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A Review & Examination of a Pamphlet lately published bearing the Title of “Protesters No Subverters & Presbytery No Papacy, etc.”  (Edinburgh: 1659), pp. 105-39

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George Hutcheson & James Wood

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[This transcription is public domain.  Minimal updated editing has been done; the outline and subheadings have been added.]

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Outline

III. State of the Question: Submission in variously applied agreed-unto rules of discipline

1. Does not regard doctrine
2. Their examples of Athanasius and active obedience in prelates’ subscriptions are outside the scope
3. About private interest, and we are a sound Church
4. Our submission may be proved by all divines’ arguments for subordination; Mt. 18:17; Heb. 13:17; 1 Cor. 14:29, 32-33
5. Their argument: Submission in discipline infers it in doctrine

IV. Persons of whom submission is required

1. Ordinary officers (by the Church’s mediate call) and members only, not apostles and prophets (by an immediate, divine call)
2. Inferior judicatories: have intrinsic power in their bounds

V. Nature of this submission

1. Persons need not approve of the sentence, but, having exonerated oneself, submit, suffer and not counter-act
2. Dissents and appeals in lower courts are preserved

VI. Nature of the sentences: ought to be just

1. Not granted that the sentences in this case are unjust; how judicatories can, without wronging Christian liberty, inflict censures against persons not persuaded in conscience
2. If not just, they ought to be submitted unto and not counter-acted: the practice of the godly in all ages (Parker, Beza, Synod of Dort, English Puritans)
Considerations

1. God entrusted his House to fallible men
2. No judge has authority to do unjustly
3. Every wrong act does not divest a judge
4. Passive obedience is required and commended in Scripture in some cases
5. Schism is an evil, whether destitute of truth, or upon a not weighty enough or relevant matter

Arguments for submission

1. If there be passive obedience due to any sentence of a judicatory, then it must be due to unjust sentences
2. Authority and submission are correlative and cannot exist without each other
3. Submission is due to magistrates, and hence to the Church
4. What takes away all use of appeals instituted by Christ cannot be of God, for one ordinance of God does not make another void
5. That which involves a man in schism cannot be of God
6. The denial of submission implies the necessity of sinning, contra God

VII. Answers to their arguments

1. Judges have no authority for unjust sentences
2. We are subordinate to the Church only in the Lord
3. This brings tyranny in the Church and is against defensive arms
4. “It is better to obey God than man.”
5. Resolutioners are the stroner party

Conclusion

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III. State of the Question:
Submission in variously applied agreed-unto rules of discipline

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III. As to the matters wherein we require submission:

We do not urge a submission in this question betwixt us in matters of doctrine or articles of Faith, in worship, government, nay nor rules of discipline, for in all these we are agreed, and through mercy they are established among us.

We only plead, that in the matter of applying agreed-unto rules of discipline to particular persons and cases, there be a subordination and submission observed: and that in the matter of inflicting of censures on officers or members, or of judging of the call of ministers, according to these agreed rules; and in the like cases incident in the judicatories of reformed and settled churches, there be a sisting of contentions and an avoiding of schisms and confusions by the submission of persons to judicatories and of inferior judicatories to superior.

To clear and branch out this assertion more distinctly consider:

1. While we do thus limit this question, our purpose is not to retrench the just power, dogmatic and diatactic, of Christ’s courts, nor to insinuate anything prejudicial to the submission due to them in these respects and given to them both at home and abroad.

But our scope is only to discover to the world how the case stands between these disputants and this Kirk.  We have not only a Confession of Faith, Directory of Worship and of Government, but also settled rules of discipline in matters that fall under the critical power of judicatories, so that nothing remains in debate but whether in application of these rules, the sentence and judgment of judicatories ought to be acquiesced unto without further contention.

2. This being the true case between us, we think their instance of Athanasius not submitting to Arians deposing him for his asserting the divinity of the Son of God, and that argument 11 making a supposition of our enacting the mass and all the heresies of Rome, do shoot short of the conclusion and mark.

For when Church-judicatories deny homage to the Son of God and return to Rome, we shall not debate the point of non-submission only with them, but shall run from them as from synagogues of Satan.

Likewise they might have spared their argument about the subscriptions taken by prelates (pp. 110-11, argument 13), for not only is there active obedience imported in these engagements, whereas we are only speaking of passive submission, but they did also tie men to approve corruptions in the point of Church-government and in the matters of God’s worship, which falls not within our question.  This also might tell them that that instance, pp. 50-51, of our Confession anno 1567, concerning articles of Faith, or constitutions repugning to the Word of God, was needless: As also that great noise they make of all the precious truths of God and interests of Christ at the stake (p. 49).  And that there is no ecclesiastical remedy in case of a general defection (argument 15, p. 113).  And that salt[y] allusion to the crucifying of Christ (p. 99) and their citation of Gal. 1:8 (p. 108, argument 8).  These and many the like big assertions, whereby they endeavor to render us odious, have no place in this question.

And it was well told them to this purpose in the conference for union, where they started these same difficulties, that our confidence is that such cases shall not fall out in this Kirk, we being united in one Confession of Faith, form of Worship, Discipline and Government; and that it is contrary to prudence and inconsistent with any well ordered government upon the supposing of a case which can but rarely (and we hope, through grace, never shall) fall out in this Kirk, to enervate a general rule and make an open door for schisms, contrary-actings in subordinate judicatories and divisions upon divisions upon every occasion.

3. This then being the true state of the question, may we not again resume their assertion (pp. 115-16) and take them at their word, “That if the case were only of particular persons in things of more private interest and personal concernment, and of judicatories employing their power to edification in the current of their actings, they would not much contend about it”?

As to the first, this case concerns only particular persons, and that only in such private and personal concernments as fall within the compass of Church-discipline, while the work of God stands entire in the Church; and this hazard may be of very few, yea, through grace, of none at all who may suffer injury, and for them in particular sufficient remedies were offered in the conference for their security.

And as to the second, however they are pleased to play upon submission upon the account of soundness (pp. 114-15), yet we assert that as to our principles, we are sound in doctrine, worship, discipline and government.  As to our qualifications, we approve not of, nor do we tolerate any manifested and proven iniquity in any of our members; and as to the current of our actings, we forbear to censure none who can be found guilty, nor to try any of whom there is any suspicion or presumption.

And we are so far from any crushing and bearing down of piety that no man is obnoxious in the Church of Scotland to any hazard, either for profession or practice of godliness, but it is a part of our constant trial to find out mockers of piety.  Men may follow all the duties of holiness and righteousness, and the duties of edification, according to the Word of God and the established constitutions of this Church, not only without hazard from, but under the protection and favorable aspect of Church-judicatories.  And all the while this Kirk has declared her dissatisfaction with our Brethren, who (either being godly, or under the pretence of it) have brought in such confusions and disorders, they cannot give one instance to infringe the truth of this our declaration.  Now matters being thus, we think their own assertion may bind them to submission in these matters where the greatest hazard is of men’s personal suffering only, without any prejudice to the interests of Christ.

4. But whether they adhere to their own assertion or not, yet this submission so qualified as to the matter wherein it is required, is to us beyond all controversy, that it is due in such a Church and to such judicatories: and submission to sentences in these matters, whether just or supposed unjust by the parties suffering, taking it generally (for we shall speak more distinctly afterward to what they insist so much upon concerning unjust sentences) may be proven by all the arguments whereby divines do prove subordination.

Christ’s own rule, Mt. 18:17, does to us demonstratively conclude it, where the last Church-remedy in the matter of offenses is, ‘Tell the Church.’  There is an express precept for it, Heb. 13:17, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.’  And that order established, 1 Cor. 14:29, 32, that the prophets should judge of one another, and the spirit of the prophets be subject to the prophets, does hold out this submission most clearly, as may further appear from the reason subjoined, verse 33, that God is not the author of confusion (which cannot be avoided if we follow the doctrine of these witnesses in this matter), but of peace.

And accordingly it is urged by the synod of Delph against the Remonstrants [Arminians] (Acts of the Synod of Dordt, p. 87).  The very light of nature (from which the ministers of London in their Jus Divinum and Mr. [George] Gillespie in his Assertion [of the Government of Scotland and Ruling Elders] do argue in this case) does strongly evince that in no society in the world it will be allowed that particular persons and societies should not submit, but counteract to the whole; and that government cannot stand where there is not a submission, at least passive if not active, and that it is a ruled case that rather one [person], than unity, should suffer.  Let it be but applied to civil societies and authority, and the case will soon speak for itself.

