The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

12. They endeavour by all means to carry the favour of the civil Magistrates, and to have Ministers especially such as are zealous against them, made hateful and suspected unto them, and the gaining of this hath a double advantage with it to their cause, as it strengtheneth it, and weakeneth the truth: this we see the false Prophets did of old, 1 King. 22. Jer. 26. Amos 7. 10. and so endeavoured the Scribes and Pharisees to engage the Romans against Christ, and against His Apostles; So also did the Arians and other Heretics, and so hath Antichrists emissaries ever endeavoured to stir up civil Magistrates against faithful Ministers, as most hateful persons: This they carry on by such like means. 1. They pretend to give the Magistrates more submission, and charge faithful Ministers with slighting of their authority, for they know this to be a thing well pleasing to Magistrates: Thus the faithfulness of honest Ministers is accounted disobedience and hatred, and the lying flattery of such is given out for respect and obedience, so was it in the case of Mica•ah. 2. They cry out upon faithful Ministers, as factious and turners of the world upside-down, sowers of sedition, as, ⟨p. 193⟩Acts 24. 5. troublers of the peace, who do keep the people in a continual stir, and cross their designs, and mar the absoluteness of Magistracy; So, Elijah is counted an enemy to Ahab, and a troubler of Israel. 3. They vent many groundless calumnies against them, as if they were guilty of many gross evils; Thus Athanasius and many others were charged by the Arians, as murderers and adulterers, and some pretended proofs made thereof: Yea, it was alleged to Constantine, that Athanasius had meddled with civil matters (which was derogatory to his authority) by inhibiting all Corns to be exported from Egypt. 4. They bring the Magistrates in tops with them, by appellations from Church-judicatories to them, and seeming to plead an absoluteness to Magistrates in things Ecclesiastic; Thus Heretics in all times have sheltered themselves under this pretext, till Magistrates declared against them, and then they cast them off also, as of late in the practices of the Socinians and Arminians hath been made out. 5.