[Sidenote: Justification.]

A group of chapters[120] treats of the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, the cause of good works, the works which are reputed good, the perfection of the Law of God, and the imperfection of man. Those who have overlooked the explicit statement in the third chapter concerning the depravity of man have generally overlooked or failed to perceive the full significance of the emphatic statements in the twelfth chapter regarding our entire dependence for spiritual renovation, and all good, on the Holy Spirit. The words are: "Of nature we are so dead, so blind, and so perverse, that nether can we feill when we ar pricked, see the licht when it shines, nor assent to the will of God when it is reveiled, unles the Spirit of the Lord Jesus quicken that quhilk is dead, remove the darknesse from our myndes, and bowe our stubburne hearts to the obedience of His blessed will;"[121] and again, "As we willingly spoyle ourselves of all honour and gloir of our awin creation and redemption, so do we also of our regeneration and sanctification."[122] These statements, however they may be viewed by others, seem to me no less explicit than those of the later Confession, which have been sometimes contrasted with them. "This effectual call is of God's free and special Grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the Grace offered and conveyed in it."[123] The last of this group of chapters contains the fullest and most direct exposition the Confession embodies of the views of its framers in the article of Justification. It is as follows: "It behovis us to apprehend Christ Jesus with His justice and satisfaction, quha is the end and accomplishment of the Law, be quhome we ar set at this liberty that the curse and malediction of God fall not upon us, albeit we fulfill not the same in al pointes. For God the Father, beholding us in the body of His Sonne Christ Jesus, acceptis our imperfite obedience as it were perfite, and covers our warks, quhilk ar defyled with mony spots, with the justice of His Sonne."[124] To the same effect it is said in chapter xxv. that "albeit sinne remaine and continuallie abyde in thir our mortall bodies, zit it is not imputed unto us, bot is remitted and covered with Christ's justice."[125] It has been questioned, however, whether we have in these statements the doctrine taught generally in the reformed churches regarding the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae. This can be a question only with those who forget that the church which received this Confession, and required her adult members to assent to the heads of it, appointed for the instruction of her youth the Catechism in which this doctrine of Calvin is stated in his own words; and that the very men[126] who in 1560 drew it up, in 1566, along with their brethren of the General Assembly, declared of the Later Helvetic Confession—which is admitted to contain what has been termed "the Lutherano-Calvinian view" of justification—that therein was "most faithfully, holily, piously, and indeed divinely explained" what they themselves had for eight years been constantly teaching, and still by the grace of God continued to teach, and that in consequence they felt constrained not only to express their approval, but their "exceeding commendation of every chapter and of every sentence," save the one relating to holidays.[127] It may be taken for granted that they knew their own meaning, and that of their Swiss brethren;[128] the more especially as in our day Staehelin, whose impartiality and historical reputation will not be challenged, has adduced the statement in chapter xv. as one of his proofs that Calvin himself could not have framed the Scotch Confession otherwise than Knox has done.[129]

[Sidenote: Notes of the True Church.]

The nature of the church, and the notes by which the true church is to be discerned, are explained in chapters xvi. and xviii. As in most of the other Reformed or Calvinistic Confessions, greater prominence is assigned to the Invisible Church, consisting of the elect of all times and nations, than to the general visible church subsisting at any particular time in the world and embracing all who profess faith in Christ and submit to the godly discipline He has prescribed. The notes by which it may be discerned whether any branch of the professing church is indeed part of the true Kirk of Christ are stated negatively—not to be "antiquitie, title usurpit, lineal descente, place appointed, nor multitude of men approving," as Roman Catholics were wont to allege; and positively to be "the trew preaching of the Worde of God," "the right administration of the Sacraments," and "ecclesiastical discipline uprightlie ministred as Goddis Worde prescribes."[130] "These articles," as Principal Lee has so pithily expressed it, "have been almost as disagreeable to some Episcopalian writers as they were to the most servile adherents of the pope. It is thought a most dangerous omission to make no mention of uninterrupted succession and conveyance of authority from the apostles. This omission has been somewhat incorrectly charged against the reformers of our church. They do certainly mention lineal succession, but they mention it only to disown it. They say that though the Jewish priests in our Saviour's time 'lineally descended from Aaron,' yet no 'man of sound judgment will grant that they were the Church of God.'"[131] They further assert that wherever the three notes given above are found and continue for any time (be the number never so few above two or three), there without all doubt is the true Kirk of Christ, who according to His promise is in the midst of them; and in this they are borne out not only by Calvin but by Luther, who boldly affirmed: "Were I the only man on earth that held by the Word, I alone would be the church, and I would be justified in pronouncing of all the rest of the world that it was not the church."

[Sidenote: Two Sacraments only.]

The only other parts of the Confession I deem it necessary to refer to in this review of it are the chapters relating to the sacraments and the right use of them. It was asserted some years ago by a leader of modern thought in Scotland that Knox did not go beyond the Zwinglian doctrine regarding the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and that his Order for the administration of it was a bold protest against the "mystical jargon" which Luther employed, and from which Calvin was not free. When he made this assertion he seems to have forgot that the address in Knox's Order for the administration of the Lord's Supper was little else than a translation of that in Calvin's Liturgy, and teaches exactly the same mystical doctrine. This doctrine is no less explicitly taught in the Confession; and Staehelin, whose competence to judge in the matter cannot be questioned, maintains that the Zwinglian doctrine is as explicitly rejected as the Romano-Lutheran; and that the language as well as the doctrine closely resembles Calvin's. The text of the common editions of the Confession speaks of two chief sacraments only as being appointed under the New Testament as well as under the Old. From this expression, some, who are more familiar with Anglican than with Calvinistic formularies, have concluded that Knox, like several of the earlier English reformers, attributed a quasi-sacramental character to some of the other rites regarded as sacraments by the Romanists. But in the copy of the Confession reprinted in Dr Laing's edition of Knox's History the word chief is omitted in the second instance, and the clause runs two sacraments only.[132] Perhaps it will be accepted as some confirmation of the correctness of this reading that it is identical with that found in Alasco's 'Epitome Doctrinae Ecclesiarum Frisiae Orientalis,' from which treatise the opening sentence of chapter xxi. of the Scottish Confession may possibly have been taken,[133] though the verbal coincidence with the early edition of Calvin's Institutes is in some respects more marked.

[Sidenote: Type of Scottish Theology.]

Such are the main contents and general bearing of this ancient Scottish Confession. Notwithstanding the confident assertions to the contrary made of late both within and without the Presbyterian churches, I venture to think that no one who, with a good conscience and honest intent, could sign that Confession, and answer in the affirmative the questions regarding election put to candidates for the ministry at their ordination, need hesitate to put his name to that which in 1647 was received as "in nothing contrary" to the former, and held its place alongside of it even after the restoration of Charles II., and under the episcopal regime.[134] Most assuredly at least no one need hesitate to do so who would have put his name to that Confession which was drawn up in the time of the first episcopacy,[135] and which is quite as distinctively Calvinistic as the Westminster Confession, while it ventures incidentally to determine some points the Westminster divines have wisely left undetermined.[136] The old Confession can advance no claim to the terse English style, the logical accuracy, the judicial calmness, and intimate acquaintance with early patristic theology which characterise that mature product of the faith and thought of the more learned Puritans of the south. I am not ashamed to avow that it has long appeared to me that there is somewhat to be said in favour of the opinion that Scottish presbyterianism gained quite as much as, nay, more than, it lost, by being brought into contact with the broader, richer, and decidedly more catholic spirit of the south, and adding to its earlier symbolical books those which it still holds in common with almost all the orthodox presbyterians of the Anglo-Saxon race. No one who will take the trouble to read the report of the discussion on Arminianism in the Scottish General Assembly of 1638[137] will, I am sure, be so bold as to affirm that the type of theology then prevalent among Scottish ministers was in any material respect different from that which was set forth in the Confession of 1647, and which has never since, either under episcopal or presbyterian regime, been set aside in the National Church. The teaching of the latest of our symbolical books imposes nothing in regard to the doctrines known as Calvinistic[138] but what is explicitly contained in or fairly deducible from the earliest Confession drawn up for the English church at Geneva, of which Knox was pastor, and adopted (along with the larger one on which I have been commenting) at the beginning of the Reformation in Scotland, and printed in Scotch psalm-books[139] as late as 1638, in which it is asserted "which church is not seene to man's eye but only knowne to God, who of the lost sonnes of Adam hath ordained some as vessels of wrath to damnation, and hath chosen others as vessels of His mercy to bee saved, the which also in due time He calleth to integritie of life and godly conversation to make them a glorious church to Himselfe."[140]

[Sidenote: Unmeasured Language.]

