A Hind Let Loose. Shields Alexander

may justly make us afraid, that the Lord may give up many in this land into a spirit of delusion to believe lies, because they have not received the love of the truth. In that same warning they say, We are not so to have the one of our eyes upon the sectarians, as not to have the other upon malignants, they being an enemy more numerous and more dangerous than the other; not only because experience hath proven, that there is a greater aptitude and inclination in these of our land to comply with malignants, than sectaries, in that they carry on their wicked design, under a pretext of being for the king, but also because there be many of them in our own bowels.' By which we may see how impartially they opposed both; and that this cannot be condemned in the testimonies of the present sufferers, except the assembly be condemned. And because many now a-days have extenuating notions of those debates, against prelacy and sectarianism, about the government of the church, &c. and condemn these that would adhere to and suffer for the punctilios of it, as rigid nicety: I shall, for seeing what account the assembly had of them, cite their words in a letter to the assembly of divines at Westiminster, dated Edinburgh, June 18, 1646. The 'smallest (say they) of Christ's truths (if it be lawful to call any of them small) is of greater moment than all the other businesses, that ever have been debated since the beginning of the world to this day: but the highest of honours and heaviest of burdens is put upon you; to declare out of the sacred records of divine truth, what is the prerogative of the crown and extent of the sceptre of Jesus Christ; what bounds are to be set between him ruling in his house, and powers established by God on earth; how and by whom his house is to be governed; and by what ways a restraint is to be put on these who would pervert his truth and subvert the faith of many.'

      II. In the manner of maintaining this testimony, these famous fathers, while faithful for God, gave us a perfect pattern of purity and strictness, in opposition to all degrees of conformity and compliance with the corruptions of the time; and laid down such rules and constitutions, as might regulate us in our contendings about present defections, and teach us what account to make of them, and how to carry towards them: which if adverted unto, would evince how manifest and manifold the declinings of many have been from the late reformation, that yet pretend to adhere unto it, and how justifiable the aversation and abstraction of the present reproaching suffering party is, from all these defections and the daubings of them, because so much deviating and declining from the attained reformation. I need not repeat how prelacy, and all the parts and pendicles of that antichristian hierarchy, were abjured in the national covenant, and condemned in the acts of assemblies, and re-abjured in the solemn league and covenant, and in the solemn acknowledgement of sins and engagement to duties, where also we came under sacred and inviolable engagements, to endeavour the extirpation thereof: Which doth clearly file the present countenancing and submitting to the prelatic curates, in receiving ordinances from them, among the grossest of defections; being altogether inconsistent with these acts and constitutions, and covenant obligations to extirpate them, as much as the countenancing of popish priests were inconsistent therewith, being both equally covenanted to be extirpated. Next, though in this period, tyranny being in its retrograde motion, erastian supremacy was not so much contended for, and therefore not so much questioned as formerly, being held exploded with execration out of doors and out of doubt; yet the testimony was still continued against it, in the uninterrupted maintaining of the church's privileges and freedom of assemblies, against all encroachings of adversaries. And therefore the embracing of the late detestable indulgences, were as contrary to the actings of this as to the testimonies of the former period, against the supremacy from which they flow. Yea many particulars, might be instanced, wherein the accepters had declined from the covenanted reformation then prosecuted; not only in their confederating with malignant usurpers, for the pretended benefit of them (by which, if there had been no more, they are obnoxious to the censure of the church, standing registered in an act of assembly, ordaining all persons in ecclesiastic office, for the like or lesser degrees of compliance, yea even for procuring protections from malignant enemies, to be suspended from their office and all exercise thereof at Edin. 1646. sess. 14.) Nor only in their taking sinful instructions from them, restricting them in the exercise of their ministry; but in admitting themselves, by their patronage, to be by them presented to their prelimited and pre-imposed congregations: which involves them in the iniquity of the abolished patronages, condemned by the assembly; for that ministry of such so presented, is made too much to depend upon the will and pleasure of man, and such an imposition is destructive of the church and people's liberties, obstructive of the gospel's freedom and faithful plainness, and occasion of much base flattery and partiality; and in subjecting to, homologating, and fortifying a sacrilegious supremacy, overturning the intrinsic power of the church, contrary to the covenant obliging to the preservation of the government, as well as to the doctrine of the church, in the first article thereof; and in their suffering themselves, either directly or indirectly, either by combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from that blessed union and conjunction, which they were obliged to maintain and promove, according to the sixth article of the solemn league and covenant; and in their strengthening the erastian usurpations of enemies encroaching upon the church's liberties and Christ's prerogatives, against which we are engaged expressly in the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, where also we have these words article 2. Because many have of late laboured to supplant the liberties of the church, we shall maintain and defend the church of Scotland, in all her liberties and privileges, against all who shall oppose or undermine the same, or encroach thereupon under any pretext whatsomever. Next, we have many demonstrations of the zeal and strictness of these servants of Christ, in their synodical determinations of censures, to be past upon many ministerial corruptions; which will condemn the present course of covering and countenancing them, and commend the contendings of a poor reproached party against them, in their conscientious abstracting from them. Of which determinations, I shall rehearse some. Among the enormities and corruptions of the ministry, in their callings, this is one, sect. 4, 5. Silence in the public cause—some accounting it a point of wisdom to speak, ambiguously—whereof the remedy is sect. 15. 'That beside all other scandals, silence or ambiguous speaking in the public cause—be seasonably censured, general assembly, at Edinburgh, June 13. 1646.' There is indeed an act against withdrawers from ministers: but in the self same act they are charged to be diligent in fulfilling their ministry, 'to be faithful in preaching, declaring the whole counsel of God, and as they have occasion from the text of scripture to reprove the sins and errors, and press the duties of the time, and in all these to observe the rules prescribed by the acts of assembly, wherein if they be negligent, they are to be censured, general assembly Edinburgh, Aug. 24. 1647. sess. 19.' Then there is that act, Aug. 3. 1648. sess. 26. for censuring ministers for their silence, and not speaking to the corruptions of the time; 'calling it, a great scandal, through some ministers their reserving and not declaring themselves against the prevalent sins of the times; appointing, that all that do not apply their doctrine to these corruptions, which is the pastoral gift, and that are cold or wanting of spiritual zeal, dissembling of public sins, that all such be censured even to deprivation; for forbearing or passing in silence the errors and exorbitancies of sectaries in England, or the defections current at home, the plots and practices of malignants, the principles and tenets of erastianism; and if they be found too sparing, general, or ambiguous in their applications and reproofs, and continuing so, they are to be deposed, for being pleasers of men rather than servers of Christ, for giving themselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in the cause of God for defrauding the souls of people, yea for being highly guilty of the blood of souls, in not giving them warning.' And in that seasonable and necessary warning of the general assembly, Edinbugh July 27. 1649. sess. 27. we are taught how they resented the unfaithfulness of ministers continuing in defections, and how we are to look upon them and carry to them: where they say, it is undeniably true, that many of the evils, 'wherewith this church and kingdom hath been afflicted in our age, have come to pass because of the negligence of some and corruptions of others of the ministry; and the course of backsliding was carried on, until it pleased God to stir up the spirits of these few, who stood in the gap, to oppose and resist the fame, and to begin the work of reformation in the land; since which time, the silence of some ministers, and the compliance of others, hath had great influence upon the backslidings of many amongst the people, who, upon the discovery of the evil of their way, complain that they got no warning, or that if they were warned by some, others held their peace, or did justify them in the course of their backsliding: we can look upon such ministers no otherwise, than upon these that are guilty