The pattern of the Jewish Church (from which they likewise argue in this case) does also evince it.  For, no doubt, as (they are pleased often to tell us, particularly argument 1, p. 89) their judges and priests were bound to judge according to the Law, and yet it is not to be supposed that if parties judged their sentence unjust, they might not submit, but contra-act.  Suppose the priest had pronounced a man leprous (as was his office to determine in these cases) and yet the man judged the priest had erred in his determination (as it was possible in these cases wherein he consulted not with urim and thummim, he might) but could not get the priest persuaded it was so: Is it probable he would either stay, or get leave to stay within the camp, for all that?

Yea, this assertion is of so universal verity that the very ends of government (for preserving unity and being an hedge about doctrine and worship in a Church) are overturned thereby.  For once cast loose this submission in a sound and well constituted Church, and then how shall government reach its end? or, cui bono [“to what good”] shall judicatories meet to sentence any? seeing they will get no submission but as the parties please to think they are right: yea, not only parties censured, but even such of the Judges as vote against the sentence, are free to sleight and contra-act.  By this principle also we must either establish a toleration or else keep up judicatories to clash perpetually with parties either before or after the sentence.

It were far more prudential to declare judicatories only consultative meetings (as indeed they are by this opinion.  For what they attribute unto them (p. 46) of binding us by virtue of their authority, is not denied to synods by very Independents (Cotton’s Keys, p. 25).  And yet Mr. [Thomas] Edwards tells us in the place before cited, that indeed they are to them but as arbitrators for hearing and counsel, the parties being still their own judges, as it is here also) than under the notion of juridical authority, to overturn all order and peace by the clashings of them and the parties convened before them.  For (as Mr. [Samuel] Rutherford asserts in his late piece against Hooker, p. 465) “every appeal, whatever unjust prejudice be in it, must not stop the actings of Christ’s visible Kingdom and called pastors.”

Now, if persons censured be not allowed to submit, but to contra-act when they judge the sentence wrong, and yet cannot convince their judges that it is so, what must judicatories do?  They look upon themselves as entrusted with the government of Christ’s House, and do judge the contra-actors to sin dangerously, and must they stand still and look on while their party, pretending a call from God, goes on in his contempt?  Were they only consultative meetings they had delivered their souls by giving their advice without raising any further stir; but now they cannot be answerable to their trust to let men go on and sin.  And on the other hand, the party cannot obey men rather than God (as these witnesses argue) and so they must clash till they ruin all.

Further, by denying of this submission, things must either come to this issue, that in case a man cannot get his will in Church-judicatories, he must turn Erastian and bring the matter to the civil magistrate (as Poppius Boorsma did in Frizland, with deserved bad success), or when he thinks his judge wrong, he must endeavor to put him out of the chair and set himself there to guide better; and when he is set, another must serve him in the like kind, and so in infinitum [“to infinity”]: Judicatories shall be pulled down, set up and tumbled down again.  Or he must resolve to be his own judge and ruled by none, though all the judicatories of a national Church determine against him: And the judicatories must either take off his censures, though in their consciences inflicted upon just causes and truly proven, or let him and as many as please to follow him, go on to counteract their sentences, till they be left beacons on a hill, and none [there be] to submit to their authority.  Whereby also it may soon come to pass, that some few Heretics may continue themselves in a ministerial capacity to propagate their errors in despite of all that the judicatories can do and a Church be exposed to all the confusions which our writers charge upon the Independent government.

These few considerations may suffice to clear how necessary it is that subordination and submission be observed, especially in an orthodox and well-constituted Church, and how the contrary practice will bring confusion upon all societies, civil and ecclesiastical, on earth.

5. But to consider what they offer against this distinction and state of the question as to the matter of submission, and we find them arguing:

1. Argument 5, pp. 103-5, that if submission be due in matters of discipline and government, then also in matters of doctrine and worship, unless God has either put a greater respect on the first than those last, or has given greater latitude in the one than the other.

Answer: To say nothing here of the submission due in matters of doctrine and worship, as not lying in our way (as was said before), seeing passive obedience, which is the matter in debate betwixt us, is relative only to the critical power of judicatories, we can soon give them another ground of difference in these than what they are pleased to find out for us, viz. that however God has not put a greater respect on discipline than on doctrine and worship, nor has allowed men to take a greater latitude in the one than the other (though yet in many things of discipline and government God has left us to be directed by the light of nature and rules of prudence common in like cases in all courts, as He has not done in doctrine and worship; and consequently the multitude of counselors in a judicatory are more to be respected than one who is loadened with a prejudice of passion and interest in his own particular), yet to submit in the matter of discipline where the hazard is only personal and of a man’s suffering, is not tanti [“so great”] to disturb a well-settled national Church where doctrine and worship are in their integrity: whereas the case is of greater moment when a national Church, in her judicatories, introduces false doctrine and corrupt worship to be imposed upon a Church.

2. They argue (argument 6, pp. 105-6) that submission to the critic power or exercise of discipline will infer submission in matters of doctrine, for which they instance the ratification of and censures ordained to be inflicted upon the matter of the Public Resolutions, and the matter of Athanasius, of which before.

Answer: We see no cogency in this argument, that because a Church may censure heretics who submit not to their dogmatic determinations (which none of us ever doubted of), therefore our question with them is not about matters of discipline only when we are settled in all other points and do profess our adherence thereunto.  But as to the matter of the Resolutions:

1. As we wonder with what face they can conclude all these men taken in to be sons of Belial, if it were for no more but upon the account of their own professed respects to many of them (to say nothing of the good parts, yea, and real piety of, at least, some of them, who failed in an hour of trial), so they must first prove these Resolutions to be an error before they can make the sentences concerning them unjust.  This we are forced to tell them often because they have the good manners so oft to say much and prove nothing at all.

2. This question being extrinsic to our doctrine, worship and government (as has been said), men may well be enjoined silence in it without entrenching upon the matter of doctrine or men’s opinions:

We are sure it is maintained by the learned that men having declared their judgments concerning some truths of an inferior nature, they may be silent for peace’s sake.  And so contending divines have been enjoined silence by Church-judicatories.

And if any would but have a touch of the necessity and equity of these proceedings of the judicatories against the opposers of these Resolutions, let them but take a view of these men’s ways and let these witnesses but re-act a few of their former pranks; let them but oppose any of these public Resolutions of conjunction of forces with either malignants or very Papists that may be in practice in these nations: let them refuse to act or enjoy their public offices under an authority owning and putting in practice these Resolutions; let them not only write and preach against them as a defection and sin against God, but let them protest against judicatories as not lawful, who own them; let them draw a faction and keep up a rent till they be repented of, or at least made void, and assurance given against them for the future: let them (we say) but show forth a little of this their wonted spirit and we hope others will see what they are [made of], as well as this Church and nation has felt it.  And if they be true to their principles, they must do so still in all times and cases in these confederate nations, otherwise men will have just cause to suspect them of little conscience in the things they have done.

3. But this instance has nothing to do with our question, for in our overtures wherein subordination was required, it was also offered that all debates and censurableness about these matters should be laid aside and made void.  And so, had they accepted the union, that would have had nothing to do with the subordination required for the future.

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IV. Persons of whom submission is required

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IV.  As to the persons of whom submission is required: Two things come to be considered which may further clear the question:

1. That submission is required of ordinary officers and Church-members only:

So that their arguments from the practice of the apostles and prophets, p. 47 and argument 2, pp. 100-101, might well have been spared.  For (to omit what further may be said afterward to the instance of the apostles) their calling being neither of man, as to the office itself, nor by man, as to their call to it, but being immediately called by Christ Himself, without the intervening ministerial power of Church-judicatories: We assert they were not subject to any Church-judicatory on earth as to their continuance or non-continuance in the exercise of their ministry.

But ordinary ministers, as they have their call mediately by the Church, without whose authoritative mission no inward call can warrant them to thrust-out themselves, so in their continuance in that office which they have from the Church, they are subject to the Church.  And if they will assert a warrant for their continuance in the ministry, whether the Church will or not: Tub preachers may as well improve it to thrust themselves in over the Church’s belly.  And here we may take notice of what is said by the authors of that treatise published by Mr. [William] Rathband, formerly mentioned, who, speaking of their yielding to suspensions and deprivations by bishops and their courts, p. 41 [pp. 265-66], they tell us “that it lies in them to depose who may ordain, and they may shut that may open;” and afterward, and p. 42 [pp. 267-68], they answer that very objection from the answer of the apostles, Acts 4:19-20, urged by the Brownists against their submission, by showing the differences betwixt the apostles’ case and theirs:

“1. That they who inhibited the apostles were known and professed enemies of the Gospel.

