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A95018 A true coppie of the declaration published at Sanqhair upon the tenth day of August 1692 1693 (1693) Wing T2642; ESTC R229925 11,845 14

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known Integrity Approven fidelity Constant Affection and zeal to the Cause of God Such against whom there is no Just Cause of exception nor jealousie which our Covenants and the Laws of the Croun require to be in Judges Superiour or Inferiour whom we are allowed to set over us and joyn with according to Exod. 18.21 2. Sam. 23.3 4. Nehem. 7.2 7. Being not of one perfect Religion with our selves neither in Covenant nor admitted Covenant-wayes without the sealing and swearing of which our fathers or rather we our selves refused to receive Charles the second to the Croun It being the very foundation wherupon any right they have to Govern is founded And without the Approbation and Subscription whereof the people can never have from him Sufficient security either for Religion or their Just Liberties And if the Prelats in England with their Associates were so peremptory as not to admitt him to the exercise of the Government untill they had him engadged to mentain and defend that Abjured Hierarchie How Astonishing is it that Presbyterians should not have waited till the Lord had raised up Instruments rightly Qualifyed and from whom sufficient Security for the Covenanted Reformation of the True Religion in these Lands might be had and not to have made hast in building up Zions breaches with the stones of that burnt mountain of BABYLON Their unfaithfullness to their souls In not representing to them the Hazard they were and would be in if they entred themselves heirs to the sins of that Throne against which the Lord hath such a Long and Eminent Controversie In seeking to establish his oun Interest upon the Ruines of the Interest of Jesus Christ which is nothing else but to oppose the Kingdom of the son of God by whom Kings do reigne If he should cleave unto these men as his Trusty Counsellors Who as they never had the Glory of God nor the good of his People before their eyes So now in all their Wayes and Counsels are seeking nothing but their oun Interest to the Hazard and Destruction of Religion and the Desolation of the Kingdoms If he should settle a peace with Gods Avowed and Declared Enemies the murtherers of his poor innocent People by ouning them as his good and Loyal Subjects upon condition of their peacable submission to his Government And if he should Employ Help Concurr or Joyn with Anti-christian Forces either at Home or Abroad All which he hath done and this day is doing which cannot be otherwise Judged but a giving of his Royall Power and strength unto the Beast and an accession to all that blood of the Lords people wherwith those sons of Babel have made the Lands under their Respective Tyrannies to Suim Their unfaithfullness in not Laying plainly and seasonably to his Consideration what the mouth of the LORD of HOSTS hath spoken of all the Accounts of People Nations Kings and Rulers against the Kingdom of His Son that they Imagine a Vain thing and that he that sitteth in Heaven will have them in derision and vex them in his sore displeasure What marks of desperate Malignancie Enmity and hatred to the Cause and people of God hath appeared these Years bypast in these men that now bear the SUAY in his Councels and Armies How the Anger of the Lord hath been kindled even against his dearest Saints when they have joyned themselves to such men as he hateth and is Cursed And how severelie he hath threatned and punished such Kings as have Associate with Idolaters Leaned to their helps And next Their Unfaithfullnesse to the poor guilty Land in not forseeing the Evil and fore shewing the Danger of setting up Magistrates without asking Counsell at the mouth of the Lord Although a Duty Incumbent on faithfull Watchmen to set the Trumpet to their mouths in such Cases and give Faithfull and Distinct Warning lest Israel cast off the thing that is good and the Enemie pursue him for setting up Kings and not by God and Princes without his knowledge Nor yet declaring the sin and Danger of Associating in War with known Enemies of Truth and Godlinesse such as are employed in the present Expedition Wherby a door is opened for the Introduction Toleration and Encouragment of Papists Malignants and Sectaries And the state of the Quarrell in stead of being rightly proposed according to the Ancient PLEA against both right and left hand opposites it is therby betrayed lost and buryed Add to all these their pretended Fasts and Thanksgivings for Successe and prosperity