The Queensferry Paper

The National Covenant

We undersuscribers, for ourselves and all that shall adhere to us, or joinwith us, being put to it by God, our own consciences, and men, andfollowing the examples of God's people, registrate in his word in suchcases; we are resolved (having acknowledged and obtained mercy, we trust,for our former breaches of covenants with God) to bind ourselves with asolemn and sacred bond, lest upon the one hand, we should be carried awaywith the stream of the defection of this time, that neither mind bypastvows, nor intends performance, but are going a quite contrary way ofseeking their own things: and on the other hand, lest we should wander,evanish into vanity, and come to nothing, not having any fixed limits andend proposed to ourselves; and as we resolve to covenant with and beforeGod, so to declare before the world, what are the designs we propose topursue, if God shall give us power and success, that men (knowing) if theywill know, our inward thoughts and utmost end, and our way from the one tothe other, may not be at a trouble or uncertainty to find us out, and mayhave no occasion to misjudge, nor misrepute us that are friends, and thosethat have the glory of God before their eyes (as we may have no cause to bejealous of our intentions) and that our enemies with their associatebacksliders (sometime professed friends) may not have ground to load uswith foul and odious aspersions, the kingdom of God with us, may do itwithout excuse, and those who join with us, may do it on solid grounds, andin hazarding their perishing lives, may know they do not die as fools: itis true the unmindfulness, failing, counteracting, and mocking that hasbeen in our former vows and covenants with God, together with greatspiritual judgments that have followed both upon professors and ministers,and the great temporal judgments that are like to follow, puts us to somestop; so that we cannot but with much trembling of heart renew our covenant, or engage anew, especially considering our own weakness andhazard; yet the clear conviction of duty, zeal to God's glory, and love toChrist's reigning, which is the highest and greatest duty that a man canperform to God, trusting in his mercy, who knows the integrity andrightness of our intentions, will both instruct, enable, accept, preserve,and prosper us: we go on declaring those, and nothing but those to be ourpresent purposes.

First. We covenant and swear, that we acknowledge and avouch the only trueand living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be our God and that we closewith his way of redemption by his Son Jesus Christ, and rely upon hisrighteousness, as that righteousness only whereby a man can be justifiedbefore God; and that we acknowledge the scriptures of the Old and NewTestament to be by divine revelation, and to contain the will of God toman, and anent men; and that we take those scriptures to be the only objectmatter of our faith, and rule of our conversation in all things, and thatwe do give up ourselves to God, to be renewed, instructed by his grace, andruled in all things by his Spirit according to his word, and shallearnestly endeavour to render him that love, worship, and obedience thathis word requires, and his goodness obliges us to.

Secondly. That we shall, to the utmost of our power, advance the kingdom ofGod (if at any time God shall give us power) by establishing throughout thelands, righteousness, and the true reformed religion, in the truth of itsdoctrine, in the purity and power its worship and ordinances, its rightgovernment and discipline, and that we shall free the church of God fromthe tyranny and corruption of prelacy on the one hand, and the thraldom andencroachments of Erastianism upon the other hand; and that we shall, to theutmost of our power, relieve the church and our brethren, the subjects ofthis kingdom (God authorizing and calling us to this, by his raising up,and giving us power and success in removing those who by theirtransgression have forfeited their authority) of that oppression that hathbeen exercised upon their consciences, civil rights, and liberties, thatmen may serve God holily without fear, and possess their civil rightspeaceably without disturbance.

Thirdly. That we confess with our mouths and believe with our hearts, thedoctrine of the reformed churches, especially that of Scotland, containedin the Scriptures, summed up in our confessions of faith, and engaged to byus in our covenants, is the only true doctrine of God, and that we purposeto persevere in it to the end: and that the pure worship required andprescribed in the scriptures without the inventions, additions, adornings,or corruptions of men, is the only true worship of God, and thepresbyterian government exercised by lawful ministers and elders inkirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods, and general assemblies, is the onlyright government of the church, and that this government is a distinctgovernment from the civil, and ought distinctly to be exercised, not aftera carnal manner by the plurality of votes, or authority of a single person,but according to the word of God; so that the word makes and carries thesentence, and not plurality of votes.

