ordinances of Church and
State are exhibited; and in which they are exemplified as co-ordinate,
mutually independent, friendly, and helpful to the family and to each
other. Thus acted the people of God under the covenant of grace in all
ages; and so acted his servants at Auchensaugh, whose more immediate
example we propose to follow.

* * * * *

CONFESSION OF PUBLIC SINS.

All authentic history confirms the declaration of the Sacred Scriptures,
That by one man sin entered into the world, and that there is not a just
man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not. Yet there is mercy with
God that he may be feared, and plenteous redemption to redeem Israel
from all his trespasses. But we are assured that "he that covereth his
sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall
have mercy."

Believing these teachings of God's word, and in view of renewing solemn
vows to him, we now give glory to the Lord God of Israel by making
confession of our own and our fathers' sins in violating our solemn
covenants. We acknowledge the heinous sins of repeated violation of our
covenanted unity--_First_, By joining in a military confederacy with the
American Colonies in the revolutionary war of 1776. _Second_, Joining in
a similar confederacy with Irish Papists and others to cast off the
British government in 1798. _Third_, In a similar confederacy in the war
between the United States and England in 1812. _Fourth_, By the like
military association in the recent civil war: and these sins were
aggravated by framing oaths of allegiance or fidelity in the years 1812
and 1863.

Some of those who had violated their covenants by military association
with the United Irishmen fled for refuge to the United States; and
without undergoing censure became active agents in constituting a
presbytery without authority had from the parent body in Scotland, 1798;
and proceeded in 1806 to frame and publish _Reformation Principles
Exhibited_, a work which removed landmarks which the fathers had set;
and which with an abstract of Terms of Communion unpresbyterially
introduced, unsettled the foundations and issued in the lamentable
disruption of 1833.

In Scotland the leaders of the people caused them to err by changing the
Terms of Communion in the year 1822, and the Testimony in 1837. While
these changes were made in the Covenanted Church's organic law some of
the most popular and influential mini