Probably, however, the main argument against recurring to the old Scottish Confession of 1560 is that derived from the unmeasured language of vituperation in which it, as well as the contemporary forms of recantation[141] required of priests at that date, indulges when referring to the teaching of the members of the pre-Reformation church. No doubt it might be deemed sufficient proof of this to subjoin the examples furnished in chapter xviii. on the "Notis" or marks by which "the trewe Kirk is decernit fra the false," where the old church is designated the "pestilent synagoge," "the filthie synagogue," and "the horrible harlot, the kirk malignant"[142]—the last words no doubt meant as a translation of the Vulgate rendering of Psalm xxvi. 5, ecclesiam malignantium,[143] translated "the congregation of evil doers" in our authorised English version. But I may add, in corroboration, that in chapter xxi. on the true uses of the sacraments, the papists are charged with having "perniciouslie taucht and damnablie beleeved" the transubstantiation of the bread into Christ's natural body and of wine into his natural blood,[144] and that in the last chapter the language of Rev. xiv. 11 ("the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image") is adduced in proof of the ultimate fate of those who delight in superstition or idolatry.[145]

The same unrestrained spirit is shown in some contemporary Confessions, notably in the earliest Danish one, the framers of which seem to have kept closer to Luther than to the more gentle Melanchthon: but however excusable it may have been in the fierce battle then forced on them, there can be no doubt that the calmer and more measured language of the later Confession is a decided improvement on the statements of the earlier one; and I do not hesitate to say that, with the simpler formula of 1693-94 recently restored, and the explanatory act which accompanies it—emphasising the distinction between matters of minor importance and the great doctrines of the faith—the position of the ministers of our church in these respects is as nearly what it should be as is that of the ministers in any of the allied Presbyterian churches.

FOOTNOTES:

[102] Laing's Knox, ii. 128.

[103] Ibid., ii. 183, 257.

[104] [For this band, see Laing's Knox, ii. 61-64.]

[105] ["Quhilk thay willinglie acceptit and within foure dayis presentit this Confessioun as it followis, without alteratioun of any ane sentence." (Laing's Knox, ii. 92).]

[106] [These statements are based on the information which Randolph sent to Cecil on 7th September 1560 (Laing's Knox, vi. 120, 121).]

[107] "At vero in praefectorum obedientia unum semper excipiendum ne ab ejus obedientia nos deducat, cujus decretis regum omnium jussa cedere par est.... Adversus ipsum si quid imperent nullo sit nec loco nec numero, sed illa potius sententia locum habeat, obediendum Deo magis quam hominibus."

[108] This seems to be the opinion of Dr Laing (Knox's Works, vi. 121, n.) Indeed one can hardly read chapter xviii. without having a suspicion induced that Knox may have proved too strong for them in regard to some of what they termed the more harsh expressions in the treatise, as well as in regard to the particular chapter in question.

[109] [The Scotch and Latin versions are printed in parallel columns in Dunlop's 'Collection of Confessions' ii. 13-98.]

[110] "Libros, qui ab infantia usque ecclesiae semper habiti sunt canonici" (Latin version, Dunlop, ii. 70).

[111] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 17, 18; Laing's Knox, ii. 96. A similar protestation is made in the Preface to the First Book of Discipline (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 518; Laing's Knox, ii. 184).

[112] The sources from which this chapter was taken can still be pretty clearly traced. I place in parallel columns its statements and those of the two Confessions from which it was probably taken:—

"We confesse and acknawledge "Je confesse qu'il y a un seul ane only God, to whom only we Dieu auquel il nous faut tenir, must cleave, whom onelie we must pour le servir, adorer, et y avoir serve, whom onelie we must worship, notre fiance et refuge."—Confession and in whom onelie we must subscribed by students put our trust. in Academy in Geneva.

"Who is eternall, infinit, "I beleve and confesse my unmeasurable, incomprehensible, Lorde God eternal, infinite, omnipotent, invisible: ane in unmeasurable, incomprehensible, substance, and zit distinct in and invisible, one in substance, thre personnis, the Father, the and three in persone, Father, Sone, and the Holie Gost."—Old Sonne, and Holy Ghoste."—Confession Scottish Confession, in Dunlop's of English Congregation Confessions, ii. 21, 22. at Geneva, in Laing's Knox, iv. 169; Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 3.

[113] This also comes from a Genevan source:—

"We condemne the damnable "Ideirco detestor omnes haereses and pestilent heresies of Arius, huic principio contrarias Marcion, Eutyches, Nestorius, puta Marcionis, Manetis, Nestorii, and sik uthers."—Old Scottish Eutychetis, et similium."—Genevan Confession, as above, ii. 31. Confession.

[114] Extraneum ab omni benedictione Dei, Satanae mancipium, sub peccati jugo captivum, horribili denique exitio destinatum et jam implicitum.—Calvin.

[115] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 24, 25; Laing's Knox, ii. 98. It has been questioned if this description of faith is one which Calvin and his stricter followers would have used. But nothing is more common, even in the earliest edition of his Institutes, than to find him describing faith as the apprehension of Christ with His gifts, or graces, as well as with His righteousness: "Apprehendimus ac obtinemus et ... Christi dona amplectimur, quod ipsum est habere veram, ut decet fidem." "Haec omnia nobis a Deo offeruntur ac dantur in Christo Domino nostro nempe remissio peccatorum gratuita, ... dona et gratiae Spiritus Sancti si certa fide ea amplectimur." In one of these chapters [of the Scottish Confession] relating to the incarnation of Christ Jesus, He is spoken of not only, as in most of the Protestant Confessions, as the promised Messiah, the just seed of David, the Immanuel, or God in our nature—God and man in one person—but also as the Angel of the great counsel of God [Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 31; Laing's Knox, ii. 99]. This expression is no doubt a translation of the [Greek: megales boules angelos] of the Septuagint, and is the more remarkable, not only as showing familiarity on the part of some of the framers of the Confession with a somewhat unusual rendering of one of the most explicit Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, but also as showing that they had perceived the true significance of an expression which last century gave rise to no little discussion and misconception. So far as I can remember, this remarkable expression does not appear in any other of the Protestant Confessions of that age.

[116] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 32; Laing's Knox, ii. 100.

[117] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 60, 61; Laing's Knox, ii. 108.

[118] The following are a few specimens of close verbal coincidence between the Scottish Confession and the first edition of Calvin's Institutes:—

1. "It behooved that the Filii Dei sumus quod naturalis Sonne of God suld descend unto Dei Filius sibi corpus ex corpore us, and tak himself a bodie of nostro, carnem ex carne nostra our bodie, flesh of our flesh, and ossa ex ossibus nostris composuit bone of our bones, and so become ut idem nobiscum esset. the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve in Him to be the sonnes of God."—Dunlop, ii. 33, 34.

2. "Quhatsaever wee have Ut quod in Adamo perdidimus tynt in Adam is restored unto us Christus restitueret. agayne."—Dunlop, ii. 34.

3. "It behooved farther the Praeterea sic nostra referebat, Messias and Redemer to be very verum esse Deum et hominem God and very man, because He qui Redemptor noster futurus was to underlie the punischment esset.... Prodiit ergo verus due for our transgressiouns, and homo, Dominus noster, Adae to present himselfe in the presence personam induit ... ut Patri of His Father's judgment se obedientem pro eo exhiberet as in our persone to suffer for our ut carnem nostram in satisfactionem transgression and inobedience, justo Dei judicio statueret be death to overcome him that ac sisteret, ut in eadem carne was author of death. Bot because peccati poenam persolveret. the onely Godhead culd Quum denique mortem nec solus not suffer death, neither zit culd Deus sentire, nec solus homo the onlie manhead overcome the superare posset, humanitatem samin, He joyned both togither cum divinitate sociavit ut alterius in one persone that the imbecillitie imbecillitatem morti in poenam of the ane suld suffer and persolveret, alterius virtute be subject to death quhilk we adversus mortem in victoriam had deserved: and the infinit luctaretur. and invincible power of the uther, to wit, of the God-head, suld triumph and purchesse to us life, libertie, and perpetuall victory."—Dunlop, ii. 35, 36.

4. "That Hee being the Judicis scilicet sententia damnatus cleane, innocent Lambe of God, pro nocente et malefico ut was damned in the presence of apud summi judicis tribunal ejus an earthlie judge, that we suld damnatione absolveremur. be absolved befoir the tribunal seat of our God."—Dunlop, ii. 37, 38.

5. "Suffered ... the cruell Crucifixus in cruce quae Dei death of the Crosse, quhilk was lege maledicta fuerat. accursed be the sentence of God."—Dunlop, ii. 38.

6. "Suffered for a season the Divini judicii horrorem et wrath of His Father quhilk sinners severitatem sensisse ... luens had deserved. Bot zit we poenas non suae ... sed nostrae avow that He remained the only iniquitati. Neque tamen wel-beloved and blessed Sonne intelligendum est patrem illi of His Father, even in the middest unquam iratum fuisse. Quomodo of His anguish and enim dilecto filio, in quo illi torment."—Dunlop, ii. 38. complacitum est, irasceretur.

[119] Alasco's Works, ii. 296, 298.

[120] Chapters xii.-xv.

[121] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 46. "Sunt autem dona Spiritus Sancti, per quem regeneramur, e diaboli potestate et vinculis explicamur, in filios Dei gratuito adoptamur, ad omne opus bonum sanctificamur."—Calvin.

[122] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 47.

[123] Westminster Confession, chap. x.

[124] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 58. There is hardly one of these expressions that may not be found in Calvin's Institutes:—

It behoves us to apprehend Confiteor nos justificari per Christ Jesus with His justice and fidem quatenus per eam apprehendimus satisfaction. Jesum Christum.

