We only desire, they may be so far inquired into, that what guilt is in them before the Lord, may be in some measure discovered, and the wrongs done to Christ thereby, may not be passed over in an act of oblivion: But as the right honourable the estates of parliament, have found and declared these acts and actings of the overturners of our reformation: and the mischiefs of prelacy, supremacy and tyranny established by wicked laws, which were the foundations and fountains of all the offensive compliances above mentioned, to be grievances against the laws of the land; so the right reverend, the members of this venerable assembly, may find and declare, these wicked establishments and compliances supporting them, and defections flowing therefrom, to be sins against the laws of Christ; and so far as they can find iniquity in the foresaid offences, may provide by ecclesiastic constitutions for the future, that the like compliances with the like contrivances of usurping enemies, may never again be allowed, under pain of church censures, to prevent and preclude all fears of divisions, to be occasioned by the like defections, in time coming. And as we offer and promise, so far as we are, or may be convinced, to confess our offences, any manner of way that church-judicatories shall appoint; so, for the satisfaction of all concerned in the late differences, and removal of offences, given or taken, we desire and expect, that such failings in the above specified particulars, or others, be laid to heart by all sorts of ministers and preachers, as they are convinced of, or after search, may be discovered to them by this reverend assembly: And that these, among the sins of the land, be set down in order as causes of a public fast, upon some week day, through all the meetings of Presbyterians within this kingdom; and that the sins of the people be intermixed among these causes. Further,
As we humbly conceive, it would prove a very proper and promising expedient, for promoving, preserving and propagating reformation; for settling and keeping order and union; for preventing and precluding innovation or corruptions; for discovering and discouraging apostates or schismatics, malignants or sectaries, and excluding them from access to do further hurt; so we hope, we shall be approven and seconded by many in this reverend Assembly, in craving the renewing of the covenants, either both the national and solemn league, with accommodations to our times, or one made up of both, with additions or explications, suiting our present case and day, with a solemn acknowledgment of the public breaches, and engagement to the duties of the covenants: Humbly moving, that none be forced to swear or subscribe the same, or so much as admitted to it, except they be such, as may be judged, in charity, to have a competent knowledge, and sense of the sins and duties thereof.
In fine, Though we will not take upon us, to propose the time or the way of purging out the episcopal clergy, yet we cannot and dare not forbear, to plead and obtest that they may not be continued, nor kept in the churches whereinto they have intruded; nor re-admitted that are, or may be laid aside, until they give approvable evidence of their repentance, for their sinful conformity. (1.) Upon all these grounds, exhibited above, against hearing of them. (2.) Because former experience of the hurt received by the entertainment of the episcopal clergy, anno 1638, does now plead for their care to prevent it in time coming. (3.) Because the people under their ministry, have hitherto been, and are perishing in ignorance and irreligion; being either starved for want of faithful and spiritual instruction, or poisoned with false instruction; and therefore pity to them, and zeal to propagate the gospel, should prompt to all endeavours to purge them out. (4.) Because the settlement, purgation, and plantation of the church, will be exceedingly obstructed by the continuance of them that unsettled it, corrupted it, and pestered the Lord's vineyard, with plants not of his planting, and whose leaven will be always in hazard to leaven the whole lump. (5.) Because, all of them are among these, whom the laws of Christ do oblige, the constitutions of this church do ordain, and the present civil sanctions for establishing church government do allow the church-representative, to try and purge out; being all of them either insufficient, or negligent, or erroneous, or scandalous, if these characters may be applied, or interpreted, according to scripture rules, or as the church hath extended them heretofore.
