In the history of the Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter) Church of North America (RPCNA), American wars have often created a conflict or crisis of loyalty, not only between opposing sides, but for those desiring to serve their country, but precluded from doing so, at least in some respects, by the usual requirement of enlistees and officers to take a certain oath of loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. This is so, for American Covenanters, because of the historic principle of the RPCNA known as "Political Dissent," which is to say, Covenanters in America have historically aimed to be good citizens in every respect but have refrained from activities which require an oath to the U.S. Constitution - such as voting, jury duty, and in some cases, military service - which they believed was unlawful for the simple reason that the Constitution gave no acknowledgment to God or His law, and in some instances, directly opposed the law of God (for more on this, please the Reformation Principles Exhibited, authored by Alexander McLeod, chap. 29, Of the Right of Dissent From a Constitution of Civil Government; or James Renwick Willson, Prince Messiah's Claims to Dominion Over All Governments; and the Disregard of His Authority by the United States, in the Federal Constitution).
An RPCNA layman, and editor of The Christian Nation, John Wagner Pritchard (1851-1924), wrote a valuable chapter of Covenanter history with the title: Soldiers of the Church: The Story of What the Reformed Presbyterians (Covenanters) of North America, Canada, and the British Isles, Did to Win the World War of 1914-1918 (1919). In it, he speaks to this conflict of conscience (pp. 5-6):
"People who do not understand, marvel that a Covenanter will give his life for his country but withholds his vote at election time. A Covenanter will give his life because of his loyalty to his country, and withholds his vote at election time because of his loyalty to Christ. To become a soldier he is required to swear loyalty to his country, and that he is always eager to do; but to vote at an election he is required to swear to a Constitution of Civil Government that does not recognize the existence of God, the authority of Christ over the nation, nor any obligation to obey His moral law; and that his conception of loyalty to Christ will not permit him to do."
Pritchard traces the history of American Covenanter involvement in the military during the American War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the War Between the States, and, finally, World War I. Largely descended from a Scotch-Irish background, unsurprisingly perhaps, colonial Covenanters led the way in resistance to British tyranny (see Alexander Craighead and John Cuthbertson). Interestingly, no objectionable oath was required of enlistees in the War of 1812. In the Mexican War, Covenanters opposed American efforts to expand slave territory. In the War of 1861, American Covenanters did fight for the North, when exceptions were made for conscience' sake, for those who fought for the North. The modified oath for Covenanter enlistees in that War read thus: "I do swear by the living God, that I will be faithful to the United States, and will aid and defend them against the armies of the Confederate States, yielding obedience to military orders." William Melancthon Glasgow goes to on add: "This oath neither encouraged members unduly to enter the conflict, nor pledged them to support an immoral Constitution. Covenanters regarded the government justifiable in the war so far as it was waged to maintain the integrity of the country and to overthrow the iniquitous system of human slavery" (History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, p. 128). It was at this time also that the National Reform Association was established with the aim of amending the U.S. Constitution to acknowledge Jesus Christ as King of the nations, and his law as supreme.
In the case of World War I, Mr. Pritchard states, while America refrained from participation in that war, the RPCNA offered its support to President Woodrow Wilson, but after finally joining the cause of freedom and declaring war on Germany, military service by American Covenanters was given at a rate possibly higher than any other denomination: "These records establish the fact that the Covenanter's attitude toward civil government does affect his loyalty to his country but that it affects it by emphasizing it, and they show that 7 ½ per cent of the entire membership of the American Covenanter Church were enrolled in the various departments of military service, a percentage probably greater than that of any other denomination [emphasis added]."
He goes on to say that some were denied the opportunity to serve the military either at the enlistee or officer level, due to the oath requirements, while some members of the Covenanter joined the military anyway. Others performed civil service instead. A bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1918 that would have modified the military oath to allow for the conscientious objections of Reformed Presbyterians, but it failed to win support. Many did find a way to serve in some capacity, however, and their stories are told by Mr. Pritchard, as well as the stories of those who tried and were denied.
During the War, a letter was sent by the RPCNA to President Woodrow Wilson (himself a Presbyterian ruling elder):
"To Honorable Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America:
Dear Mr. President:—The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church sends greetings. Strength and wisdom unto you from our Lord Jesus Christ.
This Church, deeply interested in the welfare of the country and the progress of the war, wishes to express gratitude to God and to you for the manner in which the power of the nation is employed in defense of the world's freedom.
We believe there never was a more righteous cause; the fight is for the rights and liberties won in all former battles.
The final issue of the war, in our judgment, is certain; victory, vindication and peace; but its protraction, with the cost of blood, treasure and tears, appalls us. We are not afraid of the enemy; but regarding the long exhausting process at evidence of God's displeasure, we tremble. Serious inquiry is surely now in order.
