The Historical Context of the Westminster Assembly

I have recently started teaching a series on the Westminster Confession of Faith. You can find the recordings at this link. In the first lesson, I gave an overview of the confession and its historical context. 

In 1560, the Church of Scotland had been reestablished on the Genevan model as a Presbyterian church through the influence of John Knox and others. Further to the south, the Church of England (the Anglican Church) had gone back and forth under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary Tutor, settling down in the reign of Elizabeth I with the Calvinist theology of the 39 Articles and Book of Homilies, government by bishops appointed by the monarch, and worship directed by the Book of Common Prayer. 

James I introduced a few Anglican practices in the Church of Scotland and came into conflict with Presbyterian protest. His son, Charles I, became more aggressive against Presbyterians and Puritans. Under his archbishop, William Laud, the Puritans were persecuted and some who embraced Arminianism and “high church” practices were promoted. 

The tipping point was reached when Charles I sought to impose a new Book of Common Prayer on the Church of Scotland in 1637. This led to widespread protest, a firm stand for Presbyterianism by the Scottish church, and successful armed resistance by the Scottish authorities and nation, which caused Charles I to relent. Because this left the king in a poor financial condition, he was forced to assemble the English Parliament to ask for taxes. But since Charles I had ruled without Parliament for eleven years, Parliament had many grievances and desired reforms it sought to act upon once it was called into existence. 

Because of a growing desire for the reformation of the church, the English Parliament called the Westminster Assembly “for the settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England, and clearing of the Doctrine of said Church from false aspersions and interpretations.” The assembly was composed of about 120 “divines” (ministers of the word) representing all the counties of England and Wales, along with 30 representatives from the English parliament (the members of the assembly are listed here). The assembly began with the work of revising the 39 Articles, with the chief aim of making the Calvinist theology of the articles unmistakably clear. 

A couple months after the assembly began, the Solemn League and Covenant was signed between England and Scotland. This gave the assembly the task of creating new Reformed standards for doctrine, government, and worship for the churches in the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland. Scotland sent commissioners to assist the assembly, including Alexander Henderson, George Gillespie, and Samuel Rutherford. The English Civil War had begun between the forces of the king and the forces of the English Parliament, and so the English Parliament allied itself with Scotland by this covenant. 

In The Solemn League and Covenant (1643), the kingdoms pledged,

“I. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of GOD, endeavor, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of GOD, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and shall endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, Directory for Worship and Catechising; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. 

“II. That we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is, Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissioners, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of Godliness; lest we partake in other men’s sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the Lord may be one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms. 

“III. We shall, with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour, with our estates and lives, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the king’s majesty’s person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his majesty’s just power and greatness.” (The full text is available here.)

The Westminster Assembly (1643-1652) accordingly went on to produce the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Directory of Public Worship, and Form of Presbyterial Church Government. The established churches of Ireland and England did not hold to these standards for long, since Charles II rejected them after he became king in 1660. Nevertheless, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms endured as the standards of the Church of Scotland and of confessional Presbyterian churches throughout the world. 

In America, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were adopted by the Synod of Philadelphia in 1729 and by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1789 with a few minor revisions regarding church-state relations. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church adopted them in 1936, with a few more minor revisions that had taken place in the meantime. 

Even though the Westminster Assembly (1643-1652) did not bring about the lasting uniformity of religion between Scotland, Ireland, and England that was its goal, it did lay important groundwork for unity among the Scots, Scot-Irish, and English who came to America.

Because of the Solemn League and Covenant between Scotland and England and how it shaped the task of the Westminster Assembly, Presbyterians from the three kingdoms of the British Isles were prepared to form one Presbyterian church in America. They had already gone through the work of agreeing to shared standards for doctrine, worship, and church government. This also united them as they sent missionaries throughout the world. 

The Congregationalists in New England also used the confession and catechisms of the Westminster Assembly, sometimes with modifications, which helped them to work with the Presbyterians in various ways over the years, including the Plan of Union (1803). The Westminster Shorter Catechism was often included in the popular New England Primer. Early Baptists in America also based their confessional documents on the Westminster Confession of Faith and the modifications Congregationalists had made to it.

