Welcome to Act Declaration and Testimony for the whole of our Covenant and Reformation from the Reformed Presbytery. We are continuing to read on page 177 of the PDF file. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. Many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, CDs, and much more at great discounts, are on the web at www.PuritanDownloads.com. Also, please consider, pray, and act upon the important truth found in the following quotation from Charles Spurgeon. As the Apostle says to Timothy, so also he says to everyone, give yourself to reading. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying. Now to SWR these reading of the act and declaration Which we hope you find to be a great blessing in which we pray draws you near to the Lord Jesus Christ For he is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh unto the father but by him gospel of John chapter 14 verse 6 The Presbytery testify against Forsyte associates on account of their corruption in worship, particularly in the duty of prayer, both as practiced by their ministers and by them enjoined upon their people. Wherein, in an inconsistency with the faithful testimony against the declared enemies of the Church's head and king, they affect to express a superlative loyalty unto the prelactic possessors of power, not much differing from the forms imposed upon and observed by the Erastian Church. The Presbytery acknowledge it duty to pray for all men, in the very stations of life as sinners lost of the ruined family of Adam, standing absolutely in need of a Savior, that they may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth as is enjoined, 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2, which yet must not be understood in an unlimited sense, but with submission to the will of God, if they belong to the election of grace. Nay, they acknowledge it indispensable duty, as to pray, that the Church may obtain such kings and queens, as shall be nursing fathers and mothers, according to the Lord's gracious promise. So, when such are granted to them, it is their duty to make prayers and supplications in a particular manner for them. But it is no less than an abuse of Scripture, and flat contradiction to many promises and threatenings, to extend force and command to every person without distinction, whom providence advances to the supreme rule over the people of God, in a way of acknowledging their authority as lawful. and of praying for success and prosperity to them, as the cedars do, to pray for success unto, and the continuance of wicked rulers that are enemies to the Lord, and usurpers of his crown, and such whom the Lord in anger against a people for their sins may send as a special punishment upon them, and from whom he has promised deliverance unto his people as a peculiar blessing is no less than the slighting of the promises and deriding of threatenings and in reality is it taking part with God's enemies against him and his cause. as it is impossible sincerely to pray for the coming of Christ's kingdom, and advancement thereof, without also, as a necessary means conducive thereto, to pray for the downfall and destruction of all his enemies, as such whatever be their place and station, which is not at all inconsistent with praying for their salvation, as lost sinners. Seeing Jesus Christ no less effectually destroys his enemies when he makes them to bow in a way of willing subjection to the scepter of his law and grace than when he breaks them in pieces with his iron rod of wrath. So, how self-contradictory is it in seceders to pray for the coming of Christ's mediatory kingdom, and at the same time to pray for the success and preservation of one in his kingly character, who themselves acknowledge has in that character made grievous encroachments upon the royal prerogatives of the Lord Jesus Christ is an usurper of his crown, and therefore in that view must be considered as an enemy to his kingdom. That the above is no false charge against seceders is witnessed by a variety of their causes of fasting, concluding with such prayers which they have omitted, as well as by their daily practice, and particularly anti-burger seceders. have given a late recent proof of this in what they call a solid warning by the associate synod, and so forth, which unfaithful warning concludes with a self-contradictory form of prayer enjoined upon all under the inspection of said synod. Among other things, they exhort all the people under their inspection to pour out earnest and incessant supplications before the Lord, in a dependence upon the merit and intercession of our great High Priest, that he may bring about a revival of our covenanted Reformation, removing all the mountains which stand in the way, that he may abundantly bless our sovereign King George and the apparent heir of the crown, blasting all plots or efforts of whatever enemies, open or secret, against the Protestant succession to the throne of these kingdoms in the family of Hanover. that he may be gracious to the High Courts of Parliament in this and the neighbouring island, leading them to proper measures for the honour of Christ, that he may hasten the enlargement of the Mediator's kingdom, and so forth. on all which let it suffice to observe firstly that as in no part of this prayer they make any