TO THE KING'S Most Excellent Majesty. THE HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE AND RENEWED PETITION OF the Commissioners of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, from their meeting at Edinburgh, the second day of June. 1643.  
EDINBURGH, Printed by ROBERT BRYSON. 1643.   

To the Kings most excellent Majesty. The humble Remonstrance and renewed Petition of the Commssioners of the General Assembly of the Kirke of Scotland, from their meeting at Edinburgh the second day of June. 1643.  
AS the manifold and pressing necessity of the duty of our place and trust, did constrain us, in these distempered and dangerous times, in most humble manner, To direct our earnest supplication to your Majesty, for such remedies as we conceive to be most fit for us to propone, And being applied by your Majesties own hand, might both for cure and prevention prove most effectual: So are we enforced by the same necessity growing daily to the greatest extremity, In all humility and earnestness, To renew not only our prayers to God, but our Petitions to your Majesty. For Zions sake can we not hold our peace, and for Jerusalem's sake we will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. But because in your Majesty's answer to our former Petition we meet with a multitude of prejudices and exceptions against us and our humble desires, we will crave leave, first to remove these out of the way: Acknowledging the full expression of them by your Majesty to be no small favour, and being confident, after we have expressed ourselves in the truth and integrity of our hearts, both to give unto and to receive from your Majesty's Justice and goodness the greater satisfaction.  
And first, although there be good reason for printing of Answers and Replies, the Petition being before printed, yet we acknowledge that your Majesty hath just cause to find fault with that publishing of our Petition in print (which is mentioned in the introduction to your Majesty's answer) And if it had been done by our commandment, counsel or knowledge, we had not only given yaur Majesty just provocation, and fallen in an error contrary to the nature of a Petition, and to the right disposition of Petitioners, but also had used means contrary to our own ends, in publishing a programe of our diffidence of obtaining our desires, or in giving a public testimony that we were aiming at some other thing then what we professed to seek, And therefore we are so far from excusing that form of doing, that we judge ourselves to be wronged thereby.  
Another fault much more intolerable is objected against us: The bitterness and sharpness of some expressions which may be interpreted by your Majesties well affected Subjects not to be so agreeable to that regard and reverence which is due to your Majesty's person, and the matter itself to be reproachful to the honour and constitution of that your Majesty's Kingdom. Whether the matter of the Petition be reproachful shall afterwards in the particulars appear: But for the expresions we have examined the whole Petition and can find no word of that kind. We rather did fear the censure of fawning and flattering words, which your Majesty may remember were sometime put upon our supplications. Our desire was to keep within the bounds of that liberty which beseemeth the Ministers of Christ, and if any word have escaped us which we cannot see, it was contrary to our intention: for we know that we should neither speak evil of dignity nor unreverently unto them. The like report hath been made to your Majesty of our preaching and prayers, but when the delators are tried, they will be found either malicious against us for reproving their faults; Or having no other way of insinuation, too officious to your Majesty, or to others whom they desire to please, or so blinded with self-love, that they think Preachers should speak like Parasites; or so undiscerning, that when we profess our desire to the Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland, we are fancied by them to preach or pray against the King and his Royal authority. We fear God, and honour the King, And have learned not only to put a difference betwixt God and the King, but also (against the old sophistication now revived) betwixt the pictures of the Emperor, and the images of the false gods, craftily insert into them, and know the way how to honour the King without such a mixture and confusion. Slowness to believe an evil report, and the constructing of things doubtful is one of your Majesty's Royal praises, of which the faithful Ministers of this Kirk desire, against slanders and suspicions to have the experience: which will prove profitable for your Majesty's honour and obedience, and our peace and quietness. As the Northwind driveth away rain: So doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue. Righteous lips are the delight of Kings: and they love him that speaketh right.  
