The Covenants And The Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation
Religion
The Covenants And The Covenanters: Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation
Covenanters -- Scotland -- History -- Sources; Presbyterian Church -- Scotland -- History -- Sources
Now, is there any of you but ye are obleist (obliged) to be holy? Ye say
that ye are the people of the Lord. If so be, then ye must have your
inward man purged of sin, and ye must stand at the stave's end against
the corruptions of the time, and ye must devote yourselves only to serve
and honour God. And your Covenant, that ye are to swear to this day,
oblishes you to this; and it requires nothing of you but that whilk ye
are bound to perform. And, therefore, seeing this is required of you,
purge yourselves within, flee the corruptions of the time, eschew the
society of those whom ye see to be corrupt, and devote yourselves only
to the Lord. Yet this is not that we would obleish you to perform
everything punctually that the Lord requires of you; there is none who
can do that, but promise to the Lord to do so, tell Him that ye have a
desire to do so, and join a resolution and a purpose, and say to Him,
Lord, I sall prease (earnestly endeavour) to do als far as I can. And,
indeed, there is no more in our covenant but this, that we sall
endeavour to keep ourselves within the bounds of our Christian liberty;
and, albeit, none of you would swear to this, ye are bound to it by your
baptism. And, therefore, think not that we are precisians, (or these who
has set down this covenant), seeing all of you are bound to do it.
Secondly, "The _beauties_ of holiness." Consider here that as holiness
is necessar for the saints of God, so all God's courtiers they are full
of beauty. God Himself is full of beauty, and we have no power, beauty
nor holiness but in His power, beauty, and holiness. Holiness, it is the
beauty of the Son of God, Jesus Christ; and to Him it is said in Esay,
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty": and the Holy Ghost has this style
to be called Holy. And the angels in heaven, they are clothed with
holiness; and the saints who are in heaven, this is the long white
robes wherewith they are clothed. And they who are begun to be
sanctified here, they strive to be more and more clad with holiness.
Beloved, I would have you to count this to be your beauty, even
holiness; for if ye have not this beauty, then all your other beauty
will degenerate in a bastard beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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