The Covenanters - A History of the Church in Scotland From the Reformation to the Revolution #262750

Students of History, and readers generally, have long felt the need of an adequate work, stating as concisely as possible the most important facts in the history of the Covenanters, exhibiting the exact terms of their religious and secular bonds and leagues, and tracing the growth of the spirit of freedom in Scotland, as that was affected by the life and work of the National Church from 1560 until 1690. During that era sacred and Civil affairs were much intermingled, so that the historian now has great difficulty in marking the boundary between the ecclesiastical and political spheres, and in Classifying the various facts which present themselves, as he endeavours faithfully to depict the influential men and women of that time. Certain definite conclusions regarding the Covenanters, as a rigid sect in the Christian Church, and as a restless, rebellious political party in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, have been arrived at by many students; and, as a general rule, a far from favourable estimate of these brave and defensible patriots has been based upon generalisations which will not bear investigation. Perhaps unintentionally Sir Walter Scott, by his marvellous creation of characters, of which the less worthy-as Ruskin pointed out have influenced the popular judgment, while the more virtuous and delightful have been left out of consideration, helped to defame one of the most extraordinary orders of devotees which the civilised world ever saw. An absolutely impartial account of the Covenanters was therefore a desideratum.