4. A Nation Disciplined and Provided
Matthew Vogan
6. A Disciplined Nation. To the marks of the Church asserted by other Reformers, namely the Word preached and the sacraments rightly administered, the Scottish Church added another. It was ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered in accordance with God’s Word whereby “vice is repressed, and virtue nourished”.2 The Scottish Reformer James Melville asserted that, without discipline, “Christ’s Kingdom could not stand”.3 The Book of Common Order reflected the strength of this conviction: “As no city, town, house, or family, can maintain their estate and prosper without policy and governance, even so the Church of God, which requireth more purely to be governed than any city or family, cannot without spiritual policy and ecclesiastical discipline continue, increase, and flourish; and as the Word of God is the life and soul of this Church, so this godly order and discipline is, as it were, sinews in the body, which knit and join the members together with decent order and comeliness; it is a bridle to stay the wicked from their mischiefs, it is a spur to prick forward such as be slow and negligent; yea,
1This is the final part of a paper given at the 2010 Theological Conference. Last month’s article was entitled: “Scotland Liberated, Covenanted and Educated”.
2The Scots Confession, chapter 18.
3The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melville, ed R Pitcairn, Wodrow Society, 1842, p 280.
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 fear and reverence.24
Although the word discipline has acquired negative connotations, it has a positive origin in various Latin words that mean to learn. Thus it means instruction, nurturing and training as well as chastisement and correction, which is the way that Scripture uses the word. By means of discipline an individual is brought to a knowledge of himself, repentance and change of life. Discipline is not punishment according to the exacting demands of the law, but like firm and loving parental discipline exercised as a means of faithful instruction; it is intended to reform those who are in disobedience to God and His truth and to deliver them from the consequences of that disobedience. It is the rod of correction tipped with the honey of mercy.
If we know a little of the discipline exercised by the Reformers, we are likely to think of their use of public repentance as a means of chastising the offender. In this they followed fully the requirement of 1 Timothy 5:20: “Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear”. Various means, however, were used with restoration in view and it was necessary “that all punishments, corrections, censures, and admonitions stretch no farther than God’s Word with mercy may lawfully bear”.5
Discipline was flexible and sensitive in relation to individual cases. According to the gravity of the matter, there could be private admonition as well as public action. There were also occasions when offenders were “admonished” or “rebuked” in front of the kirk session rather than before the congregation. David Black, as minister of St Andrews, was well known for his emphasis on faithful discipline, but he declared that “loving censure” was the best course of action in some cases in order that “the offender would rather be ravished with the admiration of God’s grace in us, than either scoff [at] it or grow into a choler [become angry], as many do”.6
Secular historians are forced to admit that the discipline exercised by kirk sessions was notably impartial. The First Book of Discipline asserted that “to discipline must all the estates within this realm be subject, as well the rulers as they that are ruled; yea, and the preachers themselves, as well as the poor within the kirk”. As the General Assembly laid down in 1562, discipline must be “without exception of persons”.7 This was manifested in 1567, when the
4The Book of Common Order, ed J Cumming, London, 1840, p 118.
5The Book of Common Order, p 122.
6Quoted in John McCallum, Reforming the Scottish Parish: The Reformation in Fife, 1560-1650, Ashgate, 2010, p 225.
7Quoted in Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, Yale University Press, 2002, p 176.
Lady Argyle was ordered to “make public repentance in the Chapel-Royal of Stirling” for her role in “the baptizing of the King in a Papistical manner”.8
Men and women of whatever prominence or low degree were treated equally without partiality in cases of discipline.9 This is even evident statistically in that the “numbers of men and women prosecuted for fornication and adultery were roughly equal all over Scotland”.10 Some viewed the kirk session as a positive means of defending their own interests through achieving arbitration or protecting their reputation, as women were frequently forced to do. Women might also use the kirk session to press defaulted marriage claims or to seek protection from domestic abuse.
In our day there is resistance to maintaining biblical standards of conduct through church discipline and a constant impetus to erode both. This is solemn because contempt for the faithful exercise of church discipline disregards the fact that it is administered in the name of Christ and by the authority of His Word. We need to be reminded of the purpose and goal of church discipline in order that we would not be weary or discouraged in well-doing.
The Reformers faced a hugely-challenging situation where immorality and all kinds of vices were rife. It was necessary for the very first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to agree about the discipline of those guilty of fornication. Through patient exercise of the power of the keys,11 however, some sessions witnessed at least a restraint upon such behaviour – as in St Andrews, where offences against the Seventh Commandment had declined significantly by 1600.12
The historian Margo Todd asserts that kirk sessions were fundamental to the success of the Reformation in applying its principles in practice at a local level.13 As with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah, each man built in his own location. When the rebuilding of the walls and the temple took place under Zerubbabel, we read that, despite opposition, “the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease” (Ezra 5:5). Thus it was that, at the Reformation in
8The Book of the Universal Kirk of Scotland, Alexander Peterkin, 1839, p 73.
