our national Covenant; and Superftition, Will-worship, and Prelacy, with its Hierarchy, as we are bound in our Solemn League and Covenant, and that we fhall with the fame Sincerity, endeavour (God giving us Affiftance) the Overthrow of that Power that hath established that Prelacy and Eraftianifm over the Church, and exercifes fuch a luftful and arbitrary Tyranny over the Subjects, feeking again to introduce Idolatry and Superftition in thefe Lands, contrair to our Covenants: And in a Word, that we fhall endeavour the Extirpation of all the Works of Darkness, and the Relicts of Idolatry and Superftition, (which are both much enlarged and revived in our Times,) and execute righteous Judgment impartially (according to the Word of God, and Degree of Wickedness) upon the Committers of thefe Things, but efpecially, Blafphemy, Idolatry, Atheism, Sorcery, Perjury, Uncleannefs, Profanation of the Lord's-Day, Oppreffion and Malignancy; that being thus zealous for God, he may delight to dwell among us.

IV.

Seriously confidering, that the Hand of our Kings has been against the Throne of the Lord, and that now for a long Time, the Succeffion of our Kings, and the most Part of our Rulers with him, hath been against the Purity and Power of Religion and Godliness, and Freedom of the Church of God, and hath degenerate from the Vertue and good Government of their Predeceffors into Tyranny, and hath of late fo manifeftly rejected God, his Service and Reformation, as a Slavery, as they themselves call it in their publick Papers, (efpecially, in these laft Letters to the King, and Duke of Lauderdale) difclaiming their Covenant with God, and blafphemously inacting it to be burnt by the Hand of a Hangman, governed contrary to all right Laws, Divine and Humane, exercifed fuch Tyranny, and Arbitrary Govern ment, oppreft Men in their Confciences and Civil Rights, ufed free Subjects (Chriftian and Reasonable Men) with lefs Difcretion and Juftice than their Beasts; and fo. not only frustrate the great End of Government, (which is, that Men may live godly, holily, and peaceably under them, and might be maintained in their Rights and Liberties from Injury and Wrong) but hath alfo walked contrary to it, fo that it can no more be called a Govern. ment, but a lustful Rage, exercised with as little right Reason, and with more Cruelty than in Beafts, and they themselves can be no more called Governours, but publick Graffators, and publick Judgments, which all Men ought as earnestly to labour to be free of, as of Sword, Famine, or Pestilence raging amongst us, and befides, hath ftopped (inftead of punishing) the Coutle of Law and Juftice against Idolaters, Blafphemers, Atheists, Murtherers, Incestuous and Adulterous, and other Malefactors; and instead of rewarding the Good, hath made Butcheries and Murthers on the Lord's People, fold them as Slaves, imprifoned, forfaulted, banished and fined them,' upon no other Account, but for Maintaining the Lord's Right to rule Confciences, against the Ufurpations of Men, for fulfilling their Vows, and repelling unjuft Violence, which innocent Nature allows to all; of all which, and more Particulars, we can give (we speak as before God) innumerable and fure Anftances: Neither can it be thought, that there is Hope of their returning

returning from these Courses, having fo often fhewed their Natures, ~ and Enmities againft God, and all Righteoufnefs, and fo often declared, and renewed their Purposes and Promises of perfevering in thefe Courfes. And, fuppofe they should diffemble a Repentance of thefe Evils, and profefs to return to better Courses, being put to Straits, or for their own Ends, (for upon no other Account can we reasonably expect it;) and though it might be thought, that there might be Pardon for what is done, (which we cannot yet fee to be, without the Violation of the Law of God, and a great Guiltiness on the Land, from which Guiltinefs the Land can never be free, but by executing of God's righteous Judgments upon them, for omitting of fo greatly deferved, and fo neceffarily requifite a Juftice;) yet they cannot be believed, after they have violated all Tyes that human Wifdom can devise to bind Men; and befide, there will be fomething of Folly found, to think to bind a King that pretends to Abfolutenefs: and our Fathers, or rather our felves, at first judged it not warrantable to receive Him, without confenting to, and fwearing of the Covenant: And if fo, the renouncing and disclaiming thereof, we ought at prefent to judge, to be a just and reasonable Ground of rejecting Him upon thefe Grounds, being affured of God's Approbation, and Men's, whofe Hearts are not utterly byaffed, and their Confciences altogether corrupted, and knowing affuredly, that the upholding of fuch, is to uphold Men, to bear down Chrift's Kingdom, and to uphold Satan's, and the depriving of Men of right Government, and good Go vernours, to the ruining of Religion, and undoing of humane Society. We then feeing the innumerable Sins and Snares, that are in giving Obedience to their Acts; on the other Hand, feeing, if we fhall acknowledge their Authority, and refufe Obedience to their finful Commands, the endless Miferies that will follow, and fiding with God (who we hope will accept and help us to a Liberation from their Tyranny) against his ftated and declared Enemies; do reject that King, and these affociate with Him, from being our Rulers, because standing in the Way of our right, free and peaceable serving of God, propagating His Kingdom and Reformation, and overthrowing Satan's Kingdom, according to our Covenant; and declares them hence forth to be no lawful Rulers, as they have declared first to be no law ful Subjects, upon a Ground far lefs warrantable, as Men unbyaffed may fee; and that after this, we neither owe, nor fhall yield any willing O bedience to them, but fhall rather fuffer the outmoft of their Cruelties and Injuftice, untill God fhall plead our Caufe, and that upon thefe Ace counts; becaufe, they have altered and deftroyed the Lord's eftablished) Religion, overturned the fundamental and establish'd Laws of the Kingdom, taken altogether away Chrift's Church and Government, and changed the Civil Government of this Land (which was by King and free Parliaments)! into Tyranny, where none are affociate to be Partakers of the Government, but only those who will be found by Juftice to be guilty Criminals, and all others excluded; even thofe, who by the Laws of the Land by Birth: had a Right to, and a Share in that Government, and that only, because not of the fame Guiltinefs and mischievous Purposes with themselves And alfo, VOL. I. Tit

