George Paxton II.6

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SECT. VI.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE ARTICLES OF THE SOLEMN LEAGUE CONSIDERED.

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1. IT has been objected “that the Solemn League and Covenant was formally and ultimately a state oath.” This allegation is partly true. But it is certainly not true that this covenant is altogether a deed of state policy. The General Assembly, in receiving and treating with the English Commissioners, had in view, as their principal object, the preservation of religion at home, and the reformation of it in England and Ireland. “Yes, truly,” says Baillie, “we must take God to witness, in the midst of the flames of his wrath, that the public intentions of the godly in the land, have been, and are, for the glory of his name, for the advancement of piety, truth, and righteousness, without the hurt of any flesh, except so far as our necessary defence does compel.” For these noble purposes, they insisted on a religious union with that nation by solemn covenant. Of this league, the cause of God and truth is obviously the prominent feature. It forms the sole subject of the first and second articles. In the fourth, it is the very first thing which the Covenanters engage to secure. In the sixth and last, its preservation is a principal reason for that mutual defence to which they engage. The conclusion is too remarkable and apposite to be omitted:

“And because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against God, and his Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof; we profess and declare before God and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially, that we have not as we ought, valued the inestimable benefit of the gospel, that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof, and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives; which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us; and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and endeavour for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge, both in public and private, in all duties we owe to God and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation; that the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. And this covenant we make in the presence of ALMIGHTY God, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to

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perform the same, as we shall answer at that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed: most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us, by his Holy Spirit, for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success, as may be deliverance and safety to his people, and encouragement to other Christian churches, groaning under, or in danger of the yoke of Antichristian tyranny, to join in the same, or like association and covenant; to the glory of God, the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace and tranquillity of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths.”

That covenant, the matter of which is for the most part religious, the great objects, the glory of God, the success of the gospel, and the reformation of manners, is, beyond all reasonable doubt, a religious covenant. And as such, it was considered by the Church; for by their orders it was administered by ministers, in the churches, and on the Lord’s day. The Church could do nothing more to make it a religious deed: and if their authority, in this business, was seconded, or even surmounted, by the authority of the State, it existed, notwithstanding, and discovered no contemptible energy.

But it is contended that the Covenants were state oaths, “because the very titles our fathers took to themselves, respect men as members of the State.” “We Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Burgesses, Ministers of the gospel, and Commons of all sorts*.” The caviller is often as much to be pitied as the object of his miserable censure. How one of these titles, Ministers of the gospel, respects men as members of the State, the letter-writer is desired to shew. Every candid person will allow that these titles were used to comprehend all classes of men. If our fathers had dreamed that the use of these harmless designations would annihilate all that is religious in their covenants, and transform them at once into state oaths, they would certainly have rejected them with abhorrence. But this important discovery was reserved for the end of the eighteenth century. The people of Israel were as ignorant as our ancestors, though they had inspired prophets to direct their worship, of the baneful effect of these names; for they appeared before God to enter into his oath, adorned with the same meretricious ornaments. “Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your Captains of your tribes, your Elders, and your Officers, with all the men of Israel†.” Nehemiah and his people fell into the same blunder. “And because of all this, we make a sure covenant, and write it, and our princes, Levites, and priests seal unto it—And the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the porters, the sing-

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* Letters on Covenant Oblig.

† Deut. xxix. 10.

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ers, the Nethinims, they clave to their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse and into an oath to walk in God’s law*.”

But, besides the preservation of religion, and the uniformity of the British churches in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, the Solemn League and Covenant was intended to secure the respective liberties of the three nations, and unite them in perpetual amity and peace. Thus far, it is acknowledged, it might be called a state oath; and for these secular purposes alone, it was administered by the civil power; and ordained to be sworn and subscribed by all the subjects, under the pain of being punished as enemies to religion, his Majesty’s honour, and the peace of these kingdoms. With these proceedings of the State, we have no immediate concern; nor, have we any interest in the Solemn League, but as it is a religious covenant, obliging us to defend and promote the true religion, and to endeavour, by all scriptural means, to bring about uniformity in the faith and practice of the British churches.

2. “The whole matter of this covenant is so various and intricate, that the greater part of the common people who entered into it, could not be supposed to understand it.”

