Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

grounds,"
pontifical."
on."
glory."
Retrospect of Covenanting
Rev. Roy Blackwood
Saturday Evening Address before the Grinnell Conference
History would say to us that covenanting is not
a new idea; it's as old as Adam. Nor is it specula
tion or theory. The privileges of coming "together
with God in a written contract, of signing on the
dotted line for the glory of Jesus Christ, have helped
men in almost every generation and nation where
God's Word was known, and men knew, or grew
to know, the Lord.
The Early Covenants
The FIRST COVENANTS in history are per
haps best known ; in the Garden of Eden, with Noah
and Abraham, at Sinai, in the Promised Land one
covenant after another for God's chosen peoples.
They are specimens of the way God likes to deal with
that form of life which was made in His own image.
But these were merely a preparation for the
ratification of that covenant which God had made
with His Son. And with the birth, life, death, resur
rection and reign of Jesus Christ, the world sees
the greatest example of the principle of covenant
ing. The New Testament Example.
In the early church, in apostolic times, care
ful provision was made for "covenant breakers" and
the Macedonians insisted on "yielding themselves un
to the Lord." before giving the help Paul wanted.
Following the days of the apostles, we find re
cords of covenanting in the writings of Irenaeus,
of Justin Martyr, of Tertullian, and others of the
early Christian Fathers.
It was a moral privilege that was not forgotten
or ignored by the Waldensian and Bohemian breth
ren during the dark ages in Europe. But it is with
the dawn of the Reformation on the continent that
we find covenants and covenanters springing up all
and Switz
over France, Germany, the Netherlands,
erland. Christianity seemed to flourish in a culture
of covenants.
Again and again it happened, that with the re
discovery of the scriptures, the acknowledged start
ing point of reformation, came the practice of Cove
nanting. When men were given God's Word, and
studied it when they came to know Him and sought
to find other means of coming together with Him,
then they began to sign covenants.
Since the Reformation we have seen a little of
the continuing use of Covenants in our own country.
The Mayflower Compact was a covenant, the charters
of many of the colonies more nearly resembled cove
nants than anything else; covenants have been
signed in Octorara and in Philadelphia by our own
church, and now still going west we renew one
here at Grinnell in 1954.
still open while He hung upon the cross, dying for
our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins
of the whole world.
But He must eventually close the door. "Depart
from me, ye cursed, unto the everlasting punishment
prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hun
gry and ye gave me no meat, thirsty and ye gave me
"
no drink . . . .
Brotherhood has its limitations, and
true brotherhood must always be on God's terms.
March 9, 1955
Scotland
the Land of Covenants
But above all these, Scotland was the "proving
chosen by God for the development and
demonstration of the effective use of covenants. She
has been called, "The land of the Covenants," and
never since the time of Israel, was the privilege of
making
a covenant with God so appropriately and
one of Scot
successfully used. Professor Hugh Watt,
land's greatest church historians, said, "No period
of Scottish history has proved more pregnant with
far reaching results than the age of the covenants.
The English speaking world still bears the impress
The setting in Scotland was nearly complete.
Not one ray of light crept into that darkness born
of Bible ignorance to argue compromise. Neither
clergy nor crowd were interested in reform and the
people lay in the iron grasp of a profligate and de
signing priesthood. The records in Edinburgh yet
today show scores,
even hundreds, of bastard sons
and daughters of priests, bishops and archbishops
being legitimated. Nunneries were cesspools of cor
ruption. "I thank God," said the Bishop of Dunkeld,
"that I never knew what the Old and New Testament
portuise
was ! Therefore ... I will know nothing but my
and
The danger was magnified by the fact that
Scotland was the "key" to the success of the Refor
mation in Europe. If the French Catholics could con
trol Scotland they could take England for the Pope
and there would then be little hope for the continen
tal countries between. There was every reason to
believe that Scotland would "go to the Catholics." But
then copies of Wycliff's and Tyndale's and Luther's
Bibles began to filter through the Pope's iron cur
tain. Hamilton and Wishart were burned alive. The
people began to contrast the character of these men
with that of the priests who did the burning and
there were murmerings all over Scotland ; "the reek
of their ashes infected all it fell
John Knox was banished for preaching to the
priests and spent his time studying in Calvin's school
at Geneva. He called it "the most perfect school of
Christ that ever was on the earth since the days of
the Apostles," and one of those courses would prob
ably have been, "How and when to Covenant."
Knox slipped home to Scotland for a visit in
1556 and after some straight from the shoulder
preaching, wrote that some gentlemen in Mearns,
"refuised all societie with idolitrie, and band
themselfis
to the uttermost of their poweris, to manteane
the trew preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ
. . . To "band themselfis" probably was not a public
social covenant, only a private vow, but it was a be
ginning and it promised great things for Christ's
glory.
The next year, Knox wrote home to Scotland
from Geneva urging the leaders to "advise diligently,
(and may) the mighty Spirit of the Lord Jesus rule,
and guide your counsels to His eternal They
responded by writing the first "common bond,"
promising to apply "our whole lives to maintain, set
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