hat was determined by the
assembly, might be ratified by the parliament. In this assembly, the
covenant was ratified and subscribed by the commissioner, and an
injunction laid upon the body of the kingdom for subscribing the same,
with an explication, wherein the five articles of Perth, government of
bishops, the civil places and power of kirkmen were expressly condemned.
Hereby the hopes of the Prelates again being in a great measure lost,
and they receiving fresh assistance from the king (who seemed to have
little conscience in making laws, and found small difficulty in breaking
them), recruited themselves the year following, and took the field, but
with no better success than formerly, which obliged them to yield to
another pacification, wherein both religious and civil liberties were
ratified; and in 1641, these were further confirmed by the oaths,
promises, laws, and subscriptions of both king and parliament, whereat
the king was personally present, and gave the royal assent to all acts
made for the security of the same; while at the same time he was
concurring in the bloody tragedy acted upon the Protestants in the
kingdom of Ireland.

The gracious countenance and abundant evidence of divine approbation
wherewith the LORD vouchsafed to bless his contending, reforming and
covenanting church in Scotland, in a plentiful effusion of his Holy
Spirit on the judicatories and worshiping assemblies of his people,
proved a happy means to excite and provoke their neighbors in England
and Ireland, to go and do likewise. For in the year 1643, when the
beginning of a bloody war between the king and parliament of England
threatened the nation with a series of calamity and trouble; the
parliament having convocated an assembly of divines to sit at
Westminster for consulting about a reformation of religion in that
kingdom, sent commissioners, consisting of members of both houses and
assembly, to treat with the assembly of the church of Scotland, and
convention of estates about these things. In the month of _August_, they
presented their proposals to the convention of estates and assembly,
desiring, that because the popish prelatical faction is still pursuing
their design of corrupting and altering the religion through the whole
island, the two nations might be strictly united for their mutual
defense against them and their adherents, and not to lay down arms until
those, their implacable enemies, were disarmed, &c. Commissioners we