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

FIRST REGISTER: J. SHARP’S INSTRUCTIONS 209
or acknowledged to be a Presbytrie, or other Kirk judica¬
ture, who have not been owned as such a judicature, and
authorized by their respective superior judicatures ; and
that if any few ministers or others who are not authorized
in manner aforsaid, take upon them the authoritie and
jurisdiction of a Kirk judicature, and do exercise any act
of government in calling or deposing of ministers, or in¬
flicting any other censure, that they be not countenanced,
nor any of their actings owned as deeds of a lawfull
judicature.
9. Because our adversaries may be bussy to misrepresent
us having been averse from union, the matter of the over¬
tures of union which we condescended unto would be made
knowne both to those in power and to the godlie presby-
terian ministers there, as also the points on which they
struck and refused to unite with us, which were these two :
1, that we granted not unto them committees of equall
numbers of both judgments for purging; 2, that we
requyred subordination and subjection of inferior judica¬
tures to their respective superior judicatures according to
the nature and order of presbyteriall government in this
Kirk and the constant uncontraverted practise thereof
before the tyme of our unhappy difference. The unreason-
ablenesse and inconsistency with presbyteriall govern¬
ment and the established order in this Church, of requiring
the former and refusing the latter, is fully and clearly evi¬
denced in our last two papers relating to the Conference.
10. If it shall happen that any new motion be made for
union with our dissenting Brethren, it would be shewne
that wee cannot possibly condescend any further than we
have done already, for obtaining union with them, in our
above-mentioned Overtures in November last, as they
are expressed in our Representation in the said month of
November, unlesse we would condemn ourselves and
renounce our judgments in the matters of difference be¬
twixt them and us, which we could not do without wronging
our owne consciences, quiting truth, provocking God, and
rendering our Church and religion hatefull to all the civill
powers, nations, and Churches about us. And if it be
VOL. i.