By Rev. John Colquhoun, Glendale
The Second Book of Discipline.
At the meeting of the General Assembly of 1577, a committee, which was appointed to consider the jurisdiction and discipline of the Church, were urged to prepare a systematic work on these points. When the Assembly met in April 1578 they proceeded to consider the system of ecclesiastical policy which their committee had framed. Its Articles, having been read, one by one, after mature deliberation the whole received the sanction of the General Assembly. This system of ecclesiastical government and discipline became known as the Second Book of Discipline, and from then onwards became the authorised standard of the church of Scotland in respect of government and discipline. The parliament, however, did not give its sanction to the Book, but the Assembly of April 1581 sanctioned that it should be inserted in the Register of the Acts of the Assembly, and thus acted on a well-known principle of the Scottish Church, that it had the right to frame its own legislation irrespective of what the civil powers might do. The framers of the Second Book of Discipline held that the practices which they condemned are either not according to the Word of God or are directly opposed to it, and they expressed that their conclusions are consistent with that Word. The scheme of church government which it sets forth is, in the main, that which determines the Constitution of the Presbyterian churches down to the present time. The celebrated Andrew Melville was one of the leading men in framing this book. He was on all the Committees employed in collecting materials, and arranging them under their several heads, and was present at most of the conferences held on the subjects, with Committees of the Privy Council and Parliament, and was thus largely instrumental, at this time in casting out the Bishops and setting up Presbytery, and defining the functions of Presbyterianism in a clearer manner than ever before.
Dr. Hetherington, speaking of the Second Book of Discipline, says, “It is equally opposed to arbitrary and lordly domination on the part of the clergy, and to popular confusion and misrule. It secures the liberty of the people in one of their most important privileges, — the choosing of those who shall watch for their souls, — without making them the final judges of the qualifications of those who shall be invested with this office. While it establishes an efficient discipline in every congregation, it also preserves that unity which ought to subsist among the different branches of the Church of Christ, — secures attention to those numerous cases which are of common concern and general utility, — and provides a remedy against particular acts of injustice and mal-administration arising from local partialities and partial information by the institution of larger assemblies, acting as courts of appeal and review, in which the interests of all are equally represented, and each enjoys the benefit resulting from the collective wisdom of the whole body. It encourages friendly co-operation between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities; but it, at the same time, avoids the confounding of their limits, — prohibits church courts from meddling with anything pertaining to the civil jurisdiction, — establishes their independence in all matters which belong to their own cognizance, — and guards against what is the great bane of religion and curse of the Church — a priesthood which is merely the organised puppet of the state, and moves and acts only as it is directed by a political administration. History, 6th edition, p. 48.”
The Assembly appointed Commissioners who were also appointed to lay the Second Book of Discipline before the king and council. Some of the Articles were agreed on, others were deferred to a future time. Upon the whole, at this conference, the Church had reason to regard her principles and regulations as formally confirmed. Parliament had passed an Act “gratifying and approving all acts and statutes previously made, agreeable to the Word of God for the maintainance of the liberty of the ‘true Kirk of God.'” Shortly after this Morton regained his ascendancy, and as the Church used its authority over his tulchan bishops the king was prevailed on to interfere with its jurisdiction with the result that the king wrote the Assembly forbidding them to deal with the bishops. The Assembly, in spite of this letter, proceeded to deal with the bishops and remonstrated with the king for interfering with the Church in his inherent right of spiritual jurisdiction. Hetherington says, “The year 1581 was an important one in the history of the Church of Scotland. The labours of the ablest men in the Church had been expended for several years in the preparation of a regular system of ecclesiastical policy. This had been at length matured, made the subject of conference with the privy council, their remarks considered by the Church, and the book again laid before the king and council, with the earnest request that it might attain the full ratification of an act of Parliament. But finding their endeavours still thwarted and evaded, the Assembly resolved to temporise no longer; but as they had already guided their conduct generally in accordance with its principles, they determined now to erect it, by an act of Assembly, into the condition of their avowed and accredited standard of government and discipline. Even in 1579 the Assembly had proceeded so far towards the erection of presbyteries, that they had decreed that ‘the exercise (or weekly meeting of the ministers and elders of contiguous parishes) might be judged a presbytery. History, 6th ed. p. 46.” This Second Book of Discipline declares that Jesus Christ has appointed a government in His Church, distinct from civil government, which is to be exercised by such office-bearers as He has authorised, and not by civil magistrates, or under their direction, civil authority has for its direct and proper object the promoting of external peace and quietness among the subjects; ecclesiastical authority, the direction of men in matters of religion, and which pertain to the conscience. The former enforces obedience by external means, the latter by spiritual means; yet, as they be both of God, and tend to one end, if they be rightly used, to wit, to advance the glory of God, and to have good and godly subjects, they ought to co-operate within their respective spheres, and fortify each other.
