any time swerved, nor been charged with swerving, from a single doctrine in the Confession of Faith. I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me.' Looking at these undeniable facts, it must be apparent to every candid mind, that her testimony has not lessened, but greatly increased, the zeal of the Original Secession Church, for the doctrines of the Confession of Faith.

You next assail historical testimonies, on the ground that it is impossible good men can agree in regard to past events. It is not to be supposed,' say you, 'that even godly men, with their different degrees of opportunity of obtaining accurate historical information, and the different lights in which they looked at the same events, should be agreed as to the precise character of all those doings of men, or works of providence, on which such a testimony would inevitably have to pronounce an opinion; and it was not right that such differences should form bars to communion.' Now, in the first place, it is not all the works, nor even all the important works of providence towards the church, that ought to have a place in such a testimony. It is only those great, noted, national events, called in scripture his 'wonderful works,' that any have proposed thus to commemorate. In regard to these, there would either be no difference between godly men, or a difference of such a decided kind as would necessarily place them in separate communions. In the second place, and more particularly, the works referred to, in the present instance, are the first and second Reformation, or the deliverance of these nations from popery, prelacy, and erastianism. These are not matters about which men can disagree without a previous difference in fundamental principles. In the third place, in those cases where men do differ about popery, prelacy, and erastianism, when one party thinks the overthrow of these systems a very good work, yea, a glorious work of God, while another regards it as a very evil work; in such a case, this difference ought to constitute a bar to communion; for the one would be on the side of Christ, and the other on the side of Antichrist. In the fourth place, if you insist that no testimony ought to be raised, and no separation to take place, in any case where godly men differ about the principle involved in a passage of history, then you undermine the Free Church testimony, and pronounce the Free Church to be a schism. The Free Church testimony rests upon the principles involved in certain facts of history, upon the principles involved in the conduct of the Court of Session, in the Strathbogie case, and the Auchterarder case, and the Marnoch case. Godly men, from 'the different lights in which they look at these events,' interpret them differently; and therefore, according to you, there ought to be no testimony based on these facts, neither should differences about them 'form bars to communion.' So identical are Free Church principles, so far as they go, with those of the Covenants, that whatever strikes against the latter will be found, in some way, to strike against the former; so that, when acting as anti-covenanters, Free Churchmen are uniformly found to pull down with the one hand what they had raised with the other, as the adherents of spiritual independence. You have formerly answered half the protest, on legal grounds, by the famous dictum respecting

the Treaty of Union. Considered as a question of principle, you have now scattered to the four winds of heaven the whole Protest and Claim of Rights, because these documents are based on facts of history, respecting which godly men may disagree, and, concerning all diffe rences so originating, the residuaries have Mr Lumsden's authority that these should form no bars to communion.'

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You have referred to the Cambuslang case, as illustrating how godly men may disagree about a fact in history. For instance,' say you, 'such a testimony, if it were to commemorate all God's mighty acts, would of necessity refer to the revival at Cambuslang, a hundred years ago, as a work of God. The old Seceders had solemnly stigmatised it as a work of the devil. Would any one say that such a difference of opinion was incompatible with church fellowship?' The Cambuslang case is one pregnant with instruction to all parties. It was wrong interpreted by the Seceders. They were witnessing for the headship of Christ, the independence of his church, and the liberties of his redeemed people, while these were all sacrificed at the time within the Establishment. They forgot God's sovereignty, and also his wisdom, in hiding pride from man by his arrangements; and waxing haughty because of God's holy mountain,' they concluded that a work taking place within a corrupt church could not be the work of God. In this they grievously erred, and 'limited the Holy One of Israel.' And their conduct in the Cambuslang case was the mark of frailty which God usually sets, signally, on his chosen instruments, after they have done their work,-like Jacob's knee out of joint after the wrestling at Peniel-like Moses smiting the rock in a passion, after the Exodus-like Luther's conduct in the sacramentarian controversy. On the other hand, the revivals at Cambuslang, Kilsyth, and elsewhere, were misinterpreted by the Established Church. These said, they are evidences that the Lord is with our church, and, therefore, the Secession testimony must be wrong. Thus, what ought to have been regarded as an encouragement to reformation, was used as an argument against it; and, consequently, the darkest days of moderatism followed the work of Cambuslang. Free Churchmen and Seceders ought, therefore, to unite in confessing the sins of their fathers, for both erred in that matter; and it were bigotry in any one to point out the sin on the one side, without also pointing out the sin on the other side.