Fourthly. That we shall endeavour, to our utmost, the overthrow of thekingdom of darkness, and whatever is contrary to the kingdom of Christ,especially idolatry and popery in all articles of it, as we are bound inour national covenants, superstition, will-worship, and prelacy, with itshierarchy, as we are bound in our Solemn League and Covenant, and that weshall with the same sincerity endeavour the overthrow of that power (itbeing no more authority) that hath established, and upholds that kingdom ofdarkness, that prelacy, to wit, and Erastianism over the church, and hathexercised such a lustful and arbitrary tyranny over the subjects, taken allpower in their hand, that they may at their pleasure introduce popery inthe church, as they have done arbitrary government in the state. And in aword, that we shall endeavour the extirpation of all the works of darkness,and the relics of idolatry and superstition (which are much enlarged andrevived in those times) and execute righteous judgment impartially(according to the word of God, and degree of offences) upon committers ofthose things, especially, to wit, the blasphemy, idolatry, atheism,sorcery, perjury, uncleanness, profanation of the Lord's day, oppression,and malignancy, that thus being zealous of God's glory, he may delight todwell in the midst of us.

Fifthly. Seriously considering, that the hand of our kings, and rulers withthem, hath been of a long time against the throne of the Lord, and that theLord, upon this account, has declared that he will have war with them forever, and has commanded his people utterly to root them out; andconsidering that the line and succession of our king and rulers hath beenagainst the power and purity of Religion, and godliness, and Christ'sreigning over his church, and its freedom, and so against God, and hathdegenerate from that virtue, moderation, sobriety, and good government,which was the tenor and right by which their ancestors kept their crowns(for when they left that, they themselves were laid aside, as ourchronicles and registers do record) into an idle and sinful magnificence,where the all and only government is to keep up their own absoluteness andtyranny, and to keep on a yoke of thraldom upon the subjects, and tosqueeze from them their substance to uphold their lustful and pompoussuperfluities: we having no better nor greater way at this time ofmanifesting our public siding with, and loving of God, nor seeing a morespeedy way of relaxation from the wrath of God (that hath ever lain heavyon us, since we engaged with him) but of rejecting of them, who have somanifestly rejected God (especially of late) and his service andreformation, as a slavery, as they themselves call it in their publicpapers, especially in their late letters to the king and duke ofLauderdale, disclaiming the covenants with God, and blasphemously enactedit to be burned by the hand of the hangman, governed contrary to all rightlaws divine and human, exercised such tyranny and arbitrary government, sooppressed men in their consciences and civil rights, used free subjects,Christian and reasonable men, with less discretion than their beasts, andso not only frustrate the end of government, which is, that men may livepeaceably and godly under them (this being the end of government, tomaintain every one in their rights and liberties against wrongs andinjuries) but have done directly opposite to it, by enacting and commandingimpieties, injuries, and robberies, to the denying of God his due, and thesubjects their godliness and peace; so that instead of government,godliness, and peace, there is nothing but rapine, tumult, and blood; sothat now it cannot be called a government, but a lustful rage, exercisedwith as little right reason, and more cruelty than in beasts; and theythemselves can no more be called governors, but public grassators, andpublic judgments, which all ought to set themselves against, as they woulddo against pestilence, sword, and famine raging among them; for they arelike those, and bring those; and as they have exercised no good government,nor administered justice, so on the other hand, they have stopped thecourse of law and justice against blasphemers, idolaters, atheists,sorcerers, murderers, incestuous and adulterous persons, and othermalefactors; and instead of rewarding the good, have made butcheries andmurders upon the Lord's people, sold them as slaves, imprisoned, forfeited,fined, banished, &c., and that upon no other account, but for maintainingChrist's right of ruling over their consciences against the usurpations ofmen, for fulfilling their vows, repelling unjust violence (which innocentnature allows every creature) of all which particulars we can give (wespeak before God) innumerable and sure instances.

But that we may see if there be anything that stands in our way, there arebut three things that seem to have weight that we know. First. Whether thedeed and obligation of our ancestors can bind us. Secondly. Whether thecovenant doth bind us either to this man or his posterity. And Thirdly.Whether there yet be any hope of them and their posterity.

