishop, authorized by Scripture, so is he 
 not man’s bishop, made up in the primitive times of 
 the kirk, but the same that we had before the Reforma¬ 
 tion, the same with the Italian, Spanish, or French 
 prelate under- the Pope, and the same with the anti- 
 christian prelates in the most corrupt times of the kirk, 
 especially the last five hundred years; excepting his 
 subordination to the Pope, by which exception our 
 princely prelate is made greater than the popish; and 
 what was written of the popish prelate in those times, 
 is now again reverified of ours, as of their civil offices 
 and advocations: 
 
 Vintoniensis armiger, 
 
 Prccsidet ad scacarium; 
 
 • Ad computandum impiger, 
 
52 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 Piger ad evangelium. 
 
 Sic lucrum Lucam superat, 
 
 Marcam marco prseponderat 
 Et libras librum subjicit. 
 
 Some bishops metropolitan 
 Preside at the Exchequer; j 
 For counting he’s a busy man, 
 
 To preach the gospel slacker. 
 
 Lucre worth is more than Luke, 
 
 And merks than Mark weigh better; 
 lie sets the pound above the book, 
 
 And cares not for the matter. 
 
 Of their zeal in urging ceremonies upon others, 
 while they failed in substance themselves, the old 
 poem called Asini Paenitentiarius, wherein the wolf 
 confesseth himself to the fox; and the fox to the wolf, 
 and both are absolved; but the poor ass, trusting to 
 his innocence for absolution, was condemned to die 
 by the other two, for no other cause but that, in his 
 extreme hunger, he had been so profane as to eat the 
 straw garters of a religious pilgrim. 
 
 Immensum scelus est injuria, quam perigrino 
 Fecisti: stramen surripiendo sibi. 
 
 Non advertisti, quod plura pericula passus, 
 
 Plurima passurus, quod peregrinus erat? 
 
 Non advertisti, quod ei per maxima terrre 
 Et pelagi spatia sit peragranda via ? 
 
 Totius ecclesiee fuerit cum nuncius iste, 
 
 Pertulit abstracto stramine damna Vise. 
 
 Cum sis confessus, cum sis convictus, habes ne 
 Quo tales noxas occuluisse queas ? 
 
 Es fur, ignoto cum feceris hoc peregrino: 
 
 Scis bene, fur quali dcbet honorc mori. 
 
 How great a sin were this to Jhee 
 A pilgrim poor to wrong; 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 53 
 
 Hadst thou not mind what dangers he 
 Had travelled far among ? 
 
 Couldst thou not think that he, dull ass, 
 B’hov’d pass through sea and land; 
 That nunce of holy kirk he was, 
 Running at their command. 
 
 Thou hast confess’d, convinced thou art, 
 Nothing thy crime can hide ; 
 
 Thief, thou didst eat his straw garters, 
 Death shall thee now betide. 
 

 PART III. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED IN THEIR JUDGMENT AND PRAC¬ 
 TICE 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 defec¬ 
 tion.—The pastor thinketh not that indifferent which doth good or 
 evil to the people’s souls; the prelate accounteth that indifferent 
 which doth neither good nor evil to his worldly estate.—The pastor 
 thinketh nothing indifferent that is warranted by the word; the 
 prelate every thing that is not fundamental.—The pastor findeth 
 the direction for ceremonies to be as perfect under the gospel as it 
 was under the law; but the prelate addeth unto it as if it were im¬ 
 perfect.—The pastor appointeth no new thing in the worship 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. 
 
 Besides the speculations of the schoolmen, divided 
 amongst themselves in their subtleties about things 
 indifferent, which work mightily upon men’s wits, but 
 more weakly upon their affections than to make any 
 great division, there hath been much ado in the kirk 
 since the beginning about adiaphorisms and things 
 indifferent. First , In the infancy of the Christian 
 kirk the heat and the contention was great betwixt 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 55 
 
 the converted Jews and Gentiles, about the keeping 
 of the ceremonies of the law, which before were com¬ 
 manded, 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 with¬ 
 out the warrant of his conscience ; that by all means 
 scandal should be avoided, as that which bringeth 
 wo upon him by whom it cometh, and destruction 
 upon him upon whom it cometh; and many such rules 
 of conscience and Christian prudence, which serve to 
 the kirk for direction in matters indifferent, to the 
 coming of Christ. Secondly , There was great busi¬ 
 ness about ceremonies, and things called indifferent, 
 in the infancy of the reformed kirks, in the time of the 
 interim, when, with so great power and persecution, 
 the Romish corruptions were forced again upon them, 
 under the name of indifference. At that time, politics 
 and worldly men, more careful of their own wealth 
 than of God’s truth, gave themselves to serve the 
 time, and received all that was obtruded under the 
 said cloak of indifference. These were accounted 
 friends to Augustus. Others of great gifts and esteem 
 in the kirk wished from their hearts that these cere¬ 
 monies 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 
 
56 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 commonwealth desolation. Such men, looking more 
 to unity than to verity, and more to the event than to 
 their own duty, were called prudent, wise and peace¬ 
 able men. A third sort, setting aside all sophistica¬ 
 tion, 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 wor¬ 
 ship is in danger, that then, for the honour of God, 
 confirmation of the truth, and edification of the 
 kirk, confession is necessary. “ He that confesseth 
 not me ;” “ He that is ashamed of me before men,” 
 &c. They taught that it was not lawful to sym¬ 
 bolize with the enemy; that in the case of con¬ 
 fession the smallest ceremonies are not indifferent; 
 that at such times the kirk should stand fast to her 
 liberty against such as would bring her into bondage; 
 that yielding to such ceremonies was a great scandal, 
 —it being a returning to the vomit, the patching of 
 an old clout upon a new garment,—and making the 
 weak to think that the reformation of the kirk was 
 not a work of God, but of man; that the untimely 
 change of ceremonies was a show of defection from 
 the whole reformation; that when the enemy urgeth 
 uniformity, his intention should be looked to, because 
 he never rests, but proceeds from the corruption of 
 outward worship to corrupt the doctrine, and to leave 
 nothing sound. Men that taught after this manner 
 were accounted, by the former, politicals, and by 
 peaceable formalists, to be contentious spirits and 
 troublers of the peace of the kirk. Thirdly , Albeit 
 the reformed kirks agree for the most part in the ge¬ 
 neral about the nature and use of things indifferent, 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 57 
 
 yet they go far asunder in the application of the gene¬ 
 ral to their particular practices. The Lutheran kirks 
 hold some things for indifferent which the kirk of 
 England receiveth not; and England holdeth a multi¬ 
 tude of ordinances about discipline and ceremonies 
 for indifferent which we take to be unlawful and be¬ 
 side the word: every kirk judging, or at least prac¬ 
 tising, according to their own measure of reformation. 
 All crept not forth of that Roman deluge equally ac¬ 
 complished. No marvel that some of them should 
 smell of the wine of fornication wherewith they all 
 for so many years were drunk. But obstinacy against 
 the incoming light, and the refusing of a further de¬ 
 gree of reformation is fearful; what is it, then, to 
 draw others back from the reformation, and to bind 
 them up again into their old chain of darkness! These 
 manifold contentions about things indifferent, and 
 ceremonies, have proved so pernicious, by defacing the 
 kingdom of Christ, setting up the tyranny of anti¬ 
 christ, dividing pastors, offending people, dismember¬ 
 ing the kirk, and almost putting out the life of true 
 piety, that we may truly say, Nothing hath proved 
 less indifferent to the kirk than the contentions about 
 things indifferent; and many have been more hot for 
 them than for the heart of true religion, because they 
 concern the face of the kirk, and, as Erasmus said in 
 another case, “ the crowns and bellies of kirkmen.” 
 Whether our old pastor or new prelate hath here the 
 greatest guiltiness will appear by this little that fol¬ 
 lowed!: 
 
 1. The Pastor ever feareth defection, and still 
 urgetli reformation, till every thing be done in the 
 
58 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 house of God according to the will of God. He ac¬ 
 counted! the constitution of a kirk that is but indiffer¬ 
 ently good, or midway betwixt idolatry and reforma¬ 
 tion, to be but like the lukewarmness of Laodicea. 
 
 The Prelate pleaseth himself in this, that there 
 be many kirks in worse case; he resteth in his indif¬ 
 ference and lukewarmness, and rather inclineth down¬ 
 ward to further defection, than aimeth at any higher 
 reformation; like the priests of Samaria, that were as 
 earnest against the true worship at Jerusalem, as they 
 were against Baal and his idolatry. 
 
 2. The Pastor looketh not to the world, but to 
 religion, in matters of religion, and therefore thinketh 
 not that indifferent in religion, which bringeth spiritual 
 good or evil upon the kirk and the souls of the people, 
 albeit that in their worldly estate it doth them neither 
 good nor evil. 
 
 The Prelate esteemeth many things indifferent in 
 religion, because they bring neither good nor evil to 
 his worldly estate, albeit they do good or evil to the 
 kirk, and to the souls of the people, and looketh more 
 to the world than to religion in matters of religion. 
 
 3. The Pastor acknowledgeth three degrees of 
 matters of faith; some to be of the foundation and 
 first principles of the doctrine of faith ; some to be 
 near the foundation, as the conclusions clearly follow¬ 
 ing 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 PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 59 
 
 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 indif¬ 
 ferent ; and wondereth that a wise man should be so 
 precise and puritanical, as to stand upon matters that 
 are not fundamental, but indifferent. For so he dis¬ 
 tinguished, 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 commandment, Deut. xii. 32, “ Every 
 word that I command you, that ye shall observe to 
 do; thou shalt not add unto it, neither shall ye dimi¬ 
 nish from it,” doth equally concern both: that the 
 mind of man, if left to itself, would prove as vain, 
 and foolish under the gospel as under the law, and 
 that Jesus Christ was faithful as a son in all the house 
 of God, above Moses, who was but a servant; and 
 therefore, albeit the ceremonial observations under the 
 law were many, which was the burden of the kirk 
 under the Old Testament, and ours be few, which is 
 our benefit, yet the determination from God, in all the 
 matters of his worship, he 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 translations of 
 
60 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 divine worship, of imitations of false worship, and of 
 inventions of will-worship, to succeed to the abolished 
 ceremonies under the law, which he interpreteth to be 
 the liberty and power of the Christian kirk in matters 
 indifferent, above the kirk of the Old Testament, but 
 is indeed the great door whereby himself and others, 
 (strange office-bearers, whereby days, altars, vestures, 
 cross, kneeling, and ail that Romish rabble’s shadow,) 
 have entered into the kirk of Christ, and which will 
 never be shut again till himself be shut out, who, 
 while he is within, holdeth it wide open. 
 
 5. The Pastor giveth no power to the kirk to 
 point other things in the worship of God, than are 
 appointed already by Christ, the only lawgiver of his 
 kirk, but to set down canons and constitutions about 
 things before appointed, and to dispose the circum¬ 
 stances of order and decency that are equally neces¬ 
 sary in civil and religious actions, and therefore 
 resolveth, first , that nothing positive, or that floweth 
 merely from institution, can be indifferent, or can be 
 appointed by the kirk; secondly, that reason may be 
 given from Christian prudence, why things are ap¬ 
 pointed by the kirk thus, and no other way ; and 
 thirdly , that the constitutions of the kirk about things 
 indifferent, cannot be universal for all times and kirks, 
 and therefore cannot be concluded upon any moral or 
 unalterable ground, which made the ancients to ob¬ 
 serve, 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 anew lawgiver, will appoint new 
 rites and mystical signs in the kirk, that depend upon 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 61 
 
 mere institution, and are not concluded upon any 
 reason of Christian prudence for such a time and 
 place, but upon grounds unchangeable, and therefore 
 obliging at all times and places, as is evident by the 
 reason that he bringeth for fesval days, kneeling in 
 the sacrament, &c. 
 
 6. The Pastor 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 mat¬ 
 ters most indifferent, which obligeth him to seek a 
 warrant from God for that which he doeth, that he 
 may do it in faith, to walk circumspectly, to take heed 
 to his own words, gestures, &c., and to do all that he 
 doth to the glory of God. 
 
 The Prelate abhorreth this doctrine as the foun¬ 
 dation 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 doubt¬ 
 ing, and some with a contradicting conscience. 
 
