w oaths in opposition to
the covenant; such as abjuration, &c. granting license, protection and
toleration to all the evils abjured in the covenant; as heresies and
errors in doctrine, superstition in worship, Prelacy and Erastianism in
government, and overthrowing all good discipline. 4. Because of our own
sinful miscarriages in, and woful declinings from our covenanted duties,
our proneness to break covenant with God, and to be indifferent, lax,
negligent and unsteadfast in the cause and work of God, and to be led
away with the error of the wicked, and to fall from our steadfastness;
wherefore we thought it necessary to bind ourselves by a new tie to the
Lord, and one to another in a zealous prosecution of covenanted duties,
that the covenant might be as a hedge to keep us from running out into
the paths of destroyers. 5. We being sincerely desirous and having an
earnest longing to celebrate the sacred ordinance of the Lord's Supper,
whereof many had unjustly called us despisers and contemners, and
finding it to have been the laudable practice of the church of Scotland
formerly, that all such as were admitted to that holy table should swear
and subscribe the covenant before their coming thereunto; we judged it a
fit preparation for our receiving a sacramental confirmation of God's
covenanted love and favor to us, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that we
should avouch Him for our God, and testify our adherence to His cause
and truth, by our renewing our national covenants with Him.

Upon these and the like weighty considerations we resolved to set about
this solemn and tremendous duty; and being assured that we have no
sufficiency in ourselves for any such undertaking, after frequently
imploring the Lord for light and direction, strength and assistance, and
seeking for ourselves a right way in the performance of the duty, upon
days of humiliation, both in our private societies and publicly in the
fields, we did condescend upon the following _acknowledgment of sins_,
the more to enable us to remember our own and the land's breaches of
covenant, in our solemn public confession thereof; and did draw up the
following _engagement to duties_, not to superadd any new oath and
obligation to the covenants, but only to adjust the articles of the
covenant to the circumstances of the time, and to explain in what sense
the covenant binds us against the present evils that are now prevalent
in the land, and to the contrary duties. As fo