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all free Elections of Commiffioners for Parliaments, and Officers for Govern ment, are made void by their making thofe the Qualifications of Admiffion to thefe Places, which by the Word of God, and the Laws of this Land, were the Caufe of their Exclufion before, fo that none can look upon us, or judge us bound in Alledgiance, to them, unless they fay alfo we are bound in Alledgiance to Divels, they being his Vicegerents, and not God's.

V.

We then being made free, by God and their own Doings, He giving the Law, and they giving the Tranfgreffion of that Law, which is the Cause that we are loofed now from all Obligations, both Divine and Civil to them, and knowing that no Society of Men that hath Corruption in them (which always is ready to beget Disorders, and do Injuries, unlefs restrained and punished by Laws and Government) can be without Laws and Government, and withal, defiring to be governed in the best Way that is leaft lyable to Inconveniencies and Tyranny, we do declare, that we fhall fet up over our felves, and over all that God fhall give us Power, Government, and Governours, according to the Word of God, and efpecially according to that Word Exod. 18. v. 21. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the People, able Men, fuch as fear God, Men of Truth, bating Covetousness; and that we fhall no more commit the Government of our felves, and the making of Laws for us, to any one fingle Perfon, and lineall Succeffor, we not being tyed as the Jews were, by God, to one Family; Government not being an Inheritance, but an Office, which must be fquared, not to the Intereft and Luft of a Man, but to the Good of the Common-wealth; and this kind of Government by a single Perfon, &c. being moft liable to Inconveniencies, (as fad and long Experience may now teach us,) and apteft to degenerate into Tyranny. Moreover, we declare, that thefe Men whom we fhall fet over us, fhall be engaged to govern us principally by that Civil, or Judicial Law, given by God to His People of Ifrael, efpecially in Matters of Life and Death, and in all other Things alfo, fo far as they teach, except only that Law, (viz. anent Slaves) which does not agree with that Chriftian Liberty, eftablished in all Chriftendom, only violated by our Tyrants, (and fome others of late) and that of Divorces and l'oligamy; the one being not a Law, but a Permiffion granted, upon the Account of the Hardness of their Hearts, the other being a finful Cuftom, contrair to the firft Inftitution of Marriage, crept into the Church: We know that Men of malignant and perverfe Spirits, that have not a higher God than a wicked King, which fuits only with their luftful Licentioufnefs; and it may be others with them, that feemed to be of better Principles, will raife an ignorant Clamour upon this, that it is a Fifth Monarchy, and we Fifth-Monarchy-Men, and will labour to amufe the People with ftrange Terms, and put odious Names on good Things, to make them hateful, as their Way is; but if this be their Fifth-Monarchy, we both are, and ought to be fuch, and that according to His Word.

VI.

It being the Work of the Minifters of the Gofpel, to preach, propagate, and defend the Kingdom of God, and to preferve the Doctrine, Worship,