Today, there are more Presbyterians in Mexico than there are in the USA, more Presbyterians in Brazil than there are in Scotland, and more Presbyterians in South Korea than there are in all these other four countries combined. The legacy of the Westminster Assembly endures. These documents continue to serve as a rich statement of biblical truth and a time-tested summary of the Christian faith.

The Reformation in England and Scotland

Master Latimer, preaching before King Edward the sixth

Like my last post, this comes from my notes for a Sunday school class I taught last year on the history of the Reformation. You can listen to the two-part series at this link. 

Early Martyrs in Scotland

Patrick Hamilton (1504-1528) was a young professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. George Wishart (1513-1546) was a teacher at Montrose and Cambridge who then preached throughout Scotland for a few years. Both of them were burnt at the stake at St. Andrews. 

Reform in England during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI (1520s-1553): 

Henry VIII reigned in England from 1509 to 1547. He remained largely Romanist in his doctrine, but he broke with the pope in 1534 and allowed Protestantism to spread in fits and starts. His last queen, Katherine Parr, was a devout Protestant. His children were Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, and Edward VI. 

William Tyndale was a teacher at Cambridge and an English reformer during the reign of Henry VIII. After translating much of the Bible into English while living abroad, he was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1536. 

Hugh Latimer was one of several reformers who met at the University of Cambridge. Latimer rose and fell several times under Henry VIII. Under Edward VI, Latimer was a popular and powerful preacher.

Thomas Cranmer, the archbishop of Canterbury, supported Henry VIII’s break with Rome and was the primary author of the Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552) and the 42 Articles (1553).

Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli came from Strasbourg to teach at Cambridge and Oxford and to assist with the reform under Edward VI. Vermigli had the more difficult task at Oxford. Bucer wrote On the Kingdom of Christ to encourage the Reformation in England.

John Knox was a Scottish priest, notary, and tutor who served as George Wishart’s bodyguard for a time. When Protestants gathered in St. Andrews castle, he was called to be a preacher. After being a prisoner on a French galley, became a preacher in England and a chaplain to Edward VI.

Marian persecutions and exile (1553-1558)

In the reign of Mary Tudor, a number of leading Protestants were executed. When Latimer and Ridley were burned, Latimer called out, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Thomas Cranmer was also burned at the stake. Many fled, especially reform-minded clergy, theological students, and gentry. About 800 exiles from England regrouped in Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. About 233 lived in Geneva, while others went to cities like Zurich, Frankfort, and Strasbourg. 

Reformed churches (re)established (1558-1580)

England - The Anglican Church

When Mary Tudor died, Elizabeth I came to the throne in England and reestablished Protestantism in 1558-1559. She reigned until 1603.

The Marian exiles brought back an agenda for reform in England and Scotland informed by Reformed teaching and models in Europe. The exile church in Geneva came back to Britain with the Geneva Bible, an English Psalter, and Calvinist orders for worship and church government. But Elizabeth retained the Book of Common Prayer and government by bishops. Tensions within the exile community concerning worship and church government would produce the Puritan movement, which sought further reformation of the English church from within the church. Despite not going as far as some wanted, most of the Anglican bishops appointed by Elizabeth were returning exiles from Zurich, influenced by Heinrich Bullinger and Peter Martyr Vermigli. Under Elizabeth and James I, the Church of England would be Calvinist in theology and episcopalian in government. 

Important documents for the English Church would include the Book of Common Prayer (1559), the 39 Articles (1571), the Book of Homilies (1571), Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563), and the Geneva Bible (1560). 

Scotland - The Kirk of Scotland

The Genevan model of worship and government found a better reception in Scotland. After a few visits, John Knox returned permanently in 1559. In 1560 Scotland adopted the Scots Confession of Faith, written by John Knox and five other men named John. The Book of Discipline (1560) defined the kirk’s presbyterian government (this was expanded in a second book in 1578) and The Book of Order (1556) brought the Genevan liturgy to Scotland.

