THE

AUCHENSAUGH RENOVATION

OF THE

NATIONAL COVENANT AND SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT;

WITH THE

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SINS AND ENGAGEMENT TO DUTIES,

AS THEY WERE

RENEWED AT AUCHENSAUGH, NEAR DOUGLAS,

JULY 24, 1712.

(COMPARED WITH THE EDITIONS OF PAISLEY, 1820, AND BELFAST, 1835.)

ALSO, THE RENOVATION OF THESE PUBLIC FEDERAL DEEDS ORDAINED AT PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 8, 1880,

BY THE

REFORMED PRESBYTERY,

WITH ACCOMMODATION OF THE ORIGINAL COVENANTS, IN BOTH TRANSACTIONS, TO THEIR TIMES AND POSITIONS RESPECTIVELY.

PHILADELPHIA 1880.

PREFACE.

The Reformed Presbytery, at a meeting in Philadelphia, October 6th 1880, "Resolved, That another edition of the Auchensaugh Deed be published," and appointed the undersigned a committee "to attend to this business with all convenient speed."

This Presbytery, after forty years' experience, during which opportunities have been afforded for examining the opinions and practices of all parties, professing any regard for the Covenanted Reformation, is still deeply impressed with the conviction that the transaction at Auchensaugh 1712, is the only faithful renovation of our Covenants, National and Solemn League. The fidelity of our fathers in that hazardous and heroic transaction, it is believed, has ever since been the occasion (not the cause) of all opponents manifesting their hostility to the whole covenanted cause, by first assaults upon that detested Bond. And that this is the real state of the case we proceed to prove by the following historical facts. First.—In connection with remodeling the Testimony; or rather by supplanting it in 1806, the Terms of Communion, without submitting an overture, were also changed to harmonize with Reformation Principles Exhibited, by excluding the Auchensaugh Renovation from the fourth Term, where it had stood for nearly a century. The same party have for years excluded from their abstract of Terms the Covenants themselves. Second.—In Scotland this faithful document was expunged in 1822, obviously to prepare the way for the adoption of a "New Testimony"(!), which appeared 1837-9. The majority of the actors in that work who survive, are now in the Free Church! Third.—At the time when defection was progressing in the R.P. Synod of Scotland, the sister Synod of Ireland strenuously resisted an attempt to remove the foresaid Bond from its place in the Terms. The Rev. Messrs. Dick, Smith and Houston in 1837, were faithful and successful for the time in resisting that attempt. Mr. Houston "would ever resist any alteration in respect of the Auchensaugh Bond, regarding the objection laid against it as in reality aimed at the Covenants themselves." Yet as a sequel to their Renovation of the Covenants at Dervock 1853, the Auchensaugh Bond was subsequently "shown to the porch"—removed from the Terms! Fourth.—At what was called covenant-renovation at Pittsburgh 1871, we believe no one spoke in behalf of their fathers' noble achievement in 1712. Indeed this could not be rationally expected in a body who could tolerate members vilifying the very Covenants which they pretended to renew. Fifth.—Other parties farther removed from the position of their reforming progenitors; but who still claim ecclesiastical affinity with John Knox, and commonly prefix to the symbols of their faith the historical word Westminster, give very strong expression to their feelings of hostility—not to the Auchensaugh Bond, of which probably they never heard, but to the British Covenants expressly; yea, to the very ordinance of public social covenanting itself. But we shall let them speak for themselves. One Doctor of divinity is reported as saying—"I am opposed to the whole matter of covenanting. Covenants do an immense sight more harm than good. Those Scotch Covenanters brought persecution upon themselves by their covenants."^[1]

Another Dr. said, "I have always been opposed to covenanting. One generation of God's people have no right to enter into bonds that entail obligations upon future generations."^[2] A third Dr. said, "I hold it is a sin for men to go into the august presence of God and enter into covenant with him. It is base presumption."^[3] A fourth Dr. said, "I hold that the church as an organization is not a responsible moral agent. Neither is the nation!" These sentiments may well excite astonishment and alarm, when proclaimed by accredited teachers of morality and religion. Sixth.—Seceders have all along their history claimed to be the sole heirs of the Scottish covenanted inheritance. They are not ignorant of the Auchensaugh Renovation. How they view that transaction may be best ascertained from their own language. The Original Secession Magazine for November 1880, p. 861, speaks thus, "The distinction drawn between 'Covenanters' and 'Seceders,' we have shown to be groundless. Are Reformed Presbyterians covenanters at all? There is not an actual Covenanter among them. They renewed the Covenants after a fashion in 1712. In our view the Covenants were not renewed, they were only mangled," &c. These sentiments are sufficiently strong and explicit to be intelligible. The writer's feelings evidently interfered with judicial discrimination, while openly expressing that hostility to the Auchensaugh Bond which is concealed by others. The Rev. John McMillan, whom the Lord honored to take the lead at Auchensaugh, is especially branded by this writer who asserts,—"he did not secede and retire, he was expelled; nor was the position of his early associates in the ministry of the purest water." Moreover, this writer asserts "that they (Seceders) have actually renewed the Covenants, from time to time, during the whole period of their existence." How could this be, since Seceders have all along rejected "the civil part of the Covenants?" But these documents bear on their face a direct aim at personal, domestic, ecclesiastical, and civil reformation. No party can intelligently and honestly renew the National Covenant and Solemn League, while eulogizing the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, while in allegiance to the British throne—that "bloody horn of the beast;" or whose political principles will identify them with any other horn which may have power to scatter "Judah." Zech. i: 21.

We have thus attempted by an induction of particulars, as concisely as we could, to point out existing opposition to our Covenanted Reformation, by various parties who assail the British Covenants directly, or by a first assault upon the Auchensaugh Bond, would reach a fatal stroke at the Covenants themselves. We believe with our predecessors that those who reject the Auchensaugh Renovation, by logical necessity will relinquish the Covenants themselves.

The reader may be assured that neither we nor the Reformed Presbytery, whose committee we are, claim Papal infallibility or Christian perfection; nor do we ask implicit faith in any uninspired documents. But we sincerely believe ourselves that the Auchensaugh Renovation and the Bond, to which the foregoing statements are prefixed, will be found on examination to be sound, faithful, and "in nothing contrary to the word of