Published by the Banner of Truth Trust. Hardback, 659 pages, £16.95. Available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom, 133 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, G3 6LE.
THIS volume was written to keep in memory 72 of the worthy men who stood for the truth in Scotland, from Reformation times until shortly after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. This is the edition edited by W H Carslaw, a nineteenth-century Free Church minister in Helensburgh. Rev Donald Beaton described it as “one of the most serviceable editions”; he also declared, “It is a book which should have a place in every household collection, however small it may be”. And indeed The Scots Worthies once had its place in many Scottish cottages where a small bookshelf was sufficient to hold the household’s entire library.
Howie begins with Patrick Hamilton, who after a very brief ministry became Scotland’s first Reformation martyr. When the fire was kindled he cried, “How long, O Lord, shall darkness overwhelm this realm?” His last words were Stephen’s: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Next follows George Wishart, whose preaching in Dundee and Ayrshire was so much blessed before he too suffered a martyr’s death in St Andrews. Then 82-year-old Walter Mill, who suffered the same fate after bearing testimony against the mass: “The Scriptures are to be understood spiritually, and not carnally, and so your mass is wrong, for Christ was once offered on the cross for sin, and will never be offered again, for then He put an end to all sacrifice.”
John Knox, of course, has an honoured place as the leader of the Scottish Reformation. The success of the movement is no doubt to be traced to Howie’s description of him: “An eminent wrestler with God in prayer, and like a prince prevailed.” Knox is well known as one who did not fear the face of man – or Queen Mary – but there were others who followed in his steps. Andrew Melville, for instance, who told King James, “There are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of the commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the Head of the Church, whose subject King James is, and of whose kingdom he is not a head, nor a lord, but a member; and they whom Christ hath called and commanded to watch over His Church and govern His spiritual kingdom have sufficient power and authority from Him so to do, which no Christian king nor prince should control or discharge, but assist and support. Otherwise they are not faithful subjects unto Christ.” For his pains Melville was banished from the kingdom and lived out his days in France as a professor of theology.
We also meet John Welsh, so well known for his prayerfulness and for the success of his preaching in Ayr, before he too was banished to France for his faithfulness to the authority of King Jesus. And Robert Bruce, the minister of St Giles’, Edinburgh, who, it is said, had more souls to his hire than any other Scottish minister. After he was put out of his charge he told John Livingstone, “I would desire no more from my first appeal from King James but one hour’s converse with him. I know he has a conscience; I made him once weep bitterly at Holyrood House.” Another minister who did not fear the face of man! One of Bruce’s converts was Alexander Henderson, who became the leader of the Second Reformation. He had, we are told “the faculty of grave, good and fervent prayer, which he exercised till the end of the Assembly” — the great General Assembly held in Glasgow in 1638, of which he was moderator.
We see here something of James Durham’s outstanding ministry in Glasgow, though he died at the age of only 35. At the end he was in a considerable degree of darkness about the state of his soul and he asked a colleague, “For all I have preached or written, there is but one scripture I can remember or dare grip unto. Tell me if I dare lay the weight of my salvation upon it: ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out’, ” He was assured, “You may depend upon it though you had a thousand salvations at hazard.” And he died in a rapture of joy, saying, “Is not the Lord good? Is He not infinitely good?”
Then there are accounts of a number of the many who suffered under the persecution which followed the return of Charles II in 1660. The first to suffer death was the Marquis of Argyle, who was asked before he went out to his execution, “What cheer, my Lord?” “Good cheer, sir,” he replied, “the Lord hath again confirmed and said to me from heaven, Thy sins be forgiven thee.” Argyle was soon followed to the scaffold by James Guthrie, whose last words were, “Jesus Christ is my light and my life, my righteousness, my strength and my salvation and all my desire. Him, O Him, I do with all the strength of my soul, commend to you! Bless Him, O my soul, from henceforth, even for ever! Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” The authorities had intended that another victim should be Samuel Rutherford, writer of those marvellously spiritual letters, many of them from banishment in Aberdeen. The messengers, however, were told, “I have got a summons already before a superior Judge and judicatory, and I behove to answer my first summons, and before your day come [for a trial] I will be where few kings and great folks come.”
The years which followed were times of cruel, vindictive persecution, when the faces of those who feared God were ground down fearfully. Yet these were times when the grace of God strengthening His children was also wonderfully manifest. It should be noted, however, that the book is written from the perspective of those who believed that Charles II and James II had forfeited all right to the allegiance of their subjects, and this colours Howie’s handling of some accounts.
The volume is well produced, though some of the engravings are not particularly clear. A painting of Ayr, at the heart of Covenanting country, adorns the cover.
K. D. M.