on of our
Covenants, National and Solemn League. The fidelity of our fathers in
that hazardous and heroic transaction, it is believed, has ever since
been the _occasion_ (not the _cause_) of all opponents manifesting their
hostility to the whole covenanted cause, by first assaults upon that
detested Bond. And that this is the real state of the case we proceed to
prove by the following historical facts. _First._--In connection with
remodeling the Testimony; or rather by supplanting it in 1806, the Terms
of Communion, without submitting an overture, were also changed to
harmonize with _Reformation Principles Exhibited_, by excluding the
Auchensaugh Renovation from the fourth Term, where it had stood for
nearly a century. The same party have for years excluded from their
abstract of Terms the _Covenants themselves_. _Second._--In Scotland
this faithful document was expunged in 1822, obviously to prepare the
way for the adoption of a _"New Testimony"(!)_, which appeared 1837-9.
The majority of the actors in that work who survive, are now in the Free
Church! _Third._--At the time when defection was progressing in the R.P.
Synod of Scotland, the sister Synod of Ireland strenuously resisted an
attempt to remove the foresaid Bond from its place in the Terms. The
Rev. Messrs. Dick, Smith and Houston in 1837, were faithful and
successful for the time in resisting that attempt. Mr. Houston "_would
ever resist any alteration_ in respect of the Auchensaugh Bond,
regarding the objection laid against it as in reality aimed at the
Covenants themselves." Yet as a sequel to their Renovation of the
Covenants at Dervock 1853, the Auchensaugh Bond was subsequently "shown
to the porch"--removed from the Terms! _Fourth._--At what was called
covenant-renovation at Pittsburgh 1871, we believe no one spoke in
behalf of their fathers' noble achievement in 1712. Indeed this could
not be rationally expected in a body who could tolerate members
vilifying the very Covenants which they pretended to renew.
_Fifth._--Other parties farther removed from the position of their
reforming progenitors; but who still claim ecclesiastical affinity with
John Knox, and commonly prefix to the symbols of their faith the
historical word _Westminster_, give very strong expression to their
feelings of hostility--not to the Auchensaugh Bond, of which probably
they never heard, but to the British Covenants expressly; yea, to the
very ordinance of public social covenanting