engagements to moral duties, we do not make void, but establish the obligation of God's law.

The obligation of a vow, by which we engage ourfelves to neceffary duties commanded by the law of God, muft therefore be INEXPRESSIBLY SOLEMN. Not only are we required by the law of God before our vow was made; but we are bound, in that performance, to fulfil our vow, as an engagement or obligation founded in the fupreme authority of his law warranting us to make it. We are bound to fulfil it as a mean of further impressing his authority manifested in his law, upon our own confciences, as a bond fecuring and promoting a faithful obedience to all his commandments. We are bound to fulfil it, in obedience to that divine authority, by derived power from which, we as governors of ourselves made it to promote his honour. In thofe or like refpects, our fulfilment of our vows is a direct obedi ence to his whole law.

-We are moreover bound to fulfil it, as a folemn ordinance of God's worship, the effential form of which lies in felf-obli gation, and must be received, observed, kept pure and entire, and holily and reverently used, and fo in obedience to Command I. II. III. We are bound to fulfil it, as an ordinance of God, in which we have pledged our own truth, fincerity and faithfulness; and fo in obedience to Command IX. I. II. III. We are bound to fulfil it, as a folemn deed or grant, in which we have made over our perfons, property, and service to the Lord and his Church; and fo in obedience to Command I. II. VIII. nay, in obedience to the whole law of love and equity, Mat. xxii. 37, 39. & vii. 12. We are bound to fulfil it from regard to the dclarative glory of God, as the witness of our making of it, that he may appear to have been called to atteft nothing, but fincerity and truth; and fo in obedience to Command I. III. IX. We

are bound to fulfil it from a regard to truth, honefly, and reverence of God, as things not only commanded by his law, but good in themselves, agreeable to his very nature, and therefore neceffarily commanded by him,--and from a deteftation of falfehood, injustice, and contempt of God, as things intrinfically evil, contrary to his nature, and therefore neceffarily forbidden in his law; and thus in regard to his authority in his whole law, as neceffarily holy, just and good. We are bound to fulfil it, from a regard to the holiness, justice, faithfulness, majesty, and other perfections of God, as the Guarantee of it, into whose hand we have committed the determination and execution of its awful fanction,-as. the gracious rewarder of our fidelity, or just revenger of our perfidy,--and hence in regard to our own happinefs, as concerned in that sanction. In fine, We are bound to fulfil it in obedience to that command of God, which adopts and ratifies it, requiring us to pay, fulfil, or perform our vow, oath or covenant, Pfal. 1. 14 & lxxvi. 11. Eccl. v. 4. Deut. xxiii. 21, -23. Mat. v. 33.

In VIOLA FING fuch a vow, We do not merely tranfgrefs the law of God, as requiring the duties engaged, before the vow was made. But we also rebel against, and profane that divine warrant, which we had to make our vow. We profane that authority over ourselves in the exercise of which we made the vow, and confequentially that supreme authority in God, from which ours was derived; and so strike against the foundation of the whole law. We manifeft a contempt of that law, which regulated the matter and manner of our vow. We profane the vow, as an ordinance of God's worship, appointed in his law. By trampling on a noted mean of promoting obedience to all the commands of God, We mark our hatred of them, and prepare ourselves to

tranfgrefs them, and endeavour to remove the awe of God's authority and terror of his judgments from our confciences. We blafphemously represent the Moft High as a willing Witness to our treachery and fraud. We pour contempt on him, as the Guarantee of our engagements, as if he inclined not, or durft not avenge our villainy. Contrary to the truth and faithfulness required in his law, and pledged in our vow, we plunge ourselves into the moft criminal deceit and falfehood. Contrary to equity, we rob God and his Church of that which we had folemnly devoted to their fervice. Contrary to devotion, we banifh the serious impreffion of God's adorable perfections. Contrary to good neighbourhood, we render ourselves a plague and curfe, and encourage others to the most enormous wickedness. Contrary to the defign of our creation and preservation, we reject the glory of God, and obedience to his law from being our end. Mean-while, we trample on the ratification of our vow, by the divine law in all its awful folemnities, and manifold connections with itfelf, and requirement to pay it.

