ry_ and _argument_ as constituting their testimony: and did not
look upon _doctrinal declaration_ as formal testimony at all. Look at
the very title page of their Testimony; where you read, "Act,
Declaration and Testimony," plainly distinguishing between _declaration_
and _Testimony_. Now, all innovators make doctrinal declaration their
testimony, reversing our fathers' order; yea, we would add God's order,
for he distinguishes between his law and testimony; Ps. lxxviii, 5-7;
cv, 42-45. God's special providences toward his covenanted people
constitute his testimony by way of eminence; Exod. xx, 1, &c., and their
conduct under his providences constitute their testimony, which must
consist of history; and by this and the blood of the Lamb, Christ's
witnesses are destined to overcome all anti-christian combinations.

In attempting thus to follow the approved example of our covenant
fathers, whose practice it was to testify not only against the
corruptions of ecclesiastical, but also of civil constitutions, where
their lot was cast, we deem it incumbent on us to continue our testimony
first published in 1806, against the immoralities incorporated with the
government of these United States.

Believing that a nation as such, is a proper subject of God's
government, and that those nations favored with his law as revealed in
the holy scriptures, are peculiarly required to regard the authority of
the Lord and his Anointed, therein made fully known: it is with deep
regret that we feel constrained to designate and testify against evils
in the Constitution of this nation. Notwithstanding numerous
excellencies embodied in this instrument, there are moral evils
contained in it also, of such magnitude, that no Christian can
consistently give allegiance to the system. There is not contained in it
any acknowledgment of the Christian religion, or professed submission to
the kingdom of Messiah. It gives support to the enemies of the Redeemer,
and admits to its honors and emoluments Jews, Mohammedans, Deists and
Atheists--it establishes that system of robbery by which men are held in
slavery, despoiled of liberty, and property, and protection. It violates
the principles of representation, by bestowing upon the domestic tyrant
who holds hundreds of his fellow creatures in bondage, an influence in
making laws for freemen proportioned to the number of his own slaves.
This constitution is, in many instances, inconsistent, oppressive and
impio