Story of the Scottish Covenanters by James D. Douglas

Dr. James D. Douglas’s contribution to the Paternoster Church History series on the Story of the Scottish Covenanters has never been reprinted. The digital rights were never transferred to the Publisher and, despite extensive inquiries, I have been unable to trace the author’s literary executor. I have decided, therefore, to go ahead and place this volume on-line in the hope that anyone who has any knowledge of the copyright holder would make contact with me.

James Dixon Douglas [1922-2003], Light in the North. The Story of the Scottish Covenanters. Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1964. Hbk. pp.220. [Click to visit the download page]

Contents

• Foreword
• Preface

1. Introduction
2. The Church Under Charles I
3. The Early Covananting Writers
4. Developments the Commonwealth
5. The Restoration and the First Martyrs
6. Presbyterianism Outlawed
7. The First Revolt
8. The First and Second Indulgences
9. The Second Revolt
10. The Killing Time
11. The Revolution Settlement
12. Covenanters Overseas
13. Conclusion

Appendix

1. The King’s Confession, 1580 [1581]
2. The National Covenant, 1638
3. The Solemn League and Covenant, 1643
4. Oath Required by the Test Act, 1681

• Bibliography
• Index

From the Dustjacket

The Story of the Scottish Covenanters has a significance far beyond that of a local squabble in a provincial backwater in the seventeenth century. Limited though it was in space and time, it focussed attention upon a crucial issue which the Christian Church has had to face thoughout its history, and which is as acute today as ever it was.

That issue, as anotehr Scottish historian, Dr. Stuart Walker, has shown in The Growing Storm, the second volume in the Paternoster Church history, was not he question as to whcih form of Church order and government was the most apostolic – episcopacy, presbytery, independency, or any other form. The issue in the so-called “Dark Ages”, as in seventeenth century England and Scotland, was nothing less than the Crown Rights of Christ the Redeemer to be King of His people, Master of His household, and Lord of His Church. On that rock the mediaeval papacy foundered; that same rock was to bring shipwreck to Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I, to cost James II his throne, and to shatter the Stuart dynasty.

This issue Dr. Douglas keeps clearly before him in this timely and important book. Here is no fulsome adulation of the Covenanters, as if they had no faults. Still less as they written off as ignorant meddlers in matters too high for them, or pig-headed obscurantists refusing to face facts. Both sides are painted “warts and all”, and in the light of the principle that was at stake the protagonists on both sides are revealed as the men they were and are remembered for the work they did.