Solemn League and Covenant

“ We enter into the Solemn Covenant appended hereto, and, knowing the greatness of the issues depending on our faithfulness, we promise each to the others that, to the uttermost of the strength and means given us, and not regarding any selfish or private interest, our substance or our lives, we will make good the said Covenant ”

“ But here we must mention that by quite an unexpected vision against the wishes of the medium and his wife our doctrine has been illustrated, to wit, that those who make a covenant with our Peace-Union community, separate so from those who remain in Babylon, that if of those who are married, one partner would make such a covenant, but the other would remain in Babylon, we would do all in our power to draw also that partner into our community. ”

“ But if he or she would remain obstinate despiser of our Heavenly message, we according to Divine law would consider the person who made the covenant with our Peace-Union as perfectly free to marry a person belonging to our community, and labor at the same time to convert the Government to acknowledge our mission and the Divine law made manifest by our mediumship. "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder." ”

“ There the luminary of the day goes down at a plunge into the dark. So had the day of liberty in England gone down at a stride into the night of tyranny." The oppressed people turned to the Covenanters of Scotland for sympathy and counsel. The negotiations resulted in the preparation of an international league in defence of religion and liberty. Against the banner of the King they raised the banner of the Covenant. Alexander Henderson drafted the new Bond. ”

“ I am shut up in my room all day working. I do not go into the open air any oftener than a prisoner might. But I console myself with the thought that I can go out whenever I take it into my head. And I am sure a similar reflection on membership of the League would be equally soothing. I am in favor of the motion."
The center of interest during the drafting of the Covenant lay in the clause proclaiming the equality of religions, which Mr. Wilson was bent on having passed at all costs, if not in one form, then in another. ”

“ And let those especially be observed and avoided, who do, or shall endeavour a division and breach between the Kingdoms, or the making of any factions or parties contrary to the Covenant, under pretence of preserving the King and his Authority, whilst they do not constantly and sincerely prosecute and press our frequent desires of his subscribing the League and Covenant, and giving satisfaction in all things to the just desires of both Kingdoms ”

“ The times do not allow of it. Again, contrast the opulent and luxurious age of Solomon, though the covenant was then openly acknowledged and outwardly accepted, more fully than at any other time, with the vision of simple piety and plain straightforward obedience, which is the scope of the Mosaic Law. ”

“ This bond, the most benevolent and the strongest that ever bound man to a country, was the bond of the Covenant. If Israel had held the institutions of her lawgiver inviolate, she would have seen the Assyrian, the Egyptian, and the Roman, with all their multitudes, only food for the vulture. But we were a rebellious people; we sullied the purity of the Mosaic ordinances; we abandoned the sublime ceremonial of divine worship for the profligate rites of paganism; we rejected the Lord of the theocracy for the pomps of an earthly king. ”

“ Through membership in such a society alone, and through the submissions and limitations on his personal liberty which such membership involves, does he become capable of any degree of free or high developement as an individual. This law, then, of man's nature appears equally in the method of his redemption. Under the old covenant it was to members of the 'commonwealth of Israel' that the blessings of the covenant belonged. ”

“ Opposition to League growing more intense from day to day. Its bitterness and pettiness producing reaction. New polls throughout country indicate strong drift toward league. League of Nations and just peace inseparable. Neither half can stand alone. Know you will not be drawn away from announced programme to incorporate League covenant in treaty. You can afford to go any length in insisting upon this. There is no doubt of your success here and abroad. The real friends of a constructive peace have not begun to fight. ”

“ But the Covenant limits the applicability of this system to "those colonies and territories which, as a consequence of the late war, have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly owned them, and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world." The Covenant goes on to say that the well-being and development of such peoples forms a sacred trust of civilisation, and that their "tutelage" should be entrusted to "advanced nations," who would be the League's mandatories. ”

“ Its realization was not expected by David in the time of Solomon. It was "for a great while to come." What does it involve? In the tenth verse it is said, "Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime." Here we have the place in which Israel is to be planted when the covenant is fully realized; hence we may safely conclude that the kingdom will have literal territory. ”

“ The Covenanters, then, had not been idle. Shortly after the Restoration they had, through a deputation of their elders and ministers, called upon their brethren of the Church to unite with them in an address to the King, praying him, as a member of the Covenant with themselves, to remember his obligations to that sacred institution and zealously to prosecute its blessed work in all his three kingdoms. Toleration in things religious was especially denounced as a vast mischief disguised under the specious pretence of liberty for tender consciences. ”

“ Does this League of Nations which has been created by the covenant of 1919 contain within it the germ of any permanent{v2-584} federation of human effort? Will it grow into something for which, as Stallybrass says, men will be ready to “work whole-heartedly and, if necessary, fight”—as hitherto they have been willing to fight for their country and their own people? There are few intimations of any such enthusiasm for the League at the present time. The League does not even seem to know how to talk to common men. ”

“ Article 2 of the Protocol with verbal changes.
The Members of the League agree in no case to resort to war either with one another or against a State which, if the occasion arises, accepts all the obligations of the Covenant, except in case of resistance to acts of aggression or when acting in agreement with the Council or the Assembly in accordance with the provisions of the Covenant. ”

