A PASTORAL ADDRESS
James Dodson
TO THE CONGREGATIONS OF THE
Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland,
ON
COVENANTING AND COVENANT-RENOVATION:
COMPRISING
A VIEW OF THE NATURE, OBLIGATIONS, AND ADVANTAGES
OF THIS DUTY.
BY THE
PASTOR OF DRIMBOLG.
“Vow unto the Lord your God, and pay.”—PSALMS.
Second Edition, Enlarged.
BELFAST:
WILLIAM M‘COMB, AND M. POLLOCK. DERRY: WM. MULLAN.
GARVAGH: ROBERTSON. BALLYMENA: DUGAN & WHITE.
BALLYMONEY: LITHGOW. COLERAINE: GAW.
MAGHERAFELT: RICHARDSON.
MDCCCLIV.
INTRODUCTION.
In the month of March last, I published “A Pastoral Address to the Congregation of Drimbolg,” on “Covenanting and Covenant-Renovation.” That edition was circulated in a few weeks. I have been requested, by the respected Moderator, and other members of Synod, to publish a Second Edition, for the benefit of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and the public at large. I now, in compliance with this request, issue a Second Edition, considerably enlarged, and, I think, much improved. I trust it may be of use to the old as well as to the young—to the fathers, the young men, and the children of the Church. It will show to the old men what a Covenant-God did for them and their fathers in times of peril; it will revive old impressions in their minds, and enable them to transmit the time-honoured testimony to their children.—(Psalms, lxxviii, 6, 7.) It is also designed for the young—to teach them in the morning of life the duty and advantages of personal and social Covenanting, that they may early give themselves to God, and transmit these blood-bought privileges to their sons, and their sons’ sons. The young are the growing hopes of the Church-from them the future officers and members of the Church are to be chosen. How important, then, that these should be early initiated in the distinctive principles of our fathers’ testimony. Of these, Covenanting occupies a prominent place. Why have so many abandoned these valuable principles? Parents have not practically taught them these grand distinguishing principles, nor embodied them in a zealous devotedness to the interests of the Second Reformation. Had parents prized them more, children would have held them better.
I intend this address also for my friends and brethren in the different sections of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. They and we are children of the same parents; their fathers and our fathers were the same persons, naturally and ecclesiastically. The eminent men who planted the Presbyterian vine in the valleys of Ulster were the sons of the Covenant. They marched under its blue banner from Scotia’s glens, wafted it across the Irish Channel, cleared out the rubbish and stones of Popery and Prelacy, and planted this noble vine in our beloved land. The handful of corn sown on the mountains of Down, Antrim, and Derry has brought forth abundantly—“the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.”—(Psalm lxxii. 16.) It has been shaken by the wind of persecution, but that wind blew its fruits across the Atlantic, and now it flourishes in the great Republic under the stripes and stars of the American banner.
You do not require to be told that the Messrs. Hamilton, Adair, Weir, and Henderson were sent from the Covenanted General Assembly of Scotland to administer the Covenant to your fathers in this province. It was taken, on the 4th April 1644, in Carrickfergus, and afterwards in Holywood, Comber, Newtown, Bangor, Belfast, Broadisland, and Islandmagee; it was also taken in Ballymena, the Route, Coleraine, Derry, and Enniskillen, and many other places. These Covenanters were your fathers. They rejected and abhorred the Black Oath,[1] and solemnly sware, with uplifted hands, the Solemn League and Covenant of the three nations. Did they not, as a Church, abide by this Covenant to the time of the perfidious Charles II.? And were not your fathers displeased at the brethren sent with the address to Charles, who consented to expunge “the mentioning of the Covenant and Prelacy.”—(Vide [James Seaton] Reid, [The History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland] vol. ii. p. 335.) Do you not like to rally around the blue banner, and to be called the sons of the Covenant? Do you not claim to be the successors of the martyrs of the Covenant? testing this profession is by asking an old question put to many of your fathers in those days of “peril and blood”—“when the minister’s home was the mountain flood”—viz., Do you own the Covenants? The martyrs owned them—they suffered for their attachment to them—they were tortured, drowned, burned, hanged, and beheaded for their attachment to the Covenants. Now, do you own these Covenants in your ecclesiastical capacity? Have you embodied this profession in your subordinate standards? Have you made them a term of communion? “Go forth by the footsteps of the flocks, and feed your kids beside the shepherd’s tents;” “Whereto ye have already attained, walk by the same rule, and mind the same things;” “Repent, and do the first works;” “Return to your first love.” Like the Presbytery of Arbroath, of the Free Church, with which you of the Assembly of Ireland are in communion, let some of your good old orthodox Presbyteries overture the General Assembly, at its first meeting, to take these solemn deeds into serious consideration, to find if the principles of the permanent obligation of these Covenants be well founded, that the guilt, both of the nation and the Church, may be penitently acknowledged, the wrath of God deprecated, and a clear and pointed testimony lifted against all the breaches of these Covenants, especially regarding the national support given to Popery, and Prelacy, and Erastianism. Then will you be able to resist more effectually “Papal aggression,” and promote the Lord’s work in the land; then will the Lord bless you, and make you a blessing in the land, and the glory of the Lord shall dwell among you. With deep anxiety and prayerful concern we witnessed your painful struggle with Arianism, and we were right glad when you freed your Synod from that incubus, and returned to the subscription of the Westminster Confession of Faith. We rejoice sincerely in all the efforts you have made to advance the cause of orthodox Presbyterianism in this land, and also in your grand missionary schemes to carry the Gospel of the blessed Jesus to the South and the West of our beloved country, and also to the Jews, to the heathen world, and to the colonies of Great Britain, We congratulate you on the goodly number of able and excellent ministers that are now unfurling the banner of the Cross, and on the zeal and devotedness of many of your members in different congregations. In all your labours to advance the Redeemer’s kingdom, at home and abroad, we bid you God speed. Having returned to the Confession, we wish you also to return to the “Covenant.” The Confession was compiled in consequence of the Solemn League and Covenant, as appears from the first article of said Covenant, from the Act of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland approving the said Confession, and from the history of these times. The Covenant was taken and subscribed in 1643. The Confession was finished and approved in 1647. If you, then, have returned to the Confession, why not return to the Covenant? You have the same warrant for the one as ye have for the other. The arguments for the one are conclusive for the other. A national covenant is as lawful as a national confession, for a national confession is, in effect, a national covenant. Take up the position that your fathers occupied in 1638 and 1644: then will you be prepared for Covenant-Renovation on a large scale. And as Covenant-Renovation was always the precursor of great spiritual prosperity, then may you expect that the Lord will pour out His Spirit upon all your congregations—“The desert will become a fruitful field; it will blossom as the rose: the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, and your people shall grow up as reeds and rushes.” In the times of the Solemn League and Covenant, we are told by a historian, that, in travelling over the length and breadth of Scotland, you would not have passed (a rick or) cottage in which there was not heard the voice of prayer and praise. And does not Dr. Reid bear honourable testimony to the good effects produced by Covenanting in Ulster. “It united the friends of civil and religious freedom, inspired them with fresh confidence, diffused and strengthened the Presbyterian cause; but, what was of still higher moment, the Covenant revived the cause of religion and piety, which had lamentably declined under the iron sway of the prelates, and amidst the distractions and discouragements of intestine war.”—(Vide Hist. Pres. Church, p. 43.) In the name, and strength, and grace of the Mediator, the glorious Head of the Church, display a banner for the whole of Scotland’s covenanted attainments—for “Christ’s Crown and Covenant.” These were the words inscribed on the blue banner. The Free Church has only displayed one part, viz., “the crown,” and that they have done nobly. But why not display the “Covenant as well as the crown?” “What God has joined together, men should not put asunder.” My dear friends, display this other part of the motto also, “for the Covenant,” and then you will have emblazoned, in large letters, over the doors of your churches and places of Assembly’s meeting, “FOR CHRIST’S CROWN AND COVENANT.”
