Riots, Revolutions, and the Scottish Covenanters: The Work of Alexander Henderson

by L. Charles Jackson

Coauthor of the famous Scottish National Covenant, moderator of the Glasgow General Assembly that defied King Charles I, and member of the Westminster Assembly, Alexander Henderson (1583–1646) led Scotland during the tumultuous period of the British Revolutions. He influenced Scotland as a Covenanter, preacher, presbyterian, and pamphleteer and earned an important place in the nation’s history. Despite his numerous accomplishments, no modern biography of Henderson exists.

In 'Riots, Revolutions, and the Scottish Covenanters', L. Charles Jackson corrects this omission. He avoids the extremes of casting Henderson as a forerunner to liberty or as a theological tyrant and instead places his actions in their historical setting, presenting this important leader as he saw himself: primarily a minister of the gospel who was struggling to live faithfully as he understood it. Using neglected and, in some cases, new sources, Jackson reassesses the role of religion in early modern Scotland as reflected in the life of Alexander Henderson.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
The Preparation
The Covenanter
The Preacher
The Presbyterian
The Pamphleteer
The Collapse of the Cause

Author:
L. Charles Jackson (PhD, University of Leicester) is the senior minister at Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Vandalia, Ohio. His other books include Faith of Our Fathers: A Study of the Nicene Creed and Bible Studies on Ruth. He and his wife, Connie, have six children.

Endorsements:
“There has long been a need for a modern, scholarly study of Alexander Henderson, the most important clerical leader of the Scottish Covenanters. Charles Jackson’s carefully researched work helps us to understand why Henderson was so effective and why his death in 1646 was such a loss to the Covenanter movement. The book engages with a number of debates among historians and highlights the importance of religion in Covenanter ideology. It will be of particular interest to students of the British Civil Wars, presbyterianism, and the Reformed tradition.” — John Coffey, professor of early modern history, University of Leicester
“At last, a scholarly biography of Alexander Henderson, perhaps the greatest of the architects of post-Reformation presbyterianism. Henderson was one of the key Scottish commissioners at the Westminster Assembly and helped significantly to mold the Assembly’s documents into the timeless theological legacy that has been bequeathed to the Reformed church in particular, and the wider Christian church in general. Charles Jackson has written an engaging, insightful, and stirring biography of one of Scotland’s greatest pastor-theologians. This is a book not just for history buffs but for anyone interested in understanding the thinking and actions that gave birth to a church polity and mindset that impacted the world, not least of all the United States.” — Ian Hamilton, minister of Cambridge Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, England, and author of The Erosion of Calvinist Orthodoxy
“Serious students of early modern Scottish history now have a balanced interpretation of one of Scotland’s most important, but long-neglected church leaders. This well-researched and carefully documented examination of Alexander Henderson and seventeenth-century history affirms a convincing thesis about the great significance of ecclesiology in the formative years of presbyterian development. Its analysis of the Westminster Assembly is especially informative.” — James E. McGoldrick, professor of church history at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Genres: History, Biography, Church History, Theology

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2015

Reviews

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book for a number of reasons. The first is the timing — and it is almost as though a higher power were at work. In this book, Charles Jackson gives a fresh historical overview of the work of Alexander Henderson, one of the stalwarts among the Scottish Covenanters. There was a time when Christians with a backbone used to give the ruling elite the fits, and it is long past time for us to be reading up on them.Riots Revolutions

Civil resistance from Christians is not a phenomenon that arises from nowhere — it requires a theology. Not only so, but it requires a theology that is faithful to Scripture. Left to themselves, without godly leadership, too many Christians simply assume that “Romans 13″ — the catchphrase, not the actual text — requires craven acquiescence. With theological rigor and subtlety, Henderson (and others with him) showed quite the contrary. And those who wanted to maintain unquestioned and unquestioning rule were frequently not happy about it.

“One can only imagine the king’s fury in being told that what he considered treasonous rebellion, Henderson was defining as godly beneficence toward him. This is most certainly why Henderson was said to have made his majesty run ‘starke mad'” (p. 86).

Speaking of theological rigor and subtlety, Jackson does good work in vindicating the intellectual reputation of those faithful theologians and preachers of Scotland who resisted the tyrannies of their day. The received standard view is that the Calvinist leaders of seventeenth century Scotland were a gaggle of unimaginative dullards which, to the unimaginative dullards of our own day, is quite a satisfying slander. Jackson dispatches this view with a number of helpful observations. “The leaders of the Second Reformation in Scotland were very much humanists and were trained in a context rich with a wide variety of sources including ancient, medieval and Renaissance” (p. 24).

After Knox, and perhaps Melville, Scotland owed her liberty to Henderson. Downstream from that troubled time, because of all the Scots and Scots/Irish who emigrated here, we owe much of our liberty to him as well. Out liberties have eroded as much as they have because we have forgotten that fact. For those interested in the work of recovery, this book is a great place to start.

“Alexander Henderson created the National Covenant of 1638 to serve as theological and constitutional pillars on which the Covenanters based their resistance to Charles I” (p. 49).

Henderson understood that resistance to tyranny is a work of architecture; if you want the roof to stay up, you have to have pillars. Get this book. Read it, and stand ready to be inspired.

[Andrew Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author notes, “…my hope is that this updated biography will help to revive an interest in Alexander Henderson and the covenanting movement he led.”

I would say for that purpose the book accomplished it’s goal. There were portions that dragged a bit. My favorite chapters were “The Preacher” and “The Westminster Assembly”. Overall read, as an unbiased biography and was written as an academic work and was missing the interesting tidbits that make biographies so enjoyable.

[Ethan McCarter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent work of biography on a lesser discussed subject in Reformed circles and academia. Henderson was absolutely vital for the "Lang Reformation" context in the Scottish Kirk post John Knox. Jackson does a remarkable job in identifying Henderson's contribution to the ecclesiastical reformation in his roles as a drafter of the National Covenant, as a preacher gathering support for the covenant, his role as a pamphleteer, and the influence he had on the Westminster Assembly. The work is not hagiographical as some Covenanter biographies tend to, but seeks to maintain an unbiased historical recount. He neither whitewashes Henderson for his strictness (cf. eschatological blessings tied to Presbyterian government or making it a fundamental doctrine of the faith) nor does he bash Henderson for his commitment to Presbyterian principles. An excellent biography though it would benefit from an additional bit distilling his legacy in the Covenanting movement. Jackson ends rather abruptly at his death while not delving into later ramifications of Henderson's teachings.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good biography of Alexander Henderson by a former doctoral student of John Coffey. The chapter on the Westminster Assembly is probably the highlight. He undermines the idea that the Scots' Commissioners were some sort of "elite theological strike force" that came to the rescue of the hapless English.