9See Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, pp 176-78, and Michael F Graham, The Uses of Reform: ‘Godly Discipline’ and Popular Behaviour in Scotland and Beyond, 1560-1610, Brill, 1996, pp 259-279 for even-handedness in disciplining all levels of society.
10Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, p 179.
11The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 30.
12Margo Todd observes that “Scotland’s notable success” in reducing the rates of illegitimate births “by the early seventeenth century did indeed give the Calvinist realm a name for sexual restraint” (p 292).
13The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, pp 403-8.
Scotland, the eye of God’s providence and blessing was upon the work of the kirk session.
7. A Provided Nation. The First Book of Discipline commended the care and relief of the poor in the strongest of terms: “Fearful and horrible it is, that the poor, whom not only God the Father in His law, but Christ Jesus in His evangel, and the Holy Spirit speaking by Saint Paul, has so earnestly commended to our care, are universally so contemned and despised”. The Reformers noted the continual emphasis given to provision for the poor in Scripture and sought to remedy the oppression that they had experienced at the hands of the Romish clergy, under whom there had been no regular provision for their support. The corpse-presents, or church dues, that the local priest exacted at the time of a death were not only a significant burden to the poorest (a cow and the uppermost clothing) but were exacted in the harshest way under threat of excommunication.
The historian Richard L Greaves remarks that “increasing a sense of responsibility for the poor was perhaps more difficult for the Protestant reformers than procuring desired changes in theology and worship”.14 The First Book of Discipline remonstrated with the nobility, who were “now as cruel over their tenants as ever were the Papists, requiring of them the tiends [tithes] and whatsoever they afore payed to the kirk, so that the Papistical tyranny shall only be changed into the tyranny of the lord and laird”. Warning them of “God’s heavy and fearful judgements”, they were exhorted to “be content to live upon their just rents” and oppress the poor no more. Alexander Mitchell asserted that “the history of the world, the history of the Christian church, has few passages more noble than this, where these poor ministers, not yet assured of decent provision for their own maintenance, boldly undertake the patronage of the peasantry, and say they would rather suffer themselves than ask that teinds should be exacted from those who had been so long ground down”.15
Though they were thus charged “in the name of the eternal God, and of His Son Christ Jesus” to have compassion upon the poor, the nobles turned a deaf ear and were unwilling to assign to the Church the ecclesiastical revenues which they had seized. While adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1561, The First Book of Discipline never therefore became the law of the land and the Church continued to speak out against the treatment of the poor in later times.
14“The Social Awareness of John Knox: The Problems of Poverty and Educational Reform”, in Renaissance and Reformation XII:1, 1976, pp 36-48; the quotation is on p 36.
15The Scottish Reformation: Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics, William Blackwood, 1900, p 181.
It is a notable demonstration of their compassion that at the very first General Assembly the Church proposed that former Romanist priests now unemployed were to be provided for amongst the poor. The Reformers were, as the Apostle Paul, “forward” “to remember the poor” (Gal 2:10) but they were also as the blessed man “that wisely doth the poor man’s case consider” (Ps 41:1 (metrical)). They were not prepared to support the idle but the genuinely deserving poor: “the widow and fatherless, the aged, impotent, or lame” who were unable to help themselves.
Each parish congregation was to provide for its own poor. The “stout and strong beggar” was to be compelled to work and all persons unable to work were to return to their places of birth or long-time residence in order to come under the care of the church within those bounds. Relief from church funds was given to those unemployed who were not responsible for their condition. The deacons were responsible both for collecting and allocating the funds. In his sermons, Calvin has a similar emphasis on the role of the deacon: “That there be a public office, and men appointed to have care of them that are in necessity, that things may be ordered as they ought”. Calvin goes on to emphasise the point in the most forthright way. “And, if it be not so, it is certain that we cannot brag that we have a well-ordered Church, and after the doctrine of the gospel, but a confused thing and hodgedopodge”.16
In 1574, an Act of the Scottish Parliament involved the Church in the care of the poor. The Session had to prepare an annual roll of the old, poor and unfit who had been born in the parish, or had lived there for seven years. The Session collected money or food weekly, to be shared among them. If the Session could not raise enough, then they could be given licences to beg around the houses. Much of this was already being undertaken by the Church. In 1562, for instance, the Kirk Session of Aberdeen ordered that a poor roll be compiled; all native-born poor were to be enrolled “conform to other godly reformed towns”, indicating that it was a widespread practice. The minister in Aberdeen was already assisting the Town Council in distributing to the poor.17
One cannot help contrast the acknowledged failures of our current national provision with this system of welfare. According to the UK Government, the current system is unsustainable because work incentives are poor and the system is too complex. That which the Reformers implemented was, on the other hand, straightforward, wise, personalised, local, uncorrupted, and those who gave to the relief of the poor were aware of those to whom the relief was going. While the success of the plans outlined by the Reformers may
16Sermons on the Epistles to Timothy & Titus, London, 1579; Banner of Truth reprint, 1983, p 297.
