! <\c - -. v ■> r ) ' ■>■■ i «>/< ;\ v r, /- ■ h | 1 1 1 /•'it B * IV 1 1 HS^^Jv \ ? 1 Yll i : I j i i V \ I ( I' ( Eh ^^H^^H i H 1 H i 1 ; * > ^[i]|BH"' %' ■ i , \ v » \ V v, > ! 1ES^^?. :■■ :; 'i(€>*v , 7- 3- /y. - si U3 7 S '"}i/yr- ' l c u6 ~*7 ~7 . _— ' Z^ A ^6 3 2.6 TESTIMONY TRUTHS OF CHRIST, AGREEABLY TO THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS AS RECEIVED BY THE RE~ FORMED CHURCH OF SCOTLAND ; AND IN OPPOSI- TION TO DEFECTIONS FROM THE REFORMATION SWORN TO IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND. AGREED TO BY THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD OF ORIGINAL SECEDERS. 18th May 1827- EDINBURGH : SOLD BY GUTHRIE AND TAIT, EDINBURGH; WILLIAM M f CARTER, AYR WILLIAM TROUP, ABERDEEN; ROBERT DICK, DUNDEB ; AND JAMES DEWAR, PERTH. 1827. Price 2/6. P. NEILL, PRINTER. CONTENTS. Introduction, PART FIRST. HISTORICAL PART OF THE TESTIMONY. Sect. I. Testimony to the State of Religion before the Reformation, 7 II. Testimony to the Reformation in general, - - 10 III. The Reformation in Britain and Ireland, - - 11 IV. The First Reformation in Scotland, - - 13 V. The Second Reformation in Scotland, and its extension to Eng- land and Ireland, ... - 20 VI. Testimony against the Overthrow of the Reformation, and the Persecution which followed, ... 26 VII. Testimony to the goodness of God at the Revolution, - 35 VIII. Testimony against Public Evils from the Revolution to the Se- cession, 36 IX. Contendings for the Reformation in a State of Secession, 48 X. Progress of Public Evils from the beginning of the Secession to the present time, 75 PART SECOND. DOCTRINAL PART OF THE TESTIMONY. CHAP. I. Of Natural and Revealed Religion, - 86 II. Of God and the Holy Trinity, - - 92 III. Of the Divine Decrees, 97 IV. Of Divine Providence, - 102 V. Of the Covenant of "Works and Original Sin, 103 VI. Of Man's spiritual inability in his Fallen State to WILL OR DO WHAT IS SPIRITUALLY GOOD, - 106 VII. Of the Administration of the Covenant of Grace, 107 VIII. Of the Suretiship and Satisfaction of Christ, 110 IX. Of the Law and the Gospel, and the Gospel Call, 117 X. Of the Operations of the Holy Spirit, - 120 XI. Of Justification, - 122 XII. Of the freedom of Believers from the Law as a Co- venant, and the Nature and Necessity of Evangeli- cal Holiness, - 123 XIII. Of Saving Faith and Evangelical Repentance, 126 XIV. Of the Perseverance of the Saints, - - 129 XV. Of the State of Men after Death, - - 130 XVI. Of Moral-natural and Instituted Worship, - 132 XVII. Of the Acts of Moral-natural Worship, - 134 XVIII. Of the Ordinances of Instituted Worship, - 143 XIX. Of the Church, Church-communion, and Church- government and Discipline, - - 153 PART THIRD. PRACTICAL EVILS, - - . - 165 APPENDIX, 171 Edinburgh, 18th May 1827. In the Meeting-House, Infirmary Street j The Associate Synod of Original Seceders having 1 met and been constituted, fyc. agreed that the following notice be prefixed to their Testimony: — The preparatory steps to Union between the Associate Synod and Constitutional Associate Presbytery, having terminated in the mutually expressed consent of these courts to unite on the ground of a Testimony, the Overture of which, after being printed and circulated, was finally corrected by the two bodies met in ge- neral Conference : and the Synod having been constituted under the designation of The Associate Synod of Original Seceders, unanimously enacted the said Testimony as a term qf fellowship, ministerial and Christian, in their body, and appointed it to be published with all convenient speed; the Tenor whereof follows: — TESTIMONY, and fenced by the most sacred oaths and covenants, sworn, with uplifted hands, by our king, noblemen, barons, ministers, burgesses and commons, was not only marred, but perfidiously overturned, and that by the very hands which gave the pledges to God and man for its preser- vation and its maintenance. Sect. VI. — Testimony against the Overthrow of the Reformation, and the Persecution which followed. In bearing our testimony against the apostasy in which all ranks in the three kingdoms were involved, we can specify only a few of the steps as to its beginnings, and the height to which it rose. And here we are obliged to bring the first charge against Eng- land. 1. England very soon testified a disposition to draw back and to violate the solemn engagements which she had voluntarily con- tracted. As long as she was in distress, her words were good, and she dedicated herself to God with great apparent zeal ; but, alas ! when delivered from the gulf which threatened to swallow up her liberties, she, like Israel, soon forgat the works of the OF THE TESTIMONY. 27 Lord, and became unstedfast in his covenant. When the West- minster Assembly were proceeding dutifully in the important work committed to them, and had made considerable progress in framing the standards of religious union, they found their mo- tions clogged, and their grave consultations turned into litigious and interminable debates, by a small party of Independents on the one hand, who pleaded that every christian congregation formed a complete church within itself, and that every cause relating to the interests of religion should be submitted to the judgment of all its members, — and of Erastians, on the other, who pleaded, that all ecclesiastical government and discipline was derived from the State. The Divines in the Assembly who belonged to the first of these classes, were men respected for their piety and soundness in the doctrines of the gospel, but who had become enamoured with a form of ecclesiastical government unknown to the Protestant Churches, and irreconcilable with the idea of national uniformity ; and they persisted in defending it, at the expense of defeating the reformation which had been undertaken, although they had sworn, along with their brethren, to " endeavour the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland, in discipline and government," and to " bring the Churches in the three kingdoms to the nearest con- junction and uniformity, in form of church-government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed churches." The Parliament, yielding to the influence of Erastian principles, and inclining to assume to themselves the exercise of that eccle- siastical supremacy which they had condemned in the king, delayed the settlement of religion. Instead of at last approving of, and giving their countenance to, the erection of the form of church-o-o- vernment drawn up by the Assembly of Divines, in the way of ta- king care that no laws should pass which would lead to persecution (a matter which was within their own power and province), they interfered with the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, and accom- panied their approbation of the Presbyterian government with such exceptions and restrictions as were inconsistent with its genius, and offensive to those who were their firmest supporters, and the most intelligent friends of political liberty. In the mean time, new sects sprang up every day, and errors, heresies, and blasphemous tenets of various kinds, many of which had hitherto been unheard of, were broached and spread in such a manner as not only to break the unity of the Church, but also to endanger the peace and safe- ty of the State, and, by the confusion and offence which they created, to produce a revulsion in public opinion, and thus pave 28 HISTORICAL PART the way for the restoration of the old hierarchy, with all its at- tendant abuses and tyranny. Having obtained the command of the army, the sectaries proceeded to imprison and behead the King, to suppress the Parliament, dismiss the Assembly of Divines, to emit public declarations and acts of toleration, which gave positive countenance to errors of different kinds, and, unmindful of " the brotherly covenant,' 1 to invade Scotland in a hostile manner. This course of proceeding was persisted in, notwithstanding the faithful remonstrances and warnings repeatedly given by the Presbyterian ministers both in England and Ireland. 2. The parliament of England, in the year 1660, restored King Charles II. to the government, without conditions or limita- tions ; thus abandoning all their declarations and proceedings in behalf of the reformation of religion, renouncing the solemn com- pact into which they had entered with Scotland, yielding up their civil liberties, for which they had expended so much blood and treasure, and confessing, upon the matter, that they had been for years engaged in a course of rebellion. Those who wished to ad- here to their vows neither acted in union among themselves, nor in concert with their brethren in the other kingdoms ; and while the Presbyterians in England were listening to the deceitful proposals made to them concerning a moderate episcopacy and a reformed liturgy, the old and abjured hierarchy, with its liturgy and cere- monies, was reimposed ; about 2000 pious ministers were in one day ejected from their charges, and silenced for nonconformity ; oaths requiring a profession of passive obedience and non resistance, and a renunciation of the Solemn League, were imposed ; and all who scrupled to comply with the ecclesiastical laws, but especially those who discovered any attachment to the late vows and con- tendings of the nation, were exposed, from time to time, to hard- ships and sufferings of various kinds. — The same course was pur- sued in Ireland, where many, both ministers and people, suffered for the fidelity with which they adhered to their principles and en- gagements ; and, of 65 Presbyterian ministers in the province of Ulster, only five conformed, while the rest submitted cheerfully to deprivation of their livings *."" But it is still more deeply to be deplored, that Scotland, which had attained a superior degree of purity in religion, and was bound by more numerous ties to adhere to it, should have imitated Eng- land in apostasy. ' See App. No. II. OF THE TESTIMONY. 29 1 . The first step of defection, in Scotland, and that which led the way to the overthrow of the Reformation, was the measure commonly called the Public Resolutions. The kingdom having been invaded by the English army in 1650, the Commission of the General Assembly, in consequence of their advice being asked by the king and parliament, came to two resolutions, in which they gave their consent to the repeal of the act for reforming the army, and the act of classes, by which certain classes of persons were excluded, for a longer or shorter period, from places of power and trust, civil or military, on account of their notorious immora- lity, or the hostility which they had shewn to the cause of civil and religious reform in which the nation had been embarked. In con- sequence of the repeal of these acts, persons of this description were introduced, in great numbers, into the courts of justice, of- fices of state, and posts in the army, on making a superficial and counterfeit profession of repentance. The two subsequent Gene- ral Assemblies having approved of the resolutions of the Commis- sion, a formal protest was taken against the constitution and pro- ceedings of these assemblies by a number of ministers and elders ; and thus the Church came to be unhappily divided into two par- ties, known by the name of Resolutioners and Protesters. The General Assembly enforced their proceedings, by censuring their opponents ; and the division, which extended to synods and pres- byteries, and w r as not healed at the Restoration, weakened the hands of both parties, and made them an easy prey to their com- mon enemies. It is not difficult to set up a plausible defence for the Public Resolutions on general principles ; but it is evident that, in the circumstances of that time, it was hazardous in the extreme, and therefore sinful for the nation, with the consent of the Church, to deliver up the maintenance and defence, not only of their dear- bought civil liberties, but also of all that had been done for secu- ring the reformation of religion for a series of years, into the hands of men who had proved themselves decided enemies to both. The event sadly justified the fears of those who opposed this measure; and some of its most zealous supporters were brought to acknow- ledge, when it was too late, " That their brethren the Protesters had their eyes open, when they were blind •." The measure taken to increase their strength did not prevent the nation from falling under the power of the English ; and Crom- well, who had usurped the supreme power as Protector, sought, * See A pp. Xo. III. 30 HISTORICAL PART on the one hand, to introduce sectarianism into Scotland, under the plausible form of a toleration *j; while, on the other, he en- croached on the rights and liberties of the Church, by preventing or dissolving the meetings of her judicatories, and appointing pub- lic fasts and thanksgivings by his sole authority-)-. % On the restoration of Charles II., Presbytery, together with all that had been done in the late reforming period, was overthrown, with marks of the greatest indignity, and prelacy restored in a man- ner far more objectionable than that in which it had formerly been established in Scotland. Not satisfied with condemning particular measures, the Parliament J, by the act rescissory, removed at once all the securities given to the Church, since the year 1638, and an- nulled the parliaments which had granted them ; declared the ordering and disposal of the external government of the Church to belong properly to the king, as an inherent right of the crown ; restored diocesan bishops to their dignities and jurisdiction ; re- pealed the act of parliament 1592, and all other laws which as- cribed ecclesiastical power to the presbyterian courts ; and declared that there was no church power but that which acknowledged a dependence on the royal supremacy, and for the exercise of which the archbishops and bishops were accountable to his Majesty ; pronounced the assembly, which met at Glasgow in 1638, an un- lawful and seditious meeting, and annulled its acts ; declared that all the proceedings for reformation between 1638 and 1650 were rebellious and treasonable ; that it was treasonable and rebellious to enter, on any pretext, into leagues or covenants, without the consent of the king, or to take up arms against him, or those com- missioned by him; that the National Covenant, as renewed in 1638, and the Solemn League and Covenant, were unlawful oaths ; that no obligation lay on any of the subjects by reason of them ; and that all laws, ecclesiastical as well as civil, approving of them, were null. At a subsequent period, all who administered, or took these Covenants, or wrote in defence of them, or owned their obli- gation, were subjected to the pains of treason § ; and the Solemn League was ordered to be ignominiously burnt at Edinburgh ||, as it had been at London. Between 300 and 400 ministers were, at an early period ^[, ejected from their charges, for non-confor- mity, without any legal procedure, by an act of Privy Council ; * See Introduction, p. 5, 6. f Testimony by the Ministers of Perth and Fife, published in 1659. + In 1661. § In 168.V Act. Pari. Scot. vol. viii. p. 461. II In 1682. Wodrow, Li. 227. f In October 1662. t OF THE TESTIMONY. 31 and, at a subsequent period, the parliament enacted, that all non- conforming ministers, who exercised their office, should be punished as seditious persons ; while they ordered all the subjects to wait on the ministrations of the prelatical incumbents, or curates, as they were commonly called, as an acknowledgment of their hearty com- pliance with his Majesty's government, ecclesiastical and civil. — When the most sacred bonds were thus daringly burst asunder and trampled upon, we need not be surprised at learning that a deluge of profaneness and immorality flowed in upon the land ; and that, in the parliament which overturned Scotland's liberties and refor- mation, according to the testimony of a bishop, " the men of affairs were almost perpetually drunk *." 3. In the hour of trial, there was a general fainting both among ministers and people, which led to a tame, and for some time al- most universal, submission to these wicked and tyrannical proceed- ings. On the back of the Restoration, ten ministers and two elders, belonging to the Protesters, met at Edinburgh, to draw up a peti- tion to the King, congratulating him on his return, and reminding him of the obligations which he had contracted at his Coronation in Scotland ; but they were instantly seized and thrown into pri- son, by order of the Committee of Estates -f\ Presbyteries and Synods suffered themselves to become the tools of the Court in prosecuting their brethren who had opposed the Public Resolu- tions ; and, when they were at last aroused to a sense of their dan- ger by the passing of the act rescissory, their meetings were for- cibly dissolved, and the remonstrances against the overthrow of the Presbyterian government, to which some of them had agreed, were confined to the minutes of their respective courts. Almost all the ejected ministers desisted from preaching ; and the great body of the people through the land gave that proof of their com- pliance with the late changes which the parliament had required, by attending the ministrations of the prelatical incumbents or cu- rates. 4. When the people began to scruple at hearing the curates (many of whom were ignorant and immoral, and all of them in- • Burnet's History of his own Times, under the year 1661, vol. i. p. 174. + The administration of the government had been committed, by the King, until the meeting of a Parliament, to the Committee of Estates, appointed in 1651, which consisted chiefly of persons disaffected to the reformation, who had been admitted in consequence of the Public Resolutions, and exerted themselves in repressing every expression of public opinion. 32 HISTORICAL TART volved in a breach of vows), and when some of the ejected minis- ters, having recovered from the consternation into which they had been thrown, began to preach to them, first in private houses, and afterwards in the fields, the meetings held for this purpose were discharged as seditious assemblies and conventicles by the govern- ment, under penalties which gradually increased, until at last the punishment of death was denounced against both preachers and hearers. 5. Perceiving that they could not suppress these meetings by severity, and that the people continued, at the peril of their lives, to wait on the ministry of those faithful men whose labours were blessed for the conversion and confirmation of multitudes, the rulers fell on the device of an Indulgence, by which many were ensnared, and a division introduced among the witnesses against the national defection. The King, at several times, authorized the Privy Council to appoint so many of the ejected ministers as had " lived peaceably and orderly," to exercise their ministry, in certain parishes, and on certain conditions and limitations, which were prescribed to them. In pronouncing our judgment on this point, we desire to cherish a tender respect for the good men who accepted of thesis indulgences, and to recollect that it is easy for us, who live " in the land of peace, 11 to censure the conduct of those who had to contend " in the swellings of Jordan. 11 We readily allow that they could not be blameable for simply availing them- selves of any liberty afforded them to exercise their ministry, by the removal or relaxation of laws which were in themselves unjust ; and we feel disposed to give all due weight to the reasons which they assigned for their conduct. But we think it undeniable, that the indulgences, first and last, sprang directly from the royal supremacy, which was the bitter root of all the evils with which the Church was then afflicted ; that the Privy Council, by delega- tion from the King, assumed church power in appointing the in- dulged ministers, judging of their qualifications, planting and transplanting them at their pleasure, and prescribing instructions for regulating the exercise of their office ; and, consequently, that the accepting of the indulgences, and acting under them, without disavowing, in an explicit manner, the power usurped by the civil government over the house of God (especially after the act asser- tory of the supremacy passed), was a departure from a material part of the testimony of the Church of Scotland, caused offences and di- visions among its friends, and encouraged their persecutors to pro- 3 OF THE TESTIMONY. 33 ceed to greater severities against those who were exposing their lives to jeopardy on the high places of the fields *. 6. The land was still farther involved in guilt by the sinful oath, declarations and bonds imposed during this period, by which the name of God was profaned, the sacredness of an oath worn off the minds of men, and the faithful subjected to great vexations and sufferings. Such were the oath of Allegiance, or rather of Supremacy ; the Declaration, which, beside an acknow- ledgment of the absolute power of the king in all civil matters, required a formal renunciation of the whole of the late Reforma- tion, and of the Covenants by which it was sanctioned : that self- contradictory oath, called the Test, by which the swearer owned the ecclesiastical supremacy in its fullest extent and the unlawful- ness of resisting the king under any pretext, and, at the same time, professed his adherence to the old Scots Confession of Faith, in which both these principles were condemned ; the Bondjbr Heri- tors who withdrew from their parish churches, together with the Bondjbr Peace, which required an avowal of the doctrine of non- resistance ; and the Bondjbr Regularity, by which persons were required to become bound that their wives, children, servants and tenants should not withdraw from their parish churches, or give any countenance to the ministrations of such as were not authorized by law. The oath of Supremacy and the Test, though originally enjoined to be taken only by those in public trust, were subsequent- ly imposed on all the subjects. 7. All this was accompanied with a tyrannical administration of government, and a persecution almost unexampled for cruelty and duration. A simple non-covnpliance with the prelatical govern- ment then established, declining to attend ordinances dispensed by the bishops' underlings, being present at conventicles in houses or in fields, refusing the oath of supremacy or the other oaths and bonds that were imposed, owning the obligation of our solemn co- venants and the lawfulness of defensive arms or of resisting a tyrannical sovereign, were reckoned crimes of the highest nature, and subjected multitudes of all ranks unto unparalleled severities. The witnesses for Scotland's covenanted cause were, during this period, partakers of almost all the sufferings which the worthies of former times had endured. After suffering the most excruciating tortures, numbers were ignominiously executed in the principal cities of the nation ; yea, to such a height did tyrannous cruelty arrive, that many were killed in the open fields, without the colour * See Appendix, No. IV. 34 HISTORICAL PART of a legal process ; the merciless soldiers acting at once as their judges and executioners. The tree of prelacy and arbitrary power was, at its first plantation, watered with the blood of the Marquis of Argyle, a staunch presbyterian and zealous assertor of his coun- try's rights, and of Mr James Guthrie, a bold champion of the li- berties of the Church of Scotland ; and it continued during twenty- eight years to be nourished with blood. As the crying iniquity of that period has never been nationally and duly mourned over, have we not reason to fear that in our skirts is still to be found the blood of the saints ? In fine, these evils came to a crisis, when the Duke of York ascended the throne on the death of his brother Charles II*. Though an avowed and bigoted papist, and though his arbitrary principles were well known from the tenor of his former admini- stration in Scotland, yet the parliament of this kingdom, without requiring him (as the English parliament had done), to take the coronation oath, made an offer of their obedience to this prince, in which they boasted of his absolute authority, and promised him the most unreserved and slavish submission. The consequence of this was, that, after having taken various steps for encouraging the popish worship in Scotland, he issued a proclamation, in which, by his " sovereign authority, prerogative and absolute power," he suspended and disabled all laws or acts of parliament against Ro- man Catholics, and declared them as free as any of his Protestant subjects, not only to exercise their religion, but also to enjoy all offices and benefices which he might think fit to bestow on them, in all time coming -j*. This proclamation, though accompanied with a toleration to " the moderate presbyterians to meet in their private houses" for worship, having excited alarm, a second form of tolera- tion was issued, in which, by virtue of the same prerogative, all penal laws made against any for non-conformity to the established religion were disabled, and liberty given to all the subjects to meet and serve God in their own way and manner, privately or publicly J. Though this toleration flowed from the absolute power of the Crown, was granted in the way of dispensing with the laws of the land, overthrew the legal bulwarks of the Protestant religion, and was calculated as well as intended to prepare the way for the intro- duction and establishment of popery ; and although the professions of regard for tender consciences, with which this, as well as the to- leration in England, was accompanied, were belied by the practice * In 1085. f Wodrow, Append p. 187- X Ibid. p. 194. OF THE TESTIMONY. 3.5 of the prince, and the principles of the church to which lie adhered, — yet it is deeply to be lamented, that the most of the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland accepted of it, and some of them sent an ad- dress to the king, thanking him, in their own name and that of their brethren, for his gracious and surprising favour, and promis- ing an entire loyalty in doctrine and practice. Nor was any public and joint testimony given against this sinful and dangerous mea- sure, except that which came from the few adherents of Mr Ren- wick, who suffered martyrdom chiefly for affirming that the Duke of York was not rightful king of this realm, because he was a pa- pist, had not sworn the coronation-oath, and was overthrowing the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and for affirming the lawfulness of defensive arms in behalf of our civil and religious liberties ;— affirmations which were re-echoed by the voice of the three king- doms, before the year in which he closed his life had expired. These are some instances of the growth and height of our na- tional apostasy, which, together with all other acts during the same period which were connected with and tended to support them, we condemn and testify against as just grounds of God's controversv with these lands, and as still calling for humiliation from us in this generation, who have in many ways served our- selves heirs to the sins of our fathers. Sect. VII. — Testimony to the goodness of God at the Revolution. God, who delights in mercy, and saves for his name's sake, was pleased to deliver the three kingdoms from popery and slavery, by the memorable Revolution in 1688, — a deliverance as seasonable in the juncture at which it was wrought, as singular in the manner in which it was brought about. When all other attempts for relief had proved abortive, and the hopes and strength of the oppressed were gone ; when the liberties of the nation were laid at the feet of a popish tyrant, surrounded with a powerful army ; and when the project for establishing popery was ripe for execution in one of the kingdoms, and measures taken for securing it in the other two, by dispensing with the laws which stood in its way, and advancing papists and popishly affected persons to the principal posts of trust, — Providence raised up a deliverer in William, Prince of Orange, and without struggle or bloodshed brought him to the throne, with the joyful consent of all who put a just value on the blessings of libertv, civil and religious. Nor must we overlook the fact, that 36 HISTORICAL PAIM the extensive and once flourishing church of France had just been overturned and laid desolate by the perfidious revocation of the Edict of Nantes, followed up by a series of persecuting measures, of which it is hard to say whether the hypocrisy or the violence was the more atrocious ; while a combination of the popish powers threatened the whole Protestant interest with danger which had not been paralleled since the time of the formidable Armada. On these grounds, we deem it a high duty to commemorate the Revolution as a glorious work of Divine power, and a signal mark of Divine favour and mercy to the Churches, not of Britain and Ireland only, but of the Reformation at large. Nor can we, without ingratitude to God, and without being un- just to the memory of those who were instrumental in bringing about the Revolution, conceal what was done, in all the three king- doms, for securing civil liberty, and opposing barriers to the inroads of popery ; and in providing relief for those Protestants who, dur- ing the two preceding reigns, had suffered unjustly for nonconfor- mity in England and Ireland. In Scotland, we cannot pass unno- ticed the public stigma which was put on the tyrannical govern- ment of the preceding period; the justice which was done to those who had suffered under it, by the rescinding of their fines and for- feitures ; the repeal of the act establishing the supremacy, the laws against conventicles and non-conformity, and those which subjected persons to penalties for taking or owning our solemn Covenants ; the act abolishing patronage ; and the security which was given by law to the Protestant and Presbyterian religion in general. Sect. VIII. — Testimony against Public Evils from the Revolu- tion to the Secession. The work of God is honourable and perfect : the doings of those who should be workers together with him are marked with imper- fections, and are often dishonoured and blotted by manifold and grievous defects. None of the three nations rendered unto God according to the benefit which he had conferred on them. In England and Ireland, prelacy was retained ; no attempt was made to reform those corruptions in the Established Churches which had so long been ground of complaint and obstacles to the advancement of religion ; and the Presbyterians, satisfied with having obtained cer- tain privileges for themselves, lost sight of national reformation, and the sacred vow binding to this was not thought of or mentioned. OF THE TESTIMONY. Ti In Scotland, also, the settlement both of Church and State, was accompanied with sinful defects, and followed by acts and proceed- ings which deeply affect the interests of religion to this day. 1. The conduct of the nation and its representatives, at the Revo- lution, was faulty in different respects. The Estates of the nation, in making an offer of the crown, required the redress of a number of grievances under which they had suffered ; but they did not shew the same faithfulness with their reforming ancestors in fixing the terms on which their sovereigns were to be admitted to office ; nor did the nation, either then or afterwards, faithfully and plainly inform their rulers of their duty, or of the peculiar obligations under which .Scotland lay, in consequence of her national attainments and vows.— The Parliament abolished Prelacy, as a great and insupport- able grievance to this nation, and contrary to the inclinations of the generality of the people ever since the Reformation ; but they did not, as had been done in former times by the competent authorities, consider it as contrary to the Word of God and abjured by our Covenants. They ratified the Presbyterian government according to its establishment in 1592, in the way of sinfully overlooking and passing by all the legal securities given to it between 1638 and 1650, which, together with the reformation attained to in that pe- riod, was left buried under the infamous Rescissory Act, which stands in the body of our Scotch law to this day. In like manner, they ratified the Westminster Confession of Faith as the public and avowed confession of this Church, without any reference to the act of General Assembly 1647, by which it was received as a part of the uniformity in the churches of the three kingdoms, and with an explicit assertion of the inherent right of the Church to call her own assemblies, — an omission which paved the way for dangerous encroachments by the state. Though certain laws which subjected persons to penalties for owning the National Covenant and Solemn League were repealed, yet these covenants were allowed to remain under the indignities done them by the rescissory and other acts ; nor were they excepted from those oaths which were removed to make way for a general and unqualified oath of allegiance to the sovereign. The draught of an act for excluding from places «f power and trust such as had been accessory to the oppressions of rthe late persecuting period, was laid aside ; in consequence of which persons were entrusted with the management of the affairs of the nation, who were hostile to its best interests, and who, though they yielded to the establishment of the Presbyterian Church, took pleasure in clogging her operations, and were ready to embrace the 38 HISTORICAL PART first opportunity to infringe her rights, and invalidate the security which she had obtained. 2. The proceedings of the Church, at this period, were also chargeable with unfaithfulness. The first General Assembly af- ter the Revolution sat down, in the year 1690, under the above civil establishment, without remonstrating against what was defec- tive in it ; and accommodated their proceedings to the measures of the State, instead of exerting their own intrinsic powers in supply- ing what was awanting and lay within their own proper province. By rejecting a paper presented by Mr Alexander Shields and two other ministers, they shewed their aversion to inquire into the pub- lic evils which had been introduced. They evinced a laudable con- cern " for retaining soundness and unity of doctrine, 11 by enjoining all who were licensed to preach, ordained to the ministry, or receiv- ed into communion as ministers or elders, " to subscribe their ap- probation of the Confession of Faith, approven by former General Assemblies of this Church * ;"" in their act for a national fast, they enumerated the heights to which the supremacy had been advanced, the introduction of prelacy, the general compliance with it, and the persecution which followed, among the grounds of humiliation -f-, and they declared the sentences passed against the protesting mini- sters before the late introduction of prelacy to be null and void J. But neither that assembly, nor any of the subsequent assemblies, expressly approved of the reformation carried on between 1638 and 1650 ; nor did they expressly condemn the overthrow of it, and the sinful oaths and bonds by which it was renounced ; nor did they justify the testimonies and sufferings in its behalf, during the late trying period. Although in some acts for fasting the Assembly ac- knowledged that our sins are aggravated by breach of solemn vows, yet notwithstanding the indignities which had been done to our Na- tional Covenants, they never expressly asserted their obligation ; nor does the name of the Solemn League so much as appear in any of their acts since the Revolution. Although the royal prerogatives of Christ had been daringly invaded, and the whole government of the Church usurped by the crown, during the late reigns,— yet the Assembly did not, by any act, formally condemn the supremacy, or assert the sole headship of Christ, the divine right of presbytery, or the intrinsic power of the Church. And no due testimony was given against the exercise of an Erastian power, on the part of the • Assembly 1090, Act 7th. f Act 12th. X Act 13th. OF THE TESTIMONY. ,'39 crown, in repeatedly dissolving and proroguing meetings of the (General Assembly after the Revolution*. The exercise of the government of the church was established by parliament in the hands of the surviving ministers who had been ejected since 1661 for non-conformity to prelacy, and such other ministers and elders as they had admitted or might admit ; and their right to try and purge out all insufficient, negligent, scanda- lous and erroneous ministers, and to redress all other church dis- orders, was explicitly and fully recognized-)-. But the ecclesiasti- cal judicatories were not careful to exert this power faithfully in re- moving or excluding the unworthy from office ; and, in particular, when the parliament in 1693, by an infringement of the established rights of the church, had prescribed the terms on which ministers should be received into communion {, the General Assembly agreed, in conformity with these terms, to admit such of the Epis- copalian ministers as should subscribe the Confession of Faith, and promise to submit to and not seek the subversion of presbyterian government, as the only government of this church; in consequence of which, hundreds of ministers were admitted to sit in the j udica- tories, who had been conformists to prelacy, and had given no sa- tisfying evidence of their change of views, or of their sorrow for having been accessory to the sinful and oppressive measures which had been so long pursued §. At the same time, many were ad- mitted to sit as elders in the supreme court, who had dipped their hands in the blood of the saints, and given no satisfaction for this crying iniquity- While we are obliged, in tracing the progress of public evils, to point out these sinful steps, we wish not to detract from the respect due to the memory of those worthy ministers and elders who had * The General Assembly, in 1692, having been suddenly dissolved by the king's commissioner, the moderator, Mr Crighton, asserted the immediate de- pendence of the church upon Christ ; and, with the concurrence of the members, appointed the time and place of the next Assembly. But when the day fixed came, the diet was deserted, in consequence of only two or three of the members having made their appearance ; and the Assembly 1G92 remains to this day a blank in the printed records of the church. Repeated prorogations by royal au- thority followed; and in 1703, when the Assembly had prepared the draught of an act for asserting the supremacy of Christ, the intrinsic power of the church, and the divine right of the presbyterian government, it was abruptly dissolved by her Majesty's Commissioner, without any recorded protest t Act. Pari. Scot. vol. ix. p. 134. $ Ibid. p. 303. § Acts of Assembly 1694, Act xi. sect. 6; compared with the Address of the Commission to Queen Anne, in 1712. 