by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 21, 2024 | The Reformation
During Mary Tudor’s reign of terror, in which almost 300 reformers were rounded up and burnt at the stake, Knox fled to Dieppe in France. From there he travelled to Geneva in Switzerland seeking the counsel of John Calvin. He had questions and needed answers: can Christians physically resist tyrannical governments? Is it right for a woman to rule over men as queen? When he was shown into Calvin’s study he found a scholarly-looking patriarch surrounded by a sea of books. Calvin was clear that uprisings against tyranny should not be endorsed by Christians, or society would fall into anarchy. His response to Knox’s query about the rule of women over men was that only in exceptional cases, such as with Deborah in the Bible, could this happen.
After a period in France, and then in Frankfurt am Main in Germany, where he tried, and failed, to bring some sort of order to various factions of Protestants who were trying to work through reformed teaching, he returned to Scotland. In 1556 he travelled back to Geneva where he had been called to pastor the English-speaking congregation at the Church of Notre-Dame-la Neuve. Settling here with his wife Marjorie and mother-in-law, Mrs Bowes, Knox embarked on a three-year ministry. For Knox and his family it was a blissful respite in beautiful surroundings. Among his friends there were John Foxe, who wrote the Book of Martyrs, Christopher Goodman, his fellow pastor, Thomas Lever, with whom he had found reconciliation after Frankfurt, and John Calvin and Theodore Beza. He wrote to his friend Anna Locke: ‘I neither fear nor am ashamed to say [that Geneva] is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in earth since the days of the Apostles. In other places, I confess Christ to be truly preached, but manners and religion so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place.’
If the serene situation in Geneva seemed to be idyllic, it was an oasis in a stormy Europe. Protestant refugees fled to this safe haven, especially from France, with tales of Roman Catholic brutality at the hands of Mary de Guise’s family. At one point about a quarter of Geneva’s population was made up of persecuted refugees. Among them were English reformers who tearfully shared with Knox the heart-breaking news of the cruel deaths of some of his friends by Mary Tudor. Knox and his fellow scholars, knowing that biblical education was the key to reforming the church, set about producing the English Geneva Bible. The New Testament was published in 1557, and the complete book came out in 1560 after Knox had returned to Scotland. This great work, which was supervised by William Whittingham and Anthony Gilby, preceded the King James Version by fifty-one years. The first English Bible printed in Scotland was the Geneva Bible. It was because of the involvement of Knox and Calvin with this book, that a law was passed in Scotland when it was printed there in 1579, that every household should buy one, if they had the means. Throughout the nation the church sought to educate the people and procure copies for those who could not afford them. Knox’s return to Scotland in 1559 would officially usher in the Protestant church there, but that part of the story is for next week.
‘The entrance of Your words gives light’ (Psalm 119:130, NKJV)
Image: The Reformation Wall in Geneva depicting, left to right: Farel, Calvin, Beza and Knox. Paul Landowski, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 21, 2024 | The Reformation
After John Knox had been freed from French slavery he ended up in London in 1549. The Reformation was already under way in England and Knox’s reputation had already gone before him. His mentor, George Wishart, had brought back a copy of the First Helvetic Confession, which was the first Reformed creed put together by the Swiss scholars Bullinger, Bucer, and others in 1536. Wishart had translated it from Latin into English, and it was published in both England and Scotland in 1548, having an influence on church leaders.
Knox hardly had time to rest when he was snapped up and offered the position of chaplain to the army garrison town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, next to the Scottish border. His down-to-earth approach won the hearts of the brawling soldiers, with a remarkable peace ensuing in the town. But he was soon off again, this time to Newcastle where he stirred up the local population with his bold preaching. At the end of August 1552 Knox, under the instructions of the Duke of Northumberland, travelled this time to be one of the chaplains of the teenage Protestant King Edward VI in London. It was here that his influence among the English was felt most, and he made friends and acquaintances among many of the leading English reformers, such as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Bishop Hugh Latimer, Bishop John Hooper, John Foxe, who wrote the Book of Martyrs, Thomas Lever, and John Bradford.
