But now I am sorry I can go on with you no more, for the sad part is yet behind, about Ruling-elders; for neither Ruling-elders, nor any Minister chosen Commissioner by Ruling-elders, can have voice here, because no such election is warranted, either by the Laws of this Church or Kingdom, or by the practice or custom of either: for even that little which appeareth to make for those Elders in the Book of Discipline, hath at this time been broken by you, there being more Lay-elders giving votes at every one of those Elections, than there were Ministers, contrary to the Book of Discipline; as in Lanerick but eight Ministers and eighteen or nineteen Lay-elders; and so in divers other Presbyteries: and in every Presbytery, when the Ministers upon the List were removed, the remaining Elders exceeded far the remaining Ministers. But say there were Law for those Lay-elders, the interruption of the execution of that Law, for above 40 years, makes so strong a Prescription against it, that without a new reviving of that Law by some new Order from the General Assembly, it ought not again be put in practice; for if His Majesty should put in practice, and take the Penalties of any disused Laws without new intimations of them from Authority, it would be thought by your selves very hard dealing.
To say nothing of that Office of Lay-elders, it being unknown to the Scripture or Church of Christ for above 1500 years, let the World judge whether those Laymen be fit to give Votes in inflicting the Censures of the Church, especially that great and highest Censure of Excommunication, none having power to cast out of the Church by that Censure, but those who have power to admit into the Church by Baptism: and whether all the Lay-elders here present at this Assembly be fit to judge of the high and deep Mysteries of Predestination, of the Universality of Redemption, of the Sufficiency of Grace given, or not given to all men, of the Resistibility of Grace, of total and final Perseverance, or Apostasie of the Saints, of the Antilapsarian or Postlapsarian Opinion, of Election and Reprobation; all which they mean to ventilate, if they do determine against the Arminian, as they give out they will.
In many Presbyteries these Lay-elders disagreed in their Elections wholly, or for the most part, from the Ministers, and carried it from them by number of Votes, though in all reason the Ministers themselves should best know the abilities and fitness of their Brethren: and this was done in the Presbyteries of Chirnside, Linlithgow, Aberdeen, and divers more.
How can these men now elected be thought fit to be Ruling-elders, who were never Elders before, all or most part of them being chosen since the Indiction of the Assembly, some of them but the very day before the Election of their Commissioners; which demonstrates plainly that they were chosen onely to serve their Associates turn at this Assembly?
Since the Institution of Lay-elders by your own Principles is to watch over the Manners of the People in the Parish in which they live, how can any man be chosen a Ruling-elder from a Presbytery, who is not an inhabitant within any Parish of that Presbytery, as hath been done in divers Elections, against all Law, Sense, or Reason?
By what Law or Practice was it ever heard, that young Noblemen, or Gentlemen, or others, should be chosen Rulers of the Church, being yet Minors, and in all Construction of Law thought unfit to manage their own private Estates, unless you will grant that men of meaner Abilities may be thought fit to rule the Church, which is the House of God, than are fit to rule their own private Houses, Families, and Fortunes?
By what Law can any Ruling-elder be sent to a Presbytery to Vote in anything, especially in chusing Commissioners for the General Assembly, who is not chosen for that purpose by the Session of that Parish in which he is a Ruling-elder? And who gave power to the Minister of every Parish, to bring with him to the Presbytery for that purpose any Ruling-elder of his Parish whom he pleased?
But it is well-known, that divers Elders gave Votes in these Presbyteries to the Elections of some Commissioners here, who were not chosen by the Sessions of their several Parishes to give Votes in those Presbyteries; and therefore such Commissioners as were chosen by such Lay-elders can have no Vote here.
By what Law or Practice have the several Parishes or Presbyteries chosen Assessors to their Ruling-elders, without whose consent some of the Commissioners here present are sworn not to vote to any thing?
This introducing of Ruling-elders is a burthen so grievous to the Brethren of the Ministry, that many of the Presbyteries have protested against it for the time to come, some for the present, as shall appear by divers Protestations and Supplications ready to be here exhibited.