File Name: Calderwood, David - The Pastor and the Prelate
File Submitter: superaben
File Submitted: 03 Jun 2012
File Category: Reference Books (topx)
Author: David Calderwoode-Sword Version: 9.x - 10.x
The Pastor and the Prelate is a product of David Calderwood’s prodigious pen. Calderwood is well known to those who have any familiarity with Scottish church history as the author of the authoritative seven volume “History of the Kirk of Scotland”. Although known today as an author, Calderwood was better known in his day as a Covenanting pastor. Born in 1575, Calderwood lived through much of the tumultuous foundings of the Reformed Scottish Church.
As a man who read English, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, as well as scatterings of many other languages, Calderwood was a scholar of great repute. The Pastor and the Prelate, published in quarto in 1628, Calderwood’s 53rd year, was his 11th book out of a total of 21 books.
Why read a book arguing against the corruption of the leaders in the Catholic Church today? This book was uploaded because it is not addressing only the bishops of Calderwood’s day; it lays before us a view of what constitutes a Pastor. Today’s false prophets and corrupt shepherds resemble the Catholic prelates’ tyrannous man-made authority. Calderwood compares the pastor and the prelate according to Biblical qualifications.
The Pastor and the Prelate is a warning to wolfish false prophets and a confirmation to Christ’s shepherds; it should not only be required reading for those wishing to enter the ministry but reread every year.
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.
For no other is this intended, (not for him that readeth not, but casteth it by, or closeth his eyes lest he see truth, judging of things controverted by his own conceits, or upon report, and not upon trial; neither for him that is either so antichristian that he hath not the patience to read one page written against prelates and their hierarchy, or that is so unchristian that his earthly designs are his highest intentions, and estoenieth all motions about religion, that cross him or comfort him not in these, to be either seditious commotions, or nothing but idlements of indifference,) but for him who, above all things, loves to see the truth, and, above all things, loveth the truth, when he hath seen it, that is even for thyself, Christian reader, have we entered into this comparison of the Pastor and Prelate, and at thy hands do we expect the performance of two Christian duties; one is for thine own good: That thou wilt labor with thine heart for more feeling now than thou hadst faith at the first, when it was often foretold from the word of God and the woeful experience of former times, “That this transcendent hierarchy of lordly and lording prelates, brought in upon the kirk of Christ without precept or example from himself would prove at last the ruin of religion.” Now may be seen what was said before, that the government of the kirk and the worship of God are like the twins spoken of by Hippocrates, and that the one of them dwining away, and dying among us, the whole face of the other looketh pale, and pitifully proclaimeth (if the cry of our sins would suffer us to hear), that religion herself is sick at the heart; for what is the daily increase of old papistry, the spreading gangrene of new heresies, the scoffing at holiness instead of imitating, the laughing at sin instead of lamentation, but the inseparable effects of this prelacy, and the ordinary practices of our prelates, the symptom of the sickness of Christian religion, and the causes of this cloud of wrath that so long hangs and hovers above us. Consider that (according to Bernard’s observation of these blind-winding stairs that lead down to destruction) this hierarchy which in the beginning seemed a weight so insupportable that they who took it upon them could not hold up their faces for sin and for shame, did appear soon afterward, albeit heavy, yet tolerable,—of heavy it became light, of light insensible, of insensible delectable, and of delectable it is at last become a matter of glorying: that which was a glory is become a shame, and that which was a shame is accounted a glory. Of late ministers could not be found to fill the void places of prelacy, now prelacies cannot be found to fill the void hearts of the ministers; so far have we turned from that which we lately were, and in so few years, that that which was nothing else but a rope of disgrace is wonderfully changed into a chain of pride. As thou lovest Jesus Christ and thine own soul, and would be loath to communicate in all the sins, and to involve thyself into the guiltiness of all the evils that this prelacy hath produced, take heed that thine eye be not dazzled with the varnish and splendor that the world hath put upon it (for in substance it is the same as it was at the beginning, and in the fruits hath proved far worse than at the first was feared); labor to keep thy judgment sound and affection sincere, still thinking of the painful pastor and the proud prelate as they were thought on since the reformation, and praying to God, as good men did of old, in the corrupt times of the kirk: that he would put to his band and purge his vineyard; that he would whip buyers and sellers out of his temple; that he would strike Gehazites with leprosy, and that he would bring low such Simonites as now are so high, being lifted up by the ministry of Satan.
