"That profanity hath been much winked at, and profane persons much countenanced, and many times employed, till iniquity and ungodliness have gone over the land as a flood; and profanity, beginning at the court, hath spread itself through every rank and quality in the land: so that immoralities and sins against every precept of both tables are greatly abounding." As, namely, great contempt of God and godliness, ignorance, atheism and irreligion, unsuitable walking to the knowledge of him and his perfections which we have, and not labouring in the use of means to attain more. Much neglect of pressing after peace and reconciliation with him, through a Mediator, and of living up to the profession which we make of him. Despising of his holy ordinances and means of worship; deafness and stupidity under the calls of his Word. Profanation of his holy sacraments, neglect of secret prayer (wherein much of the life of religion lies), and of prayer in families, or a negligent, careless and superficial performance thereof; many using a formality of words and expressions learned by custom. Some using our blessed Lord's prayer as a set form, which ought to be used as a rule of direction in all our prayers, and not as a dead form of words: many seeking more to be seen of men in this and all other duties, than to approve themselves to God, and more careful to come by apposite words and expressions, when praying with others, than to attain and entertain the breathings and influences of the Spirit of God. Much neglect of propagating Christian knowledge in congregations and families; ministers and masters of families not making diligent search into the knowledge of the flocks and families under their charge, and instructing them suitably. Much swearing and profanation of God's name, by loose and vain oaths in common discourse: yea, swearing by the creatures—as, soul, faith, conscience, and the like, thereby sacrilegiously attributing to them divine honour; as also, by imposing upon all persons in any public trust the unlimited and unlawful oath of allegiance, together with the bond of assurance, and the oath of abjuration, contrary to the oath of the covenant, thereby debauching people's consciences, and involving them in the guilt of perjury. Great profanation of the holy Sabbath, and neglect or careless performance of the duties therein required; breaking it by unnecessary feasting, walking, idle, vain and impertinent discourse, and such like recreations; yea, by hunting, hawking, riding and going of journeys, sounding trumpets before their lords of Justiciary when going to church, reading of proclamations wholly irrelative to religion, and making publications not necessary nor expedient to be made upon that day. Much disobedience to parents, and undue carriage of persons of all ranks and relations towards each other. Great murder and bloodshed, so that the land is defiled with blood, and that not only the blood of the Lord's people, who, in the times of persecution, were led forth like sheep to the slaughter, because of their adherence to their duty, and refusing conformity with wicked courses and subjection to wicked laws, eversive of their covenant engagements, not yet mourned over, nor purged away by the blood of those that shed it; but likewise many through the land are murdered frequently, and the murderers are not prosecuted with due severity: nay, such are the methods that are now taken to embolden the wicked in that and all other crimes, that whatever presumptions of guilt may be had, or how ample confession soever be made, if it be extrajudicial, and the very fact not proved by witnesses, the delinquent is passed over and absolved as a well-doer, and many actually convicted of murder are indemnified and let pass unpunished.
Much uncleanness and filthiness, adultery, fornication, incest, bestiality, sodomy, lasciviousness, promiscuous dancing, stage plays, excessive drinking, vanity in apparel, and the like abominable unchastity and incentives to it. Much stealing, robbery and oppression, grinding the faces of the poor by unjust taxations and heavy impositions, and by hindering the poor from begging, for the support of their lives in times of scarcity, by a wicked edict. Perverting of justice in law suits; lawyers and advocates finding means, for their own gain and worldly advantage, to obtain decisive sentences in favor of the rich, contrary to justice and equity; much cheating and deceiving in bargaining; forestalling of markets in times of scarcity; depriving the poor of their habitations and livelihoods by building of parks and in-closures; tenants taking leases over their neighbor's head, and the like. It is, moreover, to be bewailed that many ministers, who should be examples of charity and good works, are ringleaders in this sin of oppression. Much lying and bearing of false witness, defaming one another's good name, reproaching persons for their adherence to the truths and cause of Christ, or for discovering any piece of zeal and affection that way. Much covetousness and worldly-mindedness, repining, murmuring and discontentment with God's dispensations; revenge, wrath, malice, envy, bitterness and innumerable sins, both against the precepts of the moral law, and the offers of Christ in the Gospel, which plainly says that we have not used the endeavours which in this Article we promise, for "Rooting up profaneness and whatsoever is found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness, lest we partake of other men's sins, and so be in danger to receive of their plagues." Nay, hath not much unsound doctrine been maintained in the arguments which have been used for defending the lawfulness of the courses of compliance with Prelacy and Erastianism? and these, amongst other unsound notions, have been entertained amongst us—"That lesser and circumstantial truths are not to be suffered for; that confession of these truths hath not been called for in our day; that people are not in hazard of the sins of others, especially of magistrates and ministers, if they do not directly act the same sins themselves; that sins of bypast times (if they be not presently practiced) are not to be confessed, nor the persons guilty to be stood at a distance from, till they give evident documents of their repentance;" contrary to express and plain Scripture.