to the Enemies of God his Church and people Whereby the Lord is mocked His Truths buryed The peoples Souls ensnared The Godly stumbled A Course of Reformation rather buryed than raised prosecuted or defended And a Malignant Quarrell embraced Yea that same Course which hath been alwayes Curst of God and upon which he hath set evident marks of his Displeasure The Publick Sin for which he is this day contending against the Land and the ACHAN which hath made Israel so oft to fall before their Enemies Now if this be no false Charge as Alace it is not And if these be not only pieces of unfaithfullnesse but manifest breaches of Covenant and very great steps of defection from the Principles and practises of the once famous Church of Scotland as indeed they are And if our hearing and Joyning with them will Inferr a Concurrence with their Course A participation of their Guilt And a rendring of us obnoxious to the Judgments to which breach of Covenant is Lyable Since it is such a Communion as in the present Circumstances is Interpreted by all to be a Tessera of Incorporation with them and a signe of Approbation of their way with which all must be Interpreted Consenters that are not Contradicters And Lykwise a laying doun of our former Testimony before the Courses Testifyed against be forsaken as none will deny Then we see not How any Honest man Zealous Christian or Faithfull Minister can Condemn us for Declaring our cheerfull Resolution in the Lords strength to stand off and not to Concurr with them in this their New and strange way by hearing them paying their Stipends observing their Fast or Thanksgiving days Compearing before their Kirk-Sessions Presbyteries Synods Generall Assemblies or the Lyke But on the Contrarie To protest and Testify against the Constitution of these Ecclesiastick Meetings In Regard they are made up of such a corrupt mixture of Members Some of them having embraced Indulgences Some having given Bonds to the Councell not to preach for an Indefinite or Longer or Shorter tyme Some having ordinarly heard and Communicated with the Curates Some having come under sinfull Bonds of Peace and Oaths of Aleigance and the lyke to the persecuting Adversaries Repugnant to the Oath of our Covenants Against the breaches of which Covenant We Testifie And against all the Injuries and Affronts that have been or are offered to the same by the Ministers in Scotland in not preaching the perpetuall Obligation of them
nor Renewing them Neither discovering particularly the breaches thereof Yea many not once mentioning them in the Engadgments which they Require of parents when they present their Children to Baptisme or in their Licencing and Ordaining of persons to that Holy Function of the Ministery Oh! How Astonishing The like not to be heard among the Heathen That these Solemn Vows and Covenants should not only be Scorned derided and openly burnt and made a Capital Cryme to oun them by Open Avowed Adversaries But also cast by and buried by the Ministers of the Church of Scotland called Presbyterians A Covenant without the Swearing of which none was capable of the meanest Employment either in Church or State A Covenant to which Christs witnesses did alwayes Adhere and for which they did Suffer Contend That Covenant which the Representatives of Church State in the three Kingdoms Did Solemnly Swear and Subscribe for themselves and Posterity Of which the Obligation either to the Duty or Punishment continues Indispensible upon the Generation which for the Moral Equity of its Matter the Formality of its Manner the Importance of its Purpose the Holinesse of its Solemn Engadgment and the Glory of its Ends No power on Earth can disannull Disable or dispense That Covenant which was justly thought a fitt and excellent Mean not only to strengthen and fortifie the Kingdoms against the Common Enemy of the True Reformed Religion Publick peace and. prosperity But also to acquire the favour of Almighty God towards the three Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland as is exprest in the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons for taking of the Covenant Dated February 20. 