We are set at this liberty Omni execratione quae nobis that the curse and malediction incumbebat eximeremur dum in of the law fall not upon us. eum traduceret. Fides, in Christi damnatione absolutionem, benedictionem in maledictione, apprehendit.

God the Father, beholding Ubi nos in filii sui communionem us in the body of His Son Christ semel recepit, opera Jesus, accepts our imperfect nostra grata acceptaque habet, obedience as it were perfect. non quod ita promereantur sed quia condonata eorum imperfectione, nil in illis intuetur, nisi quod a Spiritu suo profectum, purum ac sanctum est.

Covers our works, which are Nullae nostrae sordes aut defiled with many spots, with immunditiae imperfectionis the justice of His Son. imputantur, sed illa puritate Christi ac perfectione velut sepultae conteguntur. Cujus perfectione tegatur nostra imperfectio. See also Calvin's Catechism in Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 175.

[125] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 95; Laing's Knox, ii. 119.

[126] [Of the six, all save Willock sign the letter to Beza on 4th September 1566 (Laing's Knox, vi. 548-550).]

[127] Laing's Knox, vi. 546-548.

[128] Considerable ingenuity has been expended in the attempt to show that the words "who is the end and accomplishment of the law" are to be understood in some other than their most obvious and commonly received meaning. Without questioning the competency of such ingenious rather than ingenuous exposition, were a case raised before the judicial committee of a modern privy council to have the expounder tried and condemned as a heretic, I venture to think that when the matter to be determined is rather what, in point of fact, did Knox and his associates hold and teach, the following brief quotation from the "godly and perfect" treatise of Balnaves on Justification must go pretty near to settle it: "Christ is the end of the law (unto righteousnes) to all that beleeve—that is, Christ is the consummation and fulfilling of the lawe, and that justice whiche the lawe requireth; and all they which beleeve in Him are just by imputation through faith, and for His sake are repute and accepted as just" (Laing's Knox, iii. 492). If more than this has been taught in recent times, I should be greatly inclined with Principal Lee to trace it to Jonathan Edwards, or perhaps even to the great Independent, Dr Owen, rather than to the Westminster divines, or the earlier Scottish.

[129] Staehelin's Johannes Calvin, ii. 88.

[130] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 66-68; Laing's Knox, ii. 110.

[131] Lee's Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, i. 124, 125.

[132] Laing's Knox, ii. 113. [In the Confession, as printed in the Acts of the Parliaments of 1560 and 1567 ratifying it, the word chief is retained (Acts of Parliament, ii. 532; iii. 20). The Confession of 1616 bears that: "We believe that there be only two sacraments appointed by Christ under the New Testament, Baptisme and the Lord's Supper" ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' iii. 1137). Concerning the sacraments the First Book of Discipline says: "They be two, to wit, Baptism and the Holy Supper of the Lord Jesus" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 520; Laing's Knox, ii. 186).]

[133] Hujus generis duo praecipua in vetere ecclesia fuerunt circumcisio et agnus paschalis. Nos illorum loco duo etiam habemus baptismum et caenam domini.

[134] "The Confession of Faith made by Mr Knox, and ratified in Parliament by King James VI., together with the Westminster Confession (both agreed on by the General Assembly of Presbyters), are owned next to the Word of God, by both parties, as the Standard of the doctrine of our Church" (Case of Suffering Church of Scotland).

[135] It is printed at length in Calderwood's History, vii. 233-242; and also in the 'Booke of the Universall Kirk,' iii. 1132-1139; and is supposed to have been mainly the work of Howie, Melville's successor at St Andrews.

[136] [In speaking of this Confession of 1616, Dr Grub says that it "agrees with the old one in all important points, the chief difference being in its more marked enunciation of the doctrine of Calvin in regard to election and predestination" (Grub's History, ii. 306).]

[137] Printed in Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, pp. 155-160.

[138] Generally so designated, but really as old as the days of Paul and Augustine.

[139] [After 1564-65, the Book of Common Order was usually printed with a complete metrical version of the Psalms (Laing's Knox, vi. 279, 280, 284); and was comprehended under the name 'Psalm Book' (infra, p. 128). Mr Cowan, of 47 Braid Avenue, Edinburgh, informs me that the Confession, drawn up for the English congregation at Geneva, appears in every edition of the Book of Common Order which he has examined, from the Geneva edition of 1556 down to the edition printed by Evan Tyler in 1644.]

[140] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 8; Laing's Knox, iv. 171, 172.

[141] [These forms of recantation may be seen in the Maitland Miscellany, iii. 215-221; and in the Register of St Andrews Kirk-session, Scot. Hist. Soc., i. 11-18.]

[142] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 65, 66; Laing's Knox, ii. 109, 110.

[143] The designation is undoubtedly Knoxian, as it occurs in his dispute with Friar Arbuckill in 1547. To the reformer's assertion "that the spous of Christ had nether power nor authoritie against the Word of God," the Friar replied, "Yf so be, ye will leave us na kirk;" and to that the reformer rejoined, "In David I read that thare is a church of the malignantis, for he sayis, Odi ecclesiam malignantium. That church ye may have without the Word, ... of that church yf ye wilbe, I can not impead yow" (Laing's Knox, i. 200).

[144] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 80; Laing's Knox, ii. 114.

[145] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 96, 97.



CHAPTER VII.

THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER.

[Sidenote: At Frankfort.]

This, though in point of time the first composed of the symbolical books of the Scottish Reformation, was the last to be formally assigned its honoured place. The title it commonly bore in that age was the Book of Common Order. In the First Book of Discipline it is called "the Order of Geneva" and "the Book of our Common Order."[146] In recent times it has been more generally designated as Knox's Liturgy. It has usually been deemed sufficient to say that it was drawn up and first privately and then publicly printed at Geneva, and was directly taken from the liturgy then used there, as well as approved by Calvin. But this is only partially true. The first English congregation on the Continent which invited Knox to be one of its pastors was that formed at Frankfort in 1554, and admitted to hold its services in the same church as the congregation of French-speaking exiles on condition of using the same ceremonies and Confession of Faith as the French.[147] The minister and other office-bearers accordingly signed the Confession of Faith along with those of the French congregation, and it was ultimately incorporated into the Book of Common Order as the exposition of the Apostles' Creed in the baptismal service. The first draft of the Book of Common Order was drawn up before the end of 1554, and privately printed,[148] to implement the stipulation for conformity with the French in ceremonies as well as in Confession of Faith, and it seems to have been mainly owing to Knox that it was not adopted at once, but that time was given for circulating and examining it. Unfortunately the ambitious plan was taken of inviting the English exiles at Strassburg and Zurich to join with them in their proposed action, which led to those unfortunate disputes, chronicled at length in the 'Troubles at Frankfort,' and to the departure of a large number of the English exiles to Geneva, where through the kindness of Calvin a hospitable reception was promised them, and the Church of Marie la Neuve was assigned for their services and those of the Italian exiles, but without any hampering clause about identity of ceremonies or Confession of Faith. The congregation which shared with the English exiles the church of "the white ladies," or Cistercian nuns, at Frankfort, consisted chiefly of the company of French-speaking exiles which had been originally gathered at Strassburg by Farel, tended for several years by Calvin, and then by Poullain, or Pollanus, under whom, when the Interim was imposed on the city, they had to seek a new home. This they ultimately found in England, to which Bucer and Martyr from the same city had already been invited and had gone. Glastonbury Abbey was assigned for their residence by the king and council, and there they lived in peace and quiet till the close of the reign of Edward VI. In 1551 Pollanus published the first edition of his 'Liturgia Sacra seu Ritus ministerii in ecclesia peregrinorum profugorum propter Evangelium Christi Argentinae.' No doubt he had heard that the favour shown to Alasco and his congregations of French and Flemings in London was intended to help on further reformation in the Church of England also, and so in a lengthy dedication to the king he bespeaks his favour not only to his congregation but also to their book, affirming "ut in cultu Dei externo ita etiam in disciplina morum nullam esse puriorem aut quae propius accedat ad illam quae fuit temporibus Apostolorum." No doubt it was in a similar spirit and in similar terms that he pressed the forms of his book on the acceptance of the English exiles at Frankfort, and to a great extent with success. Their Book of Common Order is founded on Farel's and Calvin's services, but is so after these services have passed through the alembic of Pollanus and been modified and supplemented by him. This will appear from several of the notes subjoined, and will be more fully shown in the Appendix.[149]

[Sidenote: Its Authority.]

The exclusive authority of this book—previously drafted but first used in Knox's congregation at Geneva—was not asserted by the General Assembly till 1564: nevertheless, even in 1560, the Book of Discipline indicated a very marked preference for its regulations, speaking not only of it as the book of our Common Order, already used in some churches, but specially commended its form for administration of the Lord's Supper; and in giving directions for the celebration of the sacraments and marriage, and for the burial of the dead, it followed closely the regulations of this book. In 1561 Quintine Kennedy, Abbot of Crossraguel, in his oration against the Protestants, alluded to it in such a way as implied that it was already well known and in general use in Scotland.[150] In 1562 the General Assembly enjoined the observance of a uniform Order in the administration of the sacraments and the celebration of marriage according to the "Booke of Geneva"—i.e., the Order used by Knox's congregation there;[151] and in 1564 it further ordained that "everie minister, exhorter, and reader sall have one of the Psalme Bookes latelie printed in Edinburgh, and use the Order contained therein [that is, the Order in Knox's Book] in prayers, marriage, and ministration of the sacraments."[152]

[Sidenote: Early Practice in Scotland.]