Concerning the interposing of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, and our intermeddling by commission from them in the Kirk of England; We humbly entreat your Majesty, to consider of the reasons of this our doing. 1. Although the Kirks of one Nation be distant in place from the Kirks of another Nation, yet are they united in the heart and spirit, and are generally but one body and Kirke, and must as Sisters of one Mother keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace: whence ariseth the communion of all God's graces and blessings amongst the Kirks, that they may not only help, comfort and refresh: but advise, admonish, exhort, warn and reprove one another, so fare as need requireth, and their Christian love and ability reacheth. Yet avoiding both ambition and confusion: there being a co-ordination between Kirks of divers Nations, but no subordination: We have not presumed to pass the limits of this Christian communion: having proceeded by way of charity, and in a ministerial, or rather brotherly manner, not by authority or magisterially: by way of humble supplication to your Majesty, Declaration to the House of Parliament, and advice and exhortation to such of our brethren of the Ministry as were best known unto us: very far from usurpation or jurisdiction. 2. Our humble Petition to your Majesty, and our Declaration to the Parliament, were nothing else, but a prosecution of the demand made by the Commissioners of this Kingdom, and a pressing of the Answer given by your Majesty and the Parliament, in the last Treaty; which filled us with hope of what was then demanded, since followed by divers Declarations, and now again desired. 3. The experience of the sufferings of this Kirk from the doctrine, form of worship and government of the Kirk of England, doth beget fears of the like hereafter, which maketh our petition to be unto us a necessary means of selfe-preservation. 4. Our encouragements from your Majesty's Letter to the general Assembly, and the Declaration of the House of Parliament, desiring them to concur in petitioning your Majesty for settling one confession of Faith, one directory of the public worship, and one Catechism in all the three Kingdoms, as a mean to advance the honour and service of God, enlarge the greatness, power, and glory of the King, confirm the peace, security, and prosperity of all his good Subjects, make way to the relief and deliverance of the poor afflicted Kirks abroad, and to the total abolishing of the usurpation and tyranny of Rome. 5. The pattern we have of this Christian duty both by word and writing in the Kirk at Jerusalem, and the Kirk at Antioch, which was first Crowned with the name of Christians, The one of which were Jew's, and the other Gentiles; And in divers other Kirks recorded in Scripture, many Precedents also in antiquity before the Kirks did contend for primacy, or knew any pre-eminence one over another. Many examples of other reformed Kirks; And the practice of the Kirk of Scotland divers times after the Reformation writing into England against the ceremonies, and for union against the Papists and their confederates banded together by the bloody league of Trent. These and the like reasons we conceive did sufficiently authorise us in all that we have done, not as Directors or Judges, but as supplicants and humble advisers. In that day shall there be an high way out of Egypt into Assyria (from one Kirk and Nation of the Gentiles to another) And the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians, whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless.  
Upon this and the like grounds, have letters been sent professedly, between some godly, loyal and peaceable Ministers of the Kirk of England, and the General Assembly here, and their Commissioners: One of the means intended for the good of Religion in both Kingdoms against Sects and Shismes, admitted and approven by your Majesty's Commissioners in the General Assembly, and which for the form of doing is innocent, and may be profitable, unless the matter be nocent and hurtful, and thereby deserves censure. We wish we were able by our Letters, Declarations, or Petitions; To reduce all the Reformed Kirks to a perfect conformity, to suppress all the Heresy, Superstition and Tyranny of Papists, and the Paganism of Turks and infidels, and would not doubt of your Majesty's Royal approbation notwithstanding all the Laws standing to the contrary, and pleas could be made for their antiquity, happiness and stability; Common arguments and colours pretended for every Religion, and of late answered to the full in the point of Episcopal government, from the verity of Scripture which is true antiquity, and the only  ground of the happiness and stability of Religion and government of the Kirk.  
The Petitioners were far from laying upon your Majesty any imputation of the Irish Rebellion beseeching God to mainifest your Sacred Majesty's innocence to all the world. They made mention of the miseries of Ireland, for no other end, but to represent the danger of your Majesty's Kingdoms through the prevailing power of the Popish faction; The British Papists at this time being animated by the same spirit, working upon the same principles, enraged with the same furies, breathing out the same threaten and slaughter, aiming at the same ends, and emboldened with the same presumption, with the Papists of Ireland, their confederates. And withal to present our earnest desires for a pacification, that both the armies may be sent against that horrid rebellion, and peace restored to all your Majesty's Dominions.  
