Archibald Johnston wept. In his bedroom on the Royal Mile of Edinburgh, yards from Mercat Cross, he sat and wrote in his diary on Sunday, 23 April 1637: ‘In the twinkling of an eye, before I knew, behold the catalogue of all my sins done either before or since my calling presented to my memory and mind distinctly… I began to tremble, my soul ever crying with utterance, “God’s mercy, God’s mercy, God’s mercy”… Calling, “Father, glorify thyself in my life and death”… I thought at this time that my Jesus took my heart in his hand and knit it and wrapped it within the heart of God, so that I found God as it were within my heart, possessing and filling all the wounds and holes thereof… God was mine, yes, fully mine; and I was his, yes, totally his.’ As this presence of God came upon him, he sensed the suffering which would surely come upon the dedicated Christians of Scotland. Taking up his pen again, he wrote: ‘The Lord makes me to apprehend that this clear day will have a dark night, and this fair calm will have a foul storm.’
Three months later he was at St Giles’ near his home, where the new service book was read out to a packed audience. Many of the congregation erupted in protest, crying out that the authorities were seeking to take them back to Rome. Johnston notes in his diary that ‘there rose such a tumult, such an outcry in what be the people’s murmuring, mourning, railing, stoolcasting, as the like was never seen in Scotland.’ As the church leaders sought to distance themselves from ‘the rascal multitude’, Archibald Johnston and Alexander Henderson were drafted in to put together a peaceful and careful National Covenant for 1638. Johnston’s particular expertise was as a lawyer to write up the middle section, so that a legal document would be presented to Charles I and the authorities. In the run up to this, he and his wife Helen confessed their sins to each other where they had failed in their marital duties, and put things right with God and each other. As a couple they began to prepare for the outcome of a dark night of the soul for Scotland. ‘My wife and I discussed upon the hazards was likely to follow me in this business…’, he wrote on 23 January, 1638.
Finally, Wednesday, 28 February 1638 came, for the start of the signing of the National Covenant by the nobles in Greyfriars’ Kirk. For Johnston this was ‘the gloriest day that ever Scotland saw since the Reformation.’ As he travelled around churches instructing people about the legal part of the Covenant, and seeing their dedicated response to it, he wrote that ‘I could scarce believe my own eyes, but was like a man in a dream.’ On 1 April, 1638 the Covenant was read out and explained to the congregation in St Giles’. The nobles, Loudoun, Montrose, Boyd and Balmerino put up their hands in agreement with the Covenant; the congregation stood to their feet and did the same. As they did so, Johnston, tells us, ‘There was such a yelloch [outburst of yelling], such abundance of tears, such heavenly harmony of sighs and sobs, universally through all the corners of the church, as the like was never seen nor heard of. The Spirit of the Lord so filled the sanctuary, warmed the affections, melted the hearts, dissolved the eyes of all the peoples, men and women, poor and noble, as for a long time they stood still up with their hands raised unto the Lord, til Mr Hery [the minister], after he recovered himself, scare able to speak’ called the meeting to a close. Overwhelmed with emotion and joy, Johnston wrote in his diary that day: ‘The Lord make us never forget his presence in it, but rather make us tell it to our posterity, and make us walk worthy of it, and within the compass of this Covenant… O Edinburgh, Edinburgh, never forget this day of April, the gloriest day that ever you enjoyed.’
In 1663, after the Restoration of Charles II had come, Johnston was running for his life in France. He was caught in Rouen, brought back to the Tower of London for committing high treason, and then sent to Edinburgh. On 22 July 1663, he was hanged at Mercat Cross, a few yards from his house where he had written his diary, and his head was impaled on the Netherbow Port.
‘That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honour, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 1:7).
Image: Archibald Johnston being captured, by James Aikman, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons