and though it may be thought, that there might be Pardon for what is done, (which we cannot yet fee to be, without the Violation of the Law of God, and a great Guiltinefs on the Land, from which Guiltinefs the Land can never be free, but by executing of God's righteous Judgments upon them, for omitting of fo greatly deferved, and fo neceffarily requifite a Juftice; yet they cannot be believed, after they have violated all Tyes that Human Wisdom can devife to bind Men; and befide, there will be fomething of Folly found, to think to bind a King that pretends to Abfolutenefs: And our Fathers, or rather our felves, at firft judged it not warrantable to receive Him, without confenting to, and fwearing of the Covenant: And iffo, the renouncing and difclaiming thereof, we ought at present to judge to be a juft and reafonable Ground of rejecting Him upon thefe Grounds, being affured of God's Approbation, and Men's, whofe Hearts are not utterly byaffed, and their Confciences altogether corrupted; and knowing affuredly, that the upholding of fuch, is to uphold Men to bear down Christ's Kingdom, and to uphold Satan's, and the depriving of Men of right Government and good Governours, to the Ruining of Religion, and undoing of Human Society. We then, feeing the innume rable Sins and Shares that are in giving Obedience to their Acts, on the other Hand, feeing if we fhall acknowledge their Authority, and refufe Obedience to their finful Commands, the endlefs Miferies that will follow, and fiding with God (who we hope will accept and help us to a Liberation from their Tyranny) against his stated and declared Enemies; do reject that King, and those affociate with him, from being our Rulers, because standing in the Way of our Right, free and peaceably ferving of God, propagating his Kingdom and Reformation, and overthrowing Satan's Kingdom, according to our Covenant And declares them hence forth to be no lawful Rulers, as they have declared us to be no lawful Subjects, upon a Ground far lefs warrantable, as Men unbyaffed may fee and that after this, we neither owe, nor fhall yield any willing Obedience to them, but fhall rather fuffer the outmost of their Cruelties and Injustice, until God fhall

plead

plead our Caufe, and that upon thefe Accounts; because, they have alte red and deftroyed the Lord's eftablished Religion,overturned the fundamental and establish'd Laws of the Kingdom, taken altogether away Chrift's Church and Government, and changed the Civil Government of this Land (which was by King and free Parliament) into Tyranny, where none are affociate to be Partakers of the Government,but only thofe who will be found by Juftice to be guilty of Criminals, and all others excluded, even those who by the Laws of the Land by Birth had a Right to, and a Share in that Government, and that only, because not of the fame Guiltinefs and mischievous Purpofes with themselves: And alfo, all free EleEtions of Commiffioners for Parliaments, and Officers for Government, are made void by their making thofe the Qualifications of Admiffion to thefe Places, which by the Word of God, and the Laws of this Land, were the Caufe of their Exclufion before, fo that none can look upon us, or judge us bound in Allegiance to them, unless they fay alfo we are bound in Allegiance to Devils, they being his Vicegerents, and not God's.

V. We then being made free, by God and their own Doings, he giving the Law, and they giving the Tranfgreffion of that Law, which is the Caufe that we are loofed now from all Obligations, both Divine and Civil to them, and knowing that no Society of Men that hath Corruption in them, (which always is ready to beget Disorders and do Injuries, unless reftrained and punifhed by Laws and Government) can be without Laws and Government, and withal defiring to be governed in the best Way that is leaft lyable to Inconveniencies and Tyranny:We do declare,that we hall fet up over our felves, and over all that God fhall give us Power,Government, and Governours, according to the Word of God, and especially according to that Word, Exod. 18. v. 21. Moreover thou shalt provide ont of all the People, able Men, fuch as fear God, Men of Truth, hating Covetoufneß; and that we fhall no more commit the Government of our felves, and the making of Laws for us, to any one fingle Perfon, and lineal Succeffor, we not being tied as the fews were by God, to one Family, Government not being an Inheritance, but an Office, which must be squared, not to the Intereft and Luft of a Man, but to the Good of the Commonwealth, and this Kind of Government by a fingle Perfon, &c. being most liable to Inconveniencies, (as fad and long Experience may now teach us,) and apteft to degenerate into Tyranny. Moreover, we declare, that thefe Men whom we shall fet over us, fhall be ingaged to govern us principally by that Civil or Judicial Law, given by God to his People of Ifrael, efpecially in Matters of Life and Death, and in all other Things

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alfo,

alfo, fo far as they teach, excepting only that Law, (viz. anent Slaves,) which does not agree with that Chriftian Liberty eftablished in all Chriftendom, (only violated by our Tyrants, and fome others of late,) and that of Divorces and Poligamy, the one being not a Law, but a Permiffion granted upon the Account of the Hardness of their Hearts, the other being a Sinful Custom contrair to the first Inftitution of Marriage, crept in into the Church: We know that Men of malignant and perverfe Spirits, that has not a higher God than a wicked King, which fuits only with their luftful Licentioufnefs, and it may be others with them that feemed to be of better Principles, will raife an ignorant Clamour upon this, that it is a Fifth-Monarchy, and we Fifth-Monarchy-men, and will labour to a mufe the People with ftrange Terms, and put odious Names on good Things, to make them hateful, as their Way is; but if this be their Fifth-Monarchy, we both are, and ought to be fuch, and that according to his Word.