The expression in our Petition of Unity in Religion, we have borrowed from the Article in the Treaty accorded unto by your Majesty, from the Declarations of the Parliament; and from the General Assembly: By which is meaned no other thing but one Confession of Faith one common directory for worship, and one Catechism. The Papists may know that the true Kirk in all ages, hath been troubled with differences and contentions, as great as any now, against the Reformed Kirks, which many of the godly have lamented & studied to compose, and (as it was written of some heretics of old) They themselves sacrifice in schism and dissension, and greet the world with the name of peace, whom they drive from the peace of their salvation. They therefore cannot hence authrize their scandal against the remformation: yet the smallest differences of practice and diversity of the expressions, are matter of strife to the contentious, of hindrance of edification to the ignorant, of stumbling to the weak, and of grief to the godly, when thereby they see against religious Unity and Christian love, the bowels of the Kirk rend asunder, and people scandalously divided in some parts of the worship of God: All which evil, might be perfectly cured in all your Majesty's dominions, the mouths of Papists stopped, Schism and Separation hereafter prevented, and the face of the Kirk filled with true beauty and splendour, to your Majesty's greater glory, and the greater terror of all your enemies: by this blessed and never enough desired Unity in Religion: Without which tender consciences being freed from constraint may be in some degree eased by your Majesty, but shall never have rest, and be satisfied, nor shall the rent of the Kirk arising from different or contrary practices be cured, but shall from time to time increase.  
Concerning uniformity in Kirk government, our hopes thereof and of the unity of Religion grounded upon the the Article of the Treaty, made this Kirk and Kingdom to enter into the more strict amity and friendship with England. And that the amity and friendship builded upon such a foundation might be the more firm and durable, they have since pressed the same by their Petitions and Declarations, in all humility and love, without any bitterness of expression: Only they have declared the government of the Kirk by Assemblies in their strong and beautiful order, and subordination to be by Divine right, and that as Prelacy is confessed in this your Majesty's Answer to be the rule of humane policy, so to be almost universally acknowledged by the Prelates themselves, and their adherents to be but a humane institution, intoduced by humane reason, and settled by humane Law and Custom, for supposed conveniency; which therefore by humane authority, without wronging any man's conscience, may be altered and abolished upon so great a necessity, as is, a hearty conjunction of all the reformed Kirks, a firm and well grounded peace, between the two Kingdoms, formerly divided in themselves and betwixt themselves by this partition wall, and a perfect Union of the two Kirks in the two Nations; which although by the providence of God in one Island, and under one Monarch, yet ever since the Reformation, have been at greater difference in the point of Kirk government (which in all places hath a powerful influence upon all the parts of Religion) than any other reformed Kirks, although in Nations at greatest distance, and under d●vers Princes. Papacy is the greatest cause of schism in the Christian Kirk, and Episcopacy devised by man, to be a cure, the greatest cause of schism in the Reformed Kirks.  
As the mutual relation and conjunction of true Ecclesiastical and Civil government is a corroboration of both, so do we conceive that both are much weakened in their proper functions by that intermixture of the Ecclesiastical government with the Civil State. And as we know the principles of Prelacy to be Popish, and contrary to the principles of Reformation: So have we reason to believe, that such an intermixture is not for your Majesty's honour, while they maintain and profess that Monarchy cannot subsist without Prelacy: And that Prelacy had not been cast out of the Parliament, if it had been profitable there; And thought fit to be altogether abolished, if it had not been an unprofitable burden to the kingdom, and pernicious to the civil State and Common wealth: As is contained more fully in the Declaration of both Houses of Parliament to the General Assembly.  
