II.—THE LIMITS OF PUBLIC AUTHORITY, AND OF A PEOPLE'S ALLEGIANCE.
A question was raised in the later times of the persecution of difficult solution, but of vast practical importance. This was the due limit of submission to civil rulers, and the withdrawal of allegiance and submission from those who had violated their compact with the people, and had trampled under foot their constitutional rights. It is ably shown by Dr. D'Aubigné,[2] as had been done before, that civil freedom and religious reformation, originating with the people, have ever been closely united and advanced together. Wherever the principles of evangelical truth have been rightly understood and firmly maintained, the people have refused to tolerate civil oppression. "He is a freeman whom the truth makes free." All genuine civil freedom is based on religious liberty. Calvinism, as is admitted even by many who are opposed to it as a doctrinal system, has been the irreconcileable foe of despotism all over the world;—by the heroic struggles, and cheerful sacrifices of its adherents, the battle of freedom has been fought, and its triumphs achieved in many lands. Particularly in Scotland, where the Reformation, from the first, originated with the people, and was carried forward in opposition to the mandates of arbitrary rulers, and notwithstanding the relentless persecution of the civil powers, the eminent instruments whom God honoured for advancing the truth, all along contended for the liberties of their country, and earnestly pleaded that the duties of rulers and ruled should be clearly defined, and the rights of the people settled on a constitutional basis. This was the plea of the illustrious Knox, as is seen in his expostulations with the Queen and nobles of Scotland, and in his intercourse with the statesmen of the day—English and Scottish—and in his writings. The works of Buchanan, Rutherford, and Gillespie, bear ample testimony to the enlarged views of their authors in relation to the proper bounds of civil and ecclesiastical authority, and to their fidelity to the cause of genuine liberty. The same great principles were contended for by Alexander Henderson, embodied in the scriptural attainments of the memorable Second Reformation, and clearly enunciated in the Solemn League and Covenant of the three kingdoms, in which the covenanters explicitly bound themselves to support the king and parliament in "the maintenance of the true reformed religion." When the Scottish nation, forgetful of their sacred vows, tamely submitted to the tyranny of the royal brothers, and Presbyterian ministers remained silent under an infamous indulgence, it devolved upon a few despised and persecuted covenanters,—the Society people,—to lift up and hold aloft the torch of freedom; and by their faithful testimonies and declarations uttered in fields and on scaffolds, and more still, by their blood freely shed to confirm their righteous cause, to sow broadcast the principles of genuine liberty. These, after lying buried in the earth for a time, sprung up vigorously, and bore fruit, when the perfidious race of the Stuarts was driven ignominiously from the throne; and, at the Revolution, some of the fundamental truths for which the martyrs of the covenant contended, became ascendant and triumphant.[3]
In the Queensferry Paper, penned by Cargill, in a rough draft, and found on the person of Henry Hall of Haughhead, when he was taken, the heroic sufferers expressly disowned the authority of Charles II. and his government. The terms employed, it has been remarked, very much resemble those used by the English nation when they rejected the Government of James II., and transferred the crown to William and Mary.
"We reject the king and those associate with him in government from being our king and rulers, being no more bound to them. They have altered and destroyed the Lord's established religion,—overturned the fundamental and established laws of the kingdom—taken away altogether Christ's church government, and changed the civil government of this land, which was by a king and free parliament, into tyranny." The conclusion expresses sentiments worthy of the most distinguished patriots, and that are fit to be taken as the watchward of struggling freemen all over the world. "We bind and oblige ourselves to defend ourselves and one another in our worshipping of God, in our natural, civil and divine rights and liberties, till we shall overcome, or send them down under debate to posterity—that they may begin where we end."
The grand principle of the rejection of tyrannical power was boldly proclaimed by Cargill, in preaching to thousands of Conventicle hearers, and was prominently held forth in his last testimony:—"As to the cause of my suffering," said he, "the chief is, not acknowledging the present authority, as it is established in the supremacy and explanatory act. This is the magistracy I have rejected—that which is invested with Christ's power. Seeing that power taken from Christ which is His glory, and made the essential of an earthly crown, seemed to me, as if one were wearing my husband's garments, after he had killed him. There is no distinction we can make that can free the conscience of the acknowledger from being a partaker of this sacrilegious robbery of God. And it is but to cheat our conscience to acknowledge the civil power alone, that it is of the essence of the crown; and seeing they are so express, we ought to be plain, for otherwise we deny our testimony, and consent that Christ be robbed of His glory."
