At a time when it is becoming fashionable to decry and belittle the work of the Reformers, it is meet for us who call ourselves Protestants to refresh our memories, and enlighten the young generation of Scotsmen as to the mighty upheaval in Church and state that is called the Reformation. It was the work of the Almighty and not of men although they were used as honoured instruments. If it had been of human origin only it would have come to naught as it had to contend with and overcome fearful opposition. It was not by the sword of the princes of the world that it was victorious, but by the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Both spiritual and secular despotisms exerted their utmost strength to strangle the young movement at its birth, as Herod and the Pharisees sought the life of Christ, but in vain because it was a movement from on high. Germany was the cradle of this awakening, although it is to be feared the doctrines of the Reformation have little place there to-day; and those evangelical pastors who resist Hitler are being constantly harassed and persecuted. The Pope and Emperor were allies against Luther who was only a poor man’s son, his father being a miner. All the pomp and glory of this world were arrayed on one side. On the other side was the Truth represented by the Bible and its exponent, Luther. There was outward uniformity in Church and state under the two heads I have mentioned who represented the temporal and
spiritual powers. Europe was not divided into the modern kingdoms which have only, comparatively recently, achieved national unity such as Germany and Italy. Some look back wistfully to the days when Europe was one and national frontiers were not so sharply defined, but these mistaken admirers of the past forget what a sink of corruption Europe was politically and morally. The teachers of the people in spiritual matters led scandalous lives. Their attention was directed to outdoor sports, such as hunting and fowling more than to the spiritual edification of their flocks. Avarice, ambition and sensual appetites such as gluttony, drunkenness, and uncleanness were their ruling passions. Their houses were full of children, although celibates, and no books were to be seen in their residences although plenty of gold and silver was displayed. Consequently ignorance and illiteracy prevailed among all classes. Fables and legends of the lives of the saints were the fare that was served from the pulpits by ignorant monks and friars. The Reformation made a clean sweep of all abuses and superstitious practices as well as false doctrine. The Church was re-made both in belief and practice. There was an intellectual revival which opened the door of knowledge and prepared the way for a spiritual revival on a vast scale covering all the nations of Europe although they weren’t all affected to the same extent. Spain and Italy renounced the writings of the Reformers and the Bible which left them in degradation and inertia for centuries under the sway of the Vatican. The Papal States in the centre of Italy were notorious for illiteracy and poverty and lack of modern transport. Those states which embraced the new doctrines sprang into life which manifested itself in industrial activity of every kind where before there had only been sloth and lust. The Scriptures began to be studied in the original languages by all the Reformers, and thus the errors of the Vulgate as used universally in the services of the Roman Church were gradually purged away. The invention of printing gave a stimulus to the multiplication of the Bible in the vernacular tongue of every nation. The humblest peasant, at the end of his daily toil in
field or woodland, could read and study the holy oracles without appealing to priest or Pope, having the witness of the Spirit in his own breast as to the truth of God’s Word. The authority of the church was transferred to the Bible, which became the only rule of life instead of as previously the commandments of men. This spiritual movement could not but have an effect on politics. It introduced liberty and citizen rights which had been unknown before. Peer and peasant were seen to be equal in the sight of God although distinguished among men in the world. The ancient masterpieces of the Greek and Latin writers of the golden age in literature were rediscovered and eagerly perused, which broadened and cultivated and refined the scholars who perused them, who in turn imparted their knowledge to students of divinity instead of the barren disputations of the schoolmen which had sufficed for the Middle Ages.—D. J. M.
Noted Men among the Covenanters: Alexander Peden.
II.
(Continued from p. 305).
SOMETHING must now be said about Peden’s preaching. His friend Sergeant Nisbet gives us a pen picture of him as a preacher: “Such was the weighty and convincing majesty that accompanied what he spoke, that it obliged the hearers both to love and fear him. I observed that between every sentence he paused a little, as if he had been hearkening to what the Lord would say unto him, or listening to some secret whisper. And sometimes he would start, as if he had seen some surprising sight.” Two sermons of considerable length have come down to us. They were preached at New Luce in 1682 when he was a fugitive. Who first reported these sermons is unknown but they were lovingly transcribed by John Howie of Lochgoin and were published by him in 1779. The text of the first is: “But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said
among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize the inheritance” (Matt. xxi. 38). Here is a quotation: “Now, people of God in Scotland, what are ye doing when such dreadful wrath of God is at the door in Scotland? He is not worth his room in Scotland the day that prayeth not the half of his time, to see if he can prevent the dreadful wrath that is at your door, coming on your poor motherland. Oh, sirs! ye must pray ploughing, harrowing, and shearing, ay, and at all your labour, ay when ye are eating and drinking, going out and coming in, and at all your employments; there never was more need than now. Oh, that noble life we might have of communion with God! Oh, sirs! it is He that makes heaven pleasant; it’s communion with God that makes heaven pleasant. Will ye long to be there, O people of God? From the words of the text He would have fruit from you in this countryside, and from thee, O Glenluce. He sent thee first a crumb, and then He sent thee many a faithful turn of His servants while they were on the mountains, and now He hath sent me to thee this day, to bid thee pay Him his fruit; and little hath He gotten from thee, O Glenluce; for which He shall make many places waste in thee, O Scotland, ere long. But I’ll tell you what is for you persecuted sufferers: crowns, crowns of glory ye shall wear ere long and a remnant of you shall be preserved in all the sad days that are coming on Britain and Ireland.”
