Rev. John Livingstone

I have been reading the memoirs of Rev. John Livingstone, a Scottish Puritan of the 17th century. Rev. Livingstone was a member of the Westminster Assembly that met in the 1640's, while he pastored a church in Ireland. Within twenty years of the Assembly, some of the divines were thrown out of their churches due to the "Great Ejectment" of 1662. Let's listen to the words of Livingstone regarding this time:

He was brought before the ecclesiastical council in Edinburgh and "they required me to subseryve the oath which they called the Oath of Alleadgeance, wherin the king was to be acknowledged supream governour over all persons, and in all causes, both civill and ecclesiasticall. This I know was contrived . . . that it might import receding from the covenant for reformation, and the bringing in of the bishops. . . Therefore, I refused to take that oath. They desyred to know if I would take some time to advise anent the matter, as some who had been before them had done. . . I told I needed not take tyme, seeing I was abundantly clear that I could not lawfully take that oath."

The ecclesiastical council pronounced banishment . . . Livingstone had 48 hours to leave Edinburgh and two months to depart all the king's domains. He left his church and went to Rotterdam. Within a year, his wife came to him with two of their children, although five children remained in Scotland. Livingstone, a Scottish lion of the covenant, died in Rotterdam on August 9, 1672.

In my ordination examination for the PCA, the first question I was asked was, "Who is head of the church?" The answer is, "Jesus Christ alone." Livingstone and others paid a heavy price for that truth . . . and perhaps someday we will be called to stand our post as well.