vited to it in some cases, or would act in opposition
to what a whole nation, either by themselves or by their
representatives, properly sware to perform, might not be reckoned as
unworthy of the valuable civil or religious privileges of the community.
But whatever difficulties may be connected with its application, the
truth, that men in their national capacity are by the law of God called
to Covenant, is manifest. "Nations, as the moral subjects of Messiah the
Prince, are under obligation to recognise his rightful authority over
them, by swearing allegiance to him. It is the duty of a subject to
swear allegiance to his lawful sovereign; at least he must stand
prepared to do so when required. So is it with nations. Not only are the
inhabitants of a nation, as occasion calls for it, to enter into sacred
confederation with one another, in order to secure and defend their
valued rights and privileges; but the nation, as such, through the
medium of its authorized functionaries and by its usual forms of legal
enactment, ought publicly to avow its attachment to the Lord Jesus
Christ as its King and Prince, to recognise his legal authority, and to
bind itself to his service by an oath."[222] They cast contempt on an
ordinance of God, who do not, both in an ecclesiastical and a civil
capacity, enter into Covenant with him. The Mediator is, at once, King
of Zion and King of nations. The people of God are members of his
Church, and also of civil society,--over which, as well as over the
Church, he rules. For an individual, merely as a member of his Church,
to acknowledge God, is to do his duty but in part. When the rulers in a
nation as rulers, and the people as subjects, do not Covenant, they
appear regardless of a part of character which, for the glory of God,
they should maintain not less tenaciously than their ecclesiastical
relations; they fail of availing themselves of the benefit of a most
powerful system of motives to serve God, as his willing creatures, in a
relation in which, as well as in the fellowship of the Church, they are
called to obey him; and though they even attempt to honour him as King
of Zion, yet, in failing to testify to the utmost of their capacities to
his dominion, refusing to acknowledge him in this exercise as Governor
among the nations, dishonour him in both, and tend to rob him of the
glory which belongs to him as Head over all things to the Church, which
is his body.

Nations, whose constitutions