40 HISTORICAL PART just come out of the furnace of persecution. We are not insensible to the difficulties with which they had to struggle, the dangers which still hung over them, the threatenings and solicitations with which they were assailed, or the extremes, on both hands, against which it behoved them to guard. We acknowledge also, with readiness and gratitude, that, at this period, many excellent acts were passed for the advancement of religion and reformation of manners, and that great exertions were made, under the direction of the General Assembly, for promoting religious knowledge among young and old, especially in the Highlands and Islands. Several ministers, too, faithfully testified against the omissions above men. tioned ; and motions were made, and overtures introduced, in some presbyteries and synods, for renewing our covenants, as a prepara- tory step to the removing of corruptions and reviving of religion ; but these were resisted or evaded by the majority, under the pre- text that the time was not yet come ; and it appears, upon the whole, that the mystery of that system of ecclesiastical polity which has been predominant in the established judicatories of Scotland for a centuary past, had then begun to work *. 3. Our national guilt was increased by the terms on which the incorporating Union between Scotland and England was settled, and the measures which followed upon it. However desirable the Union was in itself, and however great the political advantages which have resulted from it are, yet, the maintenance of the hierarchy and ceremonies in England being declared a fundamental and essential article of it, the nation of Scotland, by giving its consent to this, virtually renounced that sacred League and Oath which it was previously under to endeavour the reformation of religion in Eng- land. The close connection into which it brought us with a power- ful nation, differing from ours so widely as to church government and form of worship, could not fail to have an extensive influence ; but this was greatly increased by the measures which were conse- quent upon the Union, and which may be justly viewed as flowing from that transaction. (1.) The nation was involved in guilt, by the imposition of un- necessary or sinful oaths and tests. Oaths connected with govern- • " After the happy Revolution, under the specious names of prudence and just moderation, the testimony of former times was suppressed, and it was not thought a proper season to intermeddle with our solemn covenants, or with de- fections from them, that we might not give the least umbrage to those that were in the government, many of whom were not of our principles, and some had been v.nlers in the former persecution." — Mr Hog of Cat-nock's Memoirs. OF THE TESTIMONY. 41 ment offices and transactions relating to the revenue., came to be frequently repeated, which, together with the introduction of the English mode of swearing by kissing the gospels, which savours at once of superstition and levity, contributed to profane the name of God. The representatives of Scotland in both Houses of Parlia- ment, and the electors of her representatives in the House of Peers, were obliged to take the Oath of Supremacy. And the oath of Abjuration, which involved the swearer in an approbation of an English act of parliament, providing that the successor to the crown should always be of the communion of the Episcopal Church, was imposed first on persons in public trust, and afterwards on all mi- nisters of the gospel, under a penalty directly affecting their minis- terial office *. To these we may add the Sacramental Test, by which all who serve the crown in England or Ireland, are bound to take the sacrament of the supper according to the forms of the English church. (&) When the plan of introducing the Episcopalian clergy in a body into the church had failed, an act of Parliament was passed in their favour, commonly called an Act of Toleration. Although we are far from thinking that Episcopacy, as such, ought to sub- ject its adherents either to penalties or to hinderance in their meet- ings for worship, yet we must condemn the said act, because it was part of a scheme formed for the purpose of fostering a faction ini- mical to the protestant succession, recognized the adherents of Episcopacy in Scotland as an independent church, and took their meetings, which long proved nurseries of disaffection to the reign- ing family, under the wing of government. — At the same time, holi- days, which had always been condemned by the Church of Scotland, were publicly countenanced by an act appointing a vacation of the courts of justice during Christmas. (3.) In the course of the same year, and from the same principle of hostility to the Presbyterian Church, was the act restoring Pa- tronages passed ; which has done perhaps more injury to the inte- rests of religion in Scotland than any other measure. Patronage had been complained of as a grievance from the beginning of the Re- formation ; was abolished in the second reforming period ; and, af- ter being revived at the Restoration, was again abolished at the Revolution. When the bill for restoring it a second time was be- fore parliament, the Commission, in a representation which the en- suing General Assembly pronounced " most faithful and season- * See Append. No. V. 42 HISTORICAL PART able, 1 ' declared it to be contrary to our church constitution solemn- ly ratified by the acts of parliament of both kingdoms ; and calcu- lated to " inevitably obstruct the work of the gospel, and create great disorder and disquiet in this church and land," — predictions which have been more than verified by the event. When it is of any real effect in the settlement of vacant churches, patronage re- strains and tends to destroy the right of the christian people to choose their own pastors, and interferes with and shackles the judi- catories of the church in the exercise of their power to judge of the qualifications and call of those who are to bear office in her, — rights and powers for which divine as well as ecclesiastical law can be pleaded. It is glaringly inconsistent with the Presbyterian con- stitution, and with that independence of all foreign jurisdiction or extrinsic control to which it lays claim. It can be vindicated only on the untenable supposition of a relinquishment, on the part of the church, of a portion of her rights, for the sake of certain worldly advantages ; the plea to which the defenders of the ecclesiastical establishment and royal supremacy in England have been forced to resort. In fact, the large share of patronage possessed by the crown in Scotland, serves so far the same purpose as the supremacy which it enjoys in England does, while the partition of the remainder among other lay patrons adds an aristocratical to a regal lordship. Besides its tendency to produce a dependent and unedifying mi- nistry, an evil of no small magnitude, it has had an equally if not more pernicious effect on the eldership of the church, by introdu- cing unfit persons into that office, and especially into the supreme court, in which a great proportion of the ruling elders are, as might have been expected, either patrons or the friends of patrons, who possess an influence fatal to the freedom of an ecclesiastical judica- tory, and, as an incumbent and dead weight, have long pressed and still press down the constitutional spirit and energies of the Church of Scotland. 4. We have also to lament the injuries done to the purity of doctrine, by erroneous teachers, and the remissness and unfaith- fulness of the judicatories in checking them. Soon after the de- liverance granted to the nation from an unnatural rebellion, a dis- covery was made which shewed that those evils which had been ground of complaint before, had corrupted the church to a degree beyond what those most jealous of her purity had suspected. It was found that errors of a pernicious kind had been vented, and were poisoning the fountains from which the waters of life were conveyed through the land, while the appointed guardians of the OF THE TESTIMONY. 43 faith were by no means disposed to adopt the necessary precautions against this alarming evil. From a process carried on, before the judicatories of the church*, against Mr John Simson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, at the instance of Mr James Webster, it was found proved, that the former had taught and defended a number of Ar- minian and Pelagian tenets, striking particularly against the neces- sity of divine revelation, the representation of the human family by Adam, original sin, and the inability of man by nature to do that which is spiritually good. Yet the General Assembly neither inflicted any censure on him, nor declared him guilty of teaching any error; but merely prohibited him from venting certain opinions not necessary to be taught in divinity, and using certain expressions that bear, and are used by adversaries in, an unsound sense. The consequence of this excessive lenity was, that he not only persisted in teaching the above mentioned errors, but was emboldened to pro- ceed still farther. For, in a second process •(•, it was proved, that, as he had adopted the fountain error of Socinianism, by making hu- man reason the judge of revealed truths, so he had taught his stu- dents that the Son of God is not necessarily existent, and that the three persons of the adorable Trinity are not numerically one in substance or essence. But though this bold attempt to introduce Arianism into the church deserved the highest censures, and by far the majority of presbyteries, upon the question being transmit- ted to them, gave it as their opinion that Mr Simson should be de- posed from the office of the ministry ; yet the Assembly merely suspended him from teaching, and the exercise of any ecclesiastical function. While the Assembly refused to condemn Arminian and Pelagian errors, they were forward to fix the stigma of Antinomianism on some articles of gospel truth. The Presbytery of Auchterarder having, with the view of checking the progress of legal doctrine within their bounds, laid down the following proposition, among others, " That it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin, in order to our coming to Christ and instating us in the covenant of grace," the General Assembly, on the same day on which they dismissed the first process against Mr Simson, declared " their abhorrence of the foresaid proposition, as unsound and most detestable." They manifested the same disposition in their acts * From 1714 to 1716. + Begun in 1726, and terminated in 1729. 44 HISTORICAL PART relating to the book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity*. In their eagerness to censure this book (which they enjoined all ministers to warn their people against), the Assembly condemned, or greatly obscured, the following precious truths : — That the gos- pel, strictly viewed, contains neither precepts nor threatenings, but is merely a declaration of the glad tidings of salvation ; that in it God makes a gift of Christ as a Saviour to sinners of mankind, as such, warranting every one who hears the gospel to believe on him for salvation ; that saving faith includes personal appropriation and assurance ; that believers are entirely freed from the law as a covenant of works, though not as the law of Christ ; and that the servile fear of hell and the hope of heaven as a reward some way due to our works, are not the proper motives to evangelical and acceptable obedience. Twelve ministers having given in a faithful representation against the injury done to truth by the act con- demning the Marrow, the Assembly ordered them to be rebuked for their freedom ; and, from this time, the doctrine which repre- sents the gospel as a new law, became general among the ministers of the church. As the Assembly, though repeatedly called upon by representa- tions from synods and presbyteries, as well as individuals, refused to condemn the errors which had been vented by Professor Simson, the leaven of false doctrine continued to spread and corrupt the church. Mr Archibald Campbell, Professor of Church History in the University of St Andrew's, brought forward anew several of the erroneous tenets vented by Mr Simson, and taught, in particu- lar, that the sole and universal motive to virtuous actions is self- love, interest or pleasure ; that men, without revelation, cannot, by their natural powers, find out that there is a God ; and yet that the laws of nature, in themselves, are a certain and sufficient rule to direct rational minds to happiness. Though these errors were published to the world, and had been refuted by private indivi- duals, they were overlooked by the judicatories, who continued to employ their author in business of the greatest importance •(• ; and, when the affair was at last brought under judicial cognizance, the General Assembly materially sanctioned his opinion respecting self- love, by resting satisfied with the following explanation which he gave of it, " That our delight in the glory and honour of God is the chief motive of all virtuous and religious actions ;" and they * In 1720 and 1722. | See Index to the Unprinted Acts of Assembly for 1734. OF THE TESTIMONY. 45 dismissed him without censure, and without pronouncing him guilty of any error. — To the criminal lenity shewn by the church- courts in the cases of Professors Simson and Campbell, may be im- puted, in no small degree, the unsound and dangerous principles which have subsequently vitiated our academical instruction in matters which lie near the foundations both of religion and morals. It is to be lamented that the departure from the faith in Scot- land was accompanied by a similar departure in England and Ire- land. From the time of the Restoration, Arminian and Pelagian tenets continued to spread, until at last they completely overran the Episcopal churches in these kingdoms, to the almost total ex- tinction of the doctrine of grace, and all that is peculiar to Chris- tianity. The evil w r as aggravated in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the Arian heresy began to be openly taught and keenly defended, to the great encouragement of infidelity, which, having been hatched amidst the irreligion and licentiousness of the preceding period, was brought to light and fostered by the liberty enjoyed after the Revolution. But it is still more deeply to be deplored, that this departure from the faith should have extended to the descendants of the Pu- ritans, whose very name reminds us of their contendings and suf- ferings for the purity of the doctrine, as well as ordinances of the gospel. This melancholy change in the creed of the Protestant Dissenters in England, first manifested itself in reference to. the grand doctrine of justification, which was corrupted, by teaching that the gospel is a new and remedial law of grace, which, instead of perfect obedience, requires faith, repentance and sincere obe- dience, as the terms of acceptance with God. This was succeeded by cavilling at and calling in question the doctrines of election, the imputation of Adam's first sin, the corruption of human nature, the satisfaction of Christ, with other truths connected with them ; and it issued in the denial of the proper deity of the Saviour, by *he adoption and avowal of the Arian heresy. This system was brought in gradually and covertly. Scripture-consequences were denied ; subscription to creeds and confessions was refused, as de- rogatory to the authority of the word of God, and an invasion on the rights of private judgment ; and loose notions respecting Chris- tian liberty, charity and forbearance, were loudly cried up ; while those who stood forward in the defence of truth, and sought to maintain purity of communion, were traduced as guilty of un- charitableness, imposition on conscience, persecution, and usur- pation of the prerogative of the Lord of the Church. — This ac- 46 HISTORICAL PART count of the progress of error is almost literally applicable to what took place at the same period among the Protestant Dissenters in Ireland. In the Protestant churches abroad, too, we have to lament the same declensions at this period. A system of doctrine, bearing a near resemblance to that which was afterwards avowed by Armi- nius, had long prevailed in the Lutheran church ; which, together with the total want of ecclesiastical discipline, had been followed with the decay of piety and great corruption of manners, both among ministers and people. The doctrine of universal grace had corrupted the reformed Church of France, before her dispersion ; and Arminianism, after establishing itself in Holland, had extend- ed to the other reformed churches, and especially to the once fa- mous church of Geneva, which had sent forth the light of evange- lical truth over so many countries. A dark cloud, portending still greater evils to come, had sitten down upon all those churches which had formerly appeared " fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners."" 5. To unfaithfulness in relation to the purity of doctrine, the judicatories of the Church of Scotland added a tyrannical and op- pressive administration of government. The law of Patronage was not acted upon for a number of years after it passed, but at last it became common to accept of presentations. The church courts had it in their power to defeat the hurtful consequences of this, in the exercise of their right to judge of the qualifications and call of any person to be the minister of a particular parish ; but though the General Assembly professed to regard patronage as a griev- ance, it soon appeared tnat they were prepared to give effect to it, at the expence of the privileges and edification of the Christian people. Violent settlements took place from time to time, which were sometimes effected by committees appointed by the Commis- sion of the General Assembly, or by anomalous and unconstitu- tional courts, composed of a minority of the Presbytery of tho bounds, assisted by correspondents from other Presbyteries. Not satisfied with enforcing the law of patronage, the Assembly vio- lated the rights of the people, in cases where they were left at com- plete liberty, as appears from their act in 1732, respecting the set- tlement of parishes, when patrons did not exercise their right of presentation. This act lodged the sole power of election in a con- junct meeting of elders and heritors, providing only that the latter were Protestants ; thus giving to heritors as such, though they might not belong to the church, but might be her avowed enemies, OF THE TESTIMONY. 47 the ecclesiastical privilege of choosing her pastors ; so that persons of this description, if they happened to be superior in number to the elders and presbyterian heritors, had the decisive power, not of presenting (which supposes a subsequent call from the people), but of choosing a minister, and obtruding him on a reclaiming con- gregation. * To suppress opposition to the course of defection in which they were engaged, the Assembly had recourse to the most despotic measures. Members of court were denied the ordinary method of* exoneration as to decisions which they judged sinful-)-, and the Christian people were deprived of their privilege of being heard by petition, a right common to the members of every free society .J A doctrinal testimony from the pulpit was now the only means by which ministers could exonerate themselves in communion with the established church ; but of this also they were deprived. Mr Ebenezer Erskine, minister of Stirling, being called to preach at the opening of the Synod of Perth and Stirling, in October 1732, embraced that opportunity of testifying, in his sermon, against the leading defections of the church, and particularly the act of the last Assembly concerning the planting of vacant churches. For this freedom, the Synod ordered him to be rebuked and ad- monished ; against which sentence he protested, and appealed to the General Assembly. The Assembly, which met in May 1733, approved of the sentence of the Synod, and ordered the rebuke and admonition to be pronounced ; on which, Mr Erskine gave in a protest, asserting " his liberty to preach the same truths, and to testify against the same or like defections, upon all proper occa- sions ; v which was adhered to by Mr Alexander Moncrieff", minis- ter of Abernethy, Mr William Wilson of Perth, and Mr James Fisher of Kinclaven, who had protested against the sentence of the Synod, as an undue restraint on ministerial liberty. The Assembly ordered the four ministers to appear before the Commission, which was instructed to suspend them from the exercise of the ministrv, if they did not express sorrow for their protest, and retract it ; and to proceed afterwards to a higher censure, in the event of * Act of Assembly, 1732, May 15, sess. 11. ■f The Assembly, 1730, May 25, sess. 15, enacted, That reasons of dissent against the determinations of church judicatories, should not be entered in the re- gisters. t In 1732, when a representation, signed by 1700 private christians, complain- ing of certain corruptions, and craving redress, was presented, the Assembly re- fused to hear it, or to allow a protest against this procedure, taken by fifteen mi- nisters, to be recorded. 3 48 HISTORICAL PART their not submitting to that sentence. The Commission, accord- ingly, suspended them in August ; and in November proceeded to loose their relation to their respective congregations, and to declare them no longer ministers of this church. When this last sentence was intimated to them, the four ministers gave in a joint paper*, in which they protested, that, though they had been cast out of ministerial communion with the Established Church, they would still hold communion with all who were adhering to the principles of the true Presbyterian covenanted Church of Scotland, and who, in their several spheres, were striving against the evils opposed to these ; but, in regard the prevailing party in this Established Church were carrying on a course of defection from our reformed and covenanted principles, and were suppressing ministerial free- dom and faithfulness in testifying against defections from these, therefore they " were obliged to make a secession from them." Sect. IX. — Con-tendings for the Reformation in a State of' Secession. The judicatories of the Established Church had crowned their corrupt and tyrannical administration by an act, which proclaimed that they were determined to allow none in communion with them to oppose their measures, or to testify against the course of defec- tion in which they had persevered for a series of years. But He who " maketh the wrath of man to praise him," overruled this step for the accomplishment of the most beneficial ends. In con- sequence of their being thrust out of communion, the four mini- sters, against whom the violence of the judicatories was immediate- ly directed, found themselves relieved from the necessity of deter- mining the delicate question, Whether the evils which prevailed in the national Church, and which they had been opposing, were such in themselves as to warrant and call for a separation from her fel- lowship. A prospect of relief was opened to those who scrupled to countenance the ministrations of intruders, the supporters of in- trusion, and the preachers of " another gospel ;" and the people were preserved from sinking into apathy about their public rights, on the one hand, or adopting sectarian principles and courses, on the other hand, — an extreme into which they are in great danger of being driven by the maladministration and corruptions of an es- tablished church. And hereby an opportunity was afforded for * On the lfith of November 1733. OF THE TESTIMONY. 49 making a joint and public appearance in behalf of the interests of religion. That they might have it in their power to promote these objects, the four ministers, soon after their deed of Secession, and in virtue of the powers which they had protested for in it, formed themselves into a Presbytery *, afterwards known by the name of the Associate Presbytery. They resolved, however, not to proceed rashly to acts of jurisdiction; and, accordingly, the pa- pers which they published were for some time sent forth in an ex- trajudicial form. Of this kind was a Testimony for the principles of the reformed Church of Scotland, in which they assigned the following reasons for their secession : That the prevailing party in the judicatories were violating the Presbyterian constitution, and had assumed a lordly and magisterial power over the Church ; that they were pursuing a course which tended directly to corrupt the doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith ; that they persisted in their corrupt courses, notwithstanding all attempts to reclaim them ; and that they had imposed sinful terms of communion, and had excluded the seceding ministers, and virtually all others, from endeavouring faithfully to testify against their defections in a way of fellowship with them -f*. The arbitrary manner in which the four brethren had been expel- led gave much offence to the more serious part of the nation ; and even those who had for some time ruled in the church-courts, be- gan to be alarmed at the consequences which might result from a separation which they had forced on, and were now willing to re- lax for a time the rigour of their administration. In this state of feeling, the General Assembly which met in 1734, adopted mea- sures for removing some of the more flagrant grounds of offence ; and, with their permission, the Synod of Perth and Stirling took off the censures inflicted on the seceding ministers, and restored them to the communion of the Church. The latter did not want motives to invite them to re-enter the national Church by the door which was now opened to them, and they took the question into serious consideration ; but after deliberation, they were satisfied that it was not their duty, as matters then stood, to abandon the position into which Providence had brought them ; nor, without better evidence of a permanent change of public proceedings than they yet had, to resume voluntarily a situation which they had * On the 6th of December 1733. t Testimony to the Doctrine, &c. of the Church of Scotland, published in 1734. 50 HISTORICAL PART found so embarrassing to their consciences, and in which their ex- ertions had been so cramped and ineffectual. They allowed that the late Assembly had removed part of their causes of complaint, but still " the principal grounds" remained. Nothing had been done for securing the purity of doctrine. The Assembly had shewn a disposition to redress grievances as to intrusions in certain cases which came before them, but had taken no precautions to prevent the evil for the future. The act prohibiting the recording of reasons of dissent, and the act respecting the settlement of vacant congre- gations, had been repealed, because they were, passed in opposition to the barrier acts, but without any acknowledgment of their sin- fulness. The act concerning ministerial freedom confirmed all that was dreaded from the procedure against Mr Erskine, inasmuch as it declared that " due freedom was not impaired or restrained by the late Assembly's decision in a particular process." And in the means employed for restoring the four ministers, great care was taken that the legality or formality of the sentences passed against them should not be affected ; so that they might still be improved as precedents, whenever circumstances were so far altered as that there was no reason to dread what the Assembly calls " the la- mentable consequences that have followed." * After waiting for two years longer, and finding that the judica- tories had resumed their former course, — that, at the very time the Assembly were making declarations against the intrusion of minis- ters on reluctant congregations +, they were sanctioning such intru- sions by their own decisions, and that, while they passed an act re- commending an evangelical strain of preaching, they protected the erroneous, and dismissed Mr Campbell without censure from their bar, — the seceding ministers resolved, without farther delay, to act in a judicative capacity, by granting the dispensation of divine ordinances to such as applied for it, — settling the terms of their fellowship, — and pleading in behalf of the genuine principles and attainments of the Church of Scotland. Among the steps which they took for promoting the last of these objects, the following de- serve to be recorded. 1. The judicial testimony which they gave to the principles and attainments of the Church of Scotland, and against the course of defection from them J. This deed, the substance of which is com- prehended in our preceding statements, was p ubli s h e d by the As- • Reasons of Non-accession, published in 1735. t See Appendix, No. VI X Published in December 1736. OF THE TESTIMONY. 51 sociate Presbytery, not only " to let the world see what they own and acknowledge, and upon what foundation they desire, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, to stand,' 1 but also as " a tes- timony to the many great and wonderful appearances of the Lord for his church and land, and to the doctrine, worship, government and discipline of the Lord's house therein, agreeably to the Holy Scriptures, the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, the National Covenant of Scotland, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the three nations, as also against the injurious and insolent in- dignities done unto, and the encroachments, violations and breach- es made upon the same." This service had not been performed by the National Church since the Revolution, and was urgently re- quired at this time. Accordingly, the Associate Presbytery traced the national defection to its source. They did not confine them- selves to those evils which had formed the immediate subject of their late contendings with the established judicatories, but took in others of a prior date, the condemnation of which entered into the testimony which the faithful party in the Church had all along borne. The whole of that testimony they carried along with them into a state of secession. Finding their freedom and the sphere of their operations enlarged, and calling to mind the manifold obliga- tions under which they lay, they judged it their duty to endeavour the revival of a former reformation, from which there had been a long-continued and gradually increasing departure. On these ge- neral and broad principles, which include all the precious doctrines and ordinances connected with salvation, did they construct their Testimony. That Testimony was not a new standard, but a de- claration of the genuine sense of the already received standards, and an application of them to the prevailing errors and corruptions ; and in requiring an adherence to it from those who acceded to their communion, the Presbytery did not require them to make any con- fession of their faith different from what was made by the Church of Scotland in reforming times, or different from what it was the duty of all the friends of the authorised Confession to make expli- citly, when its doctrines were denied or perverted. 2. The Presbytery published an enlargement of their Testi- mony, on the head of the doctrine of grace, in which they explain- ed and vindicated a number of valuable truths, particularly as to the difference between the law and the gospel, and the motives and grounds of evangelical obedience ; in opposition to the acts of the General Assembly respecting the Marrow of Modern Divinity, and to the legal strain of preaching which had become common. This d 2 52 HISTORICAL PART they did in their Act concerning the Doctrine of Grace ; the sub- stance of which will be found in the second part of this work. 3. Another step taken by the Associate Presbytery, in prosecut- ing their Testimony, was the renovation of our national Covenants, the neglect of which had been often complained of in the Esta- blished Church since the Revolution. Being engaged in an at- tempt to revive religious reformation, they judged that they were called upon to revive the practice of religious covenanting, by which the reformation of religion in Scotland had formerly been both introduced and sanctioned. As they were a minority of the nation, as they acted only in an ecclesiastical capacity, and as they were placed in a very different situation from their ancestors, they could not with any propriety swear the National Covenant and Solemn League in their original form ; but they agreed to renew * them in a Bond suited to the circumstances of the times, preceded by an acknowledgment of the sins of all ranks by whom they had been violated. In their act relating to this subject f, they shew that religious covenanting is founded on the moral law, and war- ranted by the precepts, examples and predictions of scripture, ap- plicable to New Testament times, and to a minority, as well as a whole land ; they take a view of our National Covenants, the man- ner in which they were renewed at different times, agreeably to scripture pattern, their continued obligation, and the public breach- es of them ; and point out the reasons which call for their present renovation. The ministers belonging to the Presbytery having en- tered into the bond, measures were taken for having it administer- ed to the people in their respective congregations ; and at a subse- quent period j, they agreed, that all who were admitted to the mi- nistry should previously have joined in renewing the covenants, while such as opposed or slighted the duty should not be admitted to sealing ordinances. In coming to this determination, they con- sidered the swearing of the bond as a solemn and seasonable form of avouching and sealing all the principles and duties of their reli- gious profession, which was called for and rendered necessary by the strong tide of defection from the reformation-cause which had set in, aided by the latitudinarian principles respecting church-com- munion which had begun to prevail in the Church of Scotland. • Covenant Renovation implies a solemn avouching, not only of the primary obligation which the law of God lays upon us, but also of a secondary obligation laid upon us by former covenants to prosecute the ends of them. f Published in 1743. t In 17-44. OF THE TESTIMONY. 53 4. To the contendings of the Presbytery in behalf of reforma- tion belongs also the Declaration of their principles respecting the present Civil Government. Though their sentiments as to the duty of owning and obeying, in all lawful things, the existing rulers, were well known, from their uniform practice and their public papers, yet they found they had a call to be more explicit on that head. A considerable number of serious people, attached to the covenanted reformation, had not only declined joining in commu- nion with the Presbyterian Church established at the Revolution, but refused to acknowledge the civil government, or obey the ma- gistrates set up by the nation at that time. After continuing for a considerable time destitute of pastors, they were joined by Mr Macmillan, who had been a minister of the Church of Scotland. As they disowned the government in the most public manner, the Associate Presbytery reckoned it incumbent on them to point out the danger of this extreme, when they were tracing and acknow- ledging other deviations from the Reformation. Accordingly, they passed an act, in which they " condemn the dangerous extreme that some have gone into of impugning the present civil govern- ment over these nations, and subjection thereunto in lawful com- mands, on account of the want of those qualifications which ma- gistrates ought to have by the word of God and our covenants, even though they allow us the free exercise of our religion, and are not manifestly unhinging the liberties of the kingdom." In conse- quence of the opposition made to this act by Mr Nairn, one of their number, they drew up a Declaration and Defence of their principles on that head *, in which, after contrasting our ancient ci- vil reformation with our present civil deformation, they shewed, that their testifying in favour of the former, and against the latter, was not inconsistent with a conscientious and limited subjection to the present government. The grounds on which this principle rests are such as the fol- lowing : — That magistracy was instituted by God as the Moral Governor of the world, and is common to mankind at large, and not derived from Christ as mediator, or peculiar to Christian na- tions ; — that civil government is not only a benefit to nations, but that it is their duty to have it set up among them, as a moral means appointed and employed by God in the government of the world, for the preservation of order and restraint of wickedness ; — that the proper end of it is the promotion of the public good, to * Published in 1743. 