This is track five of A Refutation of Religious Pluralism by John Brown of Haddington. This work is published by Gospel Covenant Publications. Gospel Covenant Publications' website is www.gcpublications.com. They may be reached by email at info at gcpublications.com and by phone, area code 208-553-5296. We begin our reading with letter number two of Mr. Brown, on the perfidy, that is, violation of promise, of all authoritative toleration of gross heresy, blasphemy, or idolatry in Britain. Sir, to exhibit the contrariety, that is, opposition, of an authoritative toleration of gross heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry to many, if not all, the Burgess oaths, and these were oaths taken by citizens of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth in Scotland in 1747, endorsing the compromised national religion established in Scotland by the Revolution Settlement of 1689 and the Union Agreement between Scotland and England of 1707. To many, if not all, of the Burgess oaths in our country and to the established oaths of allegiance to his majesty, or even to his own coronation oath to maintain the true Protestant religion as by law established in his dominions, and to our solemn vows and baptism in the Lord's Supper, I leave to some fitter hand and shall only represent it as a violation of these public covenants with God which our fathers framed as their strongest human securities against gross heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, potpourri, and everything similar. Being treacherously and cruelly opposed in their reformation of religion by their two Popish queens, the Protestant lords and others in Scotland entered into five several bonds in the years 1557, 1559, 1560 and 1563 in which they solemnly engaged to assist and protect each other in promoting the free exercise of the Protestant religion. It was only the smaller part of the Protestants in our land which entered into these bonds nor does it appear they were intended as general obligations. But, when the Papists abroad were laboring with all their might to extirpate the Protestant religion, and the Pope was found to have granted dispensations for qualifying his votaries to undermine it in our land, the National Covenant was formed and sworn in 1581 in order to frustrate their attempts and secure the Reformation attained. In it, the abominations of Popery were expressly and particularly abjured. and it was understood as adhered to and renewed in every religious bond that followed. After God had marvelously frustrated the attempts of the Spaniards and other Papists against Britain, our fathers, in thankfulness to Him and to secure themselves against the Popish Confederates abroad and their friends at home, with much unanimity and joy, renewed their national covenant in the year 1590, along with the subscription of a general bond for preservation of the Protestant religion and the King's Majesty. In 1596, apprehensions of danger from the Popish lords, and the treacherous regard showed them by King James, and especially a very extraordinary effusion of the Holy Ghost on the General Assembly, issued in much solemn mourning for sin and renovation of their covenant with God. After forty years of fearful perfidious apostasy, and much sinful veering towards the abjured abominations of Popery, They, awakened by King Charles and Archbishop Laud's imposition of an almost Popish liturgy and book of canons, searched out and lamented their perfidy to God as the cause of their manifold miseries, and solemnly renewed their covenant with Him as a means of obtaining His gracious assistance and securing their Protestant religion and liberties. Afraid by the Papists' massacring of about 200,000 Protestants in Ireland, instigated by their distresses in England, and encouraged by the remarkable countenance of God's Spirit and Providence to the Scotch Covenanters, most of the English and Irish Protestants in 1643 and 1644, along with them, entered into a solemn league and covenant with God, and with one another, in which they expressly abjured potpourri and prelacy as a branch of it. King Charles had scarce granted a peace, a kind of establishment of their religion to the murderous Papists in Ireland. and Duke Hamilton's attempts to restore him to his throne without giving any security for religion or liberty miscarried in England, when the Scots, and not a few of the Irish, renewed their covenant, with a solemn acknowledgement of sins and engagement to duties, to manifest the fearful perfidy of all authoritative toleration of gross heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, potpourri, and every other form of encouragement to or reception of them, The solemn, the religious nature of these covenants and their extensive and perpetual obligation must be considered. God alone has a supreme and unlimited authority and right to regulate his own and the conduct of all his creatures. Psalm 83.18, Daniel 4.35, James 4.12. But the very constitution of a rational creature implies a power derived from him to govern himself even as men standing in the relation of parents, masters, magistrates, or church rulers necessarily implies their power to govern others in subordination to him. By virtue of their divinely originated authority over others, parents, masters, and other rulers make laws or binding rules for directing the external behavior of those who are committed to their charge. And by their authority derived from God to rule their own spirit and to govern and keep in subjection their whole body, Proverbs 16.32, James 3.2, 1 Corinthians 9.27, all men are empowered to make for themselves laws of self-engagement in promises, oaths, vows, and covenants, which extend to their purposes and inclinations as well as to their external acts. And as all the authority which men have over themselves or others, is derived from that supreme and independent authority which is in God Himself, and is communicated to them by an act of His will, and is implied in His giving them such a nature and station. It is plain that no human laws of authority or self-engagement can have any obligation or binding force but what are regulated by and subordinated to the divine laws of nature or revelation, 2 Corinthians 13.8, and that, if such laws and engagements be lawful, God not only does, but must necessarily ratify them, His law requiring the fulfillment of them under pain of His highest displeasure. Romans 13, 1-6, Matthew 5-33. As no deputed authority derived from God can increase that supreme, that infinite authority which He has in Himself, so no human command or engagement can increase that infinite obligation to duty which His law has in itself. But, if lawful, they have in them a real obligation, distinct, though neither separated nor separable, from the obligation of God's law. To pretend with Bellarmine and other Papists that our promises or vows do not bind us in moral duties commanded by the law of God is manifestly absurd. It necessarily infers that all human commands of superiors, as well as human promises, oaths, vows, and covenants, are in themselves destitute of all binding force, except insofar as they relate to such trifling things as the law of God does not require of men in such particular circumstances, and thus staps the foundation of all relative order and mutual trust and confidence among mankind. Commands of superiors must be mere declarations of the will of God and His law, and promises, oaths, vows, and covenants must be nothing but mere acknowledgements that God's law requires such things from us insofar as relating to moral duties. It represents the authority which God has