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, 24th JULY, 1712, WITH ACCOMMODATION TO THE
(THEN) PRESENT TIMES.

PSALM lxxvi:  11.  Vow and pay unto the Lord your God.

ISAIAH xxiv:  5.  The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof:  because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

EZEK. xvii:  18.  Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant (when, lo, he had given his hand), and hath done all these things, he shall not escape.

2 TIM. iii:  3.  Truce-breakers—­or Covenant-breakers.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

It is the ineffable product of eternal love, and infinite condescension in God toward his rational creatures, that ever he was pleased to make a covenant with them, and not to command and require obedience to his holy and just will, by virtue of his most absolute supremacy and rightful dominion only; but even to superadd sweet and precious promises, as a reward of that obedience, which he might of right have required, without giving any such incitements or pursuasives to it.  And as no tongue of men or angels is sufficient to express, no strength of imagination to conceive, no sublimity of intellectual faculties to comprehend the depth of that spring, and breadth of that ocean of unbounded love, which hath exerted itself in God’s covenanting with man; yea, with sinful man, by means of a Mediator:  so shall it always afford matter of wonder and admiration to all finite and intelligent beings, to the ages of eternity, and shall never be comprehended by any, but by him whose understanding is infinite; wherefore He, who is all-sufficient and self-sufficient, should invite, yea, press and entreat unworthy indigent nothings, the sinful children of men to such an incomparable degree of honor, dignity and advancement, as that is, to enter into a covenant relation, and come into a solemn treaty of peace and conjunction with Him, who is infinitely removed beyond all blessing and all praise.  To have this invitation, is indeed the honor and privilege of all within the visible church, to whose ears the joyful sound of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ hath come; but few are so wise as to accept and approve it.  Many, too many, account themselves unworthy of this honor, and by despising this privilege, and rejecting this dignity, deprive themselves of the greatest happiness; but as all nations, upon whom the day-star of the gospel hath arisen, have had the invitation to this duty, and all sound and real believers have actually participated of this honor, to have God making a covenant with them, and they striking hands with Him through a Mediator (which covenant is commonly termed the Covenant of Grace,) so these three kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland