The right to worship God according to conscience, when conscience is set free by the Spirit and enlightened in the Word, must be jealously guarded.  Every attempt to introduce the devices of man into the service of the Church should be strenuously resisted.  Each innovation in the worship of God does violence to the most delicate and sacred feelings of the human heart, and is a reflection on the wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has ordained all the services of His House with utmost care and precision.  If the Covenanted fathers protested unflinchingly against a man-made Prayer Book, what would they have done at the appearance of a modern pulpit programme of music and hymns?

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Points for the class.

1.  Describe the militant character of the Church.

2.  What three successive demonstrations of strength did the Covenanted Church give against the new Prayer Book?

3.  What was the great issue?

4.  How should the Church guard divine worship against corruption?

XIII.

Renewing the covenant.—­A.D. 1638.

King Charles believed in the divine right of kings, and the Presbyterians believed in the eternal right of Christ to rule kings.  The two beliefs could not be reconciled; hence the great struggle.  The attacks on Presbyterianism came in rapid succession and with increasing violence.  The Covenanters sternly resisted these attacks.  The nation seemed to be on the verge of civil war.

The leading Covenanters saw in the war-cloud, that which blinded eyes could not see—­the hand of the Lord lifted up against the nation.  Henderson, Rutherford, Dickson, and others of penetrating mind discovered the moral cause of the troubles and trembled for their country.  The Lord was meting out judgment against sin.  Divine wrath was falling upon the people.  Judgment had already begun at the House of God.  The King of Righteousness was girding His sword on His thigh for action.  Who will be able to stand when He arises in wrath to vindicate His own royal rights?  These men feared God and trembled at His word.

A day of humiliation and fasting was appointed, many came together for prayer.  There were deep searchings of heart followed by pangs of conscience and cries for mercy.  God gave an alarming view of sin.  The defection of the Church and perfidy of the nation seemed to fill the sky with lurid flames of divine vengeance.  The former Covenants had been broken; the oath was profaned, the obligations denied, the penalty defied; the Lord had been provoked to pour out His wrath upon the Land.  The day of reckoning seemed to have come.  The sense of guilt and the weight of wrath bowed many souls to the earth.  One supreme desire seemed to prevail—­that they arise and return to Him, from whom they had so deeply and shamefully revolted.