referred to. After laying down an admirable platform of fellowship and
discipline, the persecuted Covenanters declare in effect, "We are not a
Church at present, and cannot act fully as an organized Church. We are a
broken, persecuted remnant. Our societies are not a Church, but a
temporary means of enjoying proper religious instruction and ordinances
of worship. They are, besides, associations for self-defence, and for
watching and taking advantage of any public movement for overturning the
present despotism, and recovering our liberties, civil and religious. We
require to make the terms of admission strict, to guard against spies,
and those who are contentious or quarrelsome. At the same time they
declare the close and hallowed relations that bound them to all the true
disciples of their common Lord. In a noble spirit of Christian
brotherhood, they virtually proclaim, "On the communion of saints, let
us impose no new restrictions. Though others differ from us in the word
of their special testimony, let us embrace and love them, and
acknowledge fellowship with them as Christian brethren."[6] In these
noble utterances, we have strikingly exemplified the true spirit of
Christian brotherhood and Catholic communion. This is the genuine import
of the vow of the Solemn League and Covenant, which binds Covenanters to
regard whatever is done to the least of them, as done to all and to
every one in particular. While firmly holding fast all Scriptural
attainments, and contending "earnestly for the faith once delivered to
the saints," we should cordially rejoice in the evidences of grace in
Christ's servants wherever we find them. We should love them as
brethren, fulfil the law of Christ by bearing their burdens, wish them
God speed in all that they are doing for the advancement of His glory,
and fervently labour and pray for the coming of the happy period when
divisions and animosities shall cease, and when there shall be one King,
and His name one in all the earth.