in himself and with which he has invested men as his deputies as so inconsistent and mutually destructive of each other that men cannot be bound to the same thing by both. It represents the law of God as necessarily destructive of the being of an ordinance appointed by itself to promote the more exact observance of itself insofar as that ordinance binds to a conscientious and diligent obedience to it. It is contrary to the common sense of mankind in every age, who have all along considered men's promises, oaths, and covenants as binding them to pay their just debts, perform their just duties of allegiance or the like, and to declare the truth in nothing but the truth in witness-bearing and so forth. It is contrary to the Scripture, which represents promises, promissory oaths, vows and covenants as things which are to be performed, paid, or fulfilled, and which may possibly be transgressed and broken." Matthew 5.33, Deuteronomy 28.21-23, Ecclesiastes 5.4, Psalm 22.25, 50.14, 61.8, 66.13, 76.11, 116.13-18, 119.106, Isaiah 19.21, Judges 11.35, Isaiah 24.5, Jeremiah 34.18, which represents an oath as a strong and decisive confirmation, putting an end to all doubt or strife, Hebrews 6.16-18, and which in one of the plainest and least figurative chapters of it, repeatedly represents a vow as constituted by our binding ourselves, binding our own souls with a bond, and represents a vow as a bond or obligation, Hebrew Issar, a very fast and straight binding bond or obligation, as our own bond, that stands upon or against us, Numbers 3, 2-12. Self-binding, self-engagements, is so much the essential form of vows, and of all covenants, promises, or promissory oaths, whether of God or man, that they cannot exist at all, or even be conceived of without it, any more than a man without a soul, or an angel without understanding and will. To represent vowing as a placing of ourselves more directly under the law of God, or any command of it, or as a placing of ourselves in some new relation to the law, is but an attempt to render unintelligible that which the Holy Ghost has, in the above-mentioned chapter, labored to make plain, if it does not also import that we can place ourselves more directly under the moral law than God has or can place us, or more directly than Christ was placed. To pretend that men's commands or engagements derive their whole obligation from the law of God's requiring us to obey the one and pay or fulfill or perform the other is no less absurd. These divine commands requiring us to obey, pay, perform or fulfill human laws and engagements plainly suppose an intrinsic obligation in these laws and engagements and powerfully enforce it. But no law of God can require me to obey a human law or fulfill an engagement which has no obligation in itself any more than the laws of Britain can oblige me to pay a bill or fulfill a bond consisting of nothing but mere ciphers. 1. The intrinsic obligation of promises, oaths, vows, and covenants which constitutes their very essence or essential form is totally and manifestly distinct from the obligation of the law of God in many respects. 1. In His law, God, by the declaration of His will as our supreme ruler, binds us. Deuteronomy 12, 32. In promises, vows, covenants, and promissory oaths, we, as His deputy governors over ourselves, by a declaration of our will, bind ourselves with a bond, bind our souls with our own bond, our own vow. Numbers 30, Psalm 66, 33 and 15, 119, 106, and so forth. 2. The obligation of our promise, oaths, and covenants is always subject to examination by the standard of God's law as to both its matter and manner, 1 Thessalonians 5.12. But it would be presumption, blasphemous presumption, to examine whether what we know to be the law of God be right and obligatory or not, James 4.11-12, Isaiah 8.20, Deuteronomy 5.32. The law of God necessarily binds all men to the most absolute perfection in holiness, be they as incapable of it as they will. Matthew 5.48, 1 Peter 1.15 and 16. No man can, without mocking and tempting of God, bind himself by vow or oath to anything but what he is able to perform. No man may vow to do anything which is not in his own power, and for the performance of which he has no promise of ability from God. But no mere man since the fall is able, in this life, either in himself or by any grace received from God, perfectly to keep the commandments of God." Ecclesiastes 7.23, James 3.2. While God remains God, His law can demand no less than absolute perfection and holiness. While His word remains true, no mere man since the fall in this life can possibly attain to it, and therefore ought never to promise or vow it. The least imperfection in holiness, however involuntary, breaks the law of God and is even contrary to the duty of our relative stations of husbands, parents, masters, magistrates, ministers, wives, children, servants, or people. 1 John 3, 4, Romans 7, 14, 23, 24. But it is only by that which is, in some respect, voluntary sinfulness that we break our lawful vows. Psalm 44, 47. Nothing can more clearly mark the distinction of the two obligations than this particular. There is no evading the force of it, but either by adopting the Arminian new law of sincere obedience, or by adopting the Popish perfection of saints in this life. 4. The law of God binds all men forever, whether in heaven or hell, Psalm 111, 7-8. No human law or self-engagement binds men, but only in this life. in which they remain imperfect and are encompassed with temptations to seduce them from their duty. In heaven they have no need of such helps to duty, and in hell they cannot be profited by them. The obligation of lawful promises, oaths, vows, and covenants, as well as of human laws respecting moral duties, however distinct, is no more separable from the obligation of God's law than Christ's two distinct natures are separable the one from the other, but closely connected in manifold respects. In binding ourselves to necessary duties, and to other things so long and so far as is conducive thereto, God's law is the only rule to direct us how to glorify and enjoy Him, is made the rule of our engagement. Our vow is no new rule of duty, but a new bond to make the law of God our rule. Even Adam's engagement to perfect obedience in the covenant of works was nothing else. His fallibility in his estate of innocence made it proper that he should be bound by his own consent or engagement as well as by the authority of God. Our imperfection in this life and the temptations which surround us make it needful that we, in like manner, should be bound to the same rule, both by the authority of God and our own engagements. It is in the law of God that all our deputed authority to command others or to bind ourselves is allotted to us. The requirement of moral duties by the law of God obliges us to use all lawful means to promote the performance of them, and hence requires human laws and self-engagements, and the observance of them as conducive to it. Nay, they are also expressly required in His law, as is ordinances for helping and hedging us in to our duty. In making lawful vows, as well as in making human laws, we exert the deputed authority of God, the supreme lawgiver. granted to us in His law, in the manner which His law prescribes, and in obedience to its prescription. In forming our vows as an instituted ordinance of God's worship, which He has required us to receive, observe, and keep pure and entire, Psalm 76, 11, 119, 106, 61, 12, Isaiah 19, 18, verses 18 and 21, 45, 23, and 24, 44, 5, Jeremiah 50 verse 5, 2 Corinthians 8, 5. We act precisely according to the direction of His law and in obedience to His