George Gillespie

“ Where read we that the servants of God have at any time sought to advance religion by such hideous courses of stern violence, as are intended and assayed against us by those who press the ceremonies upon us? The jirking and nibbling of their unformal huggermugger cometh nearer to sycophancy than to sincerity, and is sibber to appeaching hostility than fraternal charity, for just so they deal with us as the Arians did with the catholics of old. ”

“ Though there could be more alleged for the ceremonies than truly there can be, either from the customs of the ancient or reformed churches, yet do our opposites themselves profess, that they will not justify all the ceremonies either of the ancient or reformed churches. And, indeed, who dare take this for a sure rule, that we ought to follow every ancient and universally received custom? For as Casaubon showeth, though the church's consent ought not to be contemned, yet we are not always to hold it for a law or a right rule. ”

“ If their aims were truly for the advancement of religion, how comes it to pass, that whilst they make so much ado and move every stone against us for our modest refusing of obedience to certain ordinances of men, which in our consciences we are persuaded to be unlawful, they manumiss and set free the simony, lying, swearing, profanation of the Sabbath, drunkenness, whoredom, with other gross and scandalous vices of some of their own side, by which God's own commandments are most fearfully violated? ”

“ If a jury, sworn to inquire into the felony of an accused person, should, after such an oath, not only find the person not guilty, but further take upon them to maintain that there is no such thing as felony, surely this were inconsistent with their oath, so he that swears to endeavour the reformation of religion in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, and yet will not only dislike this or that form of government, but also hold that there is no such thing as church government, he holds that which cannot agree with his oath. ”

“ God hath commanded, that unto the civil power every soul, or all members of the commonwealth, of what condition and estate soever, be subject; for what have we to do with the Papists, who will have them whom they call the clergy or ecclesiastical persons, to be free from the yoke of the civil magistrate? The ecclesiastical power extends itself to none other subjects than unto those which are called brethren, or members of the church. ”

“ Surely a man may be twice thirty years old, and a good divine too, and yet not able to understand this vision. Some tell us, that no man can understand it without skill in geometry, which cannot be denied, but there is greater need of ecclesiometry, if I may so speak, to measure the church in her length, or continuance through many generations, in her breadth, or spreading through many nations, her depth of humiliation, sorrows and sufferings, her height of faith, hope, joy, and comfort, and to measure each part according to this pattern here set before us. ”

“ The Bishop of Edinburgh resolves us concerning the necessity of giving obedience to the laws of the church, enacted anent the ceremonies, thus: “Where a man hath not a law, his judgment is the rule of his conscience, but where there is a law, the law must be the rule. As, for example, before that apostolical canon that forbade to eat blood or strangled things, every man might have done that which in his conscience he thought most expedient, &c., but after the making and the publication of the canon that enjoined abstinence, the same was to rule their consciences. ”

“ So that sects have most multiplied under that government, which now you know by sad experience. Hath not this nation, for a long time, taken the name of the Lord in vain, by a formal worship and empty profession? Is it not a just requital upon God's part, that your enemies have all this while taken God's name in vain, and taken the Almighty to witness of the integrity of their intentions for religion, law and liberty, thus persuading the world to believe a lie? ”

“ Thus much by the way of that distinction of names; and, for the thing itself, to object an innate enmity between the ministers of the gospel and those that are not ministers, is no less than a dishonouring and aspersing of the Christian religion. To return, you see his words tend to the taking away of all church government out of the hands of church-officers. Now may we know his reasons? He fetcheth the ground of an argument out of his own heart: “I have a heart (saith he) that knows better how to be governed than govern.” ”

“ I show in my ninth proposition, that the ordinance of superiors cannot make that to be no scandal which otherwise should be scandal. If this be not taken well from us, let one of our opposites speak for us, who acknowledgeth that human power cannot make us do that which we cannot do without giving of scandal, and that, in this case, the pretext of obedience to superiors shall not excuse us at the hands of the Supreme Judge. ”

“ But the end of ecclesiastical power, yea, the end as well of the ministry itself as of the godly minister, is, that the kingdom of Christ may be set forward; that the paths of the Lord be made straight; that his holy mysteries may be kept pure; that stumblingblocks may be removed out of the church, lest a little leaven leaven the whole lump, or lest one sick or scabbed sheep infect the whole flock; that the faithful may so walk as it becometh the gospel of Christ, and that the wandering sheep of Christ may be converted and brought back to the sheepfold. ”

“ It is left indefinite, 1 Cor. xi. 26, yet the church hath no power to determine Easter-day, either as the only time, or as the fittest time, for all the faithful of both sexes to receive the eucharist. What if faithful men and women cannot have time to prepare themselves as becometh, being avocated and distracted by the no less necessary than honest adoes of their particular callings?
What if they cannot have the sacrament upon that day administered according to our Lord's institution? What if they see Papists confirming themselves in their Easter superstition by our unnecessary practice? ”

“ He was a man profound in genius, mild in disposition, acute in argument, flowing in eloquence, unconquered in mind. He drew to himself the love of the good, the envy of the bad, and the admiration of all. ”

