¹ Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, 1632–1639, ed. Paul, G. M. (Edinburgh, 1911), p. 405.Google Scholar

² Acts of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, 1638–1842 (Edinburgh, 1843), p. 18Google Scholar

³ The letters and journals of Robert Baillie, ed. Laing, D. (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1841–1842), 1, 178.Google Scholar

⁴ What follows will make better sense if read in conjunction with Ford, J. D., ‘Conformity in conscience: the structure of the Perth Articles debate in Scotland, 1618–1638’, forthcoming in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History.Google Scholar

⁵ Letters and journals, 1, 181.

⁶ Acts of the general assembly, p. 18.

⁷ See too Mullan, D. G., Episcopacy in Scotland: the history of an idea, 1560–1638 (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 151–162.Google Scholar

⁸ See Donald, P., An uncounselled king: Charles I and the Scottish troubles, 1637–1641 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Macinnes, A. I., Charles I and the making of the covenanting movement, 1625–1641 (Edinburgh, 1991), p. 129.Google Scholar

⁹ The aim is to improve understanding of the theological dimension, explored in Henderson, G. D., ‘The covenanters’, in Religious life in seventeenth-century Scotland (Cambridge, 1937), p. 158Google Scholar, and ‘The idea of the covenant in Scotland’, in The burning bush (Edinburgh, 1957), p. 61Google Scholar; Burrell, S. A., ‘The covenant idea as a revolutionary symbol: Scotland, 1596–1637’, Church History, XXVII (1958), 338CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Torrance, J. B., ‘Covenant or contract? a study of the theological background of worship in seventeenth-century Scotland’, Scottish Journal of Theology, XXIII (1970), 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘The covenant concept in Scottish theology and politics and its legacy’, Scottish Journal of Theology, XXXIV (1981), 225Google Scholar; and Steele, M., ‘The “politick Christian”: the theological background to the National Covenant’, in Morrill, J. S. (ed.), The Scottish National Covenant in its British context, 1618–1651 (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 31Google Scholar. The connection with bonds of manrent, etc., will barely be touched on. Stevenson, D., The Covenanters (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 28–34, provides a brief but more balanced overview.Google Scholar

¹⁰ (n.p., 1619.)

¹¹ Ibid. p. 25.

¹² (n.p., 1620.)

¹³ Ibid. p. 26.

¹⁴ Ibid. pp. 26–7.

¹⁵ Ibid. pp. 28–9.

¹⁶ Quotations are from the Scots Confession, 1560, and Negative Confession, 1581, ed. Henderson, G. D. (Edinburgh, 1937), p. 101Google Scholar, which reproduces both the Latin text quoted by Calderwood and the Scots text quoted here. A slightly different version can be found in Dickinson, W. C. and Donaldson, G., A source book of Scottish history (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1961), III, 32.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Iuramentum, pp. 29–31.

¹⁸ Perth assembly, pp. 28–9.

¹⁹ Summa theologiae, 2a2ae 89, in vol. XXXIX of the Blackfriars edn, tr. O'Rourke, K. D. (London, 1964)Google Scholar. It may be worth referring here to Sanderson's, Robert De juramenti promissori obligatione, first printed in 1647 and republished in English as De juramento (London, 1655)Google Scholar, in illustration of the scholastic approach. Regius professor of divinity at Oxford, Sanderson's aim was ‘to salve those doubts, which may have any difficulty in them worthy of debate, or may serve to cast any scruple into the mindes and consciences of pious men’, about the taking of oaths (p. 4).

²⁰ Summa theologiae, 2a2ae 89. 1. The Blackfriars edition actually renders iuramentum assertorium ‘an assertive or declaratory oath’, and thereafter ‘a declaratory oath’. A more simple transliteration has been inserted to bring out the continuity in the vocabulary used. Sanderson, , De juramento, distinguished between ‘assertory’ and ‘promissory’ oaths at pp. 17–19.Google Scholar

²¹ As Sanderson explained more fully, ibid. pp. 14–15 (citing Hebrews 6. 16), the purpose of an oath was to secure ‘an end of all strife’. Without the making and keeping of oaths ‘there would be amongst men no faith, nor justice, which are the most firm bonds of humane society’. The point was not that ‘every thing confirmed by an oath is simply certain’, but that men had to resort to oaths because ‘ there can be no greater humane faith then that which in an oath, by the invocation of the name of God, is as it were attested and confirmed from heaven’. Statements made under oath were simply the most reliable available, though everyone knew that perjury remained a possibility. It was not expected that God would manifest the truth of any statement to men, though he might do so.

