Covenant, signed in Gray friars Churchyard, asserted their purpose to
defend, even unto death, the true religion, and to "labor by all means
lawful to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel as it was
established and professed before the late innovations." Charles at
first determined upon extreme measures, and preparations were made to
force "the stubborn Kirk of Scotland to bow," but wiser measures
prevailed, and the desires of the Church of Scotland were for the time
granted.

The Book of Common Order, thus reaffirmed as the law of the Church
respecting worship, continued in use during the years following the
Glasgow Assembly of 1638, years which for Scotland were comparatively
peaceful, by reason of the troubles fast thickening around the English
throne.

This interesting chapter of Scottish history which we have thus briefly
reviewed, is of value to us in the present discussion only in so far
as, from the facts presented, we are able to understand the spirit that
characterized the Church of Scotland at this period, and the principles
that guided them in their attitude toward the subject of public
worship. What this spirit and those principles were it is not
difficult to discover. The facts themselves are plain; not only did
the Church in its regularly constituted courts oppose the introduction
of new forms and the elaboration of the Church service, but the people
resisted by every means in their power, and at last went the length of
resisting by force of arms, the attempt to impose upon them the new
Service Book.

It is asserted that the chief, if not the only cause of this resistance
was, first, an element of patriotism which in Scotland opposed
uniformly any measure which seemed to subordinate the national customs
to those of England, and secondly, the righteous and conscientious
objection of Presbyterians to having imposed upon them by any external
authority, a form of worship and Church government which their own
ecclesiastical authorities had not approved, and which they themselves
had not voluntarily accepted. The objection, in a word, is said to
have been not to a liturgy as such, but to a _foreign_ liturgy and to
one _imposed_.

It cannot be denied that these were important elements in the
opposition of the Scottish people to the projects of Charles. Many of
them, for one or other of these reasons, opposed the King's command,
who had no conscientious scruples with regard either to the form or