Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II THE HEROES OF THE COVENANT THE ecclesiastical history of Scotland, during the century and a quarter succeeding the Reformation, consists mainly of a struggle against the harsh and persistent efforts of the Stuart kings to force upon the people a liturgical form of worship and the Episcopal system of Church government. But a deeper and more vital question than either of these was involved?the right of the Church of Scotland to worship God and to govern itself, according to the methods approved by its own reason and conscience. Unless we keep this fundamental truth in mind we shall misread the history of these times and we shall be in danger of attributing to the Scots an absurd punctiliousness, a morbid scrupulosity, an obstinate and fanatical perversity which led them to sacrifice peace, liberty, life itself, on behalf ofcauses which did not call for, and were not worthy of these oblations. The conflict resolves itself round Liturgy and Episcopacy, but these are only the accidents of the situation. It was not for these that the martyrs bled. It was for the crown rights of Jesus Christ as the sole head of the Church, and for the indefeasible privilege and duty of the members of Christ’s visible body to determine for themselves, under law to Christ alone, the polity of the Christian community. For this cause they endured joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and were willing to undergo the uttermost agonies. The leaders at the beginning of the struggle were not fanatics, but we shall find, without surprise and without shame, that persecution exasperated many noble-hearted men into extreme courses and perverted views. They were willing to die for Presbyterianism (because they believed that that polity had a Divine sanction and because a greater cause than Presbyteria…