Permit me to refer here to two points in the speech of the Reverend Mr Crighton. Speaking of the Covenants, he said, 'He had not found evidence that they were originally intended to be binding on posterity.' It were easy to furnish him with abundant evidence on that head. In the National Covenant, as sworn in 1638, he will find this declaration: And, finally, being convinced in our minds, and confessing with our mouths, that the present and succeeding generations, in this land, are bound to keep the foresaid oath and subscription inviolable.' In a paper issued by the Covenanters in 1638, and entitled 'Reasons against the rendering of our sworn and subscribed Confession,' the perpetual obligation of the Covenants is asserted three several times. This our oath,' say they, 'being a religious and perpetual

obligation, should stand in vigour for the more firm establishing of religion in our own time, and in the generations following.' Again, it is said, 'Although the innovations of religion were the occasion of making this covenant, yet our intention was against those, and all other innovations and corruptions, to establish religion by an everlasting covenant, never to be forgotten.' The union formed between the two nations by the Solemn League and Covenant, was designed to be perpetual. Hence part of the fifth clause runs in these terms:-'We shall, each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity. And again, in the first clause, That we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.' In his exhortation to the honourable House of Commons, and Reverend Divines of the Assembly, at their first taking the Covenant, 1643, Mr Philip Nye says, 'A great and solemn work is this day put into your hands,— we are to exalt and acknowledge Him this day who is fearful in praises, swear by that name which is holy and reverend, enter into a covenant and league that is never to be forgotten by us, nor our posterity.' Again, 'If you should do no more but lay a foundationstone in this great work, and by so doing engage posterity after you, it were honour enough. Come, therefore, let us join ourselves to the Lord, and to one another, and each to all, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten. Again, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in their 'Seasonable and Necessary Warning, July 27, 1649, declare, 'Albeit, the League and Covenant be despised by that prevailing party in England, and the work of uniformity, through the retardments and obstructions that have come in the way be almost forgotten by these kingdoms, yet the obligation of that covenant is perpetual, and all the duties contained therein are constantly to be rendered by us and our posterity.

Mr Crighton farther stated, "The fact also had weighed much with his mind, that of the faithful men-those most evangelical in their sentiments and holiest in their lives-who had lived in Scotland since the Revolution, whether within the Established Church or beyond her pale, very few, comparatively speaking, have viewed the Covenants as binding on themselves.' It would occupy much space to show at length that this allegation of Mr Crighton's is contrary to fact. As a compendious answer, it is asked, Who were the men, since the Revolution till the latter part of last century, who stand out, most conspicuously, by their evangelical sentiments, holy lives, and useful labours? In regard to this, only one answer can be given. Among numbers of acknowledged excellence, Boston, the Erskines, Willison, and John Brown, stand forth confessedly pre-eminent in these respects during the fore-mentioned period. These are the men whose names are household words wherever evangelical religion is known. Nothing requires to be said respecting the Erskines; but what were the sentiments of the other three? They were all in favour of the Covenants.

In a sermon preached August 5, 1721, on Acts xi. 23, Boston says, -'Our land is under the bond of a National Covenant, and the three

