espouse any
malignant quarrel or party, but fought merely on their former grounds or
principles; that they disclaimed all the sins and guilt of the king,
and of his house; nor would they own him or his interest, otherwise than
with a subordination to God, and so far as he owned and prosecuted the
cause of God, and acknowledged the sins of his house, and of his former
ways."[*]

The king, lying entirely at mercy, and having no assurance of life
or liberty further than was agreeable to the fancy of these austere
zealots, was constrained to embrace a measure which nothing but the
necessity of his affairs and his great youth and inexperience could
excuse. He issued a declaration, such as they required of him.[**] He
there gave thanks for the merciful dispensations of Providence, by which
he was recovered from the snare of evil counsel, had attained a full
persuasion of the righteousness of the covenant, and was induced to
cast himself and his interests wholly upon God. He desired to be deeply
humbled and afflicted in spirit, because of his father's following
wicked measures, opposing the covenant and the work of reformation,
and shedding the blood of God's people throughout all his dominions.
He lamented the idolatry of his mother, and the toleration of it in
his father's house; a matter of great offence, he said, to all the
Protestant churches, and a great provocation to him who is a jealous
God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children, He professed,
that he would have no enemies but the enemies of the covenant; and
that he detested all Popery, superstition, prelacy, heresy, schism, and
profaneness; and was resolved not to tolerate, much less to countenance,
any of them in any of his dominions. He declared that he should never
love or favor those who had so little conscience as to follow his
interests, in preference to the gospel and the kingdom of Jesus Christ.
And he expressed his hope, that whatever ill success his former guilt
might have drawn upon his cause, yet now, having obtained mercy to be on
God's side, and to acknowledge his own cause subordinate to that of God,
divine providence would crown his arms with victory.

* Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, p. 166, 167.

** Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses, p. 170.

Still the Covenanters and the clergy were diffident of the king's
sincerity. The facility which he discovered in yielding whatever was
required of him, made them s