1643. Surely then the Authors and Chief Instruments of the breaches of that Covenant are to be looked upon as those that strengthen the hands of the Common Enemy and provoke the wrath of Almighty God against these Kingdoms And if by the Declaration of both Kingdoms Joyned in Arms Anno 1643. Such as would not take the Covenant are declared to be Publick Enemies to their Religion and Countrey and to be Censured punished as Publick Adversaries Malignants Who seeth not now a strange falling away from these first Principles Professions among those who either Magnify Cry up or at the least Connive at and Comply with such as have not taken the Covenant Yea are known Enemies to it Yet notwithstanding These same Enemies have been Complyed with and Connived at by many Ministers in their taking Oaths Imposed by them Repugnant we say to the Oath of our Covenants And others of them having gone on in sundry other steps of Defection and to no small Contradiction of Christs more faithfull Sufferers and Witnesses Most part having Addressed for and accepted of the late Anti-christian Toleration And to this day are treading the same paths that lead to Defection and to a detestable Indifferencie and Neutrality in the Lords Matters without any shaddow of their Cordial Abandoning such Wofull Courses But on the Contrary a wyping of the mouth and saying We have done no Evil A Fasting praying and Giving Thanks for successe and Prosperity to those who have devoured Jacob and laid his habitation desolate Under whose shaddow they Enjoy this unhallowed ease as if they were delivered to retain and mentain all these Abominations Can such a work be of God Can tender Zealous souls Concurr with it in Faith Or Can it stand Which hath its foundation laid upon the Ruines of TRUTH Such a Superstructure as building up ZION with blood and Jerusalem with Iniquitie Such measures being bounded by the decrees of Gods Enemies And such Workers who by the word of God decrees of our Church would be suspended if not deposed from their Office and brought in as delinquents to undergo Censure and not as Constituent Members of a Judicatorie In regard they have yeelded up the Liberties of the Church into the hands and will of her Enemies and in regard they carry on a Course of defection contrary to the Scriptures our Covenants and the Acts and Constitutions of this Church We say again upon these grounds We in our places stations Testify against all that they may Conclude or Determine in these their Ecclesiastick Courts by Acts Ratifications Declarations Sentences Censures or Commissions c. that shall be made or Given out by them And protests that the samen may be voyd and null and not Interpreted as binding to the Church of Scotland But let none think that what we have here said can be Interpreted to be a vilipending or Rejecting of the Free Lawfull and Rightly Constitute Courts of Christ For we do Acknowledge such to have been among the first and most effectuall Means Appointed of God for preserving the purity and Advancing the Power of Reformation in the Church The sweet fruits and blessed effects wherof this Church hath somtyme Enjoyed which we have been endeavouring after and are this day longing for We Detest and Abhorr that principle of Casting off the Ministrie wherewith we are maliciously Calumniated by those who Labour to fasten upon us the Odious Names of Schismaticks and Separatists Despisers of the Gospel and the like But as herein they bewray their enmity to the Cause we oun So till they bring their oun Principles and Practises and ours both and try them by the Law and the Testimony the measuring Line of the Sanctuary The Word of God and the Practise of this Church when the Lord kept house with her and rejoyced over her as a Brydgroom over the Bryde They can never prove us Schismaticks or Separatists from the Kirk of Scotland upon the Account of our Non-Union with the Backslyding Multitude therein And herein we may have a sure and well grounded hope that when the Lord shall decide the Controversy in the favours of Truth In that Day Union in Truth Duty and Separation sinfully considered will be otherwise applyed than now they are Besides we may say without boasting we suppose it may be gathered from what we have done for the faithfully preached Gospell and what Love and Respect we have ky●●ed towards faithfull Ministers whilst such what our Carriage to them would yet be if we had them Yea we are so far from having any stated Prejudice as some foolishly think at any of them for whatever their strayings have been either as Ministers or Christians That we Declare by these Presents whenever the Lord shall send us such as out of Love to God zeal for his Publick Concernments and Conscience of their Duty will kyth their Resentment of their former Backslydings and Defections by Condemning and forsaking the same and satisfy the offended Consciences of the Lords People by their Publick Declaring the mi●● of God Faithfully Freely and the Peoples Duty in order to the past and Present Courses of the time Keeping nothing back that may be profitable for our building up in Holinesse our manadging a Testimony for Christ against all the forementioned or the like