I would say to you, as Moses said to Hobab, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good; and if thou go with us, it shall be, that whatsoever goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto you.” We walked a long road together. It is true, there was some dispute among us at the time of the Resolutioners and the Protesters. We did not like that the Malignants[2] “should be advanced to places of power and trust in the State.”—(Vide Testimony, p. 118, foot-note.)
It is also true, that we differed in our opinion respecting the indulgences issued in 1669, 1672, and 1679, in the reign of Charles II., and that of James VII., in 1687. But the great point in which we have differed for 166 years is the Revolution Establishment. You and your fathers, for the last century and a half, have testified your approval of the Revolution Church; we and our fathers, for the same period, have disapproved of it, for the following reasons:—I. Our fathers could not embrace the communion of the Revolution Church, because (1.) her judicatories were composed of men who espoused the cause of the public resolutions in 1651, by which the public offices, civil and military, were first filled with Malignants; (2.) of ministers who had complied with one or more of the wicked bonds and oaths imposed by Government, such as abstaining from preaching at a time when faithful preaching was so much required; (3.) of ministers who had accepted the various indulgences granted by Charles, which were clogged with Erastian restrictions, and the acceptance of which was virtually the taking out a new commission, for the exercise of their ministry, from an impious usurper of the prerogatives of the Messiah; (4.) of ministers who had grasped at the deceitful toleration given by James VI., and concurred in returning a fulsome letter of thanks for it, although manifestly springing from the corrupt source of a royal supremacy, and designed to be a preparation for the introduction of Popery; (5.) of elders, many of whom had been implicated in the guilt of the late persecution.
These characters composed the first Assembly. When met, they tamely submitted to the dictation of the civil rulers in spiritual matters. Before the Assembly was permitted to meet, the king and parliament, by their own authority, had abolished Episcopacy in Scotland, restored Presbyterianism, and adopted and ratified the thirty-three chapters of the Westminster Confession of Faith “as the public and avowed confession of the Church.”—(Act 5, sess. 2.) By these acts, the State prescribed to the Church her confession of faith and form of church government, nor when met did they protest against this invasion of her rights, or try to alter or amend it.
II. Because the Scottish Reformation, in its most advanced and mature state, was deliberately abandoned in the Revolution Settlement. No entreaties could induce the Assemblies of the Revolution Church to recognise, by any explicit act, the permanent obligation of the Covenants; and the name of the Solemn League never once occurs in any of their public deeds. All individual attempts to revive the memory of the Second Reformation were repulsed by the Assembly with displeasure, and, in process of time, to vindicate these attainments was attended with peril. The model of the Second Reformation being entirely set aside, the Revolution Church was erected after the pattern of the first, as exhibited in the year 1592, when the Church was yet in her minority. At that time the National Covenant had not been explained as condemning Prelacy and the civil places and power of churchmen, The law of patronage had not been abolished. The Solemn League and Covenant, by which these kingdoms became bound to preserve and promote the Reformation, and to extirpate Prelacy as well as Popery, had then no existence. The acceptance of a constitution, resting on this basis, from a Government which retained the Act Rescissory[3] in its full authority, combined with the studied neglect of the Second Reformation by the Revolution Church, must be regarded as a virtual renunciation of that Reformation.
III. The avowed principles on which the Revolution Settlement was conducted were of a political rather than of a religious character. For example, their majesties declare that “they will settle by law that church government in these kingdoms which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people.”—(Vide Scottish Testimony, p. 149.)
IV. On account of her habitual submission to the Erastian encroachments of the State.
V. Because many of her ministers since that have been unsound in the faith, and because of her unfaithfulness in discipline.
These are some of the grounds on which our fathers were compelled to dissent from the Revolution Church when it was first established. The causes assigned were sufficient to warrant this dissent; and if a charge of schism is applicable to any party in this case, it must in justice fall on those who abandoned the Scriptural and valuable attainments of the Reformed Church of Scotland, not on those who continued unshaken in their attachment to them, and who embodied them in their public testimony under every change of circumstances.
We are well aware that statements are frequently made from the platform and the pulpit, that there is no essential difference between the Revolution Church and that of the Second Reformation—that the principles of the Church in Scotland are the identical principles for which the Scottish martyrs suffered and bled. We have just now assigned the reasons which shut us up to a contrary conclusion, and we now submit the following comparison, by way of summary. The Church of the Second Reformation we hold to be different from, and superior to, the Revolution Church—
1. In faithfulness to preceding Reformation.
2. In respect to the independent authority and intrinsic power of the Church.
3. In recognising the Divine rights and original of the Presbyterian form of church government, as being founded directly on the Word of God.
4. In faithful opposition to Popery and Prelacy.
5. In asserting and maintaining the freedom of ecclesiastical assemblies.
6. In regard to lay-patronage.
7. In respect to Covenanting. At the Revolution, the Covenants were left among the ruins of the Second Reformation. The Church of Scotland obstinately refused to revive the memory of these sacred bonds, and acquiesced in that deed at the Union Settlement, by which the Solemn League was a second time rescinded.
8. In the principles on which allegiance to civil authority was inculcated.
9. In regard to purity of doctrine and discipline.[4]
Finally,—In addressing the different sections of the Secession Church in this land, I need not remind you that the Erskines and other excellent men who founded that Church in 1733 were strenuous advocates of a Covenanted Testimony. They taught the descending obligations of the Covenants, National and Solemn League. They embodied their views on this subject in the Testimony which they emitted for the covenanted attainments in these lands. These Covenants have been renewed at different times by sections of that orthodox Church. We would, in all kindness and affection, urge upon the different departments of that Zion “to strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to perish,” and to come forward “to the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Set about the solemn work of Covenant-Renovation at this time, and you will find, in your own happy experience, that the Lord will greatly bless you, and give you a large outpouring of the Spirit from on high. Sons and daughters yet unborn will arise and bless you. They will be enabled to lift up the neglected banner, and carry it forward with great joy, till they fix it on the walls of the Millennial Church.
LAKE COTTAGE, PORTGLENONE, April 21, 1854.
PASTORAL ADDRESS.
“And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.”—2 Cor. viii. 5.
DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN,—At the return of another year, I wish you grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, from the Lord Jesus Christ, and from the Spirit of Peace and Truth. That this year may be to many of you the beginning of days and months of peace and happiness—that many of you may be converted, and others built up in faith and holiness—is the earnest prayer of your affectionate pastor.
You have heard, with feelings of gratitude and joy, that the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland, at its recent meeting in October last, in Dervock meetinghouse, did, in a very solemn manner, renew the covenants of our fathers, in a bond suited to the times. I can assure you that it was, without exception, one of the most solemn and interesting scenes I ever witnessed. The ministers and elders of Synod, the licentiates and others who desired to join with them in that great work, with their right hands lifted up to the Most High God, solemnly renewed their federal deeds. Like the Jews of old, when the foundation of the second Temple was laid, many rejoiced, while others wept—the tears of repentance, gratitude, and holy affection moistened many a cheek. The people felt as in the presence of the great and holy God; for, of a truth, the Lord was amongst them.
Synod enjoined upon ministers to use diligence in preparing the congregations under their care to come forward, as soon as practicable, and engage in Covenant-Renovation. Impressed with this feeling, I propose, with dependence on the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to give you a few hints on this important duty.
