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they are sworn; and if we do not take or acknowledge them, we are perjured persons, although many cannot in conscience approve of the proceedings of that time, they also think, that public national covenanting. as such, is as warrantable now under the New Testament, as it was under the Old when the the true worship of God was confined to the carnal seed of Abraham in short, all alterations whatever either essential or circumstanial (in the r-view) are deviations from the truths and received canons of the Church of Scotland, as received in 1638.
2 The New Light party say, that the Civil Magistrate, as such hath no warrant from the New Testament, to call Church Councils, not 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 exercise power over mens' consciences, is things purely spiritual.