“ A nation which accepted arbitration had a right to security. "Justice without might is impotent. Might without justice is tyranny." In conclusion: "We stand by the Covenant, but we wish to make it a living Covenant. We simply claim for each nation the rights conferred upon it by the Covenant, no more and no less." ”

“ It gives the impression that many clauses were accepted under the pressing necessity of ending the Commission's labors within a fixed time. The document itself bears evidence of the haste with which it was prepared, and is almost conclusive proof in itself that it was adopted through personal influence rather than because of belief in the wisdom of all its provisions.
The Covenant of the League of Nations was intended to be the greatest international compact that had ever been written. ”

“ The League has succumbed to this reversion to a cynical materialism. It is no longer a creature of idealism. Its very source and reason have been dried up and have almost disappeared. The danger is that it will become a bulwark of the old order, a check upon all efforts to bring man again under the influence which he has lost."
The President, in the addresses which he afterward made in advocacy of the Covenant and of ratification of the Treaty, indicated clearly the wide divergence of opinion between us as to the character of the League provided for in the Treaty. ”

“ For why should not every one value the public above the private, the common good before his own?
The fifth, the preservation of the union, and of the pacification between the two kingdoms. This is the matter of all civil leagues. Such a league made Isaac with Abimelech, Jacob with Laban, David with Hiram. But chiefly such a pacification doth God promise to make between Israel and Judah. They should both live under one king, so do the English and Scots: and both dwell in one land, so do the English and Scots: they shall have the same ministry and religion ”

“ The Tables determined to publish a Solemn Covenant between the people and the Almighty to stand by their religion to the death. Their fathers, at the time of the Reformation, had adopted such an instrument. The great nobles of the time had sworn to maintain the principles of Wishart and Knox, and to defend the preachers of those doctrines against the powers of Antichrist and the monarchy. James had sworn to adhere to this confession of faith, with all their households and all classes of people, in the years 1580, 1581, and 1590. ”

“ In case any Member of the League shall, before becoming a Member of the League, have undertaken any obligations inconsistent with the terms of this Covenant, it shall be the duty of such Member to take immediate steps to procure its release from such obligations.
Article 21 Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace. ”

“ Should I even be singular, I cannot help thinking that the reign of Solomon began rather inauspiciously: even a brother's blood must be shed to cause him to sit securely on his throne, and a most reprehensible alliance, the forerunner of many others of a similar nature, was formed for the same purpose. But we must ever be careful to distinguish between what God has commanded to be done, and what was done through the vile passions and foolish jealousies of men. ”

“ And, next, to put a full stop to all endeavours of uniformity and union in the Lord's way, and to bring the nation under an indespensible necessity of covenant breaking, this nation hath entered into an incorporating union with England in such terms, and upon such conditions as formally and explicitly established Prelacy as the Church-government there to all succeeding generations; and that while, in the meantime, all manner of Sectarian errors are there encouraged, maintained, and supported by means of a toleration. ”

“ Defection had swept the great body of Covenanters from their basis. Under the strain of persecution and the snare of the royal Indulgence, many ministers and people had abandoned wholly, or in degree, Reformation grounds. The Society People alone refused to make concessions by which truth would be suppressed, conscience defiled, or any divine principle surrendered. They stood by the Covenant, and accepted the consequences, including hardest service and greatest sufferings.
The Society People have been censured for exclusiveness ”

“ About the same time when we were ensnared in these unscriptural confederacies, occasional hearing naturally became developed in a sabbath-school, which for a short time was conducted jointly by three denominations in Pittsburgh—Covenanters, Seceders and Associate Reformed, violating our covenanted unity and erecting an unauthorized agency for spiritual instruction. The General Synod did, in 1840, abolish its own deligation form and the Subordinate Synods in violation of conventional law and Presbyterial order, and still continues to adhere to this two-fold breach of the brotherly covenant. ”

“ Because of the courses that are carried on in direct opposition to these covenants; the nations, formerly cemented in peace and love in conjunction with truth and righteousness, having broken these bonds, and united themselves upon another footing, by the late sinful incorporating union: and imposing new oaths in opposition to the covenant; such as abjuration, &c. granting license, protection and toleration to all the evils abjured in the covenant; as heresies and errors in doctrine, superstition in worship, Prelacy and Erastianism in government, and overthrowing all good discipline. ”

“ Verse 1
Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh - This was no doubt a political measure in order to strengthen his kingdom, and on the same ground he continued his alliance with the king of Tyre; and these were among the most powerful of his neighbors. But should political considerations prevail over express laws of God? God had strictly forbidden his people to form alliances with heathenish women, lest they should lead their hearts away from him into idolatry. Let us hear the law: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them ”

“ They must conclude a binding treaty and establish a covenant, the provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to all the world and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race. This supreme and noble undertaking—the real source of the peace and well-being of all the world—should be regarded as sacred by all that dwell on earth. All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to ensure the stability and permanence of this Most Great Covenant. ”

“ Thus it is manifest, that nations in their organised capacity are called to engage in this service. Rulers, both in church and state, in their official capacity are bound to do so. The people themselves collectively are called to this; and laws, civil and ecclesiastical, sanctioning the exercise should be made, so that the contravention of the ends of the Covenant entered into should be condemned, and that those who would be hostile to the design of it, should be kept from places of power and trust, both in church and state. ”