I have selected the text that stands at the head of this paper, as it declares an explicit act of social covenanting by the Church in New Testament times. The Churches of Macedonia, of which three are mentioned in Scripture, viz., Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea (Acts xvi. 12, and xvii. 1, 4, 10, 12), gave themselves to God in solemn covenant. From one of these (Philippi) Paul wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians, about the end of the year A.D. 58. In this letter he informs the Church at Corinth “of the grace of God bestowed on the Churches of Macedonia,” in disposing and enabling them to contribute so liberally to the poor saints at Jerusalem—“This,” says he, “they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.” This act was a remarkable accomplishment of the prophecy in Isaiah xliv. 5—“One shall say, I am the Lord’s, another shall call himself by the name of the God of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.” Here God’s people are represented as not only declaring with their mouth, but subscribing with their hand, that they are the Lord’s. They profess that they are no more their own, but wholly His, devoted to His service. Subscribing with the hand is an allusion to federal compacts which, for the greater security, are subscribed by the parties.—(Jer. xxxii. 10, 12, 44). In this way they bound themselves as living sacrifices to the horns of God’s altar. The Macedonian Churches performed this act in their ecclesiastical capacity. It was not each person or family apart only, but the congregations, or Churches, that gave themselves to the Lord, with all that they had, in a solemn manner, to the honour and service, influence and government, and disposal of the Lord Jesus, as their Head, Saviour, and King.[5]
This act cannot refer to their making a profession of Christianity: this they had done before, for they had been in a church state for several years prior to that time; nor does it refer to their baptismal dedication. As in other cases, their baptism immediately followed their profession of the faith.—(Acts xvi. 15, 33, and ii. 41.) This was a recent act of the same date with their joint contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem. Nor can it refer, I apprehend, to the renewing of their vows at the Lord’s table, for that was no more than the apostle expected of them. I presume, therefore, that it was a particular act of covenanting or ecclesiastical dedication of themselves to the Lord, (as distinct from baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the act of the Israelites, “in avouching the Lord to be their God,” was from circumcision and the passover.—(Deut. xxvi. 18.)
To the same purpose was Hezekiah’s proclamation, 2 Chron. xxx. 8, “Yield yourselves to the Lord,” (Heb. “give the hand”), which words were repeated by Paul (Rom. vi. 13) to the New Testament Church at Rome. From all which it appears, if it were dutiful for the Church in Hezekiah’s time, and for the Churches of Macedonia in the apostle’s time, to enter into public solemn covenant with God, it is plainly the duty of the Churches in the British Isles in our day.[6]
Having thus explained the motto of this address, I proceed to make a few remarks on covenants in general, and the nature of covenanting.
I. Covenant properly signifies an agreement between two or more parties. The word retains its primary signification in all its Scriptural applications. One design of it is confirmation, hence God’s establishment of the seasons is called a covenant.—(Jer. xxxiii. 20.) Another effect of this covenant is peace or safety. In allusion to this, God promises to make for His people a covenant with the beasts of the fields, and with the fowls of heaven.—(Hosea ii. 18.)
II. God always dwelt with man upon the footing of a covenant. In every age of the world the Divine Being has always transacted with man on this principle. “When God created man, He entered into covenant with him.” It is commonly called a covenant of life, or the covenant of works, as life was the reward promised, and works the condition of the covenant. The law of nature, reduced into a covenant form, had a positive precept annexed—“Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Our first parents, through the temptations of Satan, transgressed this covenant. As the representative of the human family, Adam sinned, and all mankind sinned in him, and fell with him.—(Rom. v. 12, 13.) They like men (marg. Adam) have transgressed the covenant.”—(Hos. vi. 7.) Upon the breach of the covenant of works, the covenant of grace was revealed. The Second Person of the glorious Godhead appeared in the garden in the cool of the day. He revealed the covenant of grace, of which He was the appointed Mediator, in announcing the first Gospel prediction and promise—viz., “That the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.”—(Gen. iii. 15.)
The Church of God has been a covenant society in all ages.[7] In the organisation of every Scripturally constituted Church, there must be the grand principle of covenanting. Jehovah is the Church’s God by His covenant of promise. The Church accepts by faith this covenant offered in the Gospel, avouches the Lord as her God on the warrant of His faithful promise, and readily declares, “I am the Lord’s.” By a public and joint profession of adherence to the cause of Christ and the truths of the Gospel, she enters into covenant with Jehovah; and, under this public banner, she is distinguished from all other associations. “The Lord is our God; Him will we serve, and His voice will we obey.” This public profession is not only an engagement to Jehovah, but it is also a solemn confederation among themselves to continue in union, and strengthen each other’s hands in the work of the Lord.
III. All religious vows and ecclesiastical covenants are connected with, and founded on, the covenant of grace. In the constitution of the everlasting covenant, God has become a party in all the religious obligations into which He commands His people to enter. God, as one of the contracting parties, confirms this covenant by an oath.—(Hebrew vi. 17, 18.) Hence Aleim (from Ale, an oath) is a name assumed by the Trinity, denoting that they are bound by an oath to the performance of the stipulations of the covenant. The first name of the Deity in Scripture is in the plural number, under the character of the swearers, or the covenanters.—(Gen. i. 1.) God the Son, as the other party representing elect sinners, has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant, and sealed it with His precious blood. When those that are represented covenant with God, they only say Amen to what the Mediator has done, and solemnly engage, in the strength of promised grace, to a conscientious performance of all commanded duties. Hence all the engagements of the people of God are grafted upon the mediatory fulfilment of the covenant of grace, and every duty unto which they engage, respects the law only as the rule of life in the hand of the Mediator. All evangelical obedience must be considered as flowing from, and evidential of, a vital relation to the Covenant Head. Hence (in Isa. lvi. 6) God calls it a taking hold of His covenant. This new Covenant engagement, therefore, already subscribed by the Trinity, and vowing or solemnly binding ourselves to the performance of what it requires, is only appending our signature to that eternal deed.[8]
IV. Religious covenanting is either personal or social. Personal covenanting is a transaction between God and the believer, in which the latter, taking hold of God's covenant of promise, ratified in the blood of His Son, and tendered to him in the Gospel, engages, in the strength of promised grace, to walk with God in all the ways of new obedience. Social covenanting is a transaction not only between God and a number of professed believers, but also a deed of confederation among themselves, in which, professing their faith in God through Christ, they do not only promise and vow to God to walk in His ways, but also pledge themselves to one another for mutual aid and support in His way and work.[9]
If personal covenanting have a Divine warrant, and this few will deny—witness the examples of Job, Jacob, David, and many other Scriptural characters—why is social covenanting not admissible? If it be the duty of one man to swear to serve the Lord, it cannot be sinful in a society, however large, to enter into a similar engagement. If one man may swear to the Lord, (Psalm cxix. 106), why not a hundred? Why may not thousands? “In the multitude of people is the king’s honour.”—(Prov. xiv. 28.) And is it not the honour of the King of Glory to have a multitude of subjects?—(Psalm cx. 3.)
It is frequently asked, what warrant is there for a National Covenant? We ask, in our turn, what warrant is there for a National Confession of Faith?