authority in it, binding ourselves with a bond, binding our soul with a bond, Numbers 30 verses 2 through 11. Binding ourselves by that which we utter with our lips, verses 2, 6 and 12. Binding ourselves with a binding oath, binding ourselves, binding our soul by our own vow, our own bond, verses 4, 7, and 14. In forming our vow, we, according to the prescription of his own law, solemnly constitute God, who is the supreme lawgiver and Lord of the conscience, the witness of our self-engagement, and the guarantee graciously to reward our evangelical fulfillment of it, and justly to punish our perfidious violation of it. The more punctual and faithful observation of God's law, notwithstanding our manifold infirmities and temptations, and the more effectual promoting of His glory therein, is the end of our self-engagements as well as of human laws of authority. And by a due regard to their binding force, as above stated, is this end promoted, as hereby the obligation of God's law is the more deeply impressed on our minds, and we are shut up to obedience to it. and deterred from transgressing it. In consequence of our formation of our vow with respect to its matter, manner, and end as prescribed by God, He does and necessarily must ratify it in all its awful solemnities, requiring us by His law to pay it as a bond of debt, to perform and fulfill it as an engagement to duties and an obligation which stands upon or against us. Numbers 30 verses 5, 7, 9, 11 with Deuteronomy 23, 21-23, Psalm 2611, 50, 14, Ecclesiastes 5, 4, and 5, Matthew 5, 33. In obedience to this divine requirement and considering our vow in that precise form in which God and His law adopts and ratifies it and requires it to be fulfilled, we pay, perform, and fulfill it as a bond wherewith we, in obedience to Him, have bound ourselves to endeavor universal obedience to his law as our only rule of faith and manners. Whoever does not, in his attempts to obey human laws or to fulfill self-engagements, consider them as having that binding force which the law of God allows them, he pours contempt on them, as ordinances of God, and on the law of God for allowing them a binding force. Thus, through maintaining the superadded but subordinate obligation of human laws and of self-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 ourselves to necessary duties commanded by the law of God, must 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 fulfill our vow as an engagement of obligation founded in the supreme authority of His law warranting us to make it. We are bound to fulfill it as a means of further impressing His authority manifested in His law upon our own consciences, as a bond securing and promoting a faithful obedience to all His commandments. We are bound to fulfill it in obedience to that divine authority by derived power from which we, as governors of ourselves, made it to promote His honor. In those or like respects, our fulfillment of our vows is a direct obedience to His whole law. We are moreover bound to fulfill it as a solemn ordinance of God's worship, the essential form of which lies in self-obligation, and must be received, observed, kept pure and entire, and wholly and reverently used, and so in obedience to Commandments 1, 2, and 3." Editors note, these refer to specific commandments from the Ten Commandments. We are bound to fulfill it as an ordinance of God, in which we have pledged our own truth, sincerity, and faithfulness, and so in obedience to Commandments 9, 1, 2, and 3. We are bound to fulfill it as a solemn deed or grant, in which we have made over our persons, property, and service to the Lord and His Church, and so in obedience to Commandments 1, 2, 8, nay, in obedience to the whole law of love and equity, Matthew 22, 37, and 39, and chapter 7, verse 12. We are bound to fulfill it from regard to the declarative glory of God, as the witness of our making it, that He may appear to have been called to attest nothing but sincerity and truth, and so in obedience to commandments 1, 3, and 4. We are bound to fulfill it from a regard to truth, honesty, and reverence of God, as things not only commanded by His law, but good in themselves, agreeable to His very nature, and therefore necessarily commanded by Him, and from a detestation of falsehood, injustice, and contempt of God as things intrinsically evil, contrary to His nature, and therefore necessarily forbidden in His law, and thus in regard to His authority in His whole law as necessarily holy, just, and good. We are bound to fulfill 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 sanction, as the gracious rewarder of our fidelity, or just revenger of our perfidy, and hence in regard to our own happiness, as concerned in that sanction. Finally, we are bound to fulfill it in obedience to that command of God, which adopts and ratifies it, requiring us to pay, fulfill, or perform our vow, oath, or covenant. Psalm 50 verse 14, 7611, Ecclesiastes 5.4, Deuteronomy 23, 21-23, Matthew 5.33. In violating such a vow, we do not merely transgress 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 consequently that supreme authority in God from which ours was derived, and so strike against the foundation of the whole law. We manifest 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 means of promoting obedience to all the commands of God, we mark our hatred of them and prepare ourselves to transgress them and endeavor to remove the awe of God's authority and terror of His judgments from our consciences. We blasphemously represent the Most 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 durst, that is, dared, not avenge our villainy. Contrary to the truth and faithfulness required in His law and pledged in our vow, we plunge ourselves into the most criminal deceit and falsehood. Contrary to equity, we rob God and His Church of that which we had solemnly devoted to their service. Contrary to devotion, we banish the serious impression of God's adorable perfections. Contrary to good neighborhood, we render ourselves a plague and curse and encourage others to the most enormous wickedness. Contrary to the design of our creation and preservation, we reject the glory of God and obedience to His law from being our end. Meanwhile, we trample on the ratification of our vow by the divine law in all its awful solemnities and manifold connections with itself and requirement to pay it. It is manifest that our covenanting ancestors understood their vows in the manner above represented. They never represent them as mere acknowledgments of the obligations of God's law or as placing themselves in some new relation to God's law or more directly under any command of it. but declare that a man binds himself by a promissory oath to that which is good and just. It cannot oblige to sin, but in anything not sinful being taken, it binds to performance. By a vow we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties. And, in expressions almost innumerable, they represent the obligation of their vows as distinct and different though not separable from the law of God." And he gives multiple references to Stevenson's history, Sir James Stewart in Naftali and Just Populi Divinum, John Brown of Womfrey and his Apologetical Relation, Covenanter's Plea, James Durham on the Commandments of God, also Ralph Erskine's works, and so forth. Please see the printed version for those references. They no less plainly declared that no man may bind himself by oath to anything but what he is able and resolved to perform. No man may vow anything which is not in his own power, and for the performance of which he has no promise of ability from God." Footnote