Heroes of the Faith: The Scottish Covenanters

If you’ve ever wondered what “salvation is of the Lord” looks like when it’s tested by real power, real fear, and real death, this message goes straight there. We start with the heart of the gospel: people sin and try to cover it, but God moves toward us in love, sending His Son to suffer and die so we can be forgiven, cleansed, justified, and made new. That’s not a small idea, it’s the kind of truth that has carried believers through flames, prisons, and public executions.

From there, we step into Scottish church history and the rugged world of the Scottish Covenanters. You’ll hear why their covenants formed, how the Protestant Reformation reshaped Scotland, and why the real flashpoint wasn’t just politics or denominations but the dangerous union of church and state. We walk through key moments and names: Mary Queen of Scots, James I, Charles I and Charles II, the National Covenant of 1638, the Solemn League and Covenant, and the persecution that made open-air preaching a capital offense.

The stories are painful and unforgettable: James Guthrie’s final words to his young son, believers tortured for refusing to yield Christ’s headship, and martyrs like Richard Cameron, Donald Cargill, John Brown, and Margaret Wilson. We don’t sanitize the moral complexity of the era, but we do honor the backbone, conscience, and conviction that refused to deny the Lord. Listen, then answer for yourself: what are you standing for today, and what would it take to make you compromise?

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Transcript

Salvation Begins With God

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right now, thank you so much for that very kind word of introduction. Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in today to the preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. I'm Brother James, and I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Isn't it amazing? Man sinned against God. Man made no effort, no attempt to do anything about it. Oh, he tried to cover it up, he tried to hide it. But it was God, God who so loved the world, who made every effort, every attempt to do something about the sin that had separated God from man. God sent his son into the world. God the Son came into the world to lay down his life and die on the cross, to redeem man, to save man, to have a basis upon which to forgive man, to justify him, to cleanse him, to give him a new birth. All of the glorious truths that are wrapped up in that word saved. They all start with God. It's God's work. Salvation is of the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Savior, the Redeemer. Jesus Christ is the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. Jesus Christ is the one who came to seek and save that which is lost. To God be all the glory, to him be all the praise. Christ Jesus the Lord left the glory of heaven, took upon himself the form of a man, came down to this wicked rotten earth, suffered, bled, died on the cross, so that you and I might enjoy the blessings of eternal, everlasting life in the glorious presence of the God against whom we had sinned, but the God who loved us so much that he commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You know, it's the grand truth of the gospel. It's the glory of that good news that has so changed the lives of men and women, that has so remarkably transformed their thinking and their doing, that tens of thousands, no doubt hundreds of thousands of individuals down through the centuries, has been willing have been willing to die rather than deny the Lord Jesus Christ. In our series of studies on the heroes of the faith, those great men and women who have lived such remarkable lives for Jesus Christ, we have come across martyrs time and again, those men, those women who would rather die than deny. Those men and women who considered Jesus Christ worth more than their own necks. They wouldn't deny him. Oh, it might mean flame, it might mean being torn apart by wild beasts, it might mean being shot or run through with a sword, but no matter, no matter. I'll not deny my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That was the heart cry of God's martyrs.

Meet The Scottish Covenanters

SPEAKER_00 3:37

On the program today, we are going to take a look at a company of martyrs, if you will. We learn about them in a book by George Gilfallon, entitled Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. And these individuals were a rugged lot. They may not have had all their doctrine just as correct as we would like them to have it. But I'll tell you one thing, they knew the Lord. And they knew it was better to live with a clear conscience and a good testimony, and die with a good conscience and a clear testimony, than it was to compromise the truth and to sacrifice their right relationship with the Savior in order to stay alive a few more days in this miserable world. So we're going to look today at the Covenanters, as they are called, the Scottish Covenanters, and I believe you'll stay with us, you'll find this study of interest, and I believe if you listen very carefully, God will challenge your soul. No country was so transformed by the Protestant Reformation as was Scotland. Before the fifteen hundreds, Roman Catholicism was the official church there. Two years before John Knox returned from Geneva, certain men did band themselves to maintain the true preaching of the evangel of Jesus Christ. That was their words. They called this banding together a covenant. They had covenanted one with another that they would stay true to the gospel as they understood it, and these men became known in time and in history as the Scottish Covenanters. Scotland's long hard struggle with England in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds needs to be somewhat understood if we are going to comprehend the martyrdom of these individuals. The concerns of these people were not strictly evangelical, we've got to admit that. Some of their concerns were nationalistic, a love for their country, a love for their homeland. And they also voiced issues that touched the foundation truths of Christianity. They were not purely, not entirely given over to the gospel, but uh nor were they truly and entirely given over to that which is political. Their covenants were pledges to recognize no supreme ruler of the church but Jesus Christ, to reject popery in all of its forms, and to resist any form of church government, but rule by spiritual leaders within the church. Now those were the foundation principles upon which they lived and for which eventually they would die.