 7. The Pastor giveth ear to the Holy Ghost, 
 charging that we put no occasion to fall, nor stumb¬ 
 ling-block before our brethren, (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 wo to them by whom offences come 
 —against which no authority of man can stand, be- 
 
62 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 cause it can neither make scandal not to be, nor not 
 to be sin, nor not to be bis sin that giveth the scandal. 
 
 The Prelate, stopping his ear against the com¬ 
 mandment, charge, and threatening of the Holy Ghost, 
 whether he intend to give scandal or not, by his 
 manifold abuse of things indifferent, and especially 
 by receiving into the kirk again things called indif¬ 
 ferent, which, for their great abuse, were abolished, 
 giveth offence to all sorts; as the boldness and in¬ 
 crease 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 pre¬ 
 text 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 singular beyond your 
 neighbours in matters indifferent. 
 
 The Pastor’s answer .—The Prelate, persuading to 
 put away conscience, is not unlike the fox, who, 
 through his evil guiding, having lost his tail, would 
 have persuaded all his neighbours to part with theirs, 
 as an uncomely and unprofitable burden, that all 
 being like himself, his deformity might no more ap¬ 
 pear. A good conscience would please God in all 
 things, in substance and ceremony, but with due pro¬ 
 portion. 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 pre- 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 63 
 
 sicians, he is quite mistaken; for he that is so self- 
 precise that he will rather part with the purity of 
 God’s worship, and a good piece of the truth too, 
 than want a compliment of his lordly dignity, or piece 
 of his worldly commodity, or dish of his delicacy; 
 and not he that is so precise in the matters of God’s 
 worship, (wherein he hath no power to be liberal), 
 that he will forsake all to follow Christ: he and no 
 other is the right precisian. He calleth our pastors 
 and our professors puritans, and consequently here¬ 
 tics; 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 puritans; the one is the old here¬ 
 tical puritan, who, from the author of his sect, was 
 called Novatian, and from his heresy, Catharist or 
 Puritan—such a one our pastor is not, for, 
 
 1st, The puritan denied the baptism of infants. 
 
 The pastor waiteth on baptism, as a special part of 
 his calling, which the prelate doth not. 
 
 2d, The puritans had their own prelates, and liked 
 of prelacy. 
 
 The pastor in this is no puritan, but the prelate the 
 puritan. 
 
 3d, The puritan condemned second marriage as 
 unlawful. 
 
 The pastor maintaineth the honour of marriage 
 against the puritan, the papist, and the prelate’s ma¬ 
 nifold matrimonial transgressions. 
 
 4th, The puritan denied reconciliation, in some 
 cases, to penitents. 
 
64 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The pastor would be glad to see the prelate’s repen¬ 
 tance, notwithstanding his great defections, and that 
 in the time of peace, without the least essay of perse¬ 
 cution; and, therefore, our pastor is not a puritan. 
 
 The other sort is the new nicknamed puritan in 
 our times, wherein the papist calleth it puritanism to 
 oppose the Roman hierarchy; the Arminian account¬ 
 ed! it puritanism to defend God’s free grace against 
 man’s free will; the formalist thinketh it puritanism 
 to stand out against conformity; the civilian, not to 
 serve the time, and the profane thinketh it essential 
 to the puritan to walk precisely, and not to be pro¬ 
 fane,—and so essential is it, indeed, that if all were 
 profane there would be no puritan, for the profane 
 and the puritan are opposed. He then is the new 
 puritan that standeth for Christ against antichrist, 
 that defended! 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 reli¬ 
 gion in his heart (and this is his intolerable singulari¬ 
 ty,) and that stands at the staff’s end against the sins 
 of the time (and this is his pride); and thus, after this 
 way that the world calleth heresy, serveth he the God 
 of his fathers, who have all been puritans of this stamp 
 since the beginning. Abel, who was hated for his 
 holiness; Enoch, that walked with God; Noah, that 
 was a perfect man in his generation; Heber, that made 
 Peleg’s name a testimony that he was free of the 
 building of Babel; Moses, that stood upon an hoof; 1 
 Mordecai, that would not bow his knee; Daniel, that 
 
 i Exodus x. 20. 
 
THE PASTOR AND TIIE PRELATE. 
 
 65 
 
 would not hold his window shut; Eleazar, that would 
 not eat one morsel; Paul, that would not dispense 
 with one hour, nor with an appearance of evil; Mar¬ 
 cus Arethusas, that would not redeem his life with 
 the giving of an halfpenny to idolatry; Caius Sulpi- 
 tius, who was ever esteemed by the pagans a good 
 man, but that he was a Christian, &c., were they liv¬ 
 ing at this time they would not escape this censure, 
 and would be accounted good men if they were not 
 puritans. The widow of Sarepta who entertained 
 Elijah,—the Shunammite, the hostess of Elisha,— 
 Hannah, who, for multiplying prayers and pouring 
 out her heart before God, was rashly 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 Eunice, that 
 had a care that their children should have grace,—the 
 elect lady, the famous Hildgardis, who lived in the 
 twelfth century,—Mechthildes, Elisabeth the German, 
 and many more who censured the corruptions of the 
 kirk, and especially of the prelates of those times, and 
 prophesied of the Reformation, which they longed to 
 see, were they now living, would be censured for holy 
 sisters and doting puritans, and that the rock and 
 spindle had been fitter for them. Can any man or 
 woman be vexed with the filthy conversation of the 
 wicked, 2 Pet. ii.; be stirred up in spirit against idol¬ 
 atry, Acts xvii.; be hot in religion, Rev. iii.; fervent 
 in spirit, Rom. xii.; walk precisely, Eph. v.; fear an 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 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 by-word of the people, and mocked for a 
 puritan? It was the saying of Petrarch,—“ Simplicity 
 carrieth the name of foolishness, malice the name of 
 wisdom, and good men are so mocked that almost 
 none can be found to be mocked.” 
 
PART IV. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE REFORMATION AND FRO- 
 
 CEEDINGS OF OUR OWN KIRK. 
 
 The discipline and government of the kirk at the first began to be 
 reformed, and the prelate to be cast out.—The pastor proceedeth in 
 this point of reformation, and the prelate in his avarice and ambi¬ 
 tion.—At last prelacy is rooted out with consent of the whole kirk. 
 —The kirk, now reformed in doctrine and discipline, useth. her 
 authority against all sorts of sin, till men of episcopal disposition 
 make a new division again.—The pastor standeth to the reforma¬ 
 tion against episcopatus, which the prelate attaineth to at last by 
 many degrees and much working.—The way of the pastor’s refor¬ 
 mation, and the prelate’s defection, very contrary.—The pastor 
 beareth witness against the several degrees of defection, and fear- 
 eth 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 beginning 
 were prelates.— Answer, Showing particularly that the superin¬ 
 tendents were not prelates. 
 
 As no family or civil society where the fundamental 
 laws are neglected, and the lust of the flesh, the lust 
 of the eyes, and the pride of life are followed, can 
 continue long except it be reformed, even so the kirk 
 of God, through the disregard of the laws of God and 
 direction of Scripture, and through the ambition and 
 
68 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 covetousness of kirkmen, did fall away so far from 
 the first integrity that there was a necessity of refor¬ 
 mation, and nothing more certainly looked for, and 
 more plainly foretold, a long time before any of our 
 reformers, or Luther himself, came into the world. 
 This reformation, that could no longer be delayed, 
 was often urged, but never likely to be obtained in a 
 general council, nor with consent of the clergy and 
 court of Rome, to whom reformation was a certain 
 ruin; and, therefore, in several kingdoms, countries 
 and states of the Christian world, it was wonderfully 
 wrought by the Lord’s mighty power in his weak ser¬ 
 vants. Such were, amongst others, Baldus of Franc- 
 fort, Huss of Bohemia, Jerome of Prague, Luther of 
 Germany, Wickliffe of England, and our Knox of 
 Scotland; whereupon it came to pass, that although 
 one part of Christiandom knew not what another was 
 •doing, yet they all agreed (as may be seen in the Har¬ 
 mony of Confessions, published to the world) in the 
 most essential and fundamental matters of faith, be¬ 
 cause the Lord was master of that work, but had also 
 their own differences and degrees of reformation, 
 because men were the instruments, and they were not 
 angels but men that were to be wrought upon; for 
 whose divers dispositions in sundry nations there be¬ 
 hoved to be divers disadvantages to the work. We 
 are not rigid censurers of other reformed kirks, nor 
 are we separatists from them; but this we think, that 
 a twofold duty lieth upon us and them all, whatso¬ 
 ever be the measure of reformation. One is, (albeit 
 there be ever some catholic moderators that will be 
 trysters betwixt us and Rome, and think to agree 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 69 
 
 Christ and antichrist,) that we all with one heart praise 
 God for separating us from Sodom, resolving never to 
 return again where there be so many heresies both 
 against the common principles and particular articles 
 of faith, so manifold idolatry both against the first and 
 second commandment, so proud a hierarchy as can 
 neither stand with the spiritual kingdom of Christ nor 
 the civil kingdoms of princes, and so bloody a tyranny 
 against all who believe their heresies, to practice their 
 idolatry, and to be slavish to their hierarchy. Return¬ 
 ing 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 adi- 
 aphorists, who for their own particular ends make 
 many things, and show more things to be indifferent 
 in the worship of God, that under this pretext they 
 may bring them back that have been advanced before 
 them in the work of reformation; that we all praise 
 God with one heart for the measure that every one 
 hath attained unto; and they that are behind in refor¬ 
 mation, whatsoever their outward splendour be, envy 
 not them who have run before, or 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 accord¬ 
 ing 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 
 
 5 * 
 
70 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 looketh upon her late sudden and shameful defection, 
 but great and singular cause to praise God when she 
 looketh to his gracious dispensation. For as Scotland, 
 albeit far from Jerusalem, was one of the first nations 
 that the light of the gospel shone on when it appeared 
 to the Gentiles, and one of the last that kept the light 
 when the shadows of the hills of Rome began to 
 darken the earth; so when the sun came about again 
 at the Reformation, if this blessed light shone upon 
 others, all that had eyes to see, both at home 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 visible sun, 
 by the clear and comforting beams of the Sun of 
 righteousness, to be the sunny side of the Christian 
 world, whereof these following testimonies are suffi¬ 
 cient proof: 
 
 One of Mr. George Wishart , martyr .—“ This 
 realm shall be illuminated with the light of Christ’s 
 gospel as clearly as ever was realm since the days of 
 the apostles. The house of God shall be built in it, 
 yea, it shall not lack (whatsoever the enemy imagine 
 to the contrary) the very top-stone; the glory of God 
 shall evidently appear, and shall once triumph in des¬ 
 pite of Satan. But, alas! if the people shall be after 
 unthankful, then fearful and terrible shall the plagues 
 be that after shall follow.”— Hist, of the Kirk of 
 Scotland , p. 108 . 
 
 Another of Beza .—“ This is a great gift of God, 
 that ye have brought into Scotland together pure reli¬ 
 gion.and good order, which is the band to hold fast 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 71 
 
 the doctrine. I heartily pray and beseech for God’s 
 sake, hold fast those two together, so that ye may re¬ 
 member 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 
 epicureanism. Whosoever would have the kirk safe 
 let them beware of this pest; and, seeing ye have 
 timely dispatched it in Scotland, I beseech you never 
 admit it again, albeit it flatter with show of the pre¬ 
 servation of unity, which hath deceived many of the 
 best of the ancients.” 1 
 
 Ji third of the body of Confessions of Faith ”— 
 “ It is the rare privilege of the Kirk of Scotland be¬ 
 fore many, in which respect her name is famous even 
 among strangers, that about the space of four and fifty 
 years, without schism, let be heresy, she hath kept 
 and held fast unity with 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, resumed; and according 
 to that discipline, so near as might be, the whole go¬ 
 vernment of the kirk was disposed. By this means 
 all the seeds of schisms and errors, so soon as they 
 
 1 Magnum est hoc Dei munus quod una et religionem puram x.cti 
 ivrci^ixv doctrines, viz. retinendae vinculum in Scotiam intulistis. Sic 
 obsecro et obtestor haec duo simul retinete, ut uno amisso, alterum 
 diu permanere non posse semper memineritis. Sicut episcopi papa- 
 tum pepererunt, itapseudo episcopos, papatus reliquias, epicureis- 
 mum terris invecturos : hanc pestem caveant, qui salvam ecclesiam 
 cupiunt, et quum illam in Scotia in tempore profligaris ne quaeso illam 
 unquam admittas, quantumvis unitatis retinendae specie, quae veteres 
 etiam optimos multos fbfellit blandiatur. Bez. epist. lxxix. 
 