C Hall on Gospel Worship Volume 2, pages 378 and 385. And in their several forms of covenant, they never once pretend to engage performing of duties in that absolute perfection which is required by the law of God, but sincerely, really, and constantly to endeavor the performance of them. Heading 2. These public covenants of our ancestors, in which they abjured the popish and other abominations, may be called national because the representatives, 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 solemnity or continuance of their obligation. Both church and state jointly promoted them, and in different respects they related to both, being at once covenants of men with God and with one another. Insofar as therein they covenanted with one another with an immediate view to promote or preserve what belonged to the state, they served instead of a civil bond. But at the same time they covenanted with one another as church members in subordination to their covenanting with God himself as their principal party. The ratifications given to these covenants by the state were really civil ratifications which adopted them as 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 confessions of faith made them merely civil confessions and mere acts of Parliament, or than the repeated legal establishment of our Protestant religion in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government made it a mere civil religion. These covenants were sometimes used as means of promoting civil purposes. but that will no more prove them merely civil than the use of fasting and prayer for advancing or securing the welfare of the state will prove them a mere civil worshiping of God. These covenants were formed for promoting the happiness of both church and state and were calculated to answer that end. But so is the Christian religion and all the ordinances of it if duly observed. 1st Timothy 1.8, Proverbs 14.34 I admit that there was sometimes too mixed an interference of civil and ecclesiastical power in enjoining these covenants, but abuse of things does not alter their nature. God's ordinances are too often used in a carnal, sensual and devilish manner without ever being rendered such themselves. It is only as really religious covenants and not as civil or state covenants they can be adopted into ordination vows or baptismal engagements. and that they were such the following arguments evince, that is, make evident. 1. The covenanters themselves, who best knew their own intentions, do times without number represent them as vows, which their confession declares to be a religious ordinance as covenants with God, which must be religious if any dealings with him be so. He refers to Confession chapter 22, verse section 6, the larger catechism, question 108, Collarwood's history, and several other references. Please see the printed version. The assembly in 1649, in their last session, represent them as confirmations of that right which the Father had given Christ to the ends of the earth. They, times without number, call them religious covenants, a religious covenant with God among themselves, a voluntary covenanting with God, a more free service to God than that which is commanded by civil authority, and hence distinguish their covenant as having a religious and perpetual obligation from acts of Parliament establishing religion which are changeable and of the nature of a civil ratification." See Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland. He gives the page numbers. Concerning the Solemn League, Principal Bailey says, The English were for a civil league, we were for a religious. They were brought to us in this. Bailey's Letters, Volume 1, page 381. The Assembly, 1645, in their letter to the Dutch, say of it, quote, Having made a religious covenant, even as bound to God by the firmest bond that God might avert his wrath already smoking and hanging over our heads, a covenant renewed with God, which shows that the Scots considered it as a real renovation of their national covenant, a religious covenant with God and among ourselves, if it should seem meet to your prudence to think of joining in the religious fellowship of such a covenant." How absurd for persons of weaker capacities and less instructed by the Spirit of God to pretend at this distance of time to know better the nature of their covenants than themselves did. 2. Except perhaps in 1581, the Church in her general assemblies or commissions took the lead in promoting the covenanting work. and the state, when it did anything, did little more than ratify the deeds of the church appointing these covenants to be sworn." Again, he gives several references. "...Nay, to me it appears evident that even from 1581 to 1595 the national covenant was subscribed more in obedience to the church than in obedience to the state." 3. In the years 1596 and 1638, In which the covenanting work was most delightfully carried on in Scotland, the state had no influence at all in promoting it. Nay, in 1638 the court did all it could to oppose the covenanter's procedure. Indeed, our zealous ancestors in the preamble to their bond of that year quote many acts of Parliament in favour of that religion to which they engaged, and of the steadfast maintenance of it. But they never considered these acts as a part of their bond, or as a command to covenant in their manner. but as an evidence that they were doing nothing rebellious or treasonable as their adversaries pretended. Nay, till 1640 no Act of Parliament enjoined covenanting work. 4. All along in Scotland, England, and Ireland, ministers, not statesmen, were the ordinary administrators of these covenants. And upon religious occasions on the Lord's Day, before administration of His supper or solemn fasting, were they appointed to be taken. If, without law, laymen sometimes administered them, that will no more prove them merely state covenants than midwives' baptizing of children will constitute baptism a midwife ordinance. To protect them from the insults of Popish and other profane opposers, the ministers in the year 1590 had a royal commission and a number of attendants appointed them when they administered the covenant. But that will no more prove that they acted as civil judges then that ministers, receiving an order from king or parliament to observe a public fast or hold a synod, they must, in their fasting and judging work, renounce Christ's sole headship over his church and adopt the magistrate into his place. If it is pretended that ministers' marrying of persons is not a religious but civil work, I insist that the marriage of Christians, which is to be only in the Lord, to bring up an holy seed for him and his church, and the family to be a church in the house, and the party's mutual duty copied from and influenced by the example of Christ, and as it is a covenant of God which is not like civil contracts dissolvable by the will of the parties, be plainly proven to be a merely civil and no-wise religious bond. If bishops as spiritual lords administer the king's coronation oath, I leave it to others to explain and defend their conduct. It is certain the defense of religion is a leading article in that oath. There appears nothing in the origination of these covenants which can prove them merely civil. Nothing appears in the five bonds of our Reformers in 1557, 1559, 1560, 1563, but may well accord to the nature of a religious engagement. As Christians, and not merely as civil lords, they bound themselves chiefly to promote the true religion according to God's words. Had King James been not only the original advisor, but even the framer of the National Covenant, it might nevertheless