exceptions against so they must be understood therein approving of the constitution of the king the establishment and limitation of the throne of these kingdoms in the hanoverian family as presently by law established and also approving of the British and Irish parliaments in their constitution as by law established, though both of them grossly Erastian, and necessarily connected with maintaining English-Polish ceremonies, the whole English hierarchy, and civil places and power of churchmen, in opposition to the word of God, reforming laws and covenanted constitutions of the nation. Hence, secondly, this pattern of prayer must be understood as containing earnest supplications to the Lord, that He may continue and preserve an Erastian constitution, that He may perpetuate the limited succession to the throne in the family of Hanover, and that in opposition to all attempts, whatever, toward any change, however much it might contribute to the glory of God, good of the Church, and revival of a covenanted Reformation, and also seems to include a desire that God may preserve and maintain a Parliament in the nations, one of the Houses whereof, namely the House of Peers, is composed partly of spiritual Lords, as essential members thereof, an anti-christian designation, a title and office not to be found in the book of divine revelation. So thirdly, this prayer seems to suppose a consistency between the preservation of all these and the revival of a covenanted reformation in these lands, and also that they, particularly a parliament, thus anti-christian in its constitution, are proper instruments for promoting the honor and declarative glory of Christ. Although the prelates, constituent members therein, are a generation of men that were never yet known to have a vote for Christ's kingdom and interest. And therefore, fourthly, this prayer consists of flat contradiction, first in regard that revival of a covenanted reformation and the flourishing of Christ's mediatory kingdom nationally must be attended with the overthrow of all constitutions, civil and ecclesiastical, that hinder and oppose the same. Haggai chapter 2, verses 6 and 7. and with the downbringing of all the enemies thereof, from the height of their excellency. Secondly, it is a contradiction for them to pray that the Lord would remove all the mountains that stand in the way of the revival of our Reformation, and yet, at the same time, pray for the preservation and continuance of the Constitution, under which, as they themselves acknowledge, in defense of their principles, page 51, There is a mighty bar thrust into the way of our covenanted reformation, both in church and state, yea, a gravestone is laid and established upon the same. Thirdly, it is a sinful and glaring contradiction for seceders to rank an approbation of the English hierarchy among our public national sins and steps of defection, as they do on page 53 of their pamphlet, and yet themselves persist and continue in the same sin and guilt. homologating and approving the anti-Christian constitution of the British and Irish parliaments by praying, like their forefathers and their fulsome address to James the Papist, for divine illumination and conduct to the prelates in their civil places and powers, as necessary members there as they do in this prayer of theirs. Can such be supposed to be either truly sensible of sin or humbled for it, who, notwithstanding all their confessions, still continue in the love and practice of it? But with such mock acknowledgments, of which a variety of other instances might be given, have they hitherto imposed on the generation, and so fifthly, It is a prayer that, in several parts thereof, has no scripture warrant, no foundation in the promises of God. Particularly, on what scriptural warrant, what promise can seceders build their prayers for, or expectation of the Lord's answering them, by blessing an Erastian government to themselves or others, which, being in its constitution, contrary to the word of God, is such that under it, as they grant, uh, Yvette, page 46, a people cannot truly prosper in their civil concerns, nor be enriched with the blessings of the gospel? From what scriptural promise are they warranted to pray that God may perpetuate the succession to the throne in any one family, and especially when that succession is circumscribed and limited in a way opposite to the laws of God? and mediatory kingdom of Christ, and therefore a prayer that cannot be made in faith, and so cannot be acceptable to God in its complex form. No person can have faith in the merit and intercession of Christ for obtaining anything in prayer but what Christ has priorly merited, and does actually intercede for. But it would savor too much of blasphemy to apply some of the particulars already noticed in this form of prayer to the merit and intercession of our great High Priest. Sure it cannot be thought that he makes intercession for the prosperity and success of his enemies in their stated opposition to his kingdom and interest in this world. Neither can it be consistent with fidelity to Christ as a King for his professed subjects to pray for it. What a fearful trifling with God in the duty of prayer is it to pray that the Lord may bring down popery and prelacy, and next breath to pray that the Lord may continue, prosper, and