VI. It being the Work of the Minifters of the Gospel, to preach, propa gate, and defend the Kingdom of God, and to preferve the Doctrine, Worship, Difcipline, Government, Liberties and Priviledges of the fame, from all Corruptions and Incroachments of Rulers, and all others. And feeing, that the Minifters of the Church of Scotland, (at leaft the greatest Part of them before) not only were defective in Preaching and Tetifying against the Acts of thefe Rulers, for overthrowing Religion and Reformation, abjuring our Covenant made with God, eftablishing a Government in the Church, which that King calls his own Government, (and fo not God's,) contrair to our Covenant; against enacting of that blafphemous (fo Calvin calls that Supremacy of Henry the Eighth, upon which this Prerogative is founded, and from which it is derived, and is no less, if not more injurious to Chrift, and inflaving to his Church,) and Sacriligious Prerogative given to a King over the Church of God, and against the other Ats and Incroachments of his Church, and bindred others also who were willing and would have teftified against them, and cenfured fome that did it, (for which, together with the other Caufes in their Truft and Administration, we may fay, God hath left them to do worfe Things; but alfo hath voted in that Meeting, (which they are pleafed to call an Affembly of Minifters, but how juftly, let Men judge,) an Acceptation of that Liberty, founded upon, and given by vertue of that blafphemonfly arrogated and ufurped Power, and hath appeared before their Courts to accept of that Liberty, and to be enacted and authorized there as Minifters, and fo hath willingly (for this is an elicit Act of the Will, and not an Act of Force and Conftraint) tranflated the Power of fend

ing

ing out, ordering, cenfuring, (for as they accept of their Liberty from them, fo they fubmit to their Cenfures and Restraints, at leaft all of them who were yet tried with it, and others of them appeared and acknowledged before their Courts, that they would not have done thefe Things that they were charged with, if they had thought it would have offended them,) Minifters departing from the Court of Chrift, and Subjection to the Miniftry, to the Courts of Men, and Subjection to the Magiftrate, (which had been impious and injurious to Chrift and His Church, though they had been Righteous and lawful Rulers,) and by their changing of Courts (according to common Law) hath changed their Mafters, and of the Minifters of Chrift are become the Minifters of Men, and bound to answer to them as oft as they will; and as by the Acceptation of this Liberty in fuch manner, they have tranflated the Power, fo they have given up and utterly quit the Government, and a Succeffion of a Prefbyterian Ministry for as thefe were not granted them of their Mafters, fo they exercise their Miniftry without them, and fo by this, as the Ecclefiaftick-Government is swallowed up in the Civil (if the rest had followed them) the Miniftry fhould have also been extinct with themselves, and the whole Work of Reformation had been buried in Oblivion, not fo much as the Remembrance of it kept up: Thefe together with the other of their Commiffions in Preaching, the Lawfulness of paying that Tribute declared to be impofed for the bearing down of the true Worship of God, (which they falfly termed Seditious Conventicles,) and their advifing thete poor Prisoners to fubfcribe the Bond, and confequently could not but fo advife all others, if put to it, (for the Hazard that Men were in, will not make a real Change of the Morality of that Action, and befide, the reft may be put to it upon the fame Hazard, and fo if the one fhould advife, (which confequently they must do,) and the other fhould fubfcribe, this would altogether close that Door which the Lord hath made ufe of in all the Churches of Europe, for cafting off the Toke of the Whore, and reftoring the Truth and Purity of Religion and Reformation, and Freedom of the Churches, and should have ftopped all Ingrefs for Men, when once brought under Tyranny, to recover their Liberty again. These Minifters then, not being Followers of Chrift, who before Pontius Pilate, gave a good Confeffion, which was, that he was a King; and no King, if he have not Power to order his House and Subjects, and they not following bim,nor his Minifters,if not afferting and maintaining of this Kingly Power, against all Incroachers and Ufurpers of it; and befides, we being commanded, If any Brother walk diforderly, from fuch to withdiaw; and although in the Capacity we now are in, we neither have, nor affume to

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our felves Authority to give our definite and authoritative Sentences of Depofition and Sufpenfion against thefe Minifters; yet we declare, which is proper for us to do, that we neither can, nor will hear Preaching, nor receive Sacraments, from thefe Minifters that hath accepted of, and voted for that Liberty; and declares all who have encouraged and ftrengthned their Hands, by hearing and pleading for them, all those who have traffiqued for an Union with them, without their renouncing and repenting of thefe Things, all thofe that do not testify faithfully against them, and after do not deport themselves fuitably to their Teftimonies, and all who join not in Publick with their Brethren, who are teftifying againft them; we declare, That we shall not bear them Preach, nor receive Sacraments from them, at least, till they ftand in Judgment before thefe Minifters, and be judged by them who have followed the Lord, and kept themselves. free of thefe Defections: And as our Hearts hath cleaved to thefe Minifters, while they were on the Lord's Side, and fubjected our felves to them, fo we shall still cleave to thofe that abide following him and shall be fubject to them in the Lord.

VII. Then we do declare and acknowledge, That a Gospel Miniftry, is a ftanding Ordinance of God, appointed by Chrift, to continue in the Church, until the End of the World; and that none of us fhall take upon him the Preaching of the Word, or adminiftring the Sacraments, unless called, and ordained thereto, by the Minifters of the Gofpeb: And as we declare that we are for a standing Gofpel-Miniftry, rightly chofen,) and rightly ordained, fo we declare, that we fhall go about this Work in Time to come, with more Fafting and Praying, and more carefnl Infpection into the Converfation and Holiness of thefe Men that fhall be chofen and ordained, the Want of which formerly, hath been a great Sin, both in Minifters & People, which hath not been the leaft Caufe of this Defection