"The Resolutioners and Protesters were two parties formed in the Church of Scotland in consequence of certain resolutions agreed upon by the Commission of the General Assembly, and afterwards approved of by the Assembly itself, with respect to the admission into places of power and trust in the Army and State of such as had by various Acts of Parliament been excluded on account of their malignancy or opposition to the covenant (i.e., the Solemn League and Covenant - ed.) and liberties of the nation, provided they gave satisfaction to the Church.

Those who approved of these resolutions were called 'Resolutioners;' those who were opposed to them were called 'Anti-Resolutioners,' or 'Protesters,' from their having given in or adhered to a protestation against the lawfulness of the Assembly held July 1651, at St. Andrews, and adjourned to Dundee, by which these resolutions were ratified.

The protestation was given in by the famous Samuel Rutherford, and signed by twenty-two members.

Future events showed the impolicy of these resolutions.

The men who were admitted by them into places of power and trust in the Army and State became, as the Protesters always predicted, the persecutors of the Church. Had the counsels of the Protesters prevailed, the twenty-eight years' persecution might not have existed."

- Note by Rev. James Anderson in the Martyrs of the Bass, in "The Bass Rock," p. 181.

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