preserve the Erastian head and great bulwark of prelacy. Fourth, again the presbytery testify against the associate party for their treachery and covenant. This is a sin that is in scripture, and even by the common voice of mankind declared very heinous, but which, by what is already discovered and then said party, appears too justly chargeable upon them. It is notorious, and what themselves boast much of, that they professedly maintain the moral and perpetual obligation of the Covenants, both the National Covenant of Scotland and the solemn Leaguing Covenant of Scotland, England and Ireland, entered into for reformation and defence of religion, and bringing the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, according to the word of God. They also do in the most public manner profess that they are the only true faithful witnesses for a covenanted reformation. But the consistency of such a profession, with maintaining principles that are diametrically opposite to these covenants, and the cause of truth sworn to in them, as has been made evident they do, is altogether unintelligible. Is it possible, strenuously, to maintain the lawfulness of a prelactical government abjured in the covenants, and yet at the same time, sincerely and honestly, according to the profession made by the Church, in Psalm 44, verses 17 and 18, to contend for the moral obligation of the covenants, and the work of reformation sworn to in them? But further, the necessity of lifting up a testimony against the cedars for their treachery and unfaithfulness in the matter of the covenants will appear by considering that they, after making a very solemn profession of renewing the National Covenant of Scotland and the Solemn League and Covenant of the Three Lands, in place of practicing accordingly, have, in reality, made a new and very different bond or covenant, both in form and substance, which they have not only sworn themselves, but also imposed upon many honest people, and this as a renewing, nay, as also as the only right way of renewing, said covenants according to the circumstances of the times. that this bond entered into by seceders, however good it may be, considered in an abstract sense, is not a renovation of the national covenants as they assert it to be, but a treacherous and deceitful bearing of these covenants as to their sum and substance, is abundantly evident from their industrious keeping out and omitting the most part of them out of their new and artificial bond. Particularly, although they pretend to a renovation both of the National and Solemn League in Covenant, yet they have almost entirely left out and passed over the National Covenant of Scotland, and satisfying themselves with simply testifying against Popery, have omitted all the particular errors and branches thereof expressly contained in the National Covenant. As to the solemn league, of which they pretend their bond is also a renovation, there is very little of it to be found therein, as appears from a comparison of the one with the other. Thus they have left out that remarkable and necessary clause in the first article, namely, quote, against our common enemies, end quote. and in place of endeavoring to bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government, directory for worship, and catechizing. As in said article, there is an unintelligible clause or jumble of words brought in, namely, to promote and advance our covenanted conjunction and uniformity in religion, just as if that conjunction and uniformity had a present existence in its native and original state and form. in the three lands, when, on the contrary, Presbytery is established in Scotland, yet not on the footing of the Word of God and the Covenants, and Episcopacy is established in England and Ireland in contradiction to the Word of God and the Covenants. Second, they have kept out that necessary clause in the second article, namely, quote, without respect of persons, endeavor the extirpation, end quote, and so forth, and instead thereof say, quote, testify against popery and prelacy, end quote, where appears not only a difference in expression, but a substantial difference. Third, they have altogether omitted and kept out the third and fourth articles. Fourth, they have kept out that material and necessary clause in the fifth article, namely, quote, that justice may be done on the willful opposers thereof, end quote, in manner expressed in the preceding article. Fifth, they have left out all the sixth article accepting these words, quote, We shall not give ourselves up to a distestable neutrality and indifference in the cause of God, end quote. 