r, to which
subjection and obedience for conscience sake is enjoined to be lawful,
in regard of matter, person, title, &c. So the Presbytery cannot but
testify against them for perverting and wresting the scriptures of
truth, to a favoring of their anarchical and anti-scriptural tenet, and
for their so stiffly and tenaciously pleading for avowed apostasy and
defection (which is the whole scope and amount of their declared scheme
of politics), viz., that it is lawful for posterity to turn back to
where their forefathers were, giving up with many precious truths, and
further attainments in reformation, valuable and necessary, acquired at
the expense of much zeal, faithfulness and treasure, and handed down to
us, sealed by the spirit of God upon the souls of his people, as his
work and cause; and on public scaffolds and high places of the field,
with the dearest blood of multitudes of Christ's faithful witnesses, who
loved not their lives unto the death. And this, in express contradiction
to the land's solemn covenant engagements to the Lord, for maintaining
and holding fast that whereunto we had attained. For notwithstanding all
the regard and deference _Seceders_ profess to the covenants and
reformation principles, they are, all the while, directly pleading in
defense of the same cause, advancing the same arguments to support it,
and likewise giving the same corrupt and perverted explication of the
above texts of scripture, that the merciless and bloody murderers and
persecuters did, in the late tyrannous times, in their stated opposition
to the cause and interest of glorious Christ, together with the indulged
who took part with them, in opposing the kingdom and subjects of Zions
exalted King. And as [pity it is] _Seceders_ have pleaded the cause of
malignants, and, rubbing the rust from their antiquated arguments, have
presented them with a new lustre; so the Presbytery, in opposition
thereto, are satisfied to plead the same cause, with the same arguments
and to understand these scriptures in the same sense as was done by the
witnesses for reformation, whom the Lord honored to seal his truths with
their blood, as is sufficiently confirmed from the Cloud of Witnesses;
where their concurring testimonies are harmoniously stated, upon their
disowning the authority of the then anti-christian and Erastian
government, even when acknowledged by the bulk and body of the nation,
both civil and ecclesiastical. Whence also it is evid