Who Was That Masked Prophet? III

The Prophet of the Covenant



The ejected ministers were to remain silent or to face the consequences, outlawry, persecution, prison, exile and even death. Some of the older ministers went to Holland and a Scots expat. community grew up around them. But many stayed in Scotland; their voices would not be silent and, forced out of the churches, they took to the open air:

"The minister's home was the mountain and wood."

They took particularly to the wild country of the South-west of Scotland, "a land of intricate rolling hills, clear streams, remains of ancient forests with, on the one hand, green smiling valleys that stretch to the sea, and at their heads, on the mountain summits, breadths of waste moorland and labyrinths of bogs and morass, the haunts of the curlew and lapwing, that break the deep solitude with their wild, melancholy cry." (John C. Johnston, Alexander Peden)

Peden was denounced as a rebel on 25th January, 1666. To recieve him was a crime against the state, and to hand him over to the authorities an act of loyalty. His crime? Preaching the Gospel. His hearers were threatened with death. At last, in November 1666, the oppressed people rose. They captured the King's commander and marched on Edinburgh. Peden went with them for a while, but at length he turned back, "Being persuaded that they would fall and flee before the enemy."

That was not necessarily prophetic. The rebels continued to the Pentland Hills, just outside Edinburgh.

A couple of nights later, Peden was dining with friends in Carrick, sixty miles from Edinburgh. He was seen to be very troubled and distressed by something. When his landlord asked him what the trouble was, Peden replied, "To-morrow I will speak with you," and retired to pray, not sleeping all night.

Early in the morning Peden called to his landlord and said, "I have sad news to tell you; our friends that were together in arms for Christ's interest, are now broken, killed, taken and fled every man." The news came by foot some forty-eight hours later.

Despite not being present at Pentland, Peden was condemned for being there. But Peden did not leave Scotland, he went on preaching up and down the country, even visiting Ireland in 1670, to encourage the Scots presbyterian exiles there.

But Peden, despite some hair's breadth escapes, did not remain at liberty for ever. But more of that in our next instalment.

(Illustration: Peden's Pulpit, Gameshope, Tweedsmuir, http://www.ancient-stones.co.uk/borders/041/047/details.htm)