With reference to the third Article, wherein we are bound to defend the privileges of the Parliament, liberties of the kingdoms, and the King’s Majesty’s person and authority, in the defence of the true Reformed religion:  albeit God, in his righteous judgment, hath left the nations so far to the counsels of their own hearts, as to suffer them to set up Magistrates, wanting the qualifications requisite, and to fill places of power and trust with insufficient and disaffected persons, who have no respect to the interest of religion, and this nation in particular to give up the rights and privileges of Parliament, and kingdom, to the will and lust of the English, and so to betray the interest both of religion and civil liberty for unworthy by-ends; yet we purpose and promise, that we shall always in our capacities bear witness against these courses, and shall not by any means corroborate them, or encourage and countenance the maintainers and abettors of them.  And if ever the Lord in his mercy shall be pleased to open a door of relief, and break the cords of the ungodly, we shall not be wanting in all lawful and suitable endeavors to promote, to our power, the recovery of that liberty and freedom which we have lost, and to have those acts and oaths, which impede Reformation, rescinded:  and that all the righteous laws, made in favor of the Covenanted Reformation, may be put in full force, and duly executed.

We shall earnestly pray to God that he would give us able men, men of truth, fearing God and hating covetousness, to bear charge over his people, and that all places of power and trust in church, state, or army, may consist of, and be filled with men of known good affection to the cause of God, and of a Christian and blameless conversation; and when it shall please the Lord to give us such magistrates and judges supreme and subordinate, then we will, in the terms of the covenant, yield allegiance to them, and loyally subject to their good government, not from any by-end or sinistrous principle, but out of sincere obedience to God’s commandment; and shall willingly support and defend them, with our estates and lives, in their persevering and defending the true reformed Protestant religion, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, and suppressing all kinds of false religion in their dominions, and in the administration of justice and punishment of iniquity; but while the Lord, in his just displeasure for our sins, withholds such from us, we intend to wait till he turn away his anger, and not to stretch forth our hands to iniquity, in owning and countenancing such as are not duly qualified; as, particularly, those that are Popish or Prelatical in their professed principle and practice, and by oaths engage themselves to maintain, and accordingly to defend, the Prelatical form of church government, who oppose and encroach upon the true government of Christ’s house by their supremacy, and tolerate Sectarian errors in their dominions, and that every one of them supreme and subordinate; and shall not corroborate their unjust authority, by pacing them cess and supply, for upholding their corrupt courts and armies, employed in an unjust and antichristian quarrel; or, by compearing before their judicatories, either to defend or pursue lawsuits, or upon any other account.