The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a small Presbyterian church denomination in Scotland. Theologically, they are similar to many other Presbyterian denominations in that their office-bearers subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith. In practice, they are more theologically conservative than most Scottish Presbyterians and maintain a very traditional form of worship.
The Reformed Presbyterians coalesced in the 1740s, but the context in which they developed was heavily influenced by the religious and political changes of the prior century, and in particular the English Civil War. In 1643, during the War, English Parliamentarians entered an agreement with Scottish Presbyterian Covenanters, known as the Solemn League and Covenant. In exchange for Scottish support, the document declared that Presbyterianism would become the national religion of Britian, with Jesus being recognised as king over both church and state. That year, the Long Parliament called the Westminster Assembly, which over ten years would reform the English church along Presbyterian lines in accordance with the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant. After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, however, the new King, Charles II, and his government passed the Clarendon Code, re-established the Church of England, and repudiated the Solemn League and Covenant. British subjects who refused to disown the Covenant and to conform to the established church were known as dissenters.
For several years, dissenters who adhered to the Covenant formed their own churches (United Societies). From these roots the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland was formed. It grew until there were congregations in several countries.
The Reformed Presbytery was officially constituted in summer 1743 at Braehead, Carnwath.
In 1876 the majority of Reformed Presbyterians, or RPs, joined the Free Church of Scotland, and thus the present-day church, which remained outside this union, is a continuing church. There are currently Scottish RP congregations in Airdrie, Stranraer, Stornoway, Glasgow, and North Edinburgh. Internationally they form part of the Reformed Presbyterian Global Alliance.
History Overview
In 1871, the Chambers's Encyclopaedia described the Cameronians as being official designated as Reformed Presbyterians. It might briefly be defined as consisting of a small party of Presbyterians, who objected to the Revolution settlement in church and state, and desired to see in full force that kind of civil and ecclesiastical polity that prevailed in Scotland from 1638 to 1649. According to the Solemn League and Covenant, ratified by the parliaments of England and Scotland, and also by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in 1643, Presbyterianism was to be maintained in the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and popery, prelacy, superstition, heresies, schism, &c., were to be rooted out. The Covenanters in Scotland contended for this throughout the reigns of Charles II and James VII. Many of the Covenanters repudiated the government of William III and his successors, and still maintained the perpetually binding obligations of the Covenants (for the historic view of other Scottish Presbyterians see Fentiman). These Cameronians (named after one of their earliest preachers, Richard Cameron) acted under strong convictions, and it is in the standards of this sect that we have to look for a true embodiment of the tenets held by the great body of English and Scotch Presbyterians of 1643. Others submitted to the Revolution settlement, and afterwards found cause to secede. The Cameronians never gave in.
Although thus, in point of fact, an elder sister of the existing Church of Scotland and all its Secessions, the Cameronian body did not assume a regular form till after the Revolution; and it was with some difficulty that it organised a communion with ordained ministers. Several of their ministers returned to the Church of Scotland and for 16 years the group had no preachers at all; finally in 1706 they were joined by the Rev. John M'Millan, from the Established Church.
In a short time afterwards, the communion was joined by Mr. John M'Neil, a licentiate of the Established Church. As a means of confirming the faith of members of the body, and of giving a public testimony of their principles, it was resolved to renew the Covenants; and this solemnity took place at Auchensach, near Douglas, in Lanarkshire, in 1712. The subsequent accession of the Rev. Mr. Nairne, enabled the Cameronians to constitute a presbytery at Braehead, in the parish of Carnwath, on 1 August 1743, under the new name of the Reformed Presbytery. Other preachers afterwards attached themselves to the group, which continued to flourish obscurely in the west of Scotland and north of Ireland. For their history and tenets, we refer to the Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.
The 1871 Chambers Encyclopedia noted that the political position of the Cameronian was very peculiar, as they refused to recognise any laws or institutions which they conceived to be inimical to those of the kingdom of Christ; from which cause they greatly isolated themselves from general society, and refused several of the responsibilities and privileges of citizens. Chambers saw them as zealous and uncompromising, but also a peaceful body of Christians, who, under the shelter of a free and tolerant government, were left unmolested to renew the Covenants as often as they wished. In 1860, the body numbered six presbyteries, comprising 45 congregations in Scotland, including one in Edinburgh and four in Glasgow. There were also congregations in Ireland and North America connected with the group.
Background
Reformed Presbyterians have been referred to historically as Covenanters because of their identification with public covenanting in Scotland, beginning in the 16th century. In response to the king's attempts to change the style of worship and form of government in the churches that had previously been agreed upon (covenanted) by the free assemblies and parliament, a number of ministers affirmed their adherence to those previous agreements. They became signatories to the "National Covenant" of February 1638 at Greyfriars Kirk, in Edinburgh. It is from this that the Blue Banner comes, proclaiming "For Christ's Crown And Covenant", as the Covenanters saw the king's attempt to alter the church as an attempt to claim its headship from Jesus Christ. In August, 1643, the Covenanters signed a political treaty with the English Parliamentarians, called the "Solemn League and Covenant". Under this covenant the signatories agreed to establish Presbyterianism as the national church in England and Ireland. In exchange, the "Covenanters" agreed to support the English Parliamentarians against Charles I of England in the English Civil War. The Solemn League and Covenant asserted the privileges of the "crown rights" of Jesus as king over both Church and state, and the Church's right to freedom from coercive state interference. Oliver Cromwell put the independents in power in England, signalling the end of the reforms promised by the Parliament.
The Presbyterians believed in the Divine Right of Presbytery. To this way of thinking the Presbyterian form of church government was not something granted by a king or civil government; it was a divine right. That is not to say that the church could over-rule the civil authorities in all things as in the Roman Catholic system; nor would they accept that the king had absolute powers conferred on him by God, despite what the Stuart kings asserted. Rather the civil authorities and the church authorities each have their proper place - independently of each other. They had separate Magisteria. It is the doctrine of separation of Church and State as taught by John Calvin.
When the monarchy was restored in 1660, some Presbyterians were hopeful in the new covenanted king, as Charles II had sworn to the covenants in Scotland in 1650 and 1651. Charles II, however, determined that he would have none of this talk of covenants. While the majority of the population participated in the established church, the Covenanters dissented strongly; instead holding illegal worship services called conventicles in the countryside. They suffered greatly in the persecutions that followed, administered against them during the reigns of Charles II and James VII.P. Hume Brown, History of Scotland, p. 406. Indeed the worst days of the period became known as the Killing Times. Meanwhile, when persecution broke out after Charles II had declared the Scottish Covenants illegal, tens of thousands of Scottish Covenanters had fled to Ulster, between 1660 and 1690. These Covenanters eventually formed the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland.
The earlier martyrs in dying had protested that they not only feared God, but honoured the King; but in 1680, first in the Queensferry Paper, which was drawn up, it is supposed, by Donald Cargill, and afterwards in the Sanquhar Declaration, which was affixed to the Burgh Cross of that village by Richard Cameron, the authority of Charles II. was disowned, and war was declared against him as a tyrant and a usurper. The proclamation was an act of rebellion, but it will be remembered it was based on the same ground precisely as that which was taken up by William when he ascended the throne.
Split from Shields and the reconstituted Church of Scotland In 1690, Presbyterianism was restored to the established Church in Scotland. Because there was no acknowledgement of the sovereignty of Christ in terms of the Solemn League and Covenant, however, a party of dissenters refused to enter into this national arrangement, the Revolution Settlement, on the grounds that it was forced upon the Church and did not adhere to the nation's previous covenanted settlement. These formed into societies which eventually formed the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland.
In 1690, after the Revolution, Alexander Shields joined the Church of Scotland, and was received into communion, 25 October 1690, with his associates, Thomas Linning and William Boyd. These 3 had previously ministered to a group of dissenters of the United Societies when conventicles were outlawed. Unlike these ministers, some Presbyterians did not rejoin the establishment of the Church of Scotland. This left the "United Societies" without any minister for sixteen years. For those sixteen years the Dissenting Covenanters maintained their Societies for worship and religious correspondence. The Societies numbered about twenty, with a general membership of about seven thousand. Shields made his case for unity, and against schism, in the book An Enquiry into Church-Communion.
The idea of a Covenanted nation under a Presbyterian Covenanted king had taken firm possession of their minds of the Dissenters, and it produced a revulsion of feeling when, at the Revolution, no effort was made to bring back the vanished glory and re-instate the Covenant in its former supremacy. Instead of this, they found the newly constituted order was flagrantly at variance with the former and better, they could not acknowledge and submit to the one without rejecting the other; and so they resolved to maintain the same attitude toward the government of William as they had held toward that of the two preceding rulers. They would not own him as king, nor recognise his courts, nor pay the taxes imposed.
That men holding such views should keep aloof from the Revolution Church was to have been expected. The King took far too much to do with its organisation to allow of their adhering to it. Hence, when Presbyterianism was re-established, there remained outside a body of professing Christians who never seceded from this later Church of Scotland, because they never became members of it.
First ministers and synod