Page:Behemoth 1889.djvu/192

 And to that end sent thither St. Johns, Vane, and other commissioners, to offer them this union by public declaration, and to warn them to choose their deputies of shires and burgesses of towns, and send them to Westminster.

B. This was a very great favour.

A. I think so: and yet it was by many of the Scots, especially by the ministers and other Presbyterians, refused. The ministers had given way to the levying of money for the payment of the English soldiers; but to comply with the declaration of the English commissioners they absolutely forbad.

B. Methinks, this contributing to the pay of their conquerors was some mark of servitude; whereas entering into the union made them free, and gave them equal privilege with the English.

A. The cause why they refused the union, rendered by the Presbyterian *ministers* themselves, was this: that it drew with it a subordination of the Church to the civil state in the things of Christ.

B. This is a downright declaration to all kings and commonwealths in general: that a Presbyterian minister will be a true subject to none of them in the things of Christ; which things what they are, they will be judges themselves. What have we then gotten by our deliverance from the Pope’s tyranny, if these petty men succeed in the place of it, that have nothing in them that can be beneficial to the public, except their silence? For their learning, it amounts to no more than an imperfect knowledge of Greek and Latin, and an acquired readiness in the Scripture language, with a gesture and tone suitable thereunto; but of justice and charity (the marrow of religion ) they have neither knowledge nor practice, as is manifest by the stories I have already told you. Nor do they distinguish between the godly and the ungodly but by conformity of design in men of judgment, or by repetition of their sermons in the common sort of people.