54 HISTORICAL PART the glory of God, by preserving outward and common order * ; — and that this end is gained in some due degree under every govern- ment which is submitted to and owned by the people ; — that, though magistracy, like every thing belonging to the kingdom of providence, is put into Christ's hand, to be ordered in subserviency to the good of his church, and though it is secured by promise that he will order it for the active advancement of the interests of his kingdom, yet neither of these alters its nature, or renders it ille- gitimate, when it is not used for this higher purpose, or warrants us to despise a present lesser good in the prospect of a future greater good ; — that, though it is the duty of Christians, and of Christian nations and rulers, to regulate the whole of their conduct by the revealed will of God, yet their neglecting to do this, cannot destroy the validity of those relations which are founded in nature, or of those secular relations founded on natural principles which are formed by voluntary contract, nor release the parties from ob- ligation to perform the duties resulting from them ; — and that, as it is the right of the body politic or majority of a nation to choose magistrates, and this right did not arise from any reformation at- tained to by them, so their defection from such attainments, though sinful and condemnable, does not deprive them of that right, nor release individuals, or a minority, from subjection and obedience, in all lawful commands, to the rulers set up by those to whom the right of appointing them properly belongs. Mr Nairn dissented from the act condemning the extreme of dis- * " The public good of outward and common order in all reasonable society, unto the glory of God, is the great and only end which these invested with magis- tracy can propose, in a sole respect unto that office. And as, in prosecuting this end civilly, according to their office, it is only over men's good and evil works that they can have any inspection ; so it is only over these which they must needs take cognisance of, for the said public good : While, at the same time, their doing so must be in such a manner, and proceed so far allenarly, as is requisite for that end, without assuming any lordship immediately over men's consciences, or ma- king any encroachment upon the special privileges and business of the Church . And, moreover, as the whole institution and end of their office are cut out by, and lie within the compass of natural principles, it were absurd to suppose, that there could or ought to be any exercise thereof towards its end, in the foresaid circumstances, but what can be argued for, and defended from, natural principles ; as indeed there is nothing especially allotted and allowed unto magistrates, by the word of God and the Confessions of the reformed Churches, but what can be so. Now, it must be agreeably to all this, that the Apostle signifies magistrates to be God's ministers for good; concerning themselves with good and evil works, — in a way of terror, praise, or revenge : For he does so in a sole respect unto their civil office." — Declaration and Defence of the Associate Presbytery's Principles ancnt the -present Civil Government, Gib's Display, vol. i. p. 311. OF THE TESTIMONY. 55 owning the authority of the existing government, as well as from the act for renewing the Covenants, because it did not appoint them to be sworn in the very form and words in which they were originally expressed ; and, having left his brethren, joined with Mr Macmillan in constituting the Reformed Presbytery, who, at a subsequent period, published * a testimony for the Covenanted Reformation, in which their distinguishing principles respecting magistracy and covenant renovation are mixed with those which they hold in common with seceders. It is much to be regretted, that a body of ministers and people, so respectable for their se- riousness and soundness in the faith as those who belonged to the Reformed Presbytery, and still belong to the Reformed Synod, should have remained so long at a distance from others who pro- fess the same adherence to the standards of the Church of Scot- land, and the same regard to her reformation, as themselves ; and it is earnestly to be desired that a dispassionate examination of the really subsisting grounds of difference, after so great a distance from the time when the controversy arose, should lead to their co- operating in the advancement of the common cause. It is with feelings of this kind, and to endeavour, so far as in our power, to promote this desirable end, that we subjoin the following explana- tions. 1. We acknowledge that the fundamental deed of constitution in our reforming period, in all moral respects, is morally unalter- able, because of its agreeableness to the divine will, revealed in the Scriptures, and because it was attained to, and fixed in pursuance of our solemn Covenants ; and that the nation sinned in overthrow- ing it. 2. We condemn the conduct of the nation at the Revolu- tion in leaving the reformed constitution buried and neglected ; and in not looking out for magistrates who should concur with them in the maintenance of the true religion, as formerly settled, and rule them by laws subservient to its advancement. 3. We condemn not only the conduct of England and Ireland, at that pe- riod, in retaining Episcopacy, but also the conduct of Scotland, in not reminding them of their obligations, and, in every way compe- tent, exciting them to a reformation, conformably to a prior treaty and covenant ; and particularly the consent which this kingdom gave, at the Union, to the perpetual continuance of episcopacy in England, with all that flowed from this and partakes of its sinful character. 4. We condemn the ecclesiastical supremacy of the * In 1761. 56 HISTORICAL PART crown, as established by law in England and Ireland, and all the assumed exercise of it in Scotland, particularly by dissolving the assemblies of the church, and claiming the sole right of appointing fasts and thanksgivings, together with the practical compliances with it on the part of church-courts or ministers in the discharge of their public office. 5. We condemn the abjuration-oath, and other oaths, which, either in express terms or by just implication, approve of the complex constitution. 6. We consider that there is a wide difference between the arbitrary and tyrannical govern- ment of the persecuting period, and that which has existed since the Revolution, which was established with the cordial consent of the great body of the nation, and in consequence of a claim of right made by the representatives of the people, and acknowledged by the rulers ; who, although they want (as the nation also does) many of the qualifications which they ought to possess according to the word of God and our covenants, perform the essential du- ties of the magistratical office by maintaining justice, peace, and order, to the glory of God, and protecting us in the enjoyment of our liberties, and in the free exercise of our religion. Lastly, Holding these views, and endeavouring to act according to them, we can, without dropping our testimony in behalf of a former re- forming period, or approving of any of the evils which cleave to the constitution or administration of the state, acknowledge the present civil government, and yield obedience to all its lawful com- mands, not only for wrath but for conscience sake ; and in doing so, we have this advantage, that we avoid the danger of practically disregarding the numerous precepts respecting obedience to magis- trates contained in the Bible, — we have no need to have recourse to glosses upon these, which, if applied to other precepts running in the same strain, would tend to loosen all the relations of civil life, — and we act in unison with the principles and practice of the Christians of the first ages who lived under heathen or Arian em- perors, of Protestants who have lived under Popish princes, of our reforming fathers in Scotland under Queen Mary, and of their successors during the first establishment of Episcopacy, and af- ter the Restoration, down to the time at which the government de- generated into an open and avowed tyranny. — We do not reckon it necessary to say any thing here as to the mode of renewing our covenants in a bond suited to the times, as we apprehend that there are now few of the friends of that duty who will object to this, or plead for the sweating of these oaths in the very form and words in which they were originally framed. OP THE TESTIMONY. 57 In 1745, the Associate Synod (for the Presbytery had found it necessary, on account of the increase of their numbers, to form themselves into a Synod) had their attention directed, by over- tures from presbyteries, to the removing of any public bars which stood in the way of due progress in covenanting ; and, in particu- lar, to the consideration of the question, Whether those in com- munion with them could warrantably and consistently swear the following religious clause in some Burgess oaths : — " Here I pro- test, before God and your Lordships, that I profess, and allow with my heart, the true religion presently professed within this realm, and authorized by the laws thereof : I shall abide thereat, and defend the same to my life's end ; renouncing the Roman re- ligion, called Papistry. 11 After different steps taken at several meet- ings, the Synod came to a decision *, that " Those of the secession cannot, with safety of conscience and without sin, swear any Bur- gess-oath with the said religious clause, while matters with refer- ence to the profession and settlement of religion continue in such circumstances as at present. 11 In the progress of the discussion, it appeared that, though the majority of ministers was in opposition to the oath, a minority, respectable for its numbers, but still more so from the names of some individuals who composed it, was ar- rayed in its defence. A protest was taken against the decision ; the controversy was keenly agitated throughout the body ; and, at a subsequent meeting of Synod "j-, it was moved that the decision condemning the oath should not, now nor afterwards, be a term of ministerial and christian communion, until the question of its be- ing so shall be referred to presbyteries and kirk-sessions. Repeat- ed protests were taken against the putting of this motion, as disor- derly, notwithstanding which it was put, and (those who had pro- tested against it not voting) carried; upon which a declaration, subscribed by those who supported the original decision, was read, protesting that, as that meeting had materially dropped the whole testimony, the lawful authority and power of the Associate Synod is devolved on a constituted meeting of those ministers and elders who had protested against the late vote, with such as should join them. Thus was the Synod divided into two separate and con- flicting bodies, each of which asserted that it was the majority, and laid claim to the title and powers of the court. Those who de- fended the burgess-oath, passed an act nullifying the synod consti- tuted by those who adhered to the decision condemning that oath ; * In April 1746. | In April 1747- 58 HISTORICAL PART and the latter proceeded against the former, in a gradual course of discipline, to the highest censures of the church. This mournful breach affords a lesson to churches, when most honoured of God to be faithful, to " rejoice with trembling." It is difficult to believe that an ecclesiastical body, Avhich had hitherto preserved such unanimity and concord in their deliberations and decisions upon a variety of questions, some of which were of a very delicate and complicated nature, could have divided on the subject of a burgess-oath, had not the leaven of prejudice and suspicion in- sinuated itself, soured their minds, and fomented any difference of sentiment which at first existed among them. In reviewing this melancholy portion of the history of the Church, it is consolatory to reflect, that, previous to this breach, the Associate Synod, or rather Presbytery, had been led to complete the statement of their public testimony in behalf of the various articles of truth which were immediately in danger, and in opposition to the existing er- rors and evils, in the different papers which they had judicially agreed on, and published to the world. Had both parties continued to adhere to these, in their letter and spirit, it is probable that they could not have remained long in a state of separation, and that the influence of the principle (whatever it was), which had temporarily driven them asunder, must have soon yielded to the powerful at- traction of common principles, and a common bond. As it is, and late as it is, may we not cherish the hope, that the scattered friends of Scotland's covenanted cause may yet meet and recognize one another as brethren, on the principles laid down in these deeds ? Keeping this in view, we would submit the following explanations on the subject of this dispute, to all such as would wish to see the testimony in behalf of the Reformation practically and consistently maintained. 1. As it is a matter of great importance to swear by the great name of God, so the utmost caution should be taken to ascertain the lawfulness of any oath which we are required to take ; and it is the duty of ministers and church courts to give direction and warning to their people in such cases ; especially when the oath embraces a profession of religion ; and, more especially, when the persons required to take it are already under the obligation of an- other oath, sanctioning an explicit profession of religion, in conse- quence of which they may be in danger of involving themselves in contradictory engagements. 2. We cannot be understood as ob- jecting to the clause in question on account of its requiring an ad- herence to the true religion, in an abstract view of it, as determined Or THE TESTIMONY. .59 by the standard of the Scriptures (if it could be understood in that sense), nor as it implies an adherence to the protestant religion, in opposition to the Romish, which is renounced, or an adherence to the Confession of Faith, and any part of the standards compiled for uniformity in the former Reformation, so far as these are still ap- proved of by the acts of the Church of Scotland, and authorized by the laws. In these respects we account the Revolution settlement, and the present laws, a privilege, and agree to all which the As- sociate Presbytery thankfully expressed in commendation of them, in their Testimony, and in the Declaration and Defence of their principles concerning the present civil government. 3. The pro- fession of religion required by the burgess-oath is of a definite kind. If this were not the case, and if it referred only to the true religion in the abstract, and every swearer were left to understand this according to his own views, the oath would not serve the pur- pose of a test, nor answer the design of the imposer. The Romish religion is specially renounced ; but there is also a positive part in the clause, specifying the religion professed in this realm, and au- thorized by the laws of the land ; while the word presoitly will not admit of its applying to any profession different from that which is made and authorized at the time when the oath is sworn. 4. The profession made of the true religion by Seceders, agreeing with that which was made in this country and authorised by the laws be- tween 1638 and 1650, is different from, and in some important points inconsistent with, that profession which is presently made by the nation, and authorized by the laws of the land. The Judi- cial Testimony finds fault with the national profession and settle- ment made at the Revolution, both materially and formally con- sidered, and condemns the State for excluding, in its laws autho- rizing religion, the divine right of presbytery, and the intrinsic power of the church, — two special branches of the glorious head- ship of the Redeemer over his spiritual kingdom, and for leaving the Covenanted Reformation and the Covenants under rescissory* laws ; while it condemns the Church for not asserting these import- ant parts of religion and reformation. On these grounds we can- not but look upon the religious clause in question as inconsistent with the Secession Testimony ; and accordingly must approve of the decision of synod, condemning the swearing of it by Seceders. 5. As that which brought matters to an extremity, and divided the body, was the vote declaring that all might swear that oath, while, at the same time, it was condemned as unlawful ; we cannot help being of opinion, that this held out a dangerous precedent to 60 HISTORICAL PART church courts to give a judicial toleration or allowance to do what they declare to be sinful. But provided this were disclaimed, and proper measures taken to prevent the oath from being sworn in the body in future ; and, as the use of the oath has been laid aside in most burghs,' — we would hope that such an arrangement may be made, so far as regards this question, as will be at once honour- able to truth, and not hurtful to the conscience of any. With re- spect to the censures which were inflicted, and which had no small influence in embittering the dispute, we think it sufficient to say, that they were transient acts of discipline, and that no approbation of them was ever required from ministers or people. If any diffe- rence of opinion as to the nature or effects of church censures exist, it may be removed by an amicable conference. If we have been more minute on this subject than some may think needful, it is not because we wish to magnify the difference, or to revive debates ; but because we think that when a separation has taken place, has subsisted long, and has produced a train of interesting consequences, the better way of removing it, both in point of duty and of safety, is by candid explications, with the view of producing mutual understanding ; instead of having recourse to the easier and more plausible method of burying the whole subject of difference in silence, or wrapping it up in vague and ambiguous generalities, which, while it is neither honourable to truth nor edi- fying to the world, often conduces little, in the issue, to the har- mony and comfort of the coalescing bodies. The Synod consisting of those who opposed the condemnation of the burgess-oath, professed to adhere to the public papers of the Associate Presbytery, though they appear to have restricted their approbation of them by alterations on their Formula * ; and they desisted from the renewing of the Covenants, on the ground that the friends of that duty were divided in sentiment and communion. The Synod constituted in the way of testifying against those who had engaged in the defence of the burgess-oath, went forward in the work of renewing the Covenants. Having taken into conside- ration some other oaths, they found that the clauses of general and unlimited allegiance in the constable-oath, and in some burgess- oaths, could not be consistently sworn by those who were testifying against existing evils in the laws of the land ; and that they could not, with safety of conscience, take the oath of church-warden in England and Irelajad. They condemned the mason-oath, because * Address of the Associate Synod, in 1799, p- 7- OF THE TESTIMONY. 61 it requires the swearer to engage to keep secret certain things be- fore they are made known to him, and its administration is accom- panied with a number of superstitious ceremonies ; and the chap- man-oath, because it includes a similar bond of secrecy, and bears on articles which are trifling or impracticable. And they appoint- ed sessions to require satisfaction from such of their members as involved themselves in these sinful and ensnaring oaths. — In conse- quence of an attempt to revive, in this country, the doctrine of uni- versal redemption, in a somewhat new form, the synod, in 1754, published an act against the A rminian error on this head *. The particular form which it then assumed has passed away ; but the error itself has of late been gaining ground, and many who profess attachment to the doctrine of grace, and even of unconditional elec- tion, stumble at the doctrine of particular redemption, although it will be found intimately connected with the substitution of Christ, and the efficacy of his death. In the year 1795, there was laid before the Synod (which had now taken the name of the General Associate Synod), an overture of a Narrative and Testimony, to supersede in practice the Judicial Testimony. After being occupied in its correction for a number of years, the synod approved and enacted it as a term of ministerial and christian communion, in the manner stated in their act relating to it *(-; and, about the same time, they revised the Acknowledg- ment of Sins and Bond, and adapted them to the present state of their Testimony. These acts were opposed by several members of court, who allowed that the Narrative and Testimony contained, particularly in the doctrinal part of it, an assertion of many valua- ble and precious articles of truth, but objected to it as departing from the received doctrine on the connection between Church and State, and the national character and obligation of our Covenants. Having, on this ground, protested against the adoption of these deeds, four of these brethren soon after formed themselves into a presbytery, under the name of the Constitutional Associate Pres- bytery +. We do not judge it necessary to enter farther into the dispute occasioned by the Narrative and Testimony, not only because the great body of those who formed the General Synod have dropped it, and ceased to exist as a separate society, but also because such * This was occasioned by the publication of a Treatise on Justifying Faiths ascribed to Mr Fraser of Brae. + In 1804. £ In 1806- 4 02 HISTORICAL TAUT members of the Synod as continued to adhere to that testimony, under the name of the Associate Synod, and the members of the Constitutional Associate Presbytery, have, in the good providence of God, conic, by mutual explanations, to see eye to eye, and unanimously to agree to the following propositions, which we con- sider as doing justice to the truth, on the several points which were brought into controversy. 1st, We agree in declaring, that the Church of Christ is a spi- ritual, free, and independent kingdom, essentially distinct and different from secular kingdoms in her origin, offices, laws, ju- dicatories, formal objects, and special ends ; and that she pos- sesses from Jesus Christ, her sole King and Head, an intrin- sic and unalienable power for all the purposes of her adminis- tration, not derived from, and not subordinate to, the powers of this world : More particularly, that Christ hath instituted a specific form of government in his church, to be exercised by such office-bearers as he hath appointed in his word, and that they have authority from him to meet in his name, in smaller or larger judicatories, as often as the necessities and welfare of the church may require, and to regulate whatever regards the affairs of the House of God, according to the laws of that house, without being subject to the direction or controul of civil rulers, so long as they keep within the proper line of their office, and do not encroach on the peculiar business of secular government, nor abuse their power to the detriment of those interests which it has in charge. &7, That Natural Religion, an acknowledgment of which lies at the foundation of all confidence and duty in human society, forms an important object of care and attention to nations and their rulers. Mankind in their national, no less than in their individual capacity, are dependent on God. As it is to him they owe their national existence and prosperity, they must be bound to acknowledge his supremacy, and to take such measures as are competent to them, that he be publicly honoured and served among them. The voice of nature conspires with that of revelation in pronouncing this to be the homage that pertaineth to the " King of nations," who will not fail to resent the withholding of it on the " nations who call not on his name. 11 It is a dictate of nature, that Nations, as such, OF THE TESTIMONY. (J3 should do homage to Him who ruleth among the nations. This is their interest as well as their duty, even in a temporal re.spect. Re- ligion is not only of great advantage to society ; it is its firmest pillar. Civil government could not exist among men, and far less could it gain its secondary and higher ends in promoting the public good extensively, by mere external laws and force, without the aids of religion and the secret but powerful operation of conscience. 3d, That, though civil government is founded not on revealed but natural principles, yet it is the duty of nations and their rulers, who are favoured with Revealed Religion, not only to embrace it, but to recognize and give public countenance to the profession of it, and by their laws and administration to provide, in every way competent to them, consistent with its nature and peculiar laws, and the just rights and liberties of rational agents, that its salutary influence have free course, and be diffused through all orders and departments of society. Human legislation and magistratical authority have not for their direct and immediate objects supernatural doctrines and in- stitutions, considered as such, but considered in respect of the external profession and observance of them, and of the relation in which these stand to the interests of society. Accordingly, in the exercise of their legislative authority, it is the duty of na- tions, or their representatives, to remove from their civil consti- tution whatever may be found to stand in the way of the progress of revealed religion, — to have the whole of their civil laws framed, and the whole of their administration regulated, in such a manner as to be agreeable to it, and subservient to its interests, — to give decided countenance and public protection to its functionaries in the discharge of their duty, and to provide all needful legal secu- rities in behalf of the scriptural profession of it, not only against turbulent individuals or factions, but also against the attempts to undermine and supplant it, which may be made by the rulers to whom the administration of their affairs may be entrusted. But if nations may legislate in favour of revealed religion, it follows as a na- tive inference, that it is competent to magistrates, in whom the execu- tive power of the nation is lodged, to exercise that power by carry- ing the laws thus framed into execution. The doctrine now stated, while it is consistent with the principles of sound reason, runs in accordance with the stream of approved examples, precepts, and predictions relating to this subject, to be found in the Bible. It 64 HISTORICAL PART was the doctrine held in common by the Protestant Churches, and which is applied to the national reformation and settlement of re- ligion in our own land in the public papers of the Secession. In the Act, Declaration, and Testimony, the Associate Presbytery re- cord and approve of the legal securities given to the Protestant and Presbyterian religion in Scotland, both in the first and second pe- riods of our Reformation. And in their Answers to Mr Nairn, they lay down the following proposition as the basis of their appro- val of our ancient civil reformation : " As it was once a peculiar duty of the Jewish nation, so it is peculiarly incumbent upon every civil state whereinto Christianity is introduced, to study and bring to pass that civil government among them, in all the appurtenances of its constitution and administration, run in an agreeableness to the word of God, be subservient to the spiritual kingdom of Jesus Christ, and to the interests of the true religion and reformation of the church ; as otherwise they cannot truly prosper in their civil concerns, nor be enriched by the blessings of the gospel. This people (add they), considered in their conjunct and political capa- city (as thus only the matter is competent to them), should, by their deed of civil constitution, provide that the magistrates be ob- liged to concur in the same true religion and reformation ; and to r ule them by laws no way prejudicial but serviceable thereunto.'" 4$) proper Father, and he is God's own, his only be- gotten Son ; and that this identity in nature excludes every idea of priority of existence in the Father, and of natural inferiority in the Son b : That the Jews understood our Lord's claim to Sonship as a claim to identity of nature with the Father, and consequently to proper Deity ; and that he sanctioned the interpretation put upon his words by the declaration, " I and my Father are one c :" — That the same idea runs through his declarations, that, as the Son, he had the same comprehensive knowledge d , did the same works, and in the same manner e , and was entitled to the same honours with the Father f : That since our Lord's Sonship is a natural relation in Godhead, it must be necessary, and not dependent, upon the di- vine will, like the sonship of creatures ; and that, if necessary, it must be eternal g . We also observe, That our Lord's Sonship cannot be founded on his office, for, in Ins appointment to office in the eternal decree, the Father recognised him as the Son ; nor upon his mission, for he a Heb. i. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ; iii. 3, 4, 5. G. b John v. 17, 18 ; i. 14. C John x. 30, 33. d Matt. xi. 27 ; John vi. 46. e John v. 19, 21. f John v. 22. 23. B Mic. v. 2. 96 DOCTRINAL PART was God's Son before he was sent into the world 3 ; nor upon his in- carnation, for the formation of his human nature is immediately as- cribed to the third person, and the assumption of it was the act of the Son himself; nor upon his resurrection, for, in his resurrection, he was not constituted the Son of God, but only declared to be so in a special and peculiar manner . We further observe, That the denial of our Lord's eternal Son- ship tends (though many who deny it have no such design) to in- validate the doctrine of the Trinity : That the terms Father and Son are personal titles, descriptive of personal properties ; and that, from their relative nature, the setting aside of the one is evcrsive of the other : That the term Father is the only one in Scripture by which the first person in Godhead is made known as a distinct per- son ; and that, by denying the proper and necessary Sonship of Christ, we are in danger of losing the idea of the personal proper- ty, and, consequently, of the distinct personality of the Father, and of the relations in general subsisting among the divine persons, which has a tendency to lead to the ancient error, which made the Trinity only three names of one person c : In fine, we would urge, That the denial of this doctrine throws a veil over the glory of the work of redemption ; for the grace and condescension of the second person in becoming incarnate, obeying and suffering, — the love of the first in sending him, and in subjecting him to suffering and death for us d , — the dignity and efficiency of his offices, — and the inherent value of his work, — are all, in Scripture, made to turn upon his essential dignity as the Son of God e . Sect. IV. — Of the Personality and Supreme Deity of the Spirit. In opposition to the Socinians and others, who deny the distinct personality and true Godhead of the Spirit, — we declare, That the Holy Spirit is the third in the order of personal sub- sistence in Godhead, and that he is a true and proper person, distinct from the Father and the Son, and equal with them in all essential perfections and glory. In proof of this doctrine we observe, That the Spirit must be a person, since personal properties are ascribed to him, such as un- derstanding, will, and power f ; and since acts characteristic of per- a Ps. ii. 7, 8 ; John iii. 16, 17- b Luke i. 35 ; Heb. ii. 16 ; Is. ix. 6 ; Rom. i. 3, 4. c 1 John ii. 22, 23. d Gal. ii. 20; Heb. v. 8; John iii. 16 ; Rom. viii. 32. e Heb. iii. 5, 6 ; vii. 28 ; i. 3 ; John i. 18 ; v. 25. f 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11 ; xii. 11. OF THE TESTIMONY. 97 sons are performed by him, 'such as teaching, leading, witnessing, sanctifying, comforting and interceding a : That he must be a per- son distinct from the Father and the Son, for he is said to proceed from the Father, to be the Spirit of the Son, and to be sent by both b : That his true and proper divinity is evident from the names given to him, such as Jehovah, God, and the Lord the Spirit c ; from the divine attributes ascribed to him, such as eternity, omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence d ; from the divine works ascribed to him, as creation, providence, searching all things, the sovereign dispensation of gifts to men, quickening the dead, and the sanctification of the Church e ; from sin being said to be committed against him as well as against the Father and the Son ; and from his being connected with the Father and the Son in prayer, baptism, and other acts of divine worship f . CHAPTER III. OF THE DIVINE DECREES. Sect. I. — The Decrees of God in general. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. hi. sect. 1,2, and in opposition to the Socinians, who maintain that God's decrees are not eternal and necessary, but temporary and accidental ; and to the Arminians, who maintain that they are not absolute but con- ditional, — we declare, That God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, absolutely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass in time. In support of the above statement we observe, That, as God's knowledge is infinite and unchangeable g , so he must have known from everlasting every thing that comes to pass h : That, as he is a John xiv. 26 ; xvi. 13 ; Rom. viii. 14, 16. ; 2 Thes. 2. 13 ; John xv. 26 ; Rom. viii. 27. b John xv. 26 ; Gal. iv. 6 ; John xiv. 16 ; xvi. 7- c Is. vi. 9 ; Compare Acts xxviii. 25 ; Acts v. 3, 4 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18. d Heb. ix. 14 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10 ; Is. xi. 2; Ps. cxxxix. 7. e Gen. i. 2 ; Job xxxiii. 4 ; xxvi. 13 ; Ps. xxxiii. 6; civ. 30; Is. xl. 7 ; Is. lix. 19 ; lxiii. 14 ; Zech. iv. 6, 7 ; 1 Cor. ii. 10 ; xii. 11 ; 2 Thes. ii. 13. Rom. viii. 11. f Math. xii. 32 ; Heb. x. 29 ; Math, xxviii. 19 ; Ezek. xxxvii. 9 ; Rev i. 4* g Eph. i. 11 ; Heb. vi. 17- h Acts xv. 18. G 98 DOCTRINAL PART the first cause, and as the existence of all things depends on his will, so he must have foreknown them as the matter of his own de- cree a : That, in the decree, the means, how contingent soever with respect to creatures, were fixed as well as the end b ; and that as God is absolutely independent and immutable, all his decrees must infalliblv be carried into execution c . Sect. II. — Of Divine Predestination. 1. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. iii. sect. 3, 4, 5, 6 ; and in opposition to the Arminians, who maintain that elec- tion is only general and conditional, and that the doctrine of abso- lute and unconditional election tends to make men careless about the means of grace, and to encourage licentiousness, — we de- clare, That God, from everlasting, viewing all mankind as fallen and ruined in the first Adam, out of his mere good pleasure, and without regard to any foreseen good in them or to be done by them, did, by an absolute and unchangeable decree, elect a definite number of our family in Christ to salvation, and to the enjoyment of all the means leading to it ; and that this doctrine, instead of encouraging licentiousness, furnishes power- ful motives to the study of holiness. In proof of the above doctrine, we observe, That the Scriptures invariably represent the salvation of sinners in time as the effect of their election from eternity d : That they assert that this was not a choice merely of nations to the means of grace, but of particular persons to salvation ; and that these, in distinction from others, are said to be foreknown of God as his, given to Christ, and predes- tinated to be conformed to his image e : That the purpose of elec- tion was free, sovereign, and unconditional ; and that faith, repent- ance, and good works, are fruits of election, and could not there- fore be the influencing causes of it f : That those who were chosen of God were also predestinated by him to eternal life, including all the blessings of grace here and glory hereafter " : That, in the same a Is. xlvi. 10. b Pro. xix. 21 ; Acts iv. 27, 28. c Job. xxiii. 13. d 2 Tim. i. ; Rom. viii, 20, 30. e Rom. ix. 4, 5, 7 ; 2 Tim. ii. 10; John xvii. 8; Rom. viii. 20. f Rom. xi. 5, 6 ; ix. 15, 18 ; ix. 11, 12 ; Kph. i. 4 ; Acts. xiii. 48 ; Eph. ii. 8 ; 1 Pet. i. 1, 2. g Eph. i- 5, 11; Mat. xxv. 34 OF THE TESTIMONY. 