Henry Cooke: “We are the Covenanters”

[Reformed Covenanter]

Speaking before the General Synod of Ulster as it was contemplating union with the Secession Synod, Henry Cooke made the following claim:

There was another body called Covenanters. Who are the Covenanters? We are the Covenanters. I have no idea of giving up the covenant of our fathers; and when writing to any of my dear brethren of that [Reformed Presbyterian] church, I style him as belonging to the church commonly called Covenanters, but I never on any occasion address them as Covenanters par excellence. He hoped the time would come when they would unite with that church too. ...

For the reference, see Henry Cooke: “We are the Covenanters”.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Here is another extract on the same theme by the same man when he addressed the Free Church General Assembly in 1849:

... Permit me then, in the first place, to remind you of what you know full well, that our origin as a Church is from you. We owe to the honoured names of Blair, and Livingstone, and Cunningham, and Hamilton – those great and distinguished names – the foundation of our Church, as in a great degree to those names you give the honour of your own. (Hear.)

In the second place, permit me to remind you that our Church grew up as a Church under the same Solemn League and Covenant with yours. I examined this day, in one of your houses of record, an original of one of those documents signed by the mighty of your land. Under the name Solemn League and Covenant with yourselves, the Presbyterians of Ulster grew up by the blessings of Almighty God …

For the reference, see Henry Cooke on the covenanting origins of Scottish and Irish Presbyterianism.