The following of humane inventions, without and against Scripture, and the ambition and covetousness of Kirkmen, were observed of old, to be the corruptions which made many to call upon the Pope, and the chief guides of the Kirk, at that time for a Reformation: but all in vain, for that had been their own ruin, to which in humane reason, they would never willingly have consented. That upon the same causes and corruptions there is a necessity of reformation of the Kirk of England, Is as unanimously confessed, as it is universally acknowledged, that it is unlikely if not impossible; to be obtained in the regular and ordinary way: Upon the reason expressed afterward in your Majesty's answer. Because in the common and ordinary way the passion or interest of particular men will impose upon the public: For what greater private interest than benefits and dignities? Who more interessed in these then Bishops, Deans, Arch-deacons and such ordinary members of the Convocation? And who can be more sueyed, and biased with passion, than such as have this interest? Whether this be appliable to the Parliament, whose places and dignities are uncontroverted, and unquestionable, it is not for us to judge: but this we know, when the corruptions of the Kirk are grown to such an height, that she can neither bear her diseases, nor endure the remedies, it is the duty of the Magistrate and civil authority, by the advice of the more sound, and sincere part of the Kirk and Ministry, to endeavour a Reformation, since no Reformation, worthy of that name, can be expected from the corrupt Clergy, nor hath at any time Religion been that way in any tolerable measure reform: When the evils are extraordinary, the remedies must be other then ordinary. Scripture, reason, and experience of the Kirk teach in such an exigence of Reformation and extremity of debates and contentions, to call a Synod of the best Divines, best acquainted with the will of God in Scripture, freest of humane inventions, and innovations, and farrest from pride and avarice; which are the evils to be purged out, and for afterward prevented; And who against all Sects and Shismes, unfeignedly seek the peace and unity of the Kirk, which by all good means both for itself, and for the truth's sake, is to be procured and preserved. When by this remedy faithfully applied, and accompanied with prayers, and tears of repentance; the worship of God and the government of the Kirk are settled, not after the rules of humane policy, but according to Scripture, there is hope that God will end his controversy with England, and bliss the treaties of peace betwixt your Majesty and your Parliament; which is now our humble desire, and when it cometh to pass, shall be the universal rejoicing of all your good people.  
We should be not only unchristian but disloyal and unnatural, if we were not affected, and afflicted, with your Majesties many sufferings, and the troubles of your Kingdoms, and did not hearty wish that your Majesty were pesent in your Parliament, assembled in the most peaceable and Parliamentary way, to your Majesty's greater glory, and their greater strengthening, for the good of the Kingdom. For the present, the houses of Parliament have professed in their Declaration to the General Assembly, their desires and willingness, to settle such a Reformation of the Kirk; as shall be most agreeable to the word of God, and most apt to procure and conserve an happy union with the Kirk of Scotland in a peaceable and parliamentary way; And have pass their bills in both houses without contradiction against Episcopal government, and offered them to your Majesty for obtaining your Royal consent: This is the peaceable and Parliamentary way, meant by us, and mentioned in our petition, which we trust can give your Majesty no just offence.  
Although the Ministers of the Gospel have authority in some cases to preach and writ not only exhortations, and blessings, but also threats, and sentences of judgement, against Kings and Kingdoms, which howsoever they be bitter and unpleasant for the pesent (and therefore seldom ministered to princes) may prove very profitable, and cordial afterward: Many had perished in their sins if it had not been told them that they were to perish; faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful: and he that rebuketh, afterwards shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue. Yet upon good reason have we abstained from this strain of denuncing of judgement against your Majesty, having only from the conscience of our duty in anguish of our souls, faithfully represented the duty and danger with our earnest deprecation of the wrath not only now incumbent, but yet seven times more imminent to your Kingdoms, which we daily more and more apprehend, shall ensue, unless by a through Reformation of Religion and manners it be timeously prevented. By this our liberty we have delivered our own souls, and endeavoured to deliver your Majesty and your Dominions from the present and future judgements, which both love and fear constrain us now again; To entreat your Majesty to hearken unto.  