John Knox and the “Lords of the Congregation” overcame opposition to reform from Regent Mary of Guise and her daughter Queen Mary Stuart. In both cases, this struggle eventually led to fighting, with Catholic France and Protestant England in the background. After Mary Stuart was forced to abdicate, the regents for young James VI (later James I of England) gave time for Presbyterianism to grow strong. John Knox died in 1572, about 59 years old. The King's Confession, which became the core of the Scottish National Covenant, was signed in 1580.

“Yea, whatever shall become of us and of our mortal carcases, I doubt not but that this cause, in despite of Satan, shall prevail in the realm of Scotland. For, as it is the eternal truth of the eternal God, so shall it once prevail, howsoever for a time it be impugned.” 

- John Knox (1559)

The Law of Adamnan

Iona Abbey

In 697, a law was adopted in the British Isles at a council in Birr, Ireland called the Law of Adamnan or the Law of the Innocents. It was drafted by Adamnan, the abbot of Iona, and accepted and guaranteed by forty clerical leaders and fifty-one civil leaders, including all the major rulers in Ireland and two kings from Scotland. The law forbade the practice of sending women into battles and fights, forbade the killing of non-combatants, including women, children, and clergy, and gave these non-combatants other protections as well. An early explanation of the law described the origin of the law in this way: 

“…women were in bondage and in slavery, until Adamnan, son of Ronan, son of Tinne, son of Aed, son of Colum, son of Lugaid, son of Setne, son of Fergus, son of Conall, son of Niall, came…

“The work which the best women had to do, was to go to battle and battlefield, encounter and camping, fighting and hosting, wounding and slaying. On one side of her she would carry her bag of provisions, on the other her babe. Her wooden pole upon her back. Thirty feet long it was, and had on one end an iron hook, which she would thrust into the tress of some woman in the opposite battalion. Her husband behind her, carrying a fence-stake in his hand, and flogging her on to battle. …

“Now after the coming of Adamnan no woman is deprived of her testimony, if it be bound in righteous deeds. For a mother is a venerable treasure, a mother is a goodly treasure, the mother of saints and bishops and righteous men, an increase in the Kingdom of Heaven, a propagation on earth…

“This is the beginning of the story. Once Adamnan and his mother were wending their way by Ath Drochait in Uaithne in Ui Aido Odba in the south of Bregia. ‘Come upon my back, dear mother!’ saith he. ‘I shall not go’, saith she. ‘What is this? what ails you?’, saith he. ‘Because you are not a dutiful son’, saith she. ‘Who is more dutiful than I am? since I put a girdle upon my breast, carrying you about from place to place, keeping you from dirt and wet. I know of no duty which a son of a man could do to his mother that I do not do for you, except the humming tune which women perform ..... Because I cannot perform that tune, I will have a sweet-sounding harp made for you, to play to you, with a strap of bronze out of it’. ‘Even so’, she said. ‘Your dutifulness were good; however, that is not the duty I desire, but that you should free women for me from encounter, from camping, from fighting, from hosting, from wounding, from slaying, from the bondage of the cauldron [another cruel practice described in the document].’”

Other similar reforms of warfare would take place during the Middle Ages, such as in the “Peace of God” in 10th century France. Yet in our own day there is a bill awaiting a vote in the U.S. Senate that inclusion a provision that would require women to register for the draft. Will we abandon our good heritage and fall back into the ways of the days before Adamnan, forcing women into combat?

How God Makes Us Partakers of the Covenant of Grace

Our confession of faith and catechisms were written by the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s, and when they began to be published, publishers included what you might call a gospel tract, written by two Scottish ministers, David Dickson and James Durham. It was called "The Sum of Saving Knowledge." You can read it online at this link. Its presentation of the gospel centers on the concept of God's covenant with us, which I wrote about in my last post. Here is how "The Sum of Saving Knowledge" describes the outward means God uses to make people partakers of this covenant:

"The outward means and ordinances, for making men partakers of the covenant of grace ... are especially these four: i. The word of God ii. The ordinances iii. Church iv. Prayer. 

