These Covenants were deeds of lofty imperial significance. The reformation of the Church, however complete, would have been a limited Reformation. There are two powers ordained of God and both must be reformed. The comprehensive aims of the Covenanters embraced both State and Church. Their deeds were civil as well as ecclesiastical. A Church thoroughly reformed and Christian in a State unreformed and anti-Christian, would never have satisfied the Reformers. The State also must be no longer a vassal of the Pope, it must be a servant of the blessed and only Potentate. God in His word here also as in the Church must be joyfully granted the exclusive supremacy. The Covenanters vowed to defend the King in the defence and preservation of the reformed religion. They secured the recognition of the Church by Parliament. The members of Parliament themselves became Covenanters. In short, Christianity pervaded and adorned the constitution and administration of civil government in the United Kingdom. The Covenanters were convinced that no power, except that provided by the Word of God, could possibly resist the arbitrary claims of the monarchs, secure the safety of the State, and promote civil liberty in the land. Religion in the realm of citizenship is the very crown of any realm. In the face of the despotisms of Pope and Monarch, it would not have been surprising had the Covenanters invented and endeavoured to apply to the State the modern theory of religious equality, which denies the right of the State to even acknowledge the Prince of the kings of the earth. If ever they dreamt of such a theory, their thought of the supremacy of Jesus would make it vanish as a dream. Much less would they ever admit the possibility of deliverance by the theory of a concurrent recognition of all religions, as this would lower a nation to the position of heathenism with its "gods many," and would soon involve the strongest empire in disaster. Papalism in the State in the ascendancy, absolute Monarchism in the State, Secularism in the State, Polytheism in the State--these are four despotisms, and must be flung with detestation out of all Christian lands. The State that is not on the side of Christ, and Christ alone, is in antagonism to all the moral forces of the universe. Its throne is against the throne of the Highest. The Scottish Covenanters placed the crown of the State on the Head of its rightful Monarch, and so lifted their kingdom to imperial grandeur.