A National Covenant is as lawful as a National Church. To admit the one and deny the other is truly inconsistent. To maintain the lawfulness of National Confessions of Faith, and deny that of National Covenants, to me appears strange. A National Confession is, in effect, a National Covenant, as the profession of certain doctrines and duties, to be agreeable to the Word of God, necessarily includes a determined purpose or resolution to abide by them. In accordance with this view, the National Covenant of Scotland is called “THE CONFESSION OF FAITH OF THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND, OR THE NATIONAL COVENANT.” Every subscriber to the Westminster Confession subscribes it as the confession of his faith, and hereby gives the highest security to the Church that he will support the doctrines therein contained, and oppose whatsoever is inconsistent with, or contrary to them. Does not the formula in use in the Church of Scotland bind and oblige to support Presbyterian Church government? What is all this but a covenant? If, then, it be lawful to enter into such a solemn confederacy, agreement, or covenant to maintain the truth revealed in the Word of God, can it be unlawful to enter into a similar bond for the faithful performance of duty? If we may agree to maintain what the Scriptures teach us to believe concerning God, why not perform what duty God requires of man? Every argument adduced in support of the former will be equally conclusive, I presume, in favour of the latter. It is singular that many, who pretend no small regard to the Westminster Confession of Faith, think little of covenanting, and sneer at the conduct of your ancestors. “This, at best, is to love the progeny (says Rev. Thomas Bell) and to loathe the parent.” That celebrated Confession was compiled in consequence of the Solemn League and Covenant, as appears from the first article of said Covenant, from the Act of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland approving the said Confession, and from the history of those times. The Covenant was taken and subscribed in 1643; the Confession was finished and approved in 1647. Besides, the mutual relations of king and subjects, husband and wife, and master and servants, imply a federal compact. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, ministerial ordination, and other institutions of revealed religion, include in them the same grand principle. Personal covenanting is an exercise in which God’s saints delight, and in which they pour out the desire of their hearts to the Most High. In this holy act they resolve and engage to keep the whole law, approve of the plan of grace, and signify their acceptance of new covenant blessings. This furnishes a strong argument for the moral obligation of social federal deeds; for if it be a high honour and special blessing for an individual, can it be less so for a family, a church, or a nation to be in covenant with God? Personal includes the principle of social covenanting; if the one is moral and obligatory, so is the other. Any objection to the principle in the one case stands equally strong against the other. We are dependent on God socially as well as personally—in our relative as well as our individual character: He made us, preserves us, and loads us with His benefits. In that capacity we are, therefore, bound to acknowledge Him.
V. Religious covenanting, whether personal or social, is in its nature moral, and must, therefore, be a duty under every dispensation.
Covenanting has been called a Jewish peculiarity. But we find, in Psalm 1. 14, that when sacrifices are abolished, vowing is retained in connexion with thanksgiving—a duty “which existed in Paradise, where there was no fault to deplore, and will be perpetuated in heaven, where God will be all in all.” Vowing was practised before the institution of the ceremonial law. (Gen. xxviii. 20, 22.) This vow God approved, and called upon Jacob, after the lapse of twenty years, to pay. “I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and vowedst a vow unto me.”—(xxxv. 1, and xxxi. 13. Read also Job xxvii. 2, 3.) But Job and Jacob lived before the giving of the law—then it was no Jewish peculiarity. If it were proper before its institution, may it not be equally so after its abolition? Vowing is not a human invention, nor is it confined to any dispensation. It is a dictate of the law of nature—the light of nature teaches the duty of vowing allegiance to Him “in whom we live, move, and have our being.” We find the Tarshish mariners, under the direction of this principle, “offered a sacrifice to the Lord, and made vows.” Epictetus, a heathen moralist, says “To this God ye ought to swear an oath, such as the soldiers swear to Cæsar. They, indeed, by the inducement of their wages, swear that they will value the safety of Cæsar above all things; and will you, then, honoured with so many and so great benefits, not swear to God, or having sworn, will you not continue steadfast?” [Lib. i. cap. 14.] The heathen admit that God is to be honoured with the vows of His rational creatures. Vowing is one of those duties which have their foundation in the law of nature, and which springs from God’s supremacy and man’s dependence, or the moral relations which necessarily subsist between God and His rational creatures.
But we have a more sure word of prophecy—“a light that shines in a dark place”—to which we would do well to take heed. We have the written law.
(1.) We have the express command of God—“Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave, and swear by His name.”[10] The whole of swearing, under the Old Testament, consisted in two things—viz., in swearing to the Lord, and swearing by Him. Both were practised before the giving of the law, and under the law expressly commanded. In times of reformation, Israel sware to the Lord, and all Judah rejoiced at the oath.—(2 Chron. xv. 14, 15.) Agreeable to these two methods of swearing, it is prophesied, concerning New Testament times, that he who sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth, and that the Egyptians shall swear to the Lord of Hosts. (Isaiah lxv. 16; xix. 18.) “And thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him shall they glory.” “Vow, and pay unto the Lord your God.”—(Psalm Ixxvi. 11.)
(2.) We have examples of covenanting recorded in Scripture. At Horeb and on the plains of Moab, in the days of Joshua, at Schechem, under the direction of Jehoiada the priest, and during the reigns of the reforming kings of Judah.
(3.) Prophecies relating to New Testament times:—“Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands (the Scriptural form of an oath) unto the Lord.” “In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts: they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it.” “Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten.”
We have here—in the command of God, the example of God’s people in Scripture, and the prophecies that point to New Testament times—a threefold cord, which is not easily broken. And since vowing to God is, in its nature, moral, and since confederation, in support of the cause of religion, is a dictate of reason as well as revelation, the conclusion is obvious, that social religious covenanting must be a duty under every dispensation.
VI. It is one of the distinguishing privileges of the Church to be in covenant with God. “I am married to you, saith the Lord.” Thou shalt be called Hephzibah (my delight), and Beulah (married.) “And I will betroth thee unto me for ever.” Was it the privilege of the Church in Old Testament times to be in covenant with God? The privileges of the New Testament Church are not abridged, but enlarged. The shadows have given place to the substance—“Ye are not come to Sinai, but to Zion.” All genuine believers are united to Christ by a marriage covenant; they are also united to one another. Covenanting is only a recognition of this relation, and an engagement to evidence it by a holy life. In this prediction of Isaiah—a passage that refers to New Testament times, as is evident from the reference in the context, to the calling of the Gentiles and the latter days’ glory—national covenanting is described under the figure of a marriage, “Thy land shall be married;” but national marriage implies a national deed, whereby the inhabitants of the land, in their national capacity, solemnly enter into covenant with the Lord.
VII. The unity or oneness of the Church under every dispensation establishes this doctrine. The corporation is the same. The charter—viz., the everlasting covenant—is the same. It is now the same Church that was in Egypt, and that journeyed through the wilderness. The Christian Church becomes the seed of Abraham, and is entitled to all the privileges of the Abrahamic covenant. Gal. iii. 29—“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” This unity is beautifully illustrated by the Apostle Paul, under the emblem of an olive-tree bearing first natural branches, and then ingrafted branches.—(Rom. xi. 14, 24.) The allusion is to Jeremiah xi, 16, where the Church is called “a green olive-tree, and of goodly fruit.” It is still the same tree, though the former branches were replaced by the latter. God has had but one Church in the world since the fall of man. “The spouse, the undefiled of Christ, is but one.” Consequently, everything in the Jewish covenants that is in its nature moral, and not belonging to the ceremonial ritual or judicial policy, still continues obligatory or in force in the Christian Church. We are heirs of all the promises and obligations of the Abrahamic corporation. If this idea be admitted, then it follows that all genuine Christians are Covenanters, in virtue of being component parts of that same Church that covenanted at Horeb.
These remarks obviate an objection—viz., that covenanting was neither instituted nor enjoined in the New Testament. To this I reply, it did not require to be instituted then—it received the Divine sanction long before. But the point is, was it then abrogated? Certainly not. Like another ordinance, viz., circumcision, it existed before; and upon this institution, in the time of Abraham, children are now admitted, by baptism, to the privileges of the Church.
