England, and were this covenant written on the plaster of
the wall over against him, where he sitteth, Belshazzar-like in his
sacrilegious pomp, it would make his heart to tremble, his countenance
to change, his head and mitre to shake, his joints to loose, and all his
cardinals and prelates to be astonished.

When the reformed churches, which by their letters have been exciting us
to Christian communion and sympathy, in this time of the danger of
religion and distress of the godly, shall hear of this blessed
conjunction for uniformity in religion, according to the Word of God,
and the defence thereof, it shall quicken their hearts against the
heaviness of oppressing sorrows and fears; and be no other than a
beginning of a jubilee and joyful deliverance unto them, from the
antichristian yoke and tyranny.

Upon these and the like considerations, we are very confident that the
church and kingdom of Scotland will most cheerfully join in this
covenant; at the first motion whereof, their bowels were moved within
them. And to give testimony of this our confidence, we who are
Commissioners from the General Assembly, although we have no particular
and express commission for that end (not from want of willingness, but
of foresight) offer to join our hearts and hands unto it, being assured,
that the Lord in His own time will, against all opposition, even against
the gates of hell, crown it with a blessing from heaven. The Word of God
is for it, as you have been now resolved by the consent and testimony of
a reverend assembly of so many godly, learned and great divines. In your
own sense and experience, upon seeking God in private or public, as in
the evening of a well spent Sabbath or day of fast and humiliation, the
bent and inclinations of your hearts will be strongest to go through
with this work. It is a good testimony that our designs and ways are
agreeable to the will of God, if we affect them most when our hearts are
farthest from the world, and our temper is most spiritual and heavenly,
and least carnal and earthly. As the Word of God, so the prayers of the
people of God in all the reformed churches, are for us. That divine
providence also which hath maintained this cause, and supported His
servants in a marvellous manner unto this day, and which this time past
hath kept things in an equal balance and vicissitude of success, will,
we trust, from this day forth, through the weight of this covenant, cast
the balance, and m