Part 15 (2/2)

”Were my blackness and Christ's beauty carded through other, His beauty and holiness would eat up my filthiness.

”Christ's honeycombs drop honey and floods of consolation upon my soul; my chains are gold.”

When Rutherford was on his deathbed, his enemies sent for him to stand trial for treasonable conduct. His treasonable conduct was his fearless preaching of the Gospel and heralding the royal glory of Christ, which included severest denunciation of the king's arrogant claim of authority over the Church. He replied, ”Tell them I have got a summons already before a Superior Judge, and I behoove to answer my first summons; and ere your day come, I will be where few kings and great folks come.” As he lay dying, he opened his eyes, and his familiar vision of Christ and the world of glory breaking upon him with unclouded l.u.s.ter, he exclaimed: ”Glory, glory in Immanuel's land.” With this outburst of joy on his lips, he joined the white-robed throng to take up the heavenly song.

The same source of strength is yet available. Power comes through holy familiarity with G.o.d, personal relation to Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Are we full of power in the Lord's service?

POINTS FOR THE CLa.s.s.

1. What event intensified the issue between the king and the Covenanters?

2. Wherein lay the moral strength of the Covenanters?

3. How did they show their love for the Church of Christ?

4. What aroused their jealousy for the Church?

5. How numerous were the Covenanters at this time?

6. Give the character of Rutherford as a typical Covenanter.

7. Quote some of his sayings.

8. Relate his triumphant death.

9. On what condition may we expect to be strong in the Lord?

XXV.

EXPELLING THE MINISTERS.--A.D. 1662.

”The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” In the martyrdom of Argyle and Guthrie blood of the best quality had been shed, and the most precious seed had been sown. Therefore the harvest will surely be great, the field will yield an hundredfold.

The fidelity of Argyle and of Guthrie, their devotion to Christ and the Covenant, reappeared in hundreds of n.o.blemen and in hundreds of ministers all over Scotland. Overawe and subdue the Covenanters by sacrificing their prominent leaders? Their foes mistook their spirit and underestimated their strength, knowing little of the deathless principles of the Covenant that carried them into the service of the Lord, not counting their lives dear for Christ's sake. The Covenanters overawed! Will the sun faint and fail beneath the gale? Will the oak wither at the loss of a few boughs? Will veterans recoil at the first fire? Rather, will not the fighting spirit be roused?

At this time the Covenanters numbered about 1,000 ministers, and 100,000 communicants. They had 900 congregations. The ministers were not all staunch; the leaven of compromise had been working; half the number had become more or less infected. They had weakened in the Covenant and yielded to King Charles under his vicious administration. The political whirlpool in its outside circles was drawing them slowly yet surely toward its horrible vortex.

The sifting time had come for the Covenanters. G.o.d knows how to shake His sieve to clean the wheat. He seeks not bulk, but value. Numbers are nothing to Him; character is everything. He would rather have Gideon with 300 men up to the standard, than thirty regiments below it. He preferred one-tenth of Israel to the whole number, and sifted the nation in Nebuchadnezzar's sieve to get the good wheat separated from the inferior.

The Covenanted Church became loaded down with chaff, weevil, shrunken grains, and broken kernels--low grades of religious life--and the Lord shook the bad out of the Church by making it exceedingly painful and difficult to stay in. The way of faithfulness was filled with hards.h.i.+ps.

G.o.d made Covenant-keeping dangerous and expensive. The followers of Christ were compelled to take up the cross and carry it. If true to their Lord, they must go outside the camp, bearing His reproach. If they keep conscience pure, they must accept cruel mockings, scourging, imprisonment, banishment, and death. In this way would G.o.d separate unto himself a ”peculiar people, zealous of good works.” The others may be of use in degree, yet to prevent general defection and universal declension, G.o.d winnows the wheat.

But who were thrown out of the Presbyterian Church in the reign of Charles II.? Were they not the strong, unyielding, uncompromising Covenanters? Who are these separated from their brethren, and driven like chaff before the wind over mountains and moors? Are they not the zealous defenders of the Reformed faith? the true soldiers of Jesus Christ? To the casual eye the scrupulous, strong-headed, hard-fighting Covenanters were tossed out, and the rest remained at home to distribute the prey; the lax party had the organization and held the Church; the strict party suffered disintegration and were banished. But such a view is only superficial; yea, it is a visual illusion.

The Church of Christ depends not on external organization. She can live without a.s.semblies, presbyteries, or sessions. She can enjoy the fullest measure of the love of Christ without chapels, ma.s.ses, or glebes. She can have power and render service in any community, without ministers, elders, or deacons.

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