In his first sermon before King Edward VI and his court at Windsor Castle, he yet again caused a stir. It was September 1552 and Archbishop Cranmer’s Second Book of Common Prayer had just been passed by Parliament to be used for the church services in England. Now, before the Royal Court, Knox was raising his voice like a trumpet, asserting that the people should receive communion seated, rather than kneeling at the altar rail. Immediately the Privy Council halted the printing of the Prayer Book, much to the frustration and anger of Cranmer who had worked hard compiling it. In the eyes of Knox, kneeling to receive communion at the altar rail reminded him too much of the Roman Catholic Mass in which the host, or wafer, was worshipped, and he refused to compromise, fearing that this would be the means of dragging people back to Romanism. In the end Cranmer had to insert a rubric into the Prayer Book explaining that the act of kneeling was not a compromise with the Mass, but an act of respect to Christ. As the text was written in black, rather than the usual red, it was called the ‘black rubric’.
When Knox was offered the ministry of the Bishop of Rochester, he turned it down. Likewise the much sought after post as minister of All Hallows, Bread St, in London, was rejected. It was becoming clear that Knox could not compromise his own conscience in the Church of England.
Tragedy struck the Protestant cause when Edward VI died in 1553. Suddenly panic spread throughout England as Mary Tudor came to power. Within a short time she had rounded up the chief reformers and within a few years she sought to force England back to Rome, putting to death almost 300 of the leaders, including Archbishop Cranmer, and the bishops Hooper, Latimer, and Ridley. Knox would have suffered the same fate, but he fled with many others to the safety of the Continent where he would eventually spend time with Calvin in Geneva.
‘Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.’ (Jude 3, NKJV)
Image: John Knox stained-glass window in the Presbytery Hall, Edinburgh Theological Seminary, Paul James-Griffiths.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 21, 2024 | The Reformation
When John Knox cried out to God in passionate prayer, ‘Give me Scotland, else I die’, he was revealing his heart to us. Here was a man whose soul loved God, the church, and his nation. Unswerving and relentless he pursued the righteousness of God, walking through a storm of besetting accusations, misunderstanding, slander, and hatred. Of all the characters of Scottish history John Knox has to be the most loved, or hated. His passion for truth is the sharp sword which divided people. When most caved in to pressure, Knox was still there, calling his people to repentance and faith in Christ, and resisting compromise. Lord Randolph said of Knox that his preaching in one hour was able to put more life in them ‘than 500 trumpets continually blustering in our ears.’ At his graveyard Lord Morton could say ‘There lies he who never feared nor flattered any flesh.’
John Knox was born in Haddington and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in St Mary’s church there. As a young man he was a private tutor to the children of nobles and he began to hear of reformation in the church breaking out in Scotland and Europe. Reformation needed to come because the church had become so corrupt in belief and practice. Bishops ruled in palaces like princes, and many of them led debauched lives. Pagan idolatry had crept into the church in the form of praying to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and in the communion, which was called the Mass. In the Mass it was believed that the priest could say the Latin words hoc est corpus meum, ‘this is my body’, and the wafer and wine would supernaturally turn into the body and blood of Christ. The wafer, known as the host, was worshipped as God.
The hallmark of the reformers was Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone – for the authority of the church, rather than the traditions of men. The price of this freedom to bring the church back to a more Christian model, and to dismantle a controlling and antichristian hierarchy, was paid for in the blood of thousands.
Whilst he was a tutor Knox heard the preaching of George Wishart and was converted to Christ. He appointed himself as Wishart’s bouncer, guarding him with a claymore sword, until he came to understand that the Christian’s sword and weapon is the word of God, the Bible. Heartbroken he witnessed the burning of his friend and mentor, George Wishart, at St Andrews by the corrupt church council in 1546. A group of young nobles stormed St Andrews Castle, and killed the cruel Cardinal Beaton. Knox found himself being roped in as their preacher until the French captured the castle, and he was taken away to become a slave on a French galley ship. Later he was freed and became one of the court preachers in England for the teenage Protestant King Edward VI. Next week we will look at Knox’s short, but clear influence on the church in England.
‘Cry aloud, spare not; lift up your voice like a trumpet; tell My people their transgression.’ (Isaiah 58:1, NKJV)
Image: John Knox preaching from a pulpit, museum at St Andrews, photo: Paul James-Griffiths
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 16, 2024 | The Reformation
‘Among the martyrs of Scotland, the constancy of Walter Mille is not to be passed over with silence,’ wrote John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs. Mill was the last reformer to die for his faith in Scotland during this period in which several dozen have been recorded. ‘Out of his ashes sprang thousands of his opinion and religion in Scotland, who altogether chose rather to die than to be any longer trodden over by the bishops, abbots, monks, and friars.’