99 decree in which God elected some to salvation, he also appointed the means by which they were to be brought to the enjoyment of it ; and that, from this connection of the means with the end, the doctrine of election, instead of leading to carelessness, is calculated to excite to a diligent improvement of the means of salvation, as it lays a solid foundation for hope that our labour shall not be in vain a . % In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. iii. sect. 7, and in opposition to those who insist that the doctrine of predes- tination, as it relates to those who were passed by, represents God as partial, cruel, and unjust towards his creatures, — we declare, That the eternal election of some of mankind to salvation, through Christ, supposes the pretention or passing by of others ; that, in both cases, God acted as an absolute sovereign, who is debt- or to none of his creatures, but who has a right to give or withhold his favours at pleasure ; and that his decree, as it regarded them who perish, was consistent with perfect equity. In support of this we observe, That it would have been just in God to pass by the whole of our race, and to deal with them as he did with the angels who sinned ; and that, in electing some to life, he did no injustice to those who were left to perish : That their own sin is the procuring cause of the final ruin of the reprobate, although the decree of God gives certain futurition to that event ; and that his decree is only a purpose of acting towards them ac- cording to the natural course of justice b : That to afflict a creature unnecessarily, or merely to render that creature miserable, would be cruelty ; but that punishment has no existence in the moral ad- ministration of God as an end — it is only a means necessary to se- cure the ends of his glory c . We only add, That, while these re- marks serve to obviate the objections of adversaries, the doctrine itself is among the deep things of God, which we cannot compre- hend, but which we are to receive upon the authority of his word, and in which we are bound to acquiesce with holy wonder and hum- ble reverence d . » a 1 Pet. 1, 2 ; 2 Thes. ii. 13 ; 1 Cor. xv. 58. b Jude 4. c Ezek. xviii. 23 ; Ps. xi. 6, 7 ; Rom. ix. 22. d Mat. xi. 25, 26 ; Rom. ix. 17,-21 ; xi. 33. G 2 100 DOCTRINIAL PART Sect. III. — Of the eternal Establishment of the Covenant of Grace. In opposition to those who deny that there was a federal trans- action between the Father and the Son from everlasting about the redemption of fallen men ; and to those who maintain that the Co- venant, as dispensed by means of the gospel, is conditional, — we DECLARE, That the purpose of mercy, from its very nature, assumed, in the decree of election, the form of a covenant between the Father, on the part of Godhead, and the Son, as the representative of the elect, who was to fulfil its condition. In proof of this we observe, That the decree of election, and the covenant of grace, as established between God in the person of the Father, on the part of Godhead, and God in the person of the Son, as the representative of the elect, are not to be viewed as distinct in the divine mind, which admits of no succession of thought, but comprehends in one design all the parts of the grand plan of mercy r That as the persons of Trinity are one in will as well as in nature, so the decree of election must be the decree of each of these per- sons, according to the order of their personal subsistence in God- head ; and it takes the form of a covenant from the character the Son was to sustain, and the part he was to act in carrying that de- cree into the effect : That, considered as the purpose of the Father, it was a purpose to confer eternal life upon a number of the human race, in the way of his own Son assuming their nature, and in that nature fulfilling all righteousness in their room ; — u they were chosen in him ; w — " were predestinated through him unto the a- doption of children ;* — " had grace given them in him before the world was a :" and accordingly this purpose of the Father con- tained, in relation to the Son, the stipulations of a covenant, that he should see his seed, on condition of his soul being made an offer- i ng for sin b : That, as the Son is one in will with the Father, he must have purposed to assume human nature, and in that nature to fulfil all righteousness in the room of his people, that they might have life through him ; and that, as the Divine purpose, on the part of the Father, bears the form of a promise made, and a condu a Eph. i. 4. 5 : 2 Tim. i. 9. b Is. liii. 10 ; Tit. i. 2. OF THE TESTIMONY. 101 lion proposed, to the Son ; so the same purpose, on the part of the Son, bears the form of an undertaking, in relation to the will of the Father ; — in this joint purpose, therefore, respecting man's redemp- tion, we have all the parts of a proper covenant*. We further observe, That, although the parties in this Divine covenant were, more especially, the Father representing Godhead, and the Son as the representative of the elect, yet the Holy Spirit being one with them in will, must be viewed as a party concurring in it, and engaging to fulfil its stipulations, in as far as these re- garded the part he was to act in carrying into effect the plan of redemption : That it is from this divine purpose, or covenant, that the economical characters which the three persons in Godhead sustain in the work of redemption take their rise ; that the Father appears representing Deity in this economy, and sustaining at once the character of a righteous Judge, exacting from his own Son the punishment of our iniquities as the condition of the cove- nant, and the character of a gracious Sovereign, — his covenant God, conferring upon him the grace of the covenant ; that the Son appears in the character of the Father's servant, and our surety ; and that the Spirit assumes the appropriate character of the Spirit of Christ, is sent by him, and comes in his name to apply the bless- ings of salvation to his chosen seed b : In fine, that these relations being voluntary, do not imply any natural inferiority in the Son to the Father, or in the Spirit to the Father or the Son. We observe farther, That God's covenant for the recovery of fallen men, is one ; that the covenant made with Christ from ever- lasting, is the same which is tendered to sinners in the Gospel for their acceptance ; and that it is not by a new federal transaction between God and them, but by their taking hold of that covenant, that they are put in possession of the blessings of salvation . In fine, we observe, that the righteousness of Christ is the alone con- dition of the covenant of grace ; that its condition being fulfilled by our Lord's obedience unto death, it is exhibited to sinners in the form of a free promise ; that it is by faith alone, as opposed to works of every kind, that we come to be instated in the promise ; and that it is by faith, that it might be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the promised seed d . a Ps. lxxxix, 3 ; Is. xlii. 6. b Is. liii. 4, 5, 6; John xx. 17 ; Is- xlii. 1 ; Heb. vii, 22 ; John xvi. 7> 14. c Is. lv. 3 ; Is. lvi. 6. d Acts ii. 39 ; Gal. iii. 18 ; Horn. iv. 1G. 102 DOCTRINAL PART CHAPTER IV. OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap, v., and in opposition to the Fatalists, and those modern philosophers who maintain, that, in the original constitution of all things, God gave to the material creation physical, and to the intelligent creation moral laws, by which they are sustained and governed, independ- ently of his continued influence, — we declare, That, as God is the Creator of all things in the heavens and on the earth, so he necessarily supports, preserves, and governs them all ; and that, although in the original constitution of all things, he gave laws to the several parts of the Creation suited to their nature ; yet these laws are not independent on his continued influence, which is employed by him in accom- plishing his holy and wise purposes. In proof of this we observe, That the errors to which the above declaration is opposed, are contrary to reason, as well as scripture, as they either deny the existence of God as the first cause, or as- sign to what are called the laws of nature, that independence which belongs to God alone a : That although the Scriptures ad- mit of second causes, both in the physical and moral world, and that God, in ordinary cases, employs them as the instruments of his providence, yet they teach, that the connection of these causes and their effects, is not fixed by a fatal necessity, but that it is de- pendent on the will of God, and subject to his controul b : That the providence of God, including sustentation and government, extends to all creatures, from the highest angel to the meanest reptile ; and that the same providence which sustains the sun in the firmament, and directs the stars in their courses, clothes the grass of the field with verdure, and regulates the motions of the smallest particle of matter c : That, although the physical world is governed by physical laws, according to which one thing is instru- mental in producing another, yet their efficiency, as second causes, depends on the continued influence of God, the great first cause, and is subject to his controul ; and that, to assert the contrary, is a Rom. xi. 34, 35, 36. b Ps. ciii. 20, 21 ; cxxxvi. 7, 8, 9 ; cvii. 33, 34, 35 ; lxvi. 6 ; Dan. iii. 23-25. c Col. i. 17 ; Heb. i. 3; Ps. ciii. 19 ; Math. vi. 26; x. 29, 30. OF THE TESTIMONY. 103 to deny the existence, and even the possibility, of miracles, and to undermine the whole of revealed religion, as far as it rests upon their evidence a : That while the providence of God extends to his rational creatures, and to all their volitions and actions, yet his pro- vidential influence is not destructive of their rational liberty, for they are under no compulsion, but act freely ; and that to teach that they act from a fatal necessity, is to deny them that natural liberty necessary to them as responsible agents b : That, although God governs the rational creatures by moral laws ; and although the upright part of them, in obeying these laws, act freely, yet their holy volitions proceed from divine influence, disposing and inclining them to will and to do that which is good ; and that to as- sert the contrary, would be to deny the moral dependence of the rational creation on God, and, in particular, to contradict the whole doctrine of Scripture respecting the nature and necessity of Divine Grace c : That although God is not the author of sin, but only permits it, yet his providence extends to sinful actions, but in such a way, that he does not concur with or countenance the sinner in the sinfulness of these actions ; and that his providence is employ- ed in restraining the wickedness of the creature, in overruling his sinful actions for accomplishing his own holy and wise purposes, and in punishing them both in this life and that which is to come d : In fine, that there is no event casual with respect to God ; and that those things which are accidental with regard to us, are foreknown to Him, " who declares the end from the beginning, and from an- cient times the things which are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure e ." CHAPTER V. OF THE COVENANT OF WORKS, AND ORIGINAL SIN. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. vi. sect. 3, 4. and in opposition to the Socinians, Arminians, and others, who deny that a covenant was made with Adam, as the representative of his a Hosea ii. 21, 22 ; Josh. x. 12, 13, 14 ; Dan, vi. 22 ; Mat. viii. 26, 27. b Dan. iv. 35 ; Isai. x. 6, 7 ; Ps. xxxiii. 10. c Phil. ii. 13 ; John xv. 5. d James i. 13 ; Ps. lxxvi. 10 ; Acts iv. 27, 28 ; Ps. xi. 6, 7. e 1 Kings xxii. 28, 29, 34 ; Isai. xlvi. 10. 104 DOCTRINAL TART posterity, that Adam's first sin is imputed to them, and that infants come into the world guilty and polluted, — we declare, That when God created Man after his image, by an act of in- finite condescension, he entered into covenant with him, not only for himself, but for all his natural posterity, promising him life, on condition of his perfect obedience to the law he was under, as virtually summed up in the positive precept re- specting the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and threatening death in case of disobedience ; that when he brake the covenant, as a public representative, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him ; and that, in consequence of his first trans- gression, all his natural posterity come into the world guilty and polluted. In support of this we observe, That man, as a rational creature, must be under a moral law to God, and that Adam had that law, commonly called the law of Nature, engraven on his heart a : That, although it is a dictate of natural law, that punishment must follow crime, and happiness obedience, under the government of a holy and good God, yet that law afforded no positive assurance to man, even in a state of innocency, of the perpetuity of his existence, much less of any higher state of being than that which he presently en- joyed; it was therefore a great act of kindness and condescension in God to bring him under the law in a covenant form, promising him life as the reward of his obedience, which he did in the ordi- nance respecting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil b : That Adam,being perfect, must have given his consent to the terms propos- ed to him by God, as the condition of his eternal happiness c : That a promise of life was annexed to his obedience may be inferred from the threatening of death in caseof disobedience ; from the description which Moses gives of the righteousness of the law, "the man that doth these things shall live by them ;" — from our Lord's answer to the young man who inquired what he should do to inherit eternal life ; — from the declaration of the apostle that the commandment was ordained to life ; — and from his assigning man's inability in his fallen state, as a reason why the law cannot give life d : That the death threatened in the covenant must have included not only temporal and spiri- tual, but eternal death, may be inferred from the infinite desert •of sin, which must subject the guilty creature to punishment of in- a Rom. ii. 14, 15. b Gen. ii. 17- c Hosea, vi. 7« d Gen. ii. 17; Rom. x. 5 ; Math. xix. 10, 17 ; Rom. vii. 10 ; viii. 3, OF THE TESTIMONY. 105 finite duration, since he cannot endure punishment infinite in de- gree : and that the life promised must have been of the same extent as to its duration with the death to which it was opposed a : That the representative character of Adam appears from his being called the figure of Christ, who is the representing head of the elect in the covenant of grace, and from the comparison stated in Scripture be- tween Christ, who is called the second man, and Adam, who is call- ed the first man, and the manner in which sin and death came by the disobedience of the one, and righteousness and life, by the obe- dience of the other, — which comparison can only refer to them res- pectively, as covenant representatives, and the consequences of that representation to those represented by them b : And that unless the public character of Adam, as a representative in the covenant, be admitted, no satisfactory reason can be assigned why we are af- fected by his first sin in a way that we are not affected by his sub- sequent transgressions, or the transgressions of our more immediate progenitors c . We observe farther, That this was a most favourable constitution both with regard to Adam and to his posterity : That, although he was brought under the whole moral-natural law in a covenant form, yet his acting for life, or death, was made to turn upon the positive precept respecting the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that precept in a negative form : That, from the ample grant of all the other trees of the garden for his use, he was under no temptation from external circumstances to violate that precept : And that, as the common parent of mankind, he had motives to stedfastness which none of his posterity could have had, (had they been called individually to act for themselves,) arising from the knowledge, which there is every reason to suppose he possessed, of the consequences which would result from his conduct to his latest posterity. We observe further, That it is a plain dictate of Scripture, that, when Adam broke the covenant, all mankind sinned in him, and fell with him, his guilt being accounted theirs in law, as really as if contracted in their own persons d : That death, the wages of sin, comes upon all mankind by Adam's first transgression ; — the guilt of that transgression must therefore be imputed to all mankind e : That there is no satisfactory way of accounting for the distress and a Rom. v. 12—21. b Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 45-47 ; Rom. v. 17-10. c Ezek. xviii. 20. d Rom. v. 19. eRom. v. 12, 106 DOCTltlNAL PART death of infants, who are incapable of actual transgression, but by admitting the imputation of Adam's first sin to them, and that this is the principle on which it is explained in Scripture a : That death is represented in Scripture as coming to Adam's posterity through him in a way similar to that in which life comes to Christ's spiri- tual seed through him : but life is obtained through Christ by the imputation of his righteousness ; death must therefore come through Adam by the imputation of his sin b : In fine, that the Scriptures clearly teach, that, in consequence of Adam's fall, all his natural posterity come into the world, not only guilty, but destitute of ori- ginal righteousness, and with a nature totally corrupted c . CHAPTER VI. of man's inability in his fallen state to will or do what is spiritually good. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. ix. sect. 3. and in opposition to the Pelagians, Arminians, and others, who deny the total depravity of man since the fall, and maintain that he has still an ability to will and to do that which is spiritually good ; that his not doing so is more owing to the influence of example than depravity of disposition ; and that to deny him that ability is inconsistent with his responsibility as a moral agent, — we de- clare, That man, as fallen, is dead in trespasses and sins ; that, under the power of spiritual death, he must be incapable of willing or doing that which is spiritually good ; and that this being a moral inability, it is not inconsistent with his responsibility. In support of this we observe, That the influence of example and temptation, though powerful, is insufficient to account for the universal prevalence of moral evil among mankind, since it is often found predominant in those who are placed in external circum- stances the most favourable to a life of holiness d : That this is an universal effect, which must have a cause of the same extent ; and that it cannot be accounted for in a satisfactory manner, but a Rom. v. 13, 14. b 1 Cor. xv, 22 ; Rom. iv. 11. c Eccl. vii. 29 ; Ps. li. 5 ; Job, xiv. 4 ; Rom. iii. 9—19. d Heb. xii. 16; John xiii. 21, 26. OF THE TESTIMONY. 107 by admitting the Scripture doctrine of the total depravity of human nature in its fallen state : That the Scripture represents man in that state as wholly under the power of sin, having his understand- ing darkened, his will depraved, his conscience defiled, and his affections corrupted ; and declares that his actions, taking their moral character from the state of his heart, are only evil, and that continually a : That the causes of every volition in all moral determinations, are the state of the intellect and moral dispositions of the agent willing; that a wicked man must therefore invariably will that which is evil, since his understanding is darkened, and his dispositions totally depraved — " alienated from the life of God, by the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of his heart ; and that, notwithstanding this, as in sinning he acts not from compulsion but from choice, he must retain all that li- berty which is necessary to render him a responsible agent b : That the depravity of man's nature can form no excuse for the sin of his life, else his first sin, by which he lost the rectitude of his na- ture, would have rendered him incapable of future transgression ; that his depravity is from himself; that although he has by his own delinquency, lost his ability to obey, yet God retains his right to demand obedience ; and that he is accountable to God for the depraved tendencies of his nature, as well as for the evils of his life which spring from them c : In fine, that man's inability in his fallen state to do that which is spiritually good, is plainly supposed in the Scripture doctrine of the necessity of a change of state and heart, in order to his walking with God in newness of life d . CHAPTER VII. OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. vii. sect. 3, 4, 5, 6 ; chap. viii. sect. 6 ; and in opposition to the Socinians, some Anabaptists, and others, who maintain, that the Old Testa- ment dispensation was not a dispensation of the Covenant of Grace, but a mere political economy, securing only temporal benefits to a Jer. iv. 22; 1 Cor. ii. 14; Rom. viii. 7 ; Tit. i.) 15; Rom. viii. 5.; Phil, iii. 19. ; Math. xii. 33, 34, 35. b Eph. iv. 18, 19. ; James i. 13, 14, 15. ; Hosea v. 11. ; Eccl. viii. 11- c Eccl. vii. 29. ; Ps. xcv. 8, 9, 10. d Rom. vii. 4. ; Eph. ii. 10. ; Phil. ii. 13. 108 DOCTRINAL PART God's ancient people ; that they were ignorant of the blessings of spiritual salvation, and particularly of a future state of happi- ness ; and also, in opposition to those who maintain that the Old Testament Scriptures are not of the same use, or authority in the Church, since the introduction of the new dispensation, — we de- clare, That the Church, from her first erection, existed under the charter of the Covenant of Grace, of which Christ is the alone mediator ; that the Old and New Testament economies are but two dispensations of the same covenant ; that the civil po- lity, and temporal privileges of God's ancient people, were subordinate to, and, in some instances, typical of, spiritual blessings ; that believers then, as well as now, were saved by faith in Christ, and lived and died in the hope of a blessed immortality ; and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament constitute but one rule of faith and manners to the Church in New Testament times. For illustrating these statements we observe, That our Lord Jesus Christ is the alone mediator of the Covenant of Grace, and that Moses, and others, who acted between God and the people under the former dispensation, were only types of Christ, the one mediator between God and man a : That our Lord is the surety of the covenant as a sacrificing priest, and the administrator of it as an advocate, prophet and king b : That, though the covenant was not ratified by his death till the end of ages ; yet, by virtue of his Father's appointment, and his own undertaking to lay down his life for that end, he entered upon the administration of it imme- diately after the fall ; and that, until the period arrived for its substantial ratification by his own blood, it was ratified by the blood of slain beasts, as a type of his future sacrifice : That, in consequence of its ratification by the shedding of blood, its ad- ministration from the beginning was testamentary, or in the form of a free promise d : That, although the administration of the cove- nant before, and its administration after the coming of Christ, dif- fer in several respects, especially in what related to its ratification ; and, although on that account they are distinguished by the ap- pellations, the Old and the New Testaments, yet these are but two dispensations of the same covenant, — God's Covenant of pro- a 1 Tim. ii. v. b 1 John ii. 1,2; Acts vii. 37 ; Vs. ii. 6. c Gen. iii. 15 ; xv. 7-H ; Exod. xxiv. 5-8. d Gal. iii. 18. OF THE TESTIMONY. 109 mise, made to Abraham and to his seed, is the same that is tendered to us and to our children, — the covenant God of the Jews, is the God of the Gentiles also, — the blessing of Abraham is the blessing which is come upon the Gentiles, — and Jews and Gentiles are fellow heirs of the same spiritual inheritance* . We observe farther, That our Lord Jesus Christ was the ad- ministrator of the Covenant of Grace under the former as well as under the present dispensation, though not in the same visible form ; that the visible agents then employed, such as Moses, the Levitical priests, and the Prophets, were commissioned by him, and acted under the direction of the Holy Spirit, in the appropriate character of the Spirit of Christ ; and that, to shew that he was the one mediator between God and man then, as well as after he assumed human nature, he, on extraordinary occasions, and parti- cularly at the commencement of any new era in the Church, ap- peared in a visible form, and communicated the will of God to man b : That there is reason to believe that all the appearances of Deity under that dispensation, to converse with men, were appear- ances of God, not in his absolute character, or in the person of the Father or Spirit, but in the person of the Son, and in the cha- racter of Mediator : that he was the voice or personal word of God, who revealed the plan of mercy to our first parents in Paradise ; the angel Jehovah, who gave the promises to Abraham ; and the Angel who gave the law from Horeb, and conducted the chosen tribes through the wilderness into the land of promise c . Again, we observe, That God's Covenant of promise under the former dispensation, contained a revelation of a spiritual and eter- nal salvation through the promised Messiah ; and that all the sub- sequent revelations of God's will to his ancient people, and all his dispensations towards them, were subservient to the carrying into effect of the promise of the mission of Christ, and the spiritual re- demption of the Church through him d : That the promise was of avail then, as well as under the present dispensation, for all the purposes of a spiritual salvation to believers e ; that they were ac- quainted not only with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul^ a Gen. xvii. 7 ; Acts ii. 38, 39 ; Gal. iii. 13, 14 ; Rom. iii. 29, 30, Eph. iii. 6. b 1 Peter i. 11 ; Gen. xvii. 1, xviii. 1. c John i. 18. ; Gen. iii. 8-18, xvii. 1-7 ; Acts vii. 38 ; Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. d 1 Pet. 10-12. Gen. iv. 4 ; v. 22 ; Rom. iv. 1-3. 110 DOCTRINAL PART but also with the doctrine of the resurrection of the body a ; that they lived and died in the faith of a blessed immortality beyond death ; and that, under the influence of this faith, many of them obtained the crown of martyrdom b . We observe further, That, although the new dispensation of the Covenant exceeds the old in glory, from the manifestation of the Son of God in our nature — its substantial ratification by his obe- dience unto the death — the more full and clear exhibition of its blessings by means of the gospel— the more abundant out-pouring of the Spirit — the introduction of a more spiritual form of worship — and from the whole administration under the present economy being in a more immediate and visible manner in the hand of Christ, as the Son over his own house ; yet, New Testament revela- tion does not invalidate the authority, or supersede the use of the Old Testament Scriptures c : That Christ came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them ; that the Church in New Testament times is built upon the foundation of the Prophets, as well as of the Apostles ; that the Scriptures of the Old Testa- ment serve to confirm those of the New, and that they throw light upon and explain each other ; that while the Old Testament, as a revelation of the plan of mercy, is perfected by the New ; the New Testament, so far as regards moral worship and law, would be in- complete without the Old Testament ; that we are enjoined by Our Lord and his Apostles to search the Scriptures of the Old Testament ; and that these are still profitable for doctrine, for re- proof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness d . CHAPTER VIII. OF THE SURETYSHIP AND SATISFACTION OF CHRIST. Sect. l.-^Ofthe necessity of a Satisfaction for Sin, in order to Forgiveness. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. ii. sect. 1., a Ps. lxxiii. 24-26 ; Job, xix. 25-27- b John viii. 5C ; Heb. xi. 9, 10, 13, 14, 15 ; Acts xxvi. 7 ; Heb. xi. 33-35. c 2 Cor. iii. 7-11 ; John i. 14 ; Heb. vii. 22. ii. 1-3 ; Acts ii. 16-18; John iv. 23, 24 ; Heb. iii. 5, 6. d Math. v. 17; Eph. ii. 20; Heb. xi. 40: Math. xxii. 37-39; John v. 39 ; 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16. * OF THE TESTIMONY. Ill and in opposition to the Socinians and others, who deny that retri- butive justice belongs necessarily to God, and maintain, that he may pardon sin without a satisfaction, — we declare, That while the exercise of mercy is sovereign in God, who says, " I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," the exer- cise of his retributive justice is necessary, and accordingly there is a necessity for satisfaction, in order to the forgiveness of sin. In support of this statement, we observe, That the necessity of the punishment of sin, in order to forgiveness, appears from the Holiness of God, which requires that his hatred of sin, and delight in rectitude, be vindicated by the punishment of his dependent creatures, when they commit iniquity 3 ; from his Justice as a law- giver and judge, which requires that his moral supremacy, and the honour of his law, be supported, by his rendering indignation and wrath to every soul of man that doeth evil b ; from the immutabi- lity of his Truth, in the penal sentence of his law, which denounces death as the punishment due to transgressors c ; and from his Good- ness, as a moral governor, which requires that sin, which intro- duces disorder and moral insubordination into his dominions, be punished for the general welfare of the intelligent creation d : That the Scriptures expressly declare, that vengeance and recompence belong to God, and that the wicked shall not go unpunished e : That the dictates of natural law, in the conscience even of the most barbarous nations, coincide with the testimony of Scripture ; and that the same thing may be inferred from the history of the divine government in the present life . We observe further, That sin being of infinite desert, no crea- ture can endure its punishment, so as to procure his own forgive- ness ; and that if God, in his infinite wisdom and grace, had not found out a plan for satisfying the claims of his justice, the whole of our race had remained eternally in a state of guilt and ruin s. Sect. II. — Of the Substitution of Christ in the room of Sinners. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. viii. sect. 4., and in opposition to the Socinians, who deny our Lord's substitu- a Psal. xi. 6, 7; Ezek. xxxviii. 22, 23. b PsaL ix. 8; Rom. ii. 6-9. c Gen. ii. 17 ; Rom. vi. 23. d Isaiah xxvi. 9 ; 2 Thes. 1, 6, 7, 8. e Heb. x. 30, 31 ; Prov. xi. 21. f Acts, xxviii. 4, 5 ; 2 Pet. ii. ]„9. g Psal. xlix. 7, 8, 9 ; Job xxxiii. 24. 112 DOCTRINAL PART tion, and assert, that he did not suffer and die in our stead, but only for our good, to confirm his doctrine, and to leave us an ex- ample of patience and resignation under suffering, we declare, That God, in his infinite grace and wisdom, devised the glorious method for satisfying the claims of his justice, in order that pardoning mercy might be extended to sinners of our race, in the choice, appointment, and mission of his Son, to be our surety ; and that his sufferings, even unto the death, in human nature, were vicarious, or in the room of his people, whom he came to redeem. In proof of this doctrine, we observe, That the Scriptures declare that our Lord, in assuming human nature, was made under the law, by a supernatural constitution, in the room of his people 3 ; and that all which he did and suffered in our world, as the subject of law, was vicarious, or in the room of others b — " He suffered the just for (or, instead of) the unjust" — " He gave his life a ransom for many" — " He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities" : That the whole sacrificial ritual under the legal dispensation, was typical of the death of Christ ; but that if his death was not vicarious, that ritual had no meaning, for all the legal sacrifices were vicarious — their blood went for man's blood, and their life for man's life d : That, under that dispensation, the guilt of the offender was transferred to his sin-offering or trespass-offer- ing, by the laying on of his hands and confession, and, bearing this imputed guilt, the animal was considered as accursed, and went by the name of sin, or trespass, among the Hebrews ; and that, to shew that the type is realised in our Lord's substitution in the room of his people, he is said to have borne their sins in his own body on the tree, — to have been made sin for us, — to have been made a curse for us e : That it is impossible to reconcile his death with the justice and goodness of God in any other way, than by admitting the doc- trine of his substitution : That as he was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separated from sinners, a righteous God would never have dealt with him as a sinner, by inflicting on him death, the punish- ment of sin, had he not sustained the character of our surety ; — and that, to deny the doctrine of his substitution, is to fix upon the Father of Mercies the charge, not only of injustice, but also of a Gal. iv. 4. b Dan. ix. 26. c 1 Pet. iii. 10; Math. xx. 28 ; Isaiah liii. 5, G. d Lev. xvii. 11 ; Heb. x. 1, 2. el Pet. ii. 24 : Gal. iii. 13 ; 2 Cor. v. 21. OF THE TESTIMONY. 113 cruelty, towards his own — his only begotten Son a : That example, and the confirmation of his doctrine, were ends of his sufferings and death ; but they were only subordinate ends, and that the princi- pal end of them was to make atonement for the sins of his people 5 . Sect. III. — The Nature and Extent of Christ s Satisfaction, with respect to the Law. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. viii. sect. 5. ; and in opposition to the Socinians, who deny the penal nature of our Lord's death, and limit his sufferings to what he endured from men ; — to the Papists, and others, who restrict his satisfaction to his enduring the curse of the law, and deny that he obeyed its pre- cept to procure our title to life ; — and to the Neonomians, who as- sert that " He only satisfied divine justice for sinners, in so far as to render it consistent with God's honour, to enter upon lower terms of salvation with them, 11 — we declare, That Christ, as our surety, was made under the law as a broken covenant of works ; that, by enduring in his soul and body all the penal evil which we had incurred by our fall in Adam, and • our own personal transgressions, and yielding perfect obedience to the precept, he procured our freedom from condemnation, and our title to life ; and that, by his obedience even unto the death, he wrought out a perfect righteousness, on the ground of which we are justified, to the exclusion of all works of ours whatsoever. In proof of this we observe, That, since our Lord suffered and died under the curse, his sufferings and death must have been strict- ly of a penal nature c : That all that he suffered through life, and at his death, by the agency of satan and wicked men, was from God, as a righteous judge, as they did only what his hand and his coun* sel had determined before to be done d : That his principal suffer- ings arose from the power of God's judicial displeasure upon his soul, and the suspension for a season of the manifestations of his favour ; that these constituted the essence of that death which is the wages of sin ; and that, unless we admit that he suffered these immediately from God, it is impossible to account for his amaze- ment and agony in the garden, and his bitter lamentation on the a Isaiah liii. 10 ; Rom. viii. 32. b Dan. ix. 24 ; Heb. ix. 26. c Gal. iv. 4 ; iii. 13. d John xix. 1 1 ; Acts ii. 23 ; iv. 27, 28. H 114 DOCTRINAL PART cross 8 : That our Lord's sufferings unto death, as our surety, pos- sessed every thing requisite to a true and proper satisfaction for sin, — he suffered by the appointment of God, who alone had a right to admit of the death of a surety in the room of transgressors ; — he suffered in the same nature that had sinned ; — his sufferings were voluntary and obediential, and therefore possessed a moral fitness for making reparation to the injured honours of the divine law ; — he was Lord of his own life, and had a right to lay it down in the room of others ; — and his sufferings were, from the dignity of his person, of infinite value for the expiation of our sins. b We further observe, That it was necessary that Christ, as our surety, should not only endure the penalty of the law, to obtain our deliverance from condemnation, but also that he should obey its precept, to procure for us a title to life c : That, in the Cove- nant of Works, obedience was the condition on which life was to be enjoyed by Adam and his posterity ; and that, although the law of that covenant ceased to be a law which could give life to Adam or to his posterity, on the ground of their own obedience, the moment the covenant was broken ; yet it was necessary, for the vindication of the equity and goodness of God in that transaction, that any other covenant for man's recovery should make obedience to the precept of the law the condition of life d : That life was accordingly promised in the eternal covenant to our Lord's spiritual seed, on condition of his fulfilling all righteousness in their room ; that they enjoy the inheritance of eternal life, as well as the redemption of their persons, through his obedience unto the death ; and that his suffering the penalty of the law, and his obedience to its pre- cept, constitute but one righteousness, which in scripture is some- times denominated from the one, and sometimes from the other e : That, had not Christ procured our title to the eternal inheritance, by obeying the precept of the law, he could not have been the an- titype of the Goel (or kinsman) among the Hebrews ; for redemp- tion, by the Hebrew Goel, was to extend to inheritances, as well as to persons f : That eternal life is not the less free, that it flows through a mediatorial righteousness ; for great as the grace of God appears in conferring this life, it appears still greater in the mission of his Son to procure it ; and, though conferred on the ground of the righteousness of the surety, yet it is of pure, unmerited, and unsolicited grace to the sinner g . a Isaiah liii. 10 ; Luke xxii, 42, 43, 44 ; Mark xv. 34. b 1 John iv. 10 ; Heb. ii. 17 ; Phil. ii. 6, 7 J John x. 18 ; Acts xx. 28 ; Heb. i. 3; c Horn. v. 17- d Math. v. 17- e Tit. i. 2; Eph. i. 1L f Lev. xxv. 25. g Rom. iii. 24 ; Eph. i. 7 ', Rom. v. 2i. OF THE TESTIMONY. 