Alexander Henderson
1583–1646
Chief architect of the Solemn League and Covenant; senior Scottish theological statesman.
Departs from the Confession on Order of Decrees: Supralapsarian not Deliberately-Permits-Both · Covenant of Redemption: Explicit-Developed not Implicit-Affirmed
Biography
Minister at Leuchars (Fife) and then Edinburgh, Henderson led the Covenanter cause from its decisive 1638 victory over Laud's Prayer Book onward. He drafted the National Covenant (1638) and the Solemn League and Covenant (1643), and as senior Scottish commissioner at Westminster pressed the case for jure-divino presbyterianism. Worn out by the negotiations and the Uxbridge treaty, he died in August 1646; his body was carried back to Greyfriars.
Principal works
- The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (1641)
- The Bishops Doom (1638)
Scottish Commissioner
Under the Solemn League and Covenant (1643) the Church of Scotland sent commissioners — ministers and ruling elders — to sit with the Assembly. They had voice in debate but no formal vote, yet their influence on the Standards, especially on worship and presbyterian polity, was decisive. Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie were the leading ministerial commissioners.
Ontology placement
· 2 overrides of 35
Cite this divine
Study Reformed, “Alexander Henderson” (Divine), Westminster Standards Atlas, version 79a5f9880ac1, https://studyreformed.com/atlas/cite/persona/alexander-henderson/.
Ontology version 79a5f9880ac1 — the state of the Atlas you are reading, so a citation stays checkable when the ontology is revised.