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The Scottish Covenanters
- GenresChurch HistoryHistory
231 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 17, 2021
This is a good historical and theological overview of the Covenanters and their distinctives. It’s a worthwhile read for any generation as it forces you to think through the proper relationship the church should seek with the state, whether you agree with the Covenanter view or not.
April 19, 2021
I give this book 4 stars for clarity and stylistic simplicity alone. However, if the goal was to offer a rousing tale of victory of God’s faithful over the forces of political and prelatical evil, this book is a crashing failure.
Vos frequently offers rousing defenses of Covenanter behavior and praise that make no integral sense. A few examples....
Page 101: The Covenanters “maintained pure Presbyterian worship in spite of all the opposition of the civil and military power of the land, for nearly thirty years.” This same group produces minister-less ‘societies’ that had no ordained men preaching the Word or administering sacraments for 16 years. When they got one minister - and an inconsistent, indiscriminate oath-breaker was he - and one licentiate, it took another 37 years to form a presbytery. How on earth do you promote a group for pure Presbyterianism when it fails to adheres to its own principles of organization or governance? After reading this, I’m not sure why the Congregationalists are so continually vilified, if the Covenanters acted the same way ‘out of principle’.
Pages 135-136: This takes the cake for a rousing example of Christian piety and “warm evangelical faith and a zeal for the salvation of the lost”: (a) Never forget to pray for the “dead weight of blood” to be removed from Israel “that have sunk them down to hell upwards of (1700) years”. (b) The Lord’s Word to penetrate the Pagan world “living in black perishing darkness”. (c) All “damnable delusions” of false religions be discovered, and gross sectarian errors come to light. Yep, it’s tough to see why this group developed a reputation for a wholly negative religious attitude, “interested only in bearing testimony against Prelacy, Erastianism and tyranny”.
Chapter III, Page 160 ff. The United Societies solemnly reaffirm both National and Solemn League and Covenant, but take over 60 years to get organized into some form of church government beyond services led by non-ordained elders. In 1706, John Macmillan becomes their first minister, after spending 6 years as a royal pain to the ordaining body, the much-maligned Revolution Church (though they seem to have deserved a fair amount of backlash for their failure to address real issues of persecution). I share Patrick Walker’s dislike of him. 1702 or so, Macmillan files a protest against the whole church constitution - fine, it was deeply flawed. He promises to return to Presbytery meetings after leaving in a huff, then retracts the promise, then appeals to the General Assembly. Good, got some angst out of your system? Nope. He gets deposed, but refuses to leave the pulpit or manse for 3 years - possession is 9 points of the law. (Bet the sermons were really Christological.) He blows off a summons to appear, then meets with a GA Commission, then signs a paper saying he sinned in blowing off Presbytery meetings. When his appeal to Presbytery fails re: lifting the deposition, he turns around and re-appeals to the same GA who appointed a Commission to tell him to be under authority to the Presbytery. The Privy Council calls him to account for occupying a pulpit illegally and he blows them off. Finally this stellar example of Christian piety and zeal signs yet another confession of sin re: leaving the Societies and promises to submit to “any faithful, lawfully constituted Church Judicatory of Christ.” But he’s their only minister, so who will hold him to account for anything? This is the same guy who refused baptism based on the parent’s theoretical payment of a civil tax. The ‘cess’ was a bad tax - but refusal of baptism, like the kid isn’t a legitimate part of God’s covenant people?
Pages 170 ff. Finally the Reformed Presbytery forms and....10 years later, they split over one minister who published an Arminian-flavored book on the topic of justification and universal atonement/access to atonement. After a few years of bickering, the minority try to get the majority to get suspended from the ministry in 1753. While a few men are away from this last meeting, the minority close the meeting and carry off the minutes. The leadership of fewer than 12 ministers and elders is now split, and by 1817 the minority splinter group is finished. Good riddance.
Page 194: By this point, I’m firmly convinced that it’s a fool’s errand to support these Covenants beyond the regional boundaries of the three kingdoms that clearly don’t want to uphold their own promises, made either by King or Parliament or church council.
Samuel Rutherford ably expresses the priority level of Covenants compared to the Gospel: ‘“to pass in silence over the sworn Covenant” was no less than a denial of Christianity itself.’ This doesn’t inspire me to read much of Rutherford, though perhaps the quote is taken out of context? I hope so, or else he’s replaced King Jesus with King Covenant, and no amount of blood shed can then be counted as a cost well paid. That’s a shame, because regardless of their many flaws, it can’t be said the Covenanters were either lacking in conviction or courage.
