there is not a set appointed number, of two or three standing persons to be the admonishers of all persons offending ere it comes to the church; nor have they power to excommunicate. And thus, by this proportion, instead of these set and standing provincial assemblies to whom causes are next brought, and these armed with power of excommunication; there should only be two or three or more neighbour churches to admonish the offending church; and not a standing court to bring it unto. And then, secondly, let it be shown where a standing 'synod of elders is called The Church! And how, then, can the analogy hold, when it holds not in the name; Tell the Church? The 'like reason' holds not, unless these Particular Congregations have the power of excommunication; for otherwise, if these greater assemblies' power be argued from the analogy of the lesser, and the same remedy excommunication, and the Particular Congregations have not that allowed them; then, by the principles of this analogy, it is nowhere to be found but as the Congregational Churches have power only to admonish and suspend from sacraments, so the greater assemblies should have no more also. And though the Church Universal is called a Church, and 'one body' to Christ; yet as materially considered, and not as a politic body, in respect to government; which was never yet asserted by THIS ASSEMBLY."a Subscribed, as before, p. 494. "REASONS against the Proposition touching Ordination: namely, "It is very requisite, That no single congregation that can conveniently associate, do assume to itself all and sole power in Ordination.' "We offer these Reasons: i. Where there is a sufficient presbytery, 'all and sole power in Ordination' may be assumed, though association may be had: but there may be a sufficient presbytery in a particular congregation. "The Major hath two parts; first, That a sufficient presbytery may 'assume all and sole power in ordination:' secondly, That it may do so, though it may associate.' The former is proved, 1 Tim. iv. 14, 'By the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,' as is voted by the Assembly; which is the only Scripture brought for Ordination by ordinary elders. The second part, appears, 1, Because association doth neither add to nor diminish the power of a presbytery: it is by way of accumulation, not privation; as is acknowledged by the Reformed Churches. 2, If association be so necessarily required, where it may be had; then, neither a classical, provincial, nor national presbytery, can assume all and sole power in ordination,' if there be any other classical, provincial, or national presbytery, with whom they may associate and that there is, or may be, always some, is necessarily to be supposed in these times of the Gospel; if any association, ought to be. 66 The Minor, That there may be a sufficient presbytery, in a particular congregation; is proved, 1, By the Second Proposition touching a P. 130-133. Church Government, sent up to the Honourable Houses of Parliament, namely, 'A presbytery consists of ministers of the Word, and such other public officers as are agrecable to, and warranted by the Word of God, to be church-governors to join with the ministers in the government of the church: all which, may be, in a particular congregation. 2, Wherein consists, The sufficiency of a presbytery? The number of how many elders, is not set or bounded by Institution: suppose two or three; and if more be requisite, in a particular congregation there may be four or five and a presbytery over many congregations, is acknowledged to be sufficient though it consist of no more. If they have this power as a sufficient presbytery, why not the other also? Have they their power only as having relation to many congregations? Is that, the essential requisite to their sufficiency? Here are elders and as many elders, having relation to a church; and the argument used by the Reverend Assembly, to prove a presbytery over many congregations, is, That elders are mentioned in relation to one church! "ii. That which two apostles, being joined together, might do in a particular congregation; that, ordinary elders may do in a particular congregation but Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in particular congregations, though they might associate. Therefore, etc. "The consequence appears thus, If the argument brought by the Rev. Assembly do hold, namely, That when the apostles met together for ordination; or for ordering the affairs of the church of Jerusalem; they met 'as ordinary elders ;'—which they have voted :—then, surely, when Paul and Barnabas met to ordain elders in particular congregations, it is to be averred they met for that act as ordinary elders.' "The Minor hath two parts, first, Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in particular congregations: secondly, That they might associate. First; That these were particular congregations, wherein they ordained elders, appears, Because it is not supposable that the cities, much less the regions round about, where the apostles preached and erected churches-as appears by Acts xiii. 49, compared with xiv. 6, 21-23,-were grown to many congregations before the apostles appointed elders to them: for the apostles, who were to preach in all