Answer to a Book, Part 14
XIIII. Upon the Covnant.
VPONUPON this Theme his Discours is long, his Matter little but repetition; and therfore soon answerd. First after an abusive and strange apprehension of Covnants, as if Men pawn'd thir souls to them with whom they Covnant, he digresses to plead for Bishops; first from the antiquity of thir possession heer, since the first plantation of Christianity in this Iland, next from a universal prescription since the Apostles, till this last Centurie. But what availes the most Primitive Antiquity against the plain sense of Scripture; which if the last Centurie have best follow'd, it ought in our esteem to be the first. And yet it hath bin oft'n prov'd by Learned Men, from the Writings and Epistles of most ancient Christians, that Episcopacy crept not up into an order above the Presbyters, till many years after that the Apostles were deceas'd.
He next is unsatisfied with the Covnant, not onelyonly for some passages in it referring to himself, as he supposes, with very dubious and dangerous limitations, but for binding men by Oath and Covnant, to the Reformation of Church Discipline. First those limitations were not more dangerous to him, then he to our Libertie and Religion; next, that which was there vow'd, to cast out of the Church an Antichristian Hierarchy which God had not planted, but ambition and corruption had brought in, and fosterd to the Churches great dammage and oppression, was no point of controversie to be argu'd without end, but a thing of cleer moral necessity to be forthwith don. Neither was the Covnant superfluous, though former engagements both religious and legal bound us before: But was the practice of all Churches heertofore intending Reformation. All Israel, though bound anough before by the Law of Moses, to all necessary duties; yet with Asa thir King enter'd into a new Covnant at the beginning of a Reformation: And the Jews after Captivity, without consent demanded of that King who was thir Maister, took solemn Oath to walk in the Command'ments of God. All Protestant Churches have don the like, notwithstanding former engagements to thir several duties. And although his aime were to sow variance between the Protestation and the Covnant, to reconcile them is not difficult. The Protestation was but one step, extending onelyonly to the Doctrin of the Church of England, as it was distinct from Church Discipline; the Covnant went furder, as it pleas'd God to dispense his light and our encouragement by degrees, and comprehended Church Goverment; Former with latter steps in the progress of well doing need not reconcilement. Nevertheless he breaks through to his conclusion, That all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficently bound by former ties of Religion; leaving Asa, Ezra, and the whole Church of God in sundry Ages to shift for honestie and wisdom from som other then his testimony. And although after-contracts absolve not till the former be made void, yet he first having don that, our duty returns back, which to him was neither moral nor eternal; but conditional.
Willing to perswade himself that many good men took the Covnant either unwarily, or out of fear, he seems to have bestow'd som thoughts how these good men following his advice may keep the the Covnant and not keep it. The first evasion is, presuming that the chief end of Covnanting in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms peace. But the Covnant will more truly inform them that purity of Religion and the Kingdoms peace was not then in state to be preservd, but to be restor'd; and therfore binds them, not to a preservation of what was, but to a Reformation of what was evil, what was Traditional, and dangerous, whether novelty or antiquity in Church or State. To doe this, clashes with no former Oath lawfully sworn either to God or the King, and rightly understood.
In general he brands all such confederations by League and Covnant, as the common rode us'd in all Factious perturbations of State and Church. This kinde of language reflects with the same ignominy upon all the Protestant Reformations that have bin since Luther; and so indeed doth his whole Book, replenish'd throughout with hardly other words or arguments then Papists, and especially Popish Kings, have us'd heertofore against thir Protestant Subjects; whom he would perswade to be every man his own Pope and to absolve himfelf of those ties, by the suggestion of fals or equivocal interpretations too oft repeated to be now answer'd.
The Parlament, he saith, made thir Covnant like Manna, agreeable to every mans Palat. This is another of his glosses upon the Covnant; he is content to let it be Manna, but his drift is that men should loath it, or at least expound it by thir own relish, and latitude of sense; wherin least any one of the simpler sort should faile to be his crafts maister, he furnishes him with two or three laxative, he termes them general clauses, which may serve somwhat to releeve them against the Covnant tak'n: intimating, as if what were lawfull and according to the Word of God, were no otherwise so, then as every man fansi'd to himself. From such learned explications and resolutions as these upon the Covnant, what marvel if no Royalist or Malignant refuse to take it, as having learnt from these Princely instructions, his many Salvo's, cautions, and reservations, how to be a Covnanter and Anticovnanter, how at once to be a Scot, and an Irish Rebel.
He returns again to disallow of that Reformation which the Covnant vows, as being the partiall advice of a few Divines. But matters of this moment, as they were not to be decided there by those Divines, so neither are they to be determin'd heer by Essays & curtal Aphorisms, but by solid proofs of Scripture.
The rest of his discourse he spends, highly accusing the Parlament, that the main Reformation by them intended was to robb the Church, and much applauding himself both for his forwardness to all due Reformation, and his aversness from all such kind of Sacrilege. All which, with his glorious title of the Churches Defender, we leave him to make good, by Pharaoh's Divinity, if he please, for to Josephs Pietie it will be a task unsutable. As for the parity and poverty of Ministers, which he takes to be so sad of consequence, the Scripture reck'ns them for two special Legacies left by our Saviour to his Disciples: under which two Primitive Nurses, for such they were indeed, the Church of God more truly flourisht then ever after, since the time that imparitie and Church revennue rushing in, corrupted and beleper'd all the Clergie with a worse infection then Gehezi's; some one of whose Tribe rather then a King, I should take to be compiler of that unsalted and Simonical praier annex'd. Although the Praier it self strongly prays against them. For never such holy things as he means, were giv'n to more Swine, nor the Churches Bread more to Dogs, then when it fed ambitious, irreligious and dumb Prelats.