²² Summa theologiae, 2a2ae 89. 7.

²³ Ibid. 2a2ae 89. 5. The preceding quaestio was De voto.

²⁴ Ibid. 2a2ae 89. 8.

²⁵ Aquinas had explained, ibid. 2a2ae 88. 4, that a vow benefited the maker more than God: ‘a promise by which we vow something to God does not result in his utility because he does not need to be assured by us. Rather, the vow results in our utility, because in vowing we firmly fix our will upon the performance of some good deed’.

²⁶ (n.p., 1620.) The use of the dialogue format in what was essentially a scholastic disputation is discussed in the fourth section of Ford, ‘Conformity in conscience’.

²⁷ Dialogue, pp. 5–6.

²⁸ (n.p., 1637), part 4, p. 40.

²⁹ Ibid, part 4, p. 35.

³⁰ Ibid, part 4, pp. 34–42.

³¹ Ibid, part 4, p. 35.

³² The lawfulnes of kneeling, in the act of receiving the sacrament of the Lords supper (St Andrews, 1620), pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

³³ Again, this is considered at length in Ford, ‘Conformity in conscience’.

³⁴ A true narration of all the passages of the proceedings in the general assembly of the church of Scotland, holden at Perth (London, 1621), part 2, p. 12.Google Scholar

³⁵ The first book of the irenicum of John Forbes of Corse, tr. Selwyn, E. G. (Cambridge, 1923), p. 127.Google Scholar

³⁶ Ibid. p. 129. The quotation is from the edition cited in n. 16 above.

³⁷ Irenicum, p. 126.

³⁸ Iuramentum, p. 32.

³⁹ Ibid. pp. 32–5.

⁴⁰ Ibid. pp. 35–7.

⁴¹ Ibid. p. 35.

⁴² Ibid. p. 40.

⁴³ Ibid. pp. 37–40.

⁴⁴ Summa theologiae, 2a2ae 89. 9, and also 88. 10 on vows.

⁴⁵ Perth assembly, p. 32.

⁴⁶ Dialogue betwixt Cosmophilus and Theophilus, p. 9.

⁴⁷ Quotations are from the text printed in Dickinson and Donaldson, Source book, III, 95.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ ‘Sermon at St Andrews’, in Kerr, J. (ed.), The covenants and the covenanters (Edinburgh, 1895), p. 54, at p. 72.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Macmillan, D., The Aberdeen Doctors (London, 1909)Google Scholar, and Henderson, G. D., ‘The Aberdeen Doctors’, in Burning bush, p. 79Google Scholar, provide general background. Ogilvie, J. D., ‘The Aberdeen Doctors and the National Covenant’, Publications of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, XI (1919–1920), 73Google Scholar, and Stewart, D., ‘The “Aberdeen Doctors” and the covenanters’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, XXII (1984), 35Google Scholar, focus on the disputation to be discussed here. The traditional conservatism of the north-east is considered in Donaldson, G., ‘Scotland's conservative north in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Scottish church history (Edinburgh, 1985), p. 191.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ The Generall demands concerning the late covenant (Aberdeen, 1638)Google Scholar included the Doctors' demands, the covenanters' answers, and the Doctors' replies to the covenanters' answers. The answers of some brethren of the ministerie (Aberdeen, 1638) gave the covenanters’ answers to the Doctors’ replies, and was printed along with the separately paginated Duplies of the ministers and professors of Aberdeen. Details of the widespread publication of the disputation can be found in Ogilvie, ‘Aberdeen Doctors’.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Demands, p. 5 (first reply, which stated more clearly the gist of the first demand).

⁵² Answers, pp. 13–14 (answer to the first reply).