VIII. The argument in favour of social covenanting is much strengthened by the prophecies of the Old Testament that refer to New Testament times. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”—(Rev. xix. 10.) In Isa. xix. 18, the Spirit of God says “In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts;” ver. 21, “Yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it.” This prophecy refers to New Testament times, as there never was any remarkable conversion, either of the Egyptians or Assyrians, under the Old Testament economy. The temple built by Oneas IV., 150 years B.C., was for the Jews, not for the Egyptians. Besides, when this was to happen, “Egypt should be the people of the Lord, Assyria the work of His hands, and Israel His inheritance.” This has never yet taken place, nor will it be fulfilled till the restoration of the Jews and the conversion of Egypt and Assyria. In this place converts swear, in a social or public capacity, to the Most High. The unanimous opinion of commentators is, that the oath or vow is literal and not figurative, and that it foretels a public social act of covenanting.[11]
At a time of gracious revival, when the Spirit shall be poured out from on high, the evangelical prophet declares “That one shall say, I am the Lord’s,” &c. This passage we explained in the introduction to this address, as remarkably fulfilled in the covenanting of the Macedonian Churches. Whatever allusion it may have to the act of covenanting in the days of Nehemiah, when the princes, priests, and Levites signed the covenant with their hand, and appended their seal, the complete fulfilment of it was reserved for New Testament times the days of Messiah—when the Spirit would be liberally poured out on the Church.[12]
Also, in Isa. xlv. 23, the same doctrine is taught—“Unto me shall every knee bow, and every tongue swear.” This acknowledgment of Messiah’s sovereignty, and the nation’s submission, shall be made in New Testament times, when all kingdoms shall serve the Lord. The original word signifies to stipulate in a bargain or covenant, in confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.[13]
In Jer. 1. 4, 5, the Church coming out of Babylon, with their faces toward Zion, said, “Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten.” This prediction had a partial fulfilment when the Jews came up from ancient Babylon, in the days of Nehemiah, and entered into covenant in their social capacity; but its full accomplishment is reserved for the New Testament times, when the Church sounded the march from mystical Babylon, and entered into covenant with the Lord in the various kingdoms of Europe. The reformation attainments in those kingdoms were consolidated by means of confessions of faith and solemn covenant engagements. The primitive Christians entered into covenant, as we learn from Pliny’s letter to Trajan. He says, “They bound themselves by an oath,” &c. The Waldenses, who, to the preservation of their ecclesiastical order, were bound by an oath, nor was any considered as belonging to this Church who did not take the covenant, adopted one confession of faith, and agreed upon one covenant, which, according to their established custom (a practice handed down from the apostles), was subscribed by all the members of the society. Voetius, a German divine, informs us, that both the Waldenses of Toulouse, and the Hussites of Bohemia, ratified their federal transactions with solemn oath. After the glorious reformation from Popery, the different Churches practised this duty.[14]
All these Churches in the different kingdoms of Europe, like so many tribes of God’s Israel, came up out of Egypt with flying banners, on which were inscribed—“The Cause of God and the Covenant.” These confessions of faith were afterwards sworn to, in their respective covenants, in which they engage themselves to advance and promote the work of reformation. The Protestant princes and people of Germany entered into an explicit covenant, called the League of Smalkalde, in 1530, which was solemnly renewed four years thereafter. The Republic and Church of Geneva entered into a solemn covenant, in 1537, in which they pledged themselves to the principal articles of the Christian religion, and the ancient discipline of the primitive Church. As soon as the Reformation Churches were properly organised, the Waldenses entered with them into a solemn bond of union, in a General Assembly holden in 1571. They all bound themselves, under the sanction of an oath, to maintain inviolable the ancient union between all the faithful of the evangelic religion of the Waldenses, down to their own time. The Reformed Churches of France, also, in a National Synod, held in the city of Alez, in 1620. The deputies from the several Churches, both ministers and elders, entered into a public oath, swearing and protesting that they would continue inseparably united in the Confession of Faith owned and professed by the Reformed Churches of that kingdom. “We swear,” said they, “as well in our own names as in the names of the Churches and Provinces which have commissioned us to be their deputies unto this assembly, that we will live and die in this confession.”—(Quick’s Synod.)
The Reformation attainments in the British Isles were also confirmed by covenants. In Scotland, such deeds were successively entered into in 1557, 1559, 1560, and 1563. But the National Covenant, embracing all former testimonies, stands as a grand national monument to perpetuate the triumphs of the Reformation over the errors of the “Man of Sin.” This deed was a formal abjuration, in the most solemn and explicit terms, of the corruptions of the Popish system, and an engagement to defend the doctrine and discipline of the Reformed Church in Scotland. This bond was sworn by the King and his Privy-Council, at Edinburgh, on the 28th of January 1581. It soon afterwards received the sanction of the General Assembly, and was cheerfully taken and subscribed by persons of all ranks throughout the land. This was a national surrender, or a giving up the kingdom to the Lord. This bond was solemnly renewed in 1590, when the liberties of the Church and nation were in danger; and it became the happy precursor of the act which, two years after, ratified the freedom of the Church, by securing the Presbyterian form of church government.
The Second Reformation is justly styled, “The Covenanted Reformation.” The First Reformation was a reformation from Popery, and was confirmed by the National Covenant of Scotland. The Second Reformation was a reformation from Prelacy. From the accession of James VI. to the throne of England in 1603, Prelacy had been gradually introduced into the Church of Scotland by the influence of the court. Witness the insidious attempts, by royal authority, to impose the Book of Ecclesiastical Canons, and thus to sweep away every vestige of former attainments. The renewal of the National Covenant, with some additional clauses, in 1638, proved a bulwark against the inroads of Prelacy. The Solemn League and Covenant, prepared by Alexander Henderson, and which received the approbation of the General Assembly and the Convention of Estates, was cordially subscribed by all ranks in Scotland in the year 1643. It was solemnly sworn by both Houses of Parliament, by the Westminster Divines, and by persons of all ranks in England. In Ireland it was gladly received by many of the Protestants in the South, and by almost the whole body of the Protestant population of the North.
This covenant had for its avowed object not only “the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland, and the reformation of religion in England and Ireland, but to bring the Churches in the three kingdoms to the nearest conformity in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government.” What object more grand and glorious! This covenant Charles himself swore at Spey and Scoon, and these covenant engagements became fundamental constitutions both in Church and State, and the door of access to office in either, and the formal ground of the people’s subjection.
IX. Public social covenants possess a descending obligation. They bind not only the original contractors, but their posterity, who are represented by them, until the object contemplated be accomplished. The objects contemplated in the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant are permanent, with the maintenance and extension of the reformed religion, in opposition to Popery, Prelacy, and error in every shape and form, the conservation of civil liberty, the unity of the Church, and the union of the three kingdoms, in a happy and permanent peace.
The principle of representation is universally acted upon by men in the affairs of life, and distinctly recognised by God himself. He has dealt with men on this principle in all ages. In the covenants of grace and of works, and in all ecclesiastical proceedings recorded in the Bible, the children are included with the fathers—“I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee;” “For the promise is to you and to your children.” The phrase, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” represents God as transacting with the fathers on behalf of the children. “Levi paid tithes in Abraham.” The ancient covenants of Israel established this principle; hence they are spoken of as perpetual and everlasting. These words would not be applicable if the obligation ceased with one generation. Posterity were recognised in the Old Testament covenants. In the transaction between God and Jacob, at Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 13), posterity are recognised. More than a thousand years after, Hosea, in allusion to that interview, says (xii. 4), “He found him in Bethel, and there he spoke with us.” There he covenanted with the Jews, in the loins of their father Jacob.
That the covenants which God made with Israel at Horeb comprehends posterity, Moses explicitly declares. Deut. v. 2, 3 “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even with us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Moses makes this declaration after all the original covenanters were dead, with the exception of Caleb, Joshua, and himself. The federal transaction on the plains of Moab also included posterity. “Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here this day.”—(Deut. xix. 10, 14, 15.) Posterity here is expressly included in the bond, and long afterwards are charged with the breach of that covenant. “The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.”—(Jer. xi. 10.)