Crowns Clash With Covenant Faith

SPEAKER_00 6:45

In fifteen sixty seven, Mary, Queen of Scots, a Roman Catholic whom you should know something about, was forced to give up the Scottish throne in favour of her infant son James VI. She fled to England, but was captured and imprisoned. In fifteen eighty one, the first important covenant was signed. It opposed the efforts to restore Roman Catholicism to Scotland. Elizabeth I had Mary executed in fifteen eighty seven. When Elizabeth died in sixteen oh three, her cousin, James VI of Scotland, inherited the English throne. He moved to London, took the title of James I, yes, the man of King James Virgin fame, and ruled Scotland and England. Now James had been raised as a Protestant, and so the Presbyterian Church was given recognition during his reign. James's son, Charles I, ascended the throne in 1625. He restored the same policies as Elizabeth, trying to force the episcopacy on the Scots, that is the Episcopal Church Church of England. In reaction to this, a group of Scotsmen drew up the National Covenant of 1638. In this covenant, they pledged to keep the Church of Scotland separate from the state. These men knew, these men understood, these men recognized, as very few Protestants ever did, as virtually none of the reformers ever did. But the danger was not a Roman Catholic Church, the danger was not a Presbyterian church, the danger was not a Church of England, the danger was not the brand or variety. But the danger was the state and the church being united. If the state could run the church, if the church could run the state, then the church was not safe from the church, and the state was not uh the church was not safe from the state, the state was not safe from the church, no one would be free to disagree. And uh this principle was understood, and so a majority of the people pledged themselves to support Presbyterian church government. Now I do not mean the denominational structure that we know today is the Presbyterian Church, I mean a church that governs itself from within rather than a church that is governed by the state from without. In 1642, English Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell, you say I've heard of that heard of that man. I'd like to read something about him. Well, you'll have to read at least at least four books. Two that favor him, two that are opposed to him, and then you'll begin to glean and to gather something of his remarkable character. But uh Cromwell was a great man. I didn't say I agreed with everything he did. I just said as men go, as men go, he's one of the finest to ever cross the face of this earth, in at least in secular matters. In 1642, English Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell turned against Charles. Civil war broke out in England. The Scottish Covenanters supported Cromwell and the Puritans. In 1643, the Church of Scotland and the English Parliament signed the Solemn League and Covenant, which established religious freedom in Scotland. Now that's what they were fighting for. I'm not recommending that. I'm not putting my seal of approval on taking up arms to fight for religious liberty and freedom. I'm I don't I don't believe that's a Bible principle, but that's easy for me to say because I have never lived under a regime that would put me to death if I practiced Christianity in violation of the state principles. When this solemn league established religious freedom in Scotland, it also did so in England and Ireland. When the tide turned in favor of the Puritans, Charles fled to Scotland. Covenanters captured him, turned him over the Puritans, who beheaded him in 1649. This made Cromwell England's supreme ruler. After the death of Charles, the Scots persuaded his fugitive son, later Charles II, to agree to the National Covenant. Then they defied Cromwell and declared Charles II king, but Cromwell defeated Charles's forces in the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. Oliver Cromwell's death cleared the way for the restoration of the monarchy. Charles II became king in 1660, but in 1661 Charles repudiated the covenant.