2. The apostles were charged not to teach in the name of Christ, nor to publish any part of the doctrine of the Gospel,” which (say they) was more hard than their case under bishops, who, though they cannot endure the truth concerning government and reformation of the Church, yet are content the Gospel should be preached, and preach it themselves.

3. They add: “The apostles received not their calling and authority from men, nor by the hands of men, but immediately from God Himself, and therefore all so might not be restrained or deposed by men; whereas we, though we exercise a function whereof God is the author, yet we are called and ordained by the ministry of men and may therefore by men be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our ministry.”

Whereas their first and second difference speak clearly to the second and third branches of our question, so this last does fully speak our mind in this.

As to what they (and Mr. Rutherford before them in his Preface to his Survey [of Hooker’s Survey]) say of private persons being excommunicated, their non-submission to abstain from public ordinances: As excommunication is rarely pronounced in this Church, except in the case of obstinacy, and therefore may easily be prevented, so we cannot understand how they can avoid non-submission, unless either they will forcibly obtrude themselves on ordinances till they be thrust-out, and so must come to non-submission at last, or unless they get ministers who will admit of them, and so refuse to submit to the judicatories, which will at last fall in with the former case.  Though we, in the mean time, would have such a person seriously to consider whether his edification by these particular ordinances from which he is debarred by the sentence (means-simply-necessary-to-salvation not being taken from him, and the want of the rest being but his affliction, not his sin, take the matter in his own sense) ought to be laid in the balance with the breach made on order in a Church constituted and settled as is said, with the contempt and scandal put upon the judicatories who yet stand invested with power to rule in Christ’s House, yea, and with the stumbling of the whole congregation upon whom he obtrudes himself, who (perhaps) judge his sentence to be as just as he counts it unjust.

2. As to the submission of inferior judicatories to superior, concerning which they argue (argument 7, p. 107, and again, argument 15, pp. 113-14), we grant indeed that the power of the superior judicatory is cumulative and not privative to the inferior judicatories, yet it must be understood in a right sense, for:

1. It is granted on all hands betwixt us that, by the constitutions of this Kirk, every Church-judicatory may not meddle with all things, but with things that are of particular concernment within their bounds, leaving things of more general concernment to the Church to superior courts: yea, within their own bounds congregational elderships do not meddle with the matter of adultery, excommunication and ordination of ministers, but these things come before the presbytery.

2. Albeit inferior judicatories have intrinsic power given them by Christ, and may exercise it independently where providence affords them no superior judicatory; yet in a national Church, it is the will of Christ they exercise that intrinsical power with a subordination to the superior courts so that (so long as they hold the subordination and do not renounce the judicatories as heretical and corrupt) they may indeed do all they have right to do, yet so as they must be accountable to others in the case of appeals or mal-administration, who may lay as great claim to that promise, Mt. 18, as they can.

And if the superior judicatories judge their proceedings to have been wrong, in the case now before us it is no more lawful for them than for private persons to make a rupture by non-submission, or not suffering and being passive, which will prove a remedy worse than the disease.  Nor does this subordination prove that these inferior judicatories must be fenced in name of the superior, seeing they know that even inferior civil courts are not fenced in the name of a parliament, to whom they are subordinate.  And if this hold not, it shall be to no purpose for superior judicatories to meet, unless either to approve all that is done or else it please inferior judicatories to be convinced by them.  And indeed now it is no strange thing to see one private presbytery not only reverse and declare null the conclusions of a General Assembly, but judicially declare the Assembly itself null: far contrary to the Book of Discipline, where it is expressly provided that elderships, or presbyteries, must alter no rules made by General or Provincial Assemblies, bk. 2, ch. 7, p. 81, and no less contrary to the opinion of Beza, Epistle 44, p. 244, who judges it iniquissimum et intolerabile, etc.:

“most injust and intolerable, that things concluded in a general synod should be rescinded by the authority of one consistory, unless the party pass from his right or things be agreed among parties, without any detriment to ecclesiastical discipline.”

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V. Nature of this submission

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V.  As to the nature of this submission, or manner of performance thereof, two things are worthy our consideration for further clearing the truth in this particular:

1. That in pleading for submission in matters of sentences, as is above qualified, we do not urge that men in conscience should approve of all and every of these sentences as just (however we do not therefore grant they are unjust, as we shall after hear), but only that (whatever their judgment be) they submit and suffer, or be passive (having done duty and exonered themselves) without counteracting; and that because:

1. However they count them unjust, yet they (looking through the prospect of passion and interest) may be deceived.  The judge thinks them just, and it may be many others, yea, all except the parties concerned.

2. However it be, yet it is better one or a few persons suffer somewhat than that a schism be made in an orthodox and well-settled Church.

This being the true state of the question, and indeed a safe remedy appointed by God, that when men in a Church cannot in conscience obey a command, then they may with a good conscience submit and suffer (for, the Lord’s commanding us to submit and our engaging thereunto does import there may be cases wherein we cannot give active obedience).

It is a miserable mistake all along in the most part of this debate that obedience is confounded with submission and suffering.  That because a Church ought not in duty to domineer over the flock, p. 52, therefore none of the flock may lawfully suffer an injury (or supposed so) rather than do a greater injury by renting the flock.  That because prelates taught falsely that the sentence of superiors is a warrant sufficient to men’s consciences to give active obedience to their constitutions, and that the law must be the rule of men’s consciences, and did bind men to give obedience to their ceremonies upon pain of deprivation (as they tell us, argument 13, p. 110-11), therefore there can be no ground for a conscience to suffer when they cannot obey: that because it must be a praecognitum in every law to be actively obeyed that it be just, therefore men are never called of God to suffer, even unjustly: because it is asserted that conscience is not left unbound by retaining the freedom of our judgments concerning the things which yet we act and do (argument 3, p. 102), therefore the conscience does not retain its just freedom concerning an unjust sentence because a man suffers under it: as if our suffering under anything did import an approbation thereof in our consciences: because men may not tyrannize over consciences, p. 48, therefore consciences cannot bear witness lawfully against what they count evil even by suffering: and because protestant divines do say that the judgment of discretion makes a man judge of his own actions and what he should do, p. 97, therefore it warrants him also to suffer nothing, but rather to confound and overturn a Church ere he do so.  These and many the like flowers of discourse and fallacious argumentations are scattered through this Pamphlet, which the judicious reader will find to be clear non-sequiturs and very far from the scope of the Scriptures and sense of the writers which they cite here and there, which we need not hunt after seeing de similibus idem est judicium [“judgment is the same on similar things”].

2. That we urge no such submission to sentences of inferior courts as secludes either dissents for men’s own exoneration and keeping pure in what they think wrong (which we conceive is the Scripture-duty in such cases, 1 Tim. 5:22) or appeals from one judicatory to another till they come to the highest [that] can be had.

Which speaks much to the justice of the government, that a man is not presently concluded irrecoverably under a sentence by every inferior court, as it is in the Independent [church] government, but has a door left open to get his cause heard again, till he come either to a national Assembly with it, or (if that cannot be had) to a synod.  Yea, though one General Assembly do not satisfy his desire, he may make his address by supplication to another after that, so that a man has fair room to follow forth variety of lawful means and to have his cause heard before variety of judicatories for righting anything that is supposed to be amiss.  Who, if they do right him, it is well; if not, he has done his duty, and may sit down in peace, as having neglected no lawful means of defense, and consequently may commit his cause to God, as we heard before from the reverend Assembly of Divines.

As to the matter of submission till the appeal be discussed, whatever the practice of some of them be in counter-acting upon their appeal before it be heard before the judge competent: yea, and upon their appeal to a General Assembly (whereof we have wanted [lacked] possession these years bygone [under Cromwell], and know not when it may be had), they take liberty in the meantime to do what they will with the sentences of presbyteries and synods.  Yet we find them shy (to use their own language) to own any such thing in this pamphlet, but [rather] they lay the stress of their non-submission upon their succumbing before the judge to whom they have appealed, pp. 48-49.  So also, p. 99, they say nothing to submission till a man’s appeal be discussed.

But to us it is clear that as submission is due to the sentence till the appeal be discussed, by the acts of this Kirk and judgment of divines writing on this subject, as we heard before, and as it were to no purpose to appeal if men did not submit but went on, seeing they have no benefit to recover by their appeal if they submit not, especially if they will not submit to the superior either; yea, and it will be most absurd to say they will not submit in some cases when the judicatory, who may right them, is to convene within a week or very short time, and yet they will not have patience even for so long: so submission till the appeal be discussed will strongly conclude submission after that also.  And we think it must be a strange thing if a minister, having offered to maintain his ministry before all the judicatories of a national Church, and all of them reject it, yet he will obtrude it upon them, nill they will they, and will make schisms and factions never so many ere he be not a minister.  We may say it, though we account our ministry (through grace) dearer than our life; yet so long as there were service to do to Christ in any part of the Christian world, we would be loathe to use a Reformed Church so; yea, the loss of our life would not be so bitter to us as to be accessory to the confusions attending such a practice.

