Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999 Page: 12
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5TIlPE5 LECEMBER 1999
Scotland had been awakened to Lutheranism
by Patrick Hamilton, a student of
Martin Luther, and he was burned at the
stake in 1528. George Wishart and John Knox
continued Hamilton's work despite Cardinal
Beaton's scourge of stake burnings. George
Wishart, who was a priest that had been
converted, was burned as an example to other
reformers. Cardinal Beaton was murdered by
colleagues of Wishart who had the encouragement
of King Henry VIII of England.
Beaton had been flirting with the French
against England. These colleagues called John
Knox to court until France came to rescue of
the Scottish regent. The French took John
Knox and the Wishartens and made them
galley slaves. Parliament was controlled by the
Roman Catholics who worked through royal
marriage to bring Scotland and France into
one political orbit. After five years Knox was
freed from his chains and he made his way
back through England and then to Geneva and
back to Scotland at a time when the nobles of
Scotland were gathering force against the
French influence and for Calvinism.
In 1559 John Knox fearlessly launched
the Reformation in Scotland. He attacked the
papacy, the mass, and the Roman Catholic
idolatry. From pulpit and platform Knox
preached Calvinism and Scottish nationalism
against the French and the Roman Catholics.
The Roman Catholic Mary Stuart of France,
also called Mary Queen of Scots, opposed
John Knox. Knox welcomed, not without some
distaste, the help of Elizabeth against Mary
Stuart who was defeated in battle and, after
countless plots and intrigues, was beheaded in
1587.
Knox then consolidated the Scottish
Reformation by persuading the Parliament to
declare itself to be Protestant and to radically
reject papal practices. Knox drew up a
Confession of the Faith in 1560, a Book of
Discipline in 1561, and a new liturgy, the Book
of the Common Order in 1564, and by translating
Calvin's Catechism. A rather austereand legalistic form of Calvinism was nurtured
under John Knox and later under Andrew
Melville, who saw to it that Scotland should
not deviate. With Switzerland and the Low
Countries, Scotland became the most Calvinist
of lands.
No account of the Evangelical Revival in
the 18th Century is complete without
speaking of the transformation in Scotland.
Its impact on the National Church of Scotland
was even more marked than on the
Church in England. It is no exaggeration to
say that the history of Scottish Presbyterianism
was radically altered. The 18th century
was once described as "the bark Age of the
Scottish Church." An ongoing debate about
patrons and patronage had sapped the energies
of the clergy and laity and left the
Church incapable of facing the more damaging
challenge of theological skepticism. John
Sampson, professor of Divinity at Glasgow,
was accused of teaching heretical views about
the person of Christ, similar to those voiced
in England by the deists. One of his students,
Francis Hutchinson, set out to "put a new face
upon the theology of Scotland." In his ideas,
known as "Moderation," the gospel was
reduced to a system of morality, which
offered only a slim hope to those who wanted
assurance about eternity. Ministers seemed
to be more concerned about culture than
conversions, and dismissed their heritage
with derision.
A group of objectors, led by Ebenezer
Erskine of Stirling, set up an independent
presbytery and were forced to leave the
National Church in 1740. They, themselves,
insisted they were withdrawing from "the
prevailing party," not from the Church. The
"Seceders" gained some support and their
breakaway might have succeeded, but revival
broke out in the Parish of Cambuslng in 1742.
There had already been stirrings of revival in
eastern Ross and Sutherland in the northern
part of Scotland. John Balfour emerged as
the leader of the movement in the northern12
STIRPES
DECE~MBE~R 1999
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Texas State Genealogical Society. Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999, periodical, December 1999; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth41412/m1/14/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Genealogical Society.