General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

And because the father gave the elect to Christ, the whole order of salvation will flow through union with him.

Now in 1638, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland met in Glasgow in the middle of a battle with Arminianism.

And a great theologian named David Dixon rose to set out the Reformed doctrine against the Remonstrants.

And when he came to name their greatest error, he said they did not understand the covenant of redemption between God and Christ.

In 1579, King James VI personally appointed Craig as his royal chaplain, calling him one of the best gifted in the kingdom.

Back in Edinburgh, he took a lead role in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and compiled part of the Second Book of Discipline, a guidebook for the Scottish churches.

And in 1581, he authored what became known as the King's Confession, the National Covenant, built on the Scots Confession of 1560.

It was a strong and blatant denunciation of the Pope and the doctrines of Rome, and it was adopted by the General Assembly and signed by King James VI and his entire household.

I should also say that there is a Church of Scotland appointment that the king makes on the recommendation of the prime minister.

that is the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The Church of Scotland itself is not an Episcopal Church, it's a Presbyterian Church.

The King has a special role within the Church of Scotland as well.

then it was that the christian faith exerted all its influence in the minds of men and animated them rather bravely to suffer death for christ than to engage with acrimony in contentions concerning the more obscure points of religion and hence it is that i have often thought with myself perhaps those men were the most happy who knowing nothing but jesus christ and him crucified and living soberly righteously and godly according to the prescription of the gospel did not so much as hereby report concerning the contentions of divines and i reckon it not the smallest part of our calamity or at least the most painful of our office that we who preside in matters of christianity are often constrained to bestow tedious labor in resolving the difficulties of thorny controversies so is the age all places resound with debates that very temple not excepted which the lord hath consecrated to peace and concord and truly it can scarce be otherwise in the profound repose which we in these times enjoy whatever be its kind in so great a diversity of genius and disposition in so great an ambition after sublimer science and finally in so great an itch after innovations be ye willing or unwilling in battle you must engage oh that it were always that good fight of faith which paul recommended to timothy however if we are not permitted to shun the conflict the prudence of just demands that they who in the defence of orthodoxy show themselves the rigid guardians of truth should remember studiously to avoid these things which are not lawful for the ministers of peace and hence it is that they especially to whom is committed the preaching of the gospel should endeavour clearly to discern the truths revealed by god that they may explain them in clear and proper words and such as are drawn from the fountain of holy scripture that they seriously rejoice in the harmony of minds and promote it as much as possible in a consistency with truth that in differences they with a judicious lenity approve their equity and modesty to god and to men that they think humbly concerning themselves and highly of their brethren not affecting the fame of more exquisite wisdom but justly esteeming the gifts of god in those who are their neighbours that they calumniate no man's word or by cavilling impute opinions to any to which he professes himself averse finally that they reckon it unworthy of the gravity of a divine to strive in an idle and an odious manner concerning the niceties of words when there is little and almost no difference about the thing itself if our controversies in the netherlands if yours in britain brethren had been treated with such dispositions and in such a way and method it would have been far better as well for the public tranquillity as for the truth itself and evangelical piety but we suffer every one his own punishment permitted at present to pass by our disputations in silence with the most penetrating sense of which we are grieved you yourselves brethren would not allow me to be without a part in yours which perhaps are agitated with too much warmth under the hostile standards of antinomians and neonomians though both disallow the names for some of yourselves the books on both sides being sent me requested my judgment inconsiderable as it is to the discovery of which i did not proceed but very slowly and with reluctant steps for first in the knowledge of the cause which was involved in many subtleties and quirks i had the greatest difficulties to surmount so much the greater that i have scarce a tolerable knowledge of your language in the next place not a little labor was to be spent in this that what i seemed somehow at least to know in a matter of the greatest intricacy i should explain in a methodical and perspicuous manner which i understood to be chiefly necessary in fine knowing to measure myself by my own standard i could not be ignorant that i was not at all endowed with such wisdom and authority as to be accounted a proper judge in so great a controversy nevertheless since the matter was very much at heart as being of the utmost importance i used all diligence to reach that on which the dispute turned and having found what had also been observed by john hornbeek a man of the utmost integrity and a divine of a cultivated judgment that it is often seen the difference is less in the thing itself than in the manner of speaking and the method of teaching i went on with the greater courage hoping it might happen that the impediments of ambiguity being removed some controversies might be decided by the mere elucidation of the subject itself and both contending parties confessed that they had understood the same thing but in a different manner of expression besides i was less afraid of incurring the displeasure of either party although i assent to neither in all things that i transferred the whole of the dispute from personal and verbal things unto real not inquiring with too much rigour what was said or unsaid by this or that man what was well understood or otherwise by the reader or the hearer but what ought to be said or in my judgment at least may be most conveniently said it is a very frequent fault with disputants that the one complains of the sense being badly expressed the other that it is not well understood whence it is that the whole dispute often evanishes into a mere mistake of the subject or which is worse issues in the most indecent brawlings i judged that by all means such a conduct should be avoided applying myself to this alone that i might clearly deliver the truth without injury to any man and without party zeal the defence of which is far from me do you brethren take in good part this dutch candour and despise not the sincere labour of a foreigner following truth with charity besides enjoying the common name of christians and protestants we have the same celestial depositum committed to our care and we batavians and britons are now connected by a straighter bond living under the pious and happy government of the same best of princes your king and our stadtholder william the third to whom we know there is nothing more desirable than that the monuments of faction being erased as well in britain as in the netherlands right hands should join in the perpetual confederation of brethren but there is abundance of preface let us come to the subject the translator's preface purity and peace are essential to that wisdom which cometh from above james three seventeen accordingly those endued with it have ever held them in the highest estimation begotten by the word of truth they seek the peace of jerusalem by means of the one they enjoy communion with their god and in virtue of the other the pleasures of fellowship amongst themselves while zealous for the former they dare not disregard the latter enamoured with both it is as a sword in their bones to see them divided their love to the truth as it is in jesus will not suffer them to embrace that peace which rises on its ruins nor will their love of peace allow them to violate the communion of saints for matters of doubtful disputation when it is endangered they are ready to stand in the breach in order to reconcile the contending parties such pacific disputations point out whose they are whom they serve and whither they are going blessed said the prince of peace are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of god matthew five nine and while blessed of the lord they are generally had in honour among men in few instances was this ever more verified than in the celebrated his learning his life his labors and his steady attachment to evangelic truth endeared him when alive to her friends and embalmed his memory when dead hence it was that when several doctrinal differences began to be warmly agitated amongst some ministers in england they agreed in submitting them to him as an able and impartial umpire this gave rise to his ironical animadversions they were first printed at utrecht anno sixteen ninety six in a small octavo of two hundred and thirty-seven pages and four years after at amsterdam in the second volume of the author's miscellanies but the seventh and eighth chapters of the utrecht edition were omitted in that of amsterdam for what reason i have not been able to learn they seemed to me however of too much importance to be overlooked in this translation the late holy herve in a footnote in his theron and aspasio volume two page three hundred and sixty six referring to the utrecht edition of these animate versions expresses himself in the following words si vizi anima diversiones ireniche chapter eight a choice little piece of polemical divinity perhaps the very best that is extant in which the most important controversies are fairly stated accurately discussed and judiciously determined with a perspicuity of sense and a solidarity of reasoning exceeded by nothing but the remarkable conciseness and the still more remarkable candour of the sentiments having often read these animadversions and found with pleasure that they were well entitled to all the character which hervey had given them i judged it might be of advantage to the truth to clothe them in an english dress how far i have succeeded in doing justice to the original belongs to others to determine This, however, I can aver that in no instance have the author's sentiments been willingly misrepresented.

