gracious
influence, the bonds of prejudice against covenanting are as green withs
and the covenanter stands forth in liberty and in power. So also, when
the people of a kingdom together come into covenant with the Lord. In
the character of Israel as a covenanted people, there shines out a
special splendour. One of the most brilliant events in Judah's chequered
history is that in which, in the days of the good king Asa, "they
gathered themselves together to Jerusalem and entered into a covenant to
seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all
their soul; and all Judah rejoiced at the oath." More than any other
nation of modern times, the people of the British Isles resemble in
their covenant actings the people of Israel; and Scotland is the likest
to Judah. Certainly, Scotland's covenants with God were coronets on
Scotland's brow.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Scotland was a moral waste.
The Papacy, which had attained the zenith of its power on the
Continent, reigned in its supremacy throughout the land. In Europe,
indeed, there were some oases in the desolation, but here there were
"stretched out upon the kingdom the line of confusion and the stones of
emptiness." The chaos was as broad and deep as that of the Papal States
before the time of Victor Emanuel. By the presence of the Papacy, mind,
conscience, heart, were blasted; while ignorance, superstition,
iniquity, increased and prevailed. But the Lord that saw the affliction
of Israel in the land of the Pharaohs, was "the same yesterday"; and His
time of visitation was one of love. The first signs of the coming
deliverance were the martyr fires kindled to consume those who were
beginning to cry for liberty. The heroic efforts and successes of the
Reformers on the Continent, in the presence of Papal bulls and
inquisitions, were a trumpet call to independence to the people of this
priest-cursed land; and many responded right nobly, ready to stand amid
the faggots at the stake rather than bear the iron heel that bruised
them.

Those valiant men were led to bind themselves together in "bands," or
covenants, and together to God, in prosecution of their aims. At Dun, in
1556, they entered into a "Band" in which they vowed to "refuse all
society with idolatry." At Edinburgh, in 1557, they entered into "ane
Godlie Band," vowing that "we, by His grace, shall, with all diligence,
continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very