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VI. Nature of the sentences: ought to be just

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VI.  As to the nature of the sentences to which submission is required, and the justice or iniquity supposed to be in them, we do heartily agree with them that all sentences pronounced by judicatories ought to be just sentences, yet we offer these considerations which may further clear this debate:

1. Whereas it is taken for granted all along that the sentence to which submission is required is an unjust sentence, yet (notwithstanding what has been or may be supposed) this is sufficient to answer all their arguments: that they but beg the question in them.  For it is not granted them that the sentences are unjust.

And (though we dispute the matter further with them, yet) this is indeed the true state of the controversy betwixt us: not whether unjust sentences that are so indeed ought to be submitted unto, but whether parties are free not to submit to sentences, though never so just, if they count them unjust?  Or, whether in case of a difference in judgment betwixt the judge and party concerning the nature of a sentence pronounced, and neither of them being able to convince the other, the judgment of the judge ought to carry it, as to the parties’ passive obedience and submission thereunto?  Exempli gratia [for example]: When a judicatory judges a minister insufficient for the work and he thinks himself able enough, whether he be bound to submit to them and forbear preaching or not?

If we speak of the case betwixt them and us, we never urged any sentences that were unjust to be submitted to by them (though for peace we have offered to wave that debate); nor do the judicatories purpose, in the power of the Lord’s grace, to pronounce any unjust sentence, but that they will judge according to known rules.  Yea, let this matter come in question betwixt judicatories and parties, and it will be laid to the charge of parties that they submit not to just sentences.

It is true, they call them unjust, but, to whom are they so?  The judge pronouncing a sentence counts it just; it may be so do all others but the party: he will not submit to his judge’s verdict.  Can he then find any arbitrators to whom he is rather bound to submit than to his judge; or must all return to his own private judgment of discretion, not only as to what he will approve or do, but what he will suffer?

And yet was it ever almost found but that parties sentenced were grieved and dissatisfied therewith; and might not these heretics who were censured, Acts 15, have urged the same plea?  And did not the Arminians at Dort and do not heretics at all occasions condemn the sentences of their judges, and yet their judges did not yield the question to them?  If a comparison be instituted betwixt the judges and the party, the judges may safely allege that it is not so probable they are in an error as the party, as being a multitude of counselors, wherein is safety: as being less blinded with passion and personal concernments in the cause than the party is and having a more express promise (though they pretend not to infallibility) for direction and assistance in judgment, Mt. 18:19-20.  Thus Beza (epistle 59), pleading the cause of Christ’s courts against some disturber, wills him to consider that though they consist not of sinless men, yet it is probable that many should be wiser than one.

If we speak to their procedure, they are ready to offer all rational satisfaction: These witnesses [of the Protesters] say that it is a praecognitum in all sentences to be pronounced by judges and obeyed by parties that they be just sentences, pp. 52-53, that ministers ought to be subject only to lawful admonitions, that suspension and deposition should be for lawful causes, p. 51, that entrants [to the ministry] are engaged to submit themselves to admonitions and censures only when they slide and offend, p. 60.  And the judges say their sentence is just for lawful causes and upon real sliding, though they cannot persuade the party that it is so.  If they allege that even in the matter of transportations [of ministers to other bounds], the judicatories are bound to give reasons for the expediency of the same, much more should they deal meekly in sentences, pp. 51-52.  The judge declines not so to do: they are ready to give solid reasons for their deed, though they cannot persuade the party to see them; yea, they are ready to hear what the party can offer against the sentence, though they cannot convince him that his reasons have no force.  They will grant him that his private judgment of discretion makes him a judge of his own actions (though yet but a subordinate judge) as to what he should do, p. 97, but cannot allow it should hinder and bind them up from censuring what is wrong or warrant him not to submit in the point of suffering.

When we inquire what remedy is there to avoid a schism and preserve unity and order if they submit not, they tell us, p. 49:

“If the sentence be unjust, it ought to be recognized and repealed: If it be just, and of an inferior nature” (that is, a lesser degree of censure), “if the persons will not submit, they are, after due procedure to be cast out as those that will not hear the Church, etc.”

And what is this but the very constant practice of the judicatories, though parties will not see that they judge justly?  And what shall the judge do, if after the sentence of excommunication is pronounced, the party still refuse to submit?  They offer us no remedy in that case for preserving of order and avoiding of schism.

So that, in a word, the case comes to this, not if they ought to submit to an unjust sentence, but whether, let all the judicatories, even from an eldership to an ecumenic council, proceed never so justly and conscientiously, yet the party censured is still supreme judge on earth of all their proceedings, and his own actings and behavior in reference to whatsoever of their sentences, so that till he be convinced he must suffer nothing, but counteract at his pleasure?  And if this be a sound principle, all sober Christians will judge.  And when they cry out so much that we do not purge, we desire to know how by this principle we can purge any at all?  Or if others be not free to make use of it as well as they?

We shall shut-up this part of the discourse with some account of the judgment of others in this very matter.  The commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland then at London (Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston and Mr. Rutherford being of that number) in their Reformation of Church-Government in Scotland Cleared from some Mistakes and Prejudices, p. 17, do assert that:

“To limit the censure of excommunication” (the like may be said of suspension and deposition of ministers, and other censures) “in matter of opinion to the common and uncontroverted principles, and in the matter of manners, to the common and universal practices of Christianity, and in both to the parties’ known light, is the dangerous doctrine of the Arminians and Socinians, etc.”

To this we add a further consideration of that objection mentioned before, How judicatories can, without wronging Christian liberty, inflict censures or put men to suffer who profess that after examination of the decrees or constitutions they cannot be persuaded of the lawfulness of the same?  To this (beside what is before marked) further answer is given by Mr. Gillespie (in his Assertion, pt. 2, ch. 4, pp. 152-53):

1. “That our divines by these tenets” (of Christian liberty and the allowance of a private judgment of discretion) “do not mean to open a door to disobedience and contempt of the ordinances of a synod, but only to oppugne the Popish error concerning the binding power of ecclesiastical laws by the sole will and naked authority of the lawmaker, and that Christian people ought not to seek any further reason or motive of obedience.”

And we are so far from this that we not only offer reasons of laws to be actively obeyed (of which he here speaks) but even of sentences to be submitted unto, though the contemners and disobeyers will not see them.

2. “A synod must ever put a difference betwixt those who out of a real scruple of conscience, in a modest and peaceable way, refuse obedience” (understand active obedience, to which he is speaking) “to their ordinances, still using the means of their better information, and those who contemptuously or factiously disobey the same, laboring with all their might to strengthen themselves in their error and to persuade others to be of their mind.”

How applicable this distinction is to the carriage of these [Protester] witnesses in the matters of our late differences, we leave even to themselves to judge.  The same Mr. Gillespie, in his Miscellany Questions, ch. 16, p. 207, says:

“It is no tyranny over men’s consciences to punish a great and scandalous sin (such as the refusing and opposing of the Covenant, or a dividing from it), although the offender in his conscience believe it to be no sin, yea, peradventure believe it to be a duty.  Otherwise it had been tyranny over the conscience to punish those who killed the apostles, because they thought they were doing God good service, Jn. 16:2.”

2. But seeing all men, and even Church-judicatories, are fallible, let it be supposed that a sentence is unjust (and be it still remembered that it is but supposed and not yielded; for as it can hardly be imagined that a judge will pronounce a sentence which he accounts unjust, so we desire that our supposing the injustice of their sentence be understood without any prejudice to judicatories right in maintaining the justice of their own sentences); and let the question be of a Church so constituted and sound and orthodox as is before expressed, and of sentences such as we have qualified for the matter of them; and we do hold that they ought to be submitted unto and suffered under without counteracting, and that the former considerations pressing submission in general, do take place even in this case.

This we might easily confirm from the general practice of the godly in all ages, and particularly of the non-conformists, who, as they put a vast difference between subjection and obedience, so in their practice they did cheerfully suffer under unjust sentences and did vindicate the aspersions cast upon their non-obedience by their readiness to submit and suffer.  Who so will be pleased to peruse [Robert] Parker, On the Cross, ch. 4, sect. 12, 14-15, will find they were so far from owning non-submission to these unjust sentences of bishops for their non-conformity that they did own submission and vindicate their practice in submitting from the aspersions cast upon them for it and did encourage themselves and the Church by believing that the loss of their ministry should be the Lord’s gain and the Church’s.

