The Scottish Reformation Part 9

[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 G.o.dly and fardeste off from superst.i.tion.

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. x.x.xvi, x.x.xvii).

[149] [It is greatly to be regretted that Dr Mitch.e.l.l 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 Polla.n.u.s." 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 G.o.ddis congregatioun, and takis part with the saidis Lordis in setting fordwart the commone caus, to the gloir of G.o.d 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 t.i.tular 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 inc.u.mbent 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 Polla.n.u.s: "Minister, nomine Domini invocato, ut Spiritu Sancto adjutus, possit digna Deo atque salutaria ecclesiae eloqui recitat textum."

[169] The Liturgy of Polla.n.u.s 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 a.s.sembly 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). Princ.i.p.al 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 Polla.n.u.s 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 n.o.bis Jesus Christus praescripsit.... c.u.mque is (_scilicet_ Spiritus Sanctus) apud tribunalia subministret quae dicenda sint, non deerit n.o.bis [si] c.u.m 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 gehangten Furbitten fur die Obrigkeit, und die ubrigen christlichen Stande.... Erst nach der Mitte des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts ... suchte man auch im Liturgischen die Willkur der einzelnen in engere Schranken zuruckzufuhren" (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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sembly to examine the Large Declaration describe it as dishonourable to G.o.d, 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 doc.u.ments 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 t.i.tles 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 mult.i.tude of its practical details, we cannot but a.s.sign mainly to Douglas, the Princ.i.p.al 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 Kirchenbucher 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 a.s.sociates 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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sociates 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 a.s.sertions 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 a.s.sociates, 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 a.s.sert 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 inst.i.tue pour le gouvernment de son eglise, premierement les pasteurs, puis les docteurs, apres les ancients, quatrement les diacres," which pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tle 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 doc.u.ment 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 a.s.semblies 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 a.s.signed 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.semblies 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.]