There seems sufficient reason to believe that for some years before the establishment of the Reformed Church, the morning and evening prayers, along with the lessons from Holy Scripture, as contained in the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., were used at least in part of the assemblies held by the reformed for worship and mutual edification;[153] and perhaps they may have continued to be so used for a year or two afterwards, though no formal sanction was ever given by the General Assembly even to those parts of that book, still less to the other parts to which Knox's party had always objected. But it is now ascertained that as early as 1556, or at least 1557, Knox had recommended, and that soon after some of the more fully organised congregations adopted, a form of service more simple, and more nearly resembling the Genevan than the Anglican.[154] It is known that when the treaty of peace between France, England, and Scotland was being negotiated in July 1560, the ministers and congregation of Scotland, thinking their own profession after the order and discipline of Geneva to be more pure than the Anglican, as containing no other ceremonies than are expressly mentioned in the Scriptures, "wald not ressave or admitt any uther."[155]

[Sidenote: Knox and the English Liturgy.]

Randolph, the English ambassador, in his letters to his Government, not only admits that they were "lothe to remytte anie thing of that that thei have receaved,"[156] but also leads us to conclude that the practice of their leading ministers in public worship at this early date was not very dissimilar to that of their successors in the next century. "The Byshop of Athens," he says, "preacheth earnestly, and prayethe hartely for the Queene's Majestie our Soveraigne, and greatly extollethe her benefyttes; Mr Wyllocke specially by name prayethe both for France and Englande; Mr Knox, universally for all Prynces lyvinge in the feare of God, desyring Him to turne the hartes of other, and to sende them in the rycht way."[157] About the same period, in one of his letters to Mrs Lock, Knox links together "Mr Parson's pattering of his CONSTRAINED prayers" and "the masse-munging of Mr Vicar and of his wicked companions," in such a way as shows that he was no great admirer of the one or the other.[158] In tolerating for a little the use of the morning and evening services of the Prayer Book of Edward VI., our reformers can be judged inconsistent only by those who do not know that in the time of the good King Edward considerably greater latitude was allowed in the celebration of those services than has ever since been suffered in the sister church. The minister, for instance, was expressly permitted to shorten them according to his discretion when a sermon or other divine ordinance was to follow. He had a sort of sanction for any neglect of minuter directions as to kneeling, crossing, &c., from a general rubric which intimated that these things were to be left free "as every man's devotion serveth." He had also a pretty full indulgence practically conceded for deviating from the strict injunctions of the book in regard to surplices and other ecclesiastical vestments,[159] which were never adopted or tolerated by Knox and his associates, the rigid enforcement of which in the days of Queen Elizabeth produced great misery and discontent at the time, and paved the way for more and greater in the days of James and Charles, her successors. It is by no means so clear as some have recently asserted it to be, that Knox used this liturgy habitually when he was in England, acting as one of the court chaplains and special preachers in the time of Edward VI. The observance of the liturgy was not enforced in the northern part of the kingdom when Knox began his labours there. And even at the time when he removed to the southern province it was not necessary that he should use the liturgy in the office he held, as the special preachers of that day, and even the lecturers for long after, often delivered their discourses in the open air, and used before them only free prayer or a short prayer similar to that which is still employed by the university preachers at Oxford and Cambridge. It was not till a considerably later period that "to gall tender consciences" it was required of all lecturers and special preachers that they should also personally read the liturgy so many times every year. Dr Lorimer has proved that Knox used at Berwick a simpler form of communion service, moulded so far as yet traced on Swiss and German offices.[160] And it can be established on the best of all authority—Knox's own testimony—that he neither approved of nor was willing to conform to the communion office. Then no sooner was he beyond the restraint of English law than he proposed for adoption in his congregation, first at Frankfort and then at Geneva, the form ultimately adopted in Scotland after his return thither.

[Sidenote: A Guide or Moael.]

As has been already mentioned, the exclusive authority of the Book of Common Order, as a guide and aid to ministers in conducting public worship and administering the sacraments, was asserted by the General Assembly in 1564. It continued to hold the place thus given to it down to 1637, when it was superseded, in so far as the king and his council were concerned, first, by what is known as Archbishop Laud's Liturgy, and then by an injunction of the disappointed prelates, which required that, till further order should be taken, neither the new nor the old liturgy should be used in the public services, in Edinburgh, but only those prayers which the ministers had been accustomed to make before and after their sermons.[161] Thus the bishops themselves were the unwitting instruments of first setting aside a partially liturgic, and introducing instead a wholly extemporary, form of worship into Scotland. There is no reason, however, for maintaining that the Book of Common Order, while it continued in authority, was regarded as more than a guide or model, at least to the ordained ministers, or can be so regarded by any one who studies with care its rubrics and general contents, far less was observed as a rigid liturgy, every word of which must be repeated unvaryingly by the officiating minister. It has indeed been maintained, even in recent times, and by ministers of the National Church, that "the idea of extemporaneous prayer as an appropriate vehicle of public devotion was one quite unknown to the Reformation." But this cannot be made good with respect to any of the Reformed or Calvinistic churches, and certainly least of all with respect to the National Church of Scotland at any period of its history. Our reformers laid it down in their First Book of Discipline as a fixed principle that "it is neither the clipping of their crownes, the greasing of their fingers,[162] nor the blowing of the dumb dogges called the bishops, neither the laying on of their hands, that maketh true ministers of Christ Jesus. But the Spirit of God, inwardly first moving the heart to seeke to enter in the holy calling for Christ's glory and the profite of His Kirk, and thereafter the nomination of the people, the examination of the learned, and publick admission, ... make men lawfull ministers."[163] They distinctly taught that no one was to be regarded as a lawful minister of Christ into whose mouth Christ had not put some word of exhortation or vouchsafed some gift of expounding and preaching the Word of God,[164] and they expressly encouraged their ministers to look for their Master's aid and guidance in praying as well as in preaching. Hence throughout their Book of Common Order they carefully abstained from imposing the ipsissima verba of particular forms as rigidly binding, or even from encouraging their ministers to rest contented with the stated repetition of them.

[Sidenote: Its tolerant Rubrics.]

[Sidenote: Calderwood's Testimony.]

[Sidenote: Row's Opinion.]

"When the congregation is assembled," run its tolerant rubrics, "the minister useth one of these two confessions, or like in effect."[165] "This done, the people sing a psalme altogether in a plain tune, which ended, the minister prayeth for the assistance of God's Holie Spirit as the same shall move his heart, and so proceedeth to the sermon. The minister, after the sermon, useth this prayer following, or such like."[166] "Then the people sing a psalme, which ended, the minister pronounceth one of these blessings, and so the congregation departeth."[167] Such are its few and simple directions for the ordinary form of public worship; and as if even these might fail to beget in the minds of some of the old priests a sense of their freedom from minute restrictions and a burdensome ritual, it is added: "It shall not be necessarie for the minister daylie to repeat all these things before mentioned; but, beginning with some maner of confession, to proceede to the sermon, which ended, he either useth the prayer for all estates before mentioned, or else prayeth as the Spirit of God shall move his heart, framing the same according to the time and matter which he hath entreated of."[168] To the same effect, in the First Book of Discipline, after recommending that in all the large towns there should every day be either sermon or common prayers with reading of Scriptures, it is said: "What day[169] the publick sermon is, we can neither require nor greatly approve that the common prayers be publickly used, lest that we should either foster the people in superstition, who come to the prayers as they come to the masse; or else give them occasion, that they think them no prayers which be made before and after sermons."[170] Even in the most solemn of its special services and in the most solemn part of it, the prayer of thanksgiving and consecration in the communion, the rubric is: "The minister ... giveth thanks either in these words following or like in effect."[171] The same thing is confirmed by many of the rubrics of the other occasional services in the Book of Common Order,[172] and by the express testimony of Calderwood, Row, and others who officiated as ministers of the church while the book was in use. The first named of these, though entertaining so strong a regard for its venerable forms that even on the approval of the Westminster Directory in 1645 he is said to have opposed the adoption of any Act expressly abrogating the Book of Common Order, had not hesitated when contrasting it with the English Liturgy thus to speak of the nature and extent of the submission expected to be given to it: "Habemus quidem nos etiam in Ecclesia nostra Agendas, et ordinem in sacris celebrandis servandum, sed nemo alligatur precibus aut exhortationibus liturgiae nostrae, proponuntur tantum ut peradigmata, quibus precum aut exhortationum materia et forma quoad substantialia indicantur, non ut eisdem verbis adstringantur ministri. Totos ego tredecim annos, quibus functus sum ministerio, sive in sacramentis, sive in aliis sacris celebrandis, exhortationibus aut precibus quae extant in Agenda nostra, nunquam usus sum. Sic etiam alii complures; et omnibus etiam liberum est idem facere."[173] While in regard to the Liturgy by which it was attempted in 1637 to supplant the Book of Common Order, Row thus expresses himself: "Though they amend all those errours, and that in all the Service Book there were no materiall errour at all, neither masse nor popish ceremonie; and though they should read nothing but Canonicall Scripture, yea say that all their prayers and exhortations were merelie words of Holie Scripture, yit it is not lawfull to introduce a reading ministrie, and to stint men (gifted of God, who has the spirit of their calling, able ministers of the gospell who hes the Spirit of adoption teaching them to pray, Gal. iv. 6; Rom. viii. 26; and to whom God hes opened a doore of utterance, to speak the gospell with boldness, haveing touched their lips with a coall from His awin altar) to such a Liturgie as is to be made the onlie forme of God's publict worship. For though I confess good use may be made of a formed Liturgie and publict service, to serve for a rule to other kirks to fall on the like way, finding it warranted by the Word, and to be as a monument to the posteritie, who thence may learn what forms have been, are, and ought to be used; and that it may lead the way, and be a directorie to those that are beginning in the ministrie; yit certainlie reading of prayers and exhortations is not the way whereby the Lord in His Word has appoynted His servants of the ministrie to worship Him, or to convert, edifie, and comfort, or strengthen soulls; but seing they have receaved gifts for praying and preaching, they ought to stirre up the gift of God, and putt the talent to use; and though in their privat studies they may borrow some help from other men's gifts and labours, yit neither is it lawfull for a man to tye himself, or for bishops to tye all ministers, to a prescript and stinted forme of words in prayer and exhortation."[174] Henderson says that while they had their Directory and prescribed Order, they were "not tyed to set formes and words."[175]