17Greaves, “The Social Awareness of John Knox”, p 37.
have been impeded, they were not at all prevented in their endeavours; they established a commendable system of poor relief on a scale virtually unknown elsewhere in Europe that continued until the mid-nineteenth century. W Stanford Reid remarks that the Church of Scotland was able “through its care of the poor and control of education to exert a powerful influence upon society as a whole”.18
Conclusion. Margo Todd uses the phrase, “a Puritan nation”, to describe the “profound cultural change” wrought by the Reformation in Scotland characterised by “abstemious self-restraint, sober but affective piety, unrelenting sabbatarianism, highly visible and rigorous social discipline”.19 We may well use the words of George Gillespie: “The Church of Scotland was blessed with a more glorious and perfect reformation than any of our neighbour Churches”.20 This describes accurately, not only the degree to which the doctrine and worship established were in conformity to the Word of God, but equally matters of reformation in practice.
As we reflect upon this history we see the light of the gospel breaking forth in Scotland and coming to a glorious dawn at the Reformation and then rising to a high noon of maturity and purity in 1596, the climax of Reformation strength. Just as quickly, however, clouds of persecution and corruption initiated by royal authority gathered with increasing solemnity upon the Church until they were wonderfully dispersed by the full strength of the revival of Covenanted reformation in 1638. The glory of this time passed into the darkest thunderclouds yet seen, as the blood of the martyrs was freely shed in Scotland. When all seemed darkest, the Lord “shot out lightnings, and discomfited them” (Ps 18:14) and restored to Scotland its Presbyterian Church.
The “cloudy and dark day” of Moderatism had then to be broken through by the radiant reviving work of God, which paved the way for a necessary Disruption from a vitiated state establishment. The sun was soon setting in Scotland, however, as men saw with grief the darkness of rationalism and apostasy stealing in upon them. In 1893 there were a few faithful witnesses who were willing to preserve what remained of the light, while that sun went down. Their children beheld something of the glow of better days sinking below the horizon. But we are here in this generation and it is night: the deepening darkness is one that can be felt.
As we look back upon a rich heritage, our condition may be described in
18 Trumpeter of God: a Biography of John Knox, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1974, p 289.
19 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, p 402.
20 Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies Obtruded upon the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1844, p v.
the words of the Lamentations of Jeremiah: “Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old” (Lam 1:7). By means of the Reformers, the Most High built and planted Scotland as a nation. An oppressed and illiterate people became well-educated and prosperous but, most importantly, instructed in the truth. It was a cultural revolution sweeping through the entire nation and transforming it in every area. We too, in our lifetime, have lived through a cultural revolution in Scotland, but one altogether opposed to that of the Reformation. It is a revolution which has effected the final subversion of the endeavours of the Reformers in both Church and state. Freedom has been eroded, education poisoned, lawful authority despised, truth derided and moral standards set aside. The journalist Peter Hitchens presents a telling analysis of this cultural revolution in his book The Abolition of Britain. We have witnessed the abolition of the Scotland that was brought about by the Reformation.
Men have been permitted by divine judgement upon this land to pluck up, pull down and destroy. The sins of the fathers are being visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations of them that hate God. Previous generations have abandoned the principles of the Reformation by which alone we may hope to retain its benefits. This is according to the words of God to Jeremiah, previously noted: If a nation “do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them”. The truth of the following words of Thomas M’Crie are all too evident in our experience: “If ever the time come when the attachment of the people of Scotland to Presbytery shall be loosened and give way, its effects will not be confined to religion”.21 The high privileges that we experienced as a consequence of the Reformation called for faithful exercise of the high responsibilities of maintaining such a heritage. The Church of Scotland has cast away this heritage to such an extent that it can only be described as in free-fall rather than decline, and it is estimated that it may cease to exist by 2033.
The national decline seems unstoppable and we are brought to cry out with the prophet Daniel: “O Lord what shall be the end of these things?” The counsel of the Lord to the prophet was: “Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days” (Dan 12:8,13). The faithful remnant are to keep their integrity; they will then be able to say, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; [we are] perplexed, but not in despair” (2 Cor 4:8). Their duty is to hold fast that which they have; to strengthen the things that remain, while not despising the day of small things.
In 1649 the Scottish General Assembly looked sadly upon England and
21 Miscellaneous Writings Chiefly Historical, Edinburgh, 1841, p 585.
Ireland, where the work of reformation seemed “not only to be retarded, but almost plucked up by the roots, and the foundation thereof razed”.22 In applying such a description to Scotland also in our own day we may be encouraged by their firm faith: “Yet the seed which the Lord hath sown there shall again ‘take root downward and bear fruit upward’. ‘The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform this.’” Habbakuk was told: “The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. . . . For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:3,14). We are to believe that the covenanted work of reformation has a future in Scotland, as James Guthrie, one of the first Covenanting martyrs, exclaimed seconds before his execution in 1661: “The Covenants, the Covenants, shall yet be Scotland’s reviving”.