Guthrie And A Martyr’s Legacy

SPEAKER_00 11:54

James Guthrie was arrested for adhering to it. Guthrie's two children, Sophia and William, came to see him in jail. He popped his five year old on his lap and said, Willie, the day will come when they will cast up to you that your father was hanged. But be not thou ashamed, lad. It is in a good cause. After the execution, they he was hanged. Now listen. Because they were involved in warfare and bloodshed and battle and intrigue and beheading and executions and that sort of thing, there is a certain degree to which they were reaping what they had sown. I understand. I want to be honest and up front with you. But uh Guthrie was hanged, and that was just the beginning. After the execution, they severed his head, impaled it on a pike above the nether bow in Edinburgh, where the throngs would see it. In the coming years, many more of the Lord's own would be added to the honor role of martyrs whose heads and hands were displayed there. Stuart Menteith wrote a work called Lays of the Kirk and Covenant, in which he said They have set his head on the nether bough to scorch in the summer air, and months go by, and the winter snow falls white on its thin grey hair, and still that same look that in death he wore is sealed on the solemn brow, a look as one who had travelled sore, but whose pangs were ended now. Willie, the young boy, often saw that skull. It was there for twenty seven years, until a young coventer, Sandy Hamilton, imperiled his life to climb up and take it away for proper burial. That same year, Samuel Rutherford's book Lex Rex, The Law Is Over the King, was publicly burned, and he was summoned to appear in court, and we'll tell you that story one day. That's one you'll like to hear. But he died before being arrested. Had he lived, the probable outcome would have been execution. Rutherford is chiefly remembered for his letters, about three hundred and sixty five of them being in print. Some of his most memorable lines were woven into the hymn Emmanuel's Land by Anne Ross's cousin. He called himself a man often borne down and hungry, and a man waiting for the marriage supper of the lamb. You could do worse.

Field Preaching And The Killing Times

SPEAKER_00 14:43

By sixteen sixty three, the ejectment act prohibited about four hundred preachers from freely proclaiming the truth of the word of God. Some preachers resorted to secret meeting places, but others preached meetings in open air. The attempt to limit these gatherings commenced a period of severe persecution. The first armed resistance, the Pentland Rising, came in sixteen sixty six. While attempting to wring fines out of an old man by torture, the soldiers were seized and disarmed. The leaders found popular support in the south, but when they moved toward Edinburgh, the support disappeared. Fear and the understanding that a massacre would no doubt follow if they continued on into the city, the mob sort of dwindled away. They were defeated at Rodian Green. Those captured were hanged. But some government leaders sympathized with the movement. They were growing weary of the persecution, and an indulgence was issued in 1669, and the persecution almost ceased. But in 1670, field meetings, that's open air, brush arbor, preaching of the gospel. Not in a church building, the churches were closed to the Word of God, and so the believers were meeting in fields in open air meetings to hear the Word of God proclaimed. These were denounced, as I said, in 1670, as treasonous acts, and preaching at such a meeting became a capital offense. James Sharp was the most conspicuous persecutor of his time. He was the archbishop of the state church. And his persecution lasted for close to ten years until he was assassinated in 1679. You say, is that a good thing to assassinate a man because he's persecuting the church? I don't think so. I wouldn't do it. I'm giving you some history. You know why I wouldn't do it? Because nobody's rounding up uh my church members, my brothers and sisters, and hauling them off to prison and torturing them and putting them to death. Uh if that was going on, I don't know what I'd do. I don't know what I I'm not recommending this course of action. I'm not putting my seal of approval on it. I'm giving you some church history. And until I have walked where these men were forced to walk, I'm not going to be too quick to tell you what I would do or how I would do it. In a s uh skirmish at Drumclog, Bloody Clavers, as the place came to be known. Um men fled in defeat. Bloody Clavers, because Graham of Claver House stepped in to suppress the resistors. The resistors resisted him. Soon after, at the Battle of Bothwell, Brig, fifteen thousand government troops utterly routed four thousand Covenanters. In sixteen eighty, a band of Covenanters was attacked and defeated at Arzmos. Seeing the dragoons coming, Richard Cameron, the Lion of the Covenant, prayed God to spare the green and take the ripe. Cameron and John Fowler were slain. Some prisoners were taken to Edinburgh and executed. In July of 1681, Donald Cargill and four others were hanged from one gibbet at the Edinburgh Cross. Their heads were added above the netherbough. His story and many others can be read for profit in a book called Fair Sunshine by Jacques Purvaise. Strictly speaking, sixteen eighty four and sixteen eighty five were the killing times when the hottest persecutions occurred. Charles II died in sixteen eighty five and James II ascended the throne. The slaughter continued. On May or in May 1685, at point blank range, Claver House executed John Brown in the presence of John's two children and young wife. When asked by the Heartless Clavers what she thought of her husband now, wife Isabel replied, I ever thought much good of him. And more than ever now. How's that for a while? How's that for a while? That April in Wigtown, Margma or Margaret McLannan, aged seventy, and Margaret Wilson, aged eighteen, were sentenced to be drowned. They were tied to stakes at low tide in Solway Firth by the mouth of Blednock Burn, which fills from the sea, and when the tide comes in, the water rises slowly, slowly but surely. And there they were, staked out, staked out in the mud at low tide, and drowning as the tide came in. After watching Margaret McLannan die uh of drowning, the younger Margaret was heard singing in meter the twenty-fifth Psalm. Could you sing in under under those conditions? I don't believe I could. Could you rejoice in a time like that? That's quite a high calling, isn't it? That December, John Nisbet stood on the gallows in Edinburgh grass market and preached to his audience from Romans 8. He prayed before them, then sang the first six verses of Psalm 34, and then died for preaching the Word of God in violation of the wishes of the government. After twenty-three years of wandering mountains and moors as a fugitive, Alexander Payden, one of the great preachers of the covenant, eluded the hangman and died in his bed in 1868. James Renwick was the last covenanter to be publicly executed. An anonymous biographer wrote, His martyrdom was at the grass market of Edinburgh on seventeenth of february sixteen eighty eight. He was then twenty six years old. His lovely and pleasant in his life, and he obtained such a good report at his death as will make his memory sweet and savory to the generations of the righteous while the sun and moon endure. I'd like to leave behind some sort of a legacy like that, wouldn't you?