[Sidenote: Practice in other Reformed Churches.]

It is plain, therefore, that the General Assembly, by the sanction it gave to the Book of Common Order, did not mean to restrict its ordained ministers to the use of a certain unvarying form of words, but to provide such a Directory or model as would guide them in "the substance and right ordering of all the parts of divine worship," as well as guide the readers and others not fully admitted to the ministry of the Word, through whose special aid alone they were able, in a time of so great dearth of qualified ministers, to supply in part the spiritual destitution of their countrymen. Nor in granting such an amount of liberty, at least to their ordained ministers, did they follow a course which was, as has been so confidently asserted, altogether novel, but rather, as in several other things, carried out more thoroughly and consistently[176] what others of the Reformed churches had adopted at least partially. In almost all the Reformed or Calvinistic liturgies the prayers are left partly free, and in several of them no form is furnished even as a guide or model for the prayer immediately preceding the sermon (and the same might be said of some of the earlier Lutheran Agend-buecher). In the churches of Basle, which probably in this respect only followed the general practice of the churches of East Switzerland, Hagenbach informs us that there was for fifty years after the Reformation no form of prayer, before or after sermon, imposed by public authority, and for fifty years longer only the prayer after sermon for all estates and conditions of men.[177] What, therefore, distinguished our reformers from their successors, and from the English Puritans of the seventeenth century, was not that the former disapproved of or curtailed free prayer while the latter advocated and encouraged it, but that the former retained in their Book of Common Order a variety of forms, not only as models, but also as aids to the officiating minister, while the latter put their Directory into such a shape that even the "help and furniture" it provided required the exercise of thought and care on the part of the minister to adapt it for use. This certainly was no great divergence, considering how thoroughly both parties were agreed, on the one hand, as to the liberty which should be left to ordained ministers, and, on the other, as to the limitations within which it should be confined.

[Sidenote: Prayers of the Readers.]

From the notices given in his 'Order and Government of the Church of Scotland,' and from the specimens of Henderson's prayers which accompany his printed discourses, it is further evident that he, like Calderwood, habitually used free prayer both before and after sermon. There seems reason to suppose that in not a few cases the readers also before 1638 took the liberty of varying from the forms in Knox's Book and exercising their own gifts. The charges made against the character of their prayers, in what is called the King's Declaration, but what was in reality the declaration of some of his prelates, is only intelligible on this supposition.[178] And the Assembly, as I read their deliverance, rather deny that the prayers of the readers were of the particular character charged than affirm they were the identical prayers contained in Knox's Book.[179]

FOOTNOTES:

[146] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 520, 583; Laing's Knox, ii. 186, 239. [In another passage it is spoken of as "the Booke of the Common Order, called the Order of Geneva" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 548; Laing's Knox, ii. 210).] The Book of Common Order, which has been frequently reprinted, is included in vols. iv. and vi. of Dr Laing's edition of Knox's Works.

[147] The extract from the minutes of the city council embodying these conditions, which I found in Withof's 'Vertheidigung' and communicated to Dr Hume Brown, was printed by him in the Appendix to his 'John Knox,' and is also reprinted here in Appendix D.

[148] "At lenght it was agreed that the Order of Geneua (whiche then was alreadie printed in Englishe and some copies there amonge them) shulde take place as an Order moste godly and fardeste off from superstition. But Maister Knox beinge spoken unto, aswell to put that Order in practise, as to minister the communion, refused to do ether the one or the other, affirminge, that for manie considerations he coulde not consente that the same Order shulde be practised, till the lerned men off Strausbrough, Zurik, Emden, &c., were made privy" (Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Frankfort in the year 1554, Petheram's reprint, p. xxvii). We have the following additional entry: "After longe debatinge to and fro, it was concluded that Maister Knox, Maister Whittingham, Maister Gilby, Maister Fox and Maister T. Cole shulde drawe forthe some Order meete for their state and time: whiche thinge was by them accomplished and offred to the congregation (beinge the same Order off Geneua whiche is nowe in print). This Order was verie well liked off many, but suche as were bent to the Booke of Englande coulde not abide it" (Ibid., pp. xxxvi, xxxvii).

[149] [It is greatly to be regretted that Dr Mitchell does not seem to have been able to prepare the Appendix to which he here refers; but after this lecture had left his hands he expressed his "strong conviction that the words and matter of Knox's Latin Prayer Book of 1556 were derived directly from the Liturgia Sacra of Pollanus." On this point he entertained "no doubt whatever."]

[150] Laing's Knox, vi. 162.

[151] Booke of the Universall Kirk, i. 30.

[152] Ibid., i. 54.

[153] [The grounds on which this opinion is usually based are given in Laing's Knox, vi. 277, 278. To these may be added the terms of the summons raised by Sir James Archebald, Vicar of Lintrathin, against his parishioners, on the 27th of May 1560, for payment of his teinds, &c., on the plea that he "is lauchfullie providit be the lawis and practik of oure realme, observit in tymes past, of the said vicarage, and hes bene in possessioun of the samyn thir divers yeris bigane, and hes causit the commone prayeris and homilies be red owlklie to the parrochinaris of the said parrochin, and uther wyiss is content to abyde sik reformatioun as the Lordis of our Secreit Counsale plesis mak thairintill, and als is adjonit to Goddis congregatioun, and takis part with the saidis Lordis in setting fordwart the commone caus, to the gloir of God and commone weill of our realme" (Spalding Miscellany, iv. 120).]

[154] Laing's Knox, iv. 137-139. [Laing gives the 7th of July 1556 as the correct date of this letter, and says that it is by some oversight that M'Crie in the later editions of his 'Life of Knox' has dated it 7th July 1557 (Ibid., iv. 140).]

[155] Lesley's History, p. 292.

[156] Laing's Knox, vi. 119.

[157] Laing's Knox, vi. 118. This evidently shows that they used not the ipsissima verba of the prayer for all estates, but variant words, "like in effect." [Randolph's letter is dated 25th August 1560. Alexander Gordon, Bishop of Galloway, was titular Archbishop of Athens.]

[158] Laing's Knox, vi. 13. [This letter is dated 6th April 1559.]

[159] Liturgies of Edward VI., Parker Society, pp. 157, 158. [The "certain notes" thus referred to pertain to Edward's First Liturgy.]

[160] Lorimer's Knox and the Church of England, 1875, pp. 29-32.

[161] [On the 29th of July 1637—six days after the riot in St Giles—it was reported to the Privy Council by Archbishop Spottiswoode, for himself and in name of the remanent bishops, that it seemed expedient to them "that there should be a surcease of the service-booke" till the king signified his pleasure as to the punishment of "that disorderlie tumult"; and "that a course be sett down for the peaceable exercise thereof." He also reported that "the saids bishops had appointed and given order that, in the whole churches of this citie [i.e., Edinburgh], sermon sall be made at the accustomed times, by regular and obedient ministers, and that a prayer sall be made before and after sermon, and that neither the old service nor the new established service be used in this interim." The Council remitted to the bishops "to doe therein according to the power incumbent unto thame in the dewtie of thair office" (Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, p. 52).]

[162] [In Knox's version—"the crossing of thair fingaris" (Laing's Knox, ii. 255).]

[163] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 603.

[164] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 526, 530, 532, 536, 603; Laing's Knox, ii. 191, 194, 196, 199, 255.

[165] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 417; Laing's Knox, iv. 179; vi. 294.

[166] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 421; Laing's Knox, iv. 182; vi. 297.