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ as the King of Nations has a place in national government, which has not been ac corded Him; has a part in the war, which has not been duly recognized; has supreme power to co-ordinate the nations and restore peace; and that His power should be acknowledged and honored by the nations.
The Bible says: "Be wise, O ye kings; kiss the Son, lest He be angry." "All kings shall bow down before Him; all nations shall serve." "He is King of kings, and Lord of lords."
We believe the greatest need of the times is the recognition of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Moral Governor of the nations. The heart of mankind, almost in despair, cries out for a deliverer. None but Jesus can deliver, for the Father has given the nations into His hand.
We beseech you, therefore, to use your office to the utmost, to give the NAME of Jesus Christ prestige in your administrational work, and to recommend to the Congress the recognition of His authority in the laws of the country, endeavoring to harmonize the government with His will.
We know you have no precedent in modern history for your herculean task. But these are times when we look not backward for examples, but upward for vision, and on ward for action. A mighty flood has carried us beyond all landmarks.
The Lord, who has elevated you to the highest office of the land, and to the most influential position in the world, give you power and wisdom to reach the greatest possibili ties of your office for the redemption of the world, that looks for a man, and listens for a voice, to lead her out of the present horror, into the marvelous light of the God of peace.
Very respectfully,
G. A. EDGAR, Moderator.
D. C MATHEWS, Clerk.
Respectfully submitted,
J. C McFEETERS,
F. M. WILSON,
M. M. PEARCE,
J. S. ANDERSON,
S. A. S. METHENY,
Committee."
The Covenanter Service Flag, illustrated here, represents the contributions of the American, Irish and Scottish Synods of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
The American Synod, in the war from April 6, 1917, until the end: 604 served, 15 died.
The Irish Synod, in the war from August 4, 1914, until the end: 242 served, 48 died.
The Scotch Synod, in the war from August 4, 1914, until the end: 164 served, 33 died.
Jure Divino Presbyterianism
"The Southern Presbyterian Church was committed from its initial organization in 1861 to a theory of the church advanced by Thomas Cartwright in England in the latter part of the 16th century, embodied in the Scottish Second Book of Discipline (1581) and championed by James Henley Thornwell and other Southern Presbyterian divines as over against Charles Hodge of Princeton in the 1850's." -- Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, Vol. 2: 1861-1890, p. 414.
As Thompson goes on to relate, John Lafayette Girardeau summed up the Southern Presbyterian position well, historically known as jure divino Presbyterianism, or divine right Presbyterianism, as he laid it out in a sermon before the General Assembly of 1875:
"There are two supreme obligations which this final charge of the Lord Jesus lays upon the heart of the church. The first is the transcendent duty of universal evangelization. The second is the inculcation and maintenance of the truth which Christ, the prophet of the church, has taught, and the commands which Christ, the king of the church, has enjoined. The call of the gospel is to be addressed to all the sons of men, and when they accept it, and are gathered into the fold of the church, she is to teach them all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. There are obviously a positive and a negative aspect of this charge to the church, — positive, in that she is directed to teach all that Christ has commanded; negative, in that she is implicitly prohibited from teaching anything which He has not commanded. The negative duty is a necessary inference from the command which enforces the positive. Here, then, we have the principle tinctured with the blood of our Puritan, Covenanter and Huguenot forefathers — that what is not commanded, either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures, is prohibited to the church. She can utter no new doctrine, make no new laws, ordain no new forms of government, and invent no new modes of worship. This is but a statement of a fundamental principle of Protestantism, contra-distinguishing it from Rationalism on the one hand and Romanism on the other, — that the Scriptures, as the word of Christ, are the complete and ultimate rule of faith and duty. They are complete, since they furnish as perfect a provision for the spiritual, as does nature for the physical, wants of man, and, therefore, exclude every other rule as unnecessary and superfluous. They are ultimate because, being the word of God, they must pronounce infallibly and supremely upon all questions relating to religious faith and practice. The duty of the church, consequently, to conform herself strictly to the divine word, and her guilt and danger in departing from it would seem to be transparently evident. But the clearest principles, through the blindness, fallibility, and perverseness of the human mind, frequently prove inoperative in actual experience; and the history of the church furnishes lamentable proof that the great, regulative truth of the completeness and supremacy of the Scriptures constitutes no exception to this remark. Because we are Protestants, and Presbyterian Protestants, because the doctrine of the perfection and ultimate authority of the word lies at the root of our system and is embodied in our standards, we are not, therefore, free from the peril attending the failure of the church to conform herself in all things to the revealed will of Christ, and her tendency to rely upon her own folly instead of His wisdom" ("The Discretionary Power of the Church," Sermons, p. 370-371).
Happy 300th Birthday to John Cuthbertson, Pioneer Covenanter Missionary!