In his younger days Mill had travelled to Germany where he heard the gospel clearly preached. He returned to Scotland after he had rejected the contrary views and practices of Romanism, and married a wife, thus breaking the papal law for a priest. The bishops suspecting him of heresy watched him closely, as he preached Christ to many in their homes and in the fields. He was arrested in 1558 and imprisoned at St Andrews Castle, where he was threatened with torture and death. On the 20th April he was taken out of his prison and put on trial at the age of 83. He was so weak from both age and mistreatment, that he had to be helped up into the pulpit in the church, where he sank to his knees in prayer. But when he rose to his feet, his voice suddenly became strong, stunning those who listened.
In front of the assembly of bishops, abbots, and scholars, he was cross-examined by Andrew Oliphant and accused of breaking the Romanist law of celibacy, and challenging the dogma of the church, such as the Mass. Of the pilgrimages practiced in that period he spoke plainly, exposing the corruption, saying that ‘there is no greater whoredom in any place, than at your pilgrimages, except it be in common brothels.’ Not surprisingly he infuriated those present whose concern was to hold on to power and wealth, caring little for Christ and his teaching. When challenged to recant or be burnt, he boldly stated: ‘I am accused of my life; I know I must die once, and therefore as Christ said to Judas, what thou doest do quickly. Ye shall know that I will not recant the truth, for I am corn, I am no chaff; I will not be blown away with the wind, nor burst with the flail; but I will abide both.’
The people in the town of St Andrews were so offended by the treatment of this godly man that they refused to sell cords or a tar-barrel to the bishop’s servants for the burning. At last the bishop managed to purchase the necessities for the execution and Mill was brought to his place of death. After falling to his knees in prayer, he stood on the unlit coals and spoke to the crowd gathered there. ‘Dear friends,’ he cried out, ‘the cause for which I suffer this day is not for any crime laid to my charge, albeit I be a miserable sinner before God, but only for the defence of the faith of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the New and Old Testaments… Be no more seduced with the lies of priests, monks, friars, priors, abbots, bishops, and the rest of the sect of Antichrist, but depend only upon Jesus Christ and his mercy, that ye may be delivered from condemnation.’ With that Mill was burned at St Andrews, being the last Reformation martyr in Scotland.
‘In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’ (Psalm 56:11, NKJV)
Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 16, 2024 | The Reformation
Following the death of George Wishart, the next recorded martyrdom in the Scottish Reformation was that of Adam Wallace of Kyle, who in 1547 perished in the flames on Edinburgh’s Castle Hill. Wallace was captured and brought before the council gathered at the Black Friars’ Church in Edinburgh on a charge of heresy. The account comes from John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Standing before earls, bishops, and abbots, he was cross-examined by John Lauder clothed in a surplice and red hood. ‘Adam Wallace, alias Fean,’ said his accuser, ‘you are openly accused for preaching and teaching of the blasphemies and abominable heresies under-written: In the first you have said and taught that the bread and wine on the altar, after the words of consecration, are not the body and blood of Christ.’ Wallace turned to the whole court, saying, ‘I never said, nor taught anything but what I found in this book (having a Bible at his belt in French, Dutch, and English), which is the word of God.’ Asking the court to judge him by God’s Bible meant that he was exposing the corrupt nature of the Romanist teaching, which taught that the communion literally became the blood and body of Christ at the Mass when the priest consecrated it, a belief known as transubstantiation.
‘You have said and openly taught,’ replied the Bishop of Orkney, ‘that the God which we worship is but bread sown of corn, growing out of the earth, baked of men’s hands, and nothing else.’ Wallace answered, ‘I worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one Godhead… But I know not which God you worship.’ Infuriated, the bishop explained the Romanist’s teaching that the priest consecrated the sacrament so that the Mass became ‘the very body and blood of the Son of God, and God Himself’. Standing his ground Wallace warned the court: ‘If you condemn me for holding by God’s word, my blood shall be required at your hands, when you shall be brought before the judgment seat of Christ, who is mighty to defend my innocent cause.’
