ld have no more reason to complain of being persecuted, than those
who, because of being under allegiance to a foreign hostile power, might
in vain seek authority in the land; or than those who, manifesting by
their breach of the laws of the land that they contemn them, in vain
seek the protection and privileges secured to those alone who respect
and keep them. Were a nation voluntarily to enter into such engagements
of this nature as are lawful, the whole people would be bound by them,
and in the eye of the law would be under obligation; nor would
disobedience to the law enjoining the fulfilment of these, any more than
to any other statute, be reckoned as the right of any. For any to seek
power in the land without submitting to the obligations come under by
such covenants, would be for them to set at defiance the law, and thus
to take means to introduce rebellion, if not revolution. Such as would
not cheerfully aid in carrying the scheme of the Covenant into effect,
while aspiring at influence, would be using endeavours to obtain power
in order to counteract its operation; and therefore should not be put in
possession of the desired trust. Ecclesiastical authority cannot compel
any to perform the duties of religion and morality; but it can subject
to discipline those who neglect them, and can hinder such from
exercising the power belonging to the office-bearers, or other members,
of the Church. In like manner, civil rulers cannot compel men to perform
various duties of a civil and religious character; but they can, and
ought to, restrain those who are guilty of violating the commandments of
the moral law that regard our duty to God, as well as those who
transgress those that relate to the obligations of men to men; they
ought to keep from exercising authority those who live in open
disregard of all or any of them; and having enacted laws for the purpose
of carrying into effect a lawful Covenant engagement with God, they
should visit with a penalty those who break them. It remains for those
who maintain that the magistrate should not legislate against the breach
of some statutes in the first table of the law, to show why he is
warranted in punishing, in any manner, the crime of perjury; and how
some species of penalty may be attached to the refusal to swear a lawful
oath in certain circumstances, and also to the breach of its engagement:
while an individual who might object to engage in the exercise of
Covenanting when in