James Renwick went to the scaffold in triumphant joy.  There he read the 19th chapter of Revelation—­the prophecy of Christ’s great battle and victory—­and sang part of the 103rd Psalm.  He then lifted his eyes heavenward, and said, “And now, Lord, I am ready.  The bride, the Lamb’s wife, hath made herself ready.”  He suffered February 17, 1688, aged twenty-six years.  It was said by his enemies that he was the “stiffest maintainer of Covenanted principles.”]

The persecution being over, the Church endeavored to resume her operations.  The General Assembly convened October 16, 1690, after a violent suspension lasting forty years.  This Assembly was most remarkable for its membership.  There sat together three active Cameronian ministers, threescore other ministers pale from their hiding places, a large group of the Indulged ministers who had gone home years ago, a number of curates who had slipped into the vacancies, and a list of bishops who had been in the service of the persecuting government.  Such being the blend, the aroma was anything but sweet.  Alexander Peden had prophesied of this Assembly years before.  He said, “The Indulged, and the lukewarm ministers, with some young things that know nothing, will hive together in a General Assembly; the hands red with blood, and the hands black with defection, will be clasped by our ministers; and ye will not ken who has been the persecutor, and who the sufferer; and your testimony will be cut off at the web’s end.”  How true the prediction!

Rev. Hugh Kennedy was chosen Moderator.  The choice indicated the spirit of the Assembly.  This man had accepted the Indulgence, had given thanks for the Toleration, and had debarred from Communion the Covenanters who had fought at Bothwell Bridge.  The liberals had the meeting.  Moderation, compromise, unionism, a nauseating agreeableness pervaded the Court, like the miasma that broods over a stagnant pond.

The three Cameronians, Alexander Shields, Thomas Linning, and William Boyd, had courage to represent the Covenanted Societies, by presenting their petition for the restoration of the General Assembly on Reformation grounds, according to the Covenant of 1638.  The petition was treated with contempt; it was not even read in the Assembly.  The three ministers winced, faltered, yielded.  They fell beneath the popular wave, to rise no more.  These men, who had bravely faced persecution, were at last overcome by blandishment.  The Covenanted cause was at stake in that Assembly, as truly as it ever had been in the presence of Claverhouse and his dragoons; and here the leaders surrendered.