The name of John Cuthbertson is greatly renowned in both the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of America, and that of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. He was born on April 3, 1718, near Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland. Having studied theology under the auspices of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, he was licensed 1745, ordained in 1747, and served as Moderator of the RPCS in 1750. The following year, he was sent as the first Scottish Covenanter missionary to America.
He landed in Newcastle, Delaware, where he began a diary, which still survives. "It is a small leather-bound volume, recording his day-to-day activities, sometimes in English, sometimes in Latin, often abbreviated, with some shorthand, portraying a magnificent life of travel and service" (David M. Carson, Transplanted to America: A Popular History of the American Covenanters to 1871, p. 11). Cuthbertson went on to settle at Middle Octorara, Pennsylvania, where Alexander Craighead had previously ministered, and also renewed the Scottish Covenants in 1743.
With Middle Octorara as his base, Cuthbertson traveled throughout the middle American colonies on horseback, through Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and so ministered widely to the scattered Scots-Irish in these places. "His ministry spanned the forty years after his 1751 arrival, and he traversed a remarkable 70,000 miles in his preaching tours through at least seven colonies" (Joseph S. Moore, Founding Sins: How a Group of Antislavery Radicals Fought to Put Christ into the Constitution, p. 44). Extracted from his diary by S. Helen Fields is a Register of Baptisms and Marriages performed by Rev. John Cuthbertson. "According to his diary, during the thirty-nine years he was engaged in active service, he preached on two thousand four hundred and fifty-two days; baptized one thousand eight hundred and six children; married two hundred and forty couples; rode on horseback seventy thousand miles, or nearly equal to three times around the world. And this traveling was done in those days when there were no roads or bridges" (William M. Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, p. 478). His travels and trials are recorded in this diary with brevity ("Slept none. Bugs." "Give all praise to my gracious God." "l.D. [laus Deo, praise to God]") and with humility: "a real conviction of one's original guilt; actual transgressions of childhood; riper years, especially in the great office of the ministry; pride, carnality, indifference, want of true zeal for Christ's cause and the welfare of Immortal souls..." [after reading a sermon by Ralph Erskine].
On March 10, 1774, along with two other ministers and some ruling elders, Cuthbertson helped to establish the first Reformed Presbytery in America. His diary entry for March 9, 1774 states "Conversed with Messrs. Lind, Dobbin & until 1 o,clock," and on the following day he wrote "After more consultation, & prayer, Presbytery." On July 2, 1777, Cuthbertson swore allegiance to the cause of the American colonies in their conflict with Great Britain. Formal discussions with the Associate Church in that same year, and in 1782, these two ecclesiastical bodies merged to become the Associate Reformed Church, taking with them most members of both churches. This union between the Covenanters and the Seceders was not without challenges to Cuthbertson -- he wrote to his nephew that "Our coalescence with ye Seceders, I apprehend, is almost at an end...Was told that ye Covenanters in ye north of Ireland...had appointed a minister to come over here. Should divine Providence favor this, I expect ye true Covenanting cause might again lift up ye head in ys western world" (Letter to John Bourns, Aug. 19, 1789) -- but he never rejoined the Covenanter (Reformed Presbyterian) Church before his passing.
When he died on March 10, 1791, he was buried in the church cemetery at Middle Octorara. There is a fine sketch of his life in William M. Glasgow's History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America. On the occasion of his 300th birthday, this pioneer Covenanter missionary is worthy of remembrance.
The Whigs of the Covenant Who Fought at Drumclog
The Battle of Drumclog on June 1, 1679, represents the high-water mark, militarily speaking, of the Scottish Covenanter struggle (1638-1688) against the Stuart kings (specifically King Charles II and King James VII). It was followed by a major Covenanter defeat at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge on June 22, 1679. What followed after that is known to history as an intense period of persecution that we refer to as "the Killing Times" (c. 1680-1688). In the phase of the conflict from 1661 to 1688, it is estimated that 18,000 men, women and children were killed "for Christ's Crown & Covenant."
Log College Press has recently added works by William Craig Brownlee (1784-1860), the Scottish-born American Presbyterian, who was descended from a survivor of these battles. He recounted the history primarily in Narrative of the Battles of Drumclog, and Bothwell Bridge (1822, 1850); in the beginning of his critique of the Quakers, published in 1824; and in his two-volume The Whigs in Scotland: or, The Last of the Stuarts. An Historical Romance of the Scottish Persecution (1833).
