Getting Started - What is this site all about?
One of the features of the Christian Church over the centuries has been the tendency for her to fragment into many different denominations. While this is to be deplored for many different reasons, one implication of this tendency is often overlooked. This could be described as "ignoring past attainments". There have been two major Reformations in the church since the days of the apostles. The first of these we associate with Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox and many others in sixteenth-century Europe. The second was centred in the seventeenth century British Isles. This second Reformation was a return to Presbyterianism, or church government by elders, and a rejection of episcopacy, or rule by prelates. This second Reformation not only produced catechisms and a Confession of Faith which are still used in the church today, but represents a watershed for the true church in a myriad of other ways. This website is dedicated to exploring those attainments and to call Christians to reconnect with the church which was responsible for the second Reformation.
Central to the attempt to bring the three Kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland into a religious uniformity was the practice of social covenanting, so that those churches which look back to this period of church history are called usually called covenanters. Reformed Presbyterian is the designation usually given covenanter churches. Such churches are reformed because they hold to the reshaping of the church according to the Word of God, and Presbyterian, because they hold to rule by presbyters rather than prelates, or congregational members.
A distinguishing feature of the Scottish Reformation was the practice of social covenanting. From the beginning of the Scottish Reformation in the sixteenth century the citizens of this protestant nation joined together signing a covenant to serve and honour God. In 1557 a group of gentleman called the Mearns band publicly covenanted to maintain the pure preaching of Jesus Christ. In 1560 a group of nobles, barons and other gentlemen covenanted together in the name of Christ to expel the French.
In 1581 the King and others had sworn a covenant known as the King’s Confession or the Negative Confession. This confession was a statement designed to rid the Kingdom of crypto-Roman Catholicism. The author of this Confession or covenant was John Craig. It had four elements. It was a summary and affirmation of the Scots Confession of 1560; a polemical denunciation of Roman Catholic doctrine; an oath denouncing Roman Catholicism and a declaration of loyalty to the country, king and the Reformed faith.
Subsequent Presbyterian generations saw this confession as a covenant which still bound subsequent generations. The church was considered to be in a pure form; and this purity was to be assured if subsequent generations also subscribed the covenant as they were bound to do. The covenant was also an historical attainment which could be appealed to in order to oppose attempts to impose episcopacy or non-presbyterian church government.
In 1637, a generation after this King’s Confession, Charles I tried to introduce a Scottish version of the English prayer book. The Scots rebelled against this attempt to subvert Presbyterianism and the Reformed faith. This event was responsible for a reaffirmation of the 1581 King’s Confession in a new covenant known as the 1638 National Covenant. The posterity of those earlier Scottish covenanters acknowledged the binding nature of the King’s Confession in their new National Covenant. The reassertion of social covenanting ultimately led to another covenant, the Solemn League and Covenant which embraced the three Kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland, and led to the English civil war and the Westminster Assembly which gave us the famous confession of faith and catechisms. But it should be remembered that without the Solemn League and Covenant, there would have been no Scots attending a Westminster Assembly ensuring the completion of documents which are the highpoint of Reformed orthodoxy.
This Reformed Presbyterian Covenanter Society will seek to encourage a covenanted Reformation here in New Zealand. New Zealand was formerly a colony of the British government and is still attached to Britain through the Monarchy. And if the British covenants are binding on the posterity of the British Isles, they must also be binding on the other societies which trace their lineage through those same Isles. This site contains articles, essays and studies which demonstrate the biblical warrant for holding to these same covenants today; and the binding nature of the covenants on New Zealanders generally.
Sadly, Oliver Cromwell and then later Charles II at the restoration of 1660 undermined the covenanted reformation and the gains which were made under the Puritan parliaments. Faithful churches were decimated in the ensuing apostasy. Persecution of the covenanters, who still held to the principles of the covenants and the second Reformation, took the lives of many and others escaped to North America or other lands. In 1688, the year of the 'glorious revolution', the bloodless revolution effected by William and Mary put an end to the Stuart persecution of the covenanters, but sadly the new incumbents on the British thrones did not subscribe the Solemn League and Covenant. Eventually in the eighteenth century the remnant of Scottish covenanters, who had previously formed themselves into societies, established a church called the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
The essential distinctives of the Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter witness include:
The Lord Jesus Christ is King of all creation and rules over the nations and the church, all men and angels and all providence. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The church and individual Christians must always maintain an intense interest in the salvation of men. Covenanters are evangelical by definition.
A firm commitment to maintain the attainments of the true church, and not to decline from those attainments.
Worship is to be governed by the regulative principle of Scripture as it is summarized in The Directory For The Publick Worship Of God.
Church government is to be Presbyterian as it is summarized in The Form of Presbyterian Church-Government.
Church doctrine is to be based solely upon Scripture, as it is usefully and faithfully summarised in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.
The binding nature of the 1638 National Covenant of Scotland and the Solemn League and Covenant on the posterity of those British societies and nations, and the nations established from former British colonies.
The responsibility of all Christians and the church as an institution to work for a single Presbyterian church as the established church of New Zealand.
The responsibility of the state to legislate according to the ethics of the Bible.
The state is not to interfere with the work of the church, but has the responsibility to use its power, without persecution, to encourage true religion and discourage the false.
Christians should practice political dissent when governed by a government and Queen who both refuse to acknowledge the crown rights of Jesus Christ over the nation; over her social ethics, and political life. This means that it is wrong to vote under the present constitutional arrangements for any politician, because they swear allegiance to an erastian Queen who claims to be head of the Church of England and who repudiates the covenant. The oath of allegiance also requires of politicians a commitment to serve the Queen’s heirs and successors – this irrespective of their character or beliefs.
Before Christ returns all the nations of this world will enter the Kingdom of Christ, and the world will be largely Christianised (Rev. 11:15): “They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten” Jer 50:5. One day the world will be made up of covenanting nations.
As you can see, the Covenanter testimony presents a biblically-founded unified system which has something to say about all of life. Christianity is not a private belief system to be kept in a Christian ghetto. It is a comprehensive world view which teaches that God intends His church is to impact individuals, families, nations and the entire world for Christ. It is optimistic, because it is a position which believes the Scriptures which teach that God’s Will one day will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
When New Zealand Christians debate whether Christianity should be recognized as the national religion, and whether the government has the responsibility to legislate according to Christian ethics, the covenanter position gives a comprehensive answer to these questions. And it makes sense. Surely this is our Saviour’s world and He intends to put all His enemies under His feet (Heb 2:8). Our task is to be faithful and to contend for the truth of all the Word of God and to promote, therefore, the crown-rights of King Jesus over all of life.
This site contains resources which explain all these distinctions of the authentic Protestant and Reformed faith. There is also the opportunity for anyone to join the society and become part of the third Reformation.
Dr. Garnet Milne