⁵³ Demands, sig. D3r (fourth demand). The pagination goes awry here.

⁵⁴ Ibid. sig. D3r (answer to the fourth demand).

⁵⁵ Ibid. sig. D4r (fourth reply).

⁵⁶ Duplies, p. 50 (fourth duply).

⁵⁷ Demands, sig. D4.V (fourth reply).

⁵⁸ Ibid. p. 16 (fourth reply).

⁵⁹ Answers, pp. 23–6 (answer to the fourth reply).

⁶⁰ Duplies, pp. 58–65 (fourth duply).

⁶¹ Ibid. p. 71 (fourth duply).

⁶² Ibid. p. 69.

⁶³ Demands, p. 24.

⁶⁴ Ibid. p. 6; The acts of the parliaments of Scotland, ed. Thomson, T. and Innes, C. (12 vols., Edinburgh, 1814–75), III, 376. The fear in 1585 was that leagues and bands were ‘aganis all law and obedience of subiectis towardis their princes’.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Demands, p. 24 (answer to the second demand).

⁶⁶ Ibid. p. 5 (first reply).

⁶⁷ Answers, p. 14 (answer to first reply).

⁶⁸ Demands, p. 5 (first reply).

⁶⁹ Ibid. p. 23 (eighth demand).

⁷⁰ Ibid. p. 23 (answer to the eighth demand).

⁷¹ Ibid. p. 24 (eighth reply).

⁷² Ibid. p. 26 (ninth reply).

⁷³ Answers, p. 16 (answer to the second reply). The Doctors took the opportunity to insert a brief treatise ‘Of Obedience, due by Subjects, to Authoritie’ in their second duply (Duplies, pp. 23–33)

⁷⁴ Answers, sig. E4r (answer to the ninth reply).

⁷⁵ Duplies, pp. 49–50 (fourth duply).

⁷⁶ (Aberdeen, 1638), pp. 11–17. An answere to M. I. Forbes of Corse, his peaceable warning (n.p., 1638), usually attributed to Galderwood, appeared shortly afterwards. Whoever the author was he made the task of Henderson and his colleagues more difficult when he declared that the Perth Articles were ‘abjured in the Confession of Faith’ (sig. D3v).

⁷⁷ Forbes had already provided a ‘true Historicall Narration’ of the Confession at pp. 7–11 of his Peaceable warning. Needless to say, the answerer disputed the accuracy of the narration, contending that the Confession had received authorization by way of laws still standing.

⁷⁸ Peaceable warning, p. 12.

⁷⁹ Demands, p. 20 (sixth demand).

⁸⁰ Ibid. p. 32 (thirteenth demand).

⁸¹ In fact, the covenanters replied, ibid. p. 21, that ‘no sound Divine, ancient or modern, would in this case deny the expedience of the forbearance of the practise of Pearth articles’ (answer to the sixth demand), and, p. 32, that the ‘scandall ceaseth upon the right interpretation of the clause of the forbearance of the novations already introduced’ (answer to the thirteenth demand). Pressed further they conceded, Answers, sig. Eiv-E2r, that ‘Divines both ancient and moderne are against us’, but added that ‘Divines both ancient and moderne are against you also’, and that it remained true that’ almost all Divines universally are for us, and for the forbearance of things indifferent, in such a case’ (answer to the sixth reply).

⁸² Duplies, p. 69 (fourth duply).

⁸³ Ibid. p. 49 (fourth duply).

⁸⁴ Peaceable warning, pp. 11–12.

⁸⁵ Ibid. p. 19. It was replied, Answere, sig. Eiv, that the principle was ‘uncontroverted, but not to the purpose, unlesse you would insinuate, that there is some bad matter in the Confession’.

⁸⁶ Demand, p. 5 (fifth reply).

⁸⁷ Ibid. p. 16.

⁸⁸ ‘Sermon at St Andrews’, p. 65.

⁸⁹ Ibid. pp. 65–6.