nations are under the bond of a Solemn League and Covenant, to cleave to the Lord, however these bonds are little regarded in our day.' In a sermon preached February 26, 1729, on Ezekiel xii. 23, he says,― As we have been long threatened with days of wrath that are still delayed, while in the meantime the generation is going on impenitently in their course, we have ground to reckon that these days are come near at length to breaking out on us. There are four things that deserve our serious consideration here.. 1. That it is long since there was a flaming controversy with this land laid, which in the ordinary method of providence cannot miss to be pursued with signal judgments. That was in the days of our fathers, when solemn national covenants for reformation being entered into, with uplifted hands unto God, and reformation was accordingly advanced to a very considerable degree; they began at first to be false and fickle in God's covenant, and at length all of a sudden, as if struck with a frenzy from hell, they openly and avowedly broke and burnt their covenant with God, pulled down and razed their reformation, and for about twentyeight years raged in oppression, persecution, blood, and death against those who adhered thereto, and would not join them in their apostacy. Reflecting on this we may say, "Shall not the Lord visit for these things? shall not his soul be avenged on such a nation as this?" (Jer. ix. 9.) That controversy has swept away the race of the name of our kings that did it off the throne; it has turned our parliament that joined them with their authority, out of their house and honour, so that we have no more a Scots parliament either to do good or evil; and it is to be feared, it will soak our land and people in blood next in their turn. 2. I can say, from personal knowledge, that for more than forty years, the Lord has put it in the hearts and mouths of his ministers, that that controversy would be visited on this land with fearful strokes. And for all that is yet come and gone, the effect of these visions seems not to be come yet. I own that what I heard many years ago of this nature, when ministers had more of the Spirit with them than now, being brought out of a hot furnace of trial, has weight with me. 8. Often during that time, especially within these twenty years, has the black cloud hovering over the head of this land been at the point of breaking, and showering down upon us; and yet has been either quite dispelled without any scathe at all, or only with some drops falling, as in the case of the rebellion in 1715. By all which God has testified that he did not forget the controversy, though time after time he has delayed the thorough pleading of it. 4. And now we have several shrewd symptoms that the days are near to break out upon us, to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, upon a generation that have entered themselves heirs to the iniquity of their fathers by a course of continued apostacy. It is childish and unscriptural to say, that those who entered into, and so avowedly broke that covenant, are mostly away now: what way can the controversy affect us? For no generation can go back from purity and reformation attained by their fathers but upon their peril; and so far as they insist in the steps of their backsliding fathers, they justify them in their backslidings, and so enter themselves heirs to their sin, and consequently to

their judgments. The covenant made with the Gibeonites in Joshua's time was binding in the days of Saul; and the slaughter made of them in the days of Saul contrary to that covenant, the land suffered for it many years after that in the latter end of David's reign, (2 Sam. xxi.) The blood of Abel came on the generation that crucified Christ, (Matt. xxiii. 35); and to the Jews in Jeremiah's days the Lord saith, "They are turned back," etc., (Jer. xi. 10.)' So much for Boston, who looked upon it as childish to say that the Covenants could only bind those who personally entered into them. Mr Crighton will also learn, on the authority of Boston, speaking from personal knowledge, that for more than forty years after the Revolution, the Lord put it in the hearts and mouths of his ministers,' that the divine controversy for breach of covenant would be visited on the land.

Let us next hearken to Willison. In the close of a long paragraph on the Covenants, in his Afflicted Man's Companion,' he thus writes:

'As the prophets and godly Jews were at great pains to convey to posterity historical accounts of the wonderful deliverances God wrought for Israel at the Red Sea, and in rescuing them from Egypt, Babylon, and other enemies; so it would be useful to fortify our reformation, if we were careful to hand down to the rising generation a sense of God's distinguishing mercies to this land, in delivering us from spiritual Babylon, and in rescuing us, from time to time, from those captains that have sought to lead us back thither. Many a time hath he delivered us, when we have been brought very low.

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By many instances it hath appeared, that the glorious Jehovah hath not been ashamed to own his covenant relation to this sinful and unworthy land. God forbid that we of this age should be ashamed to own our covenant relation to him. This hath been both our glory and our safety; and I hope there will still be found a remnant to own it, and plead it with God in the time of danger. Surely it is not time now to disclaim it, when the enemies of our Zion are combining together, and seeking to raze her to the foundation, Let all her lovers cry mightily to her covenanted Lord in her behalf, in these shaking times: Let them join to put up that prayer of the psalmist, Ps. lxviii. 28: "Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us;' and that of Habakkuk, Hab. iii. 2: "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years!"'

Let us now listen to the dying advice of John Brown of Haddington to his students and children:-- You have stated yourselves public witnesses for Jesus Christ, who profess to adhere to and propagate his injured truths, and to commemorate, with thankfulness, the remarkable mercies which he hath bestowed on our church and nation; and to testify against and mourn over our own and our fathers' fearful backslidings from that covenanted work of reformation once attained in our land. See that you be judicious, upright, constant and faithful in your profession. I now approach death, heartily satisfied with our excellent Westminster Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Form of Church Government, and cordially adhering to these Covenants, by which our fathers solemnly bound themselves and their posterity to profess the doctrines and practise the duties therein contained. I look upon the Secession as indeed the cause of God; but sadly mismanaged and dishonoured by myself and others. Study to see everything with your own eyes; but never indulge an itch after NOVEL