page_title: Alexander Henderson (theologian)
section_title: The National Covenant - Contending against Episcopacy
hierarchical_section_title: Alexander Henderson (theologian) / The National Covenant - Contending against Episcopacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Alexander Henderson, Moderator of the General Assembly, 1638 Yow that can find no object where to place Your wonder, Come behold this gratious face. Tis He the great Reformer of his dayes That pow'rfull Light who spread the brighter rayes Through Brittain half benighted, which did make Truth to Triumph, proud Babells Whoor to quake.
context_page_description: Alexander Henderson was a Scottish theologian, and an important ecclesiastical statesman of his period. He is considered the second founder of the Reformed Church in Scotland. He was one of the most eminent ministers of the Church of Scotland in the most important period of her history, namely, previous to the middle of the seventeenth century.
  Alexander Henderson was born in 1583, and studied at the University of St. Andrews. He was, through the influence of Archbishop Gladstanes, presented to the church living of Leuchars, Fifeshire, and was in 1615 inducted forcibly into the charge. He was then a supporter of episcopacy; he subsequently changed his views and became a zealous upholder of Presbyterianism. He opposed the adoption of the five Articles of Perth in 1618, and resisted the use of the Service Book in 1637. He drafted both the National Covenant of 1638 with Johnstone of Warriston, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. He preached in the Greyfriars church on 28 February 1638, when the National Covenant was signed, and presided as Moderator of the memorable General Assembly held at Glasgow in the following November.
context_section_description: With the memorable year 1637 Henderson reappears on the scene, a keen opponent of "Laud's Liturgy," which King Charles 
  was determined to foist on the Church. In common with other ministers, he had been charged to purchase two copies of the liturgy for the use of his parish within fifteen days, under the pain of rebellion. He immediately went to Edinburgh, and, 23 August, presented a petition to the privy council, representing that the service book had not received the sanction of the General Assembly, nor was recognised by an act of parliament, and praying a suspension of the charge. To this remonstrance the council returned a favourable answer, and the reading of the liturgy was ordered to be suspended until the king's farther pleasure should be known. Charles, however, only the more peremptorily insisted that the service book should be received; and from this time forward Mr. Henderson took a prominent share in all the proceedings of the nonconformists. A great number of the nobility, gentry, clergymen, and representatives of burghs, with others, had assembled in Edinburgh from all parts of the country; and after another supplication had been presented to the privy council, praying them to bring the matter again before the king, a proclamation from his majesty was made, requiring all persons to depart to their homes within twenty-four hours, on pain of being denounced rebels. Instead of dispersing, the leaders of the popular party, after some farther ineffectual petitions to the king, resolved to appeal to the people, and the result was the renewal of the National Covenant of 1580 and 1581, with only some slight changes adapted to the circumstances of the times. It was prepared by Mr. Henderson, assisted by Archibald Johnston, afterwards of Warriston, an advocate in whom, we are told, the suppliants chiefly confided, and was sworn and subscribed in the Greyfriars' church of Edinburgh, on 28 February 1638, by thousands of the nobility, gentry, ministers of the gospel, burgesses, and others. Mr. Henderson addressed the vast multitude assembled with great fervour and eloquence, aud the enthusiasm of the people knew no bounds. He was subsequently sent with several noblemen, and Messrs. Cant and Dickson, to Aberdeen, to prevail on the inhabitants of that city to take the Covenant, and, after urging upon them the strongest arguments in favour of the document, no less than 500 persons subscribed it, many of them being of the highest respectability. 
  Mainly through Henderson's influence the National League and Covenant was signed, 21 February 1638, and he was Moderator of the Assembly which met at Glasgow, 21 November of the same year.
  On 1 March 1638 the public signing of the National Covenant began in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh. Henderson was mainly responsible for the final form of this document, which consisted of
  the king's confession drawn up in 1581 by John Craig
  a recital of the acts of parliament against superstitious and papistical rites
  an elaborate oath to maintain the true reformed religion.
  Owing to the skill shown on this occasion he seems to have been applied to when any manifesto of unusual ability was required. In July of the same year he proceeded to the north to debate on the Covenant with the famous Aberdeen doctors but he was not well received. Robert Baillie wrote: "The Voyd church was made fast, and the keys kept by the magistrate".
  Henderson's next public opportunity was in the famous Assembly which met in Glasgow on 21 November 1638. He was chosen moderator by acclamation, being, as Baillie says, incomparable the ablest man of us all for all things. James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, was the king's commissioner; and when the Assembly insisted on proceeding with the trial of the bishops, he formally dissolved the meeting under pain of treason. Acting on the constitutional principle that the king's right to convene did not interfere with the church's independent right to hold assemblies, they sat till 20 December, deposed all the Scottish bishops, excommunicated a number of them, repealed all acts f
caption: Moderator of the General Assembly, 1638
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