115 We observe further, That the opinion that Christ satisfied divine justice for sinners, in so far only as to render it con- sistent with God's honour to propose lower terms of salvation to them, has no foundation in scripture ; for Christ came not to mutilate or destroy the law originally given to man, but to fulfil it a : That to suspend salvation upon any terms to be performed by us, such as faith, repentance, or sincere obedience, is to frustrate the grace of God, to teach that righteousness is still by the works of the law, and to assert that Christ died in vain b : And that the idea of dividing the work of satisfaction between the surety and the sinner, is in express contradiction to the perfection ascribed to the work of Christ in Scripture, where we are told, that " he finished transgression, and made an end of sin" — that " he is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believed" — and that " by one offering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified c ." Sect. IV. — Of the Extent of Chrisfs Death, with respect to its objects. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. viii. sect. 5-8, and in opposition to the Arminian tenet, that Christ died for all men — for those who finally perish, as well as for those who shall be eventually saved, — we declare, That the intrinsic value of the death of Christ being infinite, it must have been sufficient as a ransom for all mankind, had it been the will of God that all mankind should be redeemed by it ; but that, in his Father's design, and his own intention, he laid down his life for the elect only, who shall be saved from wrath through him. In proof of this we observe, That he laid down his life " for the sheep," and these sheep are the objects of his special knowledge ; but he himself declares, that all are not of his sheep, and that he will say to a number of mankind, M Verily, I say unto you, I know you not * d : That those for whom he died are called his Church, a term which is never put for the whole human a Math. v. 17 ; Rom. x. 4. b Gal. ii. 21. c Dan. ix. 24 ; Rom. x. 4; Heb. x. 14. d John x. 15—26, 27 ; Math. xxv. 12. h2 116 DOCTRINAL PART race ; and that he gave himself for the Church, that he might sanctify, and eventually glorify it, — his intention in dying must therefore have been limited to those who should be saved by him with an everlasting salvation a : That the term Redemption, as used with reference to the death of Christ, signifies deliverance on the ground of a ransom ; that the ransom was the life of Christ ; that, in giving his life a ransom to law and justice, he is said to have obtained eternal redemption for us ; and that justice must re- quire that all for whom he died be put in possession of that eter- nal redemption b : That Christ died to fulfil the condition of the covenant of redemption ; but had his death, in fulfilling that con- dition, been for all mankind, divine faithfulness would have re- quired that the redemption promised in the covenant should be extended to all mankind : That the apostle infers, from the great- ness of God's love in delivering up his Son to the death for sinners, that he will not withhold from them any of the blessings of salva- tion ; but those are not conferred on all mankind ; we must there- fore conclude, that he did not die for all mankind d : That the same apostle infers the certainty of our complete salvation by the life of Christ, from our reconciliation to God by his death ; but if his reasoning proves any thing, it proves that all mankind were not reconciled to God by the death of Christ, since all are not saved by his life e : That we are told that the Father's design in making Christ a sin-offering for us, was, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him ; but all mankind are not made righteous in him ; his death could not, therefore be intended by God for all mankind f : That our Lord's intercession proceeds on the ground of his sacrifice for sin ; they must therefore be of the same extent with regard to their objects ; but he does not pray for the world, but only for them who were given him out of the world ; his sacrifice must therefore be restricted to that definite number g : That the doctrine, of his dying for all mankind, leads to the absurd notion that he shed his blood for many in vain : In fine, that the advocates for universal purchase, also plead for con- ditional salvation, — or that God gave his Son to die for all, that the salvation of all might be possible, upon condition of their faith, repentance, and sincere obedience : but to render this scheme con- a Acts xx. 28; Eph. v. 25, 26. b Tit. ii. 14, 15 ; Heb. ix. 12. c Is. liii. 10. (1 Rom. viii. 32. e Horn. v. 10. f 2d Cor. v. 21. g John xvii. 9. OF THE TESTIMONY. 117 srstent, God must have favoured all mankind with the means of faith, which is not the case ; we must conclude, therefore, that their scheme is not only unscriptural, but inconsistent with itself. We observe farther, That the meaning of the universal terms used in reference to the death of Christ, is to be determined by the context, from which it appears that they refer, not to every indivi- dual, but sometimes to all classes and descriptions of men ; as when the atonement of Christ, which extends to some of all nations, is contrasted with the Levitical atonement, which was restricted to one nation 3 ; and in other passages where these terms are used, the reference is not to the intention of his death, nor to its ul- timate effects with regard to individuals, but to the exhibition made of him in the gospel, as God's ordinance for salvation to all who hear it b . CHAPTER IX. OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL, AND THE GOSPEL CALL. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. x., and in oppo- sition to the Neonomians, who maintain, that the Gospel is a new law, according to which faith, repentance, and sincere obedience, are the conditions of life ; and that we are called to repent and forsake sin, in order to our coming to Christ ; — and to the Baxterians, who restrict the Gospel call to sensible sinners, or those who are con- vinced of their sin and their need of the Saviour, and who feel certain desires after him, — we declare, That the law, in a strict and proper sense, consists of precepts and sanctions, the former prescribing rules of duty, and the latter denouncing penalties in case of disobedience ; that the gospel, in a strict sense, and as distinguished from the law, has neither precepts nor sanctions, but is a revelation of a free, full and everlasting salvation to sinners of mankind through the mediation of Christ ; that to teach that sinners are called to repent and forsake sin in order to their coming to Christ, is to frustrate the grace of God, by making righteousness still to be by the works of the law ; and that to restrict the Gospel call to sensible sinners is a refined species of Arminianism, a Rom. iii. 22, 23 ; 29 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6. b 1 John ii, 2. 118 DOCTRINAL PART since it makes our access to Christ, and his salvation, to de- pend on something in ourselves, and not upon the free offer which God makes of him to sinners in the gospel. In support of this we observe, That the law is sometimes used in Scripture, in a large sense, for the whole of divine revelation ; that the gospel also is sometimes used in a large sense, for all that Jesus began to do and teach until the time he was taken up into heaven ; that, in this sense, faith, repentance, and sincere obedience, belong to the gospel, not as a new law, but as acts of evangeli- cal obedience to the moral law ; not as conditions of salvation, but as the effects of it wrought in us by the Spirit of Christ : That the Neonomian opinion of the gospel's being a new law, according to which faith, repentance and sincere obedience are the conditions of life, implies that the original law given to man was too severe ; that this opinion is at once opposed to the immutability of the di- vine law, and to the freedom and sovereignty of divine grace a : That the gospel is good news and glad tidings to perishing sinners of mankind, expressed in supernatural doctrines respecting the per- son and mediation of Christ, in unconditional promises, and in free offers of salvation through him b : That our Lord Jesus Christ, having fulfilled the condition of the covenant of grace, its promises, as tendered to us, are absolutely free : That some of them refer to the beginning, others to the progress, and others to the consum- mation, of salvation in the souls of men c : That this accounts for the conditional form in which some of them are expressed — those promises which refer to progress in salvation being addressed to persons already in a state of grace, and those which refer to its con- summation, to persons who have made progress in holiness ; but that these attainments are mentioned, not as the conditions of the blessings promised, but only as characteristic of the persons to whom these promises are applicable, and to point out the relation they have to other promises of which those persons are already in posses- sion d : That this serves, in particular, to explain the connection between faith and an interest in the promises which refer to the progress and consummation of salvation ; that faith itself is the gift of God, — a promised blessing ; that it is the first principle of a Math. v. 17, 18 ; Rom. iii. 31 ; ix. 11 ; Eph. ii. 8, 9. b Luke ii. 10 ; I Cor. xv. 1,2; Rom. xi. 28 ; Tit. i. 2 ; Acts xiii. 26. c Gal, iii. 18 ; 2 Cor. i. 20. d Job. xvii. 9 ; Is. xl. 31 ; 1 Tim. iv. 8 ; Rev. iii. 12, 21. OF THE TESTIMONY 119 •spiritual life, and the instrument by which we receive and realize all the promises which refer to the progress and consummation of that life ; and that it is for this reason that these promises are ad- dressed to faith, and contain assurances of actual interest in the blessings promised only to them who believe a . We also observe, That God makes a free grant of Christ and salvation through him, in the offers of the Gospel, to sinners of mankind who hear it, without exception : That this grant is made in the Gospel offer as really to those who eventually reject it, as it is to those who eventually receive it ; and that, if this were not the -case, the former class of Gospel hearers could not be condemned for their unbelief 5 . We further observe, That although the Gospel, strictly taken, contains in itself neither precepts nor sanctions ; yet, from the dig- nity and moral supremacy of its author, and the obligation which mankind, to whom it is addressed, are necessarily under, from the moral law, to believe whatever God may be pleased to reveal as a rule of faith ; it must come to all who hear it with divine authority, binding them to receive and improve it for all the purposes of their salvation c : That this authority, which is only implied in the pro- mises and offers of the Gospel, is expressed in its call ; and that the call of the Gospel, on this account, partakes both of the nature of the Gospel, and of the Law ; of the Gospel, as it exhibits privi- lege, and of the Law as it contains a divine injunction to improve it d : That the Gospel is not, on that account, a new law; for the obligation to believe it, whether implied or expressed, does not spring formally from the Gospel itself, but from the moral law, under which Gospel hearers necessarily are, as rational and respon- sible agents e : That although it must be always the duty of sinners to repent and forsake sin, yet the Gospel call is not a call to do so in order to their coming to Christ ; for Christ, in his righteousness and salvation, is brought near to those who are stout-hearted, and far from righteousness f : That this call is not restricted to those who are convinced of their sin, and of their need of the Saviour ; for it is addressed to persons sunk in total insensibility as to their own mi- series and wants g : Finally we observe, That the universality of the a Eph. ii. 8 ; Is. xi. 10 ; Acts xiii, 38, 39 ; John xi. 25, 26. b John iii. 18, 19. c Heb. ii, 1., 3. d Prov. i. 24, 25. e John v. 45, 46, 47 ; vii. 19- f Is. i. 18 ; xlvi. 12, 13. g Rev. iii. 17, 18 ; John v. 25. 120 DOCTRINAL PART Gospel call does not interfere with the doctrines of particular elec- tion and redemption; that the objects of both of these must remain a secret in the mind of God till unfolded by their being actually brought into a state of salvation ; but that the call of the Gospel proceeds upon the general relation Christ stands in to sinners of mankind, in distinction from fallen angels, as a kinsman redeemer, — the intrinsic value of his death for the redemption of mankind sinners, how many and aggravated soever their transgressions may be, — and the suitableness of his offices for all the purposes of their salvation a , CHAPTER X. OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. x., and in op- position to the Arminians and others, who make the success of the Spirit's work in conversion to depend on the sinner's free will, and hold that there are no operations of the Spirit in conversion, which do not leave the sinner in such a state as that he may either comply with them or not, — we declare, That the application of salvation is the effect of divine power, and is ascribed in Scripture to the special operation of the Holy Spirit accompanying the means of grace upon the minds of men ; that, to represent the success of the Spirit's work in regene- ration and conversion, as depending on the sinner's free will, is to make the divine will dependent on the human; and that the change of the sinner's will is the effect and not the cause of the success of the Spirit's work in conversion, for it is God who worketh in him both to will and to do of his good plea- sure. In proof of this we observe, That, in dealing with sinners by the external means of salvation, the Holy Spirit acts sovereignly in respect of the kind and degree of his influence with which these means are accompanied upon their minds ; and that there are com- mon operations of the Spirit which produce convictions of sin by means of the law in the conscience, and joyous emotions, by means of the gospel in the affections of men in their natural state, which a Heb. ii. 16, 17; John iii. 16, 17 ; Math, xviii. 11 ; Heb. vii. 24, 25. OF THE TESTIMONY. 121 do not always issue in conversion a ; That although the corrup- tions of the heart are opposed to these operations, and often quench the effects produced by them, yet this does not arise from a want of power in the Spirit to overcome that opposition by fol- lowing up his common by his special operations, so as to produce a saving change of heart, but that it must be referred wholly to his sovereignty in quickening whom he will b : That in conversion, the sinner is the subject of the special operation of the Spirit, which differs in kind and degree from those common operations which are not in their own nature saving ; and that it is by the saving operations of the Spirit that he is born again, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God c : That the special operation of the Spirit overcomes all opposition, and sweetly, yet powerfully, inclines and determines the sinner to embrace Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in the gospel d : That the operation of the Spirit in conversion does not destroy man's natural liberty, nor pervert the natural order of the operations of the mind ; for by saving illu- mination, Christ and divine things become the most powerful mo- tives in the understanding, and the will, which always follows the most powerful motives, makes choice of them as the things that are most excellent ; — the will is not forced but inclined, — the sinner is not compelled to follow Christ against his will, but made willing in the day of his power e : That all this is the effect of no created power, but of the power of God's Spirit ; and of no common ope- rations of the Spirit, but of his special operation, corresponding to the working of that mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead f : In fine, that the same savino* operation of the Spirit which is necessary to conversion, is neces- sary to afford the believer new discoveries of the glory of Christ, to strengthen him with all might in the inner man, to direct him in the paths of righteousness, and to carry on the work of sanctifi cation in his soul till he arrive at perfection g . a Acts xxiv. 25 ; Math. xiii. 20, 21 ; Heb. vi. 4, 5. b Acts vii. 51 ; John iii. 3. c Tit. iii. 5 ; John iii. 3, 5 ; Eph. ii. 10 ; i. 17, 18. d John vi. 44, 45 ; Phil. ii. 13. e Ps. ex. 3. f Eph. i. 19. g John xvi. 13, 14 ; Eph. iii. 16; Rom. viii. 13, 14 ; 2 Thes. ii. 13. 122 DOCTRINAL PART CHAPTER XI. OF JUSTIFICATION, In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap, xi., and in opposition to the Papists, who maintain that justification is by the infusing of righteous dispositions, and not by the imputation of righteousness ; to the Socinians and Pelagians, who maintain that we are justified solely by our own works ; and to the Neonomians, who plead for justification on the ground of faith, repentance, and sincere obedience as a new law, — we declare, That justification is a judicial act of God, and is not a change of heart, but of the sinner's state in relation to the law ; and that, in justification, God, by an act of free and sovereign grace, grants him the remission of all his sins, and receives his per- son into a state of favour and friendship, only on the ground of the righteousness of his own Son, which is imputed to him by God, and received by faith alone. In support of this we observe, That justification is opposed in Scripture to condemnation, and that it must therefore be a change of the sinner's state and not of his heart 3 : That as the person jus- tified is by nature ungodly, it must include not only the acceptance of his person as righteous in the eye of the law, but also the remis- sion of all his sins, original as well as actual b : That since God is a righteous judge, in justifying he must proceed on the ground of a righteousness answering all the claims which his holy law has up- on the sinner, both for obedience to its precept, and satisfaction to its penalty incurred by transgression c : That as the law of God concludes all our fallen race under sin, so no man can be justified before God, in whole or in part, upon the ground of his own right- eousness d : That the justification of the sinner before God is wholly on the ground of the righteousness of Christ as our surety, includ- ing his perfect obedience to the precept, and his complete satisfaction to the penalty of the divine law ; and that this righteousness be- comes ours for our justification by God imputing it to us, and our «t Rom. viii. 33, 34. b Rom. iii. 25, 26 ; Acts xiii. 39. c Exod. xxiii. 7; James ii. 10 ; Gal. iii. 10. cl Rom. iii. 19, 20; Gal. ii. 16. OF THE TESTIMONY. 123 receiving it by faith alone a : That we are justified by faith, not as our act of obedience to the moral law, nor as a new law, else right- eousness would still be by the works of the law, contrary to the ex- press declaration of Scripture, but purely as an instrument by which we receive the gift of righteousness exhibited to us in the Gospel for our justification ; and that faith, so far from being of the nature of a meritorious condition in justification, is appointed by God as the instrumental cause of it, that it may be by grace ; and that faith, as it justifies, is opposed to all works of ours what- ever b : That although j ustification is conferred on the ground of a mediatorial righteousness, it is purely of grace to the sinner, and that the rich grace of God is displayed, not only in justifying, but in providing the righteousness on the ground of which the sinner is justified, by the choice and mission of his own Son to satisfy the claims of the law in our stead c : That justification is an act of God completed at once, so that the person who is pardoned and ac- cepted can never more forfeit the divine favour, or come into con- demnation ; that although after he is justified he may commit many sins in their own nature deserving of death, yet God having im- puted to him the righteousness of Christ, will not impute the guilt of these sins so as to deal with him as an offended judge on their account ; and that, whatever he suffers in the present life on account of sin, is corrective and not penal d : In fine, that justifica- tion by imputed righteousness is equally calculated to display the glory of divine grace, and to illustrate the glory of divine justice, since, according to it, the sinner is rescued from destruction, while the law is not only fulfilled, but magnified and made honourable. 6 CHAPTER XII. OF THE FREEDOM OF BELIEVERS FROM THE LAW AS A COVENANT, AND THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF EVANGELICAL HOLINESS. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. xvi. ; and in opposition to the following Neonomian errors, — That believers are under some obligation to perform obedience, as necessary to obtain a Rom. iii. 24 ; x. 4 ; iv. 6 ; v. 1, 17- b Rom. iv. 16 ; Gal ii. 16 ; Eph. if. 8, 9. c Job. xxxiii. 24 ; John iii. 17 ; Rom. viii. 3, 4. d Rom. viii, 1 ; Is. liv. 9, 10 ; Rom. iv. 8 ; Ps. lxxxix. 31, 32, 33 ; Heb. xii. 6. 7. e Rom. iii. 25, 26; Ps. lxxxv. 10, 11, 12, 13. 124 DOCTltlNAL PAltT and secure the favour of God ; or that holiness is a federal or con- ditional means of obtaining glory, or has some casual influence for that end : That the doctrine of the believer's complete freedom from the law, as a covenant, tends to licentiousness, and weakens the obligation of the law ; that a fear of falling under wrath, and hope of life, according to the tenor of the law-covenant, are neces- sary and warrantable motives to holy obedience ; — and also, in op- position to the Antinomians, who maintain, that believers are not under obligation to the law as a rule of life, — we declare, That although the moral law, having its foundation in God's su- premacy and man's dependence, or the moral relations which necessarily subsist between God and his intelligent creature, must be of perpetual obligation as a rule of life ; yet believers, by their justification through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, are set completely free from the law as a cove- nant of works ; that they are not required to perform obe- dience to the law as the condition of life, or to obtain or se- cure the acceptance of their persons with God, being accepted in his beloved Son, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth ; that their freedom from the law in its covenant-form, instead of weakening, greatly strengthens their sense of obligation to it as a rule of righteousness, as it furnishes them with many additional motives to the study of holiness ; and that, although a filial fear of God is a powerful principle of holy obedience, yet a fear of falling under his wrath, and a hope of life, according to the tenor of the law of works, cannot be warrantable motives to obedience, as they proceed from a disposiiion to seek righteousness by the works of the law, which is pointedly condemned in Scripture ; and as they are incompatible with faith in God, as our Father through Christ, and that perfect law which casts out slavish fear. In support of this we observe, That man was originally created under the moral law in its natural form a : That all mankind were brought under that law, in a covenant form, in Adam, holding out life as the reward of obedience, and denouncing death as the pu- nishment of transgression ; for although Adam's covenant obedience was made to turn upon his not eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, yet his abstaining from it was to be the test of his obe- a Rom. ii. H. to. OF THE TESTIMONY. 125 dience to the whole law ; and that, in violating the positive precept, he brake the whole moral-natural law, virtually summed up in it, and thereby entailed the curse upon himself, and all his natural posterity a : That, although the law of the covenant of works ceased to be a law that could give life to Adam, or his posterity, the mo- ment the covenant was broken, not only from their inability to act up to its requirements, but also from the promise annexed to the keeping of it being forfeited by Adam's first sin, — yet as that law, so far as in its own nature moral, is of perpetual obligation, fallen men must still be under its commanding power, exacting from them indi- vidually perpetual obedience, upon the pain of death for every act of disobedience ; and also under its penalty, as incurred, not only by the first sin of Adam, as their federal representative, but also by their own personal transgressions b : That this is the law which Christ, as our surety, fulfilled in the room of his people ; that it is from the law, in this form, that believers are set free by their justifica- tion through his imputed righteousness ; and that to shew the com- plete nature of this freedom, we are told that Christ hath redeemed them from its curse, — that they are dead to the law through the body of Christ, — that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, — and that they are not under the law, but under grace c . We also observe, in opposition to the Antinomians, that although believers are completely delivered from the law in its covenant form, yet they are under it as a rule of righteousness, in the hand of the Mediator — " not without law to God, but under the law to Christ ;*" and that their obligation to the study of holiness, so far from being lessened, is greatly increased from the dispensa- tion of grace which they are under d : That they are bound to study holiness, not only in common with other rational creatures, from their dependence on God for their existence and daily pre- servation, but also from their election of grace, — their redemption through the blood of Christ, — and their effectual vocation e : That, although the law docs not require obedience from believers in order to obtain life or to avoid condemnation, these ends beino- effectually secured by the obedience and death of Christ, yet conformity to it is necessary in their case, from the authority of a Rom. v. 12, 17- b Rom. viii. 8, 3; Gal. iii. 10, 21. c Math. v. 17 ; Gal. iii. 13 ; Rom. vii. 4 ; v. 4 ; vi. 14. (1 1 Cor. ix, 21 ; Rom. vi. 1, 2. e Kph. i. 4 ; 1 Cor. vi. 20 ; I Thes. iv. 7 : 1 Pet. i. 14, 15, 126 DOCTRINAL PART God requiring it, as an evidence of their interest in Christ — as a principal part of salvation — and as rendering them meet for the en- joyment of God, both here and hereafter 3 : That true holiness is of an evangelical nature ; that it does not spring from a slavish fear of God's vindictive wrath, or a servile hope of life, on the ground of our own works, but from faith in God as our covenant God through Christ — a filial reverence of God as our Father in Hea- ven — supreme love of God, and delight in him, as our present and everlasting portion — gratitude to him for Christ and salvation through him — and a supreme desire to promote the ends of his glory b ; and, that it is promoted by the powerful considerations of the love of the Father, in sending his Son to save us — the love of Christ, in giving his life to redeem us — the love of the Spirit, in coming to apply salvation unto us and the hope of a blessed im- mortality in Heaven c . We observe farther, That freedom from the law in its old covenant form, and union to Christ, the head of the new covenant, are absolutely necessary to a life of holiness d ; that the law leaves us under its curse, and lying under the power of spiritual death, and consequently destitute of power to do that which is spiritually good ; that it produces, in the conscience of the natural man, a dread of God, as an avenging judge, and, instead of subduing, is the occasion of irritating his corruptions ; and that the works performed under the influence of these principles, are dead works, and cannot be acceptable to God e : Finally, That it is only by union to Christ, that our persons and services are accepted ; that it is from him we derive strength for duty, grace to overcome temptation, and whatever is necessary to the perfecting of holiness in the fear of God f : CHAPTER XIII. OF SAVING FAITH AND EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap, xiv., and in opposition to those who maintain, that saving faith is no more than a a 1 John ii. 4 ; Psal. cxix. 4 ; John xv. 5--14 ; Rom. viii. 10 ; 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Tit. ii. 14 ; iii. 5, 6 ; Math. v. 8 ; Heb. xii. 14. b Luke i. 74 ; 1 John iv. 18 ; Rom. viii. 15 ; Deut. x. 20, 21 ; 1 Pet. i, 17 ; Math. xxii. 37; 1 John iv. 19 ; I Cor. x. 31. c John iv. 8, 9 ; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 ; Eph. iv, 30 ; 1 John iii. 3, 4. d Rom. vii. 4 ; Gal, ii, 19, e Rom. vii. 7, 8 ; iv. 15; Heb. ix. 14. f Eph. i. 6; Pet. ii. 5; John xv. 4 ; Phil. iv. 13; 2 Cor. 12. 9 ; Col, ii. 19. OF THE TESTIMONY. 12? simple or general belief of the doctrine of the gospel, that assurance is not of the nature of faith, and that we must repent of our sins before we come to Christ, — we declare, That saving faith is a supernatural principle wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, whereby the person who believes as- sents to the testimony of God, concerning his Son Jesus Christ, in the Gospel, not only as infallibly true, but also as containing a free grant to him of Christ, and all salvation through him, and by which he receives and rests on Christ, as his own Sa- viour, upon the footing of that grant ; aud that, although legal sorrow precedes saving faith, yet evangelical repentance, or god- ly sorrow for sin, and turning from it unto God, always flow from it. In support of this we observe, That although saving faith gives full credit to the whole word of God, on the authority of God him- self speaking to us in the Scriptures ; and although it is exercised about its various parts, according to their nature and our necessi- ties, yet its principal acts are " receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel a :" That, as the gospel does not consist merely of historical facts, or abstract doctrines respecting the Saviour, but also contains in it a free offer of salvation, through him, to sinners of mankind without excep- tion, who hear it, for their acceptance ; so the faith of the gospel, in order that it may correspond with the testimony believed, must include in its nature appropriation b : That the appropriation, which is of the nature of faith, is not a persuasion that Christ and salva- tion are ours in actual possession, but that he is ours in the offer or grant which God makes of him to us in the gospel ; and that it is a claim to him, as our own Saviour, upon the foundation of that grant c : That the appropriation which is in faith is evidently im- plied, when faith is described in scripture as receiving Christ, put- ting on the Lord Jesus, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood,, fleeing to him for refuge, trusting in and staying ourserves on him d . We further observe, That as the testimony on which saving faith rests is infallible, being the testimony of God who cannot He, so it must include in it assurance ; and that if this were not the case it a Gal. ii. 20 ; Rom. x. 17. b John i. 12 ; Is. xxvi. 3, 4. c 1 John v. 1! ; iv. 16 ; 1 Tim. i. 15. d John u\% ; Rom. xiii. 14 ; John vi. 53 ; Heb. vi. 18» J 28 DOCTRINAL PART would not be a receiving of the gospel as it is in truth the word of God and not the word of man a ; That although the believer is of- ten subject to doubting, being weak in faith, and although he may not be conscious in the mean time of his believing ; yet in faith it- self, when exercised, there is always assurance, according to its measure or degree : And that there is a marked distinction between the assurance of faith and the assurance of sense ; — the former having for its object the faithfulness of God in the gospel testimony, and being, in some degree, the attainment of every true christian ; whereas the latter has for its object the existence of a gracious work in the soul, and is not always enjoyed by the believer b . We observe further, That evangelical repentance is a true sense of sin, and sorrow for it, not merely as it exposes us to danger, but on account of its contrariety to the nature and will of God, and a turning from sin to God, with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience c : That although legal sorrow precedes faith, yet evangelical repentance flows from it, as it proceeds both from the knowledge of sin by the law, and from an apprehension of the mercy of God through Christ, as exhibited in the Gospel ; that convictions of sin by the law excite a terror of God, as an avenging Judge ; that a slavish fear of God, instead of subduing the enmity of the heart against him, increases it d : that the faith of pardoning mercy through the blood of Christ slays that enmity ; that the be- liever, overcome by the kindness of God his Saviour, is filled with real compunction for the dishonour done to God by his sin ; and that this accords with those passages of Scripture where repentance is represented as springing from faith in God as our covenant God, and looking upon Christ as wounded for our transgressions e : Finally, that any change produced by legal sorrow for sin, extends only to the outward conduct, and is partial and temporary, whereas evangelical repentance is always productive of a thorough and last- ins: change of heart and conversation f . a I Thes. ii. 13 ; 1 Cor. ii. 4. b John vi. 69 ; iii. 33 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 5. c Ps. Ii. 4 ; Hosea xiv. 8. d Rom. vii. 10, 11. e Ezek. xvi. 62, 63 ; 2d Cor. v. 19 ; Mark i. 15 ; Jer. xxxi. 18, 19 ; Zeeh. xii. 10. f2 Pet. ii. 22; 1 Thes. i. 9, 10. OF THE TESTIMONY. 129 CHAPTER XIV. OF THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. xvii., and in opposition to the Arminians and others, who maintain, that the saints may fall totally and finally from a state of grace, and that the doctrine of their perseverance is unfriendly to holiness, — we DECLARE, That those whom God has accepted in his Son, and effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, shall neither totally nor finally fall away from a state of grace, but shall certainly per- severe therein to the end, and be eternally saved. In proof of this we observe, That the truth of this doctrine ap- pears from the irreversible nature of their pardon and acceptance in justification ; from the perpetuity which the Scripture ascribes to that life implanted in them in their regeneration ; from the connection stated between their effectual vocation, and their glorifi- cation ; from the character of perfection which belongs to all the works of God ; and from the numerous promises which secure their growth in grace and their perseverance a : That their perseverance proceeds not from their own free will, but from the immutability of God's love in their election ; the efficacy of the death of Christ for their eternal redemption ; the perpetuity and prevalence of his intercession ; the continual inhabitation of the Holy Spirit, and the unchangeable nature of God's covenant with them in Christ b . We further observe, That the Scripture doctrine of per- severance connects the means and the end in the purpose of God, in which we were chosen to salvation as the end, through sanctifi- cation of the Spirit and belief of the truth, as the means leading to that end ; that these are connected by Him in carrying the pur- pose into effect, for we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ; and that from this connection, the Scripture doc- trine of perseverance, instead of tending to licentiousness, is one of the most powerful motives to a holy life, as it holds out the certain prospect of final success in the Lord c . a Rom. viii. 1 ; Isai. liv. 9, 10 ; John x. 28, 29; 1 Pet. i. 23, 24, 25 ; Rom. viii. 30 ; Phil. i. 6; Ps. xcii. 12, 13, 14 ; Job xvii. 9. b Jer. x. 23 ; Math. xxiv. 24 ; 2 Tim. ii. 19 ; Jer. xvii. 7, « ; Heb. ix. 12; Heb. vii. 25 ; Luke xxii. 32 ; Eph. iv. 30 ; Jer. xxxii. 40. c 2 Thes. ii. 13,-1 Pet. i. 5 ; 1 Cor. xv. 58. I 130 DOCTRINAL PART CHAPTER XV. OF THE STATE OF MEN AFTER DEATH. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. xxxii., and in opposition to the Purgatory of the Papists ; — to the Deists and others, who deny the doctrine of the resurrection altogether, or that the same body which is buried will be raised from the grave ; — to the Universalists, who maintain that the wicked, after suffering a limited period in hell, will be liberated and introduced into a state of happiness ; — and to the modern opinion, that the punishment of the wicked in a future state will be restricted to remorse, despair, and the workings of their own sinful passions, and that it will not proceed in any degree from positive infliction on the part of God, — WE DECLARE, That there is no intermediate state, the souls of believers at death entering immediately into heaven, and the souls of the wicked into hell ; that there will be a resurrection of the just and of the unjust, and that the same body which was buried will be raised, though different in qualities ; that the state of man is finally determined at death, so that after it he must be either eternally happy or eternally miserable ; and, that the misery of the wicked in hell will arise, not merely from the operations of their own sinful passions, but from their being eternally excluded from all gracious intercourse with God, as the chief good, and subjected to all the painful effects of his judicial displeasure. In proof of which, we observe, That it is evident from our Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, from his declaration to the penitent thief on the cross, and from various other passages of Scripture, that at death the souls of believers immediately pass into heaven, and that the souls of the wicked are immediately cast into hell a : That there will be a universal resurrection, both of the righteous and the wicked, at the second coming of Christ, of the former to the judgment of life, and of the latter to the judgment of condemnation ; that the identical body which was buried will be raised, though different in qualities ; that, if this were not the case, it would not be a resurrection but a creation ; and that this is plainly stated in scripture when we are told that the same bodv, a Luke xvi. 22, 23 ; xxiii. 