Chapter LXXII: Section 7 (29)

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
volume 6, pages 443-444, foot-note._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638.
The Tables, and the signing of the National Covenant.

"Nobles, ministers, gentlemen, and burghers from every
district poured into Edinburgh to take part in a national
resistance to these innovations [of the Service Book], and an
appeal was made from the whole body assembled in the capital,
not only against the Service Book, but also against the Book
of Canons and the conduct of the bishops. Instead, however, of
granting redress of these grievances, the King issued a series
of angry and exasperating proclamations, commanding the crowds
of strangers in the capital to return immediately to their own
homes, and instructing the Council and the Supreme Courts of
Law to remove to Linlithgow. But instead of obeying the
injunction to leave Edinburgh, the multitudes there continued
to receive accessions from all parts of the country. … In
answer to the complaint of the Council that their meeting in
such numbers was disorderly and illegal, the supplicants
offered to choose a limited number from each of the classes
into which they were socially divided—nobles, lesser barons,
burgesses, and clergy—to act as their representatives. This
was at once very imprudently agreed to by the Council. A
committee of four was accordingly selected by each of these
classes, who were instructed to reside in the capital, and
were empowered to take all necessary steps to promote their
common object. They had also authority to assemble the whole
of their constituents should any extraordinary emergency
arise. The opponents of the new Canons and Service Book were
thus organised with official approval into one large and
powerful body, known in history as 'The Tables,' which
speedily exercised an important influence in the country. As
soon as this arrangement was completed, the crowds of
supplicants who thronged the metropolis returned to their own
homes, leaving the committee of sixteen to watch the progress
of events." But the obstinacy of the King soon brought affairs
to a crisis, and early in 1638 the deputies of The Tables
"resolved to summon the whole body of supplicants to repair at
once to the capital in order to concert measures for their
common safety and the furtherance of the good cause. The
summons was promptly obeyed, and after full deliberation it
was resolved, on the suggestion of Johnstone of Warriston,
that in order to strengthen their union against the enemies of
the Protestant faith they should renew the National Covenant,
which had been originally drawn up and sworn to at a time [A.
D. 1581] when the Protestant religion was in imminent peril,
through the schemes of France and Spain, and the plots of
Queen Mary and the Roman Catholics in England and Scotland.
The original document denounced in vehement terms the errors
and devices of the Romish Church, and an addition was now made
to it, adapting its declarations and pledges to existing
circumstances."

_J. Taylor,
The Scottish Covenanters,
chapter 1._

"It was in the Greyfriars' Church at Edinburgh that it [the
National Covenant] was first received, on February 28, 1638.
The aged Earl of Sutherland was the first to sign his name.
Then the whole congregation followed. Then it was laid on the
flat grave-stone still preserved in the church-yard. Men and
women crowded to add their names. Some wept aloud, others
wrote their names in their own blood; others added after their
names 'till death.' For hours they signed, till every corner
of the parchment was filled, and only room left for their
initials, and the shades of night alone checked the continual
flow.
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From Greyfriars' church-yard it spread to the whole of
Scotland. Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies of it 'in
their portmanteaus and pockets, requiring and collecting
subscriptions publicly and privately.' Women sat in church all
day and all night, from Friday till Sunday, in order to
receive the Communion with it. None dared to refuse their
names."

_A. P. Stanley,
Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland,
lecture 2._

ALSO IN:
_J. Cunningham,
Church History of Scotland,
volume 2, chapter 2._

_D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 1, chapter 7._

_R. Chambers,
Domestic Annals of Scotland,
volume 2, pages 116-127._

The following is the text of the Scottish National Covenant:

"The confession of faith of the Kirk of Scotland, subscribed
at first by the King's Majesty and his household in the year
of God 1580; thereafter by persons of all ranks in the year
1581, by ordinance of the Lords of the secret council, and
acts of the General Assembly; subscribed again by all sorts of
persons in the year 1590, by a new ordinance of council, at
the desire of the General Assembly; with a general band for
the maintenance of the true religion, and the King's person,
and now subscribed in the year 1638, by us noblemen, barons,
gentlemen, burgesses, ministers, and commons under
subscribing; together with our resolution and promises for the
causes after specified, to maintain the said true religion,
and the King's Majesty, according to the confession aforesaid,
and Acts of Parliament; the tenure whereof here followeth: 'We
all, and every one of us underwritten, do protest, that after
long and due examination of our own consciences in matters of
true and false religion, we are now thoroughly resolved of 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 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 publicly confirmed by sundry
Acts of Parliament; 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 consciences 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 judgments 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 the sins of the dead and the quick; his
canonization of men, calling upon angels or saints departed,
worshipping of imagery, relics, 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 multitudes 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, perigrinations and stations;
his holy water, baptizing of bells, conjuring of spirits,
crossing, saning, 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 and 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 which we join ourselves willingly,
in doctrine, religion, faith, discipline, and life 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 consciences, minding
thereby, first under the external cloak of religion, to
corrupt and subvert secretly God's true religion within the
Kirk; and afterwards, 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
great confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of
the Lord Jesus.
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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 for any
worldly respect, but are persuaded only in our consciences,
through the knowledge and love of God's true religion printed
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
maintenance of His Kirk, and ministration of justice among us,
we protest and promise with our hearts under the same oath,
handwrit, 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. Like
as many Acts of Parliament not only in general do abrogate,
annul, and rescind all laws, statutes, acts, constitutions,
canons civil or municipal, with all other ordinances and
practick penalties whatsoever, made in prejudice of the true
religion, and professors thereof, or of the true Kirk
discipline, jurisdiction, and freedom thereof; or in favours
of idolatry and superstition; or of the papistical kirk (as