Skip to main content

Posts

David Dickson and the protests against the prayer book

Posted at Reformation History : David Dickson was born in 1583 and was minister in Irvine before becoming a Professor of theology at Glasgow University. Along with Alexander Henderson , David Dickson led the protests against the Book of Common Prayer in 1637 after the first attempt to read it had been interrupted by Jenny Geddes . They had planned the opposition to the prayer book in the months before it was introduced, and now Dickson helped organise petitions to the privy council against the prayer book. These protests condemned the prayer book as containing errors and being forced on the church without having the approval of a General Assembly or Parliament. The privy council wrote to the king telling him of the opposition to the prayer book from all sorts of people from different parts of the country. On the 17th of October, the king ordered that all the protestors were to leave Edinburgh within 24 hours. However the nobles, lairds and ministers stayed on to present another prote

John Knox – Scotland’s Reformer

By Rev. Robert K McEvoy - Posted at The Salty Scrivener : Born near Haddington in 1505, Knox studied at the university of St Andrews, and upon graduating (at a very young age) was admitted into holy orders. An early disciple of George Wishart, Knox soon developed a deep distaste for Roman Catholicism and the clergy of Rome, who had done to death his friend and mentor. Knox was captured by the French and made a galley slave, escaping to England in 1550, where he preached at Newcastle, Berwick and London. Edward VI of England offered him a bishopric, but Knox refused on principle and after the King’s death made his way to Geneva, where he became a close friend of John Calvin. In 1554, at the request of some of the nobility, Knox returned to Scotland, where he began to preach and campaign against the mass, with such success that people in droves began to turn away from the Catholic worship. He spent another time in Geneva, between 1556 and 1559, after which he returned to Scotland. F

‘Scotland’s last martyr’ : remembering James Renwick

Posted at New College Librarian : February was a suitable month to remember James Renwick (15 February 1662 – 17 February 1688). Renwick was a graduate of Edinburgh University who accepted a call to the ministry within the independent Presbyterian church ‘societies’. These communities were formed by the Covenanters, so named because they bound themselves in ‘covenants’ to maintain the Presbyterian doctrine as the sole form of religion in Scotland. They rejected the attempts of the Crown to control church government and patronage in Scotland. Renwick’s short career included illegal field preaching, baptizing, and eluding capture by the authorities. His sermons and letter were published as tracts and pamphlets, some of which are preserved in New College Library’s Pamphlets Collection. Read more...

The Martyrdom Of George Wishart - 1 March 1546

Posted at The Heidelblog : "On the sixteenth day of January, 1546, the Regent and cardinal arrived after night-fall at Elphingston Tower, in the neighbourhood of Ormiston, with five hundred men, and despatched the Earl of Bothwell to apprehend Wishart, holding themselves in readiness, if need were, to support him by force. As soon as the Reformer became aware of his errand, he cried out to Cockburn and his other friends, “Open the gates), the blessed will of my God be done.” The earl being admitted with some other gentlemen who accompanied him, Wishart addressed him thus: “I praise my God that so honourable a man as you, my lord, receives me this night in the presence of these noblemen, for now I am assured, that for your honour’s sake, you will suffer nothing to be done unto me contrary to the order of law. I am not ignorant that their law is nothing but corruption, and a cloak to shed the blood of the saints; but yet I less fear to die openly, than secretly to be murdered.”  …On

February 28: The National Covenant of Scotland

Posted at This Day in Presbyterian History : Scotland’s Covenant with God. The intense emotions of many Scot Presbyterians that day became irrepressible. Some wept aloud; some burst into a shout of exultation; some, after their names, added the words unto death; and some opening a vein, subscribed with their own warm blood. Whatever was the Rev. W. M. Hetherington referring to in these stirring words, in his book “ History of the Church of Scotland ”? (see page 155). In one phrase, it was that of our title. Presbyterians of Scotland began the historic signing of the National Covenant with God at Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh on February 28, 1638 . Read more here... See also: The National Covenant and Civil War (BBC) HT: Scotch Irish (Facebook)

1688: James Renwick, to end the Killing Time

Posted at ExecutedToday.com : Though none of the crowd that thronged Edinburgh’s Grassmarket this day in 1688 could know it, that date’s execution of minister James Renwick would make to the Killing Time , the great 1680s persecutions that scattered martyrs’ bones  across Highland and Lowland. Renwick, at any rate, was the last of many Covenanters who submitted to the public executioner; only a few months yet remained when officers in the field were empowered to force an oath of abjuration upon suspected dissidents, on pain of summary death in the field. By year’s end, the absolutist Catholic King James II — with whose brother and predecessor the movement had such a tortured history — fled to exile as the Glorious Revolution brought the Protestant  William of Orange to power: royal recognition of Scottish Presbyterianism ensued.* Monument to Renwick at his native Moniaive. (cc) image by Scott Hill . Read more...

Of Cameronians and Seceders, The Difference Found Between Them

Posted at Mint, Anise and the Cumin : Click here for full text of the Solemn League and Covenant . Every once in awhile I will get asked the question “What is the difference between Cameronian Covenanters and Seceders?” or I might get asked the question “What is a Seceder?”  In the year 1761 Cameronian Covenanters also known as the Continuing Societies, Hillmen, Sanquharmen, Reformed Presbyterians and yes even called militant radicals who were the original heirs to the Covenant and were the hardliners of the Covenant wrote a polemic against the Seceders in very explicit details within the Act, Declaration and Testimony of 1761. Seceders went on to become the Revolution Settlement Church while Cameronians remained separated in their own United Societies and where outside the Revolution Settlement Church.  Cameronians and Seceders agreed on many points and I count many Seceders today a dear friend but the following is a summary of the main difference between Cameronians and S