We find Renwick, soon after this, studying theology in Holland.  After twenty months he appeared before Presbytery for ordination.  This is the man who has had his introduction to God.  Now we will see what his acquaintance with God will do for him.  Acquainted with God!  Oh, how singular that will make any man!  Acquainted personally with God, with His sovereignty, His holiness, His love of righteousness, and His hatred of sin!  The man who is thus honored will be peculiar indeed.  He will have deep insight, unswerving purpose, strong character, unhesitating courage.  He will not deviate an hairbreadth from the law of God, as he sees it.  He will not yield his convictions for any consideration.  He will stand alone against the forces of all worlds combined, rather than compromise one jot of revealed truth.  The pleading of friends and the threats of enemies will alike fall heedlessly upon his ears.  He will consider every word of Christ, and every gem in His crown, worthy of all the blood that may flow for its sake.  Such was James Renwick at this time.

There were no ministers of his own denomination to ordain him.  The Church in Holland was not a Covenanted Church, but a branch of the Presbyterian Church, and at that time it was burdened with corruptions.  But it was not guilty of Covenant-breaking, like the Church of Scotland.  Therefore he sought ordination in Holland.  Now, this is the man who is acquainted with God.  Observe what he does.  In his trial sermons, he laid bare the errors and faultiness of the Holland Church.  What a daring step for a student of theology!  What a breach of ordinary courtesy!  He placed conventional etiquette on the altar of truth, and consumed it in the flames of zeal for God’s House, and the purity of Divine worship.  He would, then and there, give faithful testimony; for the opportunity might no more return.  Presbytery listened with amazement; yet his arguments were so Scriptural, and his manner so gracious, they cordially sustained him.  Next came the act of subscribing the creed before ordination could be granted.  This he positively refused to do, for it had not the approval of his conscience.  They yielded here also, permitting him to sign the Standards of the Church of the Covenant.  He won his way.  Decorum was nothing to him, in comparison with conscience and God.  He then came back to Scotland, and visited the ministers, pleading with the Indulged to return to the Covenant, and entreating the silent ones to come out of their caves, and make the land ring again with their voices.  He was small in person, slender and delicate, and scarcely yet out of his boyhood.  He everywhere met with repulse.  Vexed and disappointed, he went alone, in the strength of the Lord, to the little flocks scattered over the wilderness.  The societies gathered about him; the Field-meetings were revived; the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit in great power; the shout of a king was again heard in the camp of the Covenanters.