The
presbytery's particular objections against this extraordinary measure
are of a different quality. They are briefly such as follow:
1. The _iniquity_ of it against God. It is certainly a deed highly
provoking and dishonoring to the God of heaven. For (1), it is a giving
that public protection and countenance to a _lie_, i.e. to idolatry and
false worship (and to anti-christian idolatry, the worst of all other),
which is only due to the truth of God. It is a devoting and giving our
national power to the preservation of the life of the Romish beast,
after the deadly wound given it by the Reformation. And therefore (2), a
most wretched prostitution of the ordinance of civil power, sacred by
its divine institution, to be _a terror_ and restraint _to evil doers,
and a praise to them that do well_, Rom. xiii,--to the quite contrary
purposes. What right have open idolaters and blasphemers to be protected
and supported by any ordinance of God in the public acts of their
idolatry? And how awful is it to think (3), that it is a setting
ourselves openly to fight against God, in a national engagement to
support and defend what God has declared and testified to us in his
word, he will have destroyed; and wherein he expressly forbids giving
the least countenance to idolatry.
Pages:
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489