And when no adequate testimony was ever
given by the church against such Erastian usurpations, but they are
still crouched under and complied with, it may justly be constructed a
tame subjection and woful consent to this supremacy. That this is no
forced inference from the continued practice of this church, appears
from this (besides other evidences that might be adduced), viz., That as
the Revolution parliament, when ratifying the Confession of Faith,
entirely left out the act of Assembly 1647, approving and partly
explaining the same (wherein these remarkable words are, "It is further
declared, that the Assembly understands some parts of the second article
of the 31st chapter, only of kirks not settled or constituted in point
of government") as being inconsistent with the Erastian impositions of
the magistrate. So this church, when they cause intrants into the
ministry subscribe the Confession, do not oblige them to subscribe it
with this explanatory act (which does by no means admit of a privative
power in the magistrate, destructive of the church's intrinsic power),
but they only do it as the parliament ratified it.
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