With that the court sentenced him as guilty and delivered him to the provost of Edinburgh to be burnt on Castle Hill. Wallace was imprisoned in a tall building, shackled by chains on his legs and neck. Firstly two Franciscan friars were sent to instruct him, but he refused to communicate with them; then two Dominican friars, followed by an English friar, then a philosopher called Arbuthnot. His Bible was taken away from him ‘but he would consent to nothing that had not evidence in the holy scripture, and so passed that night in singing, and praising God.’
When he was taken to the execution spot he was fastened to his funeral pyre. Looking intently to heaven several times he called out to the assembled crowd: ‘Let it not offend you that I suffer death this day for the truth’s sake; for the disciple is not greater than his master.’ The provost, fuming with rage at Wallace’s audacity, inspired Wallace’s last words. ‘They will not let me speak’, he cried out. Then the fire was lit, ‘and so he departed to God constantly, and with good countenance.’
‘And they overcame him [Satan, the accuser] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death.’ (Revelation 12:11)
Image: Edinburgh Castle: the photo was taken from Craigmillar Castle by Paul James-Griffiths. Adam Wallace was burnt for his faith in Christ in 1547 on Castle Hill, just below Edinburgh Castle.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 16, 2024 | The Reformation
Following the deaths of the Glasgow martyrs in 1539, the council of the cruel hunted for more victims, finding six more that they killed in Perth. George Wishart was the next martyr after them, being hanged and burned at St Andrews in 1546. John Knox loved this godly prophet as his friend and mentor, writing that ‘He was a man of such graces as before him were never heard within this Realm, yea, and are rare to be found in any man.’
Having been educated at the University of Cambridge, he returned to Scotland, preaching the gospel and exposing the pagan idolatry that had crept into the church. Many churches closed their doors to him, so he preached to hungry crowds in the fields. His love for the people moved the hearts of the inhabitants of Dundee when he cared for them during a terrible plague there. One day, a priest who was driven by jealousy came to assassinate him, but Wishart swiftly disarmed the assassin of his knife. The crowd was incensed at this priest and would have lynched him, but Wishart intervened, forgave, and freed the man.
After preaching in Haddington he got ready to travel one frosty night to Ormiston. John Knox wanted to go with him, but Wishart prophetically said: ‘Nay, return to your bairns (pupils), and God bless you. One is sufficient for one sacrifice.’ Wishart had supper with others at the Lord of Ormiston’s home, and after singing Psalm 51, he went to bed. ‘Before midnight,’ related Knox, ‘the place was beset about so that none could escape’. The Earl of Bothwell took him to Edinburgh Castle where he was imprisoned, and then he was transported to the Sea Tower of St Andrews. Wishart was condemned by the church council, to be hanged and burned as a heretic at the west part of the castle near the priory.
When he came to the place of his death he knelt and prayed to Christ, then he addressed the watching crowd: ‘If I had taught men’s doctrine, I had gotten greater thanks by men. But for the true Evangel [gospel], which was given to me by the Grace of God, I suffer this day by men, not sorrowfully, but with a glad heart and mind… This grim fire I fear not: and so I pray you to do, if any persecution come unto you for the Word’s sake; and not to fear them that slay the body, and afterwards have no power to slay the soul… I know surely that my soul shall sup with my Saviour this night, ere it be six hours, for whom I suffer this.’ Next he prayed for those who had viciously persecuted and slandered him, saying, ‘I forgive them with all my heart.’
Lastly, before his death, he said to the people: ‘I beseech you, Brethren and Sisters, to exhort your Prelates [bishops] to the learning of the Word of God, that they may be ashamed to do evil, and learn to do good.’ The hangman fell to his knees, begging for forgiveness. Wishart kissed his cheek, and said: ‘Lo! Here is a token that I forgive thee. My heart, do thine office!’ With that he was hanged and his body burned, but as with the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton eighteen years before, another wave of Reformation would be released in Scotland.
‘‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:9)
Image: George Wishart, from the Presbytery Hall, Edinburgh Theological Seminary, photo: Paul James-Griffiths
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 16, 2024 | The Reformation
After the burning of the five Reformation martyrs on Castle Hill in Edinburgh, Cardinal Beaton was keen to find other victims to make a public example of any who would dare expose the corruption of the church hierarchy. Two young men were found in the diocese of Glasgow in 1539: Jerome Russell, an erudite Franciscan friar, and Alexander Kennedy, an 18-year-old poet, who were both outspoken for the gospel. Facing the pressure of the church council in Glasgow ‘Kennedy at the first was faint, and gladly would have recanted. But… the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of all comfort, began to work in him, yea, the inward comfort began to burst forth, as well in visage as in tongue and word.’ The teenager fell to his knees in front of the council and began to praise and thank God. He celebrated Jesus Christ as his only Lord and Saviour before his startled accusers, and resolutely declared ‘Now I defy death. Do what you please! I praise my God I am ready!’
