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"A Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Rebellion"
Arctic Pilgrim ^ | April 2, 2013 | Justin

Posted on 07/04/2013 8:40:22 AM PDT by Alex Murphy



The more I read on the history of America and the Scottish/English reformations, the more I am convinced that American liberty has far more to do with John Knox than it does John Locke.  It has far more to do with the principles contained in Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos and Lex Rex than it does Common Sense (incidentally, Vindiciae was said to have been more widely read and more influential in the year leading up to the American Revolution than was Paine's pamphlet.  That is, if you're willing to believe John Adams...).  The more I study, the more I am coming to believe that the loss of American liberty has more to do with the abandonment of these Scotch-Irish Calvinist principles/dedication to the crown rights of Christ than it has to do with the abandonment of "Enlightenment" humanism, rationalism, and Sensualism.  (There's that book again...I link to it about once a week because I really do think it is that important...maybe one of the most important non-canonical books an American can read.) 

In the above-linked article on the Scots-American connection, a distinction is drawn between Tory Scots and the Scotch-Irish.  This is not to say it was an all-or-nothing, clear distinction throughout society and the Scots-Irish.  These people were not anarchists, and many held loyalty to the English Crown through it all.  At any rate, I would think that this distinction has far more to do with faith and confessions than it does blood- although no doubt the faith of the Scots-Irish was something nurtured and passed down from father to son.  This faith was inherited from the persecuted Scottish Covenanters, who held illegal worship services in the freezing rain rather than submit to ecclesiastical tyranny, or compromise their belief in the headship of Christ, not the king, over the church.  These same Covenanters (along with English Puritans and French Huguenots) were driven to Ireland, continental Europe, and wherever they could find refuge and religious freedom. 

Many Covenanters and Scotch-Irish Calvinists came to America and various Island colonies quite unwillingly- as slaves.  Some sources and books bring up the similarities and correlations that exist between traditional negro spiritual songs and Scottish psalter worship.  These African slaves did not bring Christian worship music from their native lands, and these mostly illiterate slaves did not learn of the Christian faith by individually reading the Word.  It is perhaps the case that they learned these songs and truths from their fellow slaves, that is, enslaved Covenanters.

These Scotch-Irish had learned well the lessons of tyrants, both of the civil and ecclesiastical types, and had suffered at the hands of the Erastians, who taught that the Church was subordinate to the state.  They understood that failing to recognize the crown of Christ -in both the civil realm and the church- was to bow the knee to the tyranny of man.

I think that perhaps America and Americans should look to Greyfriars Church and the National Covenant to find her roots.  I think that we as a people should look to these men for guidance and wisdom rather than the empty sensualists and rationalists of the "Enlightenment" period.  Many of these men signed the National League and Covenant in their own fresh blood, only to later seal their commitment to it and Christ for eternity with more of their blood.  These were not men who merely wrote philosophy books and produced writings and letters on abstract concepts of freedom and faith- they lived, breathed, suffered and died for it.  These were men who lived, suffered, and died for their faith and for principles many Americans today would consider trivialities.

Even if one is not inclined to hold to the understanding of the faith that these people did, I am finding it harder and harder to separate America's founding and eventual separation from a covenant-breaking king and parliament from the spiritual roots and seeds sewn in Puritan England and Covenanting Scotland.  I am also thinking it less and less likely that without such a firm foundation, these united States will ever be restored to anything remotely resembling just or free.

I pray that Americans who want less government and more freedom stop seeking and trusting in political means for their salvation.  I pray that they turn to God, covenanting with Him and binding their families, communities, states, form of government, and their republic itself to Him in a new National Covenant- one that is all ours-

...A covenant that comes from the bottom up, from the people, the "grassroots," to use a modern term. 

...A covenant that binds us to God, signed in our national lifeblood.

Without such a covenant, without such a restoration, commitment, and foundation, our national lifeblood, figuratively, and perhaps someday literally, will be spilled on the altar of tyranny, which is, as these great men understood, nothing other than the logical and inevitable outcome of a people's rejection of God.  If there is one thing I have learned from history, this is it.

It is amazing to me just how loudly the silent dead can speak from their graves.  Perhaps that is because, in a real sense, they are still with us:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.  ~Hebrews 12:1-2
Will we listen to them?




TOPICS: History; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: presbyterian; rebellion
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The more I read on the history of America and the Scottish/English reformations, the more I am convinced that American liberty has far more to do with John Knox than it does John Locke. It has far more to do with the principles contained in Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos and Lex Rex than it does Common Sense. The more I study, the more I am coming to believe that the loss of American liberty has more to do with the abandonment of these Scotch-Irish Calvinist principles/dedication to the crown rights of Christ than it has to do with the abandonment of "Enlightenment" humanism, rationalism, and Sensualism....These Scotch-Irish had learned well the lessons of tyrants, both of the civil and ecclesiastical types, and had suffered at the hands of the Erastians, who taught that the Church was subordinate to the state. They understood that failing to recognize the crown of Christ -in both the civil realm and the church- was to bow the knee to the tyranny of man....

....I pray that Americans who want less government and more freedom stop seeking and trusting in political means for their salvation. I pray that they turn to God, covenanting with Him and binding their families, communities, states, form of government, and their republic itself to Him in a new National Covenant- one that is all ours....A covenant that comes from the bottom up, from the people, the "grassroots," to use a modern term....A covenant that binds us to God, signed in our national lifeblood. Without such a covenant, without such a restoration, commitment, and foundation, our national lifeblood, figuratively, and perhaps someday literally, will be spilled on the altar of tyranny, which is, as these great men understood, nothing other than the logical and inevitable outcome of a people's rejection of God.