We are content that none of the curates be put out, but the insufficient and ignorant, if this be one part of the trial of their knowledge, to inquire not only into their gifts but their graces; if ignorance of conversion, regeneration, sanctification, and communion with God; both as to the doctrine of these benefits, and as to their own experience of them, so far as may be discovered by human judgment, be reputed insufficiency: We are content, none be put away but the negligent, if so be they that do not warn the wicked of their destroying sins, that feed themselves and not the flock, that do not strengthen the diseased, nor heal the sick, &c. that omit the pressing of necessary duties impartially on persons and families, and the censuring of scandals without respect of persons, be comprehended in that character: We are satisfied, none be removed but the erroneous; if they be judged to be such, who not only own points of popery, Arminianism and Socinianism, but are unsound in their explanation of the kingly office of Christ, or the perfection of the scriptures, in the point of church-officers and government, in the matter of oaths and of the magistrate's power, and do maintain Erastianism, an exploded and abjured error in this church: And we seek no more but that all be removed who are scandalous, and none but they, if intruders, covenant breakers, perjured subscribers of scandalous oaths and tests, schismatics and persecutors, be counted among the scandalous.
Some things are indeed extraordinary, which we here urge; but as extraordinary exigencies do force us, to move without a precedent; so they furnish you a power, to make a precedent for the like cases thereafter: We confess also, it may seem precipitant to press all these things so hard, and so soon, in a bruckle time, before things be better settled; but we fear, if new delays be procured, till all things be fully settled, that the observing of wind and clouds shall hinder both sowing and reaping. But it, laying aside the plaisters, wherewith the wounds of our backslidings have been slightly covered rather than cured, you put to your hand to the healing of your breaches, in condescending to these our humble desires, you shall win the blessing of many souls, rent and racked with these divisions; you shall disburthen the land of many weights and woes, whereof it is weary; you shall send to all the neighbouring churches a pattern, transmit to posterity an example, and erect to all ages a monument of self denying, zeal and wisdom; a work to be paralleled with the glories of former times. If herein our hopes shall fail us, we shall not know whether to wish, we had died with our brethren, by the enemies hand, and had never seen this reviving in our bondage; for it will be a death to us, and not a reviving, if there be not a returning together to the Lord, searching and trying, and discovering the iniquities of our ways. But however, we intend not to separate from the church, but to maintain union and communion in truth and duty, with all the ministers and members of this church that do, and in so far as they do follow the institutions of Christ; and to approve ourselves, God assisting, as much for peace and concord, as ever we were suspected to be men of divisive principles; hoping it shall appear, we are seeking where he feedeth, and where he makes his flock to rest at noon, and are not as such, who turn aside by the flocks of his companions, but going forth by the footsteps of the flocks, beside the shepherds tents: Yet with this protested dissent from, and testimony against all the above mentioned corruptions, defections, and offensive courses, which obliged us to stand at a distance in times of deformation; that our present joining in these circumstances, when these are removed, may not infer, or be interpreted an approving of what we formerly condemned: and be free from all partaking in these defections, by consent, connivance, compliance, or communion therein. For which we humbly supplicate, that these our humble proposals may be recorded in the books of assembly.
ALEXANDER SHIELDS, Esq.
[247] See this Act V. Sess. 9. Ass. 1999. wherein the lesser paper is inserted.
[248] Pat. Walker says, That Mr. Shields much lamented his silence before the assembly, and of his coming so far short of his former resolutions, and if ever he saw such an occasion, he would not be so slack. Messrs. Lining and Boyd had too much influence upon him, being in haste for stipends and wives. Rem. of the lives of Messrs. Semple, &c. first edit, page 78.
[249] See a more full account of Mr. Shields both while in Caledonia and Jamaica, in the history of Darien, lately republished, from page 42 to 49.
[250] This family that pursued him is long ago extinct, and their house (as Mr. Dickson very publicly foretold in the hearing of many), after it had been an habitation for owls, the foundation stones were digged up. The inhabitants there could not but observe, that those who were informers, accusers and witnesses against Mr Dickson (some of them magistrates then in the town) were brought so low, that they were sustained by the charity of the parish. So hard a thing it is to meddle with the servants of Jesus Christ.