John Knox, in his History of the Reformation in Scotland, continues this account next with the trial of Friar Russell. ‘The godly and learned Jerome, railed upon by these godless tyrants, answered: ‘This is your hour and the power of darkness. Now you sit as judges; and we stand wrongfully accused, and more wrongfully to be condemned. But the day shall come when our innocency shall appear, and you shall see your own blindness, to your everlasting confusion. Go forward and fulfil the measure of your iniquity!’
A dispute arose between Gavin Dunbar, the Archbishop of Glasgow, who began to defend them and request their release, and the rest of the church council who threatened to report him for showing himself as an ‘enemy to the Kirk [church]’ and them. Under pressure the archbishop submitted to the council of the cruel.
On the day of their death the two young men were taken to the execution place. Seeing Kennedy looking downcast, Friar Russell encouraged him with the words: ‘Brother, have no fear. He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. The pain that we are to suffer will pass and it will not be so terrible. But our rejoicing and consolation will never come to an end… Liven up then, as we enter Paradise by the same narrow road that he himself walked before us. Death has no power over us, for it was defeated by him for whom we now suffer.’
After they had both knelt down and prayed, they were tied to the stake and burned in the fire, probably near Glasgow Cathedral. But the more the council of the cruel persecuted the godly, the more a spiritual fire of God’s truth was spreading throughout Scotland.
‘“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)
Image: Glasgow Cathedral, The Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
As we finish this series on the Covenanters this week, it would be good to acknowledge the benefits that came through this movement of the 17th century in Scotland. It is true that some people have given an almost angelic retelling of the story, which is a form of embellished hagiography. The Covenanters would be upset to be viewed in this way, as they saw themselves as frail human beings, prone to weakness and sin. Others have focused on the few dark stains on the canvas, such as the atrocity at Philiphaugh and the assassination of Archbishop James Sharpe by some extremists. The vast majority of Covenanters however, were ordinary Christians who sought to be obedient to Christ in often horrendous situations.
Let us look at a few of the ringleaders who were the special focus of the wrath of tyrant kings who labelled them as ‘fanatics’. It was these immovable Christians who stood for the very values in our British constitution, which later became accepted as pillars of our culture. Revd Samuel Rutherford, for example, wrote Lex Rex in 1644, in which he argued for what he called ‘a sweet mixture’ of a constitutional, or limited monarchy, combined with a House of Lords and House of Commons, with the voice of the majority of the people democratically represented, with all of this being based on a Christian understanding. It was this very model that was at first lauded by thinking people in Britain, but then was cast down as the work of an evil rebel, his books being burnt by the hangman.
Then there is Revd Donald Cargill, hunted like an animal for his crimes against the king, and falsely accused as ‘a declared Rebel and Traytor’. What did he stand for? Like all of the faithful Covenanters, he believed that we cannot make an oath before God and change our minds, just to avoid trials and persecution. The Scottish government itself had stood by the National Covenant of 1638 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, but then reneged on their vow as it suited them later, giving total autocratic control to the kings. Cargill was a man ahead of his time. In 1680 he publicly read out an excommunication notice of King Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York (James VII later), for their crimes, before crowds at Torwood. He had wanted the clergy to have the guts to do this, but found himself alone. It was eight years later that the two nations of England and Scotland would drive James VII into exile in France because of his tyranny. Like other leading Covenanters, Cargill prophesied that the purifying of the Church of Scotland would lead to an eventual great Christian revival which would powerfully impact the world. It was the extraordinary Christian revival movement in Scotland in the 19th century which transformed our nation and many parts of the world.
Revd Richard Cameron, described as the ‘notorious ringleader of… that Wicked Crew’, stood like a rock for his faith against all odds. He publicly rejected Charles II as king, for perjury and breaking his oath before God and the people – a principle which John Major, George Buchanan and other great Scottish scholars had taught about tyrant kings during the Reformation period. For Cameron, Charles II had cast down the Magna Carta of the Presbyterian Church, and he stoutly declared to the church leaders, ‘You must either renounce Presbytery and your Covenants, otherwise you must own us in our declaration and Covenants.’