1 posted on 07/04/2013 8:40:22 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Gamecock

Happy Presbyterian Rebellion Day! Ping the GRPL!


2 posted on 07/04/2013 8:42:42 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Alex Murphy
Thanks for this I will read it later. I just posted on another thread a bit of my family history. One of my earliest ancestors in America got into a fight with the Presbyterians, Isle of Wight (I think) and they cut off his ear!

I don't think Presbyterians are like that anymore! :)

3 posted on 07/04/2013 8:46:26 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: Alex Murphy

Yes, I think we can trace two basic “Christian” theories of governance, which reflect the theological divisions among Christians. Catholics, reflecting their top-down hierarchy and obedience to unquestionable authority, have usually favored monarchies. Protestants, reflecting their bottom-up communities of believers and adherence to a looser set of principles rather than immutable dogma, prefer republics and representative governments.


4 posted on 07/04/2013 8:59:41 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

It seems like your generality is true.


5 posted on 07/04/2013 9:01:52 AM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: Boogieman
Letter to Charles Carroll, March 15, 1790

As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed. - George Washington

6 posted on 07/04/2013 9:07:14 AM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd (Gone Galt, 11/07/12----No king but Christ! Don't tread on me!)
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To: Alex Murphy

Wow,,thank you for giving me a new topic to research and learn about!


7 posted on 07/04/2013 9:07:14 AM PDT by austinaero
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To: reed13

bfl


8 posted on 07/04/2013 10:10:35 AM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.)
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To: Alex Murphy

Read Albion’s Seed—A study of four British Folkways, by David Hackett.

Great stuff on the Scot and Scots/Irish migrations to America and the way they affected the United States in the early years of the colonies and the Republic.


9 posted on 07/04/2013 10:11:30 AM PDT by wildbill
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To: Boogieman; Alex Murphy
I prefer yet another Catholic iteration: anarcho-monarchism .
10 posted on 07/04/2013 10:11:40 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short." Abraham Maslow)
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To: Boogieman
Yes, I think we can trace two basic “Christian” theories of governance, which reflect the theological divisions among Christians. Catholics, reflecting their top-down hierarchy and obedience to unquestionable authority, have usually favored monarchies. Protestants, reflecting their bottom-up communities of believers and adherence to a looser set of principles rather than immutable dogma, prefer republics and representative governments.

I agree!

11 posted on 07/04/2013 10:23:07 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Mrs. Don-o
I prefer yet another Catholic iteration: anarcho-monarchism.

You should find a good article and post a thread on it!

12 posted on 07/04/2013 10:24:25 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
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To: Ditter

“One of my earliest ancestors in America got into a fight with the Presbyterians, Isle of Wight (I think) and they cut off his ear!
I don’t think Presbyterians are like that anymore!”.

uh...Yes, yes we are..He, your ancestor, got off light..


13 posted on 07/04/2013 11:21:08 AM PDT by triSranch ( Home of J.C. Calhoun and the Birthplace and Deathbed of the Confederacy)
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To: Alex Murphy

I have always felt that the “congregational” form of religion brought with it many principles that were foundational to our American notion of individual freedom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregational_polity

There is the basic concept of “covenant” - voluntary association and consent of the governed; a written constitution; individual responsibility; representative democracy; independence of local government within a union of like governments (confederation.)

This has always been in conflict with the model of the corporate structure that financed the new colonies. The joint-stock company or commercial corporation was licensed by the Crown, where investors pooled their money to share both risks and profits in a common enterprise. Several large trading companies secured charters from the Crown granting commercial favors in foreign trade, prescribing their form of organization and enabling them to raise money by selling stock. Among these were the Muscovy Company (Russia and central Asia,) the Eastland Company (Baltic,) the Levant Company (Mediterranean,) and the East India Company.

The form of organization prescribed for these companies usually vested control in a 6-20 member council, of which the original or “charter” officers were named. Sometimes the charter also provided for a governor as the head of the company, chosen by the council. Membership in the company, itself, was secured through stock ownership. The smaller stockholders had little to say about general policy, but they met periodically in a general court to elect members to vacancies in the council or occasionally to express their opinion on some major issue of policy.

The American colonies had their government imposed upon them by England following the joint stock company model. It has always been in tension with the congregational form, which is the organic form emanating from the people themselves. The form as continued in the US remains in tension with the spirit.


14 posted on 07/04/2013 11:40:06 AM PDT by marsh2
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To: triSranch

I was a member of a Presbyterian church for a couple of years. I never went back after the day the minister, from the pulpit, laughed when he announced that Clinton had been found “innocent” of the charges.

He wasn’t found innocent you jerk, he was found guilty but not removed from office. I didn’t say that to him but I wanted to stand up and say it right there in front of God and everybody!


15 posted on 07/04/2013 12:37:48 PM PDT by Ditter
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To: Boogieman

BORN FIGHTING..by James Webb. Great read.


16 posted on 07/04/2013 12:38:36 PM PDT by Conservative4Ever (I'm going Galt)
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To: Alex Murphy

Crown rights of Christ indeed! No king but Jesus is creed of Scots Irish.


17 posted on 07/04/2013 2:12:36 PM PDT by sasportas
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Seems to have some similarities to our “checks & balances” gridlock approach, in practice. If you must have a government, make it an ineffective one!


18 posted on 07/04/2013 7:45:13 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

Ding-ding-ding-ding! You get the Cookie of Comprehension, my dear friend.


19 posted on 07/04/2013 7:57:48 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell)
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To: marsh2

Good analysis


20 posted on 07/04/2013 8:19:31 PM PDT by Cvengr (Adversity in life and death is inevitable. Thru faith in Christ, stress is optional.)
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