Status Updates From The Scottish Covenanters

I wish there was more narrative but I'm chugging along

Happy to learn more about our spiritual heritage ❤️

I also fail to see why - if the United Societies had 7,000 people + minister - they could not form a Presbytery so John Macneill could move beyond licentiate status...held for 63 years, until death. Not surprisingly, the Covenanters bungled the chance of adding Andrew Clarkson as minister. Get organized already!

I fail to see how the United Societies viewed this stunningly inconsistent applicant as a good candidate for the ministry. It doesn’t seem that Mr. MacMillan’s word meant a great deal, after changing his mind once every 3 years or so.

So John MacMillan voluntarily associates w/ United Societies, then joins the Revolution Church, makes and breaks promises to attend Presbytery meetings and adhere to summonses/rulings of General Assembly (after appealing to it specifically), preaches by possession right (9/10 of law?) & eventually rejoins United Societies.

2 churches based on 2 differing legal structures. “The Church of the Revolution Settlement claimed to be the Church of Scotland as by law established (1592), but it did not claim to be founded on the principles and laws which were the basis of the Church of the Second Reformation (1648).”

“The Church of the Revolution Settlement had a pliant, tolerant spirit very different from the strict adherence to principle which characterized the Church of the Second Reformation. The nation as a whole (after 28 years) was weary of strife and difficulties”....Parliament and G.A. followed the broad road between opposite views.

Re-reading clarifies church government question & definition of Moderate. Big difference between Presbyterianism as “a” vs “the” Scriptural church governmental system. (William & Mary didn’t care, but weren’t Papal supporters.) Moderate = “party (of compromisers) which nearly extinguished evangelical religion and orthodoxy in the Church in later years.”

‘We weren’t schismatic dissenters because everyone else did it wrong, those compromising weak-kneed barstids. We’re the unbroken line of protesters who suffered so therefore we’re right.’ Blarghhh.