Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

ministers'
more."
Covenant Keeping
Dr. Paul Coleman
Sabbath Morning Address before the Covenant Signing at Grinnell July 18, 195 U
It was Sabbath morning of communion for the
Covenanters in southeast Scotland, and the people
from a distance who had found lodging in the neigh
boring towns over night were up and out early to
meet at an appointed spot, and then march together
about a mile to the place of preaching for the day.
It was a long, long procession and behind them rode
the horsemen as a rearguard. For though it was in
1668 during an interlude of persecution which men
afterwards called "The Blink," none knew when it
might end. Along the stream they traveled to a place
where they saw the tent, and the long
communion tables had been arranged by the side of
the stream ; while the hills circling round were a
natural grassy amphitheater where thousands might
sit down. Ministers Dickson and John Blackader were
the speakers for the service, and all through the
morning, the people listened. Then after intermis
sion came the sacrament, and though two hundred
at one time might be served at the tables, there were
sixteen tables that day. Again and again
they heard
the words, "This cup is the new testament in my
blood ;
. . drink ye all of it." At some time during the
service there was the singing of the 103rd Psalm,
and none who heard it that day would ever forget
the glory of it. For generations that was the Psalm of
communion service among the Covenanters in Scot
land and northern Ireland.
Along with other Covenanters from Scotland, Ire
land and America, I shared in Greyfriars Church in
the closing service of the 1938 convention commem
orating the 300th anniversary of the signing of the
National Covenant of Scotland. I might try to de
scribe the place and the history in the hope that they
might bring an inspiration to covenant keeping now.
Instead, I believe the Lord has led me in planning
to build an association today between this covenant
of 1954 and the 103rd Psalm, the communion Psalm
of covenant renewal, already known and loved by you
all. Will you help me to do that
According to this covenant of 1954, we say, "We
accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour from sin and own
Him as our Lord." Under Covenant Obligations, we
say, "Accepting the Covenant of Grace we do under
take the following obligations of this our Covenant.
We do covenant with God that we will seek to con
form our lives to the teaching and example of our
Lord Jesus Christ." That is the foundation of it all.
Like the Covenanters of old, we would dwell deep in
the fellowship of God. This was the unfailing source
of their strength ; the chief subject of their preach
ing. It brought to their meetings some like Marion
Harvey who on the scaffold just before her execu
tion for holding to the covenants gave her testi
mony; "I am about twenty years of age; at fourteen
or fifteen, I was a hearer of the curates and the
indulged (ministers) and while I was a hearer of
these, I was a blasphemer and Sabbath breaker, and
a chapter of the Bible was a burden to me ; but since
I heard the persecuted gospel, I durst not blaspheme
nor break the Sabbath and the Bible has become my
86
delight."
May we not hope that this portion of our
covenant of 1954 may become to many here today an
expression of assured fact ; that from this time they
may have a fresh hope in Christ. And FOR ALL OF
US, there must foe a new earnestness in keeping those
regulations of the covenant which make us belong to
Christ, children of God, now and forever, with all the
unfolding riches of Christian blessing and experience.
"0 my soul bless thou Jehovah; all within me bless
His name; bless Jehovah, and forget not all His
proclaim."
mercies to
Every reason for making this covenant with God,
is a reason for keeping this covenant with God. For
since it is a Biblical covenant in its profession of
faith and obligations to Christian duties, it is GOD'S
PROPOSAL TO US as a church and as individuals;
and as always with God's covenants with men, its
advantages far outweigh its obligations.
By 1668 and the communion at the Nesbit con
venticle, the National Covenant was thirty years
past, and the Solemn League and Covenant between
the Protestants of England and the Covenanters of
Scotland was 25 years past, but their loyalty to them
was still a test question. When Charles I. tried to
bring an army from England to subdue the Scotch
to his absolute will, he was met by a Scotch army
under command of General Leslie and flying the Blue
Banner "For Christ's Crown and Covenant." He dar
ed not fight then. He lost his throne and his life.
But in 1660 his son Charles II. promised to support
the covenants if he could come home from exile and
be king. The Covenanters trusted him ; he swore the
covenants; then denounced them; and loyalty to
them became a legal crime. Scotch ministers who
would not yield to him had to leave their churches
and parsonages; and hundreds of them did. Little
by little, he won most of them back by apparent com
promises. He forced bishops whom he could control
on the Presbyterians of Scotland whom otherwise he
could not control. Men were required to attend
churches approved by the government; conventicles
were forbidden, and attendance on them punished by
fine, or death, or prison or banishment.
The Reformed faith was in peril in Scotland, as on
the continent. Would all Scotchmen surrender The
stricter Covenanters included loyalty to the cove
nants as part of their terms of communion. And
when they sang in Psalm 103, "He made known
race,"
His ways to Moses, and His acts to Israel's
they believed also that God had made His ways
known through the leaders to the Reformation to
Scotchmen truth in trust, God's truth in trust,
God's precious truth founded in the Scriptures ; and
their love of the Lord had to take precedence of any
command of the king, whatever the cost.
As the Killing Times came on, it seemed to some
that the price of loyalty to the covenants was too
heavy for some. An old acquaintance of Donald Cargill's
once said of him, "What needs all this ado
We will get heaven and they will get
When no
the protest was repeated to Cargill, he replied,
COVENANTER WITNESS