Robert Baillie, David Dickson (ex-Protester), Robert Douglas, James Wood, George Hutcheson, Andrew Ker, Thomas Kirkcaldy, James Fergusson Here is a list of persons on the various sides: Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers…” (Mt. Insightfully opening the Scriptures upon this controversy, he argued that the division itself was worse than the reasons for it and history proves him right. Near the end of his shortened life, he left ‘a dying man’s testament to the Church of Scotland’, the presbyterian masterpiece on healing scandal. Read the side first that you agree less with, and you may get a surprise there is a reason why godly and learned men fell out on both sides.Īs far as who was right, that honor goes to James Durham, who sought to unify the two parties. This sad split in the Church of Christ in Scotland, nonetheless, brought out interesting theological controversies concerning: civil resistance, passive and active obedience, the unity of the Church, grounds for separation, social covenanting, the nature of the Church, lawful (and unlawful) alliances and the right (or not-right) of continued protesting, amongst other disputed points. This division between the Resolutioners and the Protesters essentially healed only upon the beginning of the Era of Persecution, after King Charles II, demonstrating his insincerity, initiated it in 1661 by rescinding the covenants. Having been barred from the Assembly (unjustly in their minds), they considered it no longer a ‘free Assembly’ and hence the Protesters declared the 1651 Assembly to be null and void. The 22 ministers then entered another protestation against being barred from the Assembly and against the Public Resolutions. These Church officers were censured and barred from the 1651 General Assembly. “…to promise any power to the King before he had evidenced the change of his principles, and the continuing of that power in his hand was sinful till that change did appear.”

Those who supported the Public Resolutions were known as Resolutioners.Ī few months before in October of 1650, a protest was presented to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which complained of the Church’s acceptance of the ‘sinful’ hastiness with which Charles II, in order to be shortly thereafter crowned as king, promised to uphold the Scottish national covenants. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland approved this. In 1650, in light of the present invasion of Cromwell from England, the Scottish Parliament removed much of the legislation of the Act of Classes, letting more people fight in the army, by passing the Public Resolutions in December. In 1653 rival General Assemblies were set up and separate presbyteries, competing for ascendancy, would continue till the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660.įollowing the Engagement (1647), a military campaign into England, the Scottish Parliament passed the Act of Classes (1649), which barred ‘malignants’ from the army and important public offices.

The Resolutioner-Protester Controversy was the first division of the Church of Scotland since her Reformation in 1560.