The Scottish Reformation Part 8

_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 a.s.sociates hold and teach, the following brief quotation from the "G.o.dly 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 Princ.i.p.al 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] Stahelin'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 circ.u.mcisio 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 a.s.sembly of Presbyters), are owned next to the Word of G.o.d, 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 a.s.sertion "that the spous of Christ had nether power nor authoritie against the Word of G.o.d," 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 a.s.signed its honoured place. The t.i.tle 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 Stra.s.sburg 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 a.s.signed for their services and those of the Italian exiles, but without any hampering clause about ident.i.ty 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 Stra.s.sburg by Farel, tended for several years by Calvin, and then by Poullain, or Polla.n.u.s, 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. Glas...o...b..ry Abbey was a.s.signed 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 Polla.n.u.s 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 pa.s.sed through the alembic of Polla.n.u.s 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 a.s.serted by the General a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.semblies held by the reformed for wors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sembly 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 amba.s.sador, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 ma.s.se-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 lat.i.tude 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 a.s.sociates, 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 a.s.serted 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 wors.h.i.+p and administering the sacraments, was a.s.serted by the General a.s.sembly 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d,[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 repet.i.tion of them.

[Sidenote: Its tolerant Rubrics.]

[Sidenote: Calderwood's Testimony.]

[Sidenote: Row's Opinion.]

"When the congregation is a.s.sembled," 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 a.s.sistance of G.o.d'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 p.r.o.nounceth one of these blessings, and so the congregation departeth."[167] Such are its few and simple directions for the ordinary form of public wors.h.i.+p; 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 G.o.d 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 superst.i.tion, who come to the prayers as they come to the ma.s.se; 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 prec.u.m 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 ma.s.se 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's publict wors.h.i.+p. 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sembly, 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 wors.h.i.+p," 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 dest.i.tution 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 a.s.serted, 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-bucher_). 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 a.s.sembly, 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 pa.s.sage 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.