ion; and it passeth the power of all the
magistrates under heaven to absolve from the oath of God." The
scriptural character of their contents infers the perpetual obligation
of these Covenants. All who accept the Scriptures as the Word of God,
must renounce the errors condemned by the Covenants and contend for the
truths those who subscribed them pledged themselves to maintain. No
Christian should ever dare to seek relief from the claims of Christ; it
is his honour to acknowledge and live and die for them. These deeds were
as national as any in the statute-book and therefore they are obligatory
still, for the nation in its corporate character is the same now as
three hundred years ago. Their perpetual obligation may be resisted, as
it often is, on the plea that a people have no right to bind posterity.
But should such a plea be declared valid, then society would be thrown
into the wildest disorder and temporal ruin would overtake millions.
Heirs could be justified in refusing to fulfil the instructions of
testators; young people could condemn the baptismal vows taken by
parents; governments and cabinets could tear up the treaties of their
predecessors; and the nation itself could repudiate the national debt.
Those who enter into the possession of valuable estates, secured for
them by the toil and struggles of ancestry, do not renounce their
estates because they themselves were not consulted in the execution of
the title deeds. These deeds of the Covenanters, and the heritage
secured by them, were obtained through the noblest sacrifices. They were
deeds presented before the Throne, and registered in the Court of
heaven, and those who repudiate them incur the risk of an awful
forfeiture.

The present conditions in Church and State throughout the British Isles,
force upon the minds of all who admire the Reformation the facts that
the doctrines and principles of those Reformations are even now ignored
and despised, and that the systems which were cast out by the whole
nation through their Covenants are now in power. The objects sought by
the Covenants have not yet been realized. In several sad respects, both
Church and State are in positions of acute antagonism to those great
catholic objects. An ecclesiastical supremacy in the British sovereign
rears its head over these Covenanted kingdoms; for, as Blackstone
writes, this supremacy is "an inherent right of the British Crown." The
"Anti-Christian" hierarchy of Prelacy is i