e ecclesiastical unions,
the Westminster Assembly sat for five years in Westminster, after
signing the Solemn League, and framed a basis for union in the standards
they produced--which still testify that the members of that Assembly
were in advance of their times. Yes, the Covenanters were not narrow,
sectarian, bigoted; but large, liberal, Catholic.

These Covenants were deeds of lofty imperial significance. The
reformation of the Church, however complete, would have been a limited
Reformation. There are two powers ordained of God and both must be
reformed. The comprehensive aims of the Covenanters embraced both State
and Church. Their deeds were civil as well as ecclesiastical. A Church
thoroughly reformed and Christian in a State unreformed and
anti-Christian, would never have satisfied the Reformers. The State also
must be no longer a vassal of the Pope, it must be a servant of the
blessed and only Potentate. God in His word here also as in the Church
must be joyfully granted the exclusive supremacy. The Covenanters vowed
to defend the King in the defence and preservation of the reformed
religion. They secured the recognition of the Church by Parliament. The
members of Parliament themselves became Covenanters. In short,
Christianity pervaded and adorned the constitution and administration of
civil government in the United Kingdom. The Covenanters were convinced
that no power, except that provided by the Word of God, could possibly
resist the arbitrary claims of the monarchs, secure the safety of the
State, and promote civil liberty in the land. Religion in the realm of
citizenship is the very crown of any realm. In the face of the
despotisms of Pope and Monarch, it would not have been surprising had
the Covenanters invented and endeavoured to apply to the State the
modern theory of religious equality, which denies the right of the State
to even acknowledge the Prince of the kings of the earth. If ever they
dreamt of such a theory, their thought of the supremacy of Jesus would
make it vanish as a dream. Much less would they ever admit the
possibility of deliverance by the theory of a concurrent recognition of
all religions, as this would lower a nation to the position of
heathenism with its "gods many," and would soon involve the strongest
empire in disaster. Papalism in the State in the ascendancy, absolute
Monarchism in the State, Secularism in the State, Polytheism in the
State--these are four despotisms, and must