6. They have wholly omitted that material paragraph of the conclusion of the Solemn League. It is therefore evident that the model of the covenants agreed to by the seceders is different in substance as well as form from our ancient covenants, so that under pretense of renovation they have made a new bond. But again, that their pretended renovation is a real bearing of the Covenanted Reformation appears from their overlooking, casting by, and keeping out the National Covenant as it was renewed in the year 1638, and the Solemn League and Covenant as renewed in the year 1648, and going back to the years 1580 and 1581. as the pattern they proposed to follow in carrying on of their covenanted testimony. And what can be the reason of this? Can it be because prelacy and the civil places and power of churchmen were, by the explication and application of the covenant, anno 1638, expressly and explicitly condemned, while they were formerly only implicitly and by way of consequence? So, they have at least, by this step back, both tacitly condemned our Reformers, of giving themselves needless trouble in their explanation of the Covenant, as condemning and abjuring episcopacy, and also do overlook, despise, and disgracefully bury the many advanced steps of Reformation attained to in these Covenant lands. between 1638 and 1649, particularly the Church of Scotland's testimony against prelacy, in which time Reformation arrived to a greater height of purity than ever was attained in any foregoing period of this Church and nation. However, whatever their reasons were for doing so, that they have done so is clear from their act in Edinburgh, February 3rd, 1743, where they conclude with a note of Bene, lest it should not otherwise have been observed that they do so, and thereby declare their sin as Sodom, as if the publishing of it would make an atonement for it. only the National Covenant as it was entered into Annas 1580-1581 without the bond wherein it was renewed Annos 60-38, and the Solemn Lincoln Covenant without the solemn acknowledgment of sins and engagements to duties. Anno 1648, are hereby prefixed unto the following Act, agreeably unto the design of said Act." And for this they pretend the example of our Reformers, Anno 1638, who renewed the National Covenant by a new bond, in place of that new bond wherewith it was renewed and sworn, 1590. which they omitted, wherein their deceit and unfaithfulness is very obvious from the following observations. First, hereby they have cast a most injurious calumny and reproach upon our honored reformers in their pretending to imitate their practice in renovation of the covenants, are guilty of a most dreadful and deceitful imposition on the generation for though our Reformers did renew the covenants with a new bond, and perhaps very seldom swear them without some additions, yet they never went back from any part of Reformation espoused and sworn to in the renovations that were before them, under a pretense that such points of Reformation formerly attained were insuitable or not adapted to their circumstances, as the Cedars have done. On the contrary, our Reformers, in all the different renovations of the covenants, not only included all that was formerly attained to, binding themselves in strict adherence to all the articles priorly in the oath and covenant of God, at the same time solemnly acknowledging all former breaches thereof, and obliging themselves in the strength of grace to the performance of the contrary and consequential duties, but also still went forward in explaining and more explicitly applying the covenants against the sins of the day, and more expressly binding themselves to the opposite duties, as is clear from the bond wherewith our Reformers renewed the Covenants 1638 and the solemn acknowledgment of sins in engagements to duties 1648, both which the cedars have barefacedly cast by, and exploded in their alleged renovations of the Covenants, whereby, as it is manifest that our reformers always went forward to further degrees of reformation, so it is no less manifest that for said party, acting contrary to them, have gone backward. But secondly, they have not only rejected the renovations of the covenant by our ancestors 1638 and 1640, but even when they pretended to follow the renovation of the covenant in 1580 and 1581, they have kept out and perverted almost the whole of the national covenants, as was already observed. Particularly in their new bond, they have cast away the civil part of the covenants altogether. For what reason they do so is indeed hard to say. True, they allege it would be a blending of civil and religious matters together, and that it is not proper or competent for them as a church judicatory to meddle in these matters that are of a civil nature. But seeing infinite wisdom has not judged a sinful blending of civil and religious concerns together to deliver the duties both civil and religious in one and the same moral law unto mankind, it is difficult to conceive how the people of God, their binding themselves in a covenant of duties to the conscientious performance of all the duties God required of them in this world, whether civil or religious, according to their respective or immediate objects, can be reputed a blending of them together, or that this has the remotest tendency to destroy that distinction which God in His revealed will has stated between what is immediately civil in its nature and what is properly religious. This, therefore, is a mere groundless pretense and evasion. And, if it has any force at all, as a reason, it strikes against the reformers who compiled these covenants. They are the proper objects at whom, through the sides of others, it thrusts. For they, at the framing of sundry of their covenants, and afterward at the renovation of their covenant, did it both without the ecclesiastical authority, and also without, and contrary unto, yea, at the hazard of suffering the greatest severities from civil authority on that