Our Churches and Chapels

The following paragraphs were extracted from a feature in the "Wishaw Press, August 20 1937, 
reporting on several sermons and addresses made to the congregation of Bonkle Church 
by Rev. James Winchester BD. There are also many references to Reverend Andrew Scot and his 
son Reverend James   Scott who between them steered the congregation 101 years of service. 
This article in it's full form can be found at, 
http://www.bonkle.org.uk/bonkle/WP1..htm 
 
 

      		
      
      

      		
      
      

      		
    

    

      
      
In the year 1688 is memorable in British history as the date of the revolution, 
when the last of the Stewart Kings, James II, was driven from the throne and 
Protestantism was firmly established under William and Mary. In the revolution 
settlement  which followed, in 1690 Presbyterianism was finally restored in 
Scotland and the dark days of the persecution of the Covenanters came to an end

      		
      
      

      		
      
      

      		
    

    

      
      

      		
      
      

      		
      
      
  

      
 

      		
      
      

      		
      
      

      		
    

    

      
      

      		
      
      

      
A very important  act of the Scottish Parliament 
in 1690 was the abolition of patronage in the Church. 
When the Covenanters were in power they made it a 
law that congregations should choose their own minister, 
but when Charles II. came to the throne this was set 
aside and the right of appointing a minister to a
 vacant congregation was granted to the chief landowner
 in a parish who was known as the patron. This was now
 put an end to, and it became the duty of the "heritors
 and elders to name and propose the minister of the 
whole congregation, to be approved or disapprove by 
them."

      		
    

    

      
      

      		
      
      
  

      
 

      		
      
      

      		
    

    

      
      
This was further confirmed in the Act of Security when the Union of the 
Parliaments of England and Scotland came about in 1707. Alas, the hopes 
of piece and concord in our land, only five years had passed when 
the united Parliament restarted the rights of the patrons.
Historians  of all schools were united in denouncing this Act of the 
restoration of patronage. Dr Charles Wrote in his volume 
"The Presbyterian Tradition" speaks of it as a "shameless act 
of Parliament engineered by the Jacobite party and in flagrant 
violations of the Treaty of Union" "by it" he continued , 
"the church was done one of the most scandalous wrongs in 
it's much wronged history." 162 years were to pass, in 1874
 when Patronage was finally abolished in the Church of Scotland 
and the last trace of this source  of so much heart burning  
and strife was wiped out. 

      		
    

    

      
        

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