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Covenanter Slaves



Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History:

Twenty-eight Presbyterians signed a final covenant on the eve of their departure from Leith, Scotland in early September, 1685. It said in part,
“That, now to leave their own native and Covenanted land by an unjust sentence of banishment for owning truth and standing by duty, studying to keep their Covenantal engagements and baptismal vows, whereby they stand obliged to resist and testify against all that is contrary to the Word of God and their Covenants; and that their sentence of banishment ran chiefly because they refused the oath of allegiance which in conscience they could not take, because in so doing they thought utterly declined the Lord Jesus Christ from having any power in His own house, and practically would by taking it, say, ‘He is not King and Head of His Church and over their consciences.’ And, on the contrary, this was to take and put in His room a man whose breadth was in his nostrils; yea, a man who is a sworn enemy to religion; an avowed papist, whom, by our Covenants; we are bound to withstand and disown, and that agreeable to Scripture: ‘When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shall possess it and shall dwell therein, and shalt say, I will see a King over me, like as all the nations that are about me, thou shalt in any wise set him King over thee, whom the Lord thy God shalt choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set King over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. Deut. 17:14, 15.”

To this final covenant, they signed their names.

It is not known to countless Christians today that many Presbyterians were carried from their beloved land of Scotland to the shores of this America, not as free immigrants, but as slaves...

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