III.—Scotland’s Covenanters Martyrs were Patriots of Distinguished Loyalty. They were so because “Thou hadst a favour unto them.” Let us imitate their distinguished loyalty.
We meet today to commemorate those who refused to acknowledge or swear allegiance to the king that ruled them — to commemorate those who died as rebels at the hands of the State; and the claim now put forward on their behalf is that they were patriots of pre-eminent loyalty. How can this be? Ah! as the scar upon the wounded soldier who had been fighting for the liberties of his native land against a ruthless invader is pointed to as a mark of honour, so this scar of “rebellion” upon those who were slain in fighting the battles of the Lord of Hosts is a mark of
the noblest valour — a badge of everlasting fame. Were the three Hebrews unpatriotic when they refused to bow before the image set up by Nebuchadnezzar on the plain of Dura! Were the Apostles unpatriotic though they did teach things contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there was “another King, one Jesus?” Was Jesus unpatriotic though charged with being a mover of sedition, and condemned to be crucified because His claims were irreconcilable with the claims of Caesar? Nay, verily. True patriotism, Christian patriotism, may require of subjects the most resolute opposition to the claims of their sovereign and the civil constitutions and principles of administration under which they live. True patriotism may even demand of the people the duty of removing their sovereign from the throne — the highest patriotism being displayed in the very act of removal. This honour had the Scottish martyrs of two centuries ago. They could not and would not acknowledge the authority of a king who was bent upon the complete subversion of the Christian constitution which the nation had framed for itself; who claimed the right to interfere with the Church in the exercise of her rights, and make her the abject slave of his own absolute will; and who used his authority by the rack, the gibbet, and the stake, to extinguish every spark of liberty in his subjects, and compel them to render obedience to his tyrannical demands. While many were found to flatter their royal master and play the part of cowardly sycophants, the Covenanters could not see the best liberties of the land crushed out, nor the royal prerogatives of King Jesus blasphemed, and fearlessly they repudiated the authority and sought the dethronement of the royal tyrant. Patriots they, stern and unbending, when, patriotism forgotten, the many became the fawning minions of a lawless sovereign.
“Their names shall nerve a patriot’s hand,
Upraised to save a sinking land;
And piety shall learn to burn,
With holier transports o’er their urn.”
In the Scriptures the Reformers and Martyrs found the doctrine of the Headship of Christ over the nations. Christ was “King of kings, and Lord of lords;” He was the “Governor among the nations;” He was “Head over all things to the Church, which is His body;” He was exalted and made Head over all “principalities, and power, and might, and dominion.” And they found many exhortations addressed to kings and their nations to serve Christ and His Church; denunciations of the wrath
of the King of nations if these exhortations should be despised, and promises of a time to come when nations should assemble to serve the Lord. In fact, these two doctrines — Christ’s Headship over the Church, and His Headship over the Nations — were the two massive pillars upon which was built up the whole ecclesiastical and political structure of the Covenanted Reformation. These two doctrines our fathers comprehended under the phrase — the Supremacy of Christ; and under one designation they emblazoned both on their banner:— “For Christ’s Crown.” In Church and State, their one great aim was, “Let King Jesus reign.” They were quite as much under obligation to accept, apply, and contend for the one as for the other — for the Headship of Christ over the nation, and the duty of the nation to their King, as for the Headship of Christ over the Church, and the duty of the Church to her King. Both doctrines they found in the Word of God, and it was at their everlasting peril if they shut either of the doctrines out of their heart, or narrowed their profession so as to exclude them. Like honest, god-fearing men, they unhesitatingly embraced both, and boldly endeavoured to carry both out to all their legitimate issues. Our Covenanted fathers held a high view of magistracy. They did not believe that rulers were to be the mere representatives of the people, and that in their legislation they should consult only, and be guided by, the people’s will. That notion of magistracy, a popular one just now, would bring it down to a low level indeed, and deprive the ruler of that independence and dignity that he ought to display in the fulfilment of his office. To the ruler, the voice of the people is not to be the voice of God. In his high station, the ruler is to be guided by the will of God, and he is to use the extensive influences with which his very office invests him, to lead the people he represents to the throne of the great Potentate whose subject the ruler himself is. Nor did our fathers for a moment imagine that any king of earth should entertain the slightest jealousy toward the King of kings. In their view, there was not the most remote approach to antagonism between the claims of the Governor among the nations, and the lawful claims and rights of any sovereign in the world. Nay, there was a grand harmony between the claims of both. The recognition of the claims of Christ by any king would cause his throne to rest on immovable foundations, and diffuse peace and prosperity throughout the nation he ruled. Such a king would not lower his royal dignity, but exalt it; he would not degrade his throne but encircle it with an amaranthine crown of glory. And the kingdom ruled, as wrote a God-serving king, by the spirit of Inspiration,” would be “as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, a
morning without clouds, and as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after the rain.”
