26 Jan 1681 A.D. 2 Scots Covenanter girls die on the scaffold for
their faiths.
Dr. Rusten tells
the story.
Rusten, E.
Michael and Rusten, Sharon. The One Year
Christian History. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2003. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Christian-History-Books/dp/0842355073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393302630&sr=8-1&keywords=rusten+church+history
Backstory
about 2 girls in the Scots Covenanter tradition.
Isabel
Alison grew up in Perth, Scotland. She
listened to Donald Cargill, a leader of the persecuted Covenanters. In 1680,
she spoke out against those punishing non-conformists to the Church of
England. She was arrest in Perth and
forwarded to Edinburgh. She was
imprisoned with another female Covenanter.
She
underwent 2 months of interrogation.
Both were brought before the Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh. He proceeded to read the Prayer Book. They sang Psalm 23 loudly and over the
bishop’s reading. The upshot was: “Ya’ll conform, by God, ya’ will.” The bishop
returned an indictment condemning both to hanging; the civic dragoons or civil
magistrates of repression carried out the deed.
The two
girls wrote separate responses.
The first
response to the bishop’s sentence comes from Marion:
“I desire to bless the Lord for my lot…It was but
little I knew of Him before I came to prison; but now He has said to me, because
He lives, I shall live also…Kind has He been to me since He brought me out to
witness for Him. I have never sought
anything from Him but that was for His glory since I came to prison, but He
granted me my desire. I have found Him
in everything that hath come my way, ordering it to Himself for His own
glory. And how I bless Him that thoughts
of death are not terrible to me. He hath
made me as willing to lay down my life for Him as ever I was willing to live in
this world.”
The
second response comes from Isabel who wrote:
“I lay down my life for owning and adhering to
Jesus Christ…But what shall I say to the commendation of Christ Jesus and His
cross? I bless the Lord, praise to His holy name, that hath made my prison a
palace to me…Oh! How great is His love to me that He hath brought me forth to
testify against the abominations of the times, and kept me from fainting
hitherto, and hath made me rejoice in Him! Now I bless the Lord that ever He
gave me a life to lay down for Him.”
They both
were led to the Grassmarket scaffold in Edinburgh on 26 Jan 1681.
On the
persecutors’ scaffold, Isabel said as she climbed the ladder:
“Oh, ye His enemies, what will ye do, whither will ye fly in that day?
For now there is a dreadful day coming on all the enemies of Jesus Christ.”
Marion’s words on the murderers’ scafford were:
“I am come here today for avowing Christ to be the
head of his church and King in Zion. Oh!
Seek Him, sirs; seek Him and ye shall find Him.
I sought Him and found Him; I held Him and would not let Him go.”
Questions:
- What is one to think of these English dragoons and their Episcopalian supremacism? Repression?
- Would you have died for the claim that Royals are not the heads of the church?
- What Biblical warrant justifies a King or Queen, e.g. England, claiming to be the Head or Governor of the Church?
Sources
Smellie,
Alexander. Men of the Covenant. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1960. 435-8.
Thomson,
John H. A Cloud of Witnesses. Harrisonburg,
VA: Sprinkle, 1989. 116-47.
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