have been a religious bond. The Psalms which King David penned and James verified are not thereby rendered merely civil. The fast which King Jehoshaphat appointed and at which he publicly prayed was really religious, not merely civil. Our confessions of faith and Protestant religion were not rendered merely civil, though in 1560 and 1690 the state took the lead in the ratification and establishment before any general assembly of these periods. It is not improbable that the ministers of the church had a principal hand in the origination of our national covenant. In 1580 James was about 14 years of age and by no transcendent genius qualified for the work. Just before and quickly after we find him marking his hatred of true reformation. His ruling favorites were not a little suspected and complained of by the zealous clergy as addicted to potpourri. Through the tearing out of the minutes of four sessions of the assembly October 1580 by some parasite of the court, Calderwood's history, at least his printed abridgment, is imperfect on this period. He only says that, quote, the Second Confession of Faith, that is, the National Covenant, commonly called the King's Confession, was subscribed by the King and his household, that is, Privy Council, January 28, 1581, which is but an appendix to the first, that is, the Scotch Confession, and comprehends it. And so both are one, that a charge was subscribed by the King, March 2, whereby subjects of all ranks were charged to subscribe the Confession, that is, National Covenant, and requiring ministers to demand said subscription, and dissenters such as refused. The General Assembly in April approved the said Confession and enjoined the subscription of it. The Assembly in October peremptorily enjoined ministers to see that this Confession of Faith be subscribed by all under their charge. The Assembly in February 1588 enjoined all ministers to deal with noblemen and gentry to subscribe this Confession of Faith. In March 1590, the Privy Council, at the earnest desire of the Assembly, appointed about ninety-six ministers to convene before them, persons of all ranks, to subscribe the Confession and General Bond. The Assembly appointed the Confession and Bond to be subscribed anew on copies printed by Robert Walgrave." In quarto, and fronted with these scriptures, Joshua 24.15, 2 Kings 11.17, Isaiah 44.5, which certainly respect religious covenants. And again, those are all from Calderwood's history. Petrie affirms, quote, that Romish dispensations for papists to swear the oaths or do other things required of them, provided they continued true to the Pope in their heart, being showed to King James, but whether by ministers appointed to watch over the dangers of the Church, he says not, occasioned the formation and swearing of the National Covenant in order to defeat the intention of them. Mr. Craig, a celebrated minister, formed the draft of it at the desire of King James. and perhaps instigated James to desire it. With respect to James' conduct in the drawing and first subscription of this covenant, Spotswood, who had the best access to original vouchers, had he been inclined to a faithful use of them, says, So careful was the king to have the church satisfied and the rumors of the court's defection from the Protestant religion repressed. Remarks in Williamson's sermon, 1703, says, quote, the Presbyterian party in the year 1580 got an active assembly at Dundee against episcopacy. That did not content them. They raised mighty jealousies against the king and his court as if they intended to reintroduce popery. To convince his subjects of his sincere adherence to the Protestant religion, his majesty caused his minister, John Craig, to compile the negative confession, national covenant, in the form of an oath, close quote. Collier says, quote, this covenant was signed either by the King or the Lords of the Council at the request of the General Assembly, close quote. The origination of the Solemn League and Covenant was equally consistent with a religious vow. Not a few of the most pious clergymen in England had all along, from Elizabeth's establishment of the Protestant religion, hated part of the ceremonies and the lordly power of the bishops. Many of these, driven from their charge by the prolatical persecution under Elizabeth and James and Charles I, had been compassionately taken into the families of great men for the education of their children. Their instruction and example were remarkably blessed for rendering their pupils and others intelligent and pious. They perceived the encroachments made upon their religion and liberties by Archbishop Laud and his assistants, and not a few of them conceived a strong relish for what was then called Puritanism. The success of the Scotch Covenanters in their struggles with the tyrannical court made many of the English wish and hope for a familiar deliverance. In their treaty with Charles 1641, the Scots requested that the English should be brought to a reformed uniformity with themselves in religion. The Scotch ministers who attended their commissioners at London, informing that treaty of peace, by their instructions and example, recommended their Presbyterian Reformation not a little to many of the most learned and pious of the English. A correspondence for promoting a religious uniformity between the two churches was carried on by a number of the English clergymen with the Scotch Assemblies 1641, 1642, 1643, and by the English Parliament with the Assemblies 1642, 1643. At their request, the Assembly appointed Messrs. Henderson, Rutherford, Gillespie, and others to assist the Westminster Assembly in compiling ecclesiastical standards of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government. Alarmed by the terrible massacre of the Protestants in Ireland, and reduced to straits in their war with King Charles, the English Parliament requested that for promoting and establishing uniformity in religion, and preserving their respective liberties, the two nations might be more closely connected by a mutual league. The letter from a multitude of English ministers, the papers from the English Parliament and their commissioners, and the Scotch Assembly's answers, manifest that a uniformity of religion was the principal thing proposed by this League. Henry Vane, and perhaps some other English commissioners, nevertheless, from a dislike of the Scotch Presbyterianism, thought to have gone no further than a civil League, but the Scots being positive for a religious one, he yielded. It appeared from that readiness and avidity, that is, eagerness, with which the solemn League was received in England, that it answered to the wishes of his constituents. After the Westminster Assembly had examined and approved it, the English Parliament appointed it to be sworn by persons of all ranks and issued forth instructions and an exhortation for promoting that work. And Brown gives several references. Please see the printed edition. Six. There is nothing in the matter of these covenants which does not enter into the faith and practice of true religion. They principally engage to the belief, profession and practice of the true Protestant religion in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, had renounced and promised the regular extirpation of potpourri, prelacy, and whatever else should, by the word of God, be found contrary to said doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, and holy practice. The preservation of the king's person and authority, and of the rights and privileges of the parliament and nation, was promised as a thing subordinated to the interests of religion, in which view it is a very necessary and important branch of practical Christianity. 