72 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 began to bud and show themselves, in their very breed¬ 
 ing and birth were smothered and rooted out. The 
 Lord God, of his infinite goodness, grant unto the king’s 
 most gracious majesty, to all the rulers of the kirk, 
 to the powers that are nurses of the kirk, that, accord¬ 
 ing to the word of God, they may keep perpetually 
 that unity and purity of doctrine! Amen.” 1 
 
 The fourth is of king James our late sovereign .— 
 “ The religion professed in this country, wherein I was 
 brought up, and ever made profession of, and wishes 
 my son ever to continue in the same, as the only true 
 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 Eng¬ 
 land, &c. I exhort my son to be beneficial to the 
 good men of the ministry, praising God that there are 
 presently a sufficient number of good men of them 
 in this kingdom, and yet are they all known to be 
 against the form of the English kirk.” 2 
 
 1 Est illud ecclesiae Scotanoe privilegium rarura prce multis, in quo 
 etiam, ejus nomen apud exteros fuit celebre, quod circiter anos plus 
 minus 54 sine schismate nedum heresi, unitatem cum puritate doc- 
 trina3 servaverit et retinuerit. Hujus unitatis adminiculum ex Dei 
 misericordia maximum fuit; quod paulatim cum doctrina Christi et 
 apostolorum disciplinary sicut ex verbo Dei est prasscripta una fuit 
 recepta, et quam proxime fieri potuit, secundum earn totum regimen 
 ecclesiasticum, fuit administratum. Hac ratione omnia schismatum, 
 atque errorum semina quam primum pullulare, aut se exerere visa 
 sunt, in ipsa quasi herba et partu sunt suffocata, et extirpata. Det 
 Dominus Deus pro immensa sua bonitate Regioe Majestati serenissi- 
 mse, omnibusque ecclcsiarum gubernatoribus, potestatibus ecclcsia? 
 nutritiis, ut ex Dei verbo illam unitatem, et doctrinae puritatem per- 
 petuo conservent. Amen. Corpus Confess, fidei, p. 6. 
 
 2 King James’s Baeilicon Doron. 
 
TIIE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 73 
 
 He praised God that he was bom to be a king in 
 the sincerest kirk in the world, &c. Assembly, 1590. 
 The prelates themselves, and the maintainers of con¬ 
 formity, dare not for shame open their mouths against 
 the work of God in the reformation, and against the 
 purity of their mother kirk, and therefore would have 
 her open her mouth in the defence of their hierarchy 
 and ceremonies, and do wrest her authority and pro¬ 
 ceedings 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 Spi¬ 
 rit of God, laboured to reform not only the doctrine, 
 sacraments and whole worship of God, but also the 
 discipline and whole government of the house of God, 
 by abolishing the jurisdiction of prelates, and all that 
 Roman hierachy ; as is manifest by their acknowledg¬ 
 ing no other ordinary and perpetual office-bearers in 
 the kirk but pastors, doctors, elders and deacons; 1 by 
 their petitioning that the rents of the prelates and of 
 their train should be converted to other uses; by their 
 subscribing the Helvetic Confession, 2 which censureth 
 prelacy for the invention of man, and by the letters 
 which they received from foreign kirks, congratulating 
 that they had timely purged the kirk of this proud 
 prelacy, that they had received with the doctrine the 
 discipline of Christ and his apostles, and willing and 
 obtesting them to beware of the pest of prelacy as 
 they loved the weal of the kirk. 3 
 
 The Prelate, not only in respect of his popish re- 
 
 l Books of Discipline. 2 Anno 1566. 3 Beza to Knox, 1571. 
 
74 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 ligion, 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 prelate’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 
 successors designed to such prelates as continued 
 obstinate papists, nor was episcopal authority con¬ 
 tinued in their persons that were converted, nor were 
 superintendents ordained to be new prelates. Only 
 some of the converted prelates, for want of means to 
 furnish others, were designed to be commissioners 
 of the kirk, as other ordinary pastors were, but with 
 bad success; for never one of them did good to the 
 kirk. 
 
 2. The Pastor and men of God, proceeding in the 
 work of reformation, acknowledged no government 
 of the kirk by the lordly domination of prelates, but 
 by the common consent and authority of assemblies, 
 which were of four sorts,—national, provincial, paro¬ 
 chial and presbyterial. The lineaments of the last 
 were drawn at the first when the weekly assemblies 
 were appointed for exercise of discipline and inter¬ 
 pretation of the Scriptures, but were not, nor could 
 not be, accomplished and perfectly established till the 
 light was spread, and particular kirks were planted in 
 the several quarters and corners of the land, that they 
 might make a number, and conveniently assemble in 
 presbyterial meetings. 1 
 
 i To these the superintendents were subject by an Act of Assem¬ 
 bly, 1562. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 75 
 
 The Prelate is restless, proceeds whither his ava¬ 
 rice and ambition carry him, and willing, in those 
 times, rather to be a titular or a tulchan 1 (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 arro¬ 
 gates authority over the kirk. 
 
 3. The Pastor and men of God, learning not from 
 Geneva, but from Scripture and daily experience, that 
 the government of prelates was full of usurpation and 
 of all sorts of corruption, whereof many did complain 
 that it had no warrant, and was never like to have 
 any blessing from God, resolved at last to strike at the 
 root ; 2 and, therefore, after many disputations in pri¬ 
 vate and public, consultations with the greatest divines 
 of other reformed kirks, and after long and mature 
 deliberations, the Second Book of Discipline, pronoun¬ 
 cing the jurisdiction and office of the prelate to be un¬ 
 lawful, was resumed by consent of the whole kirk; 
 an ordinance made that bishops betake themselves to 
 the charge of one congregation, and that they exer¬ 
 cise no civil jurisdiction; the Confession of Faith 
 sworn and subscribed, wherein they oblige themselves 
 to continue in the doctrine and discipline of this kirk. 
 The same year it was declared in the General Assem¬ 
 bly, that the office of the prelate was unlawful in 
 itself, and had no warrant in the word of God, there¬ 
 after renewed in covenant. 3 
 
 The Prelate and men of that disposition, having 
 
 i Leith, 1571, 2 Edinburgh, 1575, 3 Dundee, 1580. 
 
76 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 in the end nothing to oppone, professed that they 
 agreed in their consciences, consented to the Acts 
 of the kirk, swore to and subscribed the Confession of 
 Faith, renewed the covenant with the kirk, and helped 
 to put on the cope-stone of the kirk of God with their 
 own hands; like as the same Confession of Faith was 
 subscribed by those that are now in the proudest 
 places of prelacy, and who have proved since the 
 chief instruments of all the alterations in the discipline 
 and external worship of God, and ring-leaders in the 
 defection of the kirk, with what conscience may be 
 seen by their dishonest excuses, their poor shifts and 
 their shameless railings against that which they did 
 once so much reverence, all to be seen, as they are 
 published in print. 1 
 
 4. The Pastor and men of God, desiring to testify 
 their thankfulness for so singular favour vouchsafed 
 upon this kirk and nation, and to employ the benefit 
 of the discipline now established for the liberty of the 
 kingdom of Christ and against the tyranny of sin and 
 Satan, addressed themselves, all as one man, with 
 great fidelity and courage for the work of God, urged 
 residence and diligence in ministers, kept, with 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 
 
 i Tranent, 1604. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 77 
 
 and her rain, whereof the divine providence had dis¬ 
 appointed them in 1588. 
 
 The Prelate’s authority at this time lay dead, and 
 men of that disposition made no great din. But the 
 kirk then (unlike that which she is now,) comely as 
 Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners, against 
 all her enemies did stand whole and sound in unity 
 and concord of her ministers, authority of her assem¬ 
 blies, divine order of her ministry, and purity of exter¬ 
 nal 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, pre¬ 
 lacy, 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 
 December (as the enemy calumniates,) for after long 
 trial they were found faultless and faithful by his 
 majesty’s own testimony, nor yet upon that occasion, 
 for the meeting of the kirk for making that charge 
 was indicted before the 17th day; 1 but the cause was 
 a plot contrived before for procuring peace to the 
 popish lords, to make war among the ministry and to 
 divide them among themselves. For this effect fifty- 
 five problems were framed to call the established dis¬ 
 pline of the kirk in question, and, at one and the same 
 time, way was made for renconciliation of the popish 
 lords, and for restitution of the popish prelates. And 
 the schism of our kirk, so well compacted before, began 
 at that time, not upon their part who stand for the 
 discipline, but by some of the prelate’s disposition, 
 
 i Perth, 1596. 
 6 
 
78 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 that is, of flattering and worldly-minded ministers, 
 who gave other answers to thirteen of the fifty-five 
 articles concerning the government of the kirk than 
 their worthy brethren desired; so that, if the cause 
 or occasion maketh the schismatic, the prelate is the 
 schismatic and not the pastor. 
 
 5. The Pastor and men of God, as they had been 
 diligent to establish the government of the kirk ac¬ 
 cording to the will of Christ, and after it was, by the 
 blessing of God, established, were faithful in using it 
 for the honour of God and good of the kirk; so now, 
 when it began craftily to be called in question, were 
 careful, according to their office and oath, to stand 
 to the defence thereof, both against professed enemies 
 and against the schism begun by their own brethren; 
 albeit they could not at the first have been persuaded 
 that their brethren would ever so foully forgot them¬ 
 selves, as, against their great oath in the sight of God 
 and the world, to take upon them the dominion of 
 prelates, and, for their own back and belly, to trouble 
 the kirk, and mar all the worship of God as they have 
 done. 
 
 The Prelate, through the schism at that time be¬ 
 gun by himself, savouring the sweetness of wealth and 
 honour, forgetteth his oath, his office, and all, followeth 
 greedily upon the scent, and climbeth craftily, by de¬ 
 grees and betimes, to the height that he could not ad¬ 
 vance himself to at once. First , With much ado, 
 and many protestations that he meant nothing against 
 discipline established, but desired to vindicate the 
 ministry from poverty and contempt, he gets liber¬ 
 ty to vote in parliament for the kirk, but with such 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 79 
 
 caveats as would have kept him from his present pre¬ 
 lacy if he had kept them as he was obliged . 1 Secondly , 
 Five years thereafter he was made constant modera¬ 
 tor, and that of the presbytery only where he was 
 resident, and not of the synods, upon as fair precepts, 
 and with the like protestations and cautions . 2 Third¬ 
 ly , Being lord of parliament, lord of council, patron 
 of benefices, modifier of ministers’ stipends, he was 
 armed also with the power of the high commission, 
 and, having two swords, might do against the kirk 
 what he pleased . 3 Thereafter incontinent, he usurped 
 the power of ordination and jurisdiction ; 4 and, at 
 last, albeit without consent or knowledge of the kirk - 
 of Scotland, went and resumed consecration in Eng¬ 
 land , 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 assembly of this 
 kirk had chosen him to the name and office of a bishop, 
 which, as yet, they have never done,—the most cor¬ 
 rupt of their own assemblies granting only the nega¬ 
 tive power of ordination and jurisdiction to them, 
 who were never called bishops by any warrant from 
 the kirk, but only in the vulgar speech, from the titles 
 they had to benefices, in which respect civil persons 
 beneficed were called bishops in former times. 
 
 X 
 
 6. The Pastor and men of God, seeking neither 
 profit nor preferment to themselves, expelled the pre¬ 
 late and all his ceremonies out of the kirk of Christ, 
 
 1 Dundee, 1597, May, and March following; Falkland, 1598; Ho- 
 lyrood House, 1599; Montrose, 1600. 
 
 2 Lintlithgow, 1606. 3 February, 1610. 
 
 4 Glasgow, June, 1610. 5 November, 1610, 
 
80 
 
 THE PASTOR ANI> THE PRELATE. 
 
 by no other means but such as became faithful minis¬ 
 ters of Christ, as preaching, praying, writing, advising 
 with the best reformed kirks, reasoning in assemblies, 
 and, after liberty granted to all, to oppone the consent, 
 oath and subscription of the adversaries. 
 
 The Prelate, seeking nothing but his own profit 
 and preferment, is restored again, by such means as 
 better beseem his ministers who hath been a murderer 
 and a liar from the beginning, than the sincere 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 liberty and 
 authority of assemblies, to protest that they were 
 seeking no prelacy, neither of the popish nor English 
 kind, and that they had no purpose to subvert the 
 discipline received, but to deliver the kirk from dis¬ 
 grace, and to be the more mighty to oppose her ene¬ 
 mies, Jesuits and papists, who falsify the acts of the 
 kirk, to promise to keep all the cautions and conditions 
 made to hold them in order, which now they profess 
 they never minded to do, &c.; their cruelty hath been 
 to boast, to banish, imprison, deprive, confine, si¬ 
 lence, &c. 
 