If we look at the following fruit of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, we will soon realise that the Covenanters have been vindicated in both the English Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Rights. Their legacy is: a constitutional monarchy; a free Presbyterian Church; a free Parliament; freedom to debate in Parliament; freedom to act in self-defence against tyranny; and the beginning of a human rights process that would inspire the American Bill of Rights (1789), which would inspire the United Nations Charter for Human Rights (1948).
When peace came to our troubled nation, the Estates of Scotland issued a declaration on 4 April 1689; it could have been one of Cargill’s or Cameron’s declarations, which were rooted in the Covenants. ‘The Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland,’ it said, ‘find and declare that King James the Seventh hath invaded the fundamental constitution of this kingdom, and altered it from a legal limited monarchy to an arbitrary despotic power, and hath exercised the same to the subversion of the Protestant religion and the violation of the laws and liberties of the nation, inverting all ends of government; whereby he hath forfeited the right to the Crown.’ It was not until 1690 that the Scottish government exonerated the Covenanters who had been branded as criminals; Revd Donald Cargill was among those honoured. Thus, the Covenanters had been vindicated.
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’ (John 1:5, NIV).
Image: Covenanters in a Glen, Alexander Carse, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
With the peaceful enthronement of King William and Queen Mary, after they had agreed to the English Bill of Rights and Scottish Claim of Rights, the clergy in Scotland focused their attention on the re-establishment of the Presbyterian Church. Back in 1592, Scottish Parliament had ratified the Presbyterian Church by law, in what was endearingly called the ‘Magna Carta of Presbyterianism’, with its roots in the 1560 Reformation. Now, almost a hundred later, after so much suffering, this right would again be ratified in what was called The Revolution Settlement of 1690.
On 7 June, Parliament passed an ‘Act Ratifying the Confession of Faith and Settling Presbyterian Church Government’. The Episcopalian system was overthrown in the Church of Scotland and Presbyterianism was accepted as ‘the government of Christ’s church within this nation, agreeable to the Word of God, and most conducive to the advancement of true piety and godliness, and the establishing of peace and tranquility within this realm.’ The ministers were welcomed back to their parishes in a legally accepted Presbyterian Church, and the church leaders met freely in the restored General Assembly on 16 October. Professor G.N. Collins notes that ‘The old aim emerges clearly, the determination to preserve inviolate the democratic government of the Church under the sole Headship of Jesus Christ.’
However, there was a difference: in 1560 and 1592 the church had presented its statement of faith and constitution to the Scottish Parliament, which had legally ratified these documents, but now the king’s Parliament had drawn up The Settlement for the church, which the majority of the Presbyterians accepted. Of the 400 ministers who had been thrown out of the church in 1662 for their Presbyterian principles, many had died, and those who remained had aged prematurely, being worn out by the decades of struggle. The Covenanting minority believed that what was being offered by King William was a compromise with the State, which allowed a moderate Presbyterian Church to exist, but at the same time left a door open to control it. The Covenanters believed that this loophole would lead to further compromises with the State in the future: this would prove to be true in the struggles of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Besides this, the faithful Covenanters were expected to welcome back elders and pastors who had previously been persecutors, betrayers and compromisers. It is one thing to forgive others, but another to trust that these men had genuinely repented. The Covenanting minority were concerned that these moderates would continue as chameleons, adapting to whatever landscape that would develop before them. In their eyes, the yeast of the Sadducees was allowed to sprout up in the Presbyterian Church, which would eventually produce a liberal policy with its own seeds of self-destruction. The Covenanting group petitioned the General Assembly about their grievances, without success. Patrick Walker, who was one of the leaders representing the Covenanters, wrote: ‘When we saw many of our bitter tongued persecutors sitting there as elders, and had so little regard to our grievances, and esteem of us, that they thought it not worth their while to give us any answer; these, and other things made us come out with our hearts filled with sorrow.’ Realising that the Church of Scotland was set on pursuing a policy of compromise and moderatism in line with King William’s wishes, the Covenanting group withdrew, and eventually set up the Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1743.
‘Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven [yeast] of the Pharisees and the Sadducees”’ (Matthew 16:6, NKJV). Note: Both legalism and liberalism have crippled the church.