43 ; Acts vii. 59 ; 2 Cor. v. 8. OF THE TESTIMONY. 131 which was sown a natural body, in weakness, dishonour, and cor- ruption, will be raised a spiritual body, in incorruption, in power, and in glory a . We observe further, in opposition to the Universalists, that their doctrine supposes that the sufferings of the wicked are corrective and purifying, whereas the Scriptures represent them as penal and destructive — " the day of judgment" is the day of " the perdition of ungodly men, 11 a term which signifies irretrievable ruin — the wicked " shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord b r 11 That their sufferings, if penal, must be eternal ; for sin is an evil of infinite desert, and no creature can endure infinite punishment in any limited period of duration ; their punishment, therefore, is to be for ever and ever, in that place where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched c : That their restoration to a state of felicity without holiness, is in the na- ture of things impossible, but that those penal sufferings, of which sinful creatures are the subjects, instead of mollifying and sanctify- ing, are invariably the occasion of hardening them in wickedness d : That if creatures could have satisfied for their own sins, the sub- stitution of Christ, and his sufferings, must have been in vain ; and that the Scriptures assure us, that for those who reject his sacrifice there remaineth no other method of satisfaction for sin e : That it has never been questioned that the happiness of the saints in heaven will be without end, and that this is signified by the term eternal, but that the same term is applied to the punishment of the wicked, — " These shall go into (xianov) everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life (xuunov) eternal f :" That, granting the term ever- lasting sometimes to signify the whole duration of a certain eco- nomy or constitution of things, it will make nothing in support of the doctrine of the Universalists, since it is applied to the punish- ment of the wicked after time, when there is no division of dura- tion, but absolute eternity g : In fine, that the doctrine of universal restoration is of immoral tendency, as it holds out to the sinner the prospect of ultimate deliverance from misery in the way of conti- nuing in the practice of sin. We further observe, that although remorse, despair, and the workings of their own sinful passions, will prove great sources of a John v. 28, 29 ; Job xix. 25, 26 ; Phil. iii. 20, 21 ; 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43, 44. b 2 Pet. iii. 7 ; 2 Thess. i. 9. c Mark ix. 43-48 ; Rev. xx. 10. d Rev. xvi. 9, 11, 21 ; Dan. v. 22 ; Amos iv. 6-12 ; Ps. xcv. 8. e Heb. x. 26, 27- f Math. xxv. 46. g Math, xxv. 41. i2 132 DOCTRINAL PART misery to the wicked in a future state, they will not constitute, in a strict sense, their punishment, for punishment implies the posi- tive infliction of a judge a : That the Scriptures uniformly teach- us that the wicked in a future state will be subjected to the wrath of God, which evidently implies positive infliction on his part b : That to limit their sufferings to remorse, despair, and what arises from their own sinful passions, is virtually to deny that Christ endured the curse of the law in the room of his people, for neither remorse, despair, nor any of the misery that springs from the workings of sinful passions, entered into his sufferings ; and that, for this reason, the doctrine is of dangerous tendency, as it strikes at the foundation of one of the leading articles of the christian faith, CHAPTER XVI OF MORAL-NATURAL, A"ND INSTITUTED WORSHIP. In opposition to those who reject certain religious duties, such as vowing and swearing to God, because they have not a positive in- stitution in Scripture, — we declare, That although the will of God is the reason of our duty in every- thing relating to his worship, yet his will, with regard to the manner in which he is to be worshipped, has been made known to mankind in different ways — as by the moral law, ori- ginally engraven on the heart of man, commonly called the law of nature — by the moral law as revealed in the Scripture — and by positive institution ; and that in whatever way his will has been signified, it must be binding upon the conscience ; that there are certain acts of religion which spring from those mo- ral relations, which necessarily subsist between God and his intelligent creatures, or which have their foundation in moral- natural law, such as prayer, praise, fasting, an oath, and vow- ing to God ; and that there are other acts of worship which do not spring from these relations, and have not their foundation in moral-natural law, such as circumcision and the passover, under the former, and Baptism and the Lord's Supper, under the present, dispensation ; and that duties of the former class, being in their nature moral, need no institution distinct from the moral law itself, natural or revealed, to give them autho- a Heb. x. 30 ; Jam. iv. 12. b Math. x. 28 ; Ps. xi. a. OF THE TESTIMONY. 133 rity as acts of religious worship, whereas those of the latter class derive their matter and form, as well as their authority, solely from positive institution. In support of these statements we observe, That the law of na- ture engraven upon man's heart, in his original creation, was from God, as well as the moral law written on tables of stone ; and that, though greatly effaced by the entrance of sin, its dictates are bind- ing on the conscience : That, unless this be admitted, those who never enjoyed the written law cannot be chargeable with actual sin, for where there is no law, there is no transgression a : That we find no account in the Scripture of any supernatural revelation of the mo- ral law, as it regards the worship of God, till the time of Moses ; Jbut, prior to that period, the patriarchs observed the several acts of moral worship, and among others vowing to God, from winch we may infer that, in doing so, they followed the dictates of nature 15 : That this act of worship has its foundation in natural law is also evident, from its being practised by the Gentiles, who never enjoyed the written law c : That those who reject vowing and swearing to God, because they have no positive institution, like baptism and the Lord's supper, mistake the nature of these duties ; for being in their own nature moral, they need no such institution ; and that, upon the same ground, prayer and praise might be set aside as parts of worship, for these also have no institution different from the moral law, natural or revealed : That the acts of moral-natural worship, springing from those moral relations which necessarily subsist between God and his intelligent creatures, must be of per- petual obligation ; but that acts of instituted worship, springing purely from the will of God, may be set aside by him at pleasure, as was the case with regard to the whole ceremonial ritual upon the introduction of the New Dispensation d : That Baptism and the Lord's Supper, though acts of instituted worship, are to continue in the Church till the end of time, by the express appointment of Christ e : Finally, That although praise, prayer, vowing, and swearing to God, have their foundation in natural religion and law, and therefore must be binding on mankind in general, as subjects of the moral government of God ; yet they cannot be performed ac- ceptably by fallen men, without the knowledge of the doctrines of supernatural revelation, or faith in the mediation of Christ f . a Rom. iv. 15. b Rom. v. 13 ; Gen. xxviii. 20. c Jonah i. 10. d Eph. ii. 15. e Math, xxviii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xi. 23, 26". i'Eph. i. 6; 1 Pet. ii. 5. J 134 DOCTRINAL PART CHAPTER XVII. OF THE ACTS OF MORAL-NATURAL WORSHIP. Sect. I. — Of Prayer. In opposition to the Papists, Episcopalians, and others, who plead for the use of a Liturgy, or prescribed and restricted forms of prayer ; and also to the superstitious and idolatrous practices of the Papists, in addressing prayers to angels and departed saints, and offering up prayers for the dead, — we declare, That, although all Scripture is of use to direct us in prayer, espe- cially that pattern of it commonly called the Lord's Prayer, yet prescribed and restricted forms of prayer have no warrant, either from Scripture precept, or example ; that prayer for the dead is grossly superstitious ; and that addressing prayer to angels or departed saints, is gross impiety. In support of this, we observe, That what is commonly called the Lord's Prayer, was evidently not intended by Christ as a set form, but only as a directory with regard to the matter and man- ner of prayer, as appears from the variation of the phraseology in the account given of it by the different inspired Evangelists, and also from the introductory sentence, " After this manner pray ye a :" That prescribed and restricted forms of prayer set limits to the Spirit, as the Spirit of grace and supplication, who helps our infirmities, by directing us what to pray for, and how to pre- sent our petitions to God's throne b : That set forms of prayer, from the frequent repetition of them, tend to cool the ardour of devotion, .and lead to formality, not only in words, but also in the frame of the mind in the worship of God : That acceptable prayer is the offering up of the desires of the heart to God ; but no form prescribed by others can in all cases be adequate for expressing these in prayer c • That no restricted form of prayer can possibly answer all the changes of circumstances, not only in the case of individuals, but also of families, nations, and churches ; and yet in reference to all these, we are commanded by prayer and supplica- tions to let our requests be made known to God d : That although a Math. vi. 0, 10, 11, 12, 13 ; Luke xi. 2, 3, 4. b Rom. viii. 26, 27. c Prov. xiv. 10; 1 Kings viii. 38; Math. xii. 34. d Phil. iv. 6. OF THE TESTIMONY. 135 the pastor is to act as the mouth of the congregation in addressing God's throne in public worship, yet this is neither equivalent to pre- scribed forms of prayer, nor does it furnish an argument for them, — for, in the exercise of his ministerial function, he has the promise of the gift of prayer, as well as other ministerial gifts, for the public edification of the church a : And that set forms of prayer furnish a strong temptation to persons, both in public and private stations, altogether to neglect the gift of it. Further, we observe, That the state of man being finally determined at death, prayer for the dead is utterly unwarrantable, and countenances the unscriptural doc- trine of purgatory : And, finally, that addressing prayer to angels or departed saints is a direct violation of the first precept of the moral law b . Sect. II. — Of Praise, and the Psalmody. In opposition to those who maintain that many of the Psalms of David are inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, and who sub- stitute hymns of human composition in their room in the public worship of God, — we declare, That although there are other Scripture songs besides those con- tained in the Book of Psalms, yet the latter seem to have been especially intended by God to be used in the exercise of public praise, from their being delivered to the Church by the Holy Spirit for that purpose ; that to assert there is any thing in these Psalms inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, is to suppose that the Holy Spirit may act at variance with him- self, for both were given by his inspiration ; and that to in- troduce hymns of human composition, or even paraphrases, in which undue liberties are taken with the original text, tends to endanger the purity both of the worship and doctrines of the Church. For illustration, we observe, That although all are supposed to join in the public prayers of the church, yet only one acts imme- diately, as the mouth of the congregation, in addressing the object of prayer ; whereas, in celebrating His praises in public, every in- dividual is to be directly and immediately engaged, which cannot be done with unity and harmony without a set form, with which the whole assembly are acquainted c : That the Psalms of David are adapted to the use of the church, under the present as well as the a 1 Cor. xii. ; Acts vi. 4. b Exod. xx. 3 ; Col. ii. 18 ; Rev. xxii. 9. c 1 Cor. xiv. 26. 136 DOCTRINAL PAHT former dispensation, appears from their moral nature, — from the few references they have to a ceremonial ritual, and the many re- ferences they have to the person, offices, and work of Christ, and to the rise, progress, and glory of his kingdom, — from their sublimity, spirituality, and fitness to express the most ardent and exalted de- votional exercises of the heart, — from the fervent piety which breathes through the whole, — and from the extensive range of subjects, adapted to the variety of circumstances in which the church and her particular members may be placed: That none of the Psalms gives countenance to private quarrels or personal revenge ; that such of them as have been supposed to do so, are prophetical, or contain denunciations of God's righteous judgments on his implacable enemies ; and that similar denunciations occur not unfrequently in the New Testa- ment a : That the use of these Psalms in New Testament times is sanctioned by the precept and example of our Lord and his Apos- tles ; and that, when songs and hymns are spoken of in the New Testament along with psalms, there is no evidence that different compositions from the Psalms of David are intended, for some of these are styled songs, and others hymns, from the subjects of which they treat, or the occasion on which they were to be sung b : Finally, That as praise is a part of moral worship, and peculiarly adapted to New Testament times, if it had been intended by the Spirit of God that the use of the Psalms of David was to be set aside, there is reason to think that some intimation would have been given to that effect in the New Testament, and another psal- iiiody provided in their room. Sect. III. — Of Oaths, Vows, and Religious Covenants. 1. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. xxii., and in opposition to the Quakers, and others, who deny the warranta- bleness of an oath ; and also, to the practice of those who enter in- to oaths on trivial occasions, and without being previously acquaint- ed with the matter and object of them, — we declare, That an oath is a solemn act of moral worship, in which the per- son swearing calls God to witness his sincerity in what he as- serts or promises, and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he swears ; that an oath is only to be taken in the name of God, on weighty occasions, in judgment, with a 1 Cor. xvi. 22; Rev. vi. 10. ')) Eph. v. If); Col. iii. Hi; James v. 13 ; Math. xxvi. 30. OF THE TESTIMONY. 137 regard to the matter and object of it, and in truth, without equivocation or mental reservation ; and that, being in its na- ture moral, it must, when required and imposed by lawful au- thority, be warrantable under every dispensation. In support of this, we observe, That an oath for confirmation is warranted by the third precept of the moral law, and sanctioned by approved examples under the former dispensation : That, when our Lord and his Apostles prohibit swearing, it is either false or profane swearing, or swearing by creatures a : That the circum- stances of society, both civil and religious^ render such an appeal to God necessary under the present, as well as under the former dispensation, and that the warrantableness of it is expressly recog- nised in the New Testament b : that an appeal to God by oath in trivial matters is a taking of the name of God in vain ; and that swearing to things unknown, or of a doubtful nature, is a direct violation of God's law, and calculated to involve the swearer in the heinous sin of perjury : Finally, That, as lifting up the hand is the usual mode of swearing mentioned in Scripture, so it ought to be preferred ; and that all superstitious, and especially idolatrous forms are sinful d . 2. In support of the doctrine of the Confession, ch. xxii. sect. 5, 6, 7, and in opposition to the sentiments of those who deny the war- rantableness of explicit vowing to God, and particularly of public religious covenanting ; and who maintain, that public covenanting un- der the former dispensation was a ceremonial observance or Jewish peculiarity, or that its use is superseded, under the New Testa- ment, by die observance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, — we DECLARE, That an explicit vow is a solemn promise to God ; that it may be entered into either personally or socially, or with or without an oath ; that it may have, for the matter of it, either neces- sary duties, or other things not expressly required, so far, and so long, as they may be conducive to the better performance of these duties ; and that, in both cases, the person vowing brings himself under obligation by his vow : That public re- ligious covenanting, along with a social vow to God, includes confederation among the covenanters themselves, to aid and a Math. v. 33-36. b Heb. vi. 16*. c Ps. xxiv. 4. d Rev. x, 5, fi. 138 DOCTHINAL PART support one another to carry into effect the object of their vow; and that, since both have their foundation in natural principles and law, they cannot be Jewish peculiarities, but must be equally adapted to the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. In proof of this we observe, That implicit vowing enters into every part of religious worship ; it cannot, therefore, be unwar- rantable to engage in it explicitly when circumstances require it : That vowing and swearing unto God, whether personal or so- cial, have their foundation in natural law ; that they are evidently authorised by the three first precepts of the Decalogue, and ex- pressly enjoined by other moral precepts in Scripture ; and, that they are sanctioned by the approved example of the people of God in every age a . We observe farther, That public religious covenanting is not a ceremonial observance, for it was practised at Horeb, before the ceremonial law was given to Israel ; and that it cannot be a Jewish peculiarity, since it was predicted in ancient prophecy, that it should be practised by the gentiles in New Testament times b : That those who maintain that the use of social vowing and swear- ing unto God is now superseded by the observance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, obviously mistake the nature and primary ends both of social vows and of the sacraments ; that vowing and swearing unto God are in their own nature moral, but that the Gospel, and its institutions, do not make void the law, which would be the case, if the positive institutions of Baptism and the Lord's Supper set aside these duties c : That the same implicit vowing which enters into the observance of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, entered into the observance of Circumcision and the Pass- over ; and that, if it rendered explicit vowing unnecessary in the one case, it must have done so also in the other : That, although the duties and ordinances of religion have all some things in com- mon, yet they are specifically different, so that no one of them can answer the primary intention of another ; that confirmation is that in which social vowing and the sacraments principally coincide, yet, in this particular, they differ with respect to their immediate object or primary end ; for the primary end of the sacraments is, the con- a Ps. lxxvi. 11 ; Gen. xxviii. 20 ; Ps. cxxxii. 2; Num. xxi. 2. b Exod. xix. 8 ; xxiv. 3. 7 ; Isa. xix. 18-21 ; xlv. 23, 24 ; Jer. 1. 4, 5. c Horn. iii. 31. OF THE TESTIMONY. 139 firmation on the part of God of his grant to us of all the blessings of his covenant a , whereas the primary end of social vowing, is the confirmation on our part of our allegiance to him, and our joint adherence to his cause b . 4. In opposition to those who deny the warrantableness of national religious covenanting, — we declare, That, although public religious covenanting is a duty peculiarly suited to the Church, and which can be performed acceptably only in the faith of the supernatural doctrines of the Gospel committed to her ; and although, in all cases wherein it is practicable, her functionaries should take the lead in the ser- vice, by framing the bonds, and administering the oaths ; yet, as religious covenanting has its foundation in moral-natural law, which is common to mankind in general, it is not exclu- sively an ecclesiastical ordinance : That as nations, as such, are the subjects of God's moral government, so they must have a religious character ; that, when favoured with the knowledge of supernatural religion, they are bound to recognise and embrace it ; and that this being admitted, it must follow, that, as chris- tian nations, they may warrantably enter into national engage- ments to employ every means competent to them, and suited to its nature, for its defence and propagation. In support of this we observe, That, as men in their social state, as well as individuals, are the subjects of God's moral government, and as such bound to devote their several stations and relations in life to the honour of God, by employing them in subserviency to the interests of pure and undefiled religion ; so it must be compe- tent to the several classes of which a nation is composed, to enter into a solemn vow to God, and to confederate with one another, to employ the combined influence of their several stations for the bet- ter effecting of that end : That the covenants of God's ancient people were national deeds, and that this did not arise from any peculiarity of the economy they were under, but from all ranks and classes of the nation being comprehended in them : That national covenanting is neither inconsistent with the spirit nor the letter of those predictions in the Old Testament, which refer to the practice of the duty in New Testament times ; that nations are cities on a larger scale ; but we are told, that * five cities in the land of Egypt a Luke xxii. 19, 20 ; Acts ii. 38. b Exod, xxiv. 7 ; Ps. cxix. 106. 140 DOCTRINAL PART shall speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts," and that " they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it ;" that we are told, that " the kingdoms of this world shall be- come the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ," which must re- fer to their public and joint profession ; that we are also told, that " the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory;" but the connection leads us to conclude, that they shall do so in the way of national covenanting a . 4. In opposition to those who deny that National Covenants can be renewed unless it be done nationally, — we declare, That as, in national vows for promoting religious reformation in countries where the Church is in an organised state, she is sup- posed to take the lead in the service, the civil authorities of the nation, and the body of the people concurring with her, and entering into the oaths ; and as these vows must be bind- ing in all moral respects, not only upon the nation as a whole, but also upon the several parts of which it is composed ; so it must be competent to the Church, or any part of her adhering to the covenanted cause, though a minority of the nation, when the majority, including their rulers, refuse to concur in the ser- vice, to renew these vows ecclesiastically, by recognising their continued obligation, and entering into a bond, suited to her circumstances, to prosecute the ends of them *. In support of the above statement we observe, That the renewal of national covenants, even by a minority of the nation which origi- nally entered into them, is sanctioned by the approved example of God's ancient people : That all their covenanting with God, after they entered the land of Canaan, reduplicated upon the federal transaction of the twelve tribes at Horeb : That, after the apostasy of the ten tribes, the tribe of Judah, though a minority of the ori- ginal nation of Israel which covenanted at Horeb, renewed that co- venant in the days of Asa, Jehoiada, Hezekiah, and Josiah ; and that this was done by them, not only when they had a king of their own nation to take a lead in the service, but also when under a fo- reign yoke, as appears from the covenanting of the captives after their return from Babylon b . a Isai. xix. 18-21 ; Rev. xi. 15 ; Jer. iv. 1. 2. * For a more particular account of National Covenanting, and that which is purely Ecclesiastical, and the distinction between them, See above, pp. 70, 71- b 2 Chron. x\\ 12, 13, 14, 15 ; xxiii. 10 ; xxix. 10 ; xxxiv, 29-34 ; Neh, ix. 3o ; x. OF THE TESTIMONY. 141 5. In opposition to those who deny the present seasonableness of public religious covenanting, or who leave it undecided whether it is seasonable at present or not, — we declare, That, although public religious covenanting is not an ordinary duty, yet it is a service eminently called for at present from the circumstances of the Church and the Nation to which we belong. In support of this assertion we observe, That nature itself teaches, that if we have violated a lawful covenant, it is dutiful to renew it, with an acknowledgment of our sin in having broken it : That all ranks in these lands having departed in principle and practice from a reformation formerly attained, and violated the vows by which it was consolidated, the renovation of these is high- ly seasonable as a means of awakening the present generation to a sense of their sin and danger, and of exciting them to remem- ber whence they have fallen, and to do the first works : That as one end of social covenanting is the confirmation of christians in the present truth, so it must be a seasonable service at present, when the great body of christians are like children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, and when error is coming in upon the Church like a flood : That the great alienation of affection, and mutual jealousies, which prevail among professed christians, call loudly for this service, as a means eminently calculated to restore public confidence, to heal divisions, and to cement religious society: That as all ranks in these lands are bound by the vows of their ancestors to adhere to the Westminster formularies as standards of uniformity, and as there is a strong tendency at present to union, to the prejudice of these standards, — so to counteract that tendency, and to give the disposition for union a proper direction, the friends of the reformation have a special call to renew the pledge of adhe- rence to them given by their reforming ancestors : That, as public religious covenanting was a means remarkably blessed by God in the days of our fathers, for delivering these lands from antichris- tian tyranny and superstition, and for carrying on a work of refor- mation, — so the danger to which the Reformation interest in these lands is exposed, from the rapid increase of Popery, and the coun- tenance it is receiving from persons of all ranks, is a special call in Providence to all the friends of the Reformation to come forward and renew the federal deeds of our ancestors, which have so of- ten proved the bulwarks of our civil and religious liberties, as a special means of preventing us from being again brought under 142 DOCTRINAL PART the yoke of Rome : Finally, That it is the business of the Church to point out the seasons when this duty is especially called for, and doctrinally and judicially to inculcate the practice of it ; and that, to admit its morality, and yet to leave the seasonableness of it un- determined, or to make the performance or non-performance of it matter of judicial forbearance, is to act in direct opposition to the commandment of Christ, " Teaching them to observe all things " whatsoever I have commanded you. ,, Math, xxviii. 20. 6. In opposition to those who deny that social vows having a per- manent object, are of perpetual obligation, and who restrict their obligation to example, or found it upon their success as a means of transmitting privilege, — we declare, That the obligation arising from example is not covenant-obliga- tion, but an obligation to covenant when placed in similar cir- cumstances ; that the obligation pleaded for is the obligation of a social vow or promissory oath : that the obligation of a vow arises from the vow itself, and does not depend upon its consequences : that as social vowing proceeds upon the princi- ple, that society, whether civil or ecclesiastical, when regularly constituted, is the subject of God's moral government as well as individual persons, and, as such, capable of social engage- ments and public faith, — so the perpetual obligation of social vows having a permanent object, proceeds upon the principle, that society thus constituted is recognised both by God and men, as a permanent body, whose identity is unaffected by the change of individuals ; and that it is upon these principles that we maintain the continued obligation of the National Covenant of Scotland, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the three nations, upon all ranks in these lands, to the latest pos- terity. The Scriptures clearly teach, that organised society is recognised by God as a permanent body, and possessed of continued moral identity a ; that society accumulates guilt from age to age b ; that God punishes posterity in the social state, even at a distant period, for crimes committed by their ancestors c ; and that he recognises posterity as under the obligation of the vows of ancestors, and pu- a Jer. ii. 2; Amos i. 11, 12. b Gen. xv. 10; Math, xxiii. 31, 32. c Exod. xvii. 8-16 ; Math, xxiii. 34, 35, 36; Rev. xix. 1, 2. OF THE TESTIMONY. 143 nishes them for the violation of these vows a : That the doctrine pleaded for, as applied to civil leagues or contracts, has never been disputed ; nor could society of any kind exist without acting on this principle : That, although the success of social vows and covenants, as a means of transmitting religious and civil privileges to posterity, greatly aggravates the sin of those who slight them, and deny their obligation ; yet it is not the proper ground of that obligation : That, if the deeds themselves are lawful, and their object perma- nent, they must be of perpetual obligation upon the society which enters into them, though not followed with success : That, to make the obligation of a vow or promissory oath to depend upon its consequences, is to cut asunder the sinews both of civil and re- ligious society, by destroying public confidence b : Finally, that it is not sufficient to say, in opposition to the continued obligation of the federal deeds of ancestors, that, since the covenanting at Horeb, God has not invested society with representing power ; for every society, from its nature and constitution, has this power, and there- fore the right of the society which covenanted at Horeb to represent posterity, did not proceed from positive institution, but had its foundation in natural principles and law. CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE ORDINANCES OF INSTITUTED WORSHIP. Sect I. — Of the Ordinance of Preaching, and the Pastoral Office. 1. In defence of the common doctrine of Protestants, and in op- position to lay preaching, — we declare, That to preach the gospel is authoritatively to publish the good news and glad tidings of salvation in the name of Christ, and that none are warranted to preach the gospel but those who have the call of Christ for that purpose : That the Apostles received their call immediately from Christ, the alone king of the church, with power to commit that sacred trust to inferior teachers ; that these, again, were commanded to commit it to faithful men, who should be able to teach others ; that none have a right to preach the gospel, in ordinary cases, but those who are thus authorised by Christ, through the medium of a Exod. xiii. 19; Joshua ix. 18, compared with 2 Samuel xxi. 1 ; Jer. ii. 20; xi, 10, 11 ; Amos i. 9. b Ps. xv. 4; Judges xi. 35. 1 144 DOCTRINAL PART persons already vested with official power in the church ; and that they are to discharge this work in the exercise of those gifts which the Head of the Church has promised to bestow on them for this purpose. In support of this statement we observe, That a regular call to preach the gospel is sanctioned not only by the precept, but also by the example of Christ, who did not enter upon his work as a preacher, without his Father's call a : That such a call is necessary, from the relation the ordinance of preaching has to Christ ; that to preach the gospel is not merely to publish its supernatural doc- trines and laws, but to do it authoritatively in his name ; but no person can have a right to address men in Christ's name, who has not his call ; and that all the success of a minister's labours de- pends on the blessing of Christ, which is promised to those only who act under his commission b : That such a call is no less ne- cessary, on account of the people ; for, as the work of the minis- try has a respect to the conscience, and as intruders upon this work cannot, without the greatest presumption, deal with the consciences of their hearers in the name of the Lord, so it is ab- surd to suppose that their instructions and admonitions can have any weight, or be binding upon their consciences, while they are acting not under, but in direct opposition to, the authority of the Lord of the conscience c : That this call is farther necessary to the comfort, support, and safety of the minister himself ; for, as the work of the ministry is a work of peculiar difficulty and danger, not only from the opposition that may be expected in the faithful dis- charge of it from men, but also from the powers of darkness, — so none are warranted to expect divine support and protection in the discharge of that work, but those who act under the authority of a divine commission d . We further observe, that the practice of reading sermons from the pulpit, which has become so common in the present day, affords an opportunity of introducing persons into the ministry, and of continuing them in it, who are destitute of mi- nisterial gifts, argues distrust of the support which Christ has pro- mised to his servants in this work, mars the edification of the hear- ers, and has been, in former times, the means of producing a dry and unprofitable strain of preaching, and of substituting philosophi- cal and elaborate essays in the room of the plain and affectionate preaching of the gospel. a Isai. lxi. 1,2; John xx. 21. b 2 Cor. v. 20 ; Math, xxviii. 19, 20. c Jer. xxiii. 21, 22. d Horn. x. 14, 15; Acts xix. 13, 14, 15. OF THE TESTIMONY. 145 2. In opposition to those who confine their ministerial labours to preaching and public acts of government, and neglect the more pri- vate duties of their office, — we declare, That it is the duty of ministers to visit the different families un- der their charge, to pray with them, to inquire into the state of personal and family religion among them ; to instruct, re- prove, and exhort them according to their respective circum- stances, and to instruct their people in the principles of reli- gion, by means of public examination or catechising ; and it is not less the duty of a people diligently to attend upon such ministrations, and endeavour to profit by them in the know- ledge and love of the truth. In support of these statements, we observe, That the Apostle, whose practice in this respect is undoubtedly recorded for imitation, taught not only publicly, but also in private families a : That this duty must necessarily be included in the charge given to ministers by the Apostle, to take heed to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made them overseers b : And that the duty of public exami- nation is peculiarly useful for increasing religious knowledge, and acquainting ministers with the state and progress of it among their flocks ; and that it is evidently included in the work of teaching so frequently inculcated by the Apostles, and was practised in the Christian Church from the earliest ages c . 3. In support of the principles of the Church of Scotland re- specting the rights of the Christian people, and in opposition to pa- tronage, WE DECLARE, That in addition to the appointment of the Presbytery, the call of the people, although it does not convey official powers, is necessary to constitute the pastoral relation between a minister and his flock. In support of this declaration, we observe, That Christ has con- ferred a right upon the members of the church to choose their own office-bearers : That when an Apostle was to be chosen in the room of Judas, the whole hundred and twenty disciples were invit- ed by the Apostles to nominate two ; though it was necessary, from the nature of the office, that it should be determined by an appeal to the Head of the Church, which of the two should fill it, which a Acts xx. 20. b Acts xx. 23. c Gal. vi. 6. K 146 DOCTRINAL PART was done by the lot a ; and that, when the office of the deacon was appointed, persons were chosen to fill that office by the vote of the whole multitude of the christian people b : That christians in gene- ral are required to " try the spirits; 11 and if they have a right to try the soundness of their principles, they must also have a right to judge of the suitableness of their gifts, and other ministerial quali- fications for their edification, before submitting to their pastoral inspection ; but the law of patronage deprives them of the bene- fit of this right : Finally, That the church is a society of all others the most free ; but to deprive her of the right of choosing her own office-bearers, is to rob her of a privilege common to every free society. Sect. II. — Of Baptism. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap, xxviii., and in opposition to the Papists, and others, who maintain, that Bap- tism is regeneration, and confers the remission of sins ; to the Bap- tists, who deny the warrantableness of infant baptism, and main- tain that immersion is necessary to the right administration of it ; and also to those who maintain that baptism with water is essential to salvation, and plead for private baptism, — we declare, That while both the Sacraments of the New Testament repre- sent and seal Christ, and all the benefits of the covenant of grace to believers, some of these benefits are more prominently brought into view in each of them ; and that baptism is more especially the sign and seal of the remission of our sins, and the acceptance of our persons, through the blood and the righteousness of Christ, and of the regeneration of our hearts by his Spirit : — that, to assert that baptism with water is rege- neration, or remission of sins, is to confound the sign with the things signified by it ; that, 'though an external means of sal- vation, and on that account not to be unnecessarily omitted, yet it is not essential to salvation : — that, not only those who pro- fess their faith in Christ and obedience to him, but also the infants of such as are members of the visible church, are to be baptized : — that baptism is rightly administered by sprinkling ; and that, from the nature of the ordinance, it should be dis- pensed in public, and in connection with the administration of the Word. a Acts i. 23, 24, 25, 26. b Acts vi. 5. OF THE TESTIMONY. 147 In support of these statements we observe, That the Scriptures make an obvious distinction between baptism with water, which is only a means of salvation, and baptism with the Holy Spirit, of which it is the sign, and which is essential to salvation a ; and that, while they give us many examples of persons who were in a gra- cious state long before they were baptised, they also give us examples of others, who, after baptism, continued in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity 15 . We observe farther, That God's covenant of promise, of which baptism is the initiating seal, is substantially the same under the present as under the former dispensation, as has been already proved (chap, vii.) ; that baptism under the New, corresponds in its use or ends with circumcision, the initiating seal of the same covenant under the Old Testament, as appears from its being called " the circumcision of Christ, 11 and from those who act up to their baptismal engagements being denominated " the cir- cumcision who worship God in the Spirit c :" That children have the same place in the covenant under both dispensations ; for the promise made to Abraham and to his seed is still indorsed to us and to our children d ; and that it must follow, either that the pri- vileges of the church are now greatly abridged, or that the children of the members of the church now, by virtue of their connection with their parents in the promise, are to be admitted to baptism, its initiating seal, as they were to circumcision under the for- mer dispensation, by virtue of their connection with their pa- rents in the same promise : That no such abridgment has taken place, is obvious from the whole tenor of scripture ; that if it had, notice would have been given of it somewhere in the New Testament ; and that the circumstance would have been eagerly seized by Judaizing teachers, as an argument in ^up- port of their favourite tenet, that unless the converts to Chris- tianity were circumcised, and kept the law of Moses, they could not be saved : — we must therefore conclude, that although the rite was changed, upon the introduction of the New dispensation, from circumcision to baptism with water, there was no change of its subjects ; or that under the New, as well as under the Old dis- pensation, the infants of professing parents are to be admitted to the initiating seal of God's covenant : That this is the case ap- pears from Peter 1 s sermon on the day of Pentecost, in which the a Math. iii. 11. b Acts x. 2, 48 ; viii. 13, 22, 23. c Col. ii. 11; PhiL iii. 3. d Acts ii. 39. K 2 148 DOCTRINAL FA11T promise, as extended to children, is brought forward as a reason why his hearers should submit to christian baptism, which could have had no meaning, had not children been, by virtue of that pro- mise, to be connected with their parents in baptism itself under the New, as they had been in circumcision, by virtue of the same promise under the Old Testament a : Finally, That the war- rantableness of infant baptism may be inferred from the apos- tolic commission to baptize all nations, which must include infants ; and from the practice of the Apostles, who baptized whole families b . We observe further, That the objections brought forward to disprove the warrantableness of infant baptism are either frivolous in themselves, or proceed from mistaken views of the ordinance : That it is no valid objection that infants cannot profess their faith in Christ ; for when faith, or the profession of it, is spoken of as a prerequisite to baptism, it is always supposed that the subjects of it are capable of instruction ; and that if this proved any thing, it would prove too much ; for this objection, if valid against infant baptism, must also be valid against infant salvation, since the scrip- ture connects faith, and the profession of it, in the case of adults, with the one as well as with the other c : That the objection that infants are incapable of understanding the nature of the ordinance is equally inconclusive; that it must have been of equal force against infant circumcision ; and that it proceeds from a too limit- ed view of the ends of that baptism of which infants are the sub- jects, both as a seal of privilege and a bond to duty : That in both those views, baptism has a respect not only to the child baptized, but also to the Church : that the infant seed of believers are also the seed of the Church, on which her prospects, under the blessing of God, depend for perpetuating her existence in the world ; that the promise, as extended to children, must on that account be a great privilege to both ; but that if the promise, as extended to children, be a privilege both to their parents and to the Church, the baptism of which infants are the subjects must be a seal of that privilege to both, and if a seal of privilege to both, it must lay both under additional obligations to train up these children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ; and that this being ad- mitted, it must follow that baptism is a great privilege to infants, a Actsii. 38, 39. 1» Math, xxviii. 19 ; Acts xvi. 16 ; 1 Cor. i. 16. c John iii. 36. OF THE TESTIMONY. 149 though they are incapable of understanding its nature and import, for this, among other reasons, that it brings not only their parents, but also the Church, under a sacred bond to attend to their reli- gious tuition and instruction. We further observe, That, as washing with water is the only sensible sign of divine appointment in this ordinance, ceremonies of human invention, such as the sign of the cross attached to it, must be grossly superstitious ; and that as it is an ordinance purely ec- clesiastical, and as it is a seal of privilege to the Church, as well as to the person baptized, so in all ordinary cases it should be admi- nistered in her public assemblies. We observe farther, That baptism by immersion, derives no authority from the word baptize, which signifies to wash in any way, nor from any express precept or example in scripture 3 : That it is evident from our Lord's words to Peter, when washing the disciples' feet, that, to point out the conveyance of a privilege by symbol, it is not necessary that it be applied to the whole of the subject for which the privilege is intended 5 : That the circumstances of time and place are greatly against baptism by immersion, parti- cularly in the case of the three thousand who were baptized on the day of Pentecost, in the heart of a large and populous city : That all the other ordinances of the New Testament are of a simple form ; that none of them tend either to distract the mind, or to endanger the health of the body, whereas baptism by immersion, especially in certain countries and at certain seasons, tends to both ; and that it is extremely improbable that the benevolent Head of the Church, who came not to destroy men's lives but to save them, would ap- point a form of dispensing an ordinance intended for every nation under heaven, which is accompanied in many instances with so much difficulty and danger : That analogy greatly favours the mode of baptism by sprinkling ; that the different washings in the Jewish ceremonial, which were typical of the moral change of which bap- tism is a symbol, are called by the writer to the Hebrews in the original (^^Ttno-^i) baptisms , but that these were generally per- formed in the case of animate subjects by sprinkling : that bap- tism is the sign of the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; but these were promised to the church in the figurative language of pouring water or sprinkling with it d : that a Mark viL 2, 4 ; Luke xi. 38. b John xiii. 10. c Heb. ix. 10. d Is. xliv. 3 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26, 27. 150 DOCTRINAL PART the application of the blood of the legal sacrifices, for the pur- poses for which it was shed, was a type of the application of the blood of Christ for the remission of sin, signified by christian bap- tism ; but it was performed by sprinkling a : That our Lord's blood, not only in allusion to the type, but probably with an ex- press reference to the mode of christian baptism, is called the " blood of sprinkling ;" and that, in the language of prophecy, the applica- tion of the virtue of his sacrifice, is signified by his sprinkling the nations b . Sect. III. — Of the LurcCs Supper. In defence of the Confession, ch. xxix., and in opposition to the Sacramental Test of the Church of England; the Transubstantiation of the Papists, and the Consubstantiation of the Lutherans ; and the unscriptural modes of dispensing the ordinance, — we de- clare, That the Lord's Supper is a sacrament instituted by Christ sole- ly for spiritual purposes, — to be a memorial of his deach, a seal of his testament, a sign of union to his person and com- munion with him in his benefits, and a badge of fraternity among his followers ; and that to employ it for secular pur- poses is a profanation of it : — that the bread and wine in this sacrament are not converted into the real body and blood of Christ, but are only symbols of his broken body and shed blood : — that kneeling in receiving the ordinance of the Supper originated in, and tends to, superstition and idolatry; and that as this is not a converting, but a confirming ordinance, so pro- miscuous admission to the Lord's Supper must be a gross per- version of its design. For illustration we observe, That to maintain, with the Papists, that the bread and the wine in the sacrament of the Supper are converted into the real body and blood of Christ by consecration, or, with the Lutherans, that the real body and blood of Christ are under these elements, is contrary both to reason and scripture, and in direct opposition to the testimony of the senses ; that it destroys their sacramental nature and use ; and that it involves in it the ab- surd notion of the ubiquity of our Lord's human nature, or that it is not only present in heaven but also on earth, wherever the ordi- a Heb. ix. 13. b Heb. xii. 24 ; Is. lii. 14, 15. OF THE TESTIMONY. 151 nance of the Supper is dispensed 8 : That neither transubstantiation nor consubstantiation derives any support from the bread being- called, in the words of institution, " Christ's body," and the cup, the " New Testament in his blood," for nothing is more common in scripture than to affix to a type or symbol, the name of the thing signified by it : thus circumcision is called God's Covenant ; the pascal lamb, the Passover ; the seven candlesticks, the Seven Churches; and the smitten rock, Christ b : That, to employ this ordinance for secular ends, or as a test of loyalty to a civil state, or a qualification for office, civil or military, is not only a subversion of the design of the ordinance, by making it an engine of worldly policy, but holds out a powerful temptation to dissimulation and hypocrisy in the matters of God : That this being a confirming and not a converting ordinance, none have a right to it in the eye of God but gracious persons ; that none should be admitted to it by the Church, but those who make a credible profession of their faith in Christ and obedience to him ; and that the admission of the igno- rant and scandalous to the Lord's table, is a gross profanation of the ordinance : That, as it belongs to the judicatories of the Church to judge of the character of those who seek fellowship in this holy ordinance, and to admit or reject accordingly ; so the practice of free communion must be unscriptural, since it proceeds upon the supposition that the members of one church may join in this ordi- nance in another church, to the government of which they do not own subjection, and while the rulers of that church have no con^ troul over them : Finally, That kneeling m receiving the sacrament of the Supper was introduced, and is still practised, by the papists, in adoration of the host or wafer ; that, as practised in some pro- testant churches, it is a relic of popery ; and that, on these grounds, it was justly condemned by our reformers as supersti- tious, and tending to idolatry. Sect. IV.— Of the Sabbath. In defence of the doctrine of the Confession, chap. xxi. sect. 7» 8 ; and in opposition to those who deny the morality of the Chris- tian Sabbath, and to others, who restrict the sanctification of it to the time of public worship, — we declare, a Acts i. 9; iii. 20, 21. b Gen. xvii. 9, 10 ; Exod. xii. J I ; Rev. i. 20 ; 1 Cor. x. 4. c ICor. v. 6, 7, 8; x. 10, 20, 21. 152 DOCTRINAL PART That, although the proportion of time to be observed as a Sab- bath unto the Lord, the particular day of the week, and the special ends of the Sabbath as a commemorative ordinance, are determined by positive institution ; yet it has its primary foundation in moral natural law, as it is a dictate of that law, that a due proportion of our time be wholly employed in the worship of God ; that the precept respecting the sanctification of the Sabbath is accordingly embodied with the other moral precepts of the Decalogue, which are of perpetual obligation ; and that, although the day of rest is changed, yet the sanctifi- cation of it inculcated in that precept, is of the same obligation under the Christian as under the Mosaic dispensation. In support of this we observe, That, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh part of our time, and the seventh day of the week, to be wholly employed in his worship, and for the special purpose of comme- morating his rest from the work of creation a : That, from the resurrection of Christ, and to commemorate that event, the Sab- bath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week : That this change was predicted in ancient prophecies, and was par- ticularly intimated in the promise of a future rest, made to Israel in the wilderness, and renewed in the time of David — which pro- mise is referred, by the writer to the Hebrews, to the resurrection of Christ, and to the Sabbath set apart for its commemoration, on which Christ ceased from his own work, as God did from his b : That the change is sufficiently sanctioned by our Lord's appearing repeatedly to his disciples on the first day of the week after he rose from the dead — by that being the day on which the Spirit was given — by the practice of the inspired Apostles and primitive chris- tians, who statedly met on that day for the celebration of divine ordinances — and by the designation the Loi'(Ts Dai/, by which the Christian Sabbath was familiarly known, and by which it was dis- tinguished in the Primitive Church from the Jewish Sabbath c . We observe farther, That the original end of the Sabbath, as a commemorative ordinance, was not set aside by the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, but another end was connected with it : That, as the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, to be a memorial of a Gen. ii. 3. b Exod. xxxiii. 14 ; Ps. xcv. 11 ; Heb. iv. 2-11. c John xx. 19, 26; Acts xx. 7 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10, OF THE TESTIMONY. 153 the resurrection of Christ ; so the seventh part of our time is still to be kept as a Sabbath, as a memorial of God's rest from the work of creation ; and that both these ends are to be combined by chris- tians in the religious observance of the Christian Sabbath : That, as the Sabbath has its foundation in natural law, as its sanctifica- tion is enjoined by God among other moral precepts, which are of perpetual obligation, and as its original end, as a commemorative ordinance, is not set aside, but another end gained by the change from the seventh to the first day of the week, so the law respecting its sanctification must be the same in its extent and obligation, un- der the present as under the former dispensation : And that this is farther evident from the importance attached to the Sabbath in an- cient predictions, which obviously refer to New Testament times a . CHAPTER XIX. OF THE CHURCH, CHURCH-COMMUNION, AND CHURCH-GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE. Sect. I. — Of the Church and Church-Communion. 1st, In defence of the Confession, chap. xxv. sec. 1, 2 ; and in opposition to the Independents, who confine the idea of a visible church to a single congregation met in one place for public wor- ship, — we declare, That there is a Catholic or Universal Visible Church, consisting of all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their children, to which Christ has given the ministry and ordinances of the Gospel ; that, as it is impossible that the whole of this universal church can meet in one place for the observance of the ordinances of religion, it is necessary that particular churches or congregations should be formed for this purpose ; but that these particular churches constitute similar integral parts of the Catholic Church, and are entitled to enjoy, and bound, as they have opportunity, to hold, com- munion in all religious ordinances with one another. In proof of this we observe, That, as christians in general have one spiritual Head, Lord, or Lawgiver, even Christ ; as this a Isa. lvi. 3, 7- 154 DOCTRINAL PART one Lawgiver has given them but one ministrv, and one system of ordinances and Jaws ; and as the aggregate body, of which he is the head, and to which he has given that ministry and these ordi- nances, is called Thr Church*; so the Visible Church of Christ, under the New Testament, must have a universal character, in- cluding all who profess their faith in Christ, and their children . That the Apostle infers the unity of this Catholic Church from the one bread in the ordinance of the Supper, and enforces the maintenance of it, from the consideration that christians have but one Lord, one faith, and one baptism b : That the Church is the kingdom of Christ ; but a kingdom is one, though made up of many provinces and subordinate governments ; and that she is the " house of God, 1 "' which implies, that, though made up of many parts, she is but one spiritual family c . 2. In opposition also to the Independents, who make positive marks of regeneration the term of admission, in the case of adults, to thecommunion of the Church and sealing ordinances, — we declare, That, though none are to be admitted who bear evident marks of their being unregenerated, yet exacting from persons posi- tive marks of their being in a state of grace, as indispensable to their admission to church fellowship, has no warrant from scripture. In proof of this we observe, That to make real saintship the criterion of visible church-fellowship, does not agree either with the general description of the church, as a net in which good and bad fishes are caught, — a floor in which the chaff' is mixed with good grain, — and a house in which there are vessels, some to honour, and some to dishonour ; or with the manner in which our Lord and his Apostles proceeded in admitting persons to membership in the Church ; or with the account given of the Primitive Churches in the New Testament d . 3. In opposition to the Erastians, and others, who plead for the admission of all who call themselves Christians, — we declare, That none are to be admitted to fellowship with the church, but those who make a serious profession of the true religion, a 1 Cor. xii. 27, 28. b 1 Cor. x. 16, 17 ; Eph. iv. 3, 4, b. c 1 Tim. iii, 15. d Math. xiii. 24, 30, 17, 48 ; Luke iii. 17; 2 Tim. ii. 20; OF THE TESTIMONY. 155 rendered credible by a competent measure of knowledge, and a corresponding walk and conversation. In support of this we observe, That no weil-regulated society can be inattentive to the character of those who apply for mem- bership ; and that it would be glaringly inconsistent with the cha- racter of the Church as a holy nation, and calculated to endanger her purity, to admit into her fellowship persons, who, though they assume the Christian name, have not a conversation becoming the Gospel a : That the Scriptures expressly require a credible profes- sion of faith in Christ, and submission to his laws, as the terms of admission to the sealing ordinances of the Church b ; that they re- present the dispensing of these to immoral persons as a profana- tion of them c ; and that, if the members of the Church are to be excluded from her fellowship, when their conduct belies their pre- fession, much more must such conduct, in the case of those who are not members, form a sufficient bar in the way of their admis- sion d . 4. In opposition to those who maintain the latitudinarian principle, that the terms of ecclesiastical fellowship should be limited to what they call essential or fundamental points in religion, and that mu- tual forbearance should be exercised respecting all other points, — WE DECLARE, That, although some of the doctrines and duties of religion are of greater importance than others, in themselves, and in re- spect of the place they hold in the general system ; yet, as the authority of God is the ground on which our obligation to believe and profess what he has been pleased to reveal in his word, properly rests ; so none ought to be admitted who state themselves in opposition to any part of his revealed will ; and that the forbearance enjoined in Scripture is not a doctrinal or judicial forbearance, to be employed in bringing down the standard of truth and duty to the errors and imperfections of men, but a practical forbearance towards those who are weak in knowledge, and other attainments, and which has for its object, in the due use of means, the bringing of them up to that standard. a 1 Pet. ii. 9 ; 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15, 16 ; 1 Cor. v. 6, 7- b Acts viii. 37 ; Matth. xxviii- 19, 20. c Matth, vii, 6 ; 1 Cor. xi. 29. d 1 Cor. v. 9, 11, 13; 2 Thes- iii, 6, 14, 156 DOCTRINAL PART For illustration, we observe, That it is impossible for us to draw the line of distinction between what have been called essential and circumstantial points, or to settle their respective importance ; that, while we are bound to receive the whole system of divine truth, and while the whole is profitable, the call which the Church has to make a more explicit profession of any part of it, depends upon the attacks that are made upon it by its adversaries, and the dangers to which it is thereby exposed of being lost or obscured ; that there is no article of divine truth which may not become a proper and necessary part of the testimony of the Church ; and that a due regard to the least of the commandments is required by Christ, and may become a special test of fidelity to him a . We observe farther, That, as all Christians are imperfect in the present state, and are of different degrees of knowledge, and other attainments, and some of them are even babes in Christ, great prac- tical forbearance must be exercised among them, both in relation to their knowledge and conduct ; yet this is not to be done by bring- ing down the standard of truth and duty to their imperfections ; nor is forbearance to be pleaded for in such a way as to hinder ministers from declaring the whole counsel of God, or to prevent the courts of Christ from judicially asserting any truth on the one hand, or condemning any error on the other, or from administering private admonitions and reproofs, or the regular exercise of disci- pline, according to the rules prescribed by Christ b . 5. In opposition to many who wantonly, and without necessary causes, withdraw from the communion of the Church, and form themselves into separate associations for the purposes of religious fellowship, — we declare, That, as the holding of communion with the Church, is not only a high privilege, but also a great duty, tending to advance the glory of God, to preserve the visible unity of the body of Christ, and to promote the edification of its members, — so it must be sinful to break off this communion from a particular church on slight grounds, or such as do not affect the great ends of ecclesiastical fellowship. For illustration we observe, That it must be sinful to break off this communion, on account of personal offences given by the mis- a 2 Tim. iii. 16 ; Math. v. 19. b Acts xx. 27 ; Math, xxviii. 20 ; 2 Tim. iv. 2 ; Acts xv. 28, 29. OF THE TESTIMONY. 157 conduct of individual church members, — wrong decisions of church courts in personal causes, or particular acts of maladministration, when the public interests of religion are not immediately concerned, and permanently affected, — differences of opinion about matters not clearly determined in the word of God, or which have not been publicly received in the church, — diversity of practice in some points of mere external order, in prudential regulations as to the form of divine worship, — irregularities or abuses of different kinds in a church which is aspiring after reformation, — or the mere desire and expectation of doing more extensive good in a separate state : And still more culpable is the conduct of those who withdraw from a church from mere humour, pride, personal grudges, and envy ; from aversion to any of the doctrines or institutions of Christ ; or from impatience of faithful admonitions, and the due exercise of church censure a . 6. In opposition to those who deny the warrantableness of sepa- ration from a corrupt church, even when she is obstinately persist- ing in a course of defection ; and to those who maintain that it is unwarrantable to separate from a church, so long as she may be considered a church of Christ, and so long as the means which they consider sufficient for the salvation of the soul are to be found in her communion, — we declare, That it is lawful and necessary to separate from a church which obstinately maintains gross and pernicious errors ; which is idolatrous and superstitious in her worship, and tyrannical in her government ; which has imposed sinful terms of commu- nion, or whose fellowship involves us in sin, or in the neglect of some necessary duty : That separation does not necessarily imply that the body left has ceased to be a church of Christ, though it supposes her to be unfaithful and corrupt ; and that separation may become necessary, not only, or principally, for the spiritual safety of the party separating, but also from a re- gard to the general interests of religion, and as a means of re- claiming the church from which the separation is made. For illustration we observe, That, as the exclusion of obstinate offenders from the fellowship of the church does not necessarily imply that they are reprobates, but is to be employed, after other a Phil. iii. 15, 16 ; 1 Tim. i. 6, 7 ; John vi. 60-66 ; 2 Tim. \v. 3, 4 ; Eph. iv.2, 3 ; 1 John, ii. 18, 19. 158 DOCTRINAL PART means have failed, for the purpose of their recovery from the error of their ways ; so, the separation of a minority in a church does not necessarily imply that she has lost every thing belonging to a church of Christ, but is an appointed means to be used, after every other means has failed, to recover her from her apostasy a : That the plea brought forward by some against separation from corrupt churches, viz. that the means of salvation are still to be found in their commu- nion, is invalid; — that men are not competent judges of what por- tion of divine truth is necessary to salvation, while we know, from the highest authority, that all Scripture is profitable for the perfect- ing of the saints b ; that we are to seek not only our own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved ; and in a national or extensive church, which is engaged in a course of defection, indi- viduals may have access to the means of salvation, in some degree of purity, while multitudes of their brethren are deprived of them ; and that separation from corrupt churches is necessary not only in relation to the salvation of men, but to the glory of God, in preserving his truths and cause, pure and entire, the grand end for which ecclesiastical communion is to be maintained : That, when a church which had arrived at high attainments in reforma- tion, persists in a course of defection from these, notwithstanding every means employed by a minority in her communion, who wish to adhere faithfully to them, to reclaim her, — the only method left for that minority to secure these attainments, at least judicially, is to state a secession from her c : In fine, That such a secession be- comes especially necessary, for these and other reasons, when the minority, who wish to be faithful, are prevented from bearing a public and explicit testimony against her defections within her pale . 7. In opposition to those who maintain the warrantableness of free communion, or that different denominations may retain their separate ecclesiastical state, and all their peculiarities, and yet hold communion with one another occasionally in church ordinances, — WE DECLARE, That church communion consists in the joint profession of the truths and observance of all the ordinances which Christ hath appointed in his word ; that the visible unity of the church lies in the unity of her visible fellowship, and that free com- a 2 Thess. iii. 14 ; 2 Cor. vi. 17. b 2 Tim. iii. 16. c 1 Tim. vi. 3-5 ; Acts xix. 8, 9. d Rev. xviii. 4. 2 OF THE TESTIMONY. 159 munion is an obvious violation of that unity : that, in the ob- servance of all ecclesiastical ordinances, and in participating of the sacraments in particular, there is a solemn recognition of the whole profession made by the church in which they are dispensed ; and that those who belong to a separate denomina- tion cannot, in this manner, recognise her profession by occa- sional communion with her, but in the way of practically de- nying their own, and condemning themselves as schismatics. In support of this we observe, That the keeping of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, so often and so warmly in- culcated in Scripture, with all who name the name of Jesus, is .an object greatly to be desired ; but as this unity is a unity in the truth, and as, from the present state of religious so- ciety, it cannot be extended to all professed Christians, without sacrificing truth and duty ; so we must be bound to keep it in that ecclesiastical association which, in its constitution and ad- ministration, is conformable to the rule of God's word a : That the ordinances dispensed in any church must take their character from the character of her profession and general administration ; if the latter be pure the former must be pure — if the latter be cor- rupt, the former must be corrupt — consequently, a person can- not hold communion occasionally in a corrupt church without par- taking of her corruptions, and without materially retracting his act of separation, if he has separated from her, and condemning his conduct as schismatical b : That this practice encourages persons to continue in corrupt communions, by leading them to conclude that there is no conscientious ground of difference between them and the person who makes no scruple of occasionally joining with them in the intimacies of church fellowship : And, in fine, that it throws a great and effectual bar in the way of all attempts to attain a scriptural union, by representing that all the communion which is desirable among Christians, may be had in the way of their still continuing their separate state. Sect. II. — Of the Government and Discipline of the Church. 1. In agreeableness to the Confession, chap. xxx. sect. 1, 2, and the form of Presbyterial church government, and in opposition to the Erastians, who maintain that the external government and dis- cipline of the church belongs to the civil magistrate, — we de- clare, a Eph. iv. 3. 4 : Acts ii. 42. b Jer. xv. 19. 160 DOCTRINAL PART That Christ, as the King and Head of the Church, has insti- tuted a form of government in his church distinct from civil government, and not subordinate to it, which is to be exercis- ed by office-bearers whom he has appointed in his word, who, in the scriptural management of their proper business are de- pendent upon, and accountable to, no civil ruler whatever. The Scriptures teach, That Christ's kingdom is not of this world — it must therefore have distinct office-bearers, and a distinct and separate government from the kingdoms of men a : That ecclesias- tical rulers are distinguished, in Scripture, from other rulers, not only by their names, but also by the nature and objects of their government b; And that the obligation of their decisions is repre- sented as dependent on the will of no earthly power whatever. 2. In agreeableness to the Presbyterial form of church govern- ment, and in opposition to the Episcopalians, who vest the power of ordination, and the government of the church, in bishops, arch- bishops, &C. WE DECLARE, That since extraordinary offices ceased in the church, there is no superiority of office in her above a pastor or teaching elder ; that among these pastors or teaching elders there is a parity of office-power ; that they are invested with the sole power of or- daining others to the office of the ministry of the word ; and that Presbyterial church government, without any superiority of office above a teaching presbyter, in the due subordination of judicatories, is the only form of government laid down by the Lord Jesus in his word, to continue in his church to the end of the world. In support of the above statements we observe, That the word bishop signifies an overseer, and that, as used in the New Testa- ment, it is of the same import with the word pastor or elder d ; that as there was a parity among all the apostles, and as our Lord severely rebuked the appearance of a disposition among them to seek pre-eminence or superiority to one another, so there is a parity among all the ministers of the word e ; that all the a John xviii. 36. b 1 Tim. v. 17 ; I Thes. v. 12; Acts xx. 17 ; Heb. xiii. 7, 17, 24 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28. c Matth. xvi. 19; xviii. 17, 18. (1 Acts xx. 17-, comp. with verse 28. 1 Tim. iii. 2, 3, 4, 5., comp. with ch. v. 17. Tit. i. 5., comp. with verse 7. e Mark x. 42, 43. 3 OF THE TESTIMONY. 161 orders in the English church above a teaching presbyter, have no divine warrant, are remnants of the papacy, and their intro- duction into the christian church gave rise to the antichristian su- premacy of the bishop of Rome ; that ordination by the eldership or presbytery, is sanctioned by scripture example a ; and that the different acts of ecclesiastical rule or government are ascribed in scripture to the elders of the church, associated in smaller or larger assemblies for that purpose b . 