 7. The Pastor and men of God, all this time of de¬ 
 fection, gave testimony to the truth, opposed the seve¬ 
 ral steps of the prelate’s ambition by all the means 
 that became them to use, as public preaching, suppli¬ 
 cating, reasoning, protesting, and suffering, and when 
 the prelate was triumphing in the height of his dignity, 
 they could not, comparing the first temple with the 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 81 
 
 second, but declare the grief of their hearts for the 
 change, and their great fear of alteration to be made 
 in the worship of God, when now the hedge of the 
 kirk was broken down, and an open way made for 
 all corruption. 
 
 The Prelate is of the clergy that seldom are seen 
 penitent, and therefore, as against all the means used 
 by the pastor he had altered the government of the 
 kirk, so he enters next upon the worship and service 
 of God, and will have a new confession of faith, new 
 catechism, new forms of prayer, new observation of 
 days, new forms of ministration of the sacraments , 1 
 which he first practised himself against the Acts and 
 order of the kirk, and since convened an assembly of 
 his own making to draw on the practice of others ; 2 
 and, thirdly , he hath involved the honourable estates 
 of the kingdom, into his great guiltiness by their rati¬ 
 fication in parliament, which hath brought an inunda¬ 
 tion of evils into this kirk and country . 3 
 
 8. The Pastor and men of God, considering what 
 the kirk was before, and what it is now, what the 
 Reformation was, and what conformity is, what the 
 proceedings of the one and the other have been,— 
 seeing religion wearing away, he pitieth the young 
 ones that never have seen better times, laments over 
 the multitude that cannot see the evils of the present, 
 and resolveth for himself to hold constant to the end, 
 against papists, prelates, Arminians, and whatsoever 
 can arise, to wait with patience what the Lord will 
 do for his people, and, when he is gone, to leave a 
 
 i Aberdeen, 1616. St. Andrew’s, 1617. 2 Perth, 1618. 
 
 3 Edinburgh, 1621. 
 
 6* 
 
82 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 testimony behind him of the twofold misery of impiety 
 and iniquity that he hath seen in this land. 
 
 The Prelate hath forgot what himself and the 
 kirk were once; he hath wrought a greater defection 
 in this kirk in the short time of his episcopacy than 
 was in the primitive kirk for some hundreds of years, 
 and is so far yet blinded with the love of his place in 
 the world, that he maketh his worldly credit the canon, 
 and his prelacy the touchstone for the trial of all reli¬ 
 gion; the Pope shall no more be antichrist, papistry 
 may be borne with, Arminianism may be brought in, 
 because they can keep company with prelacy. The 
 Reformation is puritanism, preciseness, separation, 
 and intolerable, because it cannot cohabit with pre¬ 
 lacy. The gods of the nations were social, and could 
 live together, but the God of Israel is a jealous 
 God. 
 
 The Prelate’s objection .—The Prelate will object 
 that, albeit he can neither justify all his own proceed- 
 ceedings of late, nor yours of old, as all men have 
 their own infirmities, yet that ye do him wrong by 
 your deduction, in confounding times that should be 
 distinguished; because from the Reformation to the 
 coming of some scholars from Geneva with presbyte- 
 lial discipline this kirk was ruled by prelates, and the 
 superintendents in the beginning were the same in 
 substance that the prelates are now. 
 
 The Pastor’s answer .—All men have their own 
 infirmities, but good men are not presumptuously bold 
 for the love of the world, to hold on in a course of 
 defection against so many obligations from themselves, 
 and so many warnings from good men. Infirmity is 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 83 
 
 one thing and presumption is another. The pastors 
 of the kirk of Scotland had begun to root out bishopry, 
 and to condemn it in their assemblies, before these 
 scholars came from Geneva, but never condemned 
 but allowed the charge of superintendents, appointed 
 for a time in the beginning of the kirk, the one and 
 the other being different in substance: For, 
 
 1st, The superintendent, according to the canon of 
 the kirk, was admitted as another minister, without 
 consecration of any bishop. 
 
 The prelate is chosen, for fashion, by dean and chap¬ 
 ter, 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 com¬ 
 mon to other ministers. 
 
 The prelate hath taken to himself the power to 
 ordain and depose ministers, and to decree excommu¬ 
 nication, 
 
 3d, The superintendents made not a hierarchy of 
 archsuperintendents, and others inferior, some general 
 and some provincial, some primates and some suffra¬ 
 gans, 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 eccle¬ 
 siastical, and more in preaching than in government. 
 
84 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 The prelate is more in ruling than in preaching, and 
 more in the world than in the kirk. 
 
 6th, The superintendent acknowledgeth his charge 
 to be but temporary, and often desired to lay it down 
 before the General Assembly. 
 
 The prelate thinketh his office to be perpetual by 
 reason and in virtue of his consecration. 
 
 7 th, The superintendent had no greater power than 
 the commissioners of provinces, and, in respect of his 
 superintendency, was rather a commissioner of the 
 kirk than an office-bearer essentially different from 
 the pastor. 
 
 The prelate neither hath received commission from 
 the kirk, nor meaneth to render a reckoning to them, 
 nor account of himself as of a commissioner, but think¬ 
 eth his office as essentially diverse from the office of 
 the pastor as the pastor’s office is from the deacon’s. 
 The Pope may as well say that the evangelists were 
 popes as the prelate, that the superintendents were 
 prelates. 
 
PART V. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE WEAL OF THE KIRK AND 
 
 THE PEOPLE’S SOULS. 
 
 The good estate of the kirk, the end of kirk policy.—The prelate 
 abuseth the people three ways in determining what is the good 
 estate of the kirk.—The pastor 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 disregardeth.—The pastor, 
 in the whole course of his ministry, intends the feeding of the flock; 
 the prelate to feed himself.—The pastor subject to the discipline of 
 the kirk himself, and 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 prelate will rule all by himself, 
 whether in assembly or out of assembly.—The pastor planteth the 
 kirk with the best men, with consent of the people, and without 
 hurting the conscience of the entrant; the prelate with such as 
 please himself, without consent of the people or presbytery, and 
 with hurting of the conscience of the entrant.—The pastor by all 
 means seeketh the peace of the kirk; the prelate seeketh his own 
 peace and prosperity.—The pastor contents himself with his com¬ 
 petent stipend; the prelate is a master of the kirk’s patrimony.—- 
 Objection , Parity is anarchy and confusion. — Answer, Showing, by 
 many particulars, that the order of the ministry appointed by Christ 
 is far from confusion. 
 
 The safety and good of the state was the main end of 
 Roman policy, and the fundamental law by which that 
 people squared all their other laws, according to their 
 
86 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE .PRELATE. 
 
 own maxim, “ Let the safety of the people be the 
 sovereign law.” 1 The kirk of Jesus Christ hath bet¬ 
 ter reason to think-that the safety of the kirk should 
 be the rule and end of all ecclesiastical policy, although 
 the form of external worship and of the government 
 of the house of God were not prescribed by the Lord 
 himself in his word, but left arbitrary to men, to be 
 framed by their canons and constitutions, yet this must 
 be held as infallible, that it is the best form of govern¬ 
 ment 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 particular, 
 what this is wherein the good and weal of the kirk 
 doth consist; for the prelate places the weal of the 
 kirk in her outward peace and prosperity, and think- 
 eth the kirk well constituted, and in good case, when 
 she flourishes in wealth and worldly dignities; but 
 herein he abuseth the Christian world three ways, 
 first, that he measures and determines the good estate 
 of the kirk by her outward face, and not by her in¬ 
 ward grace, by the health of her body rather than of 
 her soul, by that which is accidental to the kirk, and 
 which she may either have or want and yet continue 
 a true kirk, and not by that which is essential and 
 proper to the very nature and being of a kirk; second¬ 
 ly, that he judgeth that to be the weal of the kirk 
 which hath many times proved her wreck, being- 
 abused, as commonly it hath happened: he taketh 
 
 l Salas populi suprema lex. eversa domo, interduni rei public® 
 status manere potest: urbis ruina, penates omnes secum trahat 
 necesse est. Valer. Max., 1. v. c. 6. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 87 
 
 poison for a preservative, and surfeit of peace and 
 prosperity, excess of wealth and worldly honours, 
 which are her deadly disease, to be her health and 
 best constitution. Too large bestowing of riches and 
 preferments upon the ministers of the kirk bred that 
 contagion within her bowels, which turned almost to 
 her death in the end; for thereby defection grew by 
 degrees, till at last, under the man of sin, it came to 
 the height. Thirdly , That he measures the good 
 estate of the kirk by himself and the rest of the mem¬ 
 bers of that hierarchical body, as though it went well 
 with the whole kirk when bishops stand and reign 
 like the kings of the nations, and as though the min¬ 
 istry were sufficiently vindicated from poverty and 
 contempt'when twelve or thirteen of the number have 
 climbed up, like apes, to the highest places, that, with 
 their evil-favoured minions, they may move to laugh¬ 
 ter 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 
 constitution or languishing, and as she is furnished 
 with all the means that may preserve and increase 
 these, so she either prospers or decays. This judg¬ 
 ment of the pastor is grounded upon very good rea¬ 
 sons; for upon this estate of the kirk necessarily de¬ 
 pends 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 
 
ss 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 in the world, and, therefore, the pastor hath reason to 
 think, that all the riches of the earth, and all the glory 
 of all the kingdoms of the world, are not to be put in 
 balance with the glory of God and the salvation of 
 souls—that which God with his own blood hath pur¬ 
 chased and redeemed. Now whether the good of the 
 kirk in these things be better procured and preserved 
 by the prelate or by the pastor, let them be typed by 
 comparing them in the particulars following. 
 
 1. The Pastor’s principal care is to preserve the 
 purity of doctrine in the kirk, that Christ’s flock may 
 be fed with the wholesome word of life, and to oppose 
 all contrary and unprofitable doctrine as poisonous 
 and pernicious to the people’s souls, and for that pur¬ 
 pose 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 converteth them, or cutteth them 
 off from the communion of the kirk with the spiritual 
 sword, and exhorteth the magistrate to execute the 
 laws made against them; whereby it came to pass 
 that contrary doctrine, and vain and curious teaching, 
 either entered not into our kirk, or was suddenly 
 repressed and put to the door, and papistry, that had 
 place before, was well nigh put out of the land. 
 
 The Prelate hath neither leisure nor liking to 
 look to such exercise, and accounts no heresy so wor¬ 
 thy his animadversion as the alleged heresy of Arius 
 and his followers. It is manifest in history, from the 
 beginning, that the heresies that most have endan- 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 89 
 
 gered the kirk, have either been devised by the engines, 
 or favoured and borne out by the authority and credit, 
 of prelates; and even now divers false and dangerous 
 doctrines are partly vented and partly winked at by 
 them; 1 neither thinketh he papists great enemies to 
 the kirk; but as the Jewish priests entertained the 
 Sadducees, albeit enemies to true religion, and hated 
 Christians as their deadly foes, and as the papist can 
 agree with the formal protestant, but thinks the uncon- 
 formable Calvinist his irreconcileable enemy, so the 
 prelate could agree with the common papist, for all 
 his blasphemous 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 oppo¬ 
 site to the papist but to the protestant. 
 
 2. The Pastor, knowing that a little leaven leaven- 
 eth the whole lump, thinketh it dangerous for the peo¬ 
 ple’s souls to borrow either the substance or the cere¬ 
 mony of religion from antichristian corruption, and, 
 therefore warneth the people to beware of the least 
 beginnings or appearances of evil; and, while he de¬ 
 liberates about ceremonies fittest for order and decen¬ 
 cy, he intends nothing of his own, but the edification 
 of the kirk, and in the practice of ceremonies and cir¬ 
 cumstances orderly appointed, he looketh to the peace 
 of the kirk, that it be not broken, and to the con¬ 
 sciences of the weak, that they be not offended. 
 
 The Prelate liketh to symbolize with antichrist’s 
 
 l As Christ’s real descent into hell, and many Lutheran, Armin- 
 ian and popish errors. 
 