1. As to the first. Our ancestors their transactions and obligationsneither did, nor could bind us, they did not buy their liberty and conquestwith our thraldom and slavery; nor could they, liberty and freedom being abenefit next to life, if not in some regard above it, that they could notgive it away more than our lives, neither is it in the power of parents tobind their posterity to anything that is so much to their prejudice, andagainst their natural liberty. It is otherwise indeed in things moral.Neither did they bind us to anything but to a government, which they thenesteemed the best for the commonwealth and subjects; and when this ceaseth,we are free to choose another, if we see it more conducible for that end,and more free of these inconveniences. 2dly. The covenant doth not, for itonly binds us to maintain our king in the maintenance of the trueestablished and covenanted religion; and this we have not: neither can theyrequire homage upon the account of the covenant, having renounced anddisclaimed that covenant: and we being no otherwise bound, the covenantbeing the coronation compact without the swearing and sealing of which ourfathers, or rather we ourselves refused to receive him for king, and themfor rulers; and if they were free to refuse him for king upon the accountof not subscribing of that covenant, we are much more free to reject himupon his renouncing of it, this being the only way of receiving the crownof Scotland; and reigning also, not being an inheritance that passes fromfather to son without the consent of tenants, but an (and the more menplead for this, the more we are concerned to look to it) office, which, allsay, is given ad culpam, non ad vitam. And for the 3d, Neither is there anyhope of their return from these courses, having so often showed theirnatures and enmities against God and all righteousness, and having so oftdeclared and renewed their purposes and promises of persevering in thosecourses: and suppose they should dissemble a repentance of those things,and profess to return to better courses, being put to straits, and fortheir own ends (for upon no other account can we reasonably expect it:)supposing also, that there might be pardon for that which is done, which wecannot see can be without the violation of God's law, and the laying on ofa great guiltiness upon the land, for the omitting of the execution of sodeserved and so necessarily requisite a justice, from which guiltiness theland cannot be cleansed or made free, but by executing of God's righteousjudgment upon them: but supposing that it might, they cannot now bebelieved, after they have violated all ties that human wisdom can devise tobind men. And besides, who sees not somewhat of folly to be in this, tothink to bind a king that pretends to absoluteness? the way being thuscleared, and we being sure of God's approbation and men's whose hearts arenot utterly biassed, and conscience altogether corrupted; and knowingassuredly, the upholding of such, is to uphold men to bear down Christ'skingdom and to uphold Satan's, and to deprive men of right government andgood governors, to the ruining of religion, and undoing of human society.And seeing also the innumerable sins and snares that are in givingobedience to their acts upon the one hand; and upon the other hand, seeingthe endless miseries that will follow if we shall acknowledge theirauthority, and refuse obedience to their sinful commands: we then uponthose, and the following grounds, do reject that king, and those associatewith him in the government (stated and declared enemies to Jesus Christ)from being our king and rulers, because standing in the way of our right,free, and peaceable serving of God, propagating his kingdom andreformation, and overthrowing Satan's kingdom according to our covenants,declare them to be henceforth no lawful rulers, as they have declared us tobe no lawful subjects, upon a ground far less warrantable, as men unbiassedwill see: and that after this, we neither own, nor shall yield any willingobedience to them, but shall rather suffer the utmost of their crueltiesand injuries (until God shall plead our cause) being no more bound to them,they having altered and destroyed the Lord's established religion,overturned the fundamental and established laws of the kingdom, taken awayaltogether Christ's church-government, and changed the civil government ofthis land, which was by a king and free parliament, into tyranny, wherenone are associate to be partakers of the government but only those whowill be found by justice to be guilty of criminals, and where all othersare excluded, even those who by the laws of the land, and by birth, have aright to, and a share in that government, and that only because they arenot of the same guiltiness and mischievous purposes with themselves, andwhere also all free elections of commissioners for parliaments, andofficers for government, are made void, they making those thequalifications for admission to those places, which by the word of God, andthe laws of the land, was the cause of their exclusion before. So that nonecan say that we are now bound in allegiance unto them, unless they willsay, we are bound in allegiance to devils whose vicegerents they are,having neither authority from God (because it is by their sinfulnessforfeited) nor yet judging nor ruling for God.

