For though a people may very lawfully, by
a new bond, enlarge and add to their former obligations that they
brought themselves under; yet they can never, without involving
themselves in the guilt of perjury, relax or cancel former obligations
by any future bond. Accordingly, our worthy ancestors, by all the new
bonds they annexed to former obligations, were so far from attempting to
loose themselves from any covenanted duty that either they or their
fathers were priorly bound unto, that they thereby still brought
themselves under straighter bonds to perform all their former and new
obligations of duty to God. But, as has been discovered, _Seceders_, by
their artificial bond, have cast out the very substance and spirit of
the covenants, by their rumping and hewing them at pleasure, to reduce
them to the sinful circumstances of the time: and this, in opposition to
their own public profession, that these covenants are moral in their
nature and obligation upon these nations to the latest posterity. How
surprising it is then, that after such a profession, they dare cast out
of their bond the greatest parts of the covenants! This is not only to
break these obligations, but it is to make a public declaration, that
different times and circumstances do free men from their obligation to
keep their most solemn vows to the Most High.
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