Those titles attributed in Scripture to Christ as the Head of the Nations were not regarded by the Reformers as mere empty sounds. They felt that these titles set forth, in part, Christ’s royal prerogatives and claims, and that kings and their kingdoms should hear and obey. From those titles they justly drew such inferences as these:— That kings and nations, in their official and national character, should recognize by formal declarations the great Sovereign, King Jesus, that reigned over them; that they should frame their constitutions and enact their laws in obedience to that Sovereign, taking His Word as their great Statute Book that those only should be chosen to rule in a Christian nation who were fearers of God, and resolved in their office of rule to honour Messiah, and that the avowed enemies of God and His Anointed should be excluded from the throne and from all legislative power; that kings should exert their high authority for the removal of all impediments to the progress of Christianity, and should contribute toward the extension of the Church of Christ in the world. While the State should reserve to itself its own independent civil jurisdiction and the Church her own independent spiritual jurisdiction, yet both powers should co-operate for their mutual benefit, and should strengthen one another’s hands — the one in subjection to Christ’s Headship over the Nations, and the other in subjection to Christ’s Headship over the Church — for the establishment, by the willing recognition of the whole nation, individually and collectively, of the universal Mediatorial Supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Reformers and Martyrs were not Erastians, for they were ever struggling against the invasions of royalty upon the Church’s liberties. Neither were they Voluntaries, for there was not one of them that ever broached the modern error that the “State has nothing to do with religion, and religion nothing to do with the State;” or, as Principal Cunningham defines it, that “the only relation that ought to subsist between Church and State — between the civil government and religion — is that of entire separation.” If Voluntaryism be right, then all these titles of Christ mean nothing, and all the exhortations to kings and nations in Scripture with respect to Christ and His cause and Church are mere sounds. If Voluntaryism be right, then one of the principalities and powers of the earth is set loose from the dominion of the Mediator. Christ is not universal Monarch, but is shorn of part of his Mediatorial glory. While the Reformers studiously avoided the Scylla of Erastianism, they no less carefully steered clear of the Charybdis of Voluntaryism.
They laboured, indeed, to liberate religion from State patronage and control, but they never for a moment dreamt of liberating the State from the control of the enthroned Messiah, and of yielding up the nation to an Atheistic license. Had they not done the latter they would have been Erastians of the Erastians; for what is Voluntaryism but an Erastianism of the most Christless kind? Does not Voluntaryism claim to control religion out of all national action and offices? Does it not compel Christ to stand outside the National School — to stand outside the Halls of Legislature — to stand away from the Throne and Constitution? It will not grant Christ the universal right He claims to rule over all; nor Christianity the unlimited liberty it is infinitely worthy to receive. And is that not an Erastianism of the deepest dye? If Voluntaryism be right, then the whole Covenanted Reformation in one of its principal aspects was a grand mistake; for, that the king and the nation, as such, espoused it, was one of its central excellencies. Never did Scotland, never did these three nations behave themselves more princely than when they entered into covenants with the God of nations; than when, by those national deeds, they surrendered themselves to God. It was “the day of the Redeemer’s strength, when the princes of the people assembled to give themselves willingly to the Prince of the kings of the earth.” These lands were Hepzibah and Beulah, the Lord’s Delight, and married to Him in an everlasting covenant. “God hath laid engagements on Scotland,” said the Marquis of Argyle on the scaffold, “we are tied by covenants to religion and reformation; those who were then unborn are yet engaged, and it passeth the power of all the magistrates under heaven to absolve from the oath of God.” When then the nation entered into those covenants, the step was a public, practical, national exhibition of the Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ over the nations. Of that covenanted nation then it might have been said, “Open ye the gates that the righteous nation that keepeth the truth may enter in.”
Ere twelve years had passed, however, that storm burst that was to lay in ruins the whole structure of a Covenanted Reformation. Soon after the restoration of Charles to the throne, it became too apparent that with axes and hammers the carved work of the Reformation temple would be broken down. The drunken Parliament of Middleton and the Royalists — fit authors of a deed so godless — initiated the crusade by the passing of the Act Rescissory — rescinding the Covenants, and pronouncing unlawful and treasonable these and other national deeds in favour of the Reformation. And, immediately thereafter, an absolute supremacy, both ecclesiastical and civil, was vested in the Sovereign. Before the baseless
supremacy of Charles Stuart, the everlasting supremacy of King Jesus must go out in darkness! Against all who refuse to acknowledge the former, there goes forth the decree of extermination. Never did a Persian ruler with his drunken Haman, nor a lawless monarch of Babylon issue fouler decrees, or better act the despot. Sharp, and Clavers, and Lagg, and Crichton lead, from time to time, in the execution of the bloody behests of their royal master. What will the Covenanters do now? Yield to the supremacy of King Charles, and let the supremacy of King Jesus go? Turn back now when the blast of the trumpet has been blown for the battle? Never! They are overwhelmed with sorrow as they contemplate this assault of tyrants upon the honour of their God and the liberties of their land; but yield they cannot, yield they will not. To the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty! Like Israel when Joshua addressed them reminding them of the difficulties of fidelity to their God, so said they, “Nay, but we will serve the Lord.” And
“Diocletian’s fiery sword
Work’d busy as the lightning.”
“Their moans,
The vales redoubled to the hills,
And they to heaven.”
The Covenanters had not learned the doctrine of the Divine right of kings, or of passive obedience. They could not lay their consciences at the feet of even the most exalted prince on earth. Great interests were at stake, and faithless guardians of them they could not be. The nation’s rulers had thrown off and cast out the Covenanted Constitution and Covenants, with the whole work of Reformation, and with these this devoted band were willing to go — to go even to prison and to death. With Christ and His cause and an unfettered conscience, in the moorland, in the cave, on the scaffold, they had greater peace and joy than any of their enemies, however high in royal favour. Where was liberty then? Where was patriotism? With the persecutors or with the persecuted? With the murderers or with the murdered? Liberty and patriotism beat high in the breasts of the outcast, the wanderers, the tortured, the slain: they were to be found there — there only — there in their heavenly beauty and strength.
“They first on earth, while all the morning stars
Looked on, spectators from the heavenly skies,
Proclaimed, Resistance is a right Divine;
And, to the beating of their hearts, in shouts,
Answered the echoes of posterity.”