Another Christian duty, Christian reader, we expect at thine hands for the good of the kirk,—that whatsoever be thy place, higher or lower, farther or nearer, unto his Majesty’s person, who gladly would acquaint his Majesty particularly with the state of the kirk in his Majesty’s kingdom of Scotland, as what it was once, what it might have been before this time, what it is become of late, and what it is like to be ere long; but either cannot for want of occasion, or dare not for awe of the prelates, whose courting is more to be feared than their cursing,—that thou would do what thou may to make this following treatise come to his Majesty’s hands; for we, his Majesty’s loving people of Scotland, who both love his Majesty’s person and crown, acknowledging the duty we owe, to his Majesty, commanded in the first commandment after the first table, to come nearest unto that religion and piety whereby we worship God himself, who neither love schisms in the kirk, nor witty reconcilements of truth and error, but would keep the truth in peace; who neither are puritans, nor Brownists, nor seditious, as men calumniate, but professors of the true religion as it was at the first reformed among us; and as it hath furnished unto us all the hope that we have of eternal happiness, we would show his gracious Majesty that, according to the saying of Solomon, “When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice,” &c. Our hearts were filled with joy add our mouths with laughter when, at the first beginnings of his reign, we did not only bear the fame of his princely inclination to equity and righteous judgment, but did perceive the noble proofs thereof in trying the truth of things controverted, while his Majesty, with that worthy king, kept still one ear shut for the other party, and with that wiser king, when he declared that the wisdom of God was in him to do judgment, would have both parties to stand before him at once, that, hearing both, they might speed best, and go out most cheerful from his Majesty’s face, who had the best cause. By this we were confident that his throne should be established, the nations swayed by his exalted scepter, and our cause, which is no particular man’s, but Christ’s own cause, should be heard at last, and righteously determined, that every thing in the house of the God of heaven might be done after the will of the God of heaven, than which there can be nothing more reasonable, and which is the sum of all our desires. Our adversaries, upon the contrary, out of the experience they find of his Majesty’s disposition to equity, and out of the consciousness they have of the iniquity of the cause that they maintain only because it maintaineth their greatness, have used all means to prevent his trial, have stopped, so far as may be, all ways of information, and, according to the crafty counsel given to Pericles, not being able to make account, have done what they can that they be not called to account.When commissioners were to go to his Majesty they would have none but their own, and when some that were not their own were chosen by a meeting of the kirk, they would not have then; to go, which hath made us, after long waiting in silence, and many essays to resolve in end, there being no other way left unto us, with all submission of mind, to send up our Pastor and Prelate in print, who have been impeded by the prelates to come together in person; neither can it offend the prelate that the pastor speak the truth this one time for himself and the prelate, since the prelate so many times hath spoken his pleasure for both. Our silence and ceasing in the cause would give great worldly ease to ourselves, and greatest contentment to our adversaries, who now cry nothing but Peace, peace, that is, a peaceable possession of their honors and wealth and a cruel oppression of their brethren, but withal would prove us to be unfaithful both to our God and to our king; for beside the obligation that is common to us with other reformed kirks, we stand bound by solemn oath, covenant and subscription, published in the world, to defend the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and to oppose the hierarchy and all rites and ceremonies added to the worship of God. Silence in such a cause may be sin to other kirks, but to us it is perjury in the sight of God, and would also wove us unfaithful to our king; for howsoever the prelates profess in public, “That no ceremony no bishop, no bishop no king,” and do suggest in secret the service that they can do to monarchy, they do but mind themselves and their own idol. That government of the kirk is most useful for kings and kingdoms which is best warranted by the word of God, by whom kings reign and kingdoms are established. The pillars of his Majesty’s throne are of God’s own making, —religion upon the right hand and righteousness upon the left The pomp of ceremonies and pride of prelacy are pillars artificially wrought by the wit of man for setting up and supporting the Pope’s tyranny, “No ceremony no prelate, no prelate no pope.” When his Majesty’s wisdom hath searched all the crooks of this controversy, let us be reputed the worst of all men, let us all be censured, silenced, confined, deprived or exiled, as some of us are, and have been for a long time, if the cause that we maintain shall be found any other but that we desire that God be served and his house ruled according to has own will, and if it shall not be found that the kirk of God, perfect in order and office bearers without prelates and their ceremonies, may be governed upon a small part of their great rents, with more honor to God, with more hearty obedience to the king’s majesty, with greater riches and glory to the crown, with greater contentment to the body of the whole kirk and kingdom, greater peace amongst ourselves, and greater terror to Satan and all his train of heresy, profane. ness and persecution, as we shall be ready to demonstrate particularly, if this which followeth be not sufficient, whensoever his Majesty shall be pleased to require; and which we are assured his Majesty will perceive upon small consideration; for a mind inclined by divine power to religion and piety will at first sight discern and be possessed with the love of the heavenly beauty of the house of God, they both proceeding from the same spirit God, all-sufficient, bless his Majesty, both in peace and war, both in religion and justice, with such success as may be seen, even by the envious eye of the enemy, to be from the finger and favor of God, and may he also make his happy government to be a matter of congratulation to the godly, and to be admired and remembered by posterity as the measure and example of their desires, when they shall be wishing for a religious and righteous king.
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