In short, I re-read this book mainly because of curiosity. I heard a minister use as an example Vos’s assertion of the Covenanters’ wrongheaded insistence on obedience over conscience (requiring people to sign the Covenants regardless of their real beliefs). In essence, he said it was right to compel people to do what’s right before their heart has a chance to catch up. At the time, it was disquieting enough to hear such an assertion. I was cheered to read that Vos disagreed entirely with this approach, essentially saying the Scottish leaders were shortsighted not to see that heavy-handed compulsion breeds Covenant-breaking and contempt for “Covenants as a mere formality”. “The leaders of Scottish Presbyterianism had not yet learned that subscription of a religious covenant, to be honest, must be voluntary and not the result of external pressure of any kind.” After explaining that one minister’s complaint is baseless or hypocritical, I.e. that forcing Covenant adherence by civil censures or lack of access to communion or higher education means wrong motives will abound....”It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Parliament of Scotland and the General Assembly unintentionally tempted many to accept the Covenants in a dishonest, careless, or implicit way.” (Page 58)
It’s also hard to avoid the idea that the church bodies involved did not earn either God or man’s censure. It is certain that God did not go forth with the Covenanting armies. They were soundly beaten and suffered a great deal at the hands of an arrogant and despotic king, but their ecclesiastical leaders hardly seemed better. They suffered for their faith, but I’m not convinced they suffered for the purity of the Gospel as much as for the law of the land and the right of revolution.
Brave and principled, yes. Loving and evangelistic? Unconvinced.
Vos frequently offers rousing defenses of Covenanter behavior and praise that make no integral sense. A few examples....
Page 101: The Covenanters “maintained pure Presbyterian worship in spite of all the opposition of the civil and military power of the land, for nearly thirty years.” This same group produces minister-less ‘societies’ that had no ordained men preaching the Word or administering sacraments for 16 years. When they got one minister - and an inconsistent, indiscriminate oath-breaker was he - and one licentiate, it took another 37 years to form a presbytery. How on earth do you promote a group for pure Presbyterianism when it fails to adheres to its own principles of organization or governance? After reading this, I’m not sure why the Congregationalists are so continually vilified, if the Covenanters acted the same way ‘out of principle’.
Pages 135-136: This takes the cake for a rousing example of Christian piety and “warm evangelical faith and a zeal for the salvation of the lost”: (a) Never forget to pray for the “dead weight of blood” to be removed from Israel “that have sunk them down to hell upwards of (1700) years”. (b) The Lord’s Word to penetrate the Pagan world “living in black perishing darkness”. (c) All “damnable delusions” of false religions be discovered, and gross sectarian errors come to light. Yep, it’s tough to see why this group developed a reputation for a wholly negative religious attitude, “interested only in bearing testimony against Prelacy, Erastianism and tyranny”.
Chapter III, Page 160 ff. The United Societies solemnly reaffirm both National and Solemn League and Covenant, but take over 60 years to get organized into some form of church government beyond services led by non-ordained elders. In 1706, John Macmillan becomes their first minister, after spending 6 years as a royal pain to the ordaining body, the much-maligned Revolution Church (though they seem to have deserved a fair amount of backlash for their failure to address real issues of persecution). I share Patrick Walker’s dislike of him. 1702 or so, Macmillan files a protest against the whole church constitution - fine, it was deeply flawed. He promises to return to Presbytery meetings after leaving in a huff, then retracts the promise, then appeals to the General Assembly. Good, got some angst out of your system? Nope. He gets deposed, but refuses to leave the pulpit or manse for 3 years - possession is 9 points of the law. (Bet the sermons were really Christological.) He blows off a summons to appear, then meets with a GA Commission, then signs a paper saying he sinned in blowing off Presbytery meetings. When his appeal to Presbytery fails re: lifting the deposition, he turns around and re-appeals to the same GA who appointed a Commission to tell him to be under authority to the Presbytery. The Privy Council calls him to account for occupying a pulpit illegally and he blows them off. Finally this stellar example of Christian piety and zeal signs yet another confession of sin re: leaving the Societies and promises to submit to “any faithful, lawfully constituted Church Judicatory of Christ.” But he’s their only minister, so who will hold him to account for anything? This is the same guy who refused baptism based on the parent’s theoretical payment of a civil tax. The ‘cess’ was a bad tax - but refusal of baptism, like the kid isn’t a legitimate part of God’s covenant people?