It is manifeft, that our covenanting ancestors. understood their vows in the manner above represent. ed. They never represent them as mere acknowledg ments of the obligation of God's law, or as placing themselves in fome new relation to God's law, or more directly under any command of it. But declare that a man binds himself by a promiffory oath to what is good and juft. It cannot oblige to fin; but in any thing not finful, being taken, it binds to perform ance. By a vow we more ftrictly bind ourselves to ne ceffary duties *. And, in expreffions almost inumerable, they represent the obligation of their vows as diftinct and different, though not feparable from the

Confeff. XXII. 3. 4. 6.

127

The Religious Nature of the Scotch Covenants. law of God t. They no lefs plainly declared, that no man may bind himself by oath to any thing, but what he is ABLE and refolved to perform;--no man may vow any thing which is not in his own power, and for the perfomance of which he hath no promise of ability from God. And in their feveral forms of covenant; they never once pretend to engage performing of duties in that abfolute perfection which is required by the law of God,--but fincerely, really, and conftantly to ENDEAVOUR the performance of them.

II. Thefe public covenants of our ancestors, in which they abjured the popish and other abominations, may be called NATIONAL, because the reprefentatives, or the greater or better part of the nation, jointly entered into them, as covenants of duty grafted upon the covenant of grace. But they ought never to be called national or civil, in order to exclude them from being Church-covenants, and thus diminish the folemnity or continuance of their obligation. Both Church and State jointly promoted them, and in different refpects they related to both, being at once covenants of men with God, and with one another. In fo far as therein they covenanted with one another, with an immediate view to promote or preferve what belonged to the State, they ferved instead of a civil bond. But at the fame time, they covenanted with one another as Church-members, in subordination to

+ Stevenson's Hift. P. 345, 346, 347, 348, 354, 384, 433. Uk Sir James Stewart, afterward advocate to K. William, in Naphtali, P. 360. and Jus populi divinum, p. 118. Brown, in Apologet ical Relation, p. 341, 363, 364 Covenanter's Plea, p 9, 10, 68. Durham on Commands, p. 14. 121, 122, 129, 120, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138. See also R. Erskine's works, Vol. I. p. 62, 170, 303, 419, 489. Vol. II p. 109, 142, 224, 227. Difcourfe at renewing of the Covenants at Lifmahago, p 11. Synod's Catechism on the third Command, Q. 40, 50.

Hall on Gospel worship, Vol. II. p. 378 38575

their covenanting with God himself as their principal party. The ratifications given to these covenants by the State were realy civil ratifications, which adopted them as a part of the laws of the State. But that no more rendered them merely civil covenants, than the civil ratifications given to, and embodying our Confeffions of Faith, made them merely civil confeffions, and mere acts of Parliament, or than the repeated legal establishment of our proteftant religion in doctrine, worship, difcipline and government, made it a mere civil religion. These covenants were fometimes ufed as means of promoting civil purposes. But that will no more prove them merely civil, than the use of fafting and prayer for advancing or fecuring the welfare of the State, will prove them a mere civil worshipping of God. Thefe covenants were formed for promoting the happinefs of both Church and State, and were calculated to answer that end. But fo is the Chriftian religion and all the ordinances of it, if duly obferved, 1 Tim. i. 8. Prov. xiv. 34. I admit, that there was fometimes too mixed an interference of civil and ecclefiaftical power in enjoining. these covenants. But abufe of things doth not alter their nature. God's ordinances are too often used in a carnal, fenfual and devilish manner, without ever being rendered fuch themselves. It is only, as really religious covenants, and not as civil or State covenants, they can be adopted into ordination vows or baptifmal engagements. And that they were fuch, the following arguments evince.

1. The Covenanters themselves, who best knew their own intentions do, times without number, reprefent them as Vows, which their Confeffion declares to be a religious ordinance, as covenants with God, which must be religious, if any dealings with him be fo*. The Affembly, in 1649, in their last

• Chap. XXII. 6. Lar. Cat.-Q. 108. Calderword's Hist.