places, would not stay so long in one place; and it was their course when they were there, ikavòi, as at Derbe, xiv. 21, to set elders to them. Again; this was the first ordination of elders to those places; and therefore, must needs be to particular congregations; for the classis, is made up of the elders of many congregations. Lastly; they ordained elders κατ' ἐκκλησίαν and αὐτοῖς, verse 23 ; and at their ordaining, they fasted and prayed, commending them to the grace of God: which fasting and praying, being-according to the principles of us both-to be in particular congregations; it followeth, that the churches' to which those elders were appointed, were particular congregations. "For the second [part], That they might associate it appears, Because there were churches in the regions round about, and yet the apostles mention not, association, which they would have done if that had been the way; for when they did things with ordinary elders, it is thus recorded, "The apostles and elders:' but they commend them to the grace of God, as Paul did the church of Ephesus, Acts xx. 32; as leaving sufficient means to perpetuate succession, and to ordain other elders if any should die, as also to build them up to eternal life." a Subscribed, as before, p. 494. CHAP. LX. LAUD'S EXECUTION.- -BURTON'S " GRAND IMPOSTOR." It is recorded in our pages, that the "two-handed engine" was made to perform its office on the first victim of a Triumvirate, whose extreme fate, as it does at this distance of time, so may ever continue to excite the best feelings of humanity. The second, is described, by no hostile hand, in terms not inapplicable to any one of the three: "Mark'd out by dangerous parts, he meets the shock."c Concerning this one of whom we are now treating, we know not over which to lament the more, his injudicious friends or his unrelenting enemies, they who dignify him under the style of "SAINT P. 190-192.-We cannot withhold the extraordinary proem to the "Answer" of the Presbyterians on this Proposition, which had been introduced into the Assembly the first in order, but was the last disposed of: "Among all the Propositions which the Assembly presented to the Honourable Houses of Parliament concerning Ordination, our Brethren have singled out this one, to which they enter their Dissent; as if this alone were opposite to their opinions touching this matter. Which, whether it be so, or that there was not some other reason of their insisting on this rather than on any of the rest, themselves best know. We remember that in a Proposition not altogether unlike to this, some others of the Assembly differed somewhat in the debate from the major part: and we have observed our Brethren ready enough to take notice and make use of any such differencealthough sometimes but in point of method; as, whether of two propositions, this or that should be first debated;-and to talk of a Third Party in the Assembly. We observe likewise, that the arguments here brought against this Proposition, are not properly arguments of their own [!], nor pressed by themselves in the Assembly, nor such as are most suitable to their own opinions; [!] but arguments used by others in that debate. And whether that difference were not some reason why our Brethren chose rather to insist upon this Proposition in their Dissent than on some other, themselves are best able to determine. We expected from our Brethren -in a search for Truth, not a contest for Victory-arguments to prove That every single congregation,' &c. . . We must observe also of these borrowed arguments [!] brought by our Brethren against this Proposition, that neither of them concludes against the Proposition in debate." P. 185 [195]. The proceedings of the Erastians, as the "Third Party" in the Assembly, are stated and remarked upon by Neal, in the 6th chapter of the third volume of his History of the Puritans. b See back, p. 137. "The Vanity of Human Wishes," by Sam. Johnson, LL. D. And see his opinion of Laud, in the Lives of Cheynel and Blake. II. 2 L William," or they who, not contented with depressing him to the lowest deep, would find a lower still! Accordingly it has been applied to Laud what was said of another, "He entered like a fox, he reigned like a lion, and he died like a dog." On the contrary, neither did one blush to write of him, "A death so full of merits, of such price, To God and man so sweet a sacrifice, As, by good Church-law, may his Name prefer And let this silence the Pure-sects' complaint- Rest thou, then, happy in the sweets of bliss, And let us have thy prayers [!] as thou our tears."b (6 "Truly," says another, of the same external communion, "that must be an extraordinary Protestant Church in which Father Laud is accounted a martyr, and Father Heylyn a confessor!" ' "On the tenth of January [1644-5]," writes W. Sanderson, " comes to the scaffold William Laud, D.D. etc....... He was threatened for his life in March 1619[-20], the prologue to other libels and scandals, year by year, to ann. 1640; though the Scots' Remonstrance of their invasion heretofore, resolved then to ruin him... It had been put to the question in the Parliament, to ship him over for New England, there to expose him to the scorn of great professors... The fourth of January they passed