To this objection we reply, with Mr Anderson, “That an oath is not to be blamed because persons may swear it rashly and ignorantly. An oath is sufficiently accommodated to the understanding of those who are desired to enter into it, if the terms have so much precision as not to be ambiguous; and so much clearness that any person of ordinary capacity, in the due use of the means he has access to, may come at their meaning.—But the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant are neither hard nor ambiguous. The hardest are the names of the ecclesiastical officers in the Episcopal communion: and why, will some say, are we obliged to acquaint ourselves with all the branches of Prelacy? We should be acquainted with public evils, so far as the knowledge of them is necessary for the keeping of ourselves unspotted from them, that we may not be partakers of them; as is necessary, in order to the exercise of gospel mourning and humiliation for them, as grounds of God’s controversy with the land; as is necessary, in order to our testifying against them, for the glory of God, and for the benefit of our fellow men. On these accounts, a great part of God’s word is taken up in pointing out public evils. On these accounts we should study to understand the terms alluded to in the Solemn League and Covenant.

Whoever is in the least acquainted with the history of this period, knows, that the public attention was then much engaged by the various branches of Prelacy; so that it is reasonable to suppose the several

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* Neh. ix. 33. and x. 28, 29.

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orders of the Episcopal hierarchy, and other things relating to that controversy, were better understood among the people than they are now.

But is it actually true that I do not so understand the things mentioned in an oath as to be able to swear it safely, till I have considered these things in all the lights wherein they can be considered, till I am able to explain each of them fully, and to solve all the doubts and difficulties that may be raised about them? For example, supposing I had a call in providence to assure the public, by an oath, of my loyalty to the British Government, and supposing the words, British Government to be in the form of the oath, would it be unlawful for me to swear it, till I comprehended fully the nature and maxims of that government; till I understood how exactly the three branches of the Legislature were balanced together; how privilege and prerogative went hand in hand; and, in fine, how easily every objection might be answered against the commonly received opinion, that it is the best constituted government in the known world? Suppose I were called to swear that I remember I was in my usual state of health at such a particular time; would it be be wrong for me to take an oath to that purpose, with the word health in it, unless I could give an account of all the parts, external and internal, of my corporeal frame; unless I could tell of the solids and of the fluids; of the veins, arteries, nerves, muscles, tendons, and glands; of the motion of the heart and of the lungs; of the chyle, the blood, and some mysterious thing they call the animal spirits; and, in short, unless the word health suggested to me all the ideas which it ever suggested to a Sydenham, or a Boerhaave? If this is the case, I may turn Quaker when I please with regard to oaths; for it is impossible that, ever in this world, an oath can be devised that is not far beyond the reach of my understanding. Such is the egregious trifling which some have tried to pass upon the world, for sober solid reasoning, against our Covenants. The truth is, one understands the things mentioned in an oath sufficiently for the purpose of swearing that oath, if his knowledge of them answer the intention of the administrator. One may take an oath of loyalty to the British Government, though he knows no more of the British Government than that he lives securely under it, enjoying his liberty and his property. In like manner, one may take an oath renouncing Popery, Prelacy, and Arminianism; if he only knows a few of the tenets to which those names are commonly appropriated, and is convinced, in his conscience, that the tenets are contrary to the word of God. The divine truths opposite to Popery, Prelacy, and Arminianism, are such as every Christian ought to be acquainted with, as contained in the holy scriptures: and surely

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it requires very little historical knowledge to convince him that there is something contrary to those truths, in the religious opinions that go under the above-mentioned names. The truth is, a good and honest heart (that is, the new heart which God hath promised) is unspeakably more necessary for the right performance of this duty, than much of what passes among men for knowledge and penetration.”

3. “The Solemn League and Covenant favoured persecution for conscience sake.”

This serious and heavy charge is brought against the Second Article, and is founded upon the word Extirpation. But this word does not necessarily infer persecution; for it is used by our Saviour himself: “But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up,” or extirpated*. Popery, Prelacy, Superstition, Heresy, Schism, and Profaneness, are in the view of every sound Presbyterian, plants of this kind; and are to be rooted up from the garden of God. No sanguinary measure was intended by the Saviour, when he used the word extirpate; therefore, in imitation of him, the Church may use it with perfect propriety. Her weapons are not carnal, but spiritual; they are preaching, praying, and writing; and the edge of these powerful weapons can reach the heresy, while the life, liberty, and property of the heretic remain unhurt. These the Church did use in the work of extirpation, with singular success. That the heresy, not the heretic, was the real object of this Article, must be obvious to the most careless, or prejudiced reader; for if the Covenanters meant the heretic, it was as easy, and more natural, to mention the person than the opinion. But they have a right to be heard in their own vindication. Among the eminent Ministers who warmly recommended, from the pulpit, the extirpation of Prelacy, Baillie mentions Mr Samuel Rutherford; and yet, while Mr Rutherford earnestly preached in favour of that measure, he as publicly and solemnly laments the spoliation and imprisonment of heretics. This is a certain proof that he wanted to root out the heresy alone. The Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, one of whom composed the draught of the Solemn League, which was accepted without any material alteration, in a paper of information sent to their friends at Paris, speak in the clearest terms of extirpating the Office.

