od or to one another if they irrationally and
wickedly relinquish this principle. God's people are charged "not to
forget his mighty works;" Psa. lxxviii. 7. Are these works all written
in the Bible? They are required to confess their fathers' sins, as well
as their own. Since the divine canon was closed, many sins have been,
and now are chargeable against professing Christians. Are these recorded
in the Scriptures? And thus the reader may ask himself of sin and duty
to any extent, in relation to God as a party.

And the same is true of the second table of the moral law. For example:
in reference to "the first commandment with promise," should the
Christian minor be asked as the Jew did his Lord, "Who is your father?"
How shall he answer? Is he warranted to appeal to God to manifest his
earthly sonship? No; but he is required by God's law to "honor his
father;" and his obedience to this command is grounded on human
testimony as to the object to whom this honor is due. Thus consistency,
reason and scripture combine, to accuse and fasten guilt--the guilt of
apostasy upon all who have renounced that fundamental principle of our
glorious covenanted reformation--_that history and argument belong to
the bond of ecclesiastical fellowship_. With any who hold the theory
here condemned, however exemplary or even conscientious in morals and
religion they may appear, we can have no ecclesiastical fellowship; for,
however ardent their attachment or strong their expressions of affection
to Confession, Catechisms, Covenants, &c.; they give no guarantee of
competent intelligence or probable stability; as alas! we see in the
present declining course of many in our day.

We would earnestly and affectionably beseech all well wishers to a
covenanted work of reformation: that they would take into their serious
consideration whether these things are, or are not connected inseparably
with the wellfare of Zion. Especially would we expostulate with such as
have any regard for the Judicial Testimony adopted at Ploughlandhead,
Scotland, in 1761: that they conscientiously compare it with the book
called Reformation Principles Exhibited, and also with the new Scottish
Testimony, where it is practicable, and all these with the supreme
standard, the holy scriptures. They will find on examination, that these
are wholly irreconcilable in the very form of testimony-bearing.
Particularly, let the reader notice that our fathers in 1761, considered
_histo