[167] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 425; Laing's Knox, iv. 185; vi. 298.

[168] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 426. There is a similar rubric in the Liturgy of Pollanus: "Minister, nomine Domini invocato, ut Spiritu Sancto adjutus, possit digna Deo atque salutaria ecclesiae eloqui recitat textum."

[169] The Liturgy of Pollanus appoints sermons to be preached on the mornings of Tuesday and Thursday. The service is to begin with a psalm, which being sung, the minister having invoked the Holy Spirit recites his text and proceeds with his sermon. He concludes with some shorter prayer "prout animus tulerit."

[170] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 583; Laing's Knox, ii. 238.

[171] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 450; Laing's Knox, iv. 194.

[172] In the Order of the General Fast it is stated: "The exhortation and prayers of everie several exercise we have remitted to be gathered by the discrete ministers, for time preased us so that we culd not frame them in such order as wes convenient, nether yit thought we it so expedient to pen prayers unto men, as to teach them with what hart and affection and for what causes we shuld pray, in this great calamitie" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 695; Laing's Knox, vi. 421). See also Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 698; Laing's Knox, vi. 470. Even the Order of Excommunication might be "enlarged or contracted as the wisedome of the discreit minister shall thinke expedient" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 746; Laing's Knox, vi. 470).

[173] Calderwood's Altare Damascenum, 1623, p. 613. In this and the preceding pages I have made use of materials contributed by me to a Report anent Innovations in Public Worship, presented to the General Assembly in 1864. [Elsewhere, Calderwood says: "None are tyed to the prayers of that book; but the prayers are set down as samplers" (Calderwood's History, 1678 ed., p. 25). Principal Baillie's evidence is to the same effect: "The Warner is here also mistaken in his beliefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any liturgy; they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but no tie ever in any of them by law or practise" (Review of Bramhall's Faire Warning against the Scots Discipline, 1649, p. 57).]

[174] Row's History, Wodrow Society, pp. 403, 404.

[175] Order and Government of the Church of Scotland, 1641: Address to the reader.

[176] Certainly not more consistently than Pollanus in the following rubric: "Hae sunt precationum in liturgiis certae formulae, quae tamen sequitur minister SUO ARBITRIO ut tempus fert et res postulat. Neque enim ulla praescriptione formularum alligandus est Spiritus Dei ad eum verborum numerum, cui non liceat subjicere vel supponere si meliora suggerat.... Hae formulae serviunt tantum rudioribus. Nullius libertati praescribitur, tantum ne ab ea ratione discedatur quam nobis Jesus Christus praescripsit.... Cumque is (scilicet Spiritus Sanctus) apud tribunalia subministret quae dicenda sint, non deerit nobis [si] cum vera fide coram Deo nos sistemus sensu orationis excitati."

[177] "Von vorgeschriebenen Kirchengebeten vor und nach der Predigt finden wir keine Spur, vielmehr das sichere Gegentheil.... Ums Jahr 1589 finden wir zuerst das sogenannte Lob und Dankopfer und die daran gehaengten Fuerbitten fuer die Obrigkeit, und die uebrigen christlichen Staende.... Erst nach der Mitte des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts ... suchte man auch im Liturgischen die Willkuer der einzelnen in engere Schraenken zuruckzufuehren" (Geschichte der ersten Basler-konfession, S. 249-251).

[178] [The charges are in the alleged causes which led James VI., immediately after his accession to the English throne, to endeavour to bring about uniformity in the services of the church throughout the whole kingdom, and run thus: "That diversitie, nay deformitie, which was used in Scotland, where no set or publike forme of prayer was used, but preachers or leaders and ignorant schoolmasters prayed in the church, sometimes so ignorantly as it was a shame to all religion to have the Majestie of God so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously that their prayers were plaine libels, girding at soveraigntie and authoritie; or lyes, being stuffed with all the false reports in the kingdome" (Large Declaration, 1639, p. 16).]

[179] [The committee appointed by the General Assembly to examine the Large Declaration describe it as dishonourable to God, to the king, and to the kirk; and as "stuffed full of lies and calumnies." Concerning this part in particular they say: "To the great dishonour of this kirk [it] is affirmed in this Declaration that there is a great deformitie in our service—no forme of publict prayer, but preachers, readers, and ignorant schoollemasters, praying in the church, sometymes so ignorantlie," &c. (Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, pp. 265, 266).]



CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE; OR, THE BOOKE OF THE POLICIE OF THE CHURCH.

[Sidenote: Knox's part in its preparation.]

I regard the First Book of Discipline as, in several respects, the most thoughtful, judicious, practical, and comprehensive of the documents connected with the organisation of the Reformed Church of Scotland. It was drawn up by the same six men[180] who were subsequently entrusted with the preparation of the Confession of Faith; and it has been said that they first settled the titles of the several chapters, and then apportioned the preparation of so many of them to each. But this is matter of pure conjecture. The portion on the universities, from the multitude of its practical details, we cannot but assign mainly to Douglas, the Principal of St Mary's College, and Wynram, the sub-prior of the Augustinian Monastery at St Andrews. One can hardly doubt that the rest, if not actually drafted by Knox, was carefully remoulded by him; and it bears evidence of acquaintance with books which were far more likely to have been known to him than to any of the others—as Herman of Cologne's Book of the Reformation, Latin versions of some of the earlier Kirchenbuecher or Kirchenordnungen of the German Protestants, and probably of the famous Ordonnances of Calvin, as drafted at Geneva after his return from exile.

I. The Government of the Church.

[Sidenote: Permanent Office-bearers.]

The opinions of our reformer and his associates respecting the government and discipline of the church are gathered partly from the opening chapters of the Book of Common Order, but mainly from the treatise ultimately entitled the First Book of Discipline. I believe that a careful study of these will lead to a pretty definite conclusion as to what these opinions actually were, and to a pretty decided conviction that, like their opinions respecting matters of doctrine and ritual, they were substantially in harmony with those to which the Scottish nation has been so long and firmly attached. It may be admitted that there were some of Knox's associates who, whatever may have been their own private sentiments, would, on grounds of expediency, have been contented to retain the former hierarchical government of the church; and if on such a point any weight is to be allowed to the assertions of Spottiswoode,[181] the popish Archbishop of St Andrews might possibly in that case not have refused to follow the course taken for a time by his relatives in St Mary's College, and to remain at his post at the head of the reformed church. But from the disastrous issue of the compromise in their case, as well as from what is known and indisputable of his own history and character, there is no reason to suppose that anything was lost, but on the contrary that incalculable gain accrued to the reformed church from this temptation not being put in his way. It was long maintained by the leaders of the Scottish episcopalians that Knox himself, to a certain extent, yielded to the wishes of his less thoroughgoing associates, and was implicated with them in certain attempts to continue or restore the semblance of a hierarchy in the new church. In fact, some of them went so far as to assert that it was not till after his death that controversy arose as to whether the episcopal or presbyterian form of government was the more primitive and scriptural. These views, if I understand rightly, are now abandoned by their ablest men; and it was full time that they should be so. The works of Whitgift, which have been republished in our own day and made more generally accessible, clearly show that the controversy about the presbyterian government of the church had been formally raised even in England at least as early as 1568; while the Later Helvetic Confession, approved by the Church of Scotland in 1566 at the request of Knox himself,[182] as clearly shows that the principles on which the controversy fell to be decided had been generally adopted by the followers of Calvin even at an earlier date. These principles were: First, that the names of bishop and presbyter are in Scripture used indiscriminately to denote the holder of the same office; second, that the only office-bearers of permanent divine appointment in the church are the pastor, the doctor, the elder, and the deacon. In fact, at the head of Calvin's Ordonnances Ecclesiastiques, drawn up, if not printed, as early as 1541, we find the following: "Il y a quatre ordres d'offices que notre Seigneur a institue pour le gouvernment de son eglise, premierement les pasteurs, puis les docteurs, apres les ancients, quatrement les diacres," which passed substantially into the Book of Common Order in 1556. This being the case, we are not guilty of any anachronism in attributing substantially presbyterian opinions to our reformer, even if we have to grant that the particular church court first known as the greater eldership or presbytery, and now exclusively enjoying the title of presbytery, existed at that time only in a rudimentary form.

[Sidenote: Superintendents temporary.]