The same testimony against the Indulgence and against unconstitutional power was firmly maintained by RICHARD CAMERON, during the whole of his public ministry, and in the noble testimony emitted by him shortly before his death. Soon after his return from Holland in 1680, in one of his earliest sermons, he declared, "I know not if this generation will be honoured to cast off these rulers. But those that the Lord makes instruments to bring back Christ, and to recover our liberties, civil and ecclesiastical, shall be such as shall disown this king and the magistrates under him." He added this warning to the persecuting authorities, with the heroic resolve—"Let them take heed unto themselves; for though they should take us to scaffolds, and kill us in the fields, the Lord will yet raise up a party who will be avenged on them. We had rather die than live in the same country with them, and outlive the glory of God departing altogether from these lands."
A short month before his death, the intrepid Cameron, his brother Michael, and some twenty other covenanters, armed and on horseback, posted up at the market cross of the burgh of SANQUHAR, the "Sanquhar Declaration" in which are contained these ever memorable words:—
"We do, by these presents, disown Charles Stuart, who has been reigning, or rather tyrannizing in the throne of Britain, these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or right in the crown of Scotland, for government:—as forfeited several years since, by his perjury, and breach of Covenant both to God and His truth, and by his tyranny and breach of the very leges regnandi—the very essential conditions of government, in matters civil." This was a noble deed, and ranks Cameron and his followers with the purest and most disinterested patriots of any age or country. It has been justly remarked by an eloquent writer, "The real matter of fact for which the Cameronians contended was just the old claim of the Covenanters—'a free Parliament and a free Assembly.'" "It is the glory of the Cameronians, in which no other party shares, that when most people lay prostrate, and many of the bravest stood aloof, they were the first to hoist the flag, disowning the government of the Stuarts, without whose expulsion liberty was impossible."[4]
The testimony which Cargill and Cameron boldly proclaimed and sealed with their blood, was cordially espoused by Renwick, and faithfully maintained by him during the whole course of his public ministry. He was called, besides, to the great work of preaching a full and free Gospel, throughout many parts of his native country, to multitudes who were hungering for the bread of life, when through terror of oppressive rulers, or from seeking their favour, others shrunk from the performance of so important and hazardous a duty. He was required, moreover, to dispense the ordinances of religion in Scriptural purity, to the scattered, persecuted remnant, and thus to repair "the desolations of Zion," and to transmit the truth to future generations. In the year of Cameron's martyrdom, the Societies framed their "General Correspondence," and formed a simple but effective organization, for mutual fellowship and edification,—for preserving their precious gospel liberties, and for taking advantage of any event in public affairs, for re-establishing the Covenanted order in Church and State, which had been violently taken away, by despotic power and prelatic intolerance. The extent of this organization, in a time of great suffering is remarkable. Gordon of Earlston, when examined before the Privy Council in 1683, with the instruments of torture placed in view, testified that several counties were divided into districts, of which there were 80, with 7000 associated members. There is evidence that, chiefly through the Divine blessing upon Renwick's faithful preaching, and his singular wisdom in council, those Societies increased, instead of diminishing, in the latter part of the prelatic persecution.
To the friends of evangelical truth, and the faithful witnesses for the Redeemer's royal prerogatives, the services of Renwick, at the crisis in which he exercised his public ministry, were invaluable. He was eminently the man for the time. Through the influence of the unhappy Indulgence, the strict Covenanters were reduced to what they style themselves in the "Informatory Vindication," a "wasted, suffering, anti-popish, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, anti-sectarian remnant." By the death of Cargill and Cameron, they were left as "sheep without a shepherd,"—broken and scattered. Through the fierceness of persecution, and the machinations of enemies, they were in danger of falling into confusion, and of being entirely wasted and destroyed. We admire the gracious providence of God in preparing, at this particular crisis, an instrument of such rare and suitable endowments for feeding "the flock in the wilderness," and for unfurling and upholding so nobly the "Banner of truth" amidst hosts of infuriated enemies.