History of the Scotch Church from the Introduction of Christianity to the Establishment of the Great Charter of the Church (4)

From Scotch and Irish Seeds in American Soil by Rev. J. G. Craighead

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CHAPTER I. … continued

A determined resistance was made against these and all other measures intended to restore the spiritual domination of Rome. At the same time the Scottish Reformers displayed equal zeal in maintaining their religious liberties. Foremost among these was John Knox, who launched his fiercest invectives against the queen for her deceptive conduct, and against certain of the nobility, who, through the bribes of power and the loose manners to which they had become accustomed at a licentious court, were ready to betray the interests of Protestantism. Wherever the contest was the fiercest, wherever the assault was most determined and persistent, and wherever boldness and inflexible courage, combined with prudence and great wisdom, were needed, there stood the intrepid Reformer, ready to resist successfully all the attacks of the enemy, until, worn out by anxiety of mind and his long and arduous labors, he died on the 29th day of October, 1572.

To the very last he evinced the same faithful intrepidity to truth and principle. Addressing the wicked regent, Morton, he boldly told him: “God has beautified you with many benefits which he has not given to every man, and therefore, in the name of God, I charge you to use all these benefits aright, and better in time to come than ye have done in times by the past. If ye shall do so, God bless you and honor you; but if ye do not, God shall spoil you of these benefits, and your end shall be ignominy and shame.” How prophetic these words! and how forcibly must they have recurred to the regent’s mind as he lay in prison and was subsequently led to the scaffold!

Scarcely could a higher or more just eulogy have been uttered than was pronounced by Morton when Knox’s body was lowered into the grave: “There lies he who never feared the face of man.” “He was the greatest living Scotchman,” says the historian Froude, “and the full measure of his greatness no man in his day could estimate. The spirit of Knox created and saved Scotland; and if Scotland had been Catholic again, neither the wisdom of Elizabeth’s ministers, nor the teachings of her bishops, nor her own chicaneries, would have preserved England from revolution.” Carlyle calls him “the bravest of all Scotchmen”—“the one Scotchman to whom, of all others, his country and the world owe a debt.”

While his age and his contemporaries may not have been able to measure his greatness, his countrymen were not insensible of their indebtedness to him. Sincere and heartfelt grief was felt at his death by every Protestant throughout the kingdom, for they were painfully conscious that a grievous calamity had fallen upon the Church of Scotland.

Notwithstanding the Church had been obliged for the last quarter of a century to maintain an incessant struggle with the court, which was anxious to establish a spurious prelacy and to make the spiritual subordinate to and a vassal of the civil power, yet was it a period of great prosperity to the Church. Though encountering either direct persecution or the secret stratagems of insidious foes, its General Assemblies were convened frequently, by means of which its ecclesiastical organization was speedily perfected, purity of doctrine maintained, a suitable ministry provided, the destitute parishes supplied with pastors, and its forms of divine worship established. When the first Assembly met, in 1560, it is stated that there were but twelve Protestant ministers in Scotland; while in 1567, just seven years afterward, there were two hundred and fifty-two, and in addition to these there were six hundred and twenty-one readers and exhorters. The order of supplying destitute congregations was first the reader, then the exhorter, and lastly the minister; and at the beginning the cases were rare, except in the larger towns, where more than one of these agents were employed. But the fact that in 1576, only nine years after this, one hundred and sixteen out of the two hundred and eighty-nine Presbyterian parishes were supplied with both a minister and a reader is a clear indication of the wonderful growth of the Church. The rapid and general diffusion of the truths of the Scriptures by means of these several church officers led the people speedily to abandon the superstitions of the papacy. That this was well-nigh universal throughout the kingdom may be inferred from the language of the complaint presented to the General Assembly in 1588, which stated that there were still “twelve papists in Dumfries and its neighborhood, ten in Angus and Mearns, three in the Lothians,” etc.

