The earnest desire of our hearts is to be faithful, and in case we would have been silent and unfaithful at this time, when the undermined estate of Christ's kirk craveth a duty at our hands, we should have locked up our hearts with patience, and our mouths with taciturnity, rather than to have impeached any with our admonition. But that which Christ commandeth, necessity urgeth, and duty wringeth out of us, to be faithful office bearers in the kirk of God, no man can justly blame us, providing we hold ourselves within the bounds of that Christian moderation, which followeth God, without injury done to any man, especially these whom God hath lapped up within the skirts of his own honourable stiles and names, calling them, Gods upon earth.
Now therefore, my lords, convened in this present parliament, under the most high and excellent majesty of our dread sovereign, to your honours is our exhortation, that ye would endeavour with all singleness of heart, love and zeal, to advance the building of the house of God, reserving always into the Lord's own hand that glory, which he will communicate neither with man nor angel, viz. to prescribe from his holy mountain a lively pattern, according to which his own tabernacle should be formed: Remembering always that there is no absolute and undoubted authority in this world, excepting the sovereign authority of Christ the king, to whom it belongeth as properly to rule the kirk according to the good pleasure of his own will, as it belongeth to him to save his kirk by the merit of his own sufferings. All other authority is so intrenched within the marches of divine commandment, that the least overpassing of the bounds set by God himself, bringeth men under the fearful expectation of temporal and eternal judgments. For this cause, my lords, let that authority of your meeting in this present parliament, be like the ocean, which, as it is greatest of all other waters, so it containeth itself better within the coasts and limits appointed by God, than any rivers of fresh running water have done.
Next, remember that God hath let you to be nursing fathers to the kirk, craving of your hands, that ye would maintain and advance, by your authority that kirk, which the Lord hath fashioned by the uncounterfeited work of his own new creation, as the prophet speaketh, He hath made us, and not we ourselves; but that that ye should presume to fashion and shape a new portraiture of a kirk, and a new form of divine service which God in his word hath not before allowed; because, that were you to extend your authority farther than the calling ye have of God doth permit, as namely, if ye should (as God forbid) authorize the authority of bishops, and their pre eminence above their brethren, ye should bring into the kirk of God the ordinance of man, and that thing which the experience of preceding ages hath testified to be the ground of great idleness, palpable ignorance, insufferable pride, pitiless tyranny, and shameless ambition in the kirk of God. And finally, to have been the ground of that antichristian hierarchy, which mounteth up on the steps of pre eminence of bishops, until that man of sin came forth, as the ripe fruit of man's wisdom, whom God shall consume with the breath of his own mouth. Let the sword of God pierce that belly which brought forth such a monster; and let the staff of God crush that egg which hath hatched such a cockatrice; and let not only that Roman antichrist be thrown down from the high bench of his usurped authority, but also let all the steps, whereby he mounted up to that unlawful pre eminence, be cut down, and utterly abolished in this land.
Above all things, my lords, beware to strive against God, with an open and displayed banner, by building up again the walls of Jericho, which the Lord hath not only cast down, but hath also laid them under a horrible interdiction and execration; so that the building of them again must needs stand to greater charges to the builders, than the re-edifying of Jericho to Hiel the Bethelite, in the days of Achab; For he had nothing but the interdiction of Joshua, and the curse pronounced by him, to stay him from building again of Jericho; but the noblemen and estates of this realm, have the reverence of the oath of God, made by themselves, and subscribed with their own hands, in the confession of faith, called the king's majesty's published oftener than once or twice, subscribed and sworn by his most excellent majesty, and by his highness, the nobility, estates, and whole subjects of this realm, to hold them back from setting up the dominion of bishops. Because, it is of verity, that they subscribed and swore the said confession, containing not only the maintenance of the true doctrine, but also of the discipline protested within the realm of Scotland.
Consider also, that this work cannot be set forward, without the great slander of the gospel, defamation of many preachers, and evident hurt and loss of the people's souls committed to our charge. For the people are brought almost to the like case, as they were in Syria, Arabia and Egypt, about the 600th year of our Lord, when the people were so shaken and brangled with contrary doctrines, some affirming, and others denying, the opinion of Eutyches, that in end they lost all assured persuasion of true religion; and within short time thereafter, did cast the gates of their hearts open to the peril, to receive that vile and blasphemous doctrine of Mahomet; even so the people in this land are cast into such admiration to hear the preachers, who damned so openly this stately pre eminence of bishops, and then, within a few years after, accept the same dignity, pomp and superiority in their own persons, which they before had damned in others, that the people know not what way to incline, and in the end will become so doubtful in matters of religion and doctrine, that their hearts will be like an open tavern, patent to every guest that chooses to come in.
We beseech your honours to ponder this in the balance of a godly and prudent mind, and suffer not the gospel to be slandered by the behaviour of a few preachers, of whom we are bold to affirm, that if they go forward in this defection, not only abusing and appropriating the name of bishops to themselves, which is common to all the pastors of God's kirk; but also taking upon themselves such offices, that carry with them the ordinary charge of governing the civil affairs of the country, neglecting their flocks, and seeking to subordinate their brethren to their jurisdiction; if any of them, we say, be found to step forward in this cause of defection, they are more worthy, as rotten members, to be cut off from the body of Christ, than to have superiority and dominion over their brethren, within the kirk of God.
This pre eminence of bishops is that Dagon, which once already fell before the ark of God in this land, and no band of iron shall be able to hold him up again. This is that pattern of that altar brought from Damascus, but not shewed to Moses in the mountain, and therefore it shall fare with it as it did with that altar of Damascus, it came last in the temple, and went first out. Likewise the institution of Christ was anterior to this pre eminence of bishops, and shall consist and stand within the house of God, when this new fashion of the altar shall go to the door.
Remember, my lords, that in times past your authority was for Christ, and not against him. Ye followed the light of God, and strived not against it; and, like a child in the mother's hand, ye said to Christ, Draw us after thee. God forbid, that ye should now leave off, and fall away from your former reverence borne to Christ, in presuming to lead him, whom the Father hath appointed to be leader of you. And far less to trail the holy ordinances of Christ by the cords of your authority, at the heels of the ordinances of men.
And albeit your honours have no such intention to do any thing which may impair the honour of Christ's kingdom; yet remember, that spiritual darkness, flowing from a very small beginning, doth so insinuate and thrust itself into the house of God, as men can hardly discern by what secret means the light was dimmed, and darkness creeping in got the upper hand; and in the end, at unawares, all was involved in a misty cloud of horrible apostacy.
And lest any should think this our admonition out of time, in so far as it is statute and ordained already by his majesty, with advice of his estates in parliament, that all ministers, provided to prelacies, should have vote in parliament; as likewise, the General Assembly (his majesty being present thereat) hath found the same lawful and expedient, We would humbly and earnestly beseech all such, to consider,