The Book of Common Order of 1556 is the earliest authentic document casting light on the opinions of our reformers respecting the government and discipline of the church. The introductory part of the book treats at length of the permanent office-bearers of the church, the manner of their election, the duties of their respective offices, and the assemblies they were to hold in common for government and discipline. The enumeration of the office-bearers and the description of their duties is quite in harmony with what the Books of Discipline subsequently laid down. The office-bearers recognised are the minister, the elder, the deacon, and the doctor; and the duties assigned to each are such as have generally been allotted to these functionaries in the presbyterian churches. The terms in which the last-named of them is referred to are specially deserving of notice. They effectually close a loophole, that might otherwise have been imagined to be left, for the introduction of either bishop or superintendent as an essential and ordinary office-bearer in the church on the pretext that, even if he were so, he could be of little use in the single English congregation at Geneva.[183] "Wee are not ignorant," it is said, "that the Scriptures make mention of a fourth kind of ministers left to the church of Christ, which also are verie profitable where time and place doth permit; but for lack of opportunity in this our dispersion and exile we cannot well have the use thereof, and would to God it were not neglected where better occasion serveth. These ministers are called teachers or doctors, whose office is to instruct and teach the faithfull in sounde doctrine, providing with all diligence that the puritie of the Gospel be not corrupt either through ignorance or evill opinions."[184] Now, can it be supposed that Knox would have said all this of the doctor and not a word of the superintendent, if he had deemed both to be of like permanence and necessity in the church of Christ; or that he would have devoted several pages to explain the duties of the office-bearers, and their assemblies for the interpretation of the Scriptures and the administration of discipline, and not have uttered one word about the bishop, had he believed that that official was the chief or even an essential minister of the church? Can it be supposed likely that he would have been so silent, even if there had been no bishop, as confessedly there was no doctor, among the English in Geneva; or possible that he could have been so with Miles Coverdale,[185] a regularly consecrated bishop attending on his ministrations and acting as an elder in his congregation, unless he had regarded (and wished it to be known that he regarded) the simple presbyter as jure divino on a level with the diocesan bishop, to say nothing of the fact that his party at Frankfort had refused to have a bishop or superintendent over their congregation?

[Sidenote: Necessity of Preaching.]

This examination of the introductory chapters of the Book of Common Order will enable us the better to understand and explain the parts of the Book of Discipline drawn up in 1560 respecting the ministers and office-bearers of the church. Even the ordinary ministers of the church must all be well qualified to preach the gospel of salvation, as many of the common people were unable to read,[186] and could only be saturated with its teaching by the living voice of the preacher who, by sermons and catechising on the Lord's day, and in the towns also by the sermon during the week, was to his utmost to carry home the truth to their hearts. Our reformers judged it necessary "that His Gospell be truely and openly preached in every church and assembly of this realme";[187] that no one "unable to edifie the church by wholesome doctrine" should be promoted to or retained in ecclesiastic administration;[188] and held that the sacraments cannot be "rightlie ministred by him in whose mouth God hath put no sermon of exhortation."[189] Instead of entrusting parishes, as was so often done in England, to men able only to read homilies prepared by others, they affirmed that it was alike to have no minister at all and to have an idol in place of a true minister, yea, in some cases it was worse.[190] Men of best knowledge of God's Word and cleanest life were to be nominated annually for election as elders and deacons.[191] The former were to assist the minister in all affairs of the kirk, to hold meetings with him for judging of causes, admonishing evil livers, yea, to take heed to the life, manners, diligence, and study of the ministers, as well as of the flock.[192] The deacons were to assist in judgment, but chiefly to collect and distribute what was provided for the poor. They might also, as in the French Church, be admitted to read the Scriptures and common prayers in the congregation if required and qualified to do so.[193] Besides ministers, elders, and deacons, generally recognised in the reformed churches as holding offices of divine institution, and being of "the ministry" or consistory of the church, certain other functionaries are mentioned in this Book of Discipline, to whom special duties are assigned, at least for a time. These are the readers, or exhorters, and the superintendents, and both classes appear to be spoken of in such a way as to make it clear that they were not to be permanently retained as orders of office-bearers in the church distinct from those above named.

[Sidenote: Readers.]

Readers, or exhorters, were to be provided for those churches which could not presently be supplied with ministers. These readers were to be men judged most apt distinctly to read the common prayers and the Scriptures, but they were to be encouraged and urged so to exercise their gifts that they might grow in knowledge and utterance, and in time might come to be entrusted with the power of preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and discharging all the functions of the ordinary pastor.[194] Special provision was made for the spiritual improvement of these readers or exhorters in those weekly meetings for the interpretation of Scripture which, originally introduced among the exiles at Frankfort and Geneva, were after their return set up by them in England under the name of prophesying, and in Scotland under the name of the exercise.[195]

The portion of the book relating to the superintendents opens with a statement of the reasons which had led its framers "to make difference betwixt preachers at this time."[196] These last words, as has often been remarked, would have been unmeaning had they regarded the superintendent's office as by divine institution permanent in the church and superior to that of the ordinary minister. Accordingly, when they proceed to state in detail the reasons which induced them to sanction such a difference, these are found to be—not, as in the Anglican Ordinal, that there have always been in the church of Christ distinct orders of bishops and presbyters,[197] nor even as in Alasco's book that such offices were in some sort necessary, though, save in matters executive, in no way superior to their brethren the ordinary ministers of the church, but—that the dearth of qualified preachers or ministers at that time in Scotland was so great, that if each were to be settled in a single town or parish, and allowed to make continual residence therein, the larger part of the realm would be left altogether destitute of that efficient spiritual instruction, oversight, and training which the people themselves eagerly longed for, and the reformed leaders earnestly desired to provide for them. To meet this emergency, without being obliged to avail themselves so generally and unrestrictedly as the English had done of the former popish incumbents, they deemed it most expedient that these should, for a time at least, be restricted to the humbler duties of readers; and that from the whole number of godly and learned men then in the realm ten or twelve should be selected, and one of them assigned to each of the proposed provinces, which he should visit annually through its whole extent, preaching from time to time in every parish not provided with an ordained and preaching minister, seeing to the administration of the sacraments and of church discipline in such parishes, and presiding at the meetings of the provincial synod, and at the examination and admission of ministers and readers appointed to serve at the churches.

[Sidenote: Superintendent and Bishop compared.]

It used to be maintained by Scottish episcopalians, and has been reiterated even in our own day, that there is hardly any difference to be discerned between these superintendents and the old bishops save the substitution of a name which is bad Latin for one which is good Greek. This is more smart than true. The following very material differences will at once occur to any one acquainted with the First Book of Discipline, and with the constitution and practice of episcopal churches. (1) The bishop in the latter must be consecrated to his office by three, or at least two, bishops who have derived their office in the like lineal succession from their predecessors; while the superintendent, according to the practice of the Church of Scotland, and the constitution of the Church of the Foreigners in London, might be set apart to his office by a simple presbyter or ordinary minister of the church. (2) The distinctive duties of the bishop are such as, according to the practice of the churches recognising the necessity of his office, cannot be delegated save to one of his own order, while there was no duty entrusted to the superintendent in the Church of Scotland which might not be devolved on a mere presbyter; and it was the custom of the General Assembly to delegate to ordinary ministers the whole functions of visitation and superintendence in provinces not provided with a permanent superintendent, and to do so at times even in the case where the former popish bishop of the diocese had joined himself to the Reformed Church. (3) It is not generally recognised in episcopal churches as a duty specially incumbent on the bishop to preach regularly in the several churches of his diocese (certainly it was not expected of the English bishops who were contemporary with the Scottish superintendents);[198] but it was one of the main duties expected of these superintendents, and one of the chief reasons assigned for the institution of their office, that the Gospel might be preached from time to time in all those parishes not provided with a more stated ministry, and that thus men in every corner of the land might attain some knowledge of the truths of our holy religion, as well as some feeling of godliness. (4) Finally, the bishop in all episcopal churches, so far as my knowledge extends, is allowed to claim a negative voice in synods of his clergy, and can in no case be taken under discipline and judged by them, but only by a synod of his own order; while the superintendent in the Scottish Church was merely the permanent Moderator of Synod, and was bound to give effect to the decision of the majority, or to carry it by appeal before a higher court; and he was not only liable to be judged and punished for neglect of duty and for personal misconduct by the General Assembly, but was also liable to be charged with such offences before his own synod, and to be judged and punished by it. On these grounds I am so far from admitting that the superintendent was in all respects identical with the bishop, that I am inclined to hold that it was just because he was so completely stripped of all real episcopal power that, when the hierarchy was revived, even the most moderate of the bishops found they could not contain themselves within the limits prescribed to the superintendents in the First Book of Discipline; and that one of the main obstacles in the way of their success in the struggle with their refractory presbyters was occasioned by their own hasty promise to observe the caveats founded on the previous practice in the case of superintendents, and especially by their promise to be subject to the judgment and censure of the General Assembly.

[Sidenote: Gradation of Church Courts.]

The form of church government in Scotland was still further connected with that of the Calvinistic churches on the Continent (particularly that of France) by the establishment and gradation of church courts—the General Assembly having jurisdiction over the whole church, the provincial synod over the ministers and congregations within a particular province, and the session or lesser eldership or consistory over one or more neighbouring congregations.[199] What afterwards came to be known as the greater eldership, or presbytery, or classical consistory,[200] does not appear at first under that distinctive name; but even the germ of this was implanted in that weekly meeting of ministers and elders for the interpretation of Scripture termed the exercise, which was authorised both by the Book of Common Order and the First Book of Discipline.[201] It was soon established in all the considerable towns in Scotland where there was a fully constituted reformed church, and though at first it may possibly have confined itself to the object it was immediately intended to serve, and may have intervened only by advice in matters of discipline, yet it was not in the nature of things that such a gathering of ministers and elders from neighbouring churches should take place from week to week without such cases as occupied the attention of parochial consistories being discussed and advised on, as well as the doctrinal and critical questions arising out of their exercises, which they were expressly empowered to dispose of. The tendencies of the institution were so manifest, and the powers it speedily assumed so undisguised, that Queen Elizabeth became alarmed, and insisted on the suppression of it throughout the province of Canterbury, notwithstanding the remonstrances and entreaties of the good Archbishop Grindal, and his repeated and urgent petitions that she would rather endeavour to confine it to the original purpose, in which it had been of great service, than suppress it altogether. In the province of York, where the institution had taken firmer root, and where the contentions between Papists and Protestants had gained more prominence than those between Puritans and anti-Puritans, it was tolerated for a considerably longer period. When in 1581 Scotland was regularly divided into presbyteries, the exercises previously existing in particular towns were merged in, and their work devolved on, these; and in the beginning of the seventeenth century, when episcopacy was restored, the name of presbytery was again frequently exchanged for that of exercise.

