Page:History of all religions.pdf/10

10 to sit in them, and alſo to puniſh all heresies and errors, even to bodily puniſhment. (See Confeſſion of Faith, chap. 23) Moreover, they ſay, that the Covenants, National & Solenn League, sworn above 150 years ago, are as binding upon us to this day, as they were upon them by whom they were sworn: and if we do not take or acknowledge them, we are perjured persons, although many cannot in concience approve of the proceedings of that time. They alſo think, that public national covenanting, is as warrantable under the New Testament as it was under the Old, when the true worship of God was conined to the ca ed of Abraham. In short, all alterations whatever, either eſſential or circumſtantial, in their views are deviations from the truth, as received canons of the Church of Scotland, as received in 1603.

2 The new Light party says, that the civil magiſtrates, as such, hath no warrant from the New Testament to call church councils, nor preside in them, and though it is the duty of the civil magiſtrate to maintain justice and peace in civil society, and to puniſh offenders: yet they have no right to excrcise power over men's consciences, ia things purely spiritual.

As to the covenants, they seem to wish to put them out of the question, in a great meaſure, as appears by their silence.

Of Independents and Missionaries. The Independents, and those called Missionaries, are no new party; but an old one revived, every congregation formeth a particular Church,