Produced by Jordan Dohms and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber's Note: All items in the Errata have been corrected in the text, however the Errata has still been included for completeness.] [Illustration: THE GRASSMARKET, EDINBURGH.] THE COVENANTS AND THE COVENANTERS COVENANTS, SERMONS, AND DOCUMENTS OF THE COVENANTED REFORMATION. _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._ INTRODUCTION ON THE NATIONAL COVENANTS BY REV. JAMES KERR, D.D., GLASGOW EDINBURGH: R.W. HUNTER, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. THE COVENANTS AND THE COVENANTERS. [Illustration] PREFATORY NOTE. The Covenants, Sermons, and Papers in this volume carry the readers back to some of the brightest periods of Scottish history. They mark important events in that great struggle by which these three kingdoms were emancipated from the despotisms of Pope, Prince, and Prelate, and an inheritance of liberty secured for these Islands of the Sea. The whole achievements of the heroes of the battlefields are comprehended under that phrase of Reformers and Martyrs, "The Covenanted Work of Reformation." The attainments of those stirring times were bound together by the Covenants, as by rings of gold. The Sermons here were the product of the ripe thought of the main actors in the various scenes--men of piety, learning, and renown. Hence, the nature, objects, and benefits of personal and national Covenanting are exhibited in a manner fitted to attract to that ordinance the minds and hearts of men. The readers can well believe the statement of Livingstone, who was present at several ceremonies of covenant-renovation: "I never saw such motions from the Spirit of God. I have seen more than a thousand persons all at once lifting up their hands, and the tears falling down from their eyes." In the presence of the defences of the Covenants as deeds, by these preachers, the baseless aspersions of novelists and theologues fade out into oblivion.