“We present,” said they, “to their wise considerations, That the covenant of Scotland rejects absolutely all kinds of Episcopacy: That the covenant of the three kingdoms, is expressly for rooting of all Prelacy, not the tyranny alone of that office: That the Royalists would

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* Mat. xv. 13.

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be well content to keep in any imaginable kind of Episcopacy, being assured, in their own time, to break in pieces, and rend all the caveats we can put on it; so it is necessary to hold to that ground, wherein all here do agree, and to which the Royalists themselves are on the point of yielding. That no Episcopacy here is tolerable, as being a mere human invention, without the word of God, which, wherever it lodged, has been a very unhappy guest. The total extirpation of it would be applauded and congratulated.” What language more appropriate could the Covenanters use in speaking of an office or opinion than this? To these testimonies, in favour of this article, may be added Mr Baillie’s solemn appeal to the omniscient God, concerning the rectitude of their public intentions, which the reader will find in the beginning of the section. But these were not the sentiments of individuals only, the Westminster Assembly, in their exhortation to the taking of the covenant which was approved of by both houses of Parliament, expressly declare—“Nor is any person hereby bound to offer any violence unto their persons.”

To extirpate, or root out, that which is contrary to the will of God, is a phrase used by Him whose name is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; and is written in his word for our learning and imitation. Are we to disregard His authority, and reject the expression as unfit to be used, because we find it in the solemn religious covenants of those, who held some opinions, and fell into some methods of defending the gospel, which its merciful Author expressly forbids? The whole word of God must, then, be rejected: for where is the man that can wipe his mouth and say that he is clean? Must the language of those men be condemned as assuredly wicked, because the conduct which seemed to flow from it was, in several instances, very reprehensible? If this be admitted, human language, both natural and artificial, must be laid aside, and all communication of thought suspended for ever; for there is not a natural sign, nor a word in any language, but has been followed by improper, corrupt, and wicked actions. “There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not.” When the language of a deed admits of more than one meaning; or when the conduct of its authors and supporters renders it ambiguous, we have a right to adopt and maintain that which appears to be agreeable to the dictates of scripture and reason. We may, with all safety, engage with our fathers, to root out, or extirpate, in our several stations, and to the utmost of our power, every doctrine and ordinance of human invention, with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. To

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this we are solemnly bound, both by the Divine Law and the nature of a Christian profession.

“But this Extirpation,” it is strenuously contended, “was the work of the State: and the means competent to statesmen in extirpating error, are not spiritual, but carnal; not the power of persuasion, but the sword, or authority.” “Now, how can a principle be extirpate by civil authority, without, at the same time, infringing on the liberty and rights of conscience of the person professing that principle, though otherwise a good member of civil society*?”

To these objections we reply, That the conduct of the Church, though not separate, was distinct from the proceedings of the State: and, it is with the former, not with the latter, that we have any immediate concern. But, even the State may do much to extirpate certain heresies and modes of worship, without exercising a single act of persecution. It is well known that Popery and Prelacy cannot exist without immense revenues, and royal favour. Transplant these poisonous weeds into the barren soil of poverty and neglect, and they will quickly sicken and die. To extirpate them, the State has only to repeal the civil laws by which they are established, and with-hold the revenues on which they fatten. Leave them to themselves, and they are half destroyed. It is no infringement of the rights of any man, to refuse your countenance and your money to the support of his wickedness or absurdity, though he were otherwise a good and peaceable member of civil society.

But, were the prelatical party, in those days, good members of society? Ask the bloody Star-Chamber and High Commission, and they will tell you. Were the Independents intitled to this honourable character? Ask the murdered Charles†, and the subverted liberties of Britain, and they will tell you. Whatever might be their principles, the conduct of both parties, for many years, justified the Covenanters in restraining them by the power of the civil magistrate. And are the Papists worthy of unrestrained freedom;—they who, from time immemorial, have filled all Europe with mourning, and lamentation, and wo? Every one who examines their Creed, the Decrees of the Council of Trent, will see that a number of their principles are destructive to every Protestant society: and whatever a few individuals in some Protestant countries have pretended to do, that they might mount again into the seat of power, those odious and sanguinary tenets, which have drunk

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* Letters, &c.

† The death of Charles was murder, because whatever he deserved, he was tried by no existing law, nor by any lawful court.

