The Life of Alexander Henderson (1583–1646) - Thomas M'Crie

Alexander Henderson Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9596FC0E0148E6F8

A clergyman in the Church of Scotland, Henderson was a protégé of Archbishop Gladstanes who granted him the kirk of Leuchars in Fife in 1612 where Henderson encountered opposition from his anti-episcopalian parishioners. Around the time of Gladstane's death in 1615, Henderson himself became a convert to the Presbyterian cause, possibly as a result of hearing a sermon by the charismatic preacher Robert Bruce.

In 1637, Henderson emerged as one of the leaders of the opposition to Archbishop Laud's innovations in the Scottish church. He helped organise the prayer book riots in Edinburgh when the new liturgy was introduced and was among the Supplicants who petitioned against the innovations after he was ordered to use the new prayer book in his parish or face prosecution. In February 1638, Henderson and the lawyer Johnston of Wariston were commissioned to draft the National Covenant to unite the Supplicants. As the Covenanter movement gained momentum, Henderson and Wariston agitated for a General Assembly to settle all religious controversies, resulting in the calling of the Glasgow Assembly of November 1638, at which the Covenanters abolished episcopacy from the Kirk. Elected moderator of the Assembly, Henderson preached a famous sermon known as The Bishops' Doom and pronounced the sentence of excommunication on the Scottish bishops.

Early in 1639, Henderson left his parish at Leuchars to become minister at the High Kirk of St Giles in Edinburgh. He wrote several tracts that helped gain support for the Covenanters amongst English Puritans. After the Bishops' Wars of 1639-40, Henderson was one of