The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of ScotlandChurch of Scotland. General Assembly
History
The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland. General Assembly
Ecclesiastical law -- Scotland; Scotland -- Church history -- 17th century
Therefore, although we know that your zeale and brotherly affection would
urge you to take notice without our advertisement, yet give us leave in
the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, to intreat, if there be any
consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the
spirit, if any bowels of mercy, that now in this nick of time, when the
sword of the Enemie making way for a more profitable entertaining the
Gospel, having also banished the Prelates, and their followers, when our
extremity of distreste, and the fair hopes of speedy settling of peace,
hath opened so fair a doore to the Gospel, you would take the cause of
your younger sister, that hath no brests, to your serious consideration,
and pity poore _Macedonians_ crying to you that ye would come over and
help us, being the servants of the God of your Fathers, and claiming
interest with you in a common Covenant, that according to the good hand of
God upon us, ye may send us Ministers for the house of our God. We do not
take upon us to prescribe to you the way or the number, but in the view of
all, the finger of the Lord points at these, whom though persecution of
the Prelats drew from us, yet our interest in them could not be taken
away, wherein we trust in regard of severall of them, called home by
death, your bounty will super-adde some able men of your own that may help
to lay the foundation of Gods house, according to the Pattern. But for
these so unjustly reft from us, not only our necessity, but equity pleads,
that either you would send them all over, which were a Work to be
parallelled to the glories of the Primitive times, or at least that ye
would declare them transportable, that when Invitators shall be sent to
any of them, wherein they may discerne a call from God, there may be no
difficultie in their loosing from thence, but they may come back to
perfect what they began, and may get praise and fame in the Land, where
they were put to shame. Neither are you to question your power over us so
to doe, or crave a president of your own practise in that kind, for our
extraordinary need calling on you, furnisheth you with a power to make
this a president for the like cases hereafter: herein if you shall lay
aside the particular concernment of some few places, which you may easily
out of your rich Nurseries plant again, and make use of your publike
spirits, which are not spent, but increases by your so many noble
designes; you shall leave upon us and our posteritie the stamp of an
obligation that cannot be delete, or that cannot be expressed; you should
send to all the neighbouring Churches a pattern, and erect for after-ages
a monument of self-denying tender zeale; you shall disburden the Land of
the many outcasts, who will follow over their Ministers; and you shall
make it appear, that the churlish bounty of the Prelats, which at first
cast some of these men over to us, is not comparable with the cheerful
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