The Regent Morton, having regained power, tried to bring Scotland into line with England, and in the Superintendents appointed in the time of John Knox and in the tulchan bishops, a pretence for this corruption. The fallacy of this is apparent to the careful reader, and he can unhesitatingly come to the conclusion that the reformed Church of Scotland was from the beginning, as far as she could act, always taking her creed, her form of government, and her discipline, from the Word of God. In 1592, the Act known as the Great Charter of the Church of Scotland. Hetherington, in a footnote, says of this Act; “It deserves to be peculiarly remarked that some of the peculiarities of the Act of 1592, c. 116 are directly favourable to the Church in that very respect in which they have been thought unfavourable. No express mention is made of the Second Book of Discipline, but certain of its main topics are ratified, while others are passed over. Hence it has been argued that nothing has been ratified to the Church but what has been specifically mentioned in the Act itself, and that every other proposition in the Book of Discipline must be held to have been rejected. The true reason of this peculiarity in the Act appears to be the following:- When the Second Book of Discipline was laid before the privy council, certain articles, chiefly those relating to government and jurisdiction by Assemblies, Synods, and Presbyteries, were referred to further consideration, while others were at once ratified. Now, on comparing the copy of the Book of Discipline in Spotswood where the marginal comments of the privy council are given with the Act of 1592, it is remarkable that none of those marked ‘agreed’ are contained in the Act, while the chief of those marked ‘referred’ are. From this the conclusion seems inevitable, that having already agreed to these in the privy council, it was not held necessary to specify any but those which had been left for future consideration, and, consequently, that partly by the concurrence of the privy council in 1578, and partly by the Act of 1592, thus combined, the whole of the Second Book of Discipline was ratified, and became the law of the land, as well as the law of Church.” History, 6th ed. p. 54.
The Great Charter of the Church had some very serious defects of which King James took every advantage, and showed that the enforcement of discipline would be resisted. This only showed that his word could not be taken and that he was no lover of Presbyterianism. “He knew that there was a strong popish party still in England, and he was desirous of conciliating and procuring their support, which he sought to do by his lenient treatment of his own popish rebels. To this it may be added, that the political principles of papists were more agreeable to a monarch so devoted to despotic power and uncontrolled prerogative as James, than could possibly the free spirit which lived and breathed in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. For the same reason Episcopacy obtained his peculiar favour; as his cunning enabled him to perceive, that he might more easily exercise an influence over prelates who derived from him their wealth and titles, and who, as seekers of such selfish pre-eminence, were likely to be worldly-minded and sycophantish men, than he could ever hope to do upon ministers who, deriving nothing from him, owed him nothing but natural allegiance. And he had another reason for wishing to restore Prelacy: he thought that his doing so would recommend him to the favour and support of the English prelates, who both hated and feared the Presbyterian Church government of Scotland, as a standing rebuke to their own unscriptural system. All these reasons combined to induce this crafty yet weak-minded monarch to favour the treacherous abettors of despotism, civil and religious, and to discountenance the friends of genuine freedom, — a line of policy which he pursued throughout his life, and left as a dire heritage to his successors, and which they followed with infatuated pertinacity, till the ill-omened race reaped the baneful fruits of generations of falsehood and oppression, and became after years of exiled, dis-crowned, unhonoured, and unpitied wretchedness.” Hetherington’s History, p.58. King James showed publicly that he not only favoured Prelacy, but had secret leanings to Popery, and unashamedly broke faith with the Protestant Church. The Commissioners of Assembly met and chose James Melville to address the king. The occasion, however, required more than the mildness of James Melville, and his uncle, Andrew Melville, joined in with words which few kings ever heard. “Sir,” he said, “We will always humbly reverence your majesty in public; but since we have this occasion to be with your majesty in private, and since you are brought in extreme danger of