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the blood of millions, have never been renounced by their Church to this day. To restrain such men, (which our fathers certainly intended,) when they refused to turn from the error of their way, to refuse them admission into places of power and trust, to decline putting arms into their hands, are no more than measures of self-defence. To punish the seditions, insurrections, and massacres of any, but especially of these irreconcileable enemies to Protestant nations, is not persecution, but a just, reasonable, and necessary preservation of life and property. The thief and the robber are equally good and peaceable members of civil society as the Papist, when he acts according to his principles; and how well disposed he is to do this, whenever the opportunity offers, the sad experience of many generations abundantly proves. While the enemies of the Reformers cautiously pass by the habitual enormities of these parties, or touch them with the gentlest hand, they seize upon the least appearance of evil in the language and actions of Covenanters; they insist to understand their words and conduct in the very worst meaning; they magnify every mistake into a crime, and every crime into the foulest abomination.

But, the conduct of the Presbyterians will suffer nothing by a comparison with the proceedings of their opponents. The Papists and Episcopalians consigned, with remorseless barbarity, the conscientious Dissenter to a prison, to banishment, or death; in New England the Independents did the same; but the Parliament of England, when they abolished Prelacy and the ceremonies, provided for the support of such ministers as were removed from their places. No measure employed by the Presbyterians ever equalled the Bartholomew Bushel, the Corporation Act, or the Star-Chamber. By this comparison, it is not meant that the iniquitous acts of Presbyterians are either wiped away, or diminished, by the blacker crimes of their neighbours; but to give their bitter and partial adversaries an opportunity of learning a little candour and moderation. In one word, though we can never be bound to employ carnal weapons in the service of the Prince of peace, we are bound by the Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour the extirpation of moral evil in the faith and practice of the British churches, by all the means which are competent to church-members: and no mistaken views, nor unhallowed measures of original covenanters can set us free.

4. “The Solemn League and Covenant relates to the civil and political state of the three kingdoms.”

It is now a prevailing sentiment, that secular and ordinary concerns should not be admitted into a religious covenant. In guarding against one extreme, it is not uncommon to run into another. Our fathers,

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perhaps, carried too much of this world into their covenants; and we are for admitting too little. It is certainly not unlawful to have respect to worldly matters, in religious exercises. The Holy Spirit enjoins us to acknowledge the Lord in all our ways. It is our duty to pray about our secular concerns; and why may we not also come under solemn engagements about them? The Law of Christ binds us to all the duties of both tables; to relative duties, as well as to the duties of religion. Therefore, a religious covenant may lawfully contain engagements to our natural and civil relatives, as well as to God and to the church. For no man will pretend that God requires in his word, what we cannot lawfully engage to perform. It is no less proper, when certain duties have been much neglected, or when the temptations to neglect them are many and powerful, that the covenanter should expressly engage to observe them. An example of this occurs in the days of Nehemiah. The restored captives, not satisfied with engaging to observe all the commandments of the Lord, swore particularly, to guard against the prevailing evils of their times.—“And that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons; and if the people of the land bring ware, or any victuals, on the Sabbath-day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath, or on the holy day: and that we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt*.” The last article of this Bond, which is recorded in scripture for our learning, refers to the civil state of that people. The state of matters, at the time when the Solemn League was framed, rendered it peculiarly proper to assert an engagement to maintain their allegiance to the King, to perform their duty to their fellow-subjects, and to promote peace and unity between the two kingdoms; for their temptations to neglect these duties were many and great, and the accusations of their enemies, charging them with acting undutifully in these respects, were loudly vociferated through all the countries of Europe.

But, the specification in the third article seems to be improper; for though the scriptures require that every soul be subject to the government of his country in their lawful commands, they do not recognize any particular form of government. They know nothing about Parliaments, their rights, or their privileges; and neither should a religious covenant. These political creations are among the proper subjects of civil contracts. Though civil concerns may be admitted into a religious covenant, political matters ought to be excluded; because neither the New Testament dispensation nor any one of the forms used by

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* Neh. x. 30, 31.

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the church of Israel, at the renovation of her covenants, take the least notice of these things. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them*.”

5. The fourth article is condemned as contrary to the right of private judgment. There our ancestors, “engage to endeavour the discovery of all such as were incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties among the people contrary to the League and Covenant.”

This article refers to the peculiar circumstances of our covenanting fathers; and was binding on them alone. But, it does not seem to be indefensible. The general design of it seems to be included in the duty to which the Apostle exhorts us, “Now I beseech you brethren, mark them who cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” It is no man’s duty to become a spy, one of the most detestable characters that human depravity has formed; yet, it is undoubtedly our duty to discover the real character and designs, as far as we know them, of every enemy to the Church or the State. Such discovery is always necessary for the welfare, and sometimes for preserving the very existence of society.—It is necessary that every member of a society and his actions, as far as they affect the public interest, should appear in their true colours, and without any disguise, that the society may know its friends from its foes: and this is what our ancestors, in the article under consideration, promise their endeavours to accomplish†.

