nal
covenants with God." Their mode of procedure was Scriptural, following
the examples of Moses and others to Nehemiah--"the footsteps of the
flock." They framed three papers, History, Confession and Engagement.
The text of the Covenants of our fathers was left entire, only some
explanatory words and phrases being placed in the margin. These
explanations were then necessary to clear that question of
questions--"Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee?"--a
question to be finally settled only at the sounding of the last
Apocalyptic trumpet. Rev. xi: 15. That transaction was ever after
incorporated with the Terms of Communion.

Some years after this transaction another renovation took place in
Scotland, at a locality called Crawford-John; but no attainments were
then made, nor has any authentic record of the proceedings been
transmitted to posterity. Also the Seceders, soon after their erection
as a distinct organization in Scotland, and repeatedly since in Britain
and America, by public covenanting have contributed to the preservation
of sound doctrine and Christian practice. We cannot, however, accord to
them the honor of being the successors of the covenanted witnesses,
which they unwarrantably claim, seeing that they disowned the "civil
part" of the public Covenants, and thus unwittingly, we charitably
believe, passed an implied censure on the One Lawgiver for having given
us a second table in the moral law!

We merely refer to the Octoraro transaction, (1743,) conducted by that
unstable minister, Mr. Craighead, as being unworthy of anything more
than historical notice.

The two most noteworthy instances of avowed covenant-renovation within
the present century are those at Dervock, Ireland, in 1853, and in
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1871; and we class them together, because
however the respective documents differ in their provisions, and in our
judgment some of these are irreconcilable, yet the parties have ever
since agreed to coalesce. Reference is here made only to a sample of
_essential_ discrepancies. In the Dervock bond the British Covenants are
expressly mentioned and owned; in the Pittsburg bond they are neither
owned nor mentioned, although both were urged at the time, while they
were openly vilified without rebuke. In the former Prelacy is abjured,
in the latter it is not so much as named. The fourth article of the
former is irreconcilable with the fourth article of the latter. The
former