"(2.) The renewing them so many times in old king James's reign spoke out the fervency of these worthy spirits, in ardour and affection to them, as so many jewels of so great value, that they were set as gems and pearls in Christ's crown, to wear so long as his interest remained in the church.
"(3.) The blessing accompanying the entering unto and renewing these covenants were so fluent in all church-ordinances, both secret, private and public, that whatever was planted in so fruitful a soil of such blessing and influence of the Spirit, could not but grow up as calves in the stall, fat and full of sap.
"(4.) These covenants were to our forefathers, like the renting of their own cloths, as Elisha did, and taking up Elijah's mantle, and clothing themselves with it, 2 Kings ii. 12, 13.; enjoying of Moses's spirit, Deut. xxiv.; and like Joshua (chap. xxiv.) when dying, leaving a testimony of remembrance to posterity, by engaging them in these covenants.
"(5.) So long as our church cleaved to these our covenants, it fell out with them as it did with king Asa, 2 Chron. xv. 2.; that the Lord was with them while they were with him. But, our fathers offspring forsaking God, he forsook them: from that day that our covenants were so ignominiously treated, unto this day, all calamities as to our religious concerns have fallen upon us.
"(6.) The late sufferers, of all who shed their hearts blood upon the fields and scaffolds, imprisonments and banishments, were all dyed with the crimson blood of the covenant: from that day of the force and fury of enemies, these solemn vows of our worthy forefathers, and the enemies taking up Christ's march-stones (which were the bounds set by the Most High, when he divided to the church of Britain its inheritance, and separated the sons of Adam, Deut. xxix. 8.), the giddy church straying in the wilderness is much fallen out of sight either of pillar of cloud or fire. Our intermixtures are turned pernicious to the glory and honour of Christ's house which should not be a den of buyers and sellers. Although the suffering of our late brethren seemed to be heavy to bear, yet two prime truths were sealed with their blood (and that of the best, as of our honourable nobles, faithful ministers, gentry, burghers and commons of all sorts) which were never before sealed either by the blood of our primitive martyrs, our late martyrs in the dawning of our reformation; and the two truths were, Christ's headship in the church in despite of supremacy and bold erastianism, and our covenants: Which two great truths were in the mouths of all our worthies, when mounting their bloody theatres and scaffolds, ascending as it were up unto God in a perfumed cloud of transporting joy, that they were honoured to suffer upon such clear grounds. That supremacy was so agasted by our covenants, that no rest could it have till it got the grave stone laid upon them, and so conjured all who tasted the liquor of that supremacy, that the thoughts of getting the buried covenants out of the grave were more terrible to them than the devils, who are now in the place of our vows to God, managing their diabolical games in these places where the covenants were most in honour and request, the one burned and the other rising in its room. Much blood and treasure have been spent to set the flourishing crown upon Christ's head in Scotland. Declarations, acts of councils and parliament, remonstrances, engagements, vows and covenants; but the sealing blood of the late martyrs was the cope-stone of all. The primitive martyrs sealed the prophetic office of Christ with their hearts blood, the reforming martyrs sealed his priestly offices with their blood; but last of all our martyrs have sealed his kingly office with their best blood: They indeed have cemented it upon his royal head, so that to the end of the world it shall not drop off again. Let us never dream of a reviving spirit among us, till there be a reviving respect to these solemn vows of God. If there was but a little appearance of that spirit which actuated our worthy forefathers in our public assemblies and preachings, ye would see a wonderful alteration in the face of affairs: The fields, I assure you would look white near to harvest. If ye would adventure to trace our defections from the breach of the act of classes in the year 1650, all along to this day of our being bound in the grave of our neutrality, and all to edge up the spirit of the people to a due sense of our woful and irrevocable like backsliding from God (who hath acted many wonders for Scotland) you would find a perfumed smoke of incense springing from our altar in savoury and soul refreshing blessings. But ah! when shall this day dawn? so long as the common enemy are gaining their long-wished for hopes, That ministers in their public preaching must confine themselves to their nicknamed faith and repentance; without noticing any incroachments upon Christ's proper rights to his church in the glorious work of reformation, lest constructed fire-{illegible}ands and seditions, which in running the full career may gradually drop into superstition through neutrality, and thence plunge into an abyss of the shadow of popery. But to sum up shortly all my present thoughts of the time in this one, I cannot see an evasion of the church, in its present circumstance, from a sharp and more trying furnace than ever it has yet met with, come the trial from what airth it will, it fears me: Our principles are so slippry, and the truths of God so superficially rooted in us, that when we are thrown in the furnace, many of us shall melt to dross. It is many years since I heard one of the greatest seers in our nation, in horror and with fear, dreading the heavy judgments of God upon the biassed professors in the west of Scotland. But all that I say, not diminishing my hopes of the Lord's reserving his purchased inheritance in his own covenanted land, though Malachi be affrighted at the day of his coming, and be made to cry out, Who may abide it, chap. iii. 1, 2, 3. when he sits as refiner and purifier of the sons of Levi: A remnant shall be left, that shall be as the teil tree or the oak whose feed is in them, when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
"To revive a reflection upon two stupenduous passages of providence, I know would have an imbittering relish to many professors in our country side. The one is upon the last indulgence, wherein professors by bond and penalty obliged themselves to produce their minister before the council, when called. For this was a restriction so narrow, that all the freedom and faithfulness of ministers in their office was so blocked up, that either conscience towards God in discharging of necessary duties behoved utterly to be buried, or else the life of their minister exposed to sacrifice.—And if this be not an universal evil to be mourned over, let conscience and reason judge; yet this is looked upon to be but a trip, in these gloomy times, of inconsiderable moment, though it was the brat clecked by that supremacy, which not only hath wounded our solemn vows to death, but bound the freedom and faithfulness of the church seers, as to the public interest of Christ in their graves, &c.
"The other stupenduous providence is the obliterating the rich blessing of the gospel in our late suffering times, when blessings not only accompanied these solemn field-meetings, but extraordinary influences, in gifts of freedom and faithfulness, were poured down upon these ministers, who went out with their lives in their hands, setting their faces as flints against the heaven-daring violence done to the mediator. I call to mind a passage with perpetuated remembrance, that in one shire of this kingdom there were about thirty ministers who cheerfully offered up their service to Christ, all by turns out of Edinburgh. Each of these, when they returned back to Edinburgh again, being questioned what pleasure, what delight, and what liberty they had in managing that hazardous task? they answered, That so soon as they set foot in these bounds, another spirit came upon them; and no other reason could they give for it, but that God wrought so mightily, that they looked upon it as genius loci, that God sensibly at that time was in that county working wonders; but the most part of all these are in their places, resting on their beds, and their works follow them.
"Thus in answer to yours I have given you some of my confused thoughts of the present times, wishing you God's blessing in sucking honey out of the eater."
JOHN DICKSON.
Thus lived and died worthy Mr. John Dickson, in a good old age anno 1700, after he had, by his longevity, seen somewhat of the glory both of the first and second temple, and emerged forth of all his troubles, having got a most perspicuous view of our national apostacy, our breach of covenant and other defections past, present and to come, with the Lord's goodness and mercy toward his own remnant: And all this from the top of mount Pisgah, when he was just about to enter upon the confines of Emmanuel's land in glory.