As we cannot deny, but do reverently acknowledge the influence of many and great blessings from heaven upon the reign of Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty's Father of blessed memory: So do we not doubt, but your Majesty in your Christian and Royal wisdom will consider: that the supreme providence which hath set your Majesty after them upon the Throne, hath appointed a time for every action. A wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgement, and where it is not discerned, the misery of man, wrestling with invincible providence, is great upon him. The many blessings upon the Kings of Egypt, Babylon, and other Princes, were interrupted in the time of their successors, which opposed the deliverance of the people of God from the Egyptian bondage, the Babylonian captivity, the foolishness of Paganism, and the tyranny of Popery, when the time of their deliverance was come. Many of the godly before your Majesty's reign have desired and supplicated the Parliament for a Reformation, but the desires were never so universal as now; Prelacy never so insolent, nor the evils thereof so well known and so deeply felt; nor was it ever voted out of the Parliament, nor agreed in Parliament to be abolished in the Kirk; nor stood merely upon the Royal consent of the King, till this time. Arminianism hath entered, Papistry hath increased, Sectaries have multiplied, sufferings have abounded, Tender consciences disquieted with old and new ceremonies, much more of late then before, that all eyes may see how many things concur now to make a necessity of reformation. It is the never dying honour of your Majesty's late Progenitors above others that were before them, that they did begin, continue and preserve reformation, and shall be your Majesty's greatest and immortal glory to perfect it, with Josiah leaving nothing to imped or obscure the glory of God: An happiness which the people of God in this Island have long waited for, which God calleth for at your hands, and we trust hath reserved for our times, as a special and incomparable honour to your Majesty above the best Princes, and matter of joy to your people above all other in former ages.  
As the continual comfort and daily sense of the inestimable benefit, of the Reformation of this Kirk in worship and government, should stir up our hearts, to the love of God, whose hand principally, did bring it about, in a way full of marvels, and full of mercies, And thankfulness to your Majesty, whom we look upon, not as a naked assenter unto alterations, but as a prime instrument of settling a blessed Reformation in this Kirk; So doth the same comfort and sense excite in us, a fear to lose that which we so much love, in a way where in it hath run hazard before. Our fears are not counterfeit, to bring any design of our own, nor politic, or created in us, by the authority of any assertion of others, to bring any design of theirs to pass, nor panic, or maginarie, to torment ourselves without cause; But are true and real, grounded upon reason, which teacheth to beware of contagion, in so near a vicinity, and where there is so frequent commerce and conversing upon bypast experience of evils from English Prelacy, ever since the beginning of Reformation, and upon present and daily tasting of the fruits, which partly of its own corrupt nature, and partly through the coruptions of men, It hath brought forth & fomented. And though the Petitioners cannot judge, nor should intermeddle with questions about your Majesties, and the Parliaments power, yet may they well profess from that which every one may understand, that the denying of the people their earnest desires, may quench that fervour of affection which is due from a people to their Prince.  
Whether the generality of the Nation desireth a change of Kirk government, cannot be better known then by the desires and Propositions of the representative body of the Kingdom, nor can it be better defined what government shall be established, than in Synod of learned and godly Divines. Our part is to wish the pattern in Scripture and the example of the best Reformed Kirks to be followed, and to pray that God by his Spirit may lead them into all truth: being confident that reformation having begun by your Majesty's authority at the head and chiefest parts, all sectaries, and all the inferior members may be quickly by a Synod brought to such order as may consist with truth and with the peace of the Kirk.  