⁹⁰ Ibid. p. 73. Similarly, one of the reasons given in The protestation of the general assemblie of the church of Scotland (Glasgow, 1638)Google Scholar for continuing the Glasgow assembly was its necessity ‘for preveening the prejudices which may ensue upon the pretence of two Covenants, whereas indeed there is but one, That first subscribed in 1580. and 1590. being a Nationall covenant and oath to God; which is lately renewed by Us, with that necessary explanation, which the corruptions introduced since that time contrary to the same, inforced’ (sig. Biv-B2r). The background to the Protestation is explained in Stewart, W., ‘On “The protestation of the general assembly of the church of Scotland”, made at Glasgow in November 1638’, Records of the Glasgow Bibliographical Society, 1 (1912–1913), 106.Google Scholar

⁹¹ ‘Sermon at St Andrews’, p. 72.Google Scholar

⁹² Ibid. p. 73.

⁹³ The role of reason in expanding on revelation was explained in the Westminster Confession, I. 6, and in a paper printed in Gillespie's, A treatise of miscellany questions (Edinburgh, 1649), p. 238.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ References can be found in Mullan, , Episcopacy in Scotland, pp. 181–3.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Acts of the general assembly, p. 2; Baillie, , Letters and journals, 1, 177–84.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Westminster Confession, I. 6.

⁹⁷ ‘An introduction to the doctrine of scandal’, in Divine right of church-government and excommunication (London, 1646), p. 649. Rutherford regarded the disputation of 1638 as a continuation of his own ‘yokings’ with the Aberdeen Doctors earlier in the decade, which he recorded in his ‘Introduction’.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Ibid. p. 656.

⁹⁹ Treatise of miscellany questions, p. 201.

¹⁰⁰ [Gillespie, ], Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty (London, 1645)Google Scholar; Rutherford, , A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience (London, 1649)Google Scholar; and see too A solemn testimony against toleration (Edinburgh, 1649).Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Complete shorter poems, ed. Carey, J. (London, 1968), p. 293Google Scholar. Milton had in mind leading Scots advocates of presbyterianism. He explicitly named Rutherford, and also ‘A.S.’, identified by Professor Carey as Adam Stewart, professor of philosophy at Leiden. Professor Carey also identifies ‘Scotch What-d'ye-call’ as Robert Baillie, who by the late 1640s, when the poem would seem to have been written, was adopting a more strident tone in works like Anabaptism, the true fountaine of independency, Brownisme, antinomy, familisme, and the most of the other errours, which for the time doe trouble the church of England, unsealed (London, 1647).Google Scholar

¹⁰² This, surely, was the basis of the emergence of the new paradigm of government traced by Tuck, R., ‘Power and authority in seventeenth-century England’, Historical Journal, XVII (1974), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, a process in which a central role in assigned to Rutherford. See further Ford, J. D., ‘Lex, rex iusto posita: Samuel Rutherford on the origins of government’ in Mason, R. A. (ed.), Scots and Britons: Scottish political thought and the union 1603 (Cambridge, forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹⁰³ ‘Sermon at St Andrews’, p. 59.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Nor is it without significance that the personal level was not identified here with the individual level: subscribers promised for themselves and those under their authority.

¹⁰⁵ Both kinds of thinking are explored and related to the Covenant in Williamson, A. H., Scottish national consciousness in the age of James VI (Edinburgh, 1979)Google Scholar. The millenarian dimension is further explored in Burrell, S. A., ‘The apocalyptic vision of the early covenanters’, Scottish Historical Review, XLIII (1964), 1Google Scholar; and in Williamson, A. H., ‘Scotland, antichrist and the invention of Great Britain’, in Dwyer, J., Mason, R. A. and Murdoch, A. (eds.), New perspectives on the politics and culture of early modern Scotland (Edinburgh, 1982), p. 34Google Scholar, ‘Latter day Judah, latter day Israel: the millennium, the Jews, and the British future’, Pietismus und Neuzeit, XIV (1988), 149Google Scholar, and ‘The Jewish dimension of the Scottish apocalypse: climate, covenant and world renewal’, in Kaplan, Y., Mechoulan, H. and Popkin, R. H. (eds.), Menasseh Ben Israel and his world (Leiden, 1989), p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ This should help to explain why the draftsmen of the Covenant felt able to make such selective use of legislation.