been, alas! too much way given to carnal arguments and
persuasives--such as worldly gain, ease, profit, and preferment, and too
much slavish fear and terror of men, whose breath is in their nostrils,
has been entertained, without a due reliance and dependance upon
Omnipotency; which has greatly carried men off their feet, and wheedled
them into a compliance with, and defection to the contrary part, or into
a neutrality and indifferency in this cause; so that few are found
valiant for the truth upon the earth. What strange laxness and Laodicean
indifference has there appeared in this cause, through the whole conduct
of affairs in church and state, since the revolution; whereby many
discover to every observant eye that they are satisfied if they obtain a
peaceful enjoyment of their own things, and liberty to dwell in their
ceiled houses--albeit the Lord's house (in a great measure) lies waste?
Where are there any acts of Assemblies, or proceedings of the church,
which discover any due concern or zeal for the covenanted interests?
Nay, the contrary has too frequently appeared; as for instance, when by
the 5th act of the 2d session of William and Mary's 1st Parl., the
establishment of the church was calculated for the meridian of
state-policy, according to act 114, Parl. 12, King James VI. Anno 1592.
On purpose to pass over in shameful oblivion the church's choicest
attainments in reformation betwixt 1638 and 1649; and particularly, to
make void the League and Covenant, with the Assembly's explanatory
declaration affixed to the National, the malignants' grand eye-sore,
there was no faithful protestation and testimony exhibited against this
by the Assembly, then indicted, and convened the 16th of October
following; which, if duly pondered in all its circumstances, without the
mask and pretexts industriously drawn over it, will appear to be,
perhaps one of the greatest sins of this nation, and to be little
inferior in nature and aggravations to the burning of the covenants,
which is granted by all Presbyterians to be a most atrocious act of
contempt done to the eternal God, and to his Son Jesus Christ, and
cannot be called to mind by any of the godly without great abhorrence
and detestation of it; in so far as the passing over and not ratifying
these acts of Parliament and Assembly by the respective judicatories,
which were made during that time of reformation, was a practical and
interpretative condemning of them as unprofitab