will and consent of the
people, they own the present to be lawful, it is most surprising why
they cannot swear allegiance to it; their reasons cannot, in a
consistency with their principle, be sustained as valid. That the
present oaths of allegiance and the oath of the covenants are
inconsistent, is readily granted; but seeing the oaths of allegiance
bind to nothing more than what they confess they are bound to for
conscience sake, namely, to own the lawfulness of the government, and to
maintain it according to the constitution thereof (which is a duty owed
by subjects to every lawful sovereign); and seeing that whatever is in
the oaths of allegiance contrary to the covenants, does not flow from
them, abstractly considered, but from the constitution to which they
bind (which constitution is sanctified by the people's acknowledgement
of it). If, therefore, the covenants forbid a duty, to which they are
bound for conscience sake, their authority in that ought not to be
regarded.

But certainly _Seceders_, who have found it duty to alter and model the
covenants, according to the circumstances of the times they live in,
might have found it easy work to reconcile the oath of the covenants
with allegiance to a lawful government. The other part of their reason
is no less ridiculous and self-contradictory, viz., "They cannot swear
allegiance to the present government, because it homologates the united
constitution." But is not this constitution according to the will, and
by consent of, the body politic? and is it not ordained by the
providential will of God? therefore, according to them, has all the
essentials of a lawful constitution, which claims their protection,
under pain of damnation. How great the paradox! they cannot swear
allegiance, because they would bind them to acknowledge and defend a
lawful constitution. Is not active obedience, is not professed
subjection for conscience sake, an homologation of the constitution?
Certainly they are, and that not in word only, but in deed and in truth.
And what is the allegiance, but a promise to persevere in what they do
daily, and what they hold as their indispensable duty to do? To grant
the one, then, and refuse the other, is, in effect, to homologate or
acknowledge the constitution, and not to acknowledge it, at the same
time, which is a glaring absurdity.

But here, they would have people attend to their chimerical distinction
between the king's civil and ecclesiastical au