influences:  yet, inasmuch as conscience is the rule ruled, not the rule, ruling, none can, without manifest sin, upon pretense of conscience or Christian liberty, cherish any forbidden lust in their souls, nor are left at freedom to reject any of the divine ordinances instituted in the word, to change or corrupt their scriptural institution, by immixing human inventions therewith, or in the least deviating from the punity thereof.  And that therefore, all who vent or maintain tenets or opinions, contrary to the established principles of Christianity, whether in the matter of doctrine, divine worship, or practice in life, which are contrary to, and inconsistent with the analogy of faith, and power of true godliness, or destructive to that pure peace and good order established by Christ in his church, are accountable unto the church; and upon conviction, ought to be proceeded against, by inflicting ecclesiastical censures or civil pains, in a way agreeable unto the divine determination in the word concerning such offenses.

And further, they declare, that it is most wicked, and what manifestly strikes against the sovereign authority of God, for any power on earth to pretend to tolerate, and, by sanction of civil law, to give license to men to publish and propagate with impunity, whatever errors, heresies, and damnable doctrines, Satan, and their own corrupt and blinded understandings, may prompt them to believe and embrace; toleration being destructive of all true religion, and of that liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free; and the great end thereof, which is, “That being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we may serve the Lord—­in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our lives.”  Agreeable to James iv, 12; Rom. xiv, 4; Acts iv, 19, and v, 29; 1 Cor. vii, 23; Matth. xxiii, 9; 2 John 10, 11; 2 Cor. i, 24; Matth. xv, 9; Col. ii, 20, 22, 23; Gal. ii, 4, 5, and v, 1, 13; Isa. viii, 20; Acts xvii, 11; Hosea v, 11; 1 Cor. v, 1,5, 11, 13; Tit. i. 10, 11, 13, and iii, 20; Matth. xviii, 15-17; Deut. xiii, 6-12; Ezek. vii, 23, 25, 26; Zech. xiii, 2, 3; Rev. ii, 2, 14, 15, 20; Confess, chap. 20; Larg.  Cat. quest. 100, 103; Sh.  Cat. quest. 49, 50.

XIV.  OF TESTIMONY-BEARING.—­Again, they declare and assert, that all true believers, members of the church invisible, are by the indissoluble bond of the Spirit, and true faith in Christ, their Head, savingly united unto, and have communion with him in grace and in glory, in this life and the life to come.  In all their afflictions he is afflicted, and shares with them in their sufferings and trials, is with them in and through death, exalteth them at last over all their enemies, receiving them into glory and blessedness with himself, that they may behold and share in his glory with him through eternity:  and that all of them being knit and joined together in holy love and affection, do participate mutually of each others gifts and graces; and are indispensably bound to exercise themselves in the practice of all