Scottish Covenanter Thomas Brownlee (1638-1713), Laird (landowner, or squire, not lord) of Torfoot, fought in both the battles of Drumclog, and Bothwell Bridge. After the latter battle, he was captured and placed on a prisoner ship bound for Barbados to be sold into slavery. This ship sank near the Orkney Islands on December 10, 1679, and approximately 200 Covenanters drowned, but Thomas Brownlee was one of those who escaped and made it to shore alive. His account of these battles, it is said, was not published until 1822, by a descendant, in an American newspaper, the National Gazette. (It is this work which was later published by William Craig Brownlee under the title Narrative of the Battles of Drumclog, and Bothwell Bridge.) By this time, Sir Walter Scott had recounted the battle of Drumclog in his "Waverly Novels" (The Tale of Old Mortality from Tales of My Landlord), not in a favorable light to the Covenanters. The account of Thomas Brownlee was prefaced by a letter to the editor which took note of this and, he says, it led him to seek publication of this defense of the "Whigs of the Covenant."
"Messrs. Editors,
Of all the Waverly Novels "Old Mortality" produced perhaps the greatest sensation in Scotland. It pleased the light readers. It was very acceptable to the Tory party. It roused the attention of the Whigs--I mean not the Radicals, but the descendants and lovers of the true "Whigs of the Covenant." It excited a burst of admiration, and a burst of indignation, deep and severe. The one from the Tories, and the mere admirers of fine historical romance-- the other from the religious and devout body of the nation.
It was a novel affair, and it excited the public feeling to an intense degree, to see venerable clergymen descending into the arena to attack the statements and sentiments of a romance. There was a reason for this. The book was read by everybody, and it contains the sentiments of toryism in their most imposing form--and there is much that approaches to a degree of impiety which that sober people will not bear. Nay, the religious people deemed that they saw no less than a design to ridicule the memory of the martyrs and patriots of the days of Charles II and to vilify their holy religion. The description which he has given of the conduct and motives of the military chieftains; the personal accomplishments and the romantic gallantry with which his imagination has clothed the atrocious Claverhouse, do prove that there is too much room for the one; and the absurd balderdash and disgusting cant which he has put into the mouths of the leading preachers of that age (and they were no mean men), do altogether show a spirit of hostility and persecution not to be tamely submitted to in this enlightened age. The result of this public indignation was visably in favour of the "good cause." Accurate engravings of Graham of Clavers were brought forward. In opposition to the romantic paintings of the novelist, the harsh features of his iron face were revealed; and the tout ensemble exhibited an exterior in every respect befitting the gloomy and dark soul of a man whose hands were dipped in human blood to the wrists. And in the late additional details of his public character, it has been satisfactorily shown, from the most authentic documents, that the "gallant and enterprising officer" of Hume and of the Tories, was a cold-blooded murderer of the unarmed peasantry; that he shot down, without trial or form of law, free citizens on their own lands, and by their own firesides; that he belonged to that licensed banditti, the oppressors of their country, who "employed even the sagacity of blood-hounds to discover the lurking places of the patriots and martyrs," whom they butchered in the presence of their wives and crying babes. (See Laing's History of Scotland, vol. ii, Scots Worthies, & c.passim.)Another consequence of this national excitement was a holy seal, which put forth its activities in repairing the tombs and monuments over the bodies of the martyrs. Each sacred spot, on mountain, in valleys, and on moors, where the patriots had fallen by the steel of the life-guards, was sought out and monuments erected, and tombstones repaired, and a host of "Old Mortalities" put in requisition to chisel deeper the names and the epitaphs of the martyrs.
This is my introduction--I now offer you the "Battle of Drumclog". And the "Battle of Bothwell Bridge" shall be forthcoming--that you may judge of the contrast between the account of these battles in the Waverley romance, and in history.
In his "Battle of Drumclog", the "great wizard" makes the Covenanters' army murder a gallant young officer, who came with a flag of truce. Nothing can be more erroneous and slanderous. It is an outrage to history. It is only surpassed by that more outrageous fiction of their intending murder of young Morton in the night after Bothwell battle.
The following words of the Laird of Torfoot, whose estate is this day in possession of two brothers, his lineal descendants of the fifth generation. The Laird speaks of what he saw and what he did. I have carefully compared his account with the statements handed down by family tradition--particularily with the statements of a venerable aunt, who died lately in Pennsylvania, aged nearly ninety, and who was grand-daughter of the Laird's second son. I have also compared the account with the brief printed account of these battles in the "Scottish Worthies" and the "Cloud of Witnesses." This last book (p. 334, Lond. edit.) records the Laird's name in the list of those driven into banishment; but who, in spite of Clavers and Charles, and shipwrecks, by the grace of God, regained his native halls to bless his afflicted family, and who finally died in peace, in the presence of his family, in a good old age."
The history of Drumclog has been written by the infamous John Graham of Claverhouse. Sir Walter Scott's account has already been alluded to. In Thomas Brownlee's account, via William Craig Brownlee, we have a sympathetic tale of the Covenanters who suffered and gave so much for freedom. It is little-known today, but Brownlee's account, more so than the others, is a tale is worth the re-telling.