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

FIRST REGISTER: A TRUE REPRESENTATION 331
disorderly. Ffor they cast out men at their pleasure (and
none but such as otherwise differ from them in publike
matters), having nothing reall or relevant against them,
some of them being men who, when they joined writh
them for a time, were good enough in their account. And
when those who are censured have recourse to superiour
judicatories for redresse, our Brethren by their protesta¬
tions and appeals did keep their cause from being heard,
and by their counteractings (yea, sometime tumultuary
wayes of some of their followers abusing these whom they
unjustly censured, and effronting ministers who execute
; the Synod’s acts in their favour) do leave poor men under
oppression without any possibility of a remedie in an
? orderly way.
45 §. Ffifthly (to add no more)* our Brethren have
J studied to carie on their designe by reproaches and calumnies
j, spread of these who are opposite unto them. They have
? published to the world in print that this Nationall Church
I is guilty of a defection from the Covenant of God, many
eminent servants of Jesus Christ are branded as authorized
ringleaders in that defection, godly men are said to be
[; blasted, deserted, and backsliden, the generality of the
ministry are cried out upon as corrupt, we are traduced
as opposite to the purging out of scandalous and insufficient
p ministers; yea, the judicatories are accounted unworthy
[ of that trust, in that they must have extrajudiciall com-
[ mittees appointed for that effect. To all which (omitting
| what hath been already spoken, to the matter of our
I contraversies, and what may be after hinted at) we only
I say : 1, As some of these aspersions are (we hope) wiped
|i off by our clearing of the falsehood of the grounds upon
I which they are laid to our charge, so the rest of them not
| being the cause of their first rent, cannot warrant them to
v continue in it. And of all of them we may say that we
: hope no judicious Christian will like their cause the better,
j! that they are so oft put to make use of personall reflexions
and calumnies to defend it. 2, Whatever be the clamours
[Ji they raise of the generall corruption of the ministry, yet
Jr they have been oft put to it and solemnly obtested to