Difcipline, Government, Liberties, and Priviledges of the fame, from all Corruptions and Incroachments of Rulers, and all others. And feeing, that the Minifters of the Church of Scotland, (at least the greateft Part of them before) not only were defective in Preaching, and teftifying against the Acts of thefe Rulers, for overthrowing Religion and Reformation, abjuring our Covenant made with God, eftablifhing a Government in the Church, which that King calls His own Government, (and fo not God's) contrair to our Covenant; Against inacting of that blafphemous (fo Calvin calls that Supremacy of Henry the Eighth, upon which this Prerogative is founded, and from which it is derived, and is no lefs, if not more injurious to Chrift, and inflaving to his Church) and facrilegious Prerogative given to a King over the Church of God, and against the other Acts and Incroachments of His Church, and hindered others alfo who were willing, and would have teftified against them, and cenfured fome that did it, (for which, together with the other Causes in their Trust and Adminiftration, we may fay, God hath left them to do worse Things) but alfo hath voted in that Meeting, (which they are pleafed to call an Affembly of Minifters, but how justly, let Men judge) an Acceptation of that Liberty, founded upon, and given by vertue of that blafphemously arrogated and ufurped Power; and hath appeared before their Courts to accept of that Liberty, and to be enacted and authorized there as Minifters, and fo hath willingly (for this is an elicit Act of the Will, and not an Act of Force and Constraint) tranflated the Power of fending out, ordering, cenfuring, (for as they accept of their Liberty from them, fo they fubmit to their Cenfures and Reftraints, at least all of them who were yet tried with it, and others of them appeared and acknowledged before their Courts, that they would not have done thefe Things that they were charged with, if they had thought it would have offended them) Minifters departing from the Court of Chrift, and Subjection to the Miniftry, to the Courts of Men, and Subjection to the Magiftrate, (which had been impious and injurious to Chrift and His Church, though they had been righteous and lawful Rulers) and by their changing of Courts, (according to Common Law) hath changed their Masters, and of the Minifters of Chrift are become the Minifters of Men, and bound to answer to them as oft as they will; and as by the Acceptation of this Liberty in fuch Manner, they have tranflated the Power, fo they have given up, and utterly quit the Government, and a Succeffion of a Prefbyterian Miniftry; for as thefe were not granted them of their Mafters, fo they exercise their Miniftry without them, and fo by this, as the Ecclefiaftick Government is fwallowed up in the Civil, (if the reft had followed them) the Ministry should have alfo been extinct with themselves, and the whole Work of Reformation had been buried in Oblivion, not fo much as the Remembrance of it kept up: Thefe, together with the other of their Commiffions in Preaching, the Lawfulness of paying that Tribute declared to be impofed for the bearing down of the true Worship of God, (which they fallly termed Seditious Conventicles) and their advising these poor Prifoners to fubfcribe the Bond, and confequently could not but fo advise all others, if put to it, (for the Hazard that Men were in, will not make a real Change of the 4.9

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Morality of that Action) and befide, the reft may be put to it upon the fame Hazard, and for if the one should advise, (which confequently they must do) and the other thould fubfcribe, this would altogether clofe that Door which the Lord hath made Ufe of in all the Churches of Europe, for cafting off the Yoke of the Whore, and reftoring the Truth and Purity of Religion and Reformation, and Freedom of the Churches, and should have stopped all Ingrefs for Men, when once brought under Tyranny, to recover their Liberty again. Thefe Minifters then, not being Followers of Chrift, who before Pontius Pilate, gave a good Confeffion, which was, that he was a King, and no King, if he have not Power to order his House and Subjects, and they not following him, nor his Minifters, if not afferting and maintaining of this his kingly Power, against all Incroachers and Ufurpers of it, and befides, we being commanded, If any Brother walk diforderly, from fuch to withdraw; and although in the Capacity we now are in, we neither have, nor affume to our felves Authority to give out definite and authoratative Sentences of Depofition and Supenfion against these Ministers; yet we declare, which is proper for us to do, that we neither can, nor will hear Preaching, nor receive Sacraments from these Ministers that have accepted of, and votedi for that Liberty; and declare all who have encouraged and ftrengthened their Hands, by hearing and pleading for them, all those who have traffiqued for an Union with them, without their renouncing and repenting of these Things, all thofe that do not teftifie faithfully against them, and after do not deport themselves fuitably to their Teftimonies, and all who joyn not in publick with their Brethren, who are teftifying against them; we declarey that we fhall not hear them preach, nor receive Sacraments from them, at leaft, till they ftand in Judgment before thefe Minifters, and be judged. by them who have followed the Lord, and kept themselves free of thefe. Defections: And as our Hearts have cleaved to these Minifters, while they, were on the Lord's-fide, and fubjected our felves to them, fo we shall still cleave to thofe that abide following Him, and shall be subject to them in the Lord.

VII.

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Then we do declare and acknowledge, that a Gofpel-Miniftry, is a standing Ordinance of God, appointed by Chrift, to continue in the Church, until, the End of the World; and that none of us fhall take upon him the Preaching of the Word, or adminiftring the Sacraments, unlefs called, and ordained thereto, by the Minifters of the Gofpel: And as we declare, that we are for a ftanding Gofpel Miniftry, rightly chofen, and rightly ordained, fo we: declare, that we shall go about this Work in Time to come, with more Fafting and Praying, and more carefull Inspection into the Converfation and Holiness of thefe Men that fhall be chofen and ordained the Want of which formerly, hath been a great Sin, both in Minifters, and People, which hath not been the leaft Caufe of this Defection.

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