The second sermon is on the words: “But we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel” (Luke, xxiv. 21). “Where is the Kirk of God in Scotland to-day?” he asks. “It is not among the great clergy folk Sirs, I’ll tell you where the Kirk of God is—wherever there is a praying lad or lass at a dyke-side in Scotland. A praying party will ruin them. Yet, sirs, a praying party shall go through the storm. But many of you in this country side ye ken [know] not these things. The weight of the broken Kirk of Scotland never troubles you. The loss of a cow, or two or three of your beasts, or an ill market-day, goes nearer your hearts nor all
the troubles of the Kirk of God in Scotland. Well then, thou poor body, that will resolve to follow Him, pray fast; if there were but one of you, He will be the second; if there be but two of you, our Lord will be the third. You need not fear that ye shall want company; our Lord will be your company Himself. He will condescend as low as you like to you that will resolve to follow Him in this stormy blast that is blowing upon His poor Kirk in Scotland the day. But there is some of you that is come here the day, the next day, when ye cannot get a meeting of this kind, ye will run away to your hirelings again. Take heed, sirs, do not mock God; these indulgencies* will lead you away from Christ as well as the curates. Oh, the base drag the Kirk is getting from many of the ministers in Scotland in our day. About thirty-six years ago, our Lord had a great thick backing of ministers and professors in Scotland; but one blast blew six hundred of our ministers from Him at once, and they never came back to Him again. Yea, many lords and lairds and ladies followed Him then, but the wind of the storm blew the ladies’ gallantries in their eyes and their ears both, which put them both blind and deaf, that they never saw to follow Christ since nor to hear His pleasant voice.”
We come now to the period in Peden’s life when he was a prisoner on the Bass. This Rock had many eminent witnesses for the truth as prisoners during the times of persecution. Among these may be mentioned: James Fraser of Brea; Thomas Hog, Kiltearn; John Blackadder who died on the Rock and Alexander Shields, the author of the Hind Let Loose. Peden spent four years and three months on the island. Most of the time he was kept a prisoner within the prison walls. The cells were damp and cold; the food was scanty and the jailors were brutal in their conduct. At length he appealed to the Privy Council intimating to them that “through sickness and great infirmity of body and want of maintenance he had been reduced to great extremity, so that his present lot is exceeding sad and
*The Indulgencies which were issued by the Privy Council and which the more faithful of the Covenanters refused to take advantage of.—Editor.
lamentable.” In October, 1677, he was released from the Bass Rock but he had to lie another fifteen months in the Edinburgh Tolbooth. From the Tolbooth he was sentenced to banishment with sixty others. Peden cheered his companions with the words: “The ship is not built that will take us over the sea to the Plantations:” and his words proved true. They were taken to London but the master of the vessel which was to take them to America when he learned that they were decent Christian men who were being banished for their religion refused to take them in his ship. When Peden returned to Scotland is not known but from traditions handed down it seems he spent some time in different places in England.
We come now to two incidents in Peden’s life in which Richard Cameron and James Renwick figure that must not be passed over. Peden though a Covenanter of the Covenanters was not a follower of Richard Cameron. But the bond of true Christian love bound them together. One day, when hard pressed, weary and worn, he lay down on the moor near to Cameron’s grave, and wishing to die, he said with tears: “Oh, to be wi’ Ritchie! [Richard].” When some years later he felt death drawing near he was heard saying: “Carry me to Airsmoss, and bury me beside Ritchie, that I may have quiet in my grave; for I have had little in my life.”
The Society People or Cameronians were suspicious of Peden and he, on his part, was suspicious of them, so that the youthful James Renwick and he did not pull together. In anticipation of the near approach of death Peden sent a message to Renwick and the interview between the two is recorded in the Biographia Presbyteriana. “Sit down, sir,” said Peden to the brave but youthful standard-bearer, “and give me an account of your conversion, and of your call to the ministry; of your principles, and of your taking such singular courses in withdrawing from all other ministers.” Mr. Renwick did so. The aged Peden having heard what the young witness had to say for himself said: “Ye have answered me to my soul’s satisfaction, and I am very sorry that I should have believed any such ill reports
of you, which have not only quenched my love to you, but made me express myself so bitterly against you; for which I have sadly smarted. But, sir, ere you go, you must pray for me for I am old and going to leave the world.” Renwick offered prayer for the aged Covenanter and enjoyed great liberty in his pleading for him. When he had finished Peden took him by the hand, drew him to himself and kissed him, saying: “Sir, I find you a faithful servant to your Master; go on in a single dependence upon the Lord, and ye will win [get] honestly through, and cleanly off the stage, when many others that hold their head high will fall, and lie in the mire, and make foul hands and garments.” Peden then prayed for Renwick and the two parted—Peden soon to die a natural death and Renwick to enter heaven by the scaffold. Peden died on the 26th January, 1686, and he was interred in Auchinleck churchyard but six weeks afterwards a troop of dragoons came and took up the coffin. It was broken open and the shroud torn from the body. The wind blew it to an adjacent tree. The soldiers took the body to the place of public execution at Cumnock to hang it in chains there but in this they were prevented by the Earl of Dumfries. He told the leader of the dragoons that “the gibbet was erected for malefactors and murderers, and not for such men as Peden.” So they buried him at the gallows’ foot. After the Revolution the gallows’ hill ceased to be the place of execution and the people began to bury their dead there. A small monument was erected to his memory but later in 1891 a handsome monument of Aberdeen granite was erected beside it.
There is a twofold disease in the understanding, which is discovered, when Christ, in the exercise of His prophetical office, commands light to shine out of darkness into the soul: (1) Blindness, whereby it sees not spiritual objects at all in their true nature. (2) Delusion, the consequence of this blindness; whereby it forms delusive judgments concerning spiritual things, as well as with regard to external and sensible objects.—Dr. Love.