It is the positive judgment of Beza (as we heard before from his epistle 12) that godly men in England should not continue to preach against the Queen and bishops’ will, where he adds that having in these cases:

“attested their own innocence, and essayed all remedies in the fear of the Lord, they should yield to manifest violence.”

The provincial Assembly of South-Holland met at Delph go a further length against the Remonstrants (Acts of the Synod of Dordt, pp. 86-87) where, having spoken several things in answer to the Arminians’ argument against a synod and their submission thereunto, because the members thereof are all fallible men, and having asserted that there is ground of confidence that Christ according to His promise will be present and direct a lawful synod gathered together in his fear to judge in matters according to the Word of God, that nothing shall be decreed therein to the prejudice of his truth and Kingdom, they expressly add, Sed fac aliquid ejusmodi decretum iri, etc.:

“But let it be supposed that some such thing be decreed, yet truth will not therefore still be kept at under, but will in due time break forth again.  But, in the meantime, order, quietness and peace ought to be kept in the Church of Christ.  For God is not the God of confusion or disorder, but of peace, and therefore will have all things to be done in his Church orderly, peaceably and quietly.  Now there can be no order, nor peace in the Church of God if every man be permitted to teach what he will and be not obliged to give an account of his doctrine, nor submit himself to the judgment of any synod, according to the precept of the apostle, 1 Cor. 14:29, 32.”

Another instance instead of many is the judgment and practice of these authors of the treatise formerly mentioned against the Brownists, suffering for the cause of non-conformity.  They being challenged by the Brownists for going to the bishops’ courts, for standing and falling at their commandment or yielding to their suspensions and deprivations, after they have given their reasons for their going to these courts and reverencing and yielding to their censures according to the law of the land, which did establish conformity, they add (p. 41 [pp. 265-66]):

“If it be said that the Church is not to be obeyed when it suspends and deprives us for such causes as we in our consciences know to be insufficient, we answer that it lies in them to depose that may ordain; and they may shut that may open.

And that as he may with a good conscience execute a ministry by the ordinance and calling of the Church who is privy to himself of some unfitness (if the Church will press him to it), so may he, who is privy to himself of no fault that deserves deprivation, cease from the execution of his ministry when he is pressed thereunto by the Church.

And if a guiltless person put out of his charge by the Church’s authority may yet continue in it, what proceedings can there be against guilty persons who in their own conceit are always guiltless, or will at least pretend to be so, seeing they also will be ready always to object against the Church’s judgment that they are called of God, and may not therefore give over the execution of their ministry at the will of man.”

By which it evidently appears that the judgment and practice of these ancient worthies and suffering presbyterians has been point-blank opposite to the doctrine of these new teachers and modellers of government, and that the strength of the arguments in this Pamphlet were not unknown to them when they thus determined and practiced, as may appear from the very last words above cited and from what we have elsewhere cited of their answer to the objection taken from Acts 4:19-20.

But that we may make this truth appear more distinctly, we premit these general considerations:

1. That the wise Lord has been pleased to entrust the government of his House into the hands of fallible men, who not only may, but sometime actually do err.

2. That no judge either civil or ecclesiastical has any commission or authority from God to sin or enact an unjust sentence.  And that this is not to be restricted to Church-judicatories only cannot be doubted by any Christian who holds the magistrate’s authority and commission to be from God, who doth not authorize any to sin.  For, as power is given to the Church to edification and not to destruction, so magistrates ought not to be a terror to good works, but to the evil (Rom. 13:3).

3. That every particular wrong act or acts do not divest a judge of his authority (though it be granted he has no commission or authority to do these acts, as they assert, p. 96, praecognitium 5), but he remains the judge and lawful authority of the Church or nation, as is clear in right reason and by Scripture rules.  For if it be asserted that an unjust sentence, one or more, do make void the authority of the judge, this will overthrow all government, ecclesiastical, civil or economical.  Mr. [Edwards] Gee [an English presbyterian] in his Treatise of the Civil Magistrate, pp. 36-37, urges that indeed lawful powers are bound to use it lawfully, but yet asserts it as “yielded by all,” that this is not simply necessary to the being of a lawful power, but:

“a power that is unlawful only as to exercise may be, for its habit and being, included in the text” (Rom. 13) “and its irregular actings only discarded from it.”

4. That by the Word of God submission or passive obedience is required and commended in some cases, and that of a different nature from the suffering of guilty persons, Mt. 5:10-11; 1 Pet. 4:15-16.  And that in some cases the people of God are called to suffer without resisting, as has been the frequent practice of saints and asserted by all orthodox divines writing upon subjection as contradistinct to obedience.

5. That as schism is an evil disapproven and never warranted of God, so a man may be guilty of schism who not only makes a rent and causes disorder upon a cause destitute of truth, but also upon a cause not weighty and relevant, though true in itself.  This is so obvious to all who are anything acquainted with the Scriptures and with the writings of the ancients, or latter divines upon the nature and evil of schism, that it is needless to insist on the probation [proving] of it.  Whoso pleases to peruse Mr. [Richard] Baxter in his Explication of the Agreement of the Ministers of Worcestershire, p. 119, will find much to this purpose in few words, and, among others, these passages:

“If the Scripture were conscionably observed, men would take Church-division for a greater sin than adultery or theft.  Mutinies and divisions do more infallibly destroy an army than almost any other fault or weakness, and therefore all generals punish mutineers with death, as well as flat traitors.”  And a little after, “Commonly they that divide for the bringing in of any inferior truth or practice, do but destroy that truth and piety that was there before.”

We might upon these grounds multiply arguments as they have taken pleasure, it seems, that way to make a show of many, which may be reduced to very few; but we shall content ourselves with these:

1. If there be a submission and passive obedience due by Christians in any case to the sentence of a judicatory, and commended of God, as has been presupposed, and cannot without contradicting the principles of Christianity be denied, then certainly it must be due to unjust sentences.

For unto just sentences, requiring a duty under pain of censure, active obedience and not passive is due by the Word of God.  And as for sentences inflicting censures, it is true submission to such just sentences is due by the Word of God, but that is not the passive obedience required and so much commended in saints in the Word, but only that suffering which is contradistinct to suffering as evil doers, or for just causes, as is clear from 1 Pet. 2:18-20 and 4:14-16, 19.  So that unless they will banish a command to suffer according to the will of God (or cleanly suffering with a good conscience) out of the Bible, they cannot avoid this.

2. As it is granted that authority and submission are correlative, p. 45, and that in just sentences, beside the obligation of the matter, there is a formal obligation by its coming from such an authority, p. 46.  So in an unjust sentence, albeit judges have no authority, nor warrant from God to do that act, and it is null before Him, nor does it oblige the conscience by virtue of the matter of it, yet so long as they continue the standing authority of a Church, somewhat is due to them relative to that authority, and that is submission.

If they could make them simpliciter no judges, because they err in a particular fact, they would say somewhat: but seeing they are still lawful judges, even when they pronounce that sentence, though they fail in it, it must be held as of general verity that while persons continue invested with lawful authority, obedience or (if obedience cannot with a good conscience be given) submission is due to their actings by private persons: For if submission and passive obedience, or cleanly suffering, be due in any case, and that not to just but to unjust sentences, and if the submission be due not by virtue of any warrant given by God to pronounce that sentence (for there is none), then certainly there is a submission due to the standing authority of a judge or court as they continue still God’s ordinance though they err in that particular.

This consequence is not only owned and urged by Mr. [James] Durham on the Revelation, p. 100, that submitting unto Church-power is a necessary and concerning duty, and that without this submission there could be no government, nor exercise of power, but their own very concession (formerly mentioned) pp. 45-46, does put it beyond all controversy.  For if authority and submission be correlative, and the one cannot subsist without the other more than one relative can actually subsist without its correlative, then we hope it is no slander to say that submission is essential to presbyterial government, seeing logicians have taught us, and they grant it, that take away a relative and the correlative ceases to be.  And therefore also either must the authority of judicatories, when they pronounce some unjust sentence, be totally annulled, or submission must be paid as due to that authority, as has been said.

3. This may be further confirmed a pari [“from what is equivalent”]: Magistrates are bounded by the Word of God that they may not by their commission judge unjustly, nor pronounce an unjust sentence more than Church-judicatories: and yet albeit magistrates do decree an unrighteous sentence, they may not be resisted, but must be submitted unto by private persons unless they would resist the ordinance of God, though coming short of the rule in that particular act.

Now if this be granted to the standing authority of magistrates erring in a particular fact (and granted it must be unless men will blow the trumpet of rebellion to every private person and condemn saints in former ages in their suffering under the unjust sentences, even of wicked magistrates), it cannot be denied either to the standing authority of Church-judicatories seeing the case is alike as to the authority of both to do evil, and Subjection is due only in the Lord to the one as to the other.

And here we desire the reader to take notice of a passage of Mr. [Jeremiah] Burroughs in his Lectures on Hosea, ch. 1, v. 10, p. 111, cited by Mr. Gee, Treatise of the Magistate, p. 257-58, where, having denied that submission, active or passive, is due to the commands of men till it be brought to a law and they be a power, he subjoins, “When things are brought into a law” (understand a lawful authority established according to the agreements and covenants of the place where we live, as the following words are):

“and then suppose this authority be abused, and there be an ill law made, then (I confess) if the law be of force, we must either quit ourselves of the country, or else submit or suffer.  When then it comes to be a power, to be a law, it is authority, though abused, and we must yield obedience to it, either actively or passively.”

If it be said that men submit to the force, not to the authority, of the civil magistrate, in these cases:

Answer: Not to insist that they know the Church also uses all the force they have, and so the case is alike, it would be considered that to submit only to the force of a magistrate pronouncing and executing an unjust sentence is only that submission out of prudence and for preventing other disturbances, which Mr. Burroughs (in the forecited place) grants may be yielded to unlawful powers, but it is not that submission out of conscience which he holds to be due to lawful authority and their laws even when authority is abused in making them.  For it is a Scripture rule that we are to be subject not only for wrath, but for conscience sake, Rom. 13:5, where Mr. Gee (p. 112) expounds it:

“a subjection of conscience, as the principle of conscience is contra-distinct from terror and compulsory punishment.”

And it is known sufferers use not to wait for force to make them submit, but do it in submission to authority.  Condemned persons wait not till they be drawn to the place of execution, but go on their own feet, and banished persons will depart upon the charge of a magistrate.  Yea, where men unjustly sentenced have been in a capacity to resist force (as Christians were in the armies of pagan emperors) yet they have submitted to authority and suffered.

4. That which takes away all use of appeals, instituted by Christ in the case of mal-administration, cannot be of God, for one ordinance of God does not make another of no effect.

Now this doctrine of non-submission and counter-acting does make void all use of appeals, for (as has been cleared before) the appeal from an unjust sentence supposes submission to it in the mean time; for, let it be holden that such a sentence is null and not to be submitted unto and let a Church own that principle, and there needs no appeal.

5. That also which involves a man in the guilt of schism cannot be of God:

But a man not submitting to some unjust sentence is involved in the guilt of schism, because though he have right on his side, yet his personal suffering is not tanti [“so great”] as to be laid in the balance with the confusion and open contempt of lawful authority and other inconveniences attending upon his non-submission.  And albeit his judge must answer to Christ for his unjust sentence, yet he must answer for his schism if he suffer not patiently.

6. To this may be added that it should rub an imputation upon the wisdom of God who has put this trust in fallible men’s hands, who may and do err, if submission were not a safe medium to be acquiesced in betwixt the rocks of sinful obedience and schismatical contra-acting in a Church or rebellion in a State.

For the governing of us not being entrusted to men who cannot err, without this medium men can hardly walk under the dispensations of providence toward them, but either they must split on one hand or other, whereas now, by yielding suffering to be commanded of God and a duty laid upon us in such cases, we wipe off all imputations cast on Him and may walk in peace of mind, though with some personal prejudice.

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VII. Answers to their arguments

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VII.  As to the arguments which they muster up against this submission, if we hold them at their word (pp. 115-16) that in some cases they would not much contend about it (of which we have also spoken before), we might leave it at their own door to answer them and to clear how, in any case, they would not contend about what they plead so much against as sinful.  For sin in any case and in any matter is sinful and so not to be yielded unto.  And if they can bring sufficient reasons why in the cases they mention in the forecited passage they may submit to an unjust sentence, they will save us a labor in vindicating ourselves and answering their arguments against the submission we plead for.

But for further satisfaction, as we have already in this debate met with many of their reasons and particular branches of them and either answered them or laid them aside as impertinent to our question, which we shall not now repeat, so we do offer a brief return to what is (or seems to be) further material in their reasonings in these particulars:

1. Their scope in a great part of their discourse and arguments is to evince that because judges have no commission or authority from Christ to pronounce an unjust sentence, therefore they are not to be submitted unto, unless men will take their will and arbitriment for a law to their consciences.

But this is a great fallacy and confounding of things that are very different, namely, of the rule whereby judges ought to walk in their administrations and the rule whereby the Lord’s people ought to walk under these dispensations of providence toward them, whereof human judges in their administrations are the intervening instruments.  We yield that judicatories are limited by their commission, that they may do no unjust act; and if they do, they must answer to God for it.  We yield also that the rule of their commission does regulate also those who are under them as to their approving or giving active obedience to their injunctions.  But when it comes to the matter of suffering, and being passive after we have exonered ourselves, we do not look to their will as our rule or ground of our submission, but to a peculiar command of God enjoining submission in such cases, to prevent schism and confusion.  This may easily take off the most of their reasonings.

They urge acts of Assemblies, p. 51, that ministers ought to be censured for lawful and just causes, and take much pains to prove that judicatories are bound to judge according to the Word (argument 1 and elsewhere); and when they do otherwise, that they act that for which they have no commission, nor power (p. 96).  All which we grant to be true of ecclesiastical judges, as it is also alike true of civil powers that none of them have a power to judge unjustly and that God who commands us to be subject unto them commands them to judge justly: and therefore in the case of unrighteous judgment, we neither approve nor give active obedience: yea, we are free, for the liberation of our own souls to contradict even an ecumenic council, angels, prophets and apostles if they determine contrary to the Word of God (as they have it, argument 8) (yea, and to do more also, if they bring in another doctrine of the Gospel to which the Scripture there cited speaks, Gal. 1:6-8); and so shall deny them also any power over our consciences; nor shall we set them on Christ’s throne (which they charge upon our opinion, argument 3) as to the acknowledgement of their sentences to be just or any approbation in our practice and active obedience of what in our consciences we disallow (which is all [that] can be inferred from the principles of non-conformists concerning the freedom of conscience, mentioned also, argument 3).

Yet it cannot from all these be inferred that there is not a command of God obliging us in conscience to suffer unjustly rather than make a schism and pour contempt upon standing lawful authority. Nor is it soundly argued that because they do not their duty in their station (for which they must give an account to God), therefore we are not bound to suffer what we are called to in our stations; or that suppose men should play the Popes in pronouncing an unjust sentence (such as is above qualified) against a man (as they have it, argument 14), therefore the sufferer may lawfully sin too. This opinion is so far from dethroning that it does exalt Christ and does deny to men what is not due to them, and yet gives to Christ what is due to Him.

Likewise, when they urge so much (arguments 9 and 10) that it argues the Scriptures of imperfection, gives what is due to them to judicatories and must infer the infallibility of judicatories that they must not be contradicted, nor contra-acted, but their will must be a law (as they elsewhere tell us), there is all along a great mistake in the case: For not only is that of “not contradicting” put in without cause, seeing men may contradict as to the declaration of their judgment when yet they submit, but we never asserted a judicatory might be contra-acted in no case (as we cleared before in laying aside their eleventh argument and other reasonings); we are only now debating about submission to sentences qualified as is above expressed. And what submission we pay in these, we are so far from setting up men’s infallibility or from derogating from the Scriptures as to their perfection and sole authority over our consciences, that it is not out of conscience of the justice of the sentence, but in obedience to the sole command of God bidding us respect lawful authority and suffer in such cases that we pay it. And it is upon the supposition of the judges fallibility, yea, and their erring actually that we press this submission as contra-distinct to active obedience.

So also as to the Scriptures which they cite (argument 2) that we should not be the servants of men, but stand fast in our Christian liberty and obey God rather than men, they have borrowed these weapons from Independents, who (as Mr. Rutherford tells us, Peaceable Plea, p. 193) borrowed them from Anabaptists and Socinians, arguing against the places of kings, judges and magistrates. But the argument is easily answered: that we obey God and not men and are his servants and not theirs in this submission, and that the people of God are free as to the enslaving of their conscience with the approbation or their practice with doing of anything that is unjust; yet they have not an immunity from stooping to suffer when God calls them to it; and let the case be but instanced in a magistrate’s unjust sentence against particular persons and it will say for itself whether their Christian liberty will reach a non-submission or not.

Likewise when they urge (argument 12) that unjust sentences are null in themselves and therefore cannot bind to submission and subjection: we grant that in foro interno it is a null sentence, not obliging the conscience to any approbation thereof; yet in foro externo, it is so far valid as a man cannot deny submission thereunto without sinning against God in contemning the standing lawful authority of a Church, in making a schism and declining to suffer when God calls him to it. And in this the very Independents agree, though they differ about the subject invested with the power of the keys, for they tell us in their Defense of the Nine Positions, p. 210, that a minister derives all his authority from Christ by the Church indeed applying that office to him, to which the authority is annexed by the institution of Christ. Hence being the minister of Christ to them, if they without Christ depose him, they hinder the exercise of his office, but his right remains.

2. While they urge that ministers are over us in the Lord, 1 Thess. 5:12 (argument 1), and that we are to be subordinate to Church-power only in the Lord, pp. 95-96:

That is so far from warranting non-submission and contra-acting in the question betwixt us that it does strongly assert it. For (to omit many other things which the learned find imported in this) to be subject in the Lord, as it imports:

1. An acknowledgment in our consciences of their lawful authority, and
2. active obedience to what they command in the Lord:
3. So in the case of an unjust sentence, it requires such submission and passive obedience as He has enjoined us in his Word in such cases (which what it is, has been spoken to before) and so it confirms our assertion.

That this is not a forced interpretation may appear were it but from this one consideration, that this qualification of submission and obedience in the Lord is not required in reference to Church-judicatories only, but of children also in reference to their parents, and consequently of all inferiors paying subjection to their superiors in their several stations, as is clear from Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:18 and elsewhere.  Now, it is not to be supposed that the apostle warrants children, servants or subjects to resist and counteract all the unjust corrections and sentences of their masters and superiors, but that they should submit and suffer rather.  For we find in Scripture that it is the commendable duty of children to submit to their parents, even when they chasten them for their pleasure only, Heb. 12:9-10.  As also of Christian servants to suffer unjustly under their bad masters, 1 Pet. 2:18-20, and generally of all Christians to suffer under their persecuting magistrates, 1 Pet. 3:14-17; 4:12-16 and frequently throughout the Scriptures.  And this, together with what has formerly been produced, may satisfy that part of argument 1 wherein they call for a precept or precedent in Scripture to clear this matter.  For here we find there is Scripture-warrant for this submission, to which we may add that the practice of the suffering people of God in all generations is a clearer commentary to these texts than all the glosses (tending but to sedition, schism and confusion of human society) they can fasten upon them.

3. While they urge (argument 15, pp. 113-14) that this brings in a tyranny in the Church and by parity of reason condemns defensive arms, which are judged lawful against State-tyranny:

We are so far from allowing tyranny or injustice in the least that we maintain that all judicatories are bound to judge righteous judgment at their peril. And if they proceed to ruin all religion (as this argument carries it with vehemency enough, to say no more) we have already cleared what the people of God may lawfully do in such a case; yea, in unjust sentences of lesser moment not only inferior judicatories, but even particular persons in their stations may do more than whisper once against them (as they are pleased to phrase it) and yet submit when they have done.

But as to the question betwixt us and this Church, they will find their argument from defensive arms to fail them. For (not to dip any further in that question) no learned man ever allowed even the body of a nation or their representatives in parliament to rise against a prince (far less a party only, be they persons or some inferior judicatories, against the supreme magistrate or a national Church and her representatives, which is our case) upon the account only of the unjust sufferings of particular persons while yet the affairs of Church and State were well ordered. That would soon make more unjust sufferers than would be under lawful authority not-resisted, possibly in many ages. And we believe it is without precept or precedent that private subjects or inferior courts should rise in arms against their prince or parliaments only because they inflict some unjust sentences on themselves or some private subjects while yet they adhere unto and overturn none of the righteous things concluded in a nation. And therefore this Church, being through mercy settled in the matter of doctrine, worship and government, they may spare this argument till they prove this Church to be overturning all or any of these.

4. That wherein they seem to place no small confidence in this matter (as appears by their frequent repeating and expatiating thereupon) is, that reason of the apostles for their non-submission to the council at Jerusalem, Acts 5:29, “It is better to obey God than men,” together with these commands of God enjoining ministers to preach the Word and Christians to partake of the sacrament in remembrance of Christ, 2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Cor. 11:24.  These they propound (argument 2, p. 99) and the most of their reasoning thereupon is again recapitulated in short (argument 4): that these duties being commanded by God, they cannot omit them without sin upon that non-relevant reason, of the mere will of men unjustly sentencing them with deposition and excommunication.  This they urge further (argument 2, pp. 100-101) from the instances (not only of the apostles and Jeremiah and Amos, to which we have spoken before, but) of Daniel counteracting the decree of Darius (Dan. 6) and of the man’s confessing Christ though cast-out by the Jews for it, Jn. 9.  But (to say nothing that this last instance will not prove that non-submission to the sentence of excommunication which they there speak of, unless they make it appear that the man did not only confess Christ still but obtrude himself also upon the Jews in their Church-society) the answer to this is easy, if we take notice of a twofold distinction:

1. We would distinguish human prohibitions of duties commanded by God. For some prohibitions are not only restraints put upon some persons as to the exercise of these duties upon the account of these persons’ incapacity (real or supposed) to go about the same, but are in effect and chiefly a condemning of these duties in their very nature and kind as not to be observed by any person whatsoever: and so do not touch upon the incapacity of the persons who are prohibited, but upon the things themselves considered as such moral performances which are prohibited. Such a prohibition was that of Darius, which was a political decree prohibiting the very duty of prayer unto God and that to all men universally, not to Daniel or some others only upon any personal incapacity in them. So the decree of the Jews was against the very duty of confessing Christ and not a restraint upon some persons only that they should not be the performers of that duty. And their decree against the apostles’ preaching was a law and dogmatic determination against the whole doctrine of the Gospel and the publishing thereof to the world, and not a restraint put upon the apostles only while they allowed others to do it. For it may appear from their own words, Acts 4:17 and 5:2, that their quarrel was not against the apostles’ preaching, but against the doctrine which they preached in this name. They offered not to silence them from publishing doctrine simpliciter, but from publishing this doctrine.

Again, there are some prohibitions which are mere disciplinary sentences, restraining persons from such duties of an office, or the use of such privileges as they not only allow of in their nature and kind, but do allow others in the practice and enjoyment of them and do only restrain others therefrom upon the account of their personal incapacity, real or supposed. Exempli gratia, when a Church-judicatory deposes a minister from preaching of Christ upon the account of insufficiency or scandal, or debars a member from participation of public ordinances; suppose they do err in the particular, yet they are so far from condemning of these duties of preaching of Christ and partaking of the ordinances that they provide another to preach in the room of him whom they have put out and do see to the dispensing of the ordinances daily and to the inviting of the rest of the congregation to join in the participation thereof.

That there is a vast difference betwixt these two sorts of prohibitions may appear further in this (beside what is said) that prohibitions of the first sort are simply and in their nature and kind unlawful, nor can any such decree be lawfully made at any time: but disciplinary sentences are not unlawful in their nature and kind, but may in some cases lawfully be pronounced and executed, as is confessed by all.

And as to the application of the distinction to the case in hand: We need not meddle with it in the matter of prayer and confessing Christ, seeing (as we shall hear upon the second distinction) these fall not within the compass of disciplinary sentences. But as to the matter of preaching and participation of public ordinances, which are the things in debate betwixt us, we may hence take a clear solution of the difficulty. For let once a Church-judicatory grow so corrupt as to condemn the duties of preaching Christ and participation of public ordinances in their very nature and kind, and as to all sorts of persons universally (which is the true case held out in their instances, for even the false priest at Bethel and the rulers at Jerusalem did condemn the doctrine preached by Amos and Jeremiah, and did not quarrel only their preaching of it while they did allow it in others), and in that case we should without scruple (as was said before) conclude them no true courts of Christ, and consequently not to be submitted unto. Yea, in case such decrees were published, we should hold it a case of confession for ministers to preach and people to frequent ordinances, so long as they had liberty or opportunity. And so, though neither the apostles nor prophets had been extraordinarily called, nor clothed with a commission unrepealable (as has been said) by any on earth, their warrant was sufficiently clear in that case to hold up the oppressed truth of the Gospel against the sworn enemies of Christ and the Gospel who would neither preach Christ nor suffer Him to be preached by any other, as we heard from these worthy non-conformists, authors of the treatise against the Brownists formerly mentioned.