1 Peter 2.13 and 17, Titus 3.1. 7. The manner of covenanting represented in these covenants corresponds not to merely civil, but to religious bonds. In their bond 1581, 1590, and so forth, our ancestors covenanted as thoroughly resolved in the truth by the Word and Spirit of God, as believing it with their heart, and joining themselves to the Reformed Kirk, that is, Church, in doctrine, faith, religion and use of the holy sacraments as lively members of the same in Christ their head. If these expressions be but understood as relating to the visible church, her concerns as such are of a spiritual and religious nature, John 18 36. Their covenanting in 1596 was so much detached from the state and so religiously conducted that you dare not pretend it to have been state covenanting. Yet they viewed it as a mere renovation of their national covenant in a manner suited to their circumstances. Shields in Heinlet Luce, Defoe, Crookshanks in Stevenson, and Petrie in their church histories, and Gillespie in his English Popish ceremonies, calls it a renovation of their national covenant. Epistola Philadelphi, subjoined to Altare Damascenum, says, quote, their sacred and solemn covenant was renewed. in which men of all ranks covenanted with God that they would adhere to the religion and discipline." Calderwood, who was perhaps present, says, quote, The end of the convention March 1596 was to enter into a new league with God, holding up their hands, entering into a new league and covenant with God, that the covenant might be renewed in synods after the same manner. The covenant was renewed in synods. The covenant was renewed in presbyteries. The covenant was renewed in parishes." In 1604, the whole brethren of the Presbytery of St. Andrews and Synod of Lothian subscribed the Confession of Faith and National Covenant anew, like as they subscribed the same in the year 1596, which Confession, that is, National Covenant, is solemnly renewed in the Covenant celebrated in the General and Provincial Assemblies, Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions in the year 1596, and how shall any be heard against that which he is solemnly sworn or subscribed? The Assembly 1638, Session 17 say, quote, the Covenant was renewed in 1596, close quote. The Preamble of the Covenant 1648 affirms that, quote, the Assembly 1596 and all the Kirk Judicatures with the concurrence of the nobility, gentry, and burgesses, did with many tears acknowledge before God the breach of the National Covenant and engage themselves to Reformation." In 1638 they covenanted in obedience to the command of God, conformed to the practice of the godly in former times, and according to the laudable example of their worthy and religious progenitors, and of many yet living among them, that is, who had covenanted in 1596, They covenanted as agreeing with their heart to the true religion, and from the knowledge and conscience of their duty to God, their King and their country, without worldly respect or inducement so far as human infirmity will suffer. As Christians, renewing their covenant with God, as resolved to be good examples of all goodness, soberness, and righteousness. In 1643 they covenanted as unfaintedly desirous to be humbled for their sins in not duly receiving Jesus Christ and walking worthy of Him. In 1648 they covenanted in imitation of their penitent predecessors in 1596, as deeply affected with their sins, especially the undervaluing of the gospel, that they had not labored in the power thereof and received Christ into their hearts, and as really and sincerely penitent, denying themselves and resolving not to lean on carnal confidences but to lean on the Lord. Dare you pretend that all these expressions and their several bonds represent men merely as members of a commonwealth employed in mere state covenanting? 8. The ends of their covenanting expressed in their several bonds are religious, not merely civil. In 1581 through 1596 and 1604, they covenanted in order to promote and preserve the profession and practice of the true Protestant religion, in order to advance the kingdom of Christ as the principle, and the welfare of their country as their subordinate end. In 1638, they covenanted as a means of obtaining the Lord's special favor and of recovering the purity of religion. In 1643, they covenanted that they and their posterity might, as brethren, live together in faith and love, and the Lord delight to dwell among them, and that the Lord might be one and His name one in all the three kingdoms, that the Lord might turn away His wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. In 1648 they covenanted for advancing the knowledge of God and holiness and righteousness in the land. 9. There is nothing in these covenants, or in the seasons of taking them, which does not perfectly harmonize with the taking hold of God's covenant of grace. Men's belief, profession and practice of the true Protestant religion, and laboring to promote the welfare of their king and country, agree well to it. Titus 2, 11 and 12, and verse 14, 3, verses 1, 8 and 14, Proverbs 23, 23, 1 Peter 2, 13 and 17, Romans 13, 1-8, and 11-14. They are voluntary joining themselves to the Church of God as lively members in Christ, and agreeing with their whole heart to His true religion and ordinances agree exactly to it. Psalm 22, 27-31, 1-10, verse 3, 2 Corinthians 8, 5, Having before their eyes the glory of God and advancement of the kingdom of Christ, and their earnest and constant endeavors in their stations, that they in their posterity might live in faith and love, delightfully agree with it." Matthew 6, 9, and 10. 1 Corinthians 10, 31. Ephesians 3, 14-19. 2 Thessalonians 3, 1. Psalm 78, 4-9. Isaiah 38, 19. An unfeigned desire to be humbled for their sin in not duly receiving Christ and walking worthy of Him, and for their unworthy use of the sacraments, a real and sincere repentance, self-denial, and resolution to lean upon the Lord alone accord excellently with it." Ezekiel 16, 62-63, 36, 25-32, Philippians 3, 3, and 8-14. The covenanting seasons being remarkable for trouble or danger, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and deep convictions of sin, are precisely those marked out for that work in Scripture. Joel 2, 12 and 13, Psalm 50, 14 and 15, 66, 13 and 14, Ezekiel 20, 36 and 37, Hosea 2, 7 and 14, 5, 15, 3, 4 and 5, Isaiah 44, 3 through 5, Acts 2, 2 Corinthians 8, 5, Jeremiah 50, 4 through 5, These covenants, indeed, connect fulfillment with gracious rewards and violation with fearful judgments. But this annexed sanction no more renders them covenants of works than, so help me God, in the conclusion of oaths renders every oath a covenant of works. Notwithstanding this sanction annexed to the Israelites' covenants of duty with God, they might well stand steadfast in the covenant of grace, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 27-30, 1 Kings 9. In this world, the law, as a rule of life, has an annexed sanction of gracious rewards and fearful chastisements, as well as it has a covenant, one of legal rewards and punishments. Psalm 1, Isaiah 3, 10 and 11, Exodus 20, verses 6 and 12, Romans 2, 7 through 10, and 8, 13, Hebrews 11, 6, Galatians 6, 7 through 10, 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Without neonomianism, Neonomianism, in an editorial footnote, is the false teaching that the gospel is a new law, the requirements of which we fulfill by faith and repentance. Neonomianism is most often associated with the theology of Richard Baxter, 1615-1691. Opponents rightly believe Neonomianism