It was fare from our intentions by the general expressions of our Petition against Papists, To charge your Majesty with compliance and favour to their opinions. We do from our hearts bless God for all that your Majesty hath done both here and in England against them, and for so free and ample a testimony of your Majesty's desires of the Queen's conversion. Jealousies of that kind, and hopes in the hearts of such as are popishly affected, of their prevailing power, proceed from the power of Papists in Ireland, the present posture of Papists armed about your Majesty in this dangerous time of combustion in England, and that for so long a time through the connivance or compliance of the Ministers of estate, laws, have not been execute against them, nor any means at all used for the Queen's conversion. A necessary and essential duty, from which no oath to the contrary can more give dispensation, than any oath of old or late, public or private, can bind your Majesty to maintain Episcopacy or any corruption in the worship of God, or government of the Kirk, when God by his word giveth light and by his providence calleth for a Reformation. All which had need to be seriously and tymously considered. And if the Papists be not speedily disarmed, the danger is that both in their own project, and upon the hearing of your Majesty's Declaration to disarm them, when there shall be no more use of their service, they band together and bend all their wits against a Pacification, till by their gathering and growing to greater strength, they be able to plead in equal terms for themselves, for their share in the places and honours of the Kingdom, at least for peace and toleration, as a reward of all their pains, charges and hazards, pretended to be for your Majesty's honour and safety, but really intended for themselves and their superstition. We cannot conceive that loyalty can be without allegiance, or that Papists refusing to take the oath of allegiance, do fight in loyalty and allegiance to your Majesty, but for their own ends, nor can it be safe for Protestants to trust them upon the principles of their profession, in any whether intestine or foreign war. In the time of the greatest foreign invasion year 88 It was not thought safe to arm the Papists in defence of the Kingdom. We did not take notice of Papists in the other army, in our Petition to your Majesty, but did in our Declaration to the Parliament, that although they had professed in their Declarations that they had not known Papists in their Army, yet if any were found to be, we desired they might in like manner be disbanded. Brownists, Anabaptists, and other sectaries which are the fruits of Prelacy one way as Papists are another, are neither so easily known as Papists nor so much to be feared: and although they be enemies to Religion and to the peace of the Kirk, we know not whether they have been so considerable that the law hath taken so fare notice of them as to disarm them.  
We have so sincerely and from the inward of our spirits, with our hearts and hands lifted up to the most high God the searcher of hearts, sworn the care of the safety of your Majesty's person, and of your greatness and authority, which we have also witnessed in our Declarations to the Houses of Parliament, that our hearts within us were wounded when we did hear of the danger your Majesty's person was in the 23 of October. And as we do with the Houses of Parliament (as is expressed in their Declaration) rejoice and hearty praise God for your safety, So do we not cease to pray for your Majesty's preservation in the midst of so many dangers, and for a speedy deliverance by a happy peace, which we trust shall bury that black and unnatural day so unhappy and dangerous both to your Majesty and your people in eternal oblivion, and therefore not to be paralleled by us with the unparalelled plot of the 5. of November never to be forgotten.  
We have detained your Majesty longer than your great affairs of governing Kingdoms in the time of war could well permit, but not so long as the charge committed to us by the General Assembly, and the importance of our Petition, which is of religious and public concernment doth require. The crime of bitterness and want of reverence to your Majesty, the challenge of usurpation, the aspersion of so much and manifold mistaking, we would bear the more patiently if we were to be considered as private and particular persons, and not as Commissioners of public trust: And yet do bear the more patiently, because we take them (and in this no man shall persuade us that we are mistaken) to proceed from the pen of the writer, and not from your Majesty's justice and goodness, unto which we are bold to appeal from his unjust censure, and from such slanderous tongues and pens as by traducing the preaching and prayers of the ministry here of disloyalty or sedition, do much wrong us, your Majesty much more, and truth and peace most of all. Your Majesty in your wisdom will consider what such Sycophants are seeking, and in your justice will rather believe our public testimony, in things best known to ourselves and to our ordinary hearers, than any private information flowing from the malice of some, or the weakness of others. And now in your royal goodness will be graciously pleased to suffer us your Majesty's most humble and faithful Subjects to fall down at your feet, and with all earnestness to renew our Petition, especially that of Unity in Religion, and uniformity of Kirk Government in all your Majesty's Dominions, which we conceive to be principally, intended by divine Providence in these unhappy distractions and troubles of your Majesty's Kingdoms; And to this effect for such an Ecclesiastical Assembly, as hath been formerly described and desired: A mean so pious, so just and so ordinary in such cases as malice itself can have no colour to object against your Majesty for using it. And which shall speedily bring on a firm and grounded peace, and with peace all other blessings spiritual and temporal upon your Majesty and your Kingdoms.  
A. Ker. Cl. Commiss. Gen. Ass.