National Covenanting #19 Did Parliament Lawfully Enact the Solemn League and Covenant

I. Covenant-breaking Is a Serious Aggravation of Sin against God’s Law (Jeremiah 34:18-20).
II. One Objection: Let us consider the following historical objection. Now this objection may not be one you would consider to have much weight, but some do. Therefore, we will consider it at this time. This objection may be summarized as follows. “The Westminster Parliament of England did not have the lawful authority to engage in a National Covenant without the consent of King Charles I. King Charles I issued a proclamation from Oxford, denouncing the Solemn League and Covenant as ‘in truth nothing else but a traitorous and seditious combination against us and the established religion of this kingdom’, charging all his loyal subjects, ‘that they presume not to take the said seditious and traitorous Covenant.’ Charles I thereafter
called a separate and rival Parliament in Oxford which was claimed by Charles l to be the lawful Parliament of England and which first met in Oxford on January 22, 1644. That Parliament in Oxford alone had a lawful authority because it alone had the consent and call of the King.” Thus in summary, this objection maintains that the Solemn League and Covenant was unlawful: (1) Because it was not established by a lawful Parliament; and (2) Because Parliament did not have the authority to establish a National Covenant or any other act or law without the joint signature of the King. The consequences of this objection (if it was true) would be that England was not nationally bound by the Solemn League and Covenant; and, therefore, none of his Majesty’s Dominions were lawfully bound by the Solemn League and Covenant.