Events in providence which fa voured, in of the right Church and State. CHAP. II. consequences might have been the same in Scotland too. 1560. Although the Scottish reformers had not been led, in the first instance, any more than their contemporaries elsewhere, Scotland, the to study and define the exact nature and limits, respectively, study and settlement of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, events had placed relations of them in a more favourable position for doing so when the necessity arose. There was in their case no Henry VIII. to bear down truth by force, and to trample the claims of conscience under the iron heel of despotic power. The tide, broad and deep, on which the Scottish reformation rose, swept away, at the same moment, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny together. And although the majority of the Scottish parliament had perhaps no real sympathy with vital godliness, and no desire to see a thoroughly-reformed church established in the land, they could not, like the English monarch, give effect to their own absolute and arbitrary will. The same movement which had elevated them to power created a public opinion, and surrounded them with influences which they durst not altogether disregard. They had as much of the inclination to interfere with the church's progress and freedom as to put the reformers on their guard; freedom, but but they had not the power to hinder the questions which cumstances they thus raised from being publicly and vigorously debated. It was, under God, mainly to this circumstance that Scotland and the church of Christ were indebted, for the only great effort that has ever yet been made to adjust, practically and on a scriptural basis, the mutual relations of the civil and ecclesiastical power. The civil authorities jealous of the Church's not in cir to put it down. had The result of the appeal made by the reformers to the estates of parliament, in 1560, was the abolition of the papal jurisdiction in Scotland. All acts in favour of the church of Rome, and against the protestant faith, were annulled; and at the same time, the summary of christian truth, embodied in the confession prepared by the reformers, was ance of marking the State in ratified and approved. But, while it is important to mark CHAP. IL stage it did nothing more. It did not, as in England, Knox's History of the Reformation, Blackie and Son's edition, by mation. Knox's view of the State's power in matters spiritual. ン CHAP. III. CHURCH AND STATE IN SCOTLAND-FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE REVOLUTION. between the ly and the more spiri tual adherents of the Reformation. to CHAP. IIL AT the period now in question, the national sanction had 1560 Disagreement been withdrawn from popery, and the Scottish legislature 1567. more world- had professed its faith in the doctrines of the reformation. Beyond this nothing whatever had been done by the civil Meanwhile the reformers continued to urge upon power. the estates the necessity and duty of proceeding to establish the reformed church; and at this point it was that the iron and the clay, which had hitherto been blended together, began to fall asunder. The sincere and spiritual men in parliament were disposed to listen to the church's call for state countenance and support in framing a constitution and setting up her discipline; but the worldly and merely political adherents of the reformed cause, had no mind to adopt any course that would involve either the surrender of the spoils they might secure by the overthrow of the church of Rome, or the recognition of a power that might rebuke. their cupidity, and withstand their schemes of selfish aggrandizement. The parliament, accordingly, broke up without taking any steps in this direction at all. Soon after, however, the privy council so far deferred to the agrees to the urgent representations of the reformers, as to give to Knox, preparation, by the and certain other ministers, a commission to prepare on the Church, of a system of part of the church, not yet fully organized, a system of ecclesiastical government. This act implied, that the civil government were willing to entertain the proposal of establishing the reformed church, and that they recognized Knox and his coadjutors as competent representatives of the The privy council ecclesiasti cal govern ment. 1567. 1560 church, in making these preliminary arrangements. The CHAP. IIL to document which was drawn up in consequence, was that which is commonly known by the name of the first book of discipline. It was framed under the immediate direction and authority of the church, acting thus early as a distinct and independent body. The desire of Knox and his fellow. labourers, seems evidently to have been to carry the state along with them in developing the principles and consolidating the cause of the reformation. In these primary stages of their great movement, it is probable they had not thoroughly considered and determined the precise footing on which the church's relations with the civil power ought to be placed. Having no doubt whatever as to the duty of the state to recognize and uphold the true church of Christ, their anxiety appears to have been to get this done without delay, and in this way to provide a more effectual barrier against the restoration of popery. It had not occurred to them as yet to be jealous of the state itself. Its disposition to usurp authority over the church had not hitherto found occasion to come forth in any form that could excite their alarm. But while the reformers were, for this reason, entirely Reformers, at unsuspecting in their intercourse with the legislature and the government, and may seem to have been putting themselves too much into the hands of the civil power, they never for a moment dreamt of doing anything that could compromise the church's freedom, or imply any want of competency on the part of the church, by her intrinsic authority, to adjust her own constitution, and to regulate her own affairs. It was, accordingly, in the exercise of that inherent authority, the first general assembly of the reformed church was held in the month of December, 1560. It was in the character, not of parties holding a commission from the government, but in that of members of the supreme ecclesiastical court, that Knox and his coadjutors prepared this period, had no suspicion of State interthe liberties Church. ference with of the General As CHAP. III the book of discipline. And furthermore, it was as the 1560 First Book of deliberately approved and adopted standard of the church,, to Discipline 1567. drawn up by framed by and for herself, that it was subsequently laid sembly. before the great council of Scotland. "When the ministers did putt their hands to work, the assemblie of the kirk laid some heads of the policie of the kirk upon everie man who was thought meetest for the same and after they have given in their travells to be considered by the brethren, they were either approven in that whilk they had done, or else their inlaiks (deficiencies) were supplied or doubts opened up to them, that they might sett down the head appointed to them more perfitelie, whilk by great pains, much reading, prayer and meditation, earnestly in-calling the name of God, in end was finished, and by the allowance and approbation of the whole general assemblie; after that, some articles that were thought too long were abridged. The whole policie of the kirk was putt in writ in a book, and presented to the nobilitie and great council of the realme in the end of the same year. As illustrative of the church's own views of the obligation of the church on the one hand, and of the state on the other, to be guided exclusively by the word of God in this whole matter, and of the consequent right and duty of both to form an independent judgment regarding it, the following sentences from the address to the council, prefixed to the first book of discipline, are not unimportant:"For as we will not bind your honours to our judgments, of State pre- further than we are able to prove by God's plain scripture: Address to the council fixed to First Book of so must we most humbly crave of you, even as ye will Row's History, p. 16. |