changes the free gospel offer into another gospel by means of human works, whereby men are not saved by faith as the alone instrument of justification, but by works of a new law, namely faith and repentance. For a very helpful treatment exposing the dangers of neonomianism, the reader may consult John Anderson's Precious Truth, forthcoming from Gospel Covenant publications, and currently available in photocopy reprint from Stillwater Survival Books. Returning to the text, without neonomianism, the Holy Ghost calls that which is annexed to believers' obedience a reward. and that which is connected with their disobedience a punishment. Psalm 19 11 58 11 Proverbs 11 18 23 18 Matthew 5 12 10 41 Genesis 15 1 Ezra 9 13 Amos 3 2 2nd Corinthians 2 6 Lamentations 3 39 Psalm 99 8 Quote, the threatenings of God's law show believers what even their sins deserve and what afflictions in this world they may expect for them although freed from the curse thereof, threatened by the law. The promises of it show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof, although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works, so that as man's doing good and refraining from evil, because the law encourages the one and deters from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law and not under grace." 10. The remarkable effusion of the Spirit of God which attended the swearing of these covenants, for the conviction, conversion, and confirmation of multitudes, fixing in their hearts such a deep sense of religion as all the profaneness and persecution of twenty-eight years could not eradicate, is no contemptible evidence that he looked upon them as religious, not merely state covenants. It is at our infinite hazard if we call that common and unclean which God has so singularly honored. Objection 1. Are covenanters characterizing themselves noblemen, barons, burgesses, and commons proves their covenants to be mere civil covenants? Answer 1. Will then others characterizing themselves ministers render them at the same time church covenants? Has Solomon's denominating himself King of Israel in his Proverbs and Ecclesiastes rendered these two books merely civil, not religious? If in a bond or bill I denominate myself Minister of the Gospel, will that render the bond or bill religious and ecclesiastical? 2. As they never used such characters in their bonds, but when they covenanted contrary to their king's will, They probably intended no more by them than merely to mark the great harmony of all ranks for the encouragement of their friends and the terror of their malicious enemies. 3. There was no irreligion in subjecting themselves in all their honors to the service of Jesus Christ as made of God head over all things to His Church. Revelation 21-24. Objection 2. In 1638 and 1643 they framed their covenants to admit Episcopalians and Independents whom they would have not admitted to the sacraments. Answer 1. As in taking these covenants men bound themselves to the regular reformation of everything found sinful when tried by the Word of God, our ancestors, agreeable to Romans 14.1, Isaiah 35.3 and 4, were willing to help forward the weak and admit to their covenant and church fellowship every person who appeared willing to receive more light, even though they were not in every respect equally enlightened and reformed as themselves. But I defy you to prove that they excluded one upright covenanter from their religious communion. 2. The covenants of 1638 and 1643 were not framed to admit any who resolved obstinately to adhere to episcopacy or independency. In the Bond of 1638, men bound themselves to forbear the practice of Episcopalian government and of the Articles of Perth till they should be tried and allowed in a free General Assembly. The Covenanters declared that their intention in that bond was against all innovations and corruptions. In the Covenant of 1643, that paragraph, which peculiarly respected the Protestants in England and Ireland, was prudently suited to the weakness of many of them. But there is nothing in it which favors either episcopacy or independency. The preservation of the Reformation attained in Scotland sworn to excluded them both. If then, Erastians, that is, an erroneous political and ecclesiastical system that promotes the view that the civil magistrate should be the head of the church within his jurisdiction. The classic treatment against Erastianism is George Gillespie's Aaron's Rod blossoming, available from Sprinkle Publications. That's the editor's note. If then Erastians or Independents, and others, dissembled with God and their brethren in taking it, they, not the Covenant, are blamable. Men's hypocritical reception of the sacraments will not render them civil ordinances. 3. You can never prove that the Covenant of 1638 was tendered to the Doctors of Aberdeen after they had shown their obstinate attachment to prelacy, or that Philip Nye or any others, after manifesting their obstinate attachment to independency, had the Covenant of 1643 tendered to them by any truly zealous Covenanter, Bailey affirms that the Scots were peremptory against keeping open a door to independency in England, and he gives references. Please see the printed edition. Objection 3. The imposition of these covenants under civil penalties proves them to have been merely state covenants. Answer 1. No more than the requirement of men under civil penalties to partake at least once a year of the Lord's Supper rendered it a merely civil ordinance. An ordinance may remain religious, though a civil sanction should be sinfully annexed to it. 2. If, which I do not, you believe that Asa and Josiah, by penal laws, compelled men to take their covenants, you can scarce condemn our covenanters annexing civil penalties to the refusal of their bonds, especially as they knew it would scarce come from any but such as were malignant enemies to the civil as well as religious liberties of the nation. 3. In 1596, 1638, 1648, 1649, these covenants had no penalty either civil or ecclesiastical annexed to the not swearing of them, without any hint from the covenanters that this altered the nature of the engagement. OBJECTION 4. Our ancestors gave up with their covenanting work whenever they got the State of the Union settled by means of it, And having got their civil liberties otherwise secured at the revolution, they never covenanted at all. Answer 1. Did ten years of murderous invasion and outrageous contention, and twenty-eight years of horrible profaneness and persecution make our nation so happy that covenanting with God our Deliverer was no more necessary? Or have the fearful profanation of the name of God by unnecessary and wicked oaths, or the shocking bribery and perjury too common in the election of our representatives in Parliament, and our other outrageous abominations rendered Britain so holy that these covenants need no more be regarded? 2. Not the alteration of the national affairs to the better, but the alteration of men's hearts to the worse, made covenanting with God to be so contemned at the Restoration and Revolution. Section 3 That these solemn and religious covenants with God, in which all gross heresy, blasphemy, idolatry, potpourri, and other abominations have been repeatedly abjured, bind not only the immediate swearers or subscribers, but all their posterity and other representees in all generations following, to a faithful performance of everything engaged, must now be demonstrated. 