We find in Scripture, representations recognised in civil matters. Joseph took an oath of the Israelites that they should not bury him in Egypt, and in fulfilment of that engagement Moses took the bones of Joseph with him. Also with regard to the Gibeonites, 500 years after the covenant was made, there was a famine in Israel, because of Saul and his bloody house, for he had slain the Gibeonites. We find judgments denounced upon Tyre for disregarding this principle, (Amos i. 9,) “because they remembered not the brotherly covenant,” viz., the covenant between Hiram and Solomon; in fine, we find the Church at one period bewailing the breach of covenants made with their fathers, and also claiming a particular relation to God on account of these federal deeds. Peter says—“Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers.” Moses encouraged Israel by a similar statement “He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He sware unto them.”
The continued moral identity of organised society proves the descending obligation of public covenants. Moral identity, applied to organised society, denotes that its members are the subjects of God’s moral government, and necessarily under the obligation of His law, natural or revealed. Their identity or sameness denotes their continued relation and subjection to Him as their moral governor, and permanent obligation of His law upon them, during the existence of the social state. an evidence of this, the Jews in Jeremiah’s time are spoken of as the same society which came up out of Egypt. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Tyrians, and Babylonians are all viewed in the same light. The two witnesses, the representatives of the true Church, under the reign of Antichrist, are viewed as the same during their long period of prophesying. And the Antichristian body or system itself, as but one in its rise, progress, and general apostacy and ruin, though subsisting for the space of 1260 years. The Amorites were cut off in Joshua’s time for crimes accumulating from the days of Abraham.—(Gen. xv. 16.) Jerusalem, too, was destroyed, and the Jews dispersed, for crimes committed from the land of Egypt. “Fill ye up the measure of your fathers, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zecharias, son of Barachias. All these things shall come upon this generation.”—(Mat. xxiii. 31, 32, 34, 36.) Antichrist, also, shall be punished for all the blood of God’s servants shed (Rev. xix. 1, 2), even from the commencement of his reign.
On this principle we explain God’s denunciations against Amalek, Exodus xvii. 18, and Edom, Amos i. 11, 12, and Exodus xx. 5, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and reconcile it with the expression in Ezek. xviii. 20, “that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” He punishes personal sins with personal punishments, but public social sins with public national judgments. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children in a social capacity sometimes long after the trespass. The famine did not come upon Israel till fifty years after Saul had slain the Gibeonites. Although the reformation was great in Judah in the days of Josiah, “notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath wherewith His anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked Him withal.”
Although an individual undergo many changes during life, his moral identity is still the same. It is so with an organised society or body politic. Its moral identity is as real as that of an individual, through the entire of its existence, and under the same moral obligation to God. The moral identity of the British nation or Constitution is the same this day as it was when the covenants of our fathers were sworn, consequently they are under the same obligation to God. Men can bind their posterity in civil cases, as appears from Joseph and the Israelites, Joshua and the Gibeonites, and also from the Magna Charta or Bill of Rights in England, 600 years ago, and the National Debt contracted in the reign of William III., and various other public national deeds; also, in the common transactions among men, such as leases, bonds, and notes, all of which are considered binding upon posterity.[15] Are religious covenants, for promoting reformation attainments and transmitting religious privileges to posterity, less obligatory upon society than secular deeds? Certainly not. Society is as capable of public faith and permanent obligation in the one case as in the other; in the one case the public faith is pledged between man and man, but in the other there is, besides this, an explicit engagement to God. In our national engagements, the Covenanters do not only engage to be true to one another, but, also, with all the solemnity of an oath, they promise to be faithful to God, in prosecuting the work of reformation.[16] The Apostle Paul, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, reasons from the stability of a man’s covenant when confirmed by an oath, to the immutability of God’s covenant of promise—“Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, no man disanulleth or addeth thereto.”
The obligation of social covenants on posterity may be shown from their analogy to other religious ordinances, especially baptism. The vows of parents at baptism are of a descending nature. They come down upon children when they arrive at maturity. Baptism is a seal of our ingrafting into Christ, and our engagement to be the Lord’s. Now, if each individual be engaged to be the Lord’s, why may not the whole, as one body, engage, in the most public and explicit manner, to be for Him, and not for another? The baptismal act is a seal of the covenant privilege, and of moral obligation. “As circumcision made every Jew a debtor to the whole law,” baptism lays the baptised youth under similar obligation. Baptism, then, establishes the general principle, that posterity may be, and actually are, brought under obligations with regard to religion by the deeds of their ancestors. All who admit the propriety of infant baptism are bound, upon the principle of consistency, to acknowledge the continued moral obligation of the Covenants, National and Solemn League.[17]
With a few remarks on covenant-renovation I will close this address.
Covenant-renovation, like covenanting, is not a stated duty like prayer and praise. Like fasting and thanksgiving, it is called for by the aspects of Divine Providence, and the circumstances of God’s people.
In times of danger to the interests of religion. For example, the Church in Hezekiah’s time, see 2 Chron. xxix. 10; xxx. 8:—“Now it is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us.” In similar circumstances, Jehoiada, and Josiah, and Nehemiah encouraged the people to enter into social covenant with God. Such were the times when the covenants of our fathers were made and renewed. Such is the present time, “when the great Antichristian enemy is coming in like a flood”—then should the Churches “lift up a standard against him.”
In times of backsliding and apostacy from reformation attainments. Witness Israel on the plains of Moab and at Shechem, when “Joshua made a covenant with the people, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.” This is a characteristic of our own times, and certainly we are imperatively called to this duty.
In times of deliverance from danger, and when special privileges are enjoyed. This was exemplified by Israel, when they were come out of Egypt and Babylon, and after Sennacherib’s defeat. When God arose to judgment, to save the meek, He gave forth the command, “Vow unto the Lord your God, and pay.”—(Psalm lxxvi. 11.)
Finally, in times of prosperity, as in Josiah’s time, when reformation was carried forward, “the king made a covenant before the Lord, and all the people stood to the covenant.” And when the Spirit is poured out copiously, “One shall say, I am the Lord’s, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.”[18]
With regard to the duty I would remark, that covenant-renovation is implied in the great duty of covenanting. If it be proper to make a covenant, either personal or social, it is certainly proper to renew it. What more common than to hear ministers, at sacramental occasions, urge upon the people to renew their covenant, and to pay their vows. If personal covenanting be a duty, which few will deny, then the renewal of it is highly proper and advantageous; so with regard to social covenanting. Societies should renew those engagements which, by God’s grace, they were enabled to make.
We have many examples of such covenant-renovation, both personal and public, in the Scriptures and in the history of the New Testament Church. Jacob went up to Bethel and renewed his covenant, and paid his vows. David frequently renewed his covenant, and engaged to pay his vows before God’s people. And from that time to this, many of the excellent ones of the earth, while engaged in this duty, have enjoyed gracious manifestations and large outpourings of the Spirit from on high.
We have many examples of public covenant-renovation by the people of God in Old Testament times. Moses and Israel renewed the Sinaitic covenant on the plains of Moab before they entered the land of promise. In the times of Joshua, David, and Solomon, and also in the reigns of Asa, Jehosophat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, there were solemn acts of covenant-renovation, “and the people rejoiced willingly when they had taken the oath.” We find also the poor captives from Babylon, when reduced to a small number, and under the oppression of a foreign yoke, solemnly renewing their covenant in Nehemiah’s time—“And because of all this, (viz., notwithstanding of their fewness, poverty, and oppression,) we make a sure covenant, and write it, and our princes, Levites, and priests seal unto it.”—(Nehemiah ix. 36, 38.)
