ting of her attainments, as saith the apostle, _Philip._ iii, 16:
"Nevertheless whereunto we have already attained, let us walk by the
same rule, let us mind the same thing." _Rev._ iii, 3: "Remember,
therefore, how thou has received, and heard, and hold fast, and repent."

3. That, notwithstanding many, both ministers and private Christians,
have been honored faithfully to publish their testimonies and
declarations, and to seal them with their blood, in opposition to the
growing defections in the land, being through the tyranny of the times
prevented from acting in any other capacity: yet never, since the
national overthrow of the glorious structure of reformation, has any
church judicatory; constituted purely on the footing of our covenanted
establishment, appeared in a judicial vindication of our Redeemer's
interest and injured rights.

4. The unspeakable loss sustained by the present generation, through the
want of a full and faithful declaration of the covenanted principles of
the church of Scotland, which they in the loins of their ancestors were
so solemnly engaged to maintain; whereby, as ignorance must be
increased, so prejudices are also gradually begotten in their winds
against the truth in the purity thereof. And this, through the many
mistaken notions at present prevailing among the different contending
parties of professors in these nations, concerning the distinct
ordinances of divine institution, viz., the ministry and magistracy, or
ecclesiastical and civil government; and, more especially, the
presbytery reckon themselves, and all professing their allegiance unto
Christ and his cause, obliged to maintain the testimony of our ancestors
for the divine institution and right constitution of civil government,
according to the law of God, as what they found to be, and still is,
indispensably necessary for the outward defense and preservation of
righteousness and true religion; and because the very foundation and
ends of this ordinance have been doctrinally subverted, and the
generation taught the most licentious principles concerning it, by a
body of professed witnesses among ourselves: and this they design to do,
without (as they are slanderously reported of by some) laying aside
themselves, or withdrawing others, from the study of internal and
habitual or practical holiness.

5. To wipe off the reproach of that odium cast upon the presbytery and
community belonging thereto, by some who invidiously call t