The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice

Twenty-five escaped; only he was recaptured.

IN THE 1600s English kings insisted on imposing the Anglican Church on the Presbyterians of Scotland. In protest approximately three hundred thousand Scots signed the National Covenant of 1638, vowing to defend Presbyterianism from governmental control. This marked the beginning of fifty years of bitter struggle between the Covenanters and the Church of England.

Forty-one years later in 1679, young John Dick, a recent graduate of the University of Edinburgh, escaped capture after fighting with the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge^a but was later betrayed in Edinburgh by a poor woman needing the reward. Put into prison during the fall of 1683, he was sentenced to death for high treason and imprisoned with twenty-four other Covenanters in two large upper prison cells. The prisoners planned a daring escape while friends prayed for its success.

They were in two cells, one above the other, and to prepare for the escape, the prisoners in the lower cell sawed through the iron window bars, while those above devised a way to drop down through the flooring. While they were sawing, a bar fell down into the street but miraculously the sentry below did not see it. The next morning a sympathetic visitor managed to return it to them so they could fit it back into the window frame and not be noticed until their escape. When the appointed day came, all twenty-five escaped.

John Dick was the only one recaptured, but during his six months of freedom he put his university education and theological studies to good use by writing a short book with a long title: Testimony to the Doctrine, Worship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland and the Covenanted Work of Reformation in the Three Kingdoms, published after his death.

At the beginning of March 1684 John Dick was arrested, brought to trial again, and ordered to be hanged at Grassmarket in Edinburgh on March 5, 1684. The night before his execution he wrote his father a letter:

Dear Sir,

This hath been one of the pleasantest nights I have had in my lifetime; the competition is only betwixt it and that I got eleven years ago . . . [when] the Lord firmly laid the foundation stone of grace in my heart, by making me with my whole soul close with Him upon His own terms, . . . as also to give myself entirely without reserve, in soul, body, heart, affection, and the whole faculties of my soul, and powers of my body, to be by Him disposed at His pleasure for the advancement of His glory. . . .

Your Affectionate son, and Christ’s prisoner, John Dick.

P.S: I hope, ere I go Home, to get another sight of you. Let none see this till I be in my grave. The Lord gave me to you freely, so I entreat you, be frank in giving me to Him again. . . .

On the appointed day, as the crowds looked on and the drums rolled, John Dick proclaimed from the scaffold:

I am come here this day, and would not change my lot with the greatest in the world. I lay down my life willingly and cheerfully for Christ and His cause, and I heartily forgive all mine enemies. I forgive all them who gave me my sentence, and them who were the chief cause of my taking; and I forgive him who is behind me [the executioner]. I advise you who are the Lord’s people, to be sincere in the way of godliness, and you who know little or nothing of the power thereof, to come to Him and trust God, He will not disappoint you. I say trust in the Lord, and He will support or strengthen you in whatever trouble or affliction you may meet with. I remember, when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, Isaac said, “Here is the wood, and the fire, but where is the sacrifice?”

He looked up at the gallows, then out to the crowd, and continued, “Now blessed be the Lord, here is the sacrifice and free-will offering. Adieu, farewell all friends.”

Reflection

How do you account for John Dick’s attitude in facing death? How would you respond in a similar situation? How would you like to respond?

“God will provide a lamb, my son,” Abraham answered.

Genesis 22:8