IX.—Violations of the Contract between Church and State.
By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
In the foregoing articles we have seen the Reformed Church of Scotland, at its very beginning, was Presbyterian in its government, and as such, that it owned no head but the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was not to lord it over the State, nor yet was it subordinate to the State in spiritual matters, and that it was the duty of the State to support religion. This position is crystal clear from the history of the time and from the subordinate standards of the Church. It is equally clear that the State accepted this to be the position of the Church, and in 1567, when Parliament recognised the jurisdiction of the Church in spiritual matters it enacted that “no other jurisdiction ecclesiastical within this realm be acknowledged than that which is, and shall be within the same Kirk established presently, or which floweth therefrom concerning preaching the Word, correction of manners, and administration of the sacraments; wherein the same jurisdiction consisteth.” Calderwood’s History of the Kirk, II. p. 390. In other words the Reformed Church in Scotland was established by law and became the Established Church of Scotland. In this, Parliament did not profess to confer any power or jurisdiction upon the Church; it merely acknowledged in legal form the jurisdiction and power already belonging to her. It did not in any way interfere with what the duty of the Church was in spiritual matters, and made no provision for an appeal from her Courts to the civil Courts, but having accepted and endorsed the subordinate standards of the Church, accepted the position that all matters decided by the Supreme Courts of the Church, within its own province, was finally disposed of. In this, which may be reckoned as a contract between the Church and the State, freely entered into and mutually consented to by both parties, there was no provision made for either of the parties to withdraw from it, it follows that it was binding on both parties for all time, and that, in the event of one party breaking the contract it was the duty of the adhering party to insist that the other party adhere to the contract.
It was, however, a dictum of one of the Stewart Kings, and acted on by them all, that “Presbyterianism was not a religion for a gentleman,” as they also acted on another equally famous dictum “no Bishop, no King.” We have seen, in previous articles, how the covetousness of the Scottish nobility was extended to the Church’s patrimony and how this originated the “Tulchan Bishops.” After the excommunication of Montgomery, the pretended archbishop of Glasgow, the king, who had recently mounted the Throne, together with his Council declared the Church’s sentence null and void. This caused the Assembly to meet pro re nata when Andrew Melville, as Moderator, denounced this New Popedom of the king claiming supremacy both in Church and State. The State had broken the contract with the Church and the duty of the Church was to remonstrate with the State. This it did in the form of a Statement of its grievances to be presented to the King at Perth by a deputation from the Assembly, headed by the intrepid Melville.
Having obtained access to the King and such of his courtiers as were present, the interview is best described by Melville’s nephew, the minister of Anstruther. “At last the Commissioners of the Kirk were called, who coming in before the King and his Council, delivered their Grievs and Articles, which being read, Captain James begins to threaten, with drawn brow, and boasting language, ‘What,’ says he, ‘who dare subscribe these treasonable articles?’ Mr. Andrew answers, ‘We dare, and will subscribe them; and give our lives in the cause.’ And with that starts to, and takes the pen from the clerk, and subscribes and calls to the rest of the brethren with courageous speeches, who all came and subscribed. This boldness, when the Duke and the Captain perceived, they gathered therefrom that the Kirk had a backing, and became afraid; and, after some calmer language, dismissed them in peace, when every one supposed they should have been hardier dealt with,” Diary of James Melville, p. 95, Bannatyne Club edition. While, for the moment, the courtiers were put to silence, and were convinced that the Church was not to be trifled with, yet the State added to its former delinquencies by rescinding in 1584 the whole of the previous legislation in favour of the Church by passing what is known as the Black Acts. Three of the Church’s leading men, Pont, Balcenqual, and Lawson, went to the Cross of Edinburgh when the Acts were proclaimed and took a formal public protest against these Acts, in order to suspend their legal force. According to King-Hewison, “A Protest was a formidable legal instrument in use in Scotland for protecting the subjects of the Crown from the sudden operation of unacceptable statutes. It meant entering an appearance in the highest law courts to ask trial of the legality of any new ordinance.” The Covenanter, I. p. 259. “The unassailable act in the technical procedure of these protesters was, the respectful tendering of their legal instrument, in due and ancient form, to the King’s heralds.” Ibid, p. 290.