"In the word of God preached by sent messengers, the Lord makes offer of grace to all sinners, upon condition of faith in Jesus Christ; and whoever does confess their sin, accept Christ’s offering, and submit themselves to his ordinances, he will have them received into the honour and privileges of the covenant of grace. By the ordinances, God will have the covenant sealed for confirming the bargain on the foresaid condition. By the Church, he will have them hedged in, and helped forward to the keeping of the covenant. And by prayer, he will have his own glorious grace, promised in the covenant, to be daily drawn forth, acknowledged, and employed. All these means are followed either really, or in profession only, according to the quality of the covenanters, as they are true or counterfeit believers."

John Knox on God's Word in the Home

In 1556 the Reformation was spreading in Scotland, but it remained out of favor with the authorities, and the established church remained under Rome. As reformer John Knox left Scotland to spend a few years as a pastor to English-speaking refugees in Geneva, he wrote a letter to be circulated among the Scottish people, "A Letter of Wholesome Counsel." In the letter, he gave counsel on the importance of God's word and how they might benefit from it, despite living in a country in which Roman Catholicism was still in power. While he goes on to teach the importance of Bible study as a congregation, here he speaks of the importance of the daily use of God's word in the home, a point which remains "wholesome counsel" today as we seek maintain true religion in an increasingly secular society.

"But to you, dear brethren, I write my knowledge, and do speak my conscience, that so necessary as the use of meat and drink are to the preservation of life corporeal, and so necessary as the heat and brightness of the sun are to the quickening of the herbs and to expel darkness, so necessary is also to life everlasting, and to the illumination and light of the soul, the perpetual meditation, exercise, and use of God's holy Word. 

"And therefore, dear brethren, if that ye look for a life to come, of necessity it is that ye exercise yourselves in the Book of the Lord your God. Let no day slip over without some comfort received from the mouth of God. Open your ears, and he will speak, even pleasing things to your heart. Close not your eyes, but diligently let them behold what portion of substance is left to you within your Father's testament. Let your tongue learn to praise the gracious goodness of him who of his mere mercy hath called you from darkness to light, and from death to life. Neither yet may you do this so quietly, that ye will admit no witnesses. Nay, brethren, ye are ordained of God to rule and govern your own houses in God's true fear, and according to his holy Word - within your own houses, I say, in some cases ye are bishops and kings; your wife, children, and family are your bishopric and charge; of you it shall be required how carefully and diligently ye have instructed them in God's true knowledge; how you have studied, in them to plant virtue, and to repress vice. And therefore I say, ye must make them partakers in reading, exhortation, and in making common prayers; which I would, in every house were used once a day at least. But above all things, dear brethren, study to practice in life that which the Lord commands, and then be ye assured, that ye shall never hear nor read the same without fruit." ("A Most Wholesome Counsel," from The Select Practical Writings of John Knox, 2011, p. 126-127; also available online at this link) 

The Scottish National Covenant (1580)

As we approach Reformation Day on October 31st, it is a fitting time to look back at the pivotal events of the 16th and 17th centuries that began with Martin Luther and his 95 Theses. What began as a proposal to debate the practice of selling indulgences quickly grew into an international movement of spiritual revival and the biblical reform of doctrine, church, and society. The European church was split by the refusal of the papacy to submit to biblical reforms and by discord among some of the reformers, and we live with the results today. Today I thought I would post the Scottish National Covenant of 1580. In an age in which the onslaught of secularism has made Protestants and Catholics realize that they do have a bit in common, it is still necessary to remember the corruptions and errors which made this division necessary. While the Roman Catholic Church has not remained unchanged over the past 500 years, nearly all the matters brought up in this document remain issues today. The National Covenant was written 20 years after Scotland had become Presbyterian, and it served to express the resolve of the Scottish people and king to maintain the reformed religion that they had embraced. Think of it like Scotland's "Declaration of Independence" from the Roman Catholic Church. As such, it contained an extended section in which they listed their objections to the Roman Catholic Church. It was signed by the king in 1580 and then by the people of all ranks in 1581. (In 1638, after the Stuart monarchs had tried to impose certain Romish traditions on the Scottish church, the Scots renewed this covenant and added about eight paragraphs. You can read the whole 1638 version here: The National Covenant.)