their Ordinance of Parliament by both houses, to be drawn, hanged, and quartered, on Friday the tenth of January ; the first man that ever suffered death by order of Parliament! Ön Tuesday before, he petitions the Lords to have his chaplain, Dr. Sterne, that worthy divine, admitted, to administer with him;' to alter the "Hist. of the Church and State of Scotland, by Andrew Stevenson, 1753,” 8vo. vol. i. p. 115. An elegy on the Death of the Most Rev. Father in God, William, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Jan. 10, 1644-5. See his Life by Heylyn, p. 546. "His death the more remarkable in falling on St. William's day." Ibid. p. 543. "The Christian Observer, Mar. 1837," p. 176. Laud says, in his Diary, p. 66-" Troubles, etc. 1695 "—“ March 24 [1642-3], Friday. One Mr. Foord told me,—he is a Suffolk man,—that there was a plot to send me and Bishop Wren as delinquents to New England, within fourteen days. And that Mr. Wells, a minister that came thence, offered wagers of it. The meeting was at Mr. Barks, a merchant's house in Friday-street, being this Foord's sonin-law. I never saw Mr. Foord before.-April 25, Tuesday. It was moved in the House of Commons to send me to New England: but it was rejected. The plot was laid by Peters, Wells, and others." Thus would the wheel of fortune of "the malicious Laud,"-so called by Archdeacon Blackburne, in "The Confessional," 1747, Pref. p. xxv.,—and of the transatlantic or New England divines, have turned the contrary way to Laud's own project in 1638, which was “to send a Bishop over to them, for their better government; and back him with some forces to compel, if he were not otherwise able to persuade, obedience !" Heylyn, P 369. "Whereof in the house of peers there were not above twelve:" Clarendon, Hist. Rebel. bk. viii. There were, however, twenty peers present: see the Lords' Journals, Jan. 4th. Vol. vii. p. 124, 125. manner of his execution, and 'to be beheaded.' To which their Lordships willingly consented, and commended it to the Commons, but they would not. Only, in care of his soul, they would adjoin Mr. Marshall as more sufficient than the Doctor, and the Archbishop refused him. The Lords were very angry to be thus denied, and had much-ado to get their consent of beheading.' There are indeed who profess to be of the same communion with this self-deluded victim, among those who lay claim likewise to "apostolical succession," but whose ingenuous avowal proclaims their conviction that rank and learning are not, in all cases, accompanied by "meekness of wisdom :" these at least are not the Heylyns of their age; they say, nevertheless, "We abhor the injustice and tyranny of those who condemned Laud to death; but this must not blind us to his many and great offences. There can be no question but that he wished to subject the nation to civil and spiritual despotism; and, so little is forgiveness of injuries a natural virtue, that we cannot wonder that the victims of his severity-for he was the most influential and active member of the Star Chamber, and High Commission Court,sought and found revenge; and that the nation, alarmed for the public liberties, made common cause with them." So far as revenge" was sought for, we shrink not from avowing on our part, that the accusation can be but too well supported, and demands from us this declaration of our unfeigned abhorrence in whomsoever it is found; and fidelity requires us to say especially, that there is too much colour for charging the sin in its degree upon the production now to be noticed, but for which the provocation was the supreme folly of those who countenanced and strove to uphold, beyond what truth and justice required, unquestionably no common, but a great public delinquent. With these remarks we proceed to exhibit "The Grand Impostor Unmasked: Or, a Detection of the notorious Hypocrisy and desperate Impiety of the late Archbishop, so styled, of Canterbury; cunningly couched in that written Copy which he read on the Scaffold at his Execution, Jan. 10, 1644-5,] alias, called by the Publisher, his Funeral Serinon.'-By Henry Burton.-Rom. ii. 5, 6. Psal. 1. 21, 22.— 'When the Fox preacheth, let the Geese beware!'-Published according to Order." No imprint of date. 4to. pp. 20. The Preface begins thus, "Reader-The old saying is, 'Of the dead, speak nothing but well;' so shall I speak nothing but truth of this man's falsehood both while he lived and when he died. And let me deprecate thee the least suspicion of malice in me towards the man or his memory; the which I was so far and free from in his life-time that, a little before his death, myself with two other godly reverend brethren went to his lodging in the Tower to tender our christian duty of charity to him for counsel and comfort, if it would be accepted, in "Complete Hist. of Charles I. 1658," fol. p. 780, 781.-Izaak Walton relates in his Life of Bishop Sanderson, edit. Zouch, 1796, 4to. p. 455, that " Many citizens fearing time and cool thoughts might procure his [Laud's] pardon, became so maliciously impudent as to shut up their shops, professing not to open them till justice was executed. This malice and madness is scarce credible, but I saw it." b Jas. iii. 13. "The Christian Observer, June, 1837," p. 381.; 21.2 II. |