e in them, by
native consequence, they swear to a prelatical government: for seeing
they have made no exception in their bond, it must be applied to no
other, but the government, which presently exists; and this, in flat
contradiction to the covenants, by which such a government is abjured.
So that their new bond is no less opposite to the national covenants,
and is much mere deceitful, than if they had plainly and explicitly
sworn allegiance to the present government therein; only the generality
of their implicit followers do not so readily observe it. Upon the
whole, how strange is it, that they should have the assurance to father
their deceitful apostasy, and wretched burying of the covenants upon our
reformers, so injuriously to their character, and at the hazard of
imposing a heinous and base cheat upon the world, while, notwithstanding
all their vain pretensions, it is undeniably evident to those who will
impartially, and without prejudice, examine the method and order whereby
our ancestors renewed our covenants, that in this they have been so far
from following their example, that they have directly contradicted the
same, and, in reality, buried much of the covenants and work of
reformation sworn to in them. For though a people may very lawfully, by
a new bond, enlarge and add to their former obligations that they
brought themselves under; yet they can never, without involving
themselves in the guilt of perjury, relax or cancel former obligations
by any future bond. Accordingly, our worthy ancestors, by all the new
bonds they annexed to former obligations, were so far from attempting to
loose themselves from any covenanted duty that either they or their
fathers were priorly bound unto, that they thereby still brought
themselves under straighter bonds to perform all their former and new
obligations of duty to God. But, as has been discovered, _Seceders_, by
their artificial bond, have cast out the very substance and spirit of
the covenants, by their rumping and hewing them at pleasure, to reduce
them to the sinful circumstances of the time: and this, in opposition to
their own public profession, that these covenants are moral in their
nature and obligation upon these nations to the latest posterity. How
surprising it is then, that after such a profession, they dare cast out
of their bond the greatest parts of the covenants! This is not only to
break these obligations, but it is to make a public declaration, that
di