Image: Ordination of Elders in a Scottish Kirk, by John Henry Lorimer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
With the tyrant king James VII in exile, the leaders in London had to move quickly to make sure an orderly joint coronation of William, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Mary Stuart, the daughter of James VII, could go ahead. As her uncle, Charles II, had had no legitimate heirs, she was next in line to the throne after her father. We had learnt our lessons: tyrant kings were not a good idea; neither was the divine right of a king as a controlling Head of the Church.
Before William and Mary were co-crowned in Westminster, they had to sign a vital document drawn up by the Houses of Lords and Commons, which would be enshrined as a pillar of our UK constitution, alongside the Magna Carta. On 13 February 1689, they dutifully signed The English Bill of Rights, which stated that the ‘late King James the Second [of England, and Seventh of Scotland], by the assistance of divers evil counselors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavor to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom… All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and statutes and freedom of this realm…’
Through this document, a free Parliament was reinstated and absolute monarchy was abolished, as was the monarch’s interference in Church matters. A cause of even greater joy to the persecuted Puritans was clause 5, which said ‘That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.’ Protestants were now legally allowed to act in self-defence, and free election of members to Parliament was made law, as well as freedom of speech in Parliament. Only on accepting the English Bill of Rights, could William and Mary be crowned as ‘king and queen of England, France and Ireland’. They were then crowned as King William III and Queen Mary II, on 11 April, 1689.
The Scottish people waited with bated breath for their own Scottish Claim of Right Act, produced by their own people. When it came out, its grievances against James VII were more than that of the English Bill. It stated that this king did ‘Invade the fundamentall Constitution of this Kingdome and altered it from a legall limited monarchy to ane Arbitrary Despotick power’. It furthermore described him as a papist who became king without obedience to the law, and imposed Roman Catholicism in Scotland, according to his own whims, with ‘subversione of the protestant religion and the violation of the lawes and liberties of the Kingdome, inverting all the Ends of Government wherby he hath forfaulted the right to the Croune and the throne is become vacant’.
In the Scottish document, freedom of faith and Parliament in Scotland are side by side. The Scottish Bill says ‘That Prelacy [bishop-statesmen] and the superiority of any office in the Church above presbyters is and hath been a great and insupportable greivance and trouble to this Nation and contrary to the Inclinationes of the generality of the people ever since the reformatione (they haveing reformed from popery by presbyters) and therfor ought to be abolished.’ The Scots called for the freedom to protest peacefully against unjust laws, and to petition government without facing imprisonment, as well as there to be ‘freedom of speech and debate to the members’ in Parliament.
On 11 May 1689, the day of freedom had finally come for the suffering Covenanters, when William and Mary complied with the Scottish Claim of Right Act, and received the crown of Scotland. The very principles for which the faithful Covenanters had been tortured and hunted out like animals, and labelled as ‘fanatics’, would become enshrined in law.
‘But it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another’ (Psalm 75:7, NKJV).
Image: King William III and Queen Mary, R. White, engraver, died 1703, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
With James VII determined to reset Britain and bring us back to Rome, even the liberals had had enough. When the seven bishops in England, who had opposed the king because of his tyrannical policies, were tried for seditious libel and acquitted by the court on 30 June 1688, anti-Catholic riots kicked off in England and Scotland. A group of politicians, religious, and military leaders banded together and invited William of Orange to come over and intervene with his army. He was married to Mary Stuart, the oldest daughter of Charles II, and they had been following James VII’s rule carefully from Holland. For years, they had been regularly informed by worried English and Scottish leaders about where the people were being led, and now the time for revolution had come.
When we hear the word ‘revolution’, we tend to think of the French Revolution, which led to terrible atrocities and the deaths of 200,000 people, or of the Bolshevik Revolution, which saw about 100,000 people executed. The Glorious Revolution, by comparison, was almost free of any bloodshed. Accompanied by Revd William Carstares, a Covenanter who had been tortured for his faith, William of Orange landed with his forces at Brixham, Devon, on 5 November. As the army of 14,000 proceeded to march to London, James VII’s nobles and soldiers deserted him en masse. In a panic, James VII and his family fled to France under the protection of the dissolute and tyrannical Roman Catholic, Louis XIV.