But on the other hand, when a Church does own all the truths of the Gospel and all the ordinances of Christ, and does no sooner put out one from preaching of Christ, but they provide another to make up that want, and do dispense the ordinances in purity to the people of God, in such a case (which, through mercy, is the case of this Church as we have heard), suppose they do err in discharging one to preach and another to come to the ordinances: It is not the will of God that persons so suffering should make a schism by their non-submission and counteracting upon the account of their personal suffering or prejudice as the preceding arguments do abundantly prove: but having used all lawful means of redress by appeals to superior judicatories, they ought to acquiesce and submit to the will of God calling them to suffer rather than run upon the many inconveniences formerly mentioned. But to clear this further:

2. We would distinguish duties commanded us by God wherein we may be restrained by men. For there are some moral duties incumbent to Christians simply and absolutely as they are Christians and which are simply in their own power by themselves and independently from others, and enjoined them without any respect to their subordination or relation to others in the Church; so that to their performance of them they neither need a call empowering them thereunto, nor are dependent upon the concurrence of any others in or to the same, such as prayer to God and confessing of Christ, which are of moral natural right: and there are other duties of moral, positive institution which are not in men’s own power severally and by themselves and independently from others in the Church, but [are] some way in the power of others beside themselves, and are incumbent to men as they stand in relation or subordination to others, and are either duties to be performed by men as they stand clothed with an office received by the intervening ministry of the Church, such as the ordinary ministerial preaching of the Word and the administration of other public ordinances or privileges which they do enjoy by the ministry of others who are to dispense them unto them, or also by the joint concurrence of others with them therein, such as the participation of sacraments, public assembly-praying and praising.

The difference here is very considerable, both as to the power of disciplinary sentences about them (for sentences of Church-censures are not conversant about performance of duties of the first sort, but only of the second; nor can there ever in any case a restraint be lawfully put upon men in the matter of praying and worshipping God or confessing of Christ, as there lawfully may be in some cases in the second sort of duties and as to the matter of submission to sentences restraining men from and forbearing of the performance of them.

For the first sort are so entirely in our own power that we neither need a call from any warranting us to go about them, nor the concurrent acting of any other for our enjoying the liberty thereof. And they are so absolutely commanded without respect to any dependence upon any other, and are so absolutely necessary, necessitate medii [by the necessity of means], for a man’s glorifying of God and his own eternal salvation that it must be a sin not to observe them constantly, as affirmative precepts ought to be observed, yea, a double sin not to adhere to them in a case of confession, as it is when these duties are prohibited by men.

But as for the second sort of duties, albeit (as has been said) there can be no submitting to forbear them upon any decree of men prohibiting them in their very nature and kind, yet being duties that are not absolutely necessary, necessitate medii, and being as to the exercise thereof not wholly in our own power of and by ourselves, but some way dependent upon others also so that we cannot go about them without a call and warrant from others, nor enjoy the exercise of them by ourselves: therefore in case the Church who calls and ordains a minister will not suffer him to preach, or a minister (who has the trust of dispensing ordinances) will not dispense the sacrament to a member, the sufferer breaks no command in suffering that injury after he has essayed all lawful means of redress, seeing his forbearance is not a voluntary and elective omission of the duty he is restrained from, but a patient suffering of an injury under a necessity whereof providence has brought him, unless he would commit a moral evil, which he is obliged not to do by natural right, viz. make a schism in a true Church and bring contempt on lawful authority. It is his affliction and not his sin, nor is it the violation of any commandment, but only a cessation from a duty commanded when he cannot do it without the violation of another command of more universal and necessary obligation. Neither is he by this cessation deprived of the exercise of any duty absolutely necessary to the honoring of God, enjoying of fellowship with Christ and saving his own soul.

And if they deny these things, they must yield also that in some cases (beside that of an erring conscience, which is yielded by all) a man may be concluded under a necessity of sinning on all hands: as that a minister must either sin by forbearing to preach or sin in making a schism by continuing to preach when he is deposed by a lawful authority in a true Church, though erring in that particular. As such a case and snare upon men is held by the learned to be repugnant to the infinite holiness and wisdom of God the Lawgiver, so we find godly sufferers before us very far from judging their submission and suffering to be any violation of God’s command calling them to their work.

Parker, On the Cross, ch. 4, sect. 14, clears that sufferers in the cause of non-conformity did not voluntarily, willfully or sinfully give-over their ministry, adding it is not the leaving of the ministry that is a sin, but the causes why, the end wherefore and the circumstances wherein, that makes the leaving of it sinful. To wit (as he expresses both before and after in that section), when men leave it for their gain and ease, etc. as prelates and their creatures did and not when these sufferers left it to keep a good conscience, and by leaving thereof did perform that duty of suffering and left their ministry to keep their flock, by their example, from the wolf, and from all liking of his fair shows, and not as the careless shepherd who leaves them to the claws of the wolf: yea, these sufferers did teach them by their example of suffering, when they were not suffered to do it by doctrine—but did willingly submit to the providence of the Lord, who for the present called them from it. Much more to this purpose may be read in the author at large in the Section cited, as also section 15.

Whereas it is said that it is an omission of a duty upon a non-relevant reason, of the mere will of men, which they so often repeat, and in the close of argument 3, pp. 102-3, tell us that these duties cannot cease to be obliging to such a person, hic et nunc [here and now], upon that reason, unless we prefer the commandments of men to the commandments of God, and say, “It is better to obey men than God.”

Answer: It is true that the unjust sentence is the object of the man’s suffering and from it is the rise of his forbearance, but the reason why he suffers and forbears is most relevant as being in obedience to the command of God requiring us to suffer in a matter which is our privilege and comfort, rather than make a schism. But this is their grand mistake, that they look only to men as their party and to the injustice of their procedure, but do not remember that God by that dispensation of his providence, in suffering lawful authority to do them wrong, is calling them to suffer; and that when they submit thereunto, it is not to men, but to God also and to the order established by Him.

5. Whereas they make it a great exception in the matter of submission that we are the plurality and (p. 10) they allege there must be no good intention when the stronger party does press the submission of the weaker.

Answer: We do believe indeed that this has not the least weight with them in this debate, for they have made it apparent throughout the Pamphlet that were they the plurality, they would not admit of it as a relevant exception against them; nor do we believe was this ever an exception before in any true Church. But to the thing itself: As by the conference for union there was sufficient provision offered for securing them in matters of our bypast differences: so men of our judgment have yielded the same submission we require where they are the plurality. And when a presbytery (wherein the plurality was of their judgment) did depose one of our judgment for not submitting to their sentence of suspension, the synod did ratify the sentence of deposition though the synod, as they well know, were of a different judgment from them and were not satisfied with their procedure in his suspension.

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Conclusion

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Having now brought this debate to a close (wherein, though we have not followed their method, yet we trust we have not shifted or passed by anything of weight in all their arguings) and having also spoken our mind so far as is necessary to the whole Pamphlet, we shall only for a close of all add a word to the reader, and especially to those ministers and professors who differ from us upon the matter of our late debates. And:

1. Though we have been necessitated to speak somewhat home to this piece and what is contained in it in our own and the Church’s defense, yet we entreat and obtest it may not be understood as spoken to all that party, but only to the guilty and chiefly to the authors of this Pamphlet, to whom this Church and all reformed, presbyterian Churches do owe little thanks for their contributing so much to the advancement of all sectarian designs and their strengthening the hands of all licentious persons who live under their inspection and jurisdiction. We have made conscience to forbear railing and have spoken many things (the Lord knows) in the grief of our heart of their way which we wish had never been or were buried in perpetual silence. And if anything of that kind be found which any will disrelish, as we desire that charity which Scripture allows unto men under much oppression and do request that our reasons may be weighed impartially, so we entreat that none will suspect that these things do beget any heart-alienation in us from our Brethren, with whom our soul desires to be united in the Lord and who (we trust) will return these agents little thanks for their service.

2. Though the importunate clamors of these men have drawn us out (in our necessary defense as is said before) upon the debate of the late Resolutions, acts of judicatories and censures inflicted by them, which those of our judgment have so often offered to remove, for their part, out of the way, that they impede not a union: Yet let none think that we have receded from these our purposes and overtures whereby all these debates may be buried. We hold ourselves bound to declare that in these things we are where we were, notwithstanding these contests, and do heartily request our Brethren that there may be a condescendence on their part. And though we be reflected upon as carnal, politic men in these our endeavors and offers, yet we trust it shall be no grief of heart to us one day to be found lovers of truth and peace, and such as seek peace and pursue it.

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The End

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