[Sidenote: The General Assembly.]

Of these several church courts perhaps the most distinctive as well as the most important was the General Assembly, which was originally held to represent the whole church; and which may still, after the lapse of ages, be held substantially to do so—having representatives not only from each of the presbyteries but also from each of the universities and royal burghs in the kingdom. It has been wont to meet not (as such national synods have generally done elsewhere) occasionally and chiefly for legislative purposes, that is, authoritatively to explain the church's creed and enact canons to regulate the administration of discipline, but frequently and at short stated intervals to review the proceedings of the inferior judicatories of the church, as well as to legislate regarding matters of doctrine and discipline. Whether its peculiar vitality in the Scottish Church is to be ascribed to its popular constitution, or to the fact that it has in general faithfully represented the national sentiments in those controversies which in successive generations have been agitated in our country; or whether the groundwork of it had not been laid long before in those national councils of the church which the popish ecclesiastics had, under the bull of Pope Honorius III.,[202] deemed themselves warranted to hold every year, and at which the king and his nobles appear often to have been present, and whether, therefore, in the maintenance of this quasi-Gallican liberty, as well as in some minor matters enumerated by Lord Hailes, there may not have been a closer and more real connection between the pre- and post-Reformation church in Scotland than has been commonly admitted, it would now, perhaps, be very difficult to determine. But it will be allowed on all hands that this venerable court—which was so early established and has subsisted almost uninterruptedly since the Reformation, and has exercised such extensive legislative and judicial powers—is the most distinctive characteristic of the Scottish Church, and has had great influence in the development of Scottish opinion and religious life.

II. The Discipline of the Church.

The opinions of our reformer and his associates regarding the discipline and practical organisation of the church have hardly ever been made a subject of serious controversy, even by those who have so long called in question the generally received ideas regarding his opinions on the government of the church. That which marked out the early Reformed Church of Scotland most distinctively among the churches of the Reformation was the fact that she advocated, and resolutely carried into practical operation, that "godly discipline" which they all admitted had been used in the primitive church in her best and purest days, and the restoration of which, they perhaps ventured to hint, was much to be desired, but which yet they had not the courage to demand from the civil power as of essential concern to the wellbeing of their churches. Even Luther, who began so well, hesitated and quailed before the claims of the civil powers, and left it to Calvin to carry out his own earlier conceptions, and those of the Hessian Synod of 1528.[203] Our reformers, however, boldly laid down the absolute necessity of it in their Book of Common Order, and named in their Confession as one of the three distinctive marks of a true church of Christ, "ecclesiastical discipline uprightlie ministred as Goddis Worde prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and vertew nurished."[204] Not content to exercise such a discipline merely under this clause of their State-ratified Confession, they sought and obtained an explicit acknowledgment of the church's privileges in special Acts of Parliament, which continue in force at the present day, and have enabled the Church of Scotland to maintain a stricter and more efficient discipline than any other established church has ventured to aim at.

[Sidenote: Nature and Ends of Discipline.]

The nature and ends of this discipline are pretty fully explained in the introductory chapters of the Book of Common Order, in the Book of Discipline, and the Order of Excommunication and Public Repentance. "As no citie, towne, house, or family," it is affirmed in the first of these treatises, "can maintaine their estate and prosper without policy and governance, even so the Church of God, which requireth more purely to be governed than any citie or family, cannot without spirituall policy and ecclesiastical discipline continue, increase, and flourish;[205] and as the Word of God is the life and soule of this church, so this godly order and discipline is, as it were, sinews in the body, which knit and joine the members together with decent order and comelinesse; it is a bridle to stay the wicked from their mischiefs, it is a spurre to pricke forward such as be slow and negligent; yea, and for all men it is the father's rod, ever in a readiness to chastise gently the faults committed, and to cause them afterward to live in more godly feare and reverence."[206] Three causes are assigned why such discipline should be retained and practised in the church—viz., that evil men may not be numbered among God's children, that the good may not be infected by association with the ungodly, and that the individual taken under discipline may be made ashamed of his fault, and so may be induced to repent and amend. This is said to be the object even of excommunication—the highest censure the church can inflict on an offending brother—that he, being brought to a due sense of his sin and misery, may be saved in the day of the Lord. It is expressly provided that, in regard to this last and highest censure, nothing is to be attempted without the determination of the whole church—i.e., of the ordinary members of the church—and they are affectionately reminded that it is their duty to take good heed "that they seeme not more ready to expell from the congregation than to receave againe those, in whom they perceave worthy fruits of repentance to appeare," and "that all punishments, corrections, censures, and admonitions stretch no farther than God's Word with mercy may lawfully beare."[207]

[Sidenote: Order of Excommunication.]

The Order of Excommunication and Public Repentance, sanctioned by the General Assembly in 1569, long continued to be used as a directory in the administration of discipline. It was compiled by Knox, or rather abridged by him from Alasco's 'Modus ac Ritus Excommunicationis' and his 'Forma ac Ratio Publicae Penitentiae,' used with the approbation of Edward VI. in the Church of the Foreigners in London. It breathes throughout a spirit of tender regard for erring brethren and earnest longing for their recovery, quite as strongly as it manifests a spirit of holy zeal for the glory of God and the purity of His church. In all save the most notorious and urgent cases, the offender was to be dealt with repeatedly both in private and in public to confess his aggravated offence before the extreme penalty was inflicted on him. If these dealings and admonitions proved ineffectual, the minister was once more to explain the nature of his offence, and the frequency of the public and private admonitions addressed to him, was then to appeal to the elders and deacons to confirm the truth of what he said, and finally was to ask of the whole church if they thought such a contempt should be suffered amongst them, and only in the event of no man making further intercession for the erring and obstinate was the minister to proceed to pronounce the fearful sentence.[208]

[Sidenote: Discipline under Prelacy.]

In the times of declension which arose after James VI. took the government into his own hands, the strict exercise of such discipline became specially odious to the king and his gay courtiers, and incessant efforts were made to relax its rigour. These, however, were in general directed to effect this object rather by means of than in spite of the church, by securing that cases involving the sentence of excommunication should be reserved for the determination of the higher courts of the church, on which the king and his friends could bring their influence to bear with most effect. Even during the domination of the Second Episcopacy it is well known, from records still extant, that kirk-sessions and presbyteries were continued, and were allowed, with the sanction of the bishop, to maintain a discipline which in the present day would not be generally accounted lax. The grotesque penances so often resorted to in the times immediately succeeding the Reformation, and for the use of which our forefathers have been subjected to so much abuse and ridicule, were by no means confined to them, and probably had been suggested by similar grotesque ones in use before, and were employed by the Court of High Commission, by the Church of England, and by other churches too, in so far as they ever ventured to exercise discipline on notorious offenders. Even those melancholy trials of witches, for which they have been so severely blamed, were not originated by them, and were countenanced quite as much by their opponents, and by no one more than by the pope and his entourage, as well as by James VI., the great patron of the bishops, and for long were clamoured for by the people.

[Sidenote: The People remoulded.]

To us, living in the light and glorying in the toleration of the nineteenth century, some of these disciplinary provisions may seem harsh, several of the details frivolous, others inquisitorial; and the very principle of such a close identification of the ecclesiastical and civil, as that all offences against morality and church discipline were to be also dealt with and punished by the state, more than questionable. But to men living in the sixteenth century and just emerging out of the ignorance and licence which the old church had tolerated, and longing to be moulded into a community really holy and self-denying and quickened to a higher life—enthused with a longing to reach loftier heights in it—the iron discipline of Calvin and Knox was welcome as requiring only what they felt to be their duty and their true interest. We may extend to the disciple what the historian of French Protestantism has said of the master, and so far varying the words of Haag affirm: "The institutions of Calvin [and Knox] accomplished what was proposed. In less than three generations the Genevese [and Lowland Scots] were entirely remoulded. To frivolity and licentiousness succeeded that somewhat austere strictness of morals which in earlier days distinguished the disciples of the reformer[s]. History tells of only two [three] men who have been able permanently to impress their stamp on an entire people—Lycurgus and Calvin [and Knox], whose characters in fact have much in common."[209] The Athenians made merry over the black broth of the Spartans; but Sparta conquered Athens. How many accusations and witticisms have been launched against the Calvinistic spirit, and yet Calvinistic countries led the way in Christian activity and civil freedom, and to them even those who abuse them are largely indebted for their blessings.