By the passing of the Black Acts, Presbytery was overthrown, and it was accounted treason not to accept the judgment of the King, or of the Privy Council, in religious matters as well as in civil. No gathering, civil or ecclesiastical, was permitted except with the King’s consent. This prohibition aimed at the abolition of the General Assembly, and was intended to put the whole government of the Church in the hands of the King, and, “though eversive of all liberty, civil and natural, as well as ecclesiastical, not a nobleman, baron, or burgess, ventured to open his mouth against them. . . . All ministers and masters of colleges and schools were required to subscribe a bond, in which they engaged to obey the late Acts of Parliament, and to acknowledge the bishops as their ecclesiastical superiors, under the pain of being forever deprived of their benefices and salaries. Life of Melville, 3rd edition, p. 105. Although the most of the ministers stood out, at the time, against this bond, yet many, even among the most prominent of them, were trapped into subscribing it when an ambiguous clause was craftily introduced. This brought about a period of bondage and persecution for the Church of Scotland which was only brought to an end by the passing of the Act of 1592 by which Parliament ratified the meeting of General Assemblies, and enacted that all the Acts which took away the liberties of the Church be abrogated; “that it shall be lawful for the kirk and ministers, every year at the least, and oftener pro re nata, as occasion and necessity shall require, to hold and keep General Assemblies, providing that the Kings Majesty or his Commissioners with them, to be appointed by His Highness be present at each General Assembly, before the dissolving thereof nominate and appoint time and place, when and where the next General Assembly shall be held. And in case neither His Majesty nor his said Commissioners be present for the time in that town where that General Assembly shall be held, then, and in that case, it shall be lawful to the said General Assembly, by themselves, to nominate and appoint time and place where the next General Assembly of the Kirk shall be kept and held, as they have been in use to do these times bypast.” Calderwood’s Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Vol. v. p. 163.
A variety of circumstances, such as the terror of Bothwell still remaining in the country, the corpse of the murdered Earl of Murray lying unburied in the Church of Leith, and the universal suspicion that the King was not free of guilt in the matter, together with the outspokenness of the ministers in the pulpit procured this Act far beyond the expectation of the ministry.
These restored liberties continued only for a brief season, and the subsequent history of the Church of Scotland is a lucid commentary on the words, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” Psalm cxlvii. 3. William Scot, minister of Cupar, says, “The devil, envying the happiness and laudable proceedings of our kirk, stirred up both Papists and politicians to disturb her peace and deface her beauty. The Papists perceived that there was no rest for them in Scotland, if the authority which the Kirk had, continued. Politicians feared their craft and trade, which is to use indifferently all sorts of men and means to attain their own ends, and to set themselves up in the throne of Christ, should be undone.” Apologetical Narration, p. 67. Very soon King James was back at his favourite game of bringing in Episcopacy, and, alas, among the ministry he found court sycophants who were quite willing to become bishops, and so, in the Parliament held in 1697 it was granted that so many of the ministry as the King should promote to the office, place, title, and dignity of a bishop, abbot, or other prelate, shall at all times hereafter, have a vote in Parliament.
It was on this occasion that Mr. John Davidson, Minister of Prestonpans, uttered the memorable words, “Busk (dress) husk, busk him as bonnily as ye can, and bring him in as fairly as ye will; we see him weill eneuch; see how he setteth up the horns of his mitre.” What Christ’s true witnesses in Scotland thought of Bishops in the Episcopal Church is best brought out in the words of Andrew Melville: “This pre-eminence of bishops is that Dagon which once already fell before the ark of God in this land, and no hand of iron shall be able to hold it up again. This is that pattern of an altar brought from Damascus, but not showed to Moses in the mountain, and therefore it shall fare with it as it did with that altar of Damascus; it came last into the temple and went first out. Likewise the institution of Christ was anterior to this pre-eminence of bishops, and shall consist and stand within the house of God when this new fashion of altar shall go to the door . . . If ye should, as God forbid, authorise the authority of bishops, and their pre-eminence above their brethren, ye should bring into the Kirk of God the ordinance of man, and that thing which the experience of preceding ages hath testified to be the ground of great idleness, palpable ignorance, unsufferable pride, pitiless tyranny, and shameless ambition in the Kirk of God.”
The struggles which followed the restoration of bishops we have touched upon in other articles and do not intend to take them up at present but will pass over that part of the history of our Reformation heritage and come to the glorious Revolution when the Stewart kings, after generations of them had unsuccessfully attempted to set up a despotic rule had to seek an asylum in France, and the liberties of the Church of Scotland were again recognised by Parliament. Before doing so, however, we shall pause to notice something which took place during a very dark part of these troublous times, and something that had a very important bearing upon the history of the Church of Scotland, that is, the meetings of the Westminster Assembly, and the Standards which were framed at these meetings, and which became the Subordinate Standards of the Scottish Church.