3. In opposition to the Independents, who maintain that the go- vernment of the church is lodged in the body of the christian peo- ple, and that every congregation has a complete and independent power of government within itself, — we declare, That to assign the government of the church to the body of the people, is inconsistent with the plain distinction which the scripture makes between the rulers and other members of the church, sets aside an institution of Christ, and leads to disorder and confusion : That these rulers or elders, as has been already proved, were given by Christ to the church catholic or uni- versal, and that they must therefore have an official relation, not only to the particular congregations over which respec- tively they more immediately preside, but also to the church as a whole : That this official relation which they have to the whole church demands their co-operation in her general go- vernment, and that they may meet judicially for that purpose, in smaller or larger assemblies, as her exigencies require, and as local circumstances permit ; and as the several parts must be subordinate to the whole, so the decisions of the elders or rulers of a particular congregation must be subject to the re- view and judgment of the elders or rulers of many congrega- tions assembled and acting together ; and the decrees of the latter, if lawful in themselves, are binding on the former. For illustration we observe, That the congregational plan of church government is inconsistent with the oneness of the church, as founded upon the oneness of her Head, faith, baptism, and the whole system of her laws and ordinances c ; and with the beautiful description that is given of her in scripture, — in allusion to the hu- man body, and the mutual sympathy and dependence of its mem- a 1 Tim. iv. 14. b 1 Tim. v. 17 ; Acts xv. 22. c 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13 ; Col. i. 18 ; Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6. L 162 DOCTRINAL PART bers, — to a kingdom which, though composed of many provinces, i& under one government, — and to an army under one commander r made up of different detachments, which, though removed at a dis- tance from one another, and led by their own officers, do all fight under the same banner, and are bound to unite and co-operate in the same cause a : That, besides those matters which relate to the internal concerns of a particular congregation, and which its office- bearers may sometimes be unable to decide satisfactorily, there are other causes which do not exclusively relate to any one congrega- tion, but are of common concern ; and which, therefore, require the judgment and decision of the office-bearers of many congregations- associated for such purposes : That the primitive converts to Chris- tianity in Jerusalem, Ephesus, and other cities, were so numerous,, that it was impossible they could assemble in one place for worship ;, yet they are called one church, and their elders met as a presbytery for transacting their common affairs b : In fine, That although the gradation of church judicatories, such as Kirk-Sessions, Presby- teries, Synods, and General Assemblies or Councils, is not ex- pressly laid down in Scripture, and although all these are not ne- cessary, or attainable, by the church at all times and in all places, — yet they are warranted by the principles above stated, and by the meeting of the Apostles and Elders held at Jerusalem, in conse- quence of the reference from the church at Antioch, concerning the disputed question about circumcision, taken in connection with the authority and effect which the decrees ordained by them on that occasion had on the churches at large e . 4. In opposition both to the Episcopalians and Independents, who deny the divine authority of the office of Ruling Elder, — we de- clare, That, besides the minister or teaching elder, who labours in word and doctrine, it is requisite, according to Scripture, that there be other elders to join with him in the government of the Church. In proof of this we observe, That, when the Apostle inculcates the giving of double honour to elders in general, who rule well, and adds, " especially to them who labour in word and doctrine, 1 ' a 1 Cor. xii. 12, 26, 27 ; John xviii. 36 ; Rev. xix. 14 ; xx. 9. b Acts xv. 4, 22 ; xx. 17- c Acts xv. 22, 29-31. OF THE TESTIMONY. 168 it is evidently supposed, that, besides those elders who teach as well as rule, there are other elders, the exercise of whose office is limited to rule, and who are helps in government 8 . 5. In defence of the Confession, ch. xxx., and in opposition to the Erastians, who assign the power of inflicting the censures of the Church to the civil magistrate ; and to the neglect and abuses of church-discipline, — we declare, That Christ hath appointed a certain discipline to be exercised in his Church, for vindicating his laws, maintaining the purity of his worship, reclaiming offenders, deterring others from crime, and satisfying the Church as to the repentance and sub- mission of her fallen members ; that the exercise of this dis- cipline belongs exclusively to ecclesiastical rulers ; that public scandals can be removed, according to the rule of Scripture, by public censure only, and that the censures which Christ hath appointed differ in degree according to the nature of the offence. For illustration, we observe, That although scandals against reli- gious society may also partake of the nature of crimes against the state ; yet it is only in the latter view that they come under the cognizance of civil rulers, and are to be punished with civil pains ; and that, viewed as scandals against religious society, they come under the cognizance of the rulers of the church, and can only be removed by ecclesiastical censures b : That the ends of discipline in the case of public scandals cannot be gained by the private admi- nistration of censure, and that the prevailing practice of removing them in this way, is a subversion o the ends of ecclesiastical disci- pline c : That the offences which subject to church-censures, com- prehend error in doctrine as well as immorality in practice d : That the censures of the church in their different gradations, from sim- ple admonition to the higher excommunication, are appointed by Christ for the benefit of offenders : That the higher excommunica- tion is intended, as well as other censures, for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of Jesus e ; that it does not, according to the Popish notion, consist in literally deliv- a 1 Tim. v. 17 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28. b Math, xviii. 17, 18 ; John xx. 20, 21-23. c 1 Tim. v. 20 ; 2 Thess. iii. 14, 15. d 2 Tim. ii. 17, 18 ; Comp. 1 Tim. i. 20. e 1 Cor, v. 5. l£ 164 DOCTRINAL PART OF THE TESTIMONY. ering up the offender to the devil, but in casting him out of the church into the world, which is described in Scripture as Satairs kingdom ; and that this view is confirmed by the rule laid down concerning it by Christ himself, " If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican a :" That although the Church hath authority to absolve from the highest censures, yet she may not exercise it without satisfactory proofs of the repentance of the offender b : And, finally, that, as the due exercise of discipline is a powerful antidote against error and corruption, so the neglect of it has uniformly proved ruinous to religious society c *. a Math, xviii. 17- b 2 Cor. ii. 6, 7, 8. c 1 Cor. v. 6, 7 ; Heb. xii. 15, 16 ; Rev. ii. 14, 15, 16. * For the doctrine concerning Magistracy, and the Connection betweea Church and State, see above, pp. 53-56, and pp. 62-65, < 165 ) PART III. PRACTICAL EVILS. X. HE gospel is a doctrine according to godliness, and every de- parture from it tends to ungodliness. In all ages it has been seen that in proportion as individuals or nations have swerved from the truth, and from the purity of God's ordinances, they have become irreligious and corrupt in their manners. This description is just- ly applicable to the present times, and to the state of matters among us. Besides the many practical evils which we have al- ready condemned in this Testimony, a f idler enumeration of these, which are grounds of God's controversy with us, will be given in our public Acknowledgment of Sins : at present we confine ourselves to some of the most commonly prevailing. How many proclaim their impiety, not only by knowingly and fearlessly indulging in vice, but by an avowed contempt for all that is sacred ! and what multitudes betray their practical atheism, by casting off the form of religion, and disregarding God in all their actions and undertakings ! What a large proportion of the inhabi- tants of our land live in the habitual neglect of the public ordi- nances of religion ! How ready are Protestants, for the sake of gratifying an idle curiosity, to countenance the Popish worship, though defiled with gross idolatry, against which God has in his word denounced the severest judgments ! How few are those who are grieved at the dishonour done to God by the corruption of his ordinances, or anxious to prevent or correct this evil ! Is there not reason to fear that multitudes, even on the Lord's day, resort to our churches as to places of entertainment ? And is not the ordi- nance of praise so conducted in some instances, even among pres- byterians, as to foster this disposition ? Have not the word of God, and the most dread mysteries of our holy religion, been openly profaned, in our principal cities, by their being employed for the purpose of public amusement, in what are called Musical Festivals ? And are not the Holy Scriptures and the ordinances of prayer often profaned in masonic ceremonies and processions ? Is not family worship greatly neglected ? and is there a vestige of it in the houses 166 PRACTICAL EVILS. of multitudes who demand and receive the most sacred privileges of the Church ? The name of God is grievously profaned among us, by cursing and swearing in ordinary conversation, — a vice for which Britons, and especially their soldiers and sailors, have long been proverbial among the nations. The guilt of this sin is also contracted in nu- merous instances, by the light use, or the frequent repetition of law- ful oaths in matters of trade, and by the swearing of sinful oaths, such as the mason oath and others, which we have condemned in a preceding part of this Testimony*. The Lord's day is openly profaned by the transacting of business, by travelling for the purpose both of trade and amusement, by strolling in the fields, by visiting, and even by rioting and dissipation. Multitudes of children and young persons are allowed, by their parents, to grow up in ignorance, and without control, and even trained to habits of vice and dishonesty. Grounds are not wanting for fearing that not a few heads of fami- lies, professing religion, have become careless in instructing their children and servants, and have devolved on the teachers of Sab- bath schools that task, which both nature and revelation require them to perform in person. Robberies, murders, and the un- christian practice of duelling, prevail. Drunkenness, which is an inlet to every vice, has of late alarmingly increased ; adultery, for- nication, and the incentives to these sins, abound. Multitudes run greedily after the fashionable amusements of the theatre, card-play- ing, night-assemblies and meetings for promiscuous dancing, — practices which have a tendency to dissipate the mind, waste the time, pervert the feelings, and vitiate the morals of men, especially of the young, and to divert them from all serious concern about religion. Need we say how much dishonesty, lying, and the love of this world prevail? Of the sinfulness and the prevalence of most of these things, the sober and religious part of the community are sensible. Great exer- tions have been made, and are making in our day, to check the pro- gress of ignorance and vice ; funds have been created, societies have been erected, and numbers have lent their personal services ; yet the good that is done bears so little proportion to the exertions made, that the most intelligent and candid acknowledge that the evil ap- pears to increase according to their labours. But while they are sensible of this, and in danger of wearying themselves with the in- vention of new plans, few seem aware, that, while the means which 1 Sec above, pp. 60, 61. PRACTICAL EVILS. 16? God has appointed and promised to bless are neglected, other means, however plausible, and however zealously used, will not pro- duce the effect. While so many of our pulpits are filled with men who preach another doctrine than that which purifieth the heart ; — while our ministers of the gospel and other office-bearers are care- less about the discharge of their duties ; while the discipline which the Lord Jesus Christ hath ordained is so greatly neglected, and the attempts of any church or congregation to maintain it are coun- teracted and defeated by the unfaithfulness or lukewarmness of those who are around it ; while those in civil authority, content- ing themselves with punishing the crimes which come directly under their cognizance, or are forced on their notice, overlook the prolific nurseries of vice, and neglect to apply the proper preventives ; while many of the teachers of our youth imbue their mkids with every thing but the knowledge and fear of God ; and while so little controul is exercised by parents and masters over those who are com- mitted to their immediate inspection, — what general or permanent success can be expected to attend the exertions of individuals or voluntary associations, who take upon them the united task of all these classes of persons, without any other call but their own bene- volence, and without any authority but that which arises from the respectability of their characters, and the soundness of their advice? If we would have a general reformation, the root of the evil must be struck at ; and, in order to this, it is necessary that it should be laid open, and laid to heart. In conclusion, we hereby renew the pledge which we gave in the Articles preliminary to our Union, and declare, — That, deeply sen- sible of the low state of religion among ourselves, and the people un- der our charge, and that union in church fellowship, unless improved for promoting vital religion, by mutual excitement to love and good works, will only tend to more ungodliness ; we cordially agree, that we will endeavour to exert our combined influence for advancing practical religion, and raising the tone of morals among our people : And, as a principal means for accomplishing these ends, through the divine blessing on the regular exercise of the discipline of the church, we shall endeavour, in our several places and stations, to promote purity of communion through the Associate body, by guarding against lax admission to sealing ordinances, and by em- ploying every scriptural method for reclaiming the careless and immoral, and for excluding from our fellowship such as refuse to be reclaimed. 168 PltACTICAL EVILS. We have thus attempted to discharge a duty which we consi- dered as called for at our hands, by bearing an explicit testimony tc the distinguishing truths of God, so variously and violently as- sailed in our day, and to the covenanted reformation of Britain and Ireland, in opposition to the departures from it in former and present times. From the greater part of the present generation, who care for none of these things, who have either cast off all re- gard to religion, or rest satisfied with its external form, and who are as incapable of judging of what concerns the glory of God and the best interests of men, as they are indifferent about every scheme for promoting them, we are afraid that little attention will be paid to this testimony. Nor can we look for a favourable reception of it from that part of the religious public who are intoxicated with the fashionable doctrine of the present day, to such a degree as to feel an indifference to all established or prevailing errors and abuses in churches; and, consequently, are inclined to turn away, with aver- sion and disgust, from every attempt to lay open the sources and trace the progress of these evils, with a view to their correction. But we would earnestly entreat those who are concerned for the public interests of religion in our land, and sensible in any degree of their decline, to lay the matter seriously to heart, and weigh our statements impartially in the balance of the sanctuary. To some we may appear to have been unnecessarily particular in tracing the progress of defection ; and by others we may be accused of pre- sumption, for bringing charges against public bodies, civil and ec- clesiastical, including individuals eminent for gifts and usefulness. To this we can only reply, that, in the course we have adopted, we have endeavoured to follow the example of those who obtained a good report in the Scripture, or whose names have been trans- mitted with honour in the uninspired but faithful annals of the church ; nor have we condemned any thing which was not matter of complaint and grief to the sounder part of the church in former times, or which has not visibly contributed, in our judgment, to in- jure the interests of religion, and add to our national guilt. At the same time we do not mean to say that all the measures which have been censured are equally criminal ; or that the immediate redress of every grievance complained of is absolutely necessary to the restoration of that harmony and fellowship which have been unhappily interrupted and broken up. The correction of some of these is not in the power of the judicatories of the church — though PRACTICAL EVILS. 169 they could do much for restraining their injurious influence; nor could the civil powers, though they were disposed to concur with the ecclesiastical, effect such a change as is desirable and necessary, so long as the body of the nation continues to be corrupt and dis- affected to religious reformation. Never was a union of the friends of true religion and reforma- tion more loudly called for than at present. Laying aside the for- mality of a judicial declaration, we would address them as brethren, and beseech and obtest them, in the bowels of christian affection, in the name of our common Lord, and as they regard the preserva- tion of that cause which they profess, and to which we believe them to be cordially attached, to consider the following things. In x\\e first place, we would entreat them to consider the tendency of division among christians, and especially among those who make the same confession of faith, — to harden infidels and enemies to the Gospel of Christ, — to cherish improper feelings among themselves, — to counteract the exercise of discipline, — and to retard the grand and avowed design of Christianity, which is to unite men of all countries and classes to God and to one another, in sentiment, heart and profession. In the second place, we would call their at- tention to the extensive and liberal, and at the same time, scrip- tural platform of union laid down in the Westminster formularies compiled for Great Britain and Ireland, and adapted for the pur- pose of maintaining fellowship among the friends of the Reformation in anv part of the world, with the high authority which these pos- sess, in preference to any basis of union which might be framed by any parties in the present time, in consequence of the venera- tion in which they have long been held, especially among all deno- minations of Presbyterians. In the third place, we would submit to their consideration the superadded obligation under which we lie, to cultivate union by the sacred bond of our National Covenants, and especially of the Solemn League, one main design of which was to produce and perpetuate a religious union and conjunction. It is surely incumbent on all who profess to own the continued obligation of these sacred bonds, seriously to consider whether such a profession is consistent with their standing apart, and declining ac- tively to co-operate with those who are endeavouring to prosecute the ends of them in a suitableness to present circumstances. In thefourth place, all the intelligent friends of this cause must perceive that there is no time to lose, — while infidelity, irreligion, and hostility to all the distinguishing principles of Christianity and protestantism are so pre- valent, on the one hand, — and a lax and undefined scheme of fel- 170 PRACTICAL EVILS. lowship, calculated to bear down every thing like a faithful testi- mony for the truth, and to carry away the few remaining friends of it, is setting in with so strong a current, on the other hand. Those who have " understanding of the times,'" and especially such as are appointed watchmen on Zion's walls, will consider whether the present is not one of those favourable conjunctures for effectuating this desirable object, which, if allowed to pass by, may not speedily recur. In the fifth place, partial interests, party feeling, and personal considerations, ought not surely to be allow- ed to stand in the way of any measure which is calculated to pro- mote the interests of religion more extensively, and with greater effect. In a great and common cause, the friends of Christ are not allowed to have separate interests ; and where union in the truth can be attained, it must be sinful to set up, or to maintain, " altar against altar. 11 In fine, what we have done in the publication of this Testimony will not, we trust, mar this good work, but rather faci- litate it. One thing, we think, may be evident from what we have been able to accomplish, — that, if a proper spirit exist, it is not impos- sible to heal divisions in the church, without burying entirely the causes of difference. By endeavouring fairly to meet them, so far as the interests of truth appeared to require, and by candidly giving and receiving explanations, two bodies which were divided have been reunited. What has been done in one case may be done in others. We have endeavoured to give such statements with re- spect to the points of difference between us and some other deno- minations, as we think calculated to pave the way for this ; and we are willing to listen to and receive such additional explications as may be found needful. We are fully sensible of our insuf- ficiency for the task of drawing up a testimony which would be suitable for all the friends of the covenanted cause in the present time, and would have been happy to have availed ourselves of the benefit of the co-operative counsel of our brethren, if circumstan- ces would have admitted it. We have done what we could : He who is infinite in counsel can direct to such means as will supply what is wanting. May the Lord arise and plead his own cause : Return to the Churches of the Reformation, and recover them from their mourn- ful declensions : Pour out his Spirit on all ranks in our native land, and bring them back to himself : Make the watchmen on our walls to see eye to eye : And turn to the people everywhere a pure lan- guage, that they may serve him with one consent. Extracted from the Minutes of Synod, by Peter M'Derment, Synod Clerk jrro temp. 171 APPENDIX. No. I. Page 24. — The following things may be added, in illustration and proof of what has been generally stated in the text : 1. The reformation engaged to in the Solemn League, and which it was the object of the labours of the Westminster Assembly to introduce, was urgently required by the state of the churches of England and Ire- land, and was at that time loudly demanded by the better part of these two kingdoms. The old English puritans were presbyterians, and the proceedings of the bishops, for a long time back, had greatly multiplied those who were of that persuasion ; as appears from their repeated peti- tions to the English Parliament, and addresses to the General Assembly in Scotland. The Parliament of England, after correcting a number of abuses introduced by the Bishops, had declared that many things yet remained in the liturgy, discipline, and government of the church, which do necessarily require a further and more perfect reformation. They had abolished the present government as ff evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, a great impediment to the reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of the kingdom ;" they had resolved, that such a government should be settled in its room, " as may be most agreeable to God's holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed churches abroad ;" and they had called together an assembly of divines, to give their advice in these matters. All this had been done in Eng- land, before the league with Scotland was entered into ; and, with re- spect to Ireland, it had been matter of complaint on the part of the Bishops, that the Protestants in that kingdom were infected with puri- tanism, and favourable to the Presbyterian forms. 2. The platform of reformation delineated by the Westminster Assem- bly, was not of a narrow or exclusive kind. It was more immediately intended to rectify existing abuses in the Churches of England and Ire- land, and to unite them with the Church of Scotland. But those who drew it up had before their eyes " the true religion and professors there- of in all places," and shaped their work accordingly. The hierarchy and ceremonies had been a wall of partition between the Church of England, and other reformed churches. These were now thrown down, and the formularies of doctrine, worship, and government, which were substitu- 17^ APPENDIX. ted in their room, provided for conjunction and communion with all the reformed churches abroad, on the common principles of 'Christianity and the Reformation. 3. As the work was of the greatest importance, and the call of Provi- dence to engage in it clear and urgent, so the Westminster Assembly was composed of men eminently fitted by God, both in respect of gifts and spirit, for the task entrusted to them, which they performed with a caution and moderation, joined to wisdom and integrity, calculated to preserve harmony among the friends of religion, and to put an end to the differences which had already arisen at home or abroad ; as might easily be made appear from a comparison of the Westminster formularies with the controversies of those times, as to doctrine, worship, and church government. 4. The part which the church and kingdom of Scotland acted in this work was of the most disinterested kind. Nothing can be more un- founded or injurious than the charge that Scotland sought to obtrude her discipline on England. Long and painful experience had convinced her, that her Presbyterian constitution could not be secure or unmo- lested, so long as the bishops retained their power in England ; but any representations or proposals which she made on this head, testified the utmost respect for the independence of a neighbouring church and king- dom. So reasonable did these appear, that the treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, which was concluded two years before the Solemn League was formed, contained the following clause : " That his Majes- ty, with the advice of both Houses of Parliament, doth approve of the affection of his subjects of Scotland, in the desire of having conformity of church government between the two nations ; and as the Parliament hath already taken into consideration the reformation of church-govern- ment, so they will proceed therein in due time, as shall best conduce to the glory of God, and peace of the churches of both kingdoms *." Af- ter having plighted her faith, Scotland put all that was dear to her in jeopardy, to save the sister kingdom from impending ruin, and perse- vered, amidst manifold discouragements and indignities, in seeking the attainment of the great objects which both had covenanted to pursue. Nor did the Church of Scotland, or the Estates of the Nation (so far as they acted according to her advice), ever employ any other means but exhortation and remonstrance, in urging their brethren of England to fulfil the sacred promise which they had spontaneously made. Of this the conduct of the ecclesiastical judicatories, respecting the Duke's en- gagement, is a striking illustration. 5. Though the foundation of this work was laid " in troublous times," and its friends were involved in a civil war for the maintenance of their liberties, in which they had to oppose the king, surrounded and misled * Articles of the Large Treaty, 1641, p. 25 ; Act. Pari. Scot. vol. v. p. 376. APPENDIX. 173 by evil counsellors, yet the public proceedings of the Parliaments were not justly obnoxious to the charge of disloyalty and rebellion. " An ar- bitrary government and unlimited power," (to use the words of the Ge- neral Assembly, in their Solemn Warning of 1649), was " the fountain of most of all the corruptions both in kirk and state ;" and " for restraint of this, and for their own just defence against tyranny and unjust vio- lence, which ordinarily is the fruit and effect of such a power, the kingdoms joined in covenant, and have been at the expence of so much blood, pains, and treasure." But the covenant was intended to " pre- serve and defend his Majesty's person and authority," and his " just power and greatness," as well as " the rights and privileges of the par- liaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms." It is not difficult to dis- tinguish between the regular resistance which the parliaments made to the arbitrary and illegal exercise of the royal authority, and the measures afterwards adopted by a new party, actuated by very different principles, which sprang up during the progress of the civil war, and overturned the whole frame of the government. This was done in manifest viola- tion of the covenant, and was publicly testified against by the whole body of presbyterians in Britain and Ireland, and especially by the church and nation of Scotland *. No. II. Pag 28. — The ministers of Ireland had shewn their zealous attachment to the Reformation, before the time mentioned in the text. In February 1660, a Convention was called at Dublin for settling the af- fairs of Ireland, previous to the Restoration of Charles II. They chose Mr Cocks, a presbyterian minister, to be their chaplain ; issued a pro- clamation for a public fast, in which breach of covenant was assigned as one of the reasons ; and sent for two ministers from each of the four provinces, to give their advice as to the settling of the church. Mr Pa- trick Adair was the individual called from the province of Ulster; and, before setting out, he received instructions from his brethren, to use his best exertions for promoting the work of reformation, and guarding against the two extremes of episcopacy and sectarianism. He prevailed on the ministers assembled at Dublin to agree in advising the Conven- tion to own the Solemn League, with the view of afterwards proceeding to its renovation ; but the scheme was defeated by means of one of their number, Mr Vessey of Colerain, who was afterwards made Archbishop of Tuam. In May 1660, when the King was restored, the Presbyteri- an ministers in the North of Ireland sent two deputies, Messrs Keys and * This appears from the Remonstrances and Declarations, published in the be- ginning of the year 1649, by the Ministers of the Provinces of London, Glouces- tershire, Warwickshire, Lancashire, &c. in England ; of the Presbytery of Belfast in Ireland ; and of the Commissioners both of the Kingdom and Church of Scot- 1 and. 174 APPENDIX. Richardson, to London, with an address, congratulating his Majesty on his restoration; but, at the same time, petitioning for the settlement of reli- gion according to the Covenant. Some of the Presbyterian ministers in London having represented to them, that the expressions, in their ad- dress, against prelacy, and in favour of the Covenant, would render it un- acceptable to the court, the deputies agreed reluctantly to expunge them. On their return, they made a report of what they had done, and of the gracious reception which they had met with from his Majesty, to a meet- ing of ministers held at Ballimena, when " the brethren did- signify their dislike of that alteration of the address, that being more displeasing to them, than all they (the deputies) had done was pleasing." It is ad- ded, in the narrative from which this is taken, " Other addresses, sent from the ministers of that persuasion in other parts of Ireland, by a very learned and bold man, could have no access ; but he was obliged to re- turn without doing any thing." (Adair's History of the Presbyterians of Ireland.) No. III. Page 29.— The first query by the Parliament, to the Com- mission of the General Assembly, and which related to the admission of malignants into the army, was proposed on December 4. 1650 ; and an- swered by the Commission on the 14th of that month. This was the First- Resolution. — (Balfour's Annals, vol. iv. p. 197 ; and Act. Pari. Scot, vol. vi. p. 542). The second query, which related to admission to offices of the state and judicatures, and to the abolition of the Act of Classes, was proposed on March 19. 1651 ; and answered on March 22. and May 24. This was the Second Resolution. — (Act. Pari. Scot. vi. 589, 609 ; and True Representation, p. 11). The Commission itself found it necessary to remonstrate against the admission of improper persons, as early as March 18. and June 13. 1651. (Baillie's Letters ; and Observations on the late Differences, p. 13). It is also worthy of remark, that the Com- mission, on the 29th of November 1650, had warned the Parliament against that very measure, to which, within a month after, they advised them to agree, — as appears from a remonstrance, in which they say, " We humbly desire your Lordships to guard, for the future, against all inctinations of making use of any scandalous, malignant, or disaffected persons, for public trust, or of admitting any to employment in your councils or army, except in the way agreed upon by the public resolu- tions of church and state." — (Act. Pari. vol. vi. p. 544). No. IV. Page 33. — By the First Indulgence, granted in the year 1669, the ministers indulged were enjoined to attend the episcopal pres- byteries and synods, and if they refused to do this, they were ordered not to go beyond the bounds of the parishes in which they preached. An Act of Privy Council, January 13. 1670, discharged them from lec- turing or expounding a portion of scripture, on pain of being deprived of APPENDIX. 175 the exercise of their ministry within the kingdom. The Second Indul- gence, granted in 1672, confined those who took the benefit of it, by twos and threes to one parish, and obliged all the ministers in a diocese to celebrate the communion on the same day. And, by a subsequent act, in 1676, they were prohibited from admitting any of their non-in- dulged brethren to their communions or pulpits. — (Woodrow, vol. i. p. 304, 318, 352 j and Append. No. 139). In the act asserting the Su- premacy, passed soon after the granting of the First Indulgence, it is de- clared, " That his Majesty, and his successors, may settle, enact, and emit such constitutions, acts, and orders, concerning the administration of the external government of the church, and the persons employed in the same, and concerning all ecclesiastical meetings and matters to be proposed and determined therein, as they, in their royal wisdom, shall think fit ; which acts, orders, and constitutions, being recorded in the books of council, and duly published, are to be observed and obeyed by all his Majesty's subjects ; any law, act, or custom, to the contrary, not- withstanding." — (Act. Pari. Scot. vol. vii. p. 554). No. V. Page 41. — The objectionable clause in the Oath of Abju- ration, as originally imposed, ran in the following terms : — " I do faith- fully promise to support the limitation and succession to the crown, as the same is, and stands limited by an Act entitled," &c. viz. an Act of an English Parliament, which provides that the Sovereign shall always be of the communion of the Church of England. In the year 1715, that clause was altered, and made to run as follows: " I do faith- fully promise to support the succession to the crown, which succes- sion, by an Act entitled, &c. is. and stands limited," &c. To this the following explanation was added : " That, by no words in the said oath, or oaths, formerly imposed or contained, it is, or was, meant to oblige his Majesty's said subjects, to any act, or acts, in any way inconsistent with the establishment of the Church of Scotland, according to law." — (1st Geo. I. stat. ii. c. 13.) As some persons of unquestionable attach- ment to the Protestant accession thought that the oath still implied an approval of the act obliging the Sovereign to be of the Episcopal com- munion, a statute was passed in the year 17 19, by which all reference to that act was excluded in the form of the oath, " to be taken by minis- ters and preachers in churches and meeting-houses in Scotland," who were merely required to " defend the succession of the crown in the heirs of the body of the late Princess Sophia — being Protestants." — (5th Geo. I. c. 20.) But, in the year 1766, this last statute was set aside, and the oath was appointed to be taken by all, according to the form enjoined in the year 1715, the words of which are repeated, with- out any reference to the explication added to them. — (6th Geo. Ill, c. 53.) 4 176 APPENDIX. No. VI . Page 50. — It may be proper to insert here a copy of the " Act against intrusions," from which it will appear, that, while it ac- knowledges that intrusions are contrary to the principles of the Church of Scotland, the Act is expressed in such terms as to favour those who were supporting the law of patronage as much as their opponents. " The General Assembly, considering from Act of Assembly, August 6th, 1575, Second Book of Discipline, chap. iii. par. 4, 6, and 8, regis- trate in the Assembly Books, and appointed to be subscribed by all mi- nisters, and ratified by Acts of Parliament, and likewise the Act of As- sembly 1638, December 17th and 18th, and Assembly 1715, Act 9th, That it is, and has been, since the Reformation, the principle of this Church, that no minister shall be intruded into any parish, contrary to the will of the congregation, do therefore seriously recommend to all ju- dicatories of this Church, to have a due regard to the said principle, in planting vacant congregations ; and that all Presbyteries be at pains to bring about harmony and unanimity in congregations, and to avoid every thing that may excite or encourage unreasonable exceptions in people, against a worthy person that may be proposed to be their minister, in the present situation and circumstances of the church, so as none be intruded into such parishes, as they regard the glory of God, and edification of the body of Christ,"— (Acts of Assembly, 1736, p. 33.) THE ENI>. P. Netll, Printer. 7 m , A (< 'j^.-'-. r, \