We then being made free by God and their own doings, (he giving the law,and they giving the transgression of that law, which is the cause) andbeing now loosed from all obligations both divine and civil to them,knowing also, that no society of men, having corruption in them (which isalways ready to beget disorder and to do injuries, unless restrained andpunished by laws and government) can be without laws and government, andwithal desiring to be governed in the best way that is least liable toinconveniences, and least apt to degenerate into tyranny: We do declare,that we shall set up over ourselves, and over what God shall give us powerof, government and governors according to the word of God, and especiallythat word, Exodus 18.21. "Moreover thou shalt provide out of all thepeople, able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, andplace such over them; to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds,rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens." That we shall no more commit thegovernment of ourselves, and the making of laws for us, to any one singleperson, or lineal successor, we not being by God, as the Jews were, boundto one single family; and this kind of government by a single person beingmost liable to inconveniences, and aptest to degenerate into tyranny, assad and long experience hath taught us.<

Moreover we declare, that those men whom we shall set over us, shall beengaged to govern us principally by that civil and judicial law (we thinknone will be so ignorant as to think, by the judicial law we mean thatwhich is ceremonial or typical) given by God to his people of Israel, noman, we think, doubting, but it must be the best so far as it goes, beinggiven by God; and we having no body of law of our own, but some fewimperfect acts of parliament, and sometimes following the canon, andsometimes the feudal, and sometimes the civil, which occasions greatcontentions among the people, especially those who are naturally litigious,to the exhausting and enhancing of the substance of the kingdom to some fewmen, and squeezing of its inhabitants, but especially that we shall begoverned by that law in matters of life and death, and all other thingsalso, so far as they reach, and are consistent with our Christian libertyestablished in all Christendom (only violated by our tyrants, and someothers of late) excepting only that of divorce and polygamy, the one beingnot a law, but a permission granted upon the account of the hardness oftheir hearts, the other being a sinful custom, contrary to the firstinstitution of marriage, crept into the church. We know that men ofmalignant and perverse spirits, who have not a higher God than a wickedking, which suits only with their lustful licentiousness, and it may beothers with them, that seemed to be of better principles, will raise anignorant clamour upon this, that it is a fifth monarchy, and wefifth-monarchy-men, and will labour to amuse the people with strange terms,and put odious names on good things to make them hateful as their way is;but if this be their fifth monarchy, we both are, and ought to be such, andthat according to God's word.

Sixthly. It being the work of the ministers of the gospel to preach,propagate, and defend the kingdom of God, and to preserve the doctrine,worship, discipline, government, liberties and privileges of the same fromall corruptions and encroachments of rulers and all others; and seeing thatthe ministers of the church of Scotland, at least the greater part of themby far, not only were defective in preaching and testifying against theacts of rulers, for overthrowing religion and reformation, abjuring ourcovenant with God, establishing a government in the church, which theirking calls his own government (and so is not God's) contrary to ourcovenant, against enacting of that blasphemous (so Calvin calls thatsupremacy of Henry VIII. upon which this prerogative is formed, and fromwhich it is derived, and is no less, if not more injurious to Christ, andenslaving to his church) and sacrilegious prerogative, given to a king overthe church of God, and against their other acts and encroachments upon hischurch, and hindered others also who were willing, and would have testifiedagainst them, and censured some that did it (for which, together with otherfaults in their trust and administration, we may say God hath left them todo worse things) but also have voted in that meeting (which they arepleased to call 'an assembly of ministers,' but how unjustly let men judge)an acceptation of that liberty founded upon, and given by virtue of thatblasphemous, arrogated and usurped power, and has appeared before theircourts to accept of that liberty, and to be enacted and authorized theirministers, and so have willingly (for this is an elicite act of the will,and not an act of force and constraint) translated the power of sendingout, ordering and censuring (for as they accepted the liberty from them, sothey are answerable and submit to their censures and restraints, at leastall of them who were yet tried with it, and others of them appeared, andacknowledged before their courts, that they would not have done thesethings that they were charged with, if they had thought it would haveoffended them) ministers from the court of Christ, and subjection to theministry to the courts of men, and subjection unto the magistrate (whichhad been impious and injurious to Christ, though they had been righteousand lawful rulers), and by their changing of courts (according to commonlaw) have changed their masters, and of the ministers of Christ are becomethe ministers of men, and bound to answer to them, as they will; and as bythe acceptance of this liberty in such a manner, they have translated thepower, so they had given up and quit utterly the government, and asuccession of a presbyterian ministry, for as those were not granted themof their masters, so they received their ministry without them, and by this(as the ecclesiastic government is swallowed up in the civil) if the resthad followed them, the ministry should have been extinct with themselves,and the whole work of reformation had been buried in oblivion, and not somuch as the remembrance thereof kept up. Those, together with the other oftheir commissions, in preaching the lawfulness of paying that tribute,declared to be imposed for the bearing down of the true worship of God(which they falsely termed seditious conventicles, rendezvouses ofrebellion) and their advising those poor prisoners to subscribe that bond,and consequently could not but so advise others, if put to it (for thehazard men were in will not make a real change of the morality of theaction) and besides, the rest may be put to it on the same hazard; and ifthe one should advise (which consequently they must do) and the othershould subscribe, this would altogether close that door, which the Lordhath made use of in all the churches of Europe, for casting off the yoke ofthe whore, and restoring the truth and purity of religion and reformation,and freedom of the churches, and should also have stopped all regress ofmen, when once brought under tyranny, to recover their liberty again. Thoseministers then not being followers of Christ, who, before Pontius Pilate,gave a good confession, which was that he was a king (and no king, if hehave no power to order his house and subjects) and they not following himnor his ministers, they not asserting and maintaining this his kinglypower, against all encroachments and usurpers of it; and besides, we beingcommanded, if any brother walk disorderly, from such to withdraw. Andalthough, in the capacity that we are now in, we neither have, nor assumeto ourselves authority to give our definitive and authoritative sentence ofdeposition against those ministers, yet we declare (which is proper for usto do) that we neither can nor will hear preaching, nor receive sacramentsfrom any of those ministers that have accepted, and voted for that liberty,nor from any who have encouraged and strengthened their hands by hearingand pleading for them, all those who have trafficked for an union withthem, without their renouncing and repenting of those things, all that donot faithfully testify against them, and after do not deport themselvessuitably to their testimonies, all who join not in public with theirbrethren, who are testifying against them. We declare, that we shall notown, &c., at least till they stand in judgment before those ministers, andbe judged by them who have followed the Lord, kept themselves free of thosedefections, or at least have repented; and as our hearts have cleaved tothose ministers, while they were on the Lord's side, and subjected to them,so we shall still cleave to those that abide following him, and shall besubject to them in the Lord.