“ If we be not bound to receive and acknowledge the laws of princes as good and equitable, except only in so far as they are warranted by the law of God and nature, then we are not bound in conscience to obey them, except only conditionally, in case the violating of them include the violating of the law of God and nature; but the former is true, therefore the latter. It is God's peculiar sovereignty, that his will is a rule ruling, but not ruled, and that therefore a thing is good because God will have it to be good. ”

“ I say, “they may not be used by us as sacred things, rites pertaining to divine worship,” because without the compass of worship they may be used to a natural or civil purpose. If I could get no other meat to eat than the consecrated host, which Papists idolatrise in the circumgestation of it, I might lawfully eat it; and if I could get no other clothes to put on than the holy garments wherein a priest hath said mass, I might lawfully wear them. Things abused to idolatry are only then unlawful when they are used no otherwise than religiously, and as things sacred. ”

“ But that all sound teachers, of all times and places, have taught the necessity of conformity to inconvenient ceremonies, in case of deprivation, he neither doth, neither can make good; it is but a bare and a bold affirmation to deceive the minds of the simple. Did not the good old Waldenses,251 notwithstanding of all the hot persecutions raised against them, constantly refuse to conform unto any of those ceremonies of the church of Rome, which they perceived to have no necessary use in religion, and to occasion superstition rather than to serve for edification? ”

“ Well, but suppose now the same corruption to be in other men's hearts, that they are in great danger of an ambitious ensnarement if they be trusted with government, is this corruption only in the hearts of ministers, or is it in the hearts of all other men? I suppose he will say, in all men's hearts, and then his argument will conclude against all civil government. ”

“ For Christian magistrates and princes, embracing Christ, and sincerely giving their names to him, do not only serve him as men, but also use their office to his glory and the good of the church; they defend, stand for, and take care to propagate the true faith and godliness,—they afford places of habitation to the church, and furnish necessary helps and supports,—turn away injuries done to it,—restrain false religion,—and cherish, underprop, and defend the rights and liberties of the church: so far they are from diminishing, changing or restraining those rights ”

“ What need we any more? Let us see nature's institution, or the Apostle's recommendation, for the controverted ceremonies (as we have seen them for women's veils) , and we yield the argument.
Last of all, the sign of imposition of hands helpeth not the cause of our opposites, because it has the example of Christ and the apostles, and their disciples, which our ceremonies have not; yet we think not imposition of hands to be any sacred or mystical sign, but only a moral, for designation of a person: let them who think more highly or honourably of it look to their warrants. ”

“ It is no bias for a man to be settled, resolved and engaged in his judgment for the truth, especially when willing to receive more light, and to learn what needeth to be further reformed. Hath he forgotten his own definition of the bias which he had but just now given? But he will needs make it more than probable, by the instances which I brought, that the Commissioners from Scotland came not to this Assembly as divines, by dispute and disquisition, to find out truth, but as judges, to censure all different opinions as errors ”

“ But some man, peradventure, will object that a prince, by his civil power, may enjoin and command not only the observation of those ecclesiastical rites which a synod of the church prescribeth, but also that a synod (when need is) prescribe new orders and rites, all which are things spiritual and divine. And why then may he not, by the same civil power, make laws about the rites and circumstances of God's worship, notwithstanding that they are (in their use and application to the actions of worship) things spiritual, not civil. ”

“ But the chiefest and last end of civil government is, the glory of God the Creator, namely, that those who do evil, being by a superior power restrained or punished, and those who do good getting praise of the same, the subjects so much the more may shun impiety and injustice, and that virtue, justice, and the moral law of God (as touching those eternal duties of both tables, unto which all the posterity of Adam are obliged) may remain in strength and flourish. ”

“ I warned that civil places and powers are to be distinguished from the adhering confusions which arise from other causes, partly from the malice of the devil, partly from the malice of men, partly from the common infirmity of men, as it cometh to pass in other kinds of life and government ordained of God. No man doubteth that ecclesiastical government is ordained of God, and yet how many and great disorders grow in it from other causes.” Where he mentioneth a church government distinct from the civil, and that jure divino, as a thing uncontroverted. ”

“ The Apostle only commanded that each action and ceremony of God's worship be decently and orderly performed, but gives us no leave to excogitate or devise new ceremonies, which have not been instituted before. He hath spoken in that chapter of assembling in the church, prophesying and preaching, praying and praising there.
Now let all these things, and every other action of God's worship, ceremonies and all, be done decently and in order. ”

“ Thus would many heal the wound of the daughter of Zion slightly, and daub the wall with untempered mortar, and so far comply with the sinful humours and inclinations of men, as, in effect, to harden them in evil, and to strengthen their hands in their wickedness; or at least, if men be moralised, then to trouble them no farther. Saith not the Apostle, “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”? ”

“ The Apostle answereth them, that they did not the will of man, because it was the will of man, but because it was the will of God, and so they served God rather than man, importing that it were indeed a grievous yoke for any Christian to do the will of man, if he were not sure that it is according to the will of God. Should any synod of the church take more upon them than the synod of the apostles did, who enjoined nothing at their own pleasure, but only what they show to be necessary, because of the law of charity? ”