 7 
 
90 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 ceremonies, putting the papists in hope that the body 
 and substance of their superstition may be resumed 
 by time, where the shadows and ceremonies are so 
 highly regarded. He intends nothing in appointing 
 them but the maintenance of his own estate and dig¬ 
 nity, because he seeth and saith, “ No ceremony, no 
 bishopand in practice is more earnest in urging of 
 ceremonies than of obedience to the greatest things of 
 the law, and by the canons about matters which they 
 themselves call indifferent, doth violence either to the 
 bodies or consciences of the people that think other¬ 
 wise, and maketh them to serve as rods to scourge 
 and whip out of the kirk and ministry whom and 
 when they think good. 
 
 3. The Pastor, considering that he is called to feed 
 the flock of Christ, and to care for the people’s souls, 
 in his entry to the ministry will be loath to undertake 
 a greater charge than he can in some measure over¬ 
 take; and the less his charge is the greater is his con¬ 
 tentment, not that he desireth to be idle, but to be 
 faithful. When he is entered, he hath the work of 
 the ministry in singular regard, as the most honoura¬ 
 ble and laborious work that he can be employed about, 
 whereof the best man is not worthy, and unto which 
 the whole man is not sufficient, and, therefore, is resi¬ 
 dent among the people, serving not by deputies and 
 suffragans, but in his own person, and is altogether 
 taken up with the pastor’s duties, of preaching, pray¬ 
 ing? catechising, visiting, exhorting, rebuking, comfort¬ 
 ing, &c., but labours most diligently in the word and 
 doctrine, because faith corneth by the word preached. 
 
 The Prelate, intending nothing but to feed him- 
 
THE PASTOH AND THE PRELATE. 91 
 
 self, at his entry to his prelacy regards not so much 
 the number of souls he should feed, as the number of 
 chalders, the large revenues, and the great dignities 
 he is to feed upon, and the larger his diocese the bet¬ 
 ter for him; hence it is that he ascends from a diocesan 
 to an archbishop and a primate. After he is entered 
 he aisdaineth the work of the ministry, as base and 
 unworthy 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 
 council, session, exchequer; and although he appro¬ 
 priates 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 maintained! 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,—mean¬ 
 ing 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 conver¬ 
 sation to the discipline of the kirk, which striketh 
 upon the pastor as well as upon the people; and to 
 bring the transgressors to repentance he sitteth with 
 his brethren in session, presbytery and assembly, ad¬ 
 ministering the holy discipline holily, that is, in sin¬ 
 cerity and faithfulness, without prejudice or partiality, 
 and never ceasing till the scandal be removed, the 
 
92 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 kirk be purged, and the offender, if it be possible, be 
 won unto God; and all this, as being Christ’s own 
 work, he doth with Christ’s own weapons, that is, 
 with the spiritual sword of the word, which is mighty 
 through God to subdue every thing exalting itself 
 against God, and to bring sinners to repentance. 
 
 The Prelate may do what harm he will for his 
 own tyrannical custom and practice, but not by any 
 law either of kirk or state. He exempteth himself, in 
 respect of his episcopal administration and as he is a 
 prelate, from all censure, and scorneth to submit him¬ 
 self to any ecclesiastical judicature, albeit the chief 
 apostles submitted themselves unto the kirk, and albeit 
 there be no subject in a kingdom, of whatsoever qual¬ 
 ity or condition, but in every respect he is Under the 
 control of some judicature in the land where he liv- 
 eth; and as he is thus singularly 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 slanders, if the party, 
 never so wicked, have argument of weight for my 
 lord or his receiver, are incontinently, by the word of 
 his monarchical authority, stricken dead. Hereby it 
 cometh to pass, that where prelates rule sin reigneth, 
 and the nearer the bishop’s wings the greater liberty 
 for sin, as is seen in their own houses and trains. 
 And for this reason is it that both atheists and papists 
 like the episcopal discipline better than the pastoral, 
 which they call strait-laced, because it troubleth their 
 corruption, whereas the other layeth the reins upon 
 their necks. And if the prelate happen to proceed 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 93 
 
 against offenders, his discipline consists not so much 
 in spiritual censure as in worldly power and civil pun¬ 
 ishment, as fining, confining, imprisoning, &c., which 
 have no power to work upon the consciences of sin¬ 
 ners to bring them to repentance, though this be what 
 is sought by the preachers of the gospel, and the chief 
 end of kirk discipline. 
 
 5. The Pastor, for the good of the kirk, is desirous 
 that the assemblies of the kirk, provincial and national, 
 be often held and well kept, knowing how necessary 
 they are for redressing things amiss, for fulfilling things 
 omitted, and for preventing evils that are like to en¬ 
 sue: and when the assembly is convened he carrieth 
 himself toward his brethren as toward the servants of 
 Christ and colleagues of equal authority, none pre¬ 
 suming to any place or pre-eminence, though of order 
 only and not of power, without the calling and con¬ 
 sent of his fellow brethren. There every one hath 
 liberty 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 Barjonah, the son of thunder and the son of the 
 dove, all moved by one spirit, with mutual respect, 
 reverence and brotherly love, join together in one con¬ 
 clusion, and if at any time they be of different judg¬ 
 ments, they are not sudden and summary in conclud¬ 
 ing things of importance that concern the whole, but 
 that all may be done with uniform consent, after the 
 example of the apostles, Acts xv., the conclusion is 
 delayed till all objections be satisfied, and God give 
 
94 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 greater light to such as are otherwise minded ; and so, 
 to the great good of the kirk, both peace and truth 
 are preserved. 
 
 The Prelate is as averse to a free assembly as the 
 Pope is to a free general council, and, therefore, will 
 either have none at all, or will have them so slavish as if 
 they were but his ecclesiastical courts, convened under 
 him and in his name. When this assembly is convened, 
 at his own hand, without calling or election, he taketh 
 upon him to preside and moderate. There no man hath 
 liberty to utter his mind before him who hath power to 
 raise up and cast down, to enlarge and restrain, to pre¬ 
 fer and postpone, or put in and put out at his pleasure; 
 and, therefore, no man’s gift in such meetings doth 
 good to the kirk. And if it happen that his course 
 be crossed, and the best sort oppose, then he rageth, 
 and by his proud boastings and unreasonable railings 
 he playeth the prelate indeed, using Christ’s ministers 
 and the kirk’s commissioners no better than if they 
 were his slaves or lackeys, convened to say amen to 
 all his intentions, and to wait upon oracles falling from 
 his mouth. In the end the plurality of voices of the 
 weaker sort, and for the most part either emendicated 
 or extorted, carrieth away the sentence which must 
 oblige all, and, therefore, besides the tyrannies and 
 unjust proceedings, proveth afterward, to the great 
 hurt of the kirk, to be the cause of many evils and 
 great divisions. 
 
 6. The Pastor, in planting of kirks and placing of 
 ministers without respect to any man’s private judg¬ 
 ment or affection, with common consent maketh choice 
 of the best qualified for graces and manners, and most 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 95 
 
 fit for the people he is to be set over, and that with 
 their own special advice and desire ; so that he giveth 
 not the kirk to the minister but the minister to the 
 kirk; and in the act of ordination, at the place where 
 he shall serve, and in presence of the whole congre¬ 
 gation, he requireth of the entrant neither oath nor 
 promise but what is appointed of the assemblies of 
 the whole kirk, as constancy in the faith, obedience to 
 the king, and fidelity in his calling; and, after he is 
 admitted, he respecteth him as the conjunct ambassa¬ 
 dor of Christ, equal in power and authority with him¬ 
 self, 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 planting of 
 kirks than both presbytery and people,) have brought 
 the matter to the point of ordination,—giveth the kirk 
 to the minister rather than the minister to the kirk , 1 
 whereof there flow such innumerable evils, that the 
 kirk hath as just cause to complain now of the placing 
 of ministers by bishops as the kirk had of old of the 
 planting of bishops through the corruption of arch¬ 
 bishops and metropolitans. The ordination must be 
 at the place of the prelate’s residence, and not at the 
 kirk where he shall serve, nor in presence of the con¬ 
 gregation : 2 then is the entrant forced, without any 
 
 1 Dignitatibus viros dandos, non dignitates hominibus dicere soli- 
 tus. iEneas Syl. Platina. Magistrates alios raereri, et non habere: 
 alios habere, et non mereri. Ib. 
 
 2 Praesidentia non ex virtute sed malitia testimatur, non dignorum 
 
96 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 pretext of warrant from the kirk, to give his oath and 
 subscription to articles of the prelate’s devising, for 
 maintenance of his episcopal authority, even as the 
 Pope doth in consecrating bishops and archbishops, 
 for the establishing of his universal supremacy. When 
 he is admitted, albeit for gifts and in all other respects 
 he be worthy of double honour, far above the prelate 
 himself, yet the prelate contemneth him and his bre¬ 
 thren, as poor presbyters, with double contempt. 
 Whereupon we see, that the prelates and others, by 
 their example and doing, esteem not ministers for their 
 worth and their work’s sake, but as they are in places 
 of preferment, and as they are clothed with offices and 
 titles of dignity above their fellows; and this, again, 
 makes worldly-minded ministers to seek esteem by 
 greatness rather than by goodness. 
 
 7. The Pastor procureth the peace of the kirk by 
 following after the things which make for peace; Rom. 
 xiv.; for by the discipline and assemblies of the kirk 
 he preserveth verity, without which there is either no 
 unity, or such unity as is but a conspiracy, and resist- 
 eth heresy, the mother of the greatest divisions. So 
 long as our assemblies had their liberty, there could 
 arise no heresy among us; if it had broken out in a 
 
 sed potentiorum sunt throni, cathedra sine ullo acquiritur labore, et 
 prelati sunt qui nihil ad gradum prceterquam velle, adferunt. Nazianz. 
 Si percunctari velles quis eos pnefecerit, sacerdotes respondent mox, 
 et dicunt, ab archiepiscopo nuper sum episcopus ordinatus, centumque 
 ei solidos dedi, ut episcopalem gradum assequi meruissem, quos si 
 minime dedissem, hodie episcopus non essem. Ambros. citante Bul¬ 
 ling. decad. 5, serm. 4. Curritur ad curas ecclesiasticas, a doctis pa- 
 riter et indoctis, quasi quisque sine curis victurus sit, cum ad curas 
 pervenerit. Bern, epist. 42 . 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 97 
 
 parish, a consistory or presbytery would have borne 
 it down; or if it had proceeded further, then the sy¬ 
 nod, or if it had not been able, the national assembly, 
 would have suppressed it. For the same reason the 
 Kirk of France, which was nearest to ours, hath been 
 free of heresy. In the low countries, if the kirks had 
 enjoyed the liberty of their assemblies, which they 
 wanted for a long time, Arminianism had neither 
 troubled them nor their neighbours. He never can 
 find in his heart to urge or enforce unprofitable and 
 untimely ceremonies upon the kirk, if it were for no 
 other cause but that they have been the apples of con¬ 
 tention, and the cause of many schisms, and will choose 
 rather, with Jonah, to redeem the quietness 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 servant of the 
 kirk, and feareth to be affected with Diotrephes’ ambi¬ 
 tious humour of aspiring above his brethren, which is 
 a special preservative of peace: he studieth to preserve 
 holiness, without which there can be no sound nor 
 wholesome peace; he is ever at war with that which 
 is contrary to holiness, and sendeth away all scandal¬ 
 ous 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 for peace; for, if it serve for his 
 own particular end, he can overlook papists and here¬ 
 tics, and suffer heresy to rise and spread itself, that the 
 
9S 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 kirk may have some other thing to think upon than 
 his episcopacy, and may have himself to run unto, 
 instead of assemblies: he careth not to make schism, 
 and will fight with tooth and nail for unlawful and 
 unprofitable ceremonies, which have ever proved the 
 cause of schism, and, ere 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 Avhom Christ hath died, to perish, and the 
 kirk of Christ, tossed with troubles by occasion of that 
 noisome baggage, to sink at last under the burden. 
 Contention also cometh by his pride and ambition; 
 for, first, great places make great emulation and hot 
 competition, as may be seen in Christ’s own apostles, 
 and history maketh known in many others what de¬ 
 bate and contention, what war and bloodshed, prelacy 
 hath brought forth in the Christian world, between 
 kirk and kirk contending for primacy, prelate and 
 prelate for presidency, pope and pope for papacy, be¬ 
 tween kings and bishops for sovereignty,—as between 
 the Roman emperors and Roman bishops, the kings 
 of England and the primates of England . 1 
 
 8. The Pastor contents himself with such a com¬ 
 petent 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 resident, and one kirk-living, 
 
 l Sicut olira pcstiferam illam bestiam, quee per Ariam primo de 
 infernis extulerat caput, cupiditas episcopatus induxit: sic hodiernam 
 hoeresin (nimirum pontificis Romani primatum) prsecipue nutriunt, 
 quos jam mendicare suppudet, iEneas Syl. 
 
