s not to be
expected however, that we are about to condescend upon _all_ the
erroneous sentiments or steps of defection, supplied by the history of
these communities. To direct the honest inquiries of the Lord's people,
and assist them in that process of reasoning by which facts are compared
with acknowledged Standards, supreme and subordinate, that their
moral character may be tested, is all that is proposed in the following
sections.

SECTION I. The Secession from the Revolution Church of Scotland in that
country assumed a position in relation to the civil institutions of
Great Britain, which their posterity continue too occupy until the
present time in the United States without material alteration.

1. They cooperate practically with all classes in the civil community,
in maintaining national rebellion against the Lord and his Anointed.
They give their suffrages toward the elevation of vile persons to the
highest places of civil dignity in the American confederacy--knowing the
candidates to be strangers or enemies to Immanuel. And although they
have recently lifted a testimony against that system of robbery called
slavery, which is so far right; yet this fact only goes to render their
professed loyalty to an unscriptural frame of civil government, as
manifestly inconsistent as it is impious.

2. The have all along in the United States renounced the civil part of
the British Covenants, declaring that they "neither have nor ever had
anything to do with them." Truth is not local, nor does the obligation
of the second table of the moral law, on which that part of our
covenants is plainly founded, depend on the permanency of our residence
in a particular portion of the world. "The earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof." It follows, that however solemnly or frequently they
profess to renew their fathers' covenants; the whole transaction
displays their unfaithfulness to the Lord, who is a party in the
covenants; and is calculated to mislead the unwary.

3. Their unsteadfastness is further evidenced, by conforming to other
ecclesiastical communities in the loose practice of occasional or
indiscriminate hearing; and even in some instances of ministerial
intercommunion--the law of their church on that matter having become
obsolete. Against these courses, in some of which that body has
obstinately persevered for more than a hundred years, we deem it
incumbent on us to continue an uncompromising testimony. Many commen