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Updated: June 26, 2025
We all and every one of us being by the good hand of our God upon us, now, after a long and due deliberation, determined to testify to the world, for the glory of God, and the exoneration of our consciences, in the matter of our duty, our adherance to the whole of our attained Reformation, by renewing these our vows and Covenant-engagements with God, and knowing that it is a necessary preparative for the right performance of that so great and solemn a duty, that we be duly sensible of, and deeply humbled for the many heinous breaches thereof, which these nations, and we ourselves in particular are guilty of; do therefore, with that measure of sorrow and repentance which God of his mercy shall be pleased to grant us, desire to acknowledge and confess our own sins and violations of these vows, and the sins and transgressions of our fathers; to which we have also an example left us by the Cloud of witnesses, which through faith and patience have inherited the promises, ever since the Lord had a visible national church upon earth, and more especially by our progenitors in this nation; as, for instance, in the year 1596, "Wherein the General Assembly, and all the kirk judicatories, with the concurrence of many of the nobility, gentry and burgesses, did with many tears acknowledge the breach of the National Covenant, and engaged themselves into a reformation, even as our predecessors, and theirs, had done in the General Assembly and Convention of Estates in the year 1567."
But to finish this part of the discourse, which I intend for as complete an epitome of ancient prudence, and in that of the whole art of politics, as I am able to frame in so short a time: The two first orders, that is to say, the Senate and the people, are legislative, whereunto answers that part of this science which by politicians is entitled "of laws;" and the third order is executive, to which answers that part of the same science which is styled "of the frame and course of courts or judicatories."
We must distinguish a twofold power of the keys: the one is executed in doctrine; the other in discipline: the one concionalis; the other judicialis. When we ascribe the power of binding and loosing to that whole consistory, wherein governing elders are joined together with pastors, we mean only of the keys of external discipline, which are used in ecclesiastical courts and judicatories.
In this they seem to have fallen upon a very good expedient for their own happiness and safety; for since the good or ill condition of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates, they could not have made a better choice than by pitching on men whom no advantages can bias; for wealth is of no use to them, since they must so soon go back to their own country, and they, being strangers among them, are not engaged in any of their heats or animosities; and it is certain that when public judicatories are swayed, either by avarice or partial affections, there must follow a dissolution of justice, the chief sinew of society.
It is that the missionaries become members of the Mission Church Judicatories as above; but that these Judicatories be organized as parts of the home churches, so that the missionaries will still be under the jurisdiction of the home churches through the subjection of the Mission Judicatories to the higher at home.
The reply was "This Synod never understood any act of theirs, relative to their members sitting on juries, or contravening the old common law of the church on that subject;" a response obviously as equivocal as the preceding. As early as 1823, a motion was made in the Synod to open a correspondence with the judicatories of other denominations.
His facts and proceedings, it is true, were cruel, unjust, impious. But why inflicted in every synagogue, rather than in other places, and that by virtue of the high priest's letters, Acts ix. 1, 2; but there the Jews had judicatories, that inflicted public punishments upon persons ecclesiastically offending?
There is a fourfold reformation in scripture, and contained in the league and covenant. 1. A personal reformation. 2. A family reformation. 3. A reformation of judicatories. 4. A reformation of the whole land. Kings have had their hand in all the four; and therefore I recommend them to our king. A personal reformation.
"For their crimes have not only been connived at, but dispensed with and pardoned, and themselves received into intimate fellowship, intrusted with counsels, admitted into parliaments, and put in places of power and authority for managing the public affairs of the kingdom; whereby, in God's justice, they got at last into their hands the whole power and strength of the kingdom, both in judicatories and armies, and did employ the same unto the enacting and prosecuting an unlawful engagement in war against the kingdom of England, notwithstanding the dissent of many considerable members of parliament, who had given constant proof of their integrity in the cause from the beginning; of many faithful testimonies and free warnings of the servants of God; of the supplications of many synods, presbyteries, and shires; and the declaration of the General Assembly and their Commissioners to the contrary; which engagement, as it was the cause of much sin, so also of much misery and calamity unto this land, and held forth the grievousness of our sin, in complying with malignants in the greatness of our judgment, that we may be taught never to split again upon the same rock, upon which the Lord hath set so remarkable a beacon.
Topsy was cited, and had up before all the domestic judicatories, time and again; but always sustained her examinations with most edifying innocence and gravity of appearance. Nobody in the world ever doubted who did the things; but not a scrap of any direct evidence could be found to establish the suppositions, and Miss Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to proceed to any length without it.
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