How shall we account for so great an external growth, accompanied as it was by an equally remarkable improvement in doctrine and discipline? Such energy as was shown and such wondrous deeds as were achieved by the Church of Scotland can only be accounted for on the supposition that the ministry was largely imbued with the Spirit of their divine Master, and that their exertions to enlighten and save the people were accompanied by the Holy Ghost. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts;” and thus only could so great and so gracious a change have been wrought throughout an entire kingdom. It should be borne in mind, too, that this great progress of the Church was achieved in the face of strong opposition. The ill-timed pretensions of Mary to the crown of England and her bigoted attachment to popery had kept the kingdom in a state of constant disturbance; and when her power to annoy and harass the ministers had ceased and the regent Morton succeeded to the civil authority, their trials and difficulties were by no means at an end. The latter—a bold, wicked man and an adept in all manner of intrigue—was more to be dreaded than an open enemy. As direct violence had proven ineffectual to suppress the Reformed faith, he resolved to try what could be accomplished by more subtle and insidious measures. His efforts were directed to these two things—first, to change the constitution of the Church of Scotland, making it prelatic, like that of England, and subject to the civil power; and second, to impoverish the Church in order to enrich himself. The former was to be reached by exalting and confirming the power of his “tulchan” bishops and placing the most sycophantic and unprincipled of them in influential positions; the latter, by gaining control of the thirds of the benefices, under pretence that the stipends of the ministers should be paid more regularly and satisfactorily. But no sooner had he obtained the money than he joined several parishes together and appointed over them one of his tulchan bishops, paying him as if he had only a single charge and retaining for his own the balance of the funds.

It was against such hindrances and such opposition as this that the Protestant ministry had constantly to contend. The struggle knew no intermission and it was for the right of existence. The clear judgment and intrepid spirit of John Knox were at this period greatly missed in their councils. Had that skillful pilot been at the wheel, the storm-tossed vessel would have been spared from encountering many of those tumultous waves which frequently threatened to engulph it. True, there were not wanting many excellent men sincerely attached to the principles of the Reformation and capable in more peaceful times of defending them, but they were unable successfully to surmount the new difficulties against which they had to contend at the hands of the subtle and stern regent.

At this juncture (1574) Andrew Melville returned from Geneva to his native land. During his residence of ten years on the Continent he enjoyed the acquaintance and counsels of Beza, the successor of Calvin. With the firmness, courage and integrity of Knox, and with more than his learning, being a distinguished Oriental scholar and familiar with law and the great principles of civil government, Melville was the man for the crisis. His presence infused a new life and vigor into the Protestant cause. He at once began a spirited opposition to the machinations of Morton, and in the Assembly of 1575 discussed freely and fearlessly the question of the lawfulness of episcopacy, affirming “that none ought to be officebearers in the Church whose titles were not found in the book of God; that, though the appellation of bishop was used in Scripture, it was not to be understood in the sense usually affixed to it, there being no superiority amongst ministers allowed by Christ; that Jesus was the only Lord of the Church, all his servants being equal in degree and power; and that the corruptions which had crept into the state of bishops (tulchan bishops) were so great that, unless they were removed, it could neither go well with the Church, nor could religion be preserved in purity.”

The question respecting the lawfulness of episcopacy continued to agitate the Church for several years. In 1576 the Assembly had advanced in its solution so far as to declare, with a good degree of unanimity, “that the name of bishop is common to all who are appointed to take charge of a particular flock, and that preaching the word, administering the sacraments and exercising discipline with the consent of their elders, are their chief duties according to the word of God.” The contest between Morton and the Church knew no abatement in 1577, the former being determined to retain and extend his favorite tulchan system, and the latter as fully resolved to put an end to it. Even after Morton had resigned and King James had assumed the reins of government, this subject was the chief topic of dispute in the succeeding Assemblies, until in 1580 it was declared “that the office of a bishop, as it was then used and commonly understood, was destitute of warrant and authority from the word of God, was of mere human invention, introduced by folly and corruption, and tended to the great injury of the Church.” It was further ordained “that all such persons as were in possession of said pretended office should be charged to demit it.”

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