While the war-cloud was thickening, the English Parliament sent a delegation to Scotland to consult with the Covenanters in expectation of receiving aid.  The question was entrusted to a Joint Commission.  The deliberations were deep and far-reaching; the men in council were among the wisest and best in the two kingdoms.  They weighed the momentous interests involved in the pending war, that eventually convulsed England and watered her soil with fraternal blood.  The liberty of both kingdoms, the progress of the Gospel, the purity of religion, the independence of the Church, the inheritance of the Covenants, the onward movement of Christianity—­yea, their own homes, possessions, liberties, and lives—­all were at stake in the crisis that darkened the land.  These men turned to God in prayer to meet the task that burdened their hearts and taxed their wisdom.

Dangers, too, were thickening around Scotland as well as England, like storm-clouds concentrating for a destructive outburst.  The king was planning to restore the Scottish Prelacy to power; he still hoped to fight his way victoriously into Edinburgh; he had hired an army of 10,000 men to invade Scotland; he had watched with apparent complacency, we will not say his sanction, the slaughter of 200,000 Protestants in Ireland by the Papists.  Such were the conditions in both kingdoms, which these counselors had to face.  Dark were the days when this Joint Commission was in session.  Scotland was harassed by internal foes, England was convulsed in a dreadful strife, and poor Ireland lay bleeding from a thousand wounds.  But here was a band of men whose hearts reached up to God for counsel, and they were made equal to the occasion.  They knew how to take hold upon Omnipotence and secure the help of heaven.  They had access to the Eternal Throne, and were able to call into service God’s chariots and angels, and fill the mountains with armies which, though invisible to mortal eyes, were invincible in the presence of all the hosts of the king, and all the legions of Satan.  Listen to the cry that goes up from that Council Chamber—­“The Covenants!  The Covenants!”

Scotland had a beaten path up the mountain of God, leading to the ever-available Covenant.  Again she climbs the heights, and this time leads her two trembling sisters, England and Ireland, by the hand.  And there, on the top of the mountain where the glory of the Lord shines like the sun in his strength, the three kingdoms, Scotland, England, and Ireland, enter into the solemn League and covenant.

We would appreciate our Covenanted privileges more highly, if we considered more carefully the difficulties our ancestors overcame in reaching the Covenant heights.  Let us take heed lest, like a foolish heir squandering his father’s wealth, we waste our inheritance, which is more precious than gold, more priceless than life.

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