We find also, in the history of the Church in New Testament times, many instances of covenant-renovation. The Christian fathers relate many such acts among the primitive Christians. And, during the dark ages, and since the Reformation, the Waldenses and Bohemian brethren frequently renewed their social covenants with God. How often did the Churches on the Continent of Europe renew their covenants? Even the pilgrim fathers, driven by persecution to the New England States, strengthened themselves in God by renewing their covenant.
I need not tell you of the frequent acts of covenant-renovation by our fathers in Scotland prior to the formation of the National Covenant in 1581. And did they not renew that deed with great joy and with great success in 1638, prior to the formation of the Solemn League? And was not that noble deed ratified by act of the Scottish Parliament in 1644, and afterwards renewed in Scotland, with an acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, in 1648, and by the Parliament in 1649? By these measures Scotland declared that she regarded the deed as a national one, and permanently binding on her.
This covenanting, like that on the plains of Moab, was strictly and properly a national act, as the great body of the nation engaged in it. But when the carved work of the sanctuary was broken down, and the nation, as such, had broken, abandoned, and burnt[19] their covenant, a witnessing remnant like the tribe of Judah, “who alone clave to their God and was faithful with the saints,” solemnly renewed the Covenants, National and Solemn League, at Auchinsaugh, near Douglas, in 1712, in a bond suited to their circumstances.
“After the incorporating union with England, in 1707, and the restoration of patronage, in 1711, had presented fresh instances of the apostacy of the nation, they adopted the resolution of renewing the covenants, both as a means of confirming the faith of the Church, and of giving a public testimony for the cause of Scotland’s Reformation.”[20] And may we not add, as an expression of gratitude to the Church’s Head, for restoring to them the ordinances of the Gospel, and giving them again the standing ministry of reconciliation, after sixteen years of spiritual destitution of the Word of Life. They had no General Assembly, no Synod, no Presbytery to lead the way; but a minister, a probationer, and a number of godly elders, with the people of their charge, after much prayer and serious preparation, solemnly renewed their covenant. They then and there displayed a banner for the whole of Scotland’s covenanted reformation in Church and State. There they set up another way-mark to direct the weary covenanted traveller on his way to the new Jerusalem.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, after the death of Charles I., published a paper, called “A NECESSARY REPRESENTATION,” &c., by the Presbytery of Belfast, February 15, 1649. It is a faithful document. At the same meeting at which this important document was drawn up, the Presbytery unanimously resolved to renew the Solemn League and Covenant on the Sabbath eight days following, and appointed a fast to be held in the previous week. On the last Sabbath of February 1649, the “REPRESENTATION” was publicly read in all their churches by the respective ministers, and the Solemn League and Covenant personally renewed by the people; and on the following Sabbath the same duties were performed in vacant parishes by the adjoining ministers. The covenant was also renewed in the Lagan district, and many other places, at that time, with great solemnity, and with much of the light of the gracious countenance of a Covenant-God.
We find again, after the re-organisation of the Church and the constitution of the Reformed Presbytery, as a means of confirming the faith of the Church, and of fortifying the minds of the more youthful labourers, in whose hands the testimony was shortly to be left, and as a token of gratitude to Zion’s King who had raised up the tabernacle of David that was fallen, they again renewed their covenants at Crawfordjohn, Lanarkshire, in the year 1745.
About the year 1743, we are told in the American Testimony, that the Covenanters, in the State of Pennsylvania, met at Middle Octorara, for the renovation of their vows, under the superintendence of the Rev. Mr. [Alexander] Craighead.
In the last number of the Monitor, it is stated, “that the practice of covenanting has existed to some extent in the Nonconforming Churches in England ever since the period of the Westminster Assembly.” “We rejoice that, while public and social covenanting has been so generally neglected, and when Presbyterian bodies have been so unmindful of a duty and a privilege which distinguished their forefathers, the covenanting spirit still lingers in England.” The Church at Stepney, under the care of the Rev. Matthew Mead, renewed their covenant with God in 1679. The congregation of the late Dr. John Pye Smith are said to have used a similar ecclesiastical covenant.
The congregation of Mawdsley Street Chapel, Bolton, in August 1852, entered into covenant, publicly and jointly lifting up their hands to God.
We sincerely rejoice, also, that the Waldenses have had another religious meeting or festival in the valley of Piedmont, for commemorating the glorious return of the 800, in 1689. After prayer and praise by the Moderator, the famous oath was read; and by that oath “they sware to God, who had by His divine grace brought them back to the heritage of their fathers, to re-establish there the pure service of their holy religion, and engage to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as far as is possible for them, to pluck the rest of their brethren from the cruel Babylon, in order, with them, to restore and uphold His kingdom unto death.”
I shall only add to this summary, that the Primitive Seceders in Scotland renewed the Covenants, National and Solemn League, in the month of August 1833.[21] And, in the course of the last year, the Synod of the Original Secession in Scotland renewed the British covenants with great solemnity.
And, finally, as you know, your own Synod, after twenty-one years of serious deliberation and painstaking preparation, did, on the 11th of October last, enter upon covenant-renovation. The preceding day having been spent in prayer and humiliation, after prayer and praise on that morning, and an excellent sermon by the Rev. James Dick, and the reading of the National Covenant, and the Solemn League and Covenant, seventeen ministers, two licentiates, and thirty-four elders, with their hands lifted up to the Most High, did solemnly renew these federal deeds, in a bond suited to their circumstances. May the Lord give us grace to keep this covenant!
We have heard with great pleasure that a Presbytery, (viz., that of Arbroath,) of the Free Church of Scotland, a most influential and highly respectable body, have uttered a testimony in behalf of the covenants of our fathers. The subjoined overture was carried by a majority of ten to three. Would that the General Assembly were honoured to adopt it, and also that our Irish Assembly might follow her steps! This would be a step in the right direction—a consummation devoutly to be wished—a hallowed effort to bring the King back to these covenanted lands.
On the 4th January, the Presbytery of Arbroath held its regular meeting, when, agreeably to a notice previously given, the following overture to the General Assembly was moved and carried, viz.;—
“Whereas God has visibly a controversy with this nation; and whereas there is reason to believe that, in addition to the many other heinous sins that have provoked His displeasure, one grand reason of that controversy is the flagrant breach and long-continued neglect of covenants solemnly entered into both by Church and nation, and still binding upon posterity. It is humbly overtured to the venerable the General Assembly to take the subject of these solemn deeds into their earnest consideration, that, if they shall find the principle of the permanent obligation of these covenants well-founded, the great guilt both of the nation and the Church may be penitently acknowledged, the wrath of God may be humbly deprecated, a clear and pointed testimony may be borne against all the breaches of these covenants, especially as regards the national countenance and support of the abjured Prelacy, as well as Popery and Erastianism; and, further, that such steps may be taken as the Assembly’s wisdom may deem meet, for bringing all ranks and classes back to their allegiance to the Most High, that God, being nationally honoured and acknowledged, may be pleased to return to us as in the days of old, and that glory may again dwell in our land.—(Monitor, February 1854.)
With a few remarks, by way of inference and direction, I will close this subject.
Is the Most High God a God in covenant? How great are the privileges of those who are in covenant with Him? He remembers His covenant to a thousand generations. That God should have entered into covenant with His own Son for the salvation of lost sinners, exhibits His unspeakable love. Should we not take hold of God’s covenant? This you ought to do before entering upon public covenant-renovation. Each one for himself should take hold of God’s covenant of promise, ratified by the blood of His Son, and offered in the Gospel, and engage, in the strength of promised grace, to walk with God in all the ways of new obedience. Then will you be better prepared for uniting with professed believers in public acts of covenant-renovation.
To do this in a proper manner you require several qualifications.
1. You should study to have an affecting sense of sin, deep humiliation, and evangelical repentance. Personal transgressions, the sins of the Church and of the nation, should be candidly confessed before God, and you should humble yourselves on account of these violations. “Be clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” The Church in Nehemiah’s time, at their renovation, did so (Neh. ix. 33, 35), and our worthy ancestors followed this approved example when they entered into the Solemn League and Covenant, and also at its renewal in 1648 and 1712.
2. You require faith in the Divine promise. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” “Whatever is not of faith is sin.” No religious service is acceptable unless it be done in faith. Through faith the Old Testament worthies did wonderful works. Faith overcomes the world, gains every victory, vanquishes every enemy, and secures every privilege and enjoyment. We have many precious promises to encourage us in the work. “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Act faith on these precious promises, and go forward in the work.
3. Strive to realise the Divine presence. Act as in the sight and presence of God. “Thine eye sees me.” In that solemn act you come immediately into the Divine presence—you make a solemn appeal to the omniscient God. He searches the heart, He knows your motives, feelings, and desires. Try to do this duty with sincerity of heart and honesty of purpose. “He desires truth in the inwards parts.” Sincerity is Gospel perfection. “My son, give me thy heart.” Beware of hypocrisy.
4. Be earnest in prayer for light and direction. “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.” The prayer of faith has achieved great victories, and secured great deliverances. Contemplate the great things done in answer to the prayer of faith. When Moses’ hands were lifted up, Israel prevailed. When Samuel prayed, God discomfited the Philistines. Ask great things—expect great things—“God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.” Ask from Him covenant qualifications, that you may, with great spiritual advantage to yourselves and others, renew your solemn covenant with God.
In fine, plead your covenant relation to God. When we plead for the restoration of the Jews, we put God in remembrance of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Peter reminded the Jews of this—“Ye are the children of the covenant which God made with our fathers.” God refers to it Himself “I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.” On the footing of these federal transactions of our fathers, should we not plead our relation to God, and seek the fulfilment of covenant promises to His people? Should you not plead for these covenanted lands, that the Lord would stir them up to a sense of their duty, that they would return to the Lord, and renew their covenant with Him? Should we not try to carry into effect the design of these covenants? And, though few and feeble, like the captive Jews returned from Babylon, you may yet be honoured with building up Jerusalem. And, like Gideon’s small and determined band, you may lead the way to the final overthrow of the Antichristian foe. Did not [James] Guthrie, one of our martyred fathers, when on the scaffold, lift the napkin off his face, just before he was turned over, and cried, “The covenants, the covenants shall yet be Scotland’s,” and, may we not also add, Britain’s, “reviving.”
Let us earnestly pray that the happy day may soon come, when not only the different sections of the Church in these lands, but also the princes, noblemen, and senators, may come forward and renew the British covenants, and swear allegiance to Messiah, the Prince of the kings of the earth; and not only the British Isles, but that all kings and nations shall do homage to Him. “And blessed be His glorious name for ever, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” AMEN, AND AMEN.
BELFAST:
PRINTED BY M ‘CORMICK AND ROBIE, DONEGALL STREET.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Wentworth, Lord-Deputy of Ireland, in pursuance of his precautionary plans for preventing the Scots in Ulster from joining in the Covenant, or opposing in any way the designs of the king (Charles I.), had recourse to an expedient more illegal in its character, and more oppressive in its effects, than any which he had yet adopted. This was the imposition, on ail the Northern Scots, of an oath, styled, from the dismal calamities which it occasioned, THE BLACK OATH, in which they were compelled to swear never to oppose any of the king’s commands, and to abjure all covenants and oaths contrary to the tenor of this unconditional engagement.
The following is a copy of this celebrated oath, as set forth in the proclamation:—“I, ——— do faithfully swear, profess, and promise, that I will honour and obey my sovereign lord, King Charles, and will bear faith and true allegiance unto him, and defend and maintain his royal power and authority; that I will not bear arms or do any rebellious or hostile act against him, or protest against any of his royal commands, but submit myself in all due obedience thereunto; and that I will not enter into covenant, oath, or bond of mutual defence and assistance against all sorts of persons whatsoever, or into any covenant, oath, or bond of mutual defence and assistance against any persons whatsoever, by force, without his majesty’s sovereign and royal authority. And I do renounce and abjure all covenants, oaths, and bonds whatsoever, contrary to what I have herein sworn, professed, and promised. So help me God in Christ Jesus.”—Strafford’s Letters, vol. ii. p. 345. Quoted by Dr. Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, vol. i. pp. 232, 233.
[2] The persons known to be enemies to the Reformation, and favourable to the exorbitant claims of the civil rulers, were, in that period, commonly denominated Malignants.
[3] Act Rescissory, Act 15, Parliament 1, Charles II. By the ACT RESCISSORY all the meetings of Parliament which had been held since the year 1640 were condemned as illegal, and all the acts of these Parliaments declared null and void.
[4] The reader will find these points illustrated clearly, and at some length, in the historical part of the Testimony of the Reformed Church, pp. 160-190.
[5] Vide [John] Guyse’s Paraphrase; also [Philip] Doddridge, [Matthew] Henry; also Jonathan Edwards on the Revival of Religion, p. 23.
[6] Vide [Thomas] Bell’s Sermons on Lifting up a Standard [The Standard of the Spirit Lifted Up Against the Enemy Coming in Like a Flood], in p. 218.
[7] The reader will see this subject illustrated at length in the Covenanter, vol. iii, first series, in two articles, furnished by the author in 1833, pp. 206 and 235.
[8] Vide [Samuel] Wylie’s Sermon on Covenanting.
[9] [George] Stevenson’s Plea for Covenanting, p. 30.
[10] Deut. x. 20-29; 1 and 2 Kings xvii. 38; Jer. iv. 2; Psalm lxxvi. 11; lxviii. 31; Isaiah xix. 18-21; Jer. 1. 4, 5, &c., &c.
[11] Vide [Matthew] Pool, [Matthew] Henry, [John] Gill, Dutch and London Divines.
[12] Vide [Johann David] Michaelis and [Robert] Lowth on the passage.
[13] Vide [William] Guthrie, [Thomas] Boston, [John] Willison, and [Philip] Doddridge.
[14] The Augsburg Confession was published A.D. 1530, and presented to Charles V. The same year was published the Sueveland Confession. The Basil Confession was first written in 1532. The first Confession of Helvetia was written about the year 1536, and the latter in 1556. That of Saxony in 1551. That of Wirtemburg in 1552. The French Confession was, in the year 1559, presented to Francis 11. The Belgic or Dutch Confession in 1556, and the Bohemian in 1573. The English Confession was agreed upon in 1562, the Scotch in 1650, the Irish in 1615, and the Westminster Confession was adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and published in 1647.—(Vide Sketches of Ecclesiastical History. Belfast, 1813.)
[15] If we can bind our children to man (1 Sam. xx. 42), why not to God, who is greater than man?
[16] Vide [George] Stevenson’s Plea, pp. 41-43.
[17] Vide Dr. [Thomas] Houston’s work on Baptism, in which this doctrine is clearly illustrated.
[18] Vide [William] Symington on Public Vows, and [David] Scott on Distinctive Principles.
[19] The Covenants were burned in London, Edinburgh, &c.
[20] Vide historical part of the [Scottish Reformed Presbyterian] Testimony, p. 201.
[21] The remnant that was left, of the church of the venerable biographer of Knox and Melville [i.e., Thomas McCrie, the elder], after the breach that had been made, renewed the covenants, as a means of building up the broken down walls of Jerusalem.