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The National Covenant - 1580

We all and every one of us under-written, protest, That, after long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved in the truth by the word and Spirit of God: and therefore we believe with our hearts, confess with our mouths, subscribe with our hands, and constantly affirm, before God and the whole world, that this only is the true Christian faith and religion, pleasing God, and bringing salvation to man, which now is, by the mercy of God, revealed to the world by the preaching of the blessed evangel; and is received, believed, and defended by many and sundry notable kirks and realms, but chiefly by the kirk of Scotland, the King's Majesty, and three estates of this realm, as God's eternal truth, and only ground of our salvation; as more particularly is expressed in the Confession of our Faith, established and publickly confirmed by sundry acts of Parliaments, and now of a long time hath been openly professed by the King's Majesty, and whole body of this realm both in burgh and land. To the which Confession and Form of Religion we willingly agree in our conscience in all points, as unto God's undoubted truth and verity, grounded only upon his written word. And therefore we abhor and detest all contrary religion and doctrine; but chiefly all kind of Papistry in general and particular heads, even as they are now damned and confuted by the word of God and Kirk of Scotland. But, in special, we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the scriptures of God, upon the kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men; all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty; his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written word, the perfection of the law, the office of Christ, and his blessed evangel; his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God's law, our justification by faith only, our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law; the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments; his five bastard sacraments, with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true sacraments without the word of God; his cruel judgment against infants departing without the sacrament; his absolute necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation, or real presence of Christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men; his dispensations with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage forbidden in the word; his cruelty against the innocent divorced; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice for sins of the dead and the quick; his canonization of men; calling upon angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relicks, and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days; vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayers for the dead; praying or speaking in a strange language, with his processions, and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators; his manifold orders, auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and doubtsome faith; his satisfaction of men for their sins; his justification by works, opus operatum, works of supererogation, merits, pardons, peregrinations, and stations; his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits, crossing, sayning, anointing, conjuring, hallowing of God's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith; his worldly monarchy, and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows, with all his shavelings of sundry sorts; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent, with all the subscribers or approvers of that cruel and bloody band, conjured against the kirk of God. And finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions brought in the kirk, without or against the word of God, and doctrine of this true reformed kirk; to the which we join ourselves willingly, in doctrine, faith, religion, discipline, and use of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same in Christ our head: promising and swearing, by the great name of the LORD our GOD, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk, and shall defend the same, according to our vocation and power, all the days of our lives; under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of God's fearful judgment.

And seeing that many are stirred up by Satan, and that Roman Antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy sacraments in the kirk deceitfully, against their own conscience; minding hereby, first, under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly God's true religion within the kirk; and afterward, when time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the Pope's dispensation, devised against the word of God, to his greater confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the Lord Jesus: we therefore, willing to take away all suspicion of hypocrisy, and of such double dealing with God, and his kirk, protest, and call the Searcher of all hearts for witness, that our minds and hearts do fully agree with this our Confession, promise, oath, and subscription: so that we are not moved with any worldly respect, but are persuaded only in our conscience, through the knowledge and love of God's true religion imprinted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, as we shall answer to him in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.

And because we perceive, that the quietness and stability of our religion and kirk doth depend upon the safety and good behaviour of the King's Majesty, as upon a comfortable instrument of God's mercy granted to this country, for the maintaining of his kirk, and ministration of justice amongst us; we protest and promise with our hearts, under the same oath, hand-writ, and pains, that we shall defend his person and authority with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of Christ, his evangel, liberties of our country, ministration of justice, and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within this realm or without, as we desire our God to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory eternally. Amen.

Signing of the National Covenant in Greyfriars Kirkyard (1638), by William Allen (1782–1850)

Samuel Rutherford on Tyranny and Government

On tyranny and resistance:

"Therefore an unjust king, as unjust, is not that genuine ordinance of God, appointed to remove injustice, but accidental to a king. So we may resist the injustice of the king, and not resist the king. 8. If, then, any cast off the nature of a king, and become habitually a tyrant, in so far he is not from God, nor any ordinance which God doth own."

"A tyrant is he who habitually sinneth against the catholic good of the subjects and the state, and subverteth law."

On balance of powers due to man's depravity:

"Power and absolute monarchy is tyranny; unmixed democracy is confusion; untempered aristocracy is factious dominion...all three thus contempered have their own sweet fruits through God's blessing, and their own diseases by accident, and through man's corruption; and neither reason nor Scripture shall warrant any one in its rigid purity without mixture."

-Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, 1644

William Wallace and the Psalter

The primary source for much of what we know about William Wallace is Blind Harry's Wallace. It is a twelve-book, 11,877 stanza poem written by Blind Harry, also known as Henry the Minstrel, who lived c. 1440-1493, who claimed that he based it upon the writings of John Blair, a childhood friend of Wallace's. At the very end of the poem, at the last moments of Wallace's life as he is being executed in England, a very interesting section reads thus:

Wallace about him, from his Child-hood kept,

Where e'er he went, whither he walk'd or slept,

A Psalter Book, which he beseech'd the Knight,

Lord Clifford, might be brought into his Sight.

Which done, he caus'd a Priest upon the Place

To hold it open straight before his Face,

On which he look'd, sometimes his Eyes up cast,

Religiously unto his very last.

Then quickly came the Executioner who,

Gave him the fatal, and the Mortal blow.

Thus in Defence, that Hero ends his Days,

Of Scotland's Right, to his immortal Praise...

The psalms were important to William Wallace, let them be to us as well.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." (Col. 3:16)

The quote above is from the edition edited by William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, published 1722. (http://www.mostly-medieval.com/explore/intro.htm)

Knox's Lament in Geneva

Here is a poem that I wrote from the perspective of John Knox during his time in Geneva in the 1550s, before his eventual return to Scotland where he led the reformation of the Scottish church from 1559-1572.

Knox's Lament in Geneva

How I remember those days of youth 

When I stood with Wishart, that man of truth 

How that brave man followed Hamilton's fall, 

By dying in fire, gave Scotland the call 

To rise in repentance with faith in God 

To worship Him only, and Him to laud 

But then, alas, in St. Andrew's walls 

Serving God's people, rich, common, an' all 

The Papist French, with their galleys strong 

Took us captive and used us wrong 

And while a poor galley slave, I sent out this cry 

"O Lord, give me Scotland before I do die!" 

After eighteen months, at last I's set free 

But Scotland was still forbidden to me 

To England I went, to preach God's Word loud 

To bring down God's Spirit on that Saxon crowd 

But after success for a blessed time 

We were all chased out by Queen Mary's crime 

And now 'tis Geneva, the light on the hill 

I now look upon from my widow sill 

Learning from Calvin, that reformer great 

And others whose wise words I now contemplate 

Sitting midst riches of God's gifts to men 

Where truth is unhindered, and near all say "amen!" 

But still how I lang for my dear native soil,

Among mine ain people to sweat, bleed, and toil 

From the poor plooman laddie, in his humble cot 

To the laird of mine fathers in his station and lot 

"O humble yourselves in the moss and the dew 

And pray that Jehovah would Scotland renew!"

A Poem of Wallace

A stirring poem of a principled man surrounded by dead heroes and living cowards.

The Lament of Wallace,

After the Battle of Falkirk

By Robert Tannahill (1774-1810)

"Thou dark winding Carron, once pleasing to see,

To me thou can'st never give pleasure again;

My brave Caledonians lie low on the lea,

And thy streams are deep-ting'd with the blood of the slain.

Ah! base-hearted has doom'd our undoing, -

My poor bleeding country what more can I do?

Even valour looks pale o'er the red field of ruin,

And Freedom beholds her best warriors laid low.

"Farwell, ye dear partners of peril! farewell!

Though buried ye lie in one wide bloody grave,

Your deeds shall ennoble the place where ye fell,

And your names be enroll'd with the sons of the brave.

But I, a poor outcast, in exile must wander,

Perhaps, like a traitor, ignobly must die!

On thy wrongs, O my country! indignant I ponder -

Ah! woe to the hour when thy Wallace must fly!"