Here in Scotland, the nation was incensed. Students at Glasgow University burnt an effigy of the pope, along with those of the Archbishops of Glasgow and St Andrews. In December a mob got into Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and ransacked the king’s private chapel. Taking away images of the saints, rosary beads and crucifixes, they piled them in a heap and publicly burnt them. Whilst the Protestants were cleansing the land of ‘pagan idolatry’, thieves were seizing the opportunity to steal whatever they could in the confusion. Over 200 Episcopalian clergymen were driven out of their manses by the mob, leaving them to plead for help from the Presbyterian Church for aid for their families, but as Professor William Cunningham says, ‘Still no life was lost. The only martyrdom these men went through was a little rough usage from an ignorant rabble, and the loss of their livings’, which had been raised through tyrannical taxes. It is an extraordinary fact, that after 28 years of the most cruel oppression of the people by the State and fawning clergy, that nobody murdered their opponents. Even the rough handling of the Episcopalian clergy by some over-zealous Presbyterians was strongly condemned by the majority.
A new day had dawned for England, Scotland and Ireland. The Glorious Revolution would see the process started through the Reformation, and through the stand of the Covenanters, advance to an era of growing freedom and democracy through a biblical Christian understanding. It would be a movement from which our British constitution would develop and be the envy of many nations.
‘Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him’ (Daniel 2:20-22, NKJV). Image: William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution, Jan Wyck, public domain, via Wikimedia Common
by Paul James-Griffiths | Mar 14, 2024 | The Covenanters
When Charles II lay dying in 1685, his anger against the faithful Covenanters was still boiling. Despite his two-pronged attack of persecution and temptation through Indulgences, a remnant stood firm, unmoved. This group had openly exposed his perjury and called him a tyrant in both Church and State. More than this, they had had the gall to reject him as king. One of them, Revd Donald Cargill, had read out his excommunication from ‘the true church’ publicly in front of thousands at Torwood on 12 September, 1680.
In October 1684, Revd James Renwick had published his Declarations Against Intelligencers, stating that ‘we have disowned the authority of Charles Stuart… and all authority depending on him’. The document, attached to mercat crosses throughout parts of Scotland, renounced his ‘wicked and hellish designs’. The faithful Covenanters also stated that ‘we utterly detest and abhor that hellish principle of killing all who differ in judgment and persuasion from us, it having no bottom upon the word of God’, but they also said, ‘we have declared war against him, and his accomplices’. This war was not by aggressive military means, but through prayer and preaching; they only acted in self-defence. Now, as he lay dying, Charles II’s hatred for Protestants was revealed when he called for the last rites by a Roman Catholic priest. Ridden with lust, pride and hatred, he slipped into eternity.
His younger brother, the Duke of York, became the next monarch, as King James VII of Scotland and Ireland, and King James II of England. With frenzied passion he pursued the remnant, following his brother’s Abjuration Act, which meant that unless people could accept the king on oath as the Head of the Church, they could be shot on sight. It soon became clear that this fervent Papist was not only out to exterminate the Presbyterian Church, but also the Protestant Church in Britain. The Covenanters had predicted this, and now it was even dawning on the moderates that those whom they called ‘fanatics’ had been right all along. If the ‘divine right of kings’ had led Henry VIII to break with Rome, the ‘divine right of kings’ now led James VII to bring the nation back to Rome.
When James VII openly started favouring the Roman Catholics and pressing for this in Parliament, an alarm call rose up throughout Britain. In Scotland the Archbishop of Glasgow and the Bishops of Galloway and Dunkeld opposed the king, but were removed from their positions. Taking the law into his own hands, James VII feigned toleration for the moderate Presbyterians and Non-Conformists, in order to emancipate the Roman Catholics and bring them back to places of power and influence in government, the military and in the universities. With the imprisonment in 1688 of the Archbishop of Canterbury and six English bishops in the Tower of London for speaking out against the king’s despotic control over Church and State, both the English and Scots had had enough. The Jesuits were invited back to rebuild the Roman Catholic faith in London, and at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The last straw was when his Roman Catholic wife, Mary of Modena, gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward Stuart. The prospect of a Roman Catholic dynasty enslaving the nation again to the Papacy was Britain’s worst nightmare. It would lead to the Glorious Revolution and the freedom of the Presbyterian Church.
‘Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him’ (1 Kings 16:33, NKJV).
Image: James VII (James II of England), school of Peter Lely, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
