There was a time when the Protestant world was united in the identification of the antichrist of Biblical prophecy. John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Bunyan, Sir Isaac Newton, John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edward, Charles Spurgeon all “saw the office of the Papacy as the Antichrist.”
The writers and signers of the National Covenant in 1638 were in full agreement with this recognition. In the opening section of the document, the condition and state of the church at Rome are thoroughly enumerated and defined leaving the reader in no doubt as to the authors’ beliefs regarding the notorious beast of Revelation.
“But in special we detest and refuse the usurped authority of that Roman Antichrist upon the Scriptures of God, upon the Kirk, the civil magistrate, and consciences of men;...” This statement in itself would be enough to raise papal eyebrows.
“…all his tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against our Christian liberty; his erroneous doctrine against the sufficiency of the written Word, the perfection of the law, the office of Christ and His blessed evangel;..” This is an early chastisement directed at the papacy for its open and utter deprivation of Christian liberty, the diminuation of God’s Holy Word, His Law, and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement.
“…his corrupted doctrine concerning original sin, our natural inability and rebellion to God's law, our justification by faith only,...” Probably the most important key to the Protestant Reformation is the text “…the just shall live by his faith.” Hab. ii. 4.
“…our imperfect sanctification and obedience to the law, the nature, number, and use of the holy sacraments; his five bastard sacraments,..” An 1859 commentary of the catechism by John Brown explains Q. 93.
Q. 93. What are the Sacraments of the New Testament?
A. The Sacraments of the New Testament are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Q. How do these differ from the Sacraments of the Old Testament?
A. The sacraments of the Old Testament more darkly represented Christ as to come; but those of the New clearly represented him as already come.
Q. Do baptism and the Lord’s Supper succeed in the place of circumcision and the Passover?
A. Yes; baptism is come in place of circumcision, and the Lord’s Supper in place of Passover.
Q. Are there no more sacraments under the New Testament, than baptism and the Lord’s supper?
A. No more of divine institution; but the Papists have added five bastard sacraments, viz. marriage, ordination, confirmation, penance and extreme unction.
Brown goes on to explain that these five are completely and utterly without Biblical basis or authority, a fact noted below by the Covenant authors, “without the Word of God.” 1.
“…with all his rites, ceremonies, and false doctrine, added to the ministration of the true sacraments, without the Word of God; his cruel judgments against infants departing without the sacrament;…” In these days it was commonly believed among the papists that if an infant died having not been baptized, he would spend his eternity in “limbo,” a sort of nothingness, “imagined as a kind of neutral residence for souls, with neither the torment of hell nor the joy of heaven.” 2.
“…his absolute necessity of baptism; his blasphemous opinion of transubstantiation…” Prominent among the features of John Knox’s service of worship was the discontinuance of kneeling at the Holy Communion. He regarded this attitude as a symbolic endorsement of transubstantiation and of the idolatry of the host. 3.
“…or real presence of Christ's body in the elements, and receiving of the same by the wicked, or bodies of men; his dispensations, with solemn oaths, perjuries, and degrees of marriage, forbidden in the Word; his cruelty against the innocent divorced; his devilish mass; his blasphemous priesthood; his profane sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the quick; his canonization of men, calling upon angels or saints departed, worshipping of imagery, relics, and crosses; dedicating of kirks, altars, days, vows to creatures; his purgatory, prayers for the dead,…” a practice still encouraged today and is said to be “bound up inseperably with the doctrine of purgatory.” 4.
“…praying or speaking in a strange language; with his processions and blasphemous litany, and multitude of advocates or mediators; his manifold orders, auricular confession; his desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and doubtsome faith; his satisfactions of men for their sins; his justification by works, opus operatum,..” a technical term meaning that grace can be earned through certains “acts” such as baptism.
“works of supererogation,..”, or works that are “beyond what God requires,” relieving one from the necessity of penance, viz. the vows of “chastity, poverty and obedience.”
merits, pardons, peregrinations and stations; his holy water, baptizing of bells,…”, a practice that today is played down by Catholics who refer to the phrase as “merely popular and metaphorical” and it was “not really meant that the bells were truly baptized,” though at the time it was indeed referred to as “baptism.”
“…conjuring of spirits, crossing, saning,…”, referred to by Catholics as the “ultimate rite of passage for an infant. It serves three primary functions: formally naming the child, accepting the child as a member of the larger community and bestowing blessings on the child in the form of nine drops of sacred water.” Today this is also called “Wiccaning.” 5.
“…anointing, conjuring,..” not sure about this. Could this make reference to the “Dia de los muertos” in which Catholic believers leave fiesta-style food out to please the spirits of dead relatives who come by and smell the food.
“hallowing of God's good creatures, with the superstitious opinion joined therewith; his worldly monarchy and wicked hierarchy; his three solemn vows,..”, vows dealing with conditions for admission to religious orders for men, noted above regarding “supererogation.”
“…with all his shavelings (priests, with shaved heads) of sundry sorts; his erroneous and bloody decrees made at Trent
“…with all the subscribers and approvers of that cruel and bloody band conjured against the Kirk of God. And finally, we detest all his vain allegories, rites, signs, and traditions, brought in the Kirk without or against the Word of God, and doctrine of this true reformed Kirk. To which we join ourselves willingly, in doctrine, religion, faith, discipline, and life of the holy sacraments, as lively members of the same, in Christ our head, promising and swearing, by the great name of the Lord our God, that we shall continue in the obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this Kirk, and shall defend the same according to our vocation and power all the days of our lives, under the pains contained in the law, and danger both of body and soul in the day of God's fearful judgment. And seeing that many are stirred up by Satan and that Roman Antichrist, to promise, swear, subscribe, and for a time use the holy sacraments in the Kirk, deceitfully against their own consciences, minding thereby, first under the external cloak of religion, to corrupt and subvert secretly God's true religion within the Kirk; and afterwards, when time may serve, to become open enemies and persecutors of the same, under vain hope of the Pope's dispensation, devised against the Word of God, to his great confusion, and their double condemnation in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
Some have described the National Covenant of 1638 as being an antiquated and “dull” document. It is to me a rather pointed indictment of the world’s greatest “usurper” and an enumeration of some of the myriad non-biblical doctrines forced by him upon a world of believers who had no choice but to believe it having been deprived of the Scriptures for centuries. It is quite exciting considering that in its writing, one must surely realize that the wrath and power of that Roman antichrist would have to inevitably fall on its subscribers. It was not long in coming.
1. Brown, John, Minister at Haddington. An Essay Towards and Easy, Plain, Practical, and Extensive Explication of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism
3. Cowan, Henry John Knox: the Hero of the Scottish Reformation p. 98
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