from Scripture to be the will of God. And why should _jus
divinum_ be such a _noli me tangere_? The reason was given. "This was the
only thing that hindered union in the Assembly (saith he). Two parties
came biassed. The reverend commissioners from Scotland were for the _jus
divinum_ of the presbyterial, the Independents for the congregational
government. How should either move? where should both meet?" If it was
thus, how shall he make himself blameless, who made union in the Assembly
yet more difficult, because he came biassed a third way, with the Erastian
tenets? And where he asketh where the Independents and we should meet, I
answer, In holding a church government _jure divino_, that is, that the
pastors and elders ought to suspend or excommunicate (according to the
degree of the offence) scandalous sinners. Who can tell but the purging of
the church from scandals, and the keeping of the ordinances pure (when it
shall be actually seen to be the great thing endeavoured on both sides),
may make union between us and the Independents more easy than many
imagine. As for his exceptions against us who are commissioners from the
church of Scotland, I thank God it is but such, yea, not so much, as the
Arminians did object(1330) against the foreign divines who came to the
Synod of Dort. They complained that those divines were pre-engaged and
biassed, in regard of the judgment of those churches from which they came;
and that therefore they did not help, but hinder, union in that assembly.
And might not the Arians have thus excepted against Alexander, who was
engaged against them before he came to the Council of Nice? Might not the
Nestorians have made the same exception against Cyril, because he was
under an engagement against them before he came to the Council of Ephesus?
Nay, had not the Jewish zealots the very same objection to make against
Paul and Barnabas, who were engaged, not in the behalf of one nation, but
of all the churches of the Gentiles, against the imposition of the
Mosaical rites, and had so declared themselves at Antioch before they came
to the synod at Jerusalem? Acts xv. 2. It is not faulty to be engaged for
the truth, but against the truth. It is not blameworthy, but praiseworthy,
to hold fast so much as we have already attained unto. Notwithstanding we,
for our part, have also from the beginning professed, "That we are most
willing to hear and learn from the word of God what needeth further to be
reformed