 1 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 99 
 
 which, for fear of the censures of the kirk, albeit he 
 would, he dares not dilapidate, but must leave the 
 kirk patrimony in as good or better case than he found 
 it at his entry. 
 
 The Prelate hath a lord’s rent out of the revenues 
 of the kirk, which at the first was destined, and should 
 be employed for better uses, and this he hath not for 
 the service of the kirk, but partly for his unlawful 
 attending civil affairs, and, partly, for bearing out a 
 lordly port in himself, his lady, their children and fol¬ 
 lowers. He uniteth kirks far distant to make the 
 morsel the greater for his wide gorge: he alloweth 
 and defendeth pluralities and non-residencies, by set¬ 
 ting long tacks without knowledge or consent of the 
 kirk, and by setting of few forms and taxwards he 
 raketh up all, and stinteth the minister to a poor sti¬ 
 pendiary portion of five hundred merks; so that the 
 most sacrilegious persons in the land are the bishops 
 themselves,—eating the meat out of the mouths of 
 many worthy pastors that labour in the Lord’s work. 
 
 The Prelate's objection .—The Prelate will ob¬ 
 ject, that there shall never be any form of kirk gov¬ 
 ernment or discipline which bringeth not with it some 
 dangers and discommodities, and that that must be the 
 best which hath the fewest. It cannot be denied but 
 the episcopal government hath also its own inconve¬ 
 niences, whether we consider the salvation of souls, 
 or the outward constitution of the kirk and worship 
 of God, or the patrimony of the kirk ; but the anarchy 
 and confusion which ever attendeth the parity main¬ 
 tained by the pastor, is an inconvenience greater than 
 all, and showeth plainly that the parity of pastors is 
 
100 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 neither of God, nor can serve for the good of the kirk; 
 for God is not the God of confusion, but of peace, and 
 most of all in the kirks of the saints. 
 
 The Pastor’s answer .—The government and order 
 appointed by Christ can have no danger, discommodi¬ 
 ty nor inconvenience but such as men bring upon it, 
 and which, through the neglect or contempt thereof, 
 they bring upon themselves. That, therefore, must 
 be the best which is best warranted by Christ and ap- 
 proacheth 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 ordi¬ 
 nances,—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 anar¬ 
 chy, 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 Solomon, as being appointed by a wiser 
 than he; even Balaam, albeit disposed to curse, when 
 his eyes were opened to behold this wise order and 
 marvellous beauty, shall be forced to open his lips, 
 and to say, “ How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob, and 
 thy tabernacles, 0 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 defied?” Numb, xxiii. 24. 
 And that there is no confusion in the parity maintain- 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 101 
 
 ed 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 prece¬ 
 dency nor of order. 
 
 Parity of pastors so shunneth ambition, that it main- 
 taineth a priority of precedency and respect for age, 
 for zeal, for gifts, &C., 1 and a priority of order, where¬ 
 by one is moderator of others in all their synods and 
 meetings, such as was amongst the apostles themselves, 
 but without priority of power or jurisdiction above 
 the rest. 
 
 3d, Confusion admitteth no commandment nor sub¬ 
 jection. 
 
 Parity of pastor admitteth both; for every pastor 
 conducteth his own flock, and every pastor is subject 
 to a joint fellowship of pastors in presbyteries and 
 synods. 
 
 4th, Confusion is abhorred, both by nature and by 
 all societies, as their greatest enemy, which over- 
 turneth all where it hath place. 
 
 Parity of pastors hath the like parity both in nature 
 and all sorts of society; for in nature one eye hath 
 not power over another, nor one hand over another, 
 nor one foot over another, only the head hath power 
 
 l Distinguendum inter auctoritatem meriti et potestatis. 
 
 8 
 
102 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 over all. In the commonwealth and kingdom there 
 is a parity without a priority of power or jurisdiction 
 betwixt one baron and another, and betwixt one no¬ 
 bleman and another, and in all the collegial jurisdic¬ 
 tions 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 archbishops, patriarchs, &c.; and in 
 the kirk of Christ, betwixt apostle and apostle, &c.; 
 why, then, shall the divine parity of pastors be ac¬ 
 counted a confusion? 
 
PART VI. 
 
 THE PASTOR AND PRELATE COMPARED BY THE GOOD OF THE COMMON¬ 
 WEALTH AND OF OUR OUTWARD ESTATE. 
 
 It is best both for kirk and state when civil and ecclesiastical au¬ 
 thority join together.—Civil authority doth good to religion.—Re¬ 
 ligion doth good to the whole commonwealth.—The best religion is 
 best for the state.—The pastor preserveth the commonwealth, which 
 the prelate ruineth.—The pastor loveth Christian simplicity, and 
 not Machiavel’s policy ; the prelate liketh policy more than that sim¬ 
 plicity.—The pastor distinguisheth betwixt things civil and eccle¬ 
 siastical, and holdeth him at his own calling; the prelate con- 
 foundeth 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 profitable.—The pastor a maintainor of schools and learn¬ 
 ing; the prelate of neither.—The pastor’s government by assem¬ 
 blies fitter for a monarchy than the episcopal government.—The 
 pastor taketh no man’s title, nor dignity, nor place; the prelate 
 taketh all these from the nobles and peers of the land.—The pastor 
 maketh the minds, the bodies and estates of the people fit for war; 
 the prelate disableth all.— Objection, The estates of parliament 
 cannot bear the severity of pastors, nor want the prelates to be the 
 third estate.— Answer, Showing that the faithful pastor will at 
 some time be found comfortable to all estates, and that the parlia¬ 
 ment may be perfect without the prelates.— Conclusion , A general 
 objection answered. 
 
 Albeit that sometimes the power ecclesiastical be 
 without the secular, and the members of the kirk 
 make not any civil corporation, as in the apostles’ 
 
104 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 times and long after; and sometimes the secular power 
 be without the ecclesiastical, and the members of king- 
 koms 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 common¬ 
 wealth, when both are joined in one,—when the 
 magistrate hath both swords, the use of the temporal 
 sword, and the benefit of the spiritual sword, and 
 when the kirk hath both swords, the use of the spi¬ 
 ritual sword, and the benefit of the temporal,—when 
 the two administrations, civil and ecclesiastical, like 
 Moses and Aaron, help one another mutually, and 
 neither Aaron nor Miriam murmur against Moses, 
 nor Jeroboam stretcheth out his hand against the man 
 of God. Upon the one part, civil authority main- 
 taineth and defendeth religion where it is reformed, 
 and reformeth religion where it is corrupted. “ Kings 
 shall be thy nursing-fathers and queens thy nursing- 
 mothers.” 1 “ Kings, serve the Lord in fear.” 2 “And 
 then serve they the Lord,” saith Augustine, “ when 
 they serve him not only faithfully as men, but as kings, 
 and do such things in serving him as none can do but 
 kings, that is, when they rest not till religion be estab¬ 
 lished, and God served in their dominions according 
 to his own word.” 3 It hath ever been the greatest 
 
 '•j . ■ ^ ■ 
 
 i Isaiah xlix. 23. 2 Psalm ii. 11. 
 
 3 Quomodo ergo reges domino serviunt in timore, nisi ea qure 
 contra jussa domini sunt, religiosa severitate probibendo atque plec- 
 tendo? aliter enim servit quia homo est, aliter quia etiam rex est: 
 quia homo est ei servit fideliter vivendo, quia vero etiam rex est, ser¬ 
 vit leges justa prtecipientes, et contraria prohibentes, convenienti ri« 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 105 
 
 commendation of princes, that they have begun their 
 government with the reformation of religion, as many 
 worthy princes hath done both before and after the 
 coming of Christ, (for God preferreth kings above all 
 others, and, therefore, kings should haste to honour 
 God above all others,) or, that they have exceeded all 
 who went before them in this religious and royal 
 chair. Asa took away idolatry, but Jehosaphat re¬ 
 moved the high places also; Hezekiah went further, 
 and brake the brazen serpent, albeit a monument of 
 God’s mercy; but this was the sin of his reformation, 
 that he razed not the idol temples, which was kept to 
 good Josiah, who, 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 bene¬ 
 fit of kings and kingdoms; because the true religion, 
 and no other, maketh kings and kingdoms to serve that 
 God that giveth both heavenly and earthly kingdoms, 
 
 —who looseth the bands of kings and girdeth their 
 
 > 
 
 gore sanciendo sicut servivit Ezechias lucos, et templa idolorum, et 
 ilia excelsa quae contra praecepta Dei fuerunt constructa, destruendo. 
 Sicut servivit Josias talia et ipse faciendo. Sicut servivit rex Ninevi- 
 tarum universam civitatem ad placandum Dominum compellendo. 
 Sicut servivit Darius idolum frangendum in potestatem Danieli dando, 
 et inimicos ejus leonibus ingerendo. Sicut servivit Nebuchad. omnes 
 in regno suo positos, a blasphemando Deo lege terribili prohibendo. 
 In hoc ergo serviunt Domino reges, in quantum sunt reges, cum ea 
 faciunt ad serviendum illi, quae non possunt facere nisi reges. August, 
 epist. serin, ad. Bonifacium. 
 
 8* 
 
106 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 loins with a girdle, 1 —who is the only Judge, that put- 
 tetli down one and setteth up another ; and, therefore, 
 godliness hath the promise, and true religion hath many 
 blessings attending it. It is a blessed thing when a 
 king or a kingdom serveth that God by whom kings 
 reign, and who giveth and taketh away kingdoms at 
 his pleasure; next, because it qualifieth and dis- 
 poseth every man for his own place;—it maketh rulers 
 to know that every kingdom is under a greater king¬ 
 dom, and, as they are advanced above all others, that 
 they have so much the greater account to make; 2 —it 
 maketh the subjects to obey for conscience’ sake, and 
 subdueth the people under their prince, which made 
 Theodosius to acknowledge that his empire consisted 
 more by the Christian religion than by all other means; 
 —it keepeth true peace, both public and private, and 
 when peace can be no longer kept, it followeth after 
 it to find it again;—it maketh men just and temperate 
 in time of peace, not by restraint, which positive laws 
 do, but by mortification;—with Christians to think 
 that wickedness is sin. “ Whether of the two com¬ 
 manded! more fully,” says Tertullian, “he who saith, 
 ‘ thou shalt not kill/ or he who saith, ‘ thou shalt not 
 be angry?’ Which of the two is more perfect, to for¬ 
 bid adultery or to restrain the eyes from concupis¬ 
 cence?” &c.;—it maketh every man to practise Chris¬ 
 tianity in the particular duties of his calling;—in the 
 time of war it maketh men courageous, and to fear 
 none but Him that can kill the soul;—in persecution 
 
 1 Hostis Herodes irapie, Christum venire quid times ? non eripit 
 mortalia, qui regna dat ccelestia. Sedulius Hymn. 
 
 2 Omne sub regno gravior, regnum est. Senec. Traged. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 107 
 
 it giveth invincible patience;—without confusion it 
 giveth at all times unto God that which is God’s, and 
 unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s ; and, without usur¬ 
 pation or injury to any, it giveth unto noblemen, states¬ 
 men, barons, burgesses, and all, from the highest to 
 the lowest in the kingdom, their own places, prefer¬ 
 ments and privileges, according to the sovereign law 
 of justice. All estates have need of this divine influ¬ 
 ence, and of all these comfortable effects, and every 
 religion promiseth them all, but only the Christian reli¬ 
 gion 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 doc¬ 
 trine and discipline, and the more Christianly, that is, 
 the more powerfully it be urged upon the consciences 
 of men, the more effectually it proveth for these happy 
 ones. Let us, then, upon this ground, proceed to our 
 trial whether the pastor or prelate be more profitable 
 for the country and commonwealth. 
 