It did not threaten the peace of good and peaceable subjects who differed in their judgment and practice from the covenanted reformation. The persons whom it seems to have respected, were that restless and malignant party, who, not satisfied with living soberly and peaceably, were continually endeavouring, by secret conspiracies, to undermine, or by open violence, to overthrow, the just rights and privileges of their neighbours. That party, the authors of all the misery which their Sovereign and their country endured, by their pernicious counsels and fatal exertions, separated the King from his people, and inflamed them against one another, till reconciliation became impossible. Such conduct was a heinous crime committed against the peace and welfare of civil society, and an attempt to infringe the natural and religious liberties of mankind; and, therefore, well deserves to be condignly punished by the civil magistrate. These, and no other, seemed

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* Is. viii. 20.

† Anderson’s Ess. p. 253.

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to be the persons whom the Covenanters engaged to discover. This was no more than these incendiaries deserved; it was a duty, which genuine loyalty dictates, to take away the wicked from before the King, that his throne may be established in righteousness; and it was the only refuge of the Covenanters from utter ruin. Was it the duty of our ancestors to allow a furious and implacable faction to cover themselves with crimes, to abuse their King, to embroil the people, and to rob them of their dearest rights, without associating in their defence? They had tried every pacific measure in vain; they had suffered long, and to no purpose, and were sinking still deeper into the gulph of misery without being able to see an end to their wrongs and their sufferings. Of this the preamble to the Solemn League is a proof.

“We have now at last, (after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestations, and sufferings) for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of God’s people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and Solemn League and Covenant.”

The design of this discovery is, that those who, by force or fraud, interrupted or endangered the free and peaceable exercise of the civil and religious rights of their neighbour, “might be brought to trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve.”

The crimes mentioned in this article, were punishable by the laws of the land; and the due execution of these just and necessary laws, our fathers, here, engaged to promote. It is the duty of every citizen to do the same. No society can exist without laws; and laws are useless, if they be not executed. Impressed with these plain dictates of reason, the Covenanters swore to discover the enemies of religion and liberty, that they might be known; that they might receive no countenance from the civil powers; and that they might be punished according to their deserts, if their enmity broke forth, as it frequently did, into open hostility. If our ancestors meant no more than this; if they intended only to secure their dearest rights to themselves, without forcing uniformity upon others; we are persuaded they did nothing worthy of blame:—nothing but what every people, in similar circumstances, ought to do. For, it is the duty of every person to use his utmost endeavours to preserve what ought to be dearer to him than life,—his religion and liberty. The law of nature requires him, when gentler measures fail, to impose all those restraints upon his neighbour, even to death itself,

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which are necessary to his preservation. Thus far our fathers might go, but no farther; and when, in principle or practice, they overstept this boundary, the writer ceases to plead their cause.

“But, this article,” it is said, “inflicts civil punishment upon the opposers of the Covenant; and this punishment is not confined to civil society, but extends to the opposers of the Reformation*.”

We have already shown, that part of this Covenant may be justly enforced with civil pains, at the same time that we pointed out the impropriety of its standing in a religious covenant. Upon looking into the fourth and fifth articles, we find, that the persons liable to punishment are not those who only declined engaging on the side of the Covenanters; but, the “wilful opposers” of religion and liberty; the “incendiaries, malignants, and evil instruments,” who, by secret plots, open seditions, and bloody rebellions, violently opposed the public peace, the propagation of the gospel, and the free and peaceable enjoyment of divine ordinances.

“But this punishment is not confined to civil society.” What then?—Are persons not to be defended in the exercise of their religious rights? Must the civil magistrate draw his sword in defence of men, as members of the civil state, but stand and look on, a passive spectator, when the same persons, exercising their religious rights, are violently interrupted, banished, or murdered. What right had the Papists and Episcopalians to insult upon the establishment of their system, under the horrors of the Star-Chamber and High Commission, or to wage open and destructive war against the Presbyterians for refusing to prostitute their consciences to the doctrines and commandments of men? And what right had the Independents to demand, (for they never would be satisfied with a negative toleration; nor so much as hear what concessions the Presbyterians would agree to;) what right had they to demand, that the Covenanters should grant them a Positive Toleration to that, which, in conscience, they believed to be morally wrong, on pain of involving their country in endless confusion, or of humbling it in the dust, under a yoke of galling and ignoble servitude?

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* Letters, &c. p. 27.