Points for the class.

1.  How did the Covenanters meet the king’s second appeal to arms?

2.  How was England disturbed at this time?

3.  What Joint Commission was then created?

4.  What was its purpose?

5.  What did it accomplish?

6.  What was the intention of the Solemn League and Covenant?

7.  Why should we appreciate our Covenanted inheritance?

XVII.

High ideals by the covenanted fathers.—­A.D. 1643.

The Solemn League and Covenant of Scotland, England, and Ireland is the high-water mark in the moral progress of nations.  But the flood of Divine glory, which then covered these three kingdoms, quickly subsided and has remained ever since far below that conspicuous mark.  God honored these nations with the greatest privilege accorded to Civil society, and brought them into the most blessed relation to himself.  But they lightly esteemed the favor and revolted from the Covenant.  He therefore hid His countenance, withdrawing the assistance and protection which they so gratefully accepted in distress, but deceitfully rejected when prosperity returned.  The relapse threw them suddenly into direful conditions of misrule, oppression, and profuse bloodshed, which continued nearly half a century.

The Covenant of the three kingdoms, though short-lived in its beneficent effect, was of immense value to the world.  Like the morning star, it heralded the coming of a bright day to all nations.  The star may be hidden by thickening clouds, but the sun will not fail to rise.  This Covenant stands as a pledge of the ultimate condition of all nations, points the way into the shining heights of God’s favor, and warns against the aggravated sin of breaking relation with the Lord.  It was the first blast of the trumpet that will one day announce the submission of the kingdoms of the world to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Scottish fathers evidently regarded Covenanted union as the normal relation existing between God and man, God and the Church, God and all the nations.  Any thing less than this was, in their estimation, sub-normal, imperfect, unworthy, dangerous, disastrous to man, and offensive to God.  They loved their Covenant, flew to it in times of danger as doves to the clefts of the rock, and reproached themselves for lightly esteeming the inestimable privilege.

These Covenanters took their position at the throne of the Lord Jesus, and contemplated with rapturous delight His many crowns and the magnificence of His kingdom.  Their vast horizon took in heaven and earth, time and eternity, God and man.  In their eyes the affairs of the world fell into subordinate relations, while the interests of the Church loomed up in over-awing proportions.