account. and yet the ecclesiastical judicatories of the Church of Scotland, afterward found it competent for them, as such, to approve of these covenants, both as to the matter and form of them, without branding and exploiting them as a blending of matters civil and religious together, as seceders have done. As the covenants require no other than a lawful magistrate, and seeing seceders acknowledge the present as lawful, and that it is their duty to be subject to and support them as such, it is impossible to conceive any reason why they have not honored the present rulers with a place in their new and artificial bond, unless perhaps this, that they were aware They would have been so glaring a contradiction to these covenants they were pretending to renew, as would doubtless have startled and driven away from them a good many honest people, whom they have allured and led aside by their good words and fair-set speeches. And yet it is pretty obvious they have included the present rulers in their bond. and taken them in an oblique and clandestine way by swearing to the relative duties contained in the Fifth Commandment, seeing they acknowledge them as their civil parents. Again, as their bond is supposed to reduplicate upon the national covenants, and so to bind to every article in them, by native consequence, they swear to a prelactical government, foreseeing they have made no exception in their bond. It must be applied to no other but the government which presently exists. and this in flat contradiction to the covenants by which such a government is abjured, so that their new bond is no less opposite to the national covenants, and is much more deceitful than if they had plainly and explicitly sworn allegiance to the present government therein. Only the generality of their implicit followers do not so readily observe it. Upon the whole, how strange is it that they should have the assurance to father their deceitful apostasy and wretched bearing of the covenants upon our Reformers so injuriously to their character, and at the hazard of imposing a heinous and base cheat upon the world, while notwithstanding all their vain pretensions, It is undeniably evident to those who will impartially and without prejudice examine the method and order whereby our ancestors renewed our covenants, that in this they have been so far from following their example that they have directly contradicted the same, and in reality buried much of the covenants and work of reformation sworn to in them. For though a people may very lawfully by a new bond enlarge and add to their former obligations that they brought themselves under, yet they can never, without involving themselves in the guilt of perjury, relax or cancel former obligations by any future bond. Accordingly, our worthy ancestors, by all the new bonds they annexed to former obligations, were so far from attempting to loose themselves from any covenant of duty that either they or their fathers were priorly bound to, that they thereby still brought themselves under straighter bonds to perform all their former and new obligations of duty to God. But, as has been discovered, seceders, by their artificial bond, have cast out the very substance and spirit of the covenants by their rumping and hewing them at pleasure, to reduce them to the sinful circumstances of the time. and this in opposition to their own public profession, that these covenants are moral in their nature, and obligations upon these nations to the latest posterity. How surprising it is, then, that after such a profession they dare cast out their bond the greatest parts of the covenants, This is not only to break these obligations, but is to make a public declaration that different times and circumstances do free men from their obligations to keep their most solemn vows to the Most High. To this, as very applicable, may be subjoined the words of Mr. Case in a sermon relative to the Covenants. Others have taken it, namely the Covenant, with their own evasions, limitations, and reservations, Such a jesuitical spirit has got in among us, by which means it comes to pass, that by that time that men have paired off and left out, and put what interpretation they frame to themselves, there is little left worth the name of a covenant. And indeed, so many are the self-inconsistencies and gross contradictions attending this new bond, that it would have been much more for the honor both of the covenants and of seceders themselves, rather, never to have attempted such a work, than to have done it in a way of tearing to pieces our solemn national vows. Wherefore, this Presbytery cannot but, in testifying against them for their unfaithfulness, uptest all the lovers of truth to beware of joining in this course of treachery, an apostasy from God and His covenanted cause. Still Waters Revival Books is now located at PuritanDownloads.com. It's your worldwide, online Reformation home for the very best in free and discounted classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, MP3s, and videos. For much more information on the Puritans and Reformers, including the best free and discounted classic and contemporary books, mp3s, digital downloads and videos, please visit Still Waters Revival Books at PuritanDownloads.com. 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