The Issues That Still Test Us

SPEAKER_00 21:37

In sixteen eighty nine, William III of Orange landed in England, heralding religious freedom for the Scottish Kirk. Two great issues concerned the Covenanters. First was the earthly sovereign head of the church. Now, the earthly sovereign head of the church according to the governments of that day was the king or the queen, as the case might be. But these covenanters believed the head of the church on earth was the Lord Jesus Christ, and there was the rub. They were rejecting a state church and shedding their blood because they believed that Christ Jesus the Lord was the head of the church. The covenanters saw that the Church of England had openly divested the Son of God of his headship. Not a small thing. Men suffered the thumbscrew because they believed it. Men endured the iron boot because they believed it. Men lost their heads at the chopping block because they believed this. Second, their second great issue was this. They would not submit to using the Church of England's prayer book when they detected papal doctrines therein. Some covenanters felt justified in bearing arms in that grim day, but not all. What carnal weapons could not do, the spiritual weapons of prayer and the Word of God did, to the pulling down of strongholds. Now we honor these sturdy men who maintained their profession of faith in face of such persecutions. We don't approve of all that they did. We don't approve of everything that transpired in God's name during those dangerous, perilous, horrible times. But in the small land of Scotland, sixteen hundred and seventy-two covenantors faced martyrdom. Thousands more were tortured, imprisoned, and banished. But I want you to think about something. Whether you agree with the way they resisted, whether you agree with their methods, whether you agree with the means they used. In the sixteen hundreds, six hundred and seventy-two martyrs, thousands more, as I said, tortured in prison, vanished. Yet, my friend, in the following century seventeen hundred, and the century that followed that eighteen hundred, the world, I am not exaggerating, the world was shaken with the gospel by men and women who went from Scotland as missionaries. God may not have blessed all the methods, God may not have blessed all the means, but God certainly blessed the backbone, the courage, the heart, the conviction, the desire to die rather than live, if it meant denying the truth. And that heart condition, that strength of conviction carried over into the generations that followed, and made Scotland the birthing ground of the Philadelphia Church period and its missionary outreach. And so we'll let the judgment seat of Christ determine the reward. We'll let the judgment seat of Christ determine what was wood, hay, and stubble. But we will tip our cap to every man, every woman who has ever laid down his life and died for their faith in Jesus Christ and their confidence in the Word of God, no matter how imperfect or incomplete such faith and such confidence may prove to be. What are you fighting for today? What are you standing for today? What are you living for today? To what to whom are you devoted? And would you lay down your life rather than deny it? These, my friends, are the issues of life.