2 Sam. xxi. 1; 2 Sam. xxiv. 17; 2 Kings xxi. 11, 12; Isa. xliii. 27, 28; Jer. xiv. 15,16; Mic. iii. 11, 12.
Whence both ministers and people have been involved in the sins of Prelacy, Indulgence, Toleration, Erastianism, subjecting the government of the church to the secular and civil authority; while they thought these only to be the sins of Prelates, or of wicked and usurping rulers; they in the meantime yielding all the conformity with, submission unto, and approbation of them, that was by wicked laws required. On the other hand, many of us have rested too much in a non-compliance with these, and "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof."
In the third Article, whereas we are bound, "in our several vocations, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of Parliaments, and liberties of the kingdoms;" meaning the true, real and righteous privileges and liberties—consonant to the Word of God.
Deut. i. 13; Deut. xvi. 18; Isa. i. 26.
Likeas, all lieges are bound by the laws of the land inserted in the National Covenant, to "maintain the authority of Parliaments, without which neither any laws nor lawful judicatories can be established." Yet as our fathers had reason to complain "that neither had the privileges of the Parliament nor liberties of the subject been duly tendered; but some amongst them had laboured to put into the hands of the king an arbitrary and unlimited power destructive to both; and many of them had been accessory to those means and ways whereby the freedom and privileges of Parliaments had been encroached upon, and the subjects oppressed in their consciences, persons and estates;" so afterwards, all alongst the tract of tyranny and persecution, they had rather the name and show than the real power and privileges of lawfully constituted Parliaments; having advanced the royal prerogative to such a boundless pitch of arbitrariness, and being so corrupted, that faithful men and honest and honourable patriots were excluded, and those admitted who by the law of God and man should have been debarred; and so prelimited that the members behoved to take such oaths (for instance, the declaration and test, abjuring and condemning the Covenants) as engaged them to be perjured and conjured enemies both to our religion and liberty, which both the electors of Members of Parliament and the elected did sinfully comply with; neither did the body of the land make conscience of recovering these rights and privileges thus perverted and polluted; but in stupid subjection did own those for representatives who betrayed their liberties, and made laws to enslave the nation and entail slavery upon, posterity. On the other hand, they that disowned them did not make conscience of preserving those rights and privileges of supreme judicatories, when inadvertently and unadvisedly they put in such expressions and styles in some of their declarations as do not belong to private persons, but only to such judicatories. And not only then, but since the Revolution, have there been many ways taken for corrupting and depriving the Members of Parliament; as that all members and electors of members have been obliged to take the oath of allegiance, with the assurance to such as did, and do, in their dominions, support Prelacy and exercise an Erastian supremacy over the church of Christ.
And now, last of all, by the means of this fatal Union with England, in terms and upon conditions inconsistent with our covenanted Union, engaged to in the League and Covenant; the nation's sovereignty and independency are given up, the rights of Parliament entirely lost, or vanished into a shadow, little preferable to no Parliament; so few being to represent this nation in the Parliament of Great Britain, as can never be able to prevent, by their number of voices, any act which it shall please the English to make, how destructive soever the same be to our sacred or civil concerns. Which treaty of Union was concluded in a Parliament as manifestly prelimited, as any which ever was seen in Scotland; the members were corrupted with bribes and preferment, and so engaged to act contrary to the will and mind of those whome they did represent, and to comply with that stratagem hatched by the English, for enslaving this poor nation, and denuded it of its privileges, as well sacred as civil. And alas! how insignificant were the endeavours then used to prevent that course, and preserve the privileges of the Parliament and liberties of this kingdom? only some faint addresses, all other attempts being laid aside at their Queen's command, by her proclamation, as treasonable convocation of the lieges.
Again, the subject's liberties, both as men and as Christian, which the scriptures allow, we should preserve,
I Sam. xiv. 25; Acts xxii. 25,28; xxv. 11,16,27; Gal. v. 1.