---
title: 'Pritchard on Covenanter Loyalty'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2025-11-20
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2025-pritchard-on-covenanter-loyalty
---

# Pritchard on Covenanter Loyalty

“People who do not understand, marvel that a Covenanter will give his life for his country but withholds his vote at election time. A Covenanter will give his life because of his loyalty to his country, and withholds his vote at election time because of his loyalty to Christ.

To become a soldier he is required to swear loyalty to his country, and that he is always eager to do; but to vote at an election he is required to swear to a Constitution of Civil Government that does not recognize the existence of God, the authority of Christ over the nation, nor any obligation to obey His moral law; and that his conception of loyalty to Christ will not permit him to do.” — [**John W. Pritchard**](/authors/john-wagner-pritchard), *Soldiers of the Church: The Story of What the Reformed Presbyterians (Covenanters) of North America, Canada, and the British Isles, Did to Win the World War of 1914-1918* (1919), pp. 5-6