 1. The Pastor preserveth the prosperous estate of 
 the kingdom and commonwealth by labouring to pre¬ 
 serve piety, righteousness and temperance in the land, 
 and by testifying, with all his might, against idolatry 
 and all sorts of impiety, against unrighteousness and 
 all sorts of injury, whether by craft or violence, and 
 against intemperance, incontinence, unlawful mar¬ 
 riages, divorces, and every other kind of impurities; 
 for these three where they reign, he knoweth to be 
 more near and certain causes, first of the many cala¬ 
 mities and judgments of God, and then of the altera¬ 
 tions and periods of states and kingdoms, than either 
 of the intricate numbers of Plato, or the unchanged 
 
10S 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 course of the heavens, or whatever other cause is pre¬ 
 tended by philosophers or politicians, because these, 
 wherever they reign, threaten a ruin from the true 
 fatality of God’s providence and justice, and do shake 
 the pillars of all human society, as idolatry the pillars 
 of the kirk, unrighteousness of the commonwealth, 
 and intemperance of the family, and one of the three 
 falling, the other two cannot long endure. 1 
 
 The Prelate, upon the contrary, by taking in his 
 own hands the power of the General Assembly, which 
 was a great terror to sin; by depriving some worthy 
 pastors of their places, and others of authority in cen¬ 
 suring of sin; by destroying the discipline of the kirk, 
 and by his own many unlawful practices and permis¬ 
 sions, hath given way to idolatry, blasphemy, and the 
 profanation of the Sabbath, to all sorts of scandalous 
 and notorious sins of unrighteousness, uncleanness, 
 and of the abuse of God’s creatures, for which the 
 wrath of God cometh upon the world; but most of all, 
 by bringing a great part of the kingdom under the 
 
 i Non tam numerorum simulacra inania, aut Solis et siderum im- 
 mutabilis ratio urbes et regna perdunt: quam impietas primum, de- 
 inde injustitia, ct virtutum expultrix luxuria. Dom. de la None, dis- 
 curs. polit. 1. 
 
 Causas eversionis reipublicse quserunt in ipsa republica. Arist. 
 polit. 5. Bodin. de repub. lib. 4. Daneus politi. cap. 5. 
 
 K eu au7sCi<m^ovc 7ript6iouc, nat ctvo<rioT(^ovc 7Tigi ervyymis kai etchxwrigouc 
 TTiQl TOl/? OtXXOUf, KCLl CLVCtvS'(> > OO r rif> t OVi 7TSQI Tct Sif T OV 7T0XifJC.0V VVV » TTQOcrQiV CtTroJ'i- 
 
 Xenoph. Cyropsed. 8. 
 
 Felix respublica esse non potest, stantibus mcenibus, ruentibus mo. 
 ribus. Chokier. 
 
 Hffic nisi urbe aberunt, centuplcx murus rebus servandis parum est. 
 Plaut. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 109 
 
 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 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, righteous¬ 
 ness, Christian simplicity and prudence, to be the best 
 policy, not only for his own practice, but for all that 
 are in authority, and for all societies, and, therefore, 
 pronounceth anathema upon the chief axioms of Ma- 
 chiavePs art, whom he judgeth to be as pernicious a 
 master of policy as antichrist is for matters of religion, 1 
 and these two to be the principal supports of Satan, 
 the direct enemy of Christian faith and obedience, and 
 the crafty subverters of kirks and commonwealths,— 
 unfit for all, but most unfit for us, whom grace hath 
 favoured with the light of the truth, and nature hath 
 fashioned to be open and plain. 
 
 The Prelate’s practices do proclaim what policy 
 pleaseth him best. Simulation, dissimulation, false¬ 
 hood and flattery are known to be the ways of his 
 promotion. He standeth in his grandeur and possess¬ 
 ed his peace by promising good service in parliament 
 to the king against the nobility, and blowing the bel¬ 
 lows of dissension betwixt them: he warmeth him¬ 
 self at the fire he hath raised betwixt the king and 
 
 i Ante omnia optandum principi ut pius videatur, non tamen ut 
 sit. Oportet principem semper adversarium in se alere, ut eo op- 
 presso potentior videatur. Religio animos hominum deprimit, soevitia 
 subditos in officio continet. Tuta est civitas quae dissidia et factiones 
 nutrit. Machiav. de princ. et comment, in Livium. 
 
110 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 the kirk: he beareth with men of every religion pro¬ 
 vided they be not anti-episcopal: he urgethceremonies, 
 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 suf- 
 fereth papistry to prevail and new heresies to arise, 
 and giveth connivance to the teachers of them, that 
 that there may be some other matter of disputation 
 amongst learned men than about his mitre. If all would 
 follow his art and example, antichrist and Machiavel 
 would be our chief masters, and every Scotsman of 
 spirit would prove another Caesar Borgia, or Ludovi- 
 cus Sfortia . 1 
 
 3. The Pastor, according to the nature of things, 
 distinguished! betwixt the things of God and the 
 things of Caesar, betwixt the sovereignty of Christ and 
 the sovereignty of man, betwixt the dignity of the 
 statesman and honour of the elder that labours in the 
 word and doctrine, betwixt the palace of the prince 
 and the minister’s manse, the revenues of the noble¬ 
 man and the minister’s stipend ; and, according to the 
 grounds of policy, holdeth, that many offices should not 
 be conferred on one man except rarely by the special 
 favour of princes , 2 upon some that, are eminent as 
 miracles for engine, for wisdom and dexterity,—by 
 reason of man’s infirmity, the weight of authority, the 
 order of policy, and the peace of the people; that as 
 every thing in nature doth its own part—the sun 
 
 1 Alter Urbinatem, alter Mediolanensem Ducatum artibus Machia- 
 vellicis invasit, et ad tempus tenuit, uterque Machiavellicee politise 
 exemplar perfectissimum misere periit. Dane, polit. praefat. 
 
 2 E is 7r£og h. Aristot. polit. 4. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 shineth and the wind bloweth, the water moisteneth 
 —so every man should be set to his own task; that 
 one man cannot be iEneas and Hector, Cato and 
 Scipio , 1 far less can one and the same person be suf¬ 
 ficient for the greatest affairs both of kirk and policy; 
 and, therefore, the pastor keepeth himself within the 
 bounds of his own place and calling, and neither 
 meddleth with civil causes, nor taketh upon him civil 
 offices, nor seeketh after civil honour. 
 
 The Prelate maketh no distinction, but confound- 
 eth all, as compatible enough if he be the agent; and 
 albeit, for any good parts, to be no miracle, but neigh¬ 
 bourlike, yet he findeth himself sufficient for every 
 thing in kirk and commonwealth , 2 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 chancellor, president, &c., which 
 his predecessors had of old. And thus, against all 
 grounds of good policy, he stands in pomp, as a 
 mighty giant, with one foot in the kirk upon the 
 necks of the ministers, and with another in the state 
 upon the heads of the nobility and gentry. 
 
 4. The Pastor assisteth the civil magistrate in 
 
 1 Nemo sapiens existimat se posse simul iEneam et Hectorem, 
 Catonem, et Scipionem in theatro civitatis agere. Cas. polit. lib. 2. 
 
 2 Romani, Macedones, Lacedsemonii legem tulerunt, ut nemo duo- 
 bus simul fungatur officiis. Metiothus exercitum ducit, Metiothus 
 vias curat, Metiothus furinam tractat, Metiothus cunctis aliis prteest, 
 Metiothus itaque plorabit. Plutarch. 
 
112 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 planting of virtue and rooting out of vice, partly by 
 powerfully preaching home to the consciences of sin¬ 
 ners, partly by censuring lesser offences which the 
 magistrate punisheth not, as lying, uncomely jesting, 
 rash and common swearing, rotten talking, brawling, 
 drunkenness, &c. ; x through which the passages to 
 murder, adultery, and other great offences, are stop¬ 
 ped, the people prevented in many mischiefs and 
 great enormities, and the magistrate many ways 
 eased; and partly in censuring of greater sins, and 
 purging the kingdom of foul offences; for he joineth 
 the censures and the spiritual sword of the kirk with 
 the sword of the magistrate so impartially, that none 
 are spared; with such expedition and diligence, that 
 sin is censured and not forgotten; with such authority 
 that the most obstinate hath confessed that the kirk 
 had power to bind and loose; with such sharpness 
 and severity, that malefactors have been afraid; and so 
 universally, that, as there is no crime censured by the 
 kirk but the same is punishable by temporal jurisdic¬ 
 tion, so he holdeth no sin punishable by civil authority 
 but the same is also censurable by spiritual power— 
 the one punishing the offender in his body or goods, 
 the other drawing him unto repentance, and striving 
 to remove the scandal. 
 
 \ o * • * , , 
 
 l Hsec coercio ad Christi norm am dirigitur, latenter primum et 
 amice, deinde paulo acerbius: tunc nisi pares, sequitur interdictio 
 sacrorum gravis et efficax, interdictionem animadversio magistratus. 
 Ita fit ut qufe legibus nusquam vindicantur, illic sine vi et tumultu 
 coerceantur, igitur nulla meretricia, nullse ebrietates,nullje saltationes, 
 nulli mendici, nulli otiosi in ea civitate reperiuntur. Bodin. de rep. 
 Genevens. meth. hist. cap. 6. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 113 
 
 The Prelate is unprofitable to the civil magistrate 
 in the planting of virtue and rooting out of vice; 
 for where his government hath place, preaching hath 
 more demonstration of art for the praise of the speaker, 
 than of the Spirit for the censuring of sin and the con¬ 
 version 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 repentance to the sinner, or of removing the 
 offence. 
 
 5. The Pastor is chargeable to no man beside his 
 sober and necessary maintenance allotted unto him 
 for 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 maintaining of idle office-bearers , 1 
 hath for one office, serving for no good use neither to 
 king, nor kirk, nor country, allowance of a large rent, 
 is a great burden, and is many ways chargeable to the 
 commonwealth, and to particular persons; by his great 
 
 i Non est studendum ut plurimi sint in repub. magistrates, sed ut 
 quam commodissime et optime gerant remp. ii qui erunt necessarii. 
 
 9 
 
114 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 lands and lordships, by actions of improbation, reduc¬ 
 tion of fiefs, declarator of escheats, entries, nonentries, 
 &c.; by selling of commissariats, &c.; by raising and 
 rigorously exacting the quotas of testaments; by sums 
 of money given unto them, their sons, or their ser¬ 
 vants, for presentations, collations, testimonials of or¬ 
 dination or admission,—sometimes by people who 
 would be at a good minister, and ordinarily by the 
 prudent friends of the entrant, who can find no entry 
 but by a golden port. 
 
 6. The Pastor would have learning to grow, and, 
 considering that schools and colleges are both the 
 seminary of the commonwealth and the Lebanon of 
 God for building the temple, 1 desireth earnestly that 
 there might be a school in every congregation, that 
 the people might be more civil, and might more easily 
 learn the grounds of religion ; he would have the best 
 engines chosen and provided to the students’ places in 
 universities, the worthiest and best men to the places 
 of teachers, who might faithfully keep the arts and 
 sciences from corruption, and especially the truth of 
 religion,—as the holy fire that came down from hea¬ 
 ven was kept by the Levites: he desireth the rewards 
 
 i Quales schola exhibet homines, tales habitura est respublica. 
 Dan. polit. 
 
 Hinc major pars salutis vel corruptionis reip. pendet, et ex schola- 
 rum fontibus, divini et humani juris prsesidium vel expugnatio oritur; 
 ibi enim discuntur prima literarum monumenta, artes ingenues, mores, 
 jura divina et humana, quae omnia permaxime interest incontami- 
 nata servari, &c. Greg. Tholos. lib. 13. cap. 3. 
 
 Plebeiis argenti, nobilibus auri, principibus gemmarum loco literas 
 esse debere. iEneas Syl. Platina, 
 
 Indoctus Episcopus asino comparandus. Idem. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 115 
 
 of learning to be given to the worthiest, and, after they 
 have received them, that they be faithful in their 
 places, lest by loitering and laziness they become both 
 unprofitable and unlearned. 
 
 The Prelate is not so desirous of learning in him¬ 
 self 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 devoureth that himself which should entertain 
 particular schools: he filleth the places of students 
 without trial of their engines, to please his friends and 
 suitors, contrary to the will of the masters and the 
 acts of the foundations: he filleth the places of learn¬ 
 ing not with the most learned, but the wealthiest 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 rewards of 
 learning, incontinent, their learning beginneth to de¬ 
 cay, 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, corruptions, and all the spiritual 
 power of sin and Satan, but hath no strength to with¬ 
 stand the temporal power and authority of princes . 1 
 The same government sorts with monarchy no less 
 than with aristocracy, through the wisdom of the Son 
 
 l Possunt judicare, non possunt praejudicare, habent vim charitatis, 
 non habent vim authoritatis. Hugo de S. Yictore de sacram. part 2. 
 
