ur and honesty affirm that Renwick and his
fellow-sufferers would have willingly incorporated with the Revolution
Settlement; or that fellowship with the present British political
system, by taking oaths of allegiance and office, and setting up rulers,
is consistent with their declared and dearly prized principles. Let the
"Plain Reasons" to which we have referred, be duly weighed--and it must
be perfectly apparent, that Mr. Dodds's oracular statement--that the
"REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT" was the consummation and triumph, civilly, and
politically, and to a large extent ecclesiastically, of the "Fifty
years' Struggle of the Scottish Covenanters," is completely destitute of
any solid foundation. These _reasons_ are such as the following--The
Scottish reformation in its purest form was deliberately abandoned in
the Revolution Settlement--Both the Church and State concurred in
leaving unrepealed on the Statute-book, the infamous Act Rescissory, by
which the National Covenants were declared to be unlawful oaths, and all
laws and constitutions, ecclesiastical or civil, were annulled, which
approved and gave effect to them. The Revolution Church was, in every
respect, an entirely different establishment from that of the Second
Reformation. Its creed was dictated by Erastian authority--its
government established on the ground of popular consent and not of
Divine right--its order and discipline were placed in subjection to
Erastian civil rulers--and the Scriptural liberties of the ministry and
membership interfered with; and corruption in doctrine, and ordinances
of worship, without the power of removing it, extensively spread
throughout the ecclesiastical body. How sadly different a structure did
this appear to the eyes of faithful men, who lamented that the carved
work of a Covenanted Sanctuary had been broken down, and the "beautiful
House where their fathers worshipped, was laid waste!" Nor could the
civil and political part of the Revolution Settlement have any
pretensions to be a proper carrying out of the civil system of the
Reformation era. In this the federal deeds of the nation were the
compact between rulers and ruled, and were an essential part of the oath
of the Sovereign on admission to supreme power. Civil rulers were
required to be possessed of scriptural and covenant qualifications--and
were taken bound to make a chief end of their government the promotion
of the divine glory in the advancement of the true reformed re