Pages 170 ff. Finally the Reformed Presbytery forms and....10 years later, they split over one minister who published an Arminian-flavored book on the topic of justification and universal atonement/access to atonement. After a few years of bickering, the minority try to get the majority to get suspended from the ministry in 1753. While a few men are away from this last meeting, the minority close the meeting and carry off the minutes. The leadership of fewer than 12 ministers and elders is now split, and by 1817 the minority splinter group is finished. Good riddance.
Page 194: By this point, I’m firmly convinced that it’s a fool’s errand to support these Covenants beyond the regional boundaries of the three kingdoms that clearly don’t want to uphold their own promises, made either by King or Parliament or church council.
Samuel Rutherford ably expresses the priority level of Covenants compared to the Gospel: ‘“to pass in silence over the sworn Covenant” was no less than a denial of Christianity itself.’ This doesn’t inspire me to read much of Rutherford, though perhaps the quote is taken out of context? I hope so, or else he’s replaced King Jesus with King Covenant, and no amount of blood shed can then be counted as a cost well paid. That’s a shame, because regardless of their many flaws, it can’t be said the Covenanters were either lacking in conviction or courage.
In short, I re-read this book mainly because of curiosity. I heard a minister use as an example Vos’s assertion of the Covenanters’ wrongheaded insistence on obedience over conscience (requiring people to sign the Covenants regardless of their real beliefs). In essence, he said it was right to compel people to do what’s right before their heart has a chance to catch up. At the time, it was disquieting enough to hear such an assertion. I was cheered to read that Vos disagreed entirely with this approach, essentially saying the Scottish leaders were shortsighted not to see that heavy-handed compulsion breeds Covenant-breaking and contempt for “Covenants as a mere formality”. “The leaders of Scottish Presbyterianism had not yet learned that subscription of a religious covenant, to be honest, must be voluntary and not the result of external pressure of any kind.” After explaining that one minister’s complaint is baseless or hypocritical, I.e. that forcing Covenant adherence by civil censures or lack of access to communion or higher education means wrong motives will abound....”It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Parliament of Scotland and the General Assembly unintentionally tempted many to accept the Covenants in a dishonest, careless, or implicit way.” (Page 58)
It’s also hard to avoid the idea that the church bodies involved did not earn either God or man’s censure. It is certain that God did not go forth with the Covenanting armies. They were soundly beaten and suffered a great deal at the hands of an arrogant and despotic king, but their ecclesiastical leaders hardly seemed better. They suffered for their faith, but I’m not convinced they suffered for the purity of the Gospel as much as for the law of the land and the right of revolution.
Brave and principled, yes. Loving and evangelistic? Unconvinced.
July 8, 2019
This book is a clear history of the Scottish Covenanters from someone sympathetic to their cause.
It explained to me why the Covenanters suffered more severe persecution than English non-conformists- although the latter certainly were persecuted. It was useful to have a clear outline of what the Covenanters actually believed about Church and State.
Having always thought of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a positive event for religious liberty, I was surprised to find that some of the Scottish Covenanters viewed this as a negative event and refused to serve or have the franchise in the post 1688 state.
Definitely worth reading and helpful to work through exactly where, as a Baptist, I would not agree with the stance of the Scottish Covenanters.
It explained to me why the Covenanters suffered more severe persecution than English non-conformists- although the latter certainly were persecuted. It was useful to have a clear outline of what the Covenanters actually believed about Church and State.
Having always thought of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a positive event for religious liberty, I was surprised to find that some of the Scottish Covenanters viewed this as a negative event and refused to serve or have the franchise in the post 1688 state.
Definitely worth reading and helpful to work through exactly where, as a Baptist, I would not agree with the stance of the Scottish Covenanters.
August 2, 2012
This is actually meant to be the book by Vos. It's a long time since I read it, but at the time I was informed and impressed. I remember disliking his apology for the bits in the Covenants about 'extirpation' and thinking him weak, but other than that a fine book. If I'm not mistaken he also takes a dig at theonomy, and while I am not in that movement I am a theonomist of sorts (all Covenanters must be!)
So just a few spoilers in what is a good book on the history of the Covenants.
So just a few spoilers in what is a good book on the history of the Covenants.
October 14, 2014
Recommended reading!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews