I'm going to read the Reverend William Symington, The Character and Claims of the Scottish Martyrs, a Discourse, delivered at St. Michael's Churchyard, Dumfries, June 16, 1831. And if you're familiar with William Symington, his writings are just pretty amazing. His book on the atonement is one of the best. The text, Revelation 12, 11, they love not their lives unto the death. And of course, I want to thank Jim Dodson who publishes all this stuff. Have him in your prayers, he's had some health issues. We are met, my hearers, in circumstances of very particular interest. The object of our meeting may be presumed to be well known to you all. It is to manifest our attachment to the Scottish Reformation by contributing to reserve the memory of some who fell in that cause. To have our minds instruct or at least our memories refreshed with the history and principles of that magnanimous struggle for religion and liberty in which they acted so noble and conspicuous apart. And to have our hearts awaken to some proper concern in what stands so closely connected with our dearest interest and hopes. The very spot where we meet has its interest. The place of our father's sepulchers never fails to call up the most tender emotions. Death, when it breaks up living connections, cannot sever those ties of memory which continue to twine around the heart, rendering the dead dearer to us in some respects than the living, hallowing their ashes and converting their graves into an inviolable sanctuary. Hence, the irresistible desire felt to visit the melancholy spot where repose the mortal remains of former generations, and the disposition to distinguish the resting place of departed friends by some frail memorial. From the touching but expressive right which obtained in past ages of strewing the graves with flowers, to the gorgeous mausoleums of sculpted marble which are the fashion of modern times, With such monuments we have here, surrounded of every varied form, according to the rank and character of the persons commemorated, humble virtue, noble station, splendid achievement, profound learning, and towering genius. and we should regard the man as nothing less than a disgrace to humanity, who should walk among these tombs with stoical indifference, or would not prefer the cloud of sadness the scene is fitted to bring over the mind, to the brightest gaiety which the song of pleasure or the burst of reverie can inspire. But amid all these monuments, vying with each other in the power of attracting a melancholy attention, there is one particular spot, outwardly unattractive as any, to which the heart of the Scottish patriot points today with a feeling of overpowering intensity and the estimation of every true friend of religion and liberty. Even the costly mausoleum of the Bard must yield to the simple, rudely lettered gravestone of the martyr. Grave and even solemn are the reflections which such a meeting and such a scene are fitted to produce. And should there be any present who have come hither in a spirit of levity, or with a view to censure or to scoff, may the object and circumstances of our assembly rebuke them away. Rather, awe them into a frame of mind more befitting their situation, as well as more honorable and profitable to themselves. The very subject of which we must treat ought to induce the heart to seriousness, while the feelings awakened by the contiguity of the martyr's grave are calculated to deepen the hollowed impression. No language can be more descriptive of the men of whom we are now to speak than of the text, they loved not their lives unto the death. Whether the words refer originally to all those who fell victims to the bloody persecutions of Rome, pagan Rome, or to those of Rome anti-Christian, who has been keenly contested by interpreters. It is no manner of consequence for us to determine, it being our design to confine our attention to those of our countrymen who in the struggle for reformation, which took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, certainly gained for themselves the character of men who love not their lives unto the death. These men we are accustomed to distinguish by the honorable and significant appellation of martyr. The term signifies literally witnesses, more particularly witnesses to the truth of the gospel, and in a more restricted sense still, persons who have sealed their testimony to the truth of the gospel with their blood. In the former sense, it occurs very commonly throughout the scriptures. In the latter, we meet with it in only three passages of the New Testament. Acts 1220, excuse me, Acts 2220, when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by. Revelation 2.13, in those days, where an Antipas was my faithful martyr." Revelation 17.6. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. The Jews were witnesses for Jehovah, the true God against heathen idols. The primitive Christians were witnesses for Christ against both Jews and pagans. But there was a small band of faithful witnesses for the truth as it is in Jesus, many of whom loved not their lives unto the death, to whom the word has been more particularly appropriated in modern times. Men may die for unscriptural principles in religion, and the popular usage of language may stall such men martyrs, but the designation properly belongs only to such as were slain for the word of God and the testimony which they held agreeable to that word. It is not the blood but the cause that makes the martyr. That the appellation is to be regarded as an honorable one will appear when you consider that in the only three instances of which it occurs in the New Testament, the persons to whom it is applied are represented as standing in particular relation to Christ. Look back at these verses cited. In the first, Paul, in relating the words in which he addressed the Redeemer at the time of his conversion, it says, when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, In the next, Christ himself is the speaker. Antipas was my faithful martyr. Now are John's words, nor are John's words less explicit, the blood of the martyr of Jesus. This is surely not without significance. It at least imports that the cause in which they suffered was Christ's, that their qualifications and support proceeded from him. that the character is one to which he is particularly attached, of which he highly approves, and which he greatly delights to honor. The persecutors might claim them as their victim and speak of them consequently as theirs, but ha, there is another who claims an interest in them. They are the martyrs of Jesus. And the relation in which They are thus shown to stand to the exalted Redeemer, gives them a moral elevation, throws around them a halo of real glory, which completely neutralizes the disgrace their enemies designed to cast upon them. The text is descriptive not merely of those who actually suffered death, but many of whom. The head of the church preserved alive amid the snares that were laid for them, who nevertheless possessed as much of the spirit of the martyrs as those who fell, are entitled to be spoken of as loving their lives, not their lives under the death. Every hour they stood prepared to die. And many times the crown of martyrdom would have been preferred to the life of wretchedness and peril. They were doomed to lead. The spirit of the reformers in general was that of martyrs. And it burned both purely and intensely in the bosoms of many whose blood never hallowed either the scaffold or the heath. In what follows, we shall submit a few considerations which seem deserving of notice relative to those in Scotland who loved not their lives unto the death. and then point out the treatment to which these considerations seem to entitle them from us. In other words, we shall call your attention to the character and claims of the Scottish reformers and martyrs. Number one, Roman numeral one, the considerations worthy of notice relative to the reformers and martyrs of Scotland may be included in the following arrangement. Number one, consider who they were. They were not, as their enemies have represented them, visionary fanatics, but men of varied information, sound understanding, and correct scriptural knowledge. They were opposed both in principle and in practice to the base maxim of the corrupt hierarchy, which teaches that ignorance is the mother of devotion. They were well-instructed in the doctrines of the gospel, knew perfectly the connection of their cause with the glory of God and the best interests of men, and were, some of them at least, persons of polite literature and elegant accomplishments. They had zeal. but it was his heel according to knowledge. They were not men of a doubtful faith. They firmly believed in the principles they professed. They would not have suffered and died for what was not an object of belief. Faith was the very basis of their character. Every their constant quality was connected with this. They believed and therefore testified. They believed and therefore died. It was given them on behalf of Christ to believe on him as well as to suffer for his sake. They were not canting hypocrites who professed what they did not feel and made a show of outward devotion, which had no counterpart within. They were men of sterling piety. Their devotion was a hallowed fire, the flames of which were penitence, faith, gratitude, and love. This led them to value and improve those ordinances by which the fire was fed and kept alive. They were accustomed to wrestle with God in secret. They retired to their closets for closer fellowship with heaven and poured forth their souls in strains of heartfelt, unaffected devotion. Family worship they regularly practiced. And such was their attachment to the public means of grace that at the risk of their lives and immense sacrifices, they waited on the preaching of the word and the dispensation of the sacraments. At the dead of night or when the storm raved loud, would they steal away into some sylvan, that means forest, retreat where they might enjoy undisturbed the gospel of salvation. Nothing could repress their ardor in this respect. They gathered in crowds to hear the favorite preachers. And when the supper was dispensed, great multitudes attended. One case of this kind, which happened in Tevetdale, in which Black Otter and Welsh and Riddell assisted, is spoke of as a remarkable. Another at Maybowl in Ishire was particularly noted. In your own immediate neighborhood, that's a Kirkpatrick iron gray, the stones are still to be ranged on the bleak hillside where the persecuted wanderers will want to snatch an occasional opportunity of partaking of the bread of life and the cup of salvation. On some of these occasions, several thousands partook of the consecrated symbols at the risk of having their own blood mingled with the wine which represented that of the Savior. Indeed so decided was their piety that the marks given to the bloodhounds of persecution by which to discover them, where they're having a Bible in their hands. They're being found at prayer, going to a conventicle. Nor was there anything more common than for them to be surprised when they were apprehended at some exercise of religion, either secret or public. They were holy as well as devout. Their conduct was no way equivocal. Their morals were unimpeachable. They were a virtuous race to godliness devout. The duties of religion were as faithfully discharged as its ordinances were regularly weighted upon. They studied to keep aloof from the corruptions of the times, to maintain a blameless conversation, and to lead irreproachable lives. Their principles, some may be inclined to dispute. Their prudence, some may call in question. Their public deeds, some even condemn, may condemn. But their private deportment, none dare accuse. It was unsullied by the breath of slander. The charge of preciseness in morals, which is often brought against them by their enemies, is the best attestation on this point that could have been desired. And having stood the scrutiny of their link-side persecutors, they may be supposed to have been about as free from blame as the necessary imperfection of our present state of being will admit. The fiery ordeal to which they were subjected would seem to have served only to carry off the baser principles and to heighten the luster of the more noble elements of their being. Such was the personal worth of those men who loved not their lives unto the death. They were worthies indeed, men of whom the world was not worthy, whose personal excellence was such as to entitle him to the highest respect and closest imitation of posterity. Number two, consider what they did. They did much that ought not to be forgotten by their descendants. To enumerate all is impossible. To select from their doings the more prominent and important would be a difficult task. Even to exhibit the crammed result, which is all we dare attempt, is no easy matter. They emancipated their country from the galling yoke of popish and episcopal dominion. Long and hard do the friends of these systems struggle to impose them on their own countrymen. but they nobly resisted till potpourri was abjured by the whole nation. The representatives of the three kingdoms were pledged to reformation by a solemn confederacy and papists were excluded from places of power and trust both supreme and subordinate. They delivered the church from a tyrannical and debasing superstition. from a wicked hierarchy which sought to enslave the minds and consciences of men, from heretical tenants, destructive of the soul, from burdensome imposts, which could not easily be born, and from unauthorized rites and ceremonies, whose only tendency was to keep back the influence of pure and undefiled religion. They rescued the Holy Scriptures from the iron grasp of a prolificate and designing priesthood who wished to keep the people in ignorance of what was sure to expose their own corruptions and to lead to an overthrow of their power. Even that word of God, which is a lamp, is to defeat and a light to the path and made to make the simple wise into salvation. They secured for themselves and others freedom to think, to speak, and to act without being shackled with the fetters of mental and corporeal slavery. In short, They maintained a noble and successful struggle for religion and liberty with the avowed enemies of both, with a prudence and hardiness and valor, which can never be too much admired. In doing this, they were exposed to wiles, threats, snares, and open violence. Their situation resembled the lion's dens and the mountains of leopards. Their enemies assumed the properties of beasts of prey and hunted them down with merciless rapacity. Yet did they not shrink from the struggle on account of the danger which preceded, which attended it. Even when they saved their lives by retreat, it was not from cowardly timidity, but from a dutiful respect to their cause and to the authority of Him who has said, when they persecute in one place, in one city flee to another. When called to it, they waxed valiant in fight like Joshua and Barrett and Gideon and David of old. They buckled on their armor, slept in a tented field and met the assaults of their foes with manful resistance. though they were sometimes overpowered by superior numbers and greater skills and arms, they shooed even then the true spirit of heroes. Many of them fell, but such as survived were not backward to resume the combat, and the issues that were was at the time such as to reflect the highest credit on their valor, airsmoths and drum clog will long continue to call up recollections of their fearless magnanimity, Some have manifested a disposition to condemn this part of our forefather's conduct. I do sing in support of their opinion in the words of Christ, all that take the sword shall perish by the sword. But before quoting the scriptures, people ought to be sure that they understand them. And a very slight inspection of the circumstances in which these words were uttered are a dissuasive from personal revenge would have shown their unfitness for the purpose which they have brought forward. Who does not see that, taken literally and absolutely, they go to condemn and appeal to arms and defense, not merely of religion, but of our civil liberties and possessions, a principle which, as tending directly to throw open our country to the power of any ambitious invader, will never, we trust, become a favorite sentiment with Britons. Nor is it by any means a general truth in defense of warfare on the account of religion, that those who have been obliged to resort to the sword have perished by it in the end. For while the Protestants of Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland who resisted unto blood were not exterminated, those of Italy and Spain who did not resist met with that fate. And as to our reforming ancestors, They ought to be remembered that when they had recourse to arms in defense of all that was dear to them, it was always reluctantly, never indeed until they were driven to it. So far from seeing anything here to blame, we are much of the opinion that the men who would refuse in similar circumstances to fight for his religion or liberty deserves to enjoy the benefits of neither. However, and ungrateful posterity may frown upon those men who love not their lives unto the death, and talk of them as having suffered upon their own principles. One thing we know, that God smiled upon them in his providence by granting them success, and that they had acted on, and that had they acted on the slavish principles of their modern revilers, the Scottish Reformation, like that of Italy and Spain, should have been finally overthrown. Theomite himself taught their hands to war and girded them with strength so that bows of steel were broken by their arms. And in reckoning, drum clogged, they by the blessing of heaven were enabled to put to the flight the enemies of the aliens. Aliens to everything good and great and holy. Strangers to the covenants of promise and sworn enemies to the cause of Christ among men. It was appointed though unintentional tribute to the principles of the reformers in this particular. which was paid by him who presented Cameron's head and the hands of the king's council at Edinburgh. These, he said, are the hands and head of Anna, who lived praying and preaching and died praying and fighting. And the nation at large added their sanction of their memorable revolution when all rose as one man and drove the bloody persing family of Stuart from the throne and the kingdom. Number three, what they suffered, ought also to be remembered. In her I must confess, myself at a loss, how to proceed. Their sufferings were so many as to defy enumeration. And so varied as to render classification difficult. Without some attempts to classify them, it would be next to impossible to go forward. They suffered reproachful mockery. They had trial of cruel mockings, an instrument of persecution, a very ancient and common use, yet severe and ill to be endured by persons of generous minds. It was employed by Ishmael against Isaac, by the children of Bethel against Elijah, and even the children of Israel against the messengers of God. The Savior himself and the primitive Christians were not exempted from it. The men of whom we speak, too, had their full share of this trial. their religion, their language, their exercises, their conduct, their spirit, and even their God, were made the objects of robald, scorn, and contempt. The ignorant soldiers who were accustomed to amuse themselves with the devotions of poor people, who fell on their knees to pray before being shot. It will be remembered by you of how Claverhouse, on the morning of the affair at Drumclaw, jeered the prisoners he had taken the preceding day, and whom he was driven before him like beast, tied two and two together, telling them they were going to hear the sermon. and the impious and barbarous sarcasm of Lauderdale, when consenting to the execution of Mitchell for a supposed attack on the life of the infamous shark, ought not here to be admitted. Then let him glorify God, he said, in the grass market. They were subjugated to the most ignominal bondage. The Philistines' treatment of Samson, or that of Jeremiah, the king of Babylon, was nothing to theirs. They were bound with cords, heavily manacled, and thrown into dungeons. The common jails were crowded, places of close confinement, as the rocks on the sea were filled, and the walls of many a prison, like that of Philippi, echoed to the midnight voice of prayer and of praise. And as if this were not enough, they were either sent into cruel exile or compelled to banishment, to banish themselves. Letters of intercommuning were issued, by which the nearest relations, husband and wife, parent and child, brother and brother, were prohibited from assisting each other or conversing either by word or by writing. They were thus necessitated to flee. And it was not sufficient to have leave, the land of their birth and all the sweet endearments of kindred and of home, numbers of respectable members of society and even ministers were shipped off to the West Indies and sold for slaves to work in the plantations. Do these add the wanton barbarities to which they were exposed? Those practiced by the Highland hosts were almost incredible. The faithful covenanters had their ears cropped, that means they were chopped off, and their faces branded with hot irons. Their Bibles were pulled from their hands and they were stuck with canes on the scaffold. They were forced for no end but to gratify a spirit of infernal wickedness, to swear oaths at which their souls revolted. and children under 10 years of age were collected and soldiers ordered to fire over their heads in order to extort information from them regarding their parents. An expedient of Graham of Claverhouse, which in callousness of heart equals, we believe, whatever has been thought of by the familiars of the Inquisition. Great were their privations. They were deprived not only of religion, liberty, and law, but of common necessities of life. Their estates were confiscated. Heavy fines were exacted. The most expensive plunder was commonly practiced. Prisoners were stripped naked and thrown upon the cold ground, sometimes for asking for a morsel of food or a cup of water. They were shot, while their friends were strictly interdicted under the severest penalties from carrying from supplies. As a specimen, we remind you how 1,200 of the Bothwell prisoners were confined five months in Greyfriars Churchyard without shelter and with only such provisions as were barely fit to sustain the wretched existent. And how shall we speak of their tortures? They were tormented in every possible form, but the horrors of the thumbkin, the boot, These things, these are devices that would crush the thumb until the bone marrow came out, and the boot would crush the foot into a bloody pulp. The wheel, the rack, and the faggot are not for recital here, as they loved not their lives unto the death. Many of them had their principles put to the severest of trials. and not content with reviving of their lives, the enemies put them to death in the most barbarous forms, by shooting, hanging, quartering, beheading, burning, were those close-blooded murders perpetrated. The common soldiers were empowered to shoot any whom they might suspect of attachment to the cause of the covenant. In some places, permanent gallows were erected. The effecting case of John Brown of Priesthill may be referred to as an example of private execution, and that of David Haxton, of Rehit as an instance of a public one. This gentleman who was taken prisoner at Erzmas was after the mock form of a trial executed at Edinburgh. His hands were first cut off by the executioner. His body was then drawn up to the top of the gallows by a pulley. And after being let down, his pulsating heart was torn from his bosom, exhibited on the point of a knife as the heart of a traitor, and then thrown into the fire, prepared for the purpose, this purpose. Wallace's head, along with that of Cameron, were exposed on the gates of the city. Such is but a faint recital of the wrongs done to those who love their not their lives under the death of our land. Men who were denied the common charities of life and driven from society to skulk in mosses and in mountains and dens and caves of the earth, who are oft compelled to make the heat their bed, the rock their pillow, and to take for their curtain the canopy of the heaven, who are pursued as beasts of prey and doomed to the worst death and the death of traitors. But men who shall live in the memory of good, of the good, when the names of their persecutors are forgotten, or remembered only to receive the execration they deserve. Number four, the spirit in which all these things were done and suffered must not be overlooked. It was a spirit of faith. Trust in God, in Christ, in the promises of scripture can alone account for their activity and their patience. With this, there was combined a patriotic attachment to the good of their country. And then piety and patriotism were kindred feelings. as they indeed are in the breasts of all genuine and enlightened Christians. Theirs was not the infidel patriotism of modern times. No man can properly love his God without loving his country, or love his country without loving his God. These ceilings are more closely connected than many seem to be aware. Nehemiah, sitting down and weeping, and with sad incontinence, praying and fasting before the God of heaven, because of the place of his father's sepulchers, lieth in waste. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and the gates there are burnt with fire. Supplies us with a fine instance of this combination in ancient times. The men of whom we are treating furnish a no less striking example of modern times. God in our country was the motto inscribed on their bloodstained banners. God in our country was the watchword which echoed through the battlefield. God in our country was the governing sentiment of their patriot hearts. They have been represented as traitors. Their persecutions, their persecutors were the traitors. At the time they leave, there existed not a spark of true liberty in our land, but what burned in the bosom of these traduced and persecuted wanderers. By their patriotic exertions and sufferings and writings and prayers, they laid their country under obligations, which the most lavish tributes of their memory can never repay. Their spirit was marked by an enlightened and un-extinguished zeal. They knew it to be good, to be zealously affected in a good thing. Their zeal was active, steadfast, devoted. The degree in which it existed has led many to charge him with fanaticism. But there was about them a coolness of purpose, a correctness of aim, a suitableness of selected means, and an intrinsic excellence of cause, which in the estimation of every one able to judge will be deemed sufficient to wipe away the foul imputation. Their valor was truly impressive. Strong were they and of good courage, they behaved valiantly for their people and for the cities of their God. Then in the proper sense of the word, they were no strangers to fortitude. Ample proof was given in the declarations issued at Sanctuar and at Lenarch, in the manifesto known as the Apologetical Declaration, and in the heroic act of excommunication at Torswood, in which the highest centers of the church were passed on the royal persecutors. The manner in which they met their death may be further adduced in proof of their bravery. The Lord knows, said Cargill. I go up this ladder with less fear and perpetration of mine than ever I entered into a pulpit to preach. Well, said Renwick, I shall soon be above these clouds. Then I shall enjoy thee, O God, and glorify thee without interruption or intermission forever. Nor was this the case merely with such men as Cameron and Cargill and Renwick. Even peasants and women manifested the same noble spirit. Andrew Hislop, who refused to cover his eyes before being shot, is an instance from the former class. And as instances from the latter, you need only remember Marian Harvey and Isabel Allison, who were on the scaffold, who on the scaffold sung the 23rd song. And so full of tone as to show, as to drown the voice of the wretched curate, who in derision of their scruples would compel them to hear him pray. Incorruptible fidelity marked the spot of those who loved not their lives unto the death. Neither smiles nor frowns could shake their constancy or cause them recant. No means were left untied for this purpose, but they stood firm as a rock amid the raging billows of the ocean. Rather than do violence to their honest convictions, they chose to suffer and to die. Rather than forgo the blessings of social worship, they sought the retirement of the mountain and the cave, the warmth of their devotion being unchilled by the damps of the night. and the melody of their praise mingling with the sound of the tempest. Nothing could induce them to save the body by the sacrifice of conscience. Neither the horrors of imprisonment, nor the terrors of the branding iron, nor the hootings of the mob, nor the ribald scorn of perjured sycophants and lordly ecclesiastics could shake the purpose they had formed of working out the cause of their country's reformation. They partook largely of that intrepid spirit. which even in women's breasts withstood the tears of fire, of the fire and flood. They could in the face of menaces and of tortures appropriate the words of the apostle. None of these things move thee, neither count I life my dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy. In some instances, they resisted attempts to force confession by means of the boot, till their physical nature was overpowered and they fainted away. The case of the women who were drowned at Wigtown is well known. One of them, after the water had flowed over her, was pulled out and offered life if she would comply with some ensnaring requirements, when preferring to die rather than violate her conscience, she was plunged again into the stream. Add to all these a spirit of believing hope, which bore them up amid their afflictions, like the ancient sufferers of Paul, of whom Paul speaks, They expected a better resurrection, a resurrection to eternal life and glory. Suffering not as evildoers, they had nothing to fear with regard to the future world. Into their cup everything bitter was mingled, which man could infuse. but there was nothing penal in it. Their worst enemies were unable to bring upon them the wrath of God, or even to shut out from their souls divine consolations in the present state. Faith and hope enabled them to make such a view of the exceeding internal weight of glory that awaited them as to cause their present afflictions to feel light, but for a moment. nothing, neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor sword, nor peril, was able, they knew, to separate through him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. If in this life only they had had hope in Christ, They should have been, of all men, the most miserable, but their hope extended with the light of heaven. This scaffold was a stepping stone to glory, and the pile by which their bodies were consumed, they regarded as a chariot of fire to waft their souls into the sinless and sorrowless mansions of the blessed. This is the day we shall get the crown were the words of Cameron a short time before he fell, so that the youthful poet was correctly pictured. has correctly pictured it. When the righteous had fallen, and the combat had ended, a chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended, and the souls that came forth out of the great tribulation, they mounted the chariots and seeds of salvation. Glide swiftly, bright spirits. The prize is before ye, a crown never fading, a kingdom of glory. To these considerations, the cause in which all the spirit was shown, these sufferings born, and these deeds performed, rouse be added. The cause on account of which our fathers loved not their lives unto the death was the cause of God, the cause of Christ, the cause of truth, the cause of religion and liberty, a cause worthy of their best intentions, exertions, and sufficient to warrant their dearest sacrifices. But the nature of the cause will be best understood from a specification of some of those leading principles for which they contended and died. We say not that those we are to state were reduced to a written, systematic form or expressed and arranged exactly as we have done them, but we do say that they are principles which entered essentially into their testimony for truth, principles which they received as binding, considered as axiomatical, and constantly acted upon. These we can do little more than state, having left ourselves no time to discant on them, either in the way of explanation or defense. Salvation by the free, sovereign grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was the first of these principles. This was held by Luther, the first friends of the Reformation, as an article of a standing or falling church. It may be regarded as having produced the original revolt from the Church of Rome. It was afterwards incorporated in all the sentiments and discourses of the Reformers. And when once it comes to be forgotten or denied or perverted or concealed, Whatever external observances may remain, the spirit of the Reformation has fled. And you may write upon it, Ichabod, the glory has departed. Another of these principles was the sole authority of the Holy Scriptures in matters of religion and the right of all men to pursue them. Traditions and priesthood were discarded as grounds of faith. And the Bible alone elevated to this rank. Wearing the seal of divine ascitation, it was reckoned worthy of implicit and universal reverence. It was deemed a maxim of self-evident truth, that that which all are to believe, according to which all are to act, and by which all are to be judged, ought to be in the full and undisputed possession of all. Ignorant and worthless priests might have reasons of their own for shutting out the light of the revelation, skulking their moles and bats into hiding places, and preferring the darkness of the twilight. But, The reformers had no such instinctive abhorrence of light, resembling either the bird of heaven, rather the bird of heaven, which meets the full unblazed, full unclouded blaze with the eye that never winks and a wing that never tires. the right of men to form their religious opinions from the word of God, float as a relative result from the foregoing, such a right being clearly implied in the supreme authority of the revelation, in the impossibility of controlling the human mind by anything but scriptural evidence or rational argumentation, and the accountable nature of man. In opposition to the tyrannical claims and blasphemous assumption of popes and kings, they held the sole headship of Christ over the church, and in consequent, independence of all political control. The prerogatives of Zion's king they viewed as peculiar and inalienable, nor mortal without the most daring of piety could venture to invade them. Christ was given to be head over all things to the church, and it was not for man to rob him of his glory or share with him his honors. The church they regarded as a free, independent society, having no head but one. And therefore all who presumed in this capacity to regulate her order, interfere with her management, prescribe reforms of worship, or lay restrictions on her office bearers, were looked upon as wicked intruders, ungodly and tyrannical usurpers, head of the church. Whether inscribed in the papal crown or the regal diadem, they held to be one of the names of blasphemy. In connection with this, they maintained another principle, the headship of Christ over the nations. and the consequent duty of conducting civil affairs on religious principles and subordinating them to the interests of the church. The restriction of the mediatorial power to the church is comparatively a modern doctrine. The natural growth of a desire to harmonize religious sentiments with political interest. Our reformers knew nothing of it. They had not learned those ingenious criticisms by which some of their descendants had been able to explain such passages as the following in conformity with a restricted dominion. that has put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. Esteeming Christ as Prince of kings of the earth and governor among the nations, they showed no wish to blot out or even to tarnish the luster of his glorious title, King of kings and Lord of lords. Nor are they any knowledge of the boasted discovery of modern times that things civil and religious should be kept entirely separate. that they had nothing to do with each other, and that church and state ought to be completely and forever divorced. They considered that things must be connected without being confounded. They knew that civil and religious matters were united by many a powerful tie. They viewed them as inseparable in point of fact. in finding them recognized in the same scriptures, tending to produce the glory of the same Lord, obligatory on the same persons, and connection between them predicted as characteristic of the millennial state of the world when kings shall be nursing fathers and queens nursing mothers to the church, and when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ, of our Lord and his Christ, and when the most common affairs of life and articles of youth shall be holiness to the Lord, finding these things to be so, they scrupled not to recognize the connection, both in their deeds and public standards. It is only when the church is degraded to a mere instrument of state policy and the union in question is objectionable, not when the civil affairs of the world are so ordered as to advance the interest of Christ's kingdom." And we're gonna stop there. There's quite a bit more here. I hope you see, the importance of looking back on our covenanted reformation. It was the best reformation in the world, the most complete reformation in the world, the most consistent reformation in the world. They made the best advancements in purity of worship than any other church in the world, except for some in the continent. And to depart from this in the name of natural law or separation of church and state, unbiblically defined, is nonsense. But we'll continue this next week, Lord willing. Father, we thank you so much for these martyrs. What would we be without them? Lord, help us to be faithful to our covenant of reformation, to work for it, to pray for it, to be consistent with it. And Lord, we pray that the corrupt RPCNA will once again obey the covenants and cast off NAPARC and cast off Christmas in their holy days and cast off their unjust courts and once again be faithful. In Jesus' name, amen.