Such as are not strangers in our Israel will easily perceive that the topics insisted on here coincide in a great measure with those in the Marrow of Modern Divinity, a book recommended by the Venerable Hogg of Charnock, condemned by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, anno 1720, vindicated by the Twelve Brethren, and long supported by the whole body of the secession.

having stripped our author's little volume of its latin dress i deemed it necessary to add some notes for the further elucidation of gospel truth but these swelling to a far greater size than was at first intended it seemed more proper to give them by themselves than along with the translation by this method the reader is no ways interrupted in perusing the author nor his eye and attention every now and then called off by footnotes these will be more properly consulted on a second reading of the animadversions than at the first in some instances i have adventured to differ from our very venerable author but these not affecting the substance of the doctrine nor the power of godliness need create no uneasiness to the reader and indeed if such differences be not allowed church communion is at an end absolute unity of views is not to be expected till we reach the land of everlasting light while we know but in part we must differ in some punctilios the reader will no doubt observe that i frequently quote the westminster confession of faith and catechisms i do indeed i am not ashamed of doing so on a solemn occasion and before many witnesses i acknowledged that confession to be the confession of my faith and hitherto i have seen no reason either to renounce or to refine it these fifty years i have been acquainted with it and the catechisms i bless the god of truth that i have finding that my sentiments agree with them i have the pleasure to see that i am going forth by the footsteps of the flock which is certainly as safe and much more comfortable than to walk in an untrodden path though not within the pale of the established church but sitting under the shade of toleration i am far from thinking that all legal establishments are improper or unwarrantable i cannot yet be persuaded that because error has no right to such an establishment neither has truth this would be saying in effect that as jeroboam sinned in setting up the calves one king twelve twenty six to thirty three so did jehoshaphat cyrus and artaxerxes in supporting the true worship of god 2 Chronicles 19, 5-11, Ezra 11, 11, 7, 11-28.

Or that because kings sin against God in giving their power and strength unto the beast, Revelation 17, 13, they do the same in being nursing fathers unto Zion, Isaiah 44, Alt 45, 1-6, 49, 23, 40, 16, Revelation 21, 24. when i left the church of scotland it was not because she was established by law but because of her tyranny in government and her error in doctrine witness the many violent settlements which take place, and the bare-faced Arminianism, to say nothing worse, which is taught almost everywhere.