your life and crown, and along with you the country and the Church of God are like to go to wreck for not telling you the truth and giving you faithful counsel, we must discharge our duty, or else be traitors both to Christ and you. Therefore, Sir, as divers times before I have told you, so now again I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of the commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. Sir, those whom Christ has called and commanded to watch over his Church, have power and authority from Him to govern his spiritual kingdom, both jointly and severally; the which no Christian king or prince should control and discharge, but fortify and assist; otherwise they are not faithful subjects of Christ and members of his Church.” This was a truth that was not very palatable to the king, but delivered with such dignity and power that it awed the king, and he declared that the popish lords had returned without his previous knowledge. Towards the end of 1596 he ordered the Commissioners of Assembly to leave Edinburgh, as they had no royal authority to meet there, and an Act of Council was passed, ordaining the ministers, before receiving their stipends, to subscribe a bond, in which they promised to submit to the king and the privy council as often as they were accused of seditious or treacherous conduct. A missive was then prepared for calling a Convention of the Estates and a General Assembly for 15th February 1597. From this it was perfectly clear that the entire overthrow of Presbyterianism of the Church of Scotland was intended and the Second Book of Discipline was treated as if it did not exist.
In 1616 an Assembly was held in Aberdeen at which a new Confession of Faith was drawn up by the prelates. It was orthodox in its doctrine, but otherwise in its government of the church and in its discipline. By this Assembly the popish Lords were received into favour they subscribed the new Confession, which indicates the nature of that Confession. From now on the Second Book of Discipline was a dead letter and Prelacy held sway. The bishops were the “Constant Moderators” of the courts of the Church and the slaves of the king, but tyranny was not always to rule, for their triumph was short-lived. Robert Bruce, who was one of the ministers of Edinburgh, was banished from his flock in Edinburgh, but in the various places to which he was exiled, his labours were greatly blessed, and many able ministers of that time had to acknowledge cheerfully their indebtedness to him. God did not leave Scotland and there were times of refreshing from His presence, such as at the Kirk of Shotts in 1630 when John Livingston preached on the Monday of a Communion and nearly five hundred came under the power of the truth. It was during this time that Laud’s Prayer Book was mooted, and its introduction roused Scotland as nothing else would. When the Prayer Book was read in St. Giles one of the wildest tumults witnessed by Scotland broke out. The dean had to give up reading, and the efforts of the Bishop to quieten the people did not meet with a better fate. Without entering into the false accusations by the prelates and the tergiversation of King Charles I. and the protestations of those who were in favour of the Presbyterian form of Church government, the National Covenant was signed not by the will of King Charles or his councillors, but by the voice of the people. The privy council next called a meeting of Parliament in Edinburgh in May 1639 and a meeting of the General Assembly in November 1638, to meet in Glasgow. At the Glasgow Assembly, Alexander Henderson was chosen as Moderator, and continued the Assembly after the King’s Commissioner had dissolved it. In this Assembly, among other things, the Presbyterian government of the Church of Scotland by Kirk-sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies, was restored, and the Second Book of Discipline was restored to its rightful place. The Bishops were also deposed. King Charles prepared for war but it did not prove a success and he left the stage of time with the unenviable reputation of being the only British king who died on the scaffold. The English Service Book had not the authority of any church court or any civil court. As such an unsparring critic of the Church as Andrew Lang said, “An act of sheer royal autocratic papacy.” King Charles left this life in the manner said, and was succeeded by the period known as the Commonwealth where the reigning power was not very favourable to Presbyterianism. Afterwards the Restoration took place, during which King Charles II, and King James II reigned, and being papists, claiming absolute sovereignty, the notorious “killing times” took place, when God’s witnesses were hunted like partridges among the moor-hags and mountains in our beloved land till the Revolution of 1688.