Series 3 > Register of the consultations of the ministers of Edinburgh and some other brethren of the ministry > Volume 1

FIRST REGISTER: REASONS TO L. PRESIDENT 189
sions of the former Assemblie and appointing new Com¬
missions. It is an unparallelled usurpation then, for a
few members of the Commission 1650 to pretend unto
a power of acting upon a Commission expired four yeares
agoe, after the sitting of two Assemblies and the meeting
of a third which was not permitted to sitt.
5. It seemeth of presumption and of proceeding after a
meer arbitrarie manner, for men to pretend unto acting
upon a Commission whereof they have not an authentick
copie, nor never had, and therefore cannot know' the
nature or desyre of their power nor the number of the
Commissioners, whether formall, how many they are, or
materiall, who the persons are, neither yet the number
of the Quorum. But all these things must be measured
by the standard of their owne arbitrement, what power
they please to assume, what persones they please to
associate, what Quorum they please to approve. Everie
one seeth with how many intollerable inconveniences
this practice is accompanied in the Kirk, and would
be attended, if it should prove a leading case in the
state.
6. To countenance the exercise of the expyred power
of the Commissions 1650 doth countenance the intro¬
duction of a perpetuall prelacie of some few persons over
the whole Kirk, for so long as they are pleased to decline
the authority of the Assemblies to which they are count¬
able, their power doth continue (as they take for granted),
and so long they will decline as they thinke they have
cause to feare they shall be censured for their misdemean¬
ours and usurpations ; and when they are out of the
feare of that, they are sure their power will be continued
with them. How dangerous this hath been and will be
in the Kirk, we know; and these who are concerned may
consider of what dangerous influence this unsound prin¬
ciple actively managed may prove to the disturbance of
any settled state, that they who are in Commission from
them may keep up their power so long as they please to
decline those by whom they are commissionat, out of a
pretense that they have corrupted their wayes, and out