it is with us at this day. And yet, this is what _Seceders_ would have
us caressing, embracing and (with them) blessing God for, under the
notion of a present good; and so bless God for permitting his enemies
(in anger against an ungrateful and guilty people) to overturn his work
and interest, and establish themselves upon the ruins thereof; to bless
him for making our own iniquities to correct us, and our backslidings to
reprove us, until we know what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart
from the LORD GOD of our fathers; to bless him (for what is matter of
lamentation) that the adversaries of _Zion_ are the chief, and her
enemies prosper, _Lam._ i, 5: and all this abstractly, under the notion,
of good, which comes very near the borders of blasphemy.

But, moreover, the civil settlement at the revolution is also condemned
by this principle of theirs; not because of its opposition to a
covenanted reformation, but in regard it includes some essential
qualifications required in the supreme civil ruler. The nations are, by
that deed of constitution, bound up in their election of a magistrate;
and all Papists, such as marry with Papists, or do not publicly profess
the Protestant religion, are declared incapable of the throne. So that
we see the present law makes some other qualifications, besides the
consent of the body politic, essential to the constitution of a lawful
sovereign in _Britain_. From all which it is plain, that this principle
of _Seceders_ is neither a reformation nor a revolution principle; let
then the impartial world judge whence it came.

_Seceders_, in consequence of their contradictory and self-inconsistent
system of principles, declare they cannot swear allegiance to a lawful
government. They maintain the present to be lawful, yet (in Dec. of
their principles, _page_ 55th) they say, "The question is not whether it
be lawful for us to swear the present allegiance to the civil
government, which the Presbytery acknowledge they cannot do, seeing
there are no oaths to the government in being, but what exclude the oath
of our covenants, and homologate the united constitution." But seeing
they acknowledge that every constitution of government, that comprehends
the will and consent of civil society, were it as wicked and diabolical
as can be imagined, is lawful--yea, as lawful as any that is most
consonant to the preceptive will of God, having all the essentials of
his ordinance; and seeing, because of the