1. That which is engaged in these covenants, being moral duty commanded by the law of God, is of perpetual obligation. The whole faith and practice to which we therein engage are stated from the oracles of God in our excellent standards. If the matter in itself were contrary to God's law, no human covenant could bind us or any represented by us to it for a moment. We can have no power from God to bind ourselves or others to anything sinful, 2 Corinthians 13 8. Nor can any human deed be valid in opposition to his supreme authority. If the matter were indifferent, no vow or promissory oath could lawfully constitute a perpetual obligation, as the alteration of circumstances might render it very inexpedient and unedifying. 1 Corinthians 6.12, 10.23, 16.14, Romans 14.19. But if that which is engaged be precisely what every person in every age or circumstance is bound to by the antecedent tie of the law of God, No man can be, in the least, abridged of any lawful liberty by being brought under the most solemn obligation of an oath or vow. The strictest fulfillment of it cannot but tend to the real profit of everyone concerned, both in his personal and in his social capacity. It is therefore for the advantage of us and our posterity to be hedged in and bound up to the most exact conformity to God's law by every means which He requires or allows in His Word, even as it is for our advantage to have our liberty bounded by the ledges of bridges. The law of God requires us to do everything which is calculated to promote or secure our own or our children's walking in the truth. Genesis 17, 7, Psalm 45, 17, 78, 1-9, Isaiah 38, 19, 3 John verse 4. It represents solemn vows as a means most effectual to answer this purpose. Psalm 119-106, 76-11, 50-14, 56-12, 66-13-14, 61-8, 116-12-19, 132-1-5, Genesis 28-20, Deuteronomy 5-2, Deuteronomy 29, Joshua 24, 15 and 24 and 25, 2 Chronicles 15, 12, 23, 16 and 17, 29, 10, 34, 30 through 32, Ezra 23, Nehemiah 9, Nehemiah 10, Isaiah 19, 18 and 21, 44, 3 through 5, 45, 23 and 24, Jeremiah 50, 4 through 5, 2 Corinthians 8, 5. By the repeated judicial acts of both church and state, approving and imposing these covenants, they were constituted the adopted laws of both, proper to be acknowledged and submitted to by all their members in the most solemn manner which their circumstances permitted. Several of these acts, as well as the best duties of Christians, had their sinful infirmities, particularly on the head of penalties, which I mean not to defend. But insofar as these Acts approved and authorized these covenants, which bound men to receive and hold fast such temporal and spiritual privileges as God had given them, and thankfully improved them to His glory, and required a Christian regular and seasonable taking of them, they were certainly good and valid. Being good in themselves and the exact performance of them calculated to promote the glory of God and eminent welfare of both church and state, these covenants, if once regularly adopted as laws, must remain obligatory upon the adopting societies while they exist. Civil rulers being ordained ministers of God for good to men, Romans 13 1-4, and church officers appointed by Christ for the edifying of his body, Ephesians 4 11-14, have no power against the truth but for the truth, 2 Corinthians 13 8-10, and so can no more repeal a law which promotes only that which is morally good, any more than they can give validity to a sinful one. These covenants must therefore, in the view of God and conscience, continue binding as laws divinely ratified upon us as subjects and as Christians. But it is their much more solemn obligation as public vows and covenants with God which I mean to establish particularly with reference to Scotland. 3. The matter of these vows being morally good, calculated to promote the holiness and happiness of every person in every age, The immediate covenanters were such as laid every possible foundation of transmitting the obligation of their vow to the whole church and nation, to all generations. The representatives of both church and state, the majority of the society, and our own parents in their respective stations, took these covenants. What could transmit and extend an obligation to posterity if all this did not? You cannot but allow that even in private civil deeds the obligation is extended far beyond the immediate engagers. In bonds respecting money or service, men bind not only themselves but their successors and assigns, that is, those to whom property is lawfully transferred, especially if they have the continued right to or possession of that fund or property from which that money or service natively arises. The obligations contained in a call to a minister fix on the whole congregation, if subscribed by the majority, without any regular dissent, and on such as afterwards accede to it. The treaties of peace, traffic, and so forth, contracted by kings, parliaments, magistrates, are held binding on their subjects and even on their posterity. They, who accede to any society, fall under the binding force of its social engagements for debt, duty, and so forth. If bonds and covenants did only bind immediate contractors, nothing but the wildest disorder would ensue. If the immediate engagers quickly after died, they who trusted to their engagement might be totally ruined. A minority who had been silent during a transaction might in a few days overturn a bond or contract of the majority. Subjects might at their pleasure render void the contracts and treaties of their rulers. To pretend that men may not use the same freedom in binding their representees in posterity to God as in binding them to men is highly absurd and shocking, as it represents God as more dangerous and less honorable and useful to be dealt with than the very worst of men. Why may not a parent, in offering his child to God in baptism, take hold of God to be his God and the God of his seed after him to all generations, and dedicate not only that child but all his posterity to God as his honored vassals and servants, Genesis 17, 7, Acts 2, 39. Is this less dutiful, safe, or honorable than to invest himself and them in some earthly property and bind them as possessors of it, to be the vassals of some sinful superior? If the majority of a society, especially in distress, may put the whole under the authority and protection of a man who is a great sinner, why must they act either wickedly or foolishly if, by a solemn dedication, They put it under the special care and protection of the great God our Savior, Revelation 11, 15, Psalm 2, 12, and chapter 22, verse 27. If the representatives of a people may bind them to live peaceably and trade honestly with earthly neighbors, or may in some cases subject them to the power, laws, or exactions of other earthly superiors, why allow them no power to bind them to study peace with God and to follow peace with all men and holiness? No power to surrender them to God, to be ruled by His law, and to render Him His due revenues of honour? Has not God an original and supreme right to all men as His creatures, subjects, and children? Are they not all bound by His law to the whole of that duty to which we contend any man ought to be bound by a vow of perpetual obligation? Is it not inexpressibly honourable, safe, and profitable to stand under the special care of and in relation to God in Christ? Why then more shy of devoting posterity or other representees to him than to a sinful man in his service? You've reached the end of track five of A Refutation of Religious Pluralism by John Brown of Haddington. This work is published by Gospel Covenant Publications. Gospel Covenant Publications' website is www.gcpublications.com. They may be reached by email at info at gcpublications.com and by phone, area code 208-553-5296. Please continue listening at track six.