116 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 of God, who fitteth the same for all nations and divers 
 forms of civil policy. The pastor acknowledgeth his 
 prince to be his only bishop and overseer, superinten¬ 
 dent over the whole kirk in his dominions, as being 
 preserver of the liberties of the kirk, and keeper of 
 both tables; to whom also the General Assembly of 
 the kirk, or some few commissioners chosen by them, 
 and convened, when it is thought expedient, by the 
 king’s commissioner, may give his majesty better and 
 more speedy satisfaction in kirk affairs, and with 
 greater love and contentment of the whole kirk, and 
 of all his majesty’s loving subjects, than can be given 
 by the thirteen prelates; all which may be done upon 
 a small part of the prelate’s rent, for bearing the 
 charges of his majesty’s commissioner, who also may 
 be changed at his majesty’s pleasure. 
 
 The Prelate and his government is weak to with¬ 
 stand the spiritual forces of sin and Satan but is strong 
 to oppose the temporal power of princes, and hath 
 been of all enemies the most dangerous to monarchy; 
 for howsoever now, while opposition is made, he 
 flatter and fawn upon the prince for his own stand¬ 
 ing, 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 terri¬ 
 ble 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 
 
 i Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem et Dioclesia- 
 num, et Julianum apostatam ac Valentem Arianum et similes, id fuit 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 117 
 
 his credit and lordly authority, to get any thing done 
 to his majesty’s satisfaction, and with contentment of 
 the kirk; for all the craft and violence that hath been 
 so long bended, never one whole famous congrega¬ 
 tion within the kingdom is either conquered or like to 
 be subdued to his conformity, but either the better or 
 greater part, or both, have resisted; and yet, for his 
 lordly maintenance, he hath impaired the rent of the 
 crown, in so far as it was aided by the collectory, and 
 pulleth from the king the rents of great benefices, the 
 homage of vassals, with their commodities, regalities, 
 and other privileges, more proper for the sceptre than 
 the shepherd’s staff. 
 
 8. The Pastor desireth no other title but to be 
 called the minister of the town or parish; he striveth 
 with no man for precedency; he seeketh no place in 
 the commonwealth, neither in council, session, nor 
 exchequer, but stirreth up, and soundeth the trumpet 
 in the ear of the generous spirits of the kingdom, to 
 show themselves worthy of their own places; and, 
 whether he be minister in burgh or land, he is a com¬ 
 mon servant to all, from the highest to the lowest, to 
 parents and children, to masters and servants, in all 
 pastoral duties; while he liveth he harmeth none, but 
 helping all, procuring honour to the greater and main¬ 
 tenance to the poorer sort, and, when his life is brought 
 to a comfortable end, every soul blesseth him, and all 
 mourn for him as for a common parent. 
 
 The Prelate, according to the political axiom, 
 
 quia deerant vires temporales Christianis. Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. 1. 
 5. c. 7. pessime sed ut Hierarchicum decebat. 
 
 q* 
 
118 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 “ When virtue waneth vanity waxeth, and many 
 titles much vanity ,’ 71 disdaining to be called anymore 
 the minister of Christ, hath taken upon him the titles 
 of the nobility,—My lord of Orkney, my lord of Caith¬ 
 ness, my lord of Murray, my lord of Argyll, &c., with 
 the title he taketh 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, and is 
 drunken with his new honours, he lifteth his ears like 
 Isis 7 ass, and as handmaids when they become mis¬ 
 tresses, he waxeth so insolent that he cannot be borne. 
 In his own city he will have homage of all, over- 
 ruleth the election of their magistrates, harmeth both 
 parents and children through the country, by giving 
 warrant for sudden and secret marriages without pro¬ 
 clamation, 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. 
 
 i Virtute decrescente crescit vanitas, et titulorum arrogantiaj; pro- 
 verbium de repub. Veneta cum usurparetur titulus, Domine, sim- 
 pliciter, tunc facta est resp. cum Domine stabilita est, Magnifice 
 Domine, tunc eversa est. 
 
 Plebeios ex humili genere natos, si ad dignitates et honores per- 
 venerint, immemores suae sortis, plerumque ambitione insolentes se 
 efficere aliosque deprimere conari constat: iidem multo insolentiores 
 et propemodum intolerabiliores magna cum jactura reip. esse solent, 
 quam qui nobili, celebri et vetere stirpe geniti sunt, ita ut veterum ille 
 recte dixerit: JBajuli imperant etmali sunt superiores bonis; metuone 
 navem fluctus opprimat. Camer. cent. 2. Mattotj S'ouxwrarct yvvn 
 SifTroivcL ytvoiro. Epig. Graee. 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 119 
 
 9. The Pastor maketh the kingdom fit for war 
 against the time that necessities give alarm; for, by 
 labouring to make the people truly religious he 
 maketh them fit for both parts of Christian fortitude, 
 active and passive, for doing valiantly and suffering 
 constantly : 1 in the time of peace he stirreth them up 
 against softness and intemperance to diligence and 
 labour, whereby their bodies are the more able and 
 durable : he strengtheneth also the nerves of war, by 
 contenting himself with a mean estate, and by his 
 doctrine and example teaching people to spare in 
 peace for the time of war. 
 
 The Prelate maketh the kingdom unfit for war; 
 for by his government the people lose true fortitude 
 with the love of religion; that if they have any kind 
 of courage for battle, it is not so much the invincible 
 courage of Christian religion as the carnal and bastard 
 fortitude of paganism, which, in comparison of the 
 former, hath ever been but pusillanimity; by his over¬ 
 sight of rioting and idleness their bodies become weak 
 and effeminate, and, by his own large rents, and his 
 example of prodigality, which to them is a law, he 
 enervates the estates, and cuts asunder the sinews of 
 war. 
 
 The Prelate’s objection .—The Prelate will ob¬ 
 ject, that if you that are pastors understood either the 
 manners of the people or the grounds of policy, ye 
 would see that neither can noblemen, and others 
 given to their pleasure, bear your simple and censo¬ 
 rious form of preaching, nor your austere and precise 
 
 i Fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest. 
 
120 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sider not what depth this draws. 
 
 The Pastor's answer .—We know that of all ranks 
 there be some who love their pleasures more than 
 God, and these, according to the first flattering part 
 of the objection, will say with the old verse : 
 
 “ Non mihi sit servus, medicus, propheta, sacerdos.” 
 
 He is no servant fit for me, 
 
 Who physician, prophet, priest will be. 
 
 For such may neither abide to be cured of their 
 spiritual evils by the counsel of God, nor to hear of 
 the evils that will come if they refuse to be cured, nor 
 to be exhorted to repentance when the calamities are 
 turned 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 presented before the Judge, whether then the pas¬ 
 tor or prelate pleaseth them better ? The other part 
 of the objection the wisdom of the king 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 parlia¬ 
 ment, we understand a general and national meeting 
 of the whole kingdom and kirk by their commis¬ 
 sioners, with their supreme magistrate and king, every 
 one to give his advice and judgment respective ac¬ 
 cording to the nature of the society, civil or ecclesias¬ 
 tical, which he represents: commissioners of the kirk 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 121 
 
 to give resolution from the word of God, if need be, 
 concerning matters civil, but not to meddle with civil 
 causes civilly, and to propone petitions to the king 
 and estates for the good of the kirk, to require their 
 civil sanction, and to see that nothing be concluded in 
 things civil that may be a hinderance to the worship 
 of God: the nobility with the commissioners of baro¬ 
 nies and burghs for civil matters, and to add the civil 
 sanction in the matters of God’s worship; kirkmen 
 chosen and instructed by the kirk may sit in parlia¬ 
 ment 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 under¬ 
 stand the highest court and supreme judicature civil, 
 meddling only with civil matters, or with matters of 
 religion civilly, as, to add the civil sanction, and to 
 ratify by civil authority what hath 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 convocation house doth in 
 our neighbour kingdom, but can have no place nor 
 vote in parliament, neither in making laws about 
 things civil, nor in the civil authorizing in matters of 
 religion; for ministers should not judge of the right of 
 inheritance, nor pronounce sentence about forfeiture, 
 nor make laws about weights and measures, &c., but 
 should exhort the people to obey the civil powers. 
 Without bishops or ministers laws have been made 
 by parliament, and may be made now no less than 
 without abbots, priors, &c., who had once vote in 
 parliament no less than they. Their benefices are 
 baronies in respect whereof they claim vote in par- 
 
122 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 liament; but they are not barons or proprietors, and 
 heritable possessors thereof, to transmit them to their 
 heirs, or to alienate them, but only are usufructuaries, 
 to have the use of them for their time; neither doth it 
 suit with the minister’s calling to have such baronies, 
 nor are they to be reckoned for ecclesiastical persons, 
 but for civil, when they have place in parliament in 
 respect of these baronies, and, therefore, cannot vote 
 there in name of the kirk. 
 
 To conclude, then, Whether we look to the word 
 of God, or to the more pure and primitive times of the 
 kirk, or to the nature and use of things indifferent, or 
 to the reformation and proceeding of our own kirk, or 
 the good of the kirk and of the people’s souls, or to 
 the happiness of the commonwealth and the good of 
 every one, from the king that sitteth upon the throne 
 to him that heweth the wood and draweth the water, 
 we may see whether the pastor or the prelate, whether 
 reformation or conformity, is to be followed by the 
 true Christian and patriot; and that there is as great 
 difference betwixt the bishops of our times and the 
 faithful pastors of the reformed kirks as betwixt the 
 light that cometh from the stars of heaven and the 
 thick darkness that ariseth from the bottomless pit; 
 and it may be made manifest that since bishops 
 were cast in the mould of the man of sin, wheresoever 
 they have ruled, whether amongst the papistical and 
 the reformed (some few excepted, who, when they 
 ventured upon these places, went out of their own 
 element,) they have been the greatest plagues, both 
 to kirks and kingdoms, that ever had authority in the 
 Christian world. Neither needeth any man to object 
 
THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 123 
 
 that the comparison that we have made runneth all 
 the way betwixt the good pastor and the evil prelate, 
 and, therefore, may be answered by the like unequal 
 comparison betwixt the good prelate and the evil pas¬ 
 tor, 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 danger but the kirk may be 
 as well, or better, governed by prelates than by pas¬ 
 tors; 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 law¬ 
 fully, and another thing to use a lawful power un¬ 
 righteously and unjustly .” 1 Pastors may have their 
 own personal infirmities, and never so many as under 
 the prelate’s government, and prelates may have their 
 own good parts, and never so many as by the occa¬ 
 sion of the pastor’s opposition; but neither the one 
 nor the other are to be ascribed to their offices, nor is 
 the lawfulness of their offices to be judged by their 
 persons. It is true when an unlawful power and a 
 lawless man meet together the case of those that are 
 under his authority must be the worse, as we may see 
 in the papacy, which, being always evil for the kirk, 
 yet have proved worse, when monsters, instead of 
 men, have sat in their seat. But it is evident that the 
 evils which prelates and their lordly government bring 
 upon the kirk do flow from their sole jurisdiction, 
 
 l Aliud est injusta potestate juste velle uti, et aliud est justa potes- 
 tate injuste velle uti. August, de bono conjug. cap. 14. 
 
124 
 
 THE PASTOR AND THE PRELATE. 
 
 exorbitant power, meddling in civil government, and 
 the curse of God upon that unlawful estate, all which 
 are common to the whole order, and not peculiar to 
 some persons; and the corruptions which are common 
 to all in these places, although greater in some than in 
 others, of necessity must flow from the unlawfulness 
 of the state and office itself. It is so far that good men, 
 put in the places of prelacy, can make the government 
 good,—that the places of prelacy have ever corrupted 
 the men and made them worse. So it was with iEneas 
 Sylvius, who, before his popedom, seemed sound and 
 honest, maintaining many points against the tyranny 
 of that seat, but, being made Pope Pius II., retracted 
 all, and proved as impious and antichristian as the 
 rest; so, many that have been of good account in the 
 ministry, and given hope of great good by them to 
 the kirk when they entered to be bishops, yet wholly 
 degenerated from their first works, and learned be- 
 time ululare cum lupis , to howl with the wolves; 
 the experience whereof made Queen Elizabeth to say, 
 “ When she made a bishop that she marred a good 
 minister.” 
 
 THE END. 
 
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