Seventhly. Then, we do declare and acknowledge, that a gospel ministry is astanding ordinance of God, appointed by Christ to continue in the churchuntil the end of the world; and that none of us shall take upon him thepreaching of the word, or administering of the sacraments, unless calledand ordained thereto by the ministers of the gospel. And, as we declare,that we are for a standing gospel ministry, rightly chosen and rightlyordained, so we declare that we shall go about this work in time to comewith more fasting and prayer, and more careful inspection into theconversation and holiness of those men that shall be chosen and ordained,the want of which formerly has been a great sin, both in ministers andpeople, which hath not been the least cause of this defection. This willmeet with the same measure as the former. The former was a fifth monarchy,so this will be a separation. There is both malice and ignorance in thiscalumny. Malice in striving to make us odious; for there is nothing thatwill make us more odious to the world, than to tell them we think ourselvesmore holy than all, and will have no communion with others. But we abhorsuch thoughts, and whatever we know of our sincerity, yet we know nothingof our perfection, and so see nothing whereupon we may compare, much lessexceed others, but the contrary; and if any were to be shut out upon thataccount, we judge ourselves would be the first. There is ignorance in it,if not a deep deceit; for separation, as the scriptures and divines take itin an evil sense, cannot be attributed to us; for if there be a separation,it must be where the change is, and that is not in us; we are notseparating from the communion of the church, and setting up new ordinances,and a new ministry, but cleaving to the same ministers, and following thesame ordinances, when others have slidden back to new ways, and have a newauthority superadded, which is like the new piece in the old garment.

Eighthly. We bind and oblige ourselves to defend ourselves and one anotherin our worshipping of God, and in our natural, civil, and divine rights andliberties, till we shall overcome, or send them down under debate to theposterity, that they may begin where we end; and if we shall be pursued ortroubled any farther in our worshipping rights and liberties, that we shalllook on it as a declaring war, and take all the advantages that one enemydoth of another, and seek to cause to perish, all that shall, in an hostilemanner, assault us, and to maintain, relieve, and right ourselves of thosethat have wronged us, but not to trouble or injure any, but those that haveinjured us, those being most lawful for us, being many that are wrongedupon such an account, and by such persons who have nothing now over us, butpower and usurped authority, which we shall neither answer nor acknowledge,if we can do otherwise, hoping that God shall break off that part of theyoke, and free us of that power and tyranny, that we have cast off upon hisaccount, and will give us judges as we had at the beginning, andcounsellors as we had at the first.