In the decades preceding 1560 the ground was being cleared for a complete break with Rome. Under the influence of Reformed literature and the preaching of those truths by brave Reformers, a spiritual movement resulted in “privy kirks” being set up in different areas in the years immediately preceding the Reformation. James Kirk writes: “Such was the assurance of salvation which one individual, Elizabeth Adamson, experienced from participation in these secret Protestant assemblies for Scripture study and prayer, fostered in Edinburgh by Knox and others, that on her deathbed this wife of a prominent merchant and magistrate (himself in touch with Knox from Geneva days) rejected all offers of priestly ministration and intercession. ‘Depart from me, ye sergeants of Satan’, she is reported to have uttered, ‘for I have refused, and in your own presence do refuse, all your abominations. That which ye call your sacrament and Christ’s body (as ye have deceived us to believe in times past) is nothing but an idol, and has nothing to do with the right institution of Jesus Christ: and therefore, in God’s name, I command you not to trouble me’”.
Extreme unction and the services of a Church which hitherto was seen to hold the key to unlock the doors of the kingdom of heaven were despised by Elizabeth Adamson in Edinburgh. Instead, with a simple evangelical piety, she asked those around her to sing Psalm 103 because, as she explained, “at the teaching of this Psalm, began my troubled soul first effectually to taste of the mercy of my God, which now to me is more sweet and precious than [if] all the kingdoms of the earth were given to me to possess them a thousand years”.2 It was this underground network of Protestant communities which grew in strength over the 30 years preceding the Reformation and which in 1560 seized control of parish kirks from priests and patrons and handed over that control to ministers and elders; in this way Kirk Sessions were set up based on the privy kirks. The privy kirks therefore formed a bridge between the early, unorganised, unformed movement towards reformation and the setting up of the Church established by law in Scotland.
The first attempt to give public expression to the Kirk in Scotland was made when Knox was appointed minister over a group of Protestants who occupied St Andrews castle after Cardinal Beaton’s murder in 1546. Knox said at the time: “We must define the Church by the right notes given to us in God’s Scriptures of the true Church”. And again: “I will be of none other church except of that which hath Christ Jesus to be pastor, which hears His voice, and will not hear a stranger”.3 Though this particular attempt at laying the foundation blocks for the Kirk was quickly cut short when the castle was overrun by French soldiers and the occupants shipped off to captivity, it was an important statement of a desire to be fulfilled after 1560. A Roman Catholic, John Leslie, noted at that time how Protestant preaching took place “in chimney nooks, secret holes and such private places, to trouble the whole country, quench all quietness, and banish all peace out of the land”.4
By 1559 there were Reformed congregations, not only in Edinburgh, but also in other main centres and even through the country districts. Some from these congregations were elected to “occupy the supreme place of exhortation and reading”, while others were “called as elders to exercise a godly discipline, or as deacons to collect and distribute alms for the poor within the group”. In August 1559 the Town Council of Dundee agreed a stipend for the town’s preacher and recognised the work of the Kirk Session already operating. The privy kirks embraced all levels of society and, although they did not themselves effect the Reformation of 1560, they gave structure and coherence to that Reformation when it did take place. It was to such gatherings that Knox wrote a “Letter of Wholesome Counsel” in 1556, in which he directs how such assemblies should worship: “‘There should be confession of sins, invocation of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, readings of passages from Old and New Testaments, followed by exposition, thanksgiving and intercession’. These were the first directions given for the introduction of Reformed worship in Scotland.”5
The ground was cleared for laying the foundations of the Reformation when, in August 1560, the Scottish Parliament passed acts casting off the Pope’s entire jurisdiction, annulled all former acts in favour of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, forbade under heavy penalties the saying and hearing of mass, and adopted the Confession of Faith drawn up by Knox and others. Thus the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland lost its position as a state Church. The Confession was adopted by the first parliament of the infant James VI in 1567 as the Confession of Faith professed and believed by the Protestants within the realm of Scotland, published by them in Scotland, and by the Estates “authorised as a doctrine grounded upon the infallible Word of God”.6
Professor Lyall points out that what we have here “is the Confession published by the Protestants of Scotland and ratified and approved by Parliament. The civil authority does not act, it approves a statement formulated outside of itself. Again, it is not the Confession of the Church of Scotland at this stage. Nor is it adopted or put forward by authority of that Church. It is the Confession of the Protestants in Scotland, and no institutional church is referred to.”7
Though The Scots Confession was replaced in 1644 by the fuller and more carefully-systematic document, The Westminster Confession, it was notable for its freshness and directness and, as becomes a confession of faith, it appears to come from the heart. Among its 25 articles, the section on good works is of particular relevance to the setting up of Presbyterianism in Scotland. There Knox and his colleagues inveigh against any idea of merit or supererogatory virtue. Good works are those done in faith and in obedience to God’s commandments, but they are not done by man’s free will. “The Spirit of the Lord Jesus dwelling in us by faith brings forth good works.” Having in view the gross errors of the Roman Church, this section goes on to state that, not only are contraventions of the moral law evil, but so also are those “that in matters of religion and worshipping of God have no assurance but the invention and opinion of man, which God from the beginning has ever rejected”. This was in accord with the view of Calvin that, in the worship of God, nothing was permissible which did not have express Scripture warrant. Calvin states, “The whole sum of righteousness, and all the parts of divine worship, and everything necessary to salvation, the Lord has faithfully comprehended, and clearly unfolded, in His sacred oracles so that in them He alone is the only Master to be heard”.8 We have here, in other words, a plain statement of the Regulative Principle. This insistence on drawing guidance from Scripture alone would have its application in Scotland in the form of Church government and the establishment of Presbyterianism.
Burleigh highlights another relevant and important statement of The Scots Confession concerning the nature of the true Church of God: “Where there is true preaching of the Word of God, right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, ‘which must be annexed to the Word and promise of God, to seal and confirm the same in our hearts,’ and ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered ‘as God’s Word prescribes . . . there is the true Church of Christ . . . not the universal Church but the particular Church such as was in Corinth . . . and other places in which the ministry was planted by Paul’. ‘Such Kirks we, the inhabitants of the Realm of Scotland, professors of Christ Jesus, confess us to have in our cities, towns and places reformed . . .’ “The stress on ‘the particular Kirk’ is not due simply to the historical situation at the time when the Confession was written, but to a fundamental principle of the Calvinist Reformation, according to which the Church shows its face where the Christian people gather for instruction and worship around the Word. Wider organisation, national or ecumenical, may be helpful to refute heresies or declare the faith or ‘for good order and policy’ to be observed in the Church, but the life of the Church is in the local congregation, where Christ has promised to be present.”99
One significant document drawn up by Knox and four other ministers was The First Book of Discipline. This book set out the polity of the Scottish Church. On the relative duties of ministers, elders and deacons, it laid down what was already the established practice in many places. In proposing an educational system from village school to university, open to all, with financial help available to the poor, it was farsighted and ambitious, having as its main aim a well-educated ministry for the Kirk. In respect to discipline there had been some anxiety that Kirk Sessions were encroaching on the proper preserve of the magistrate, but The First Book of Discipline made it clear that discipline was only to be exercised where the personal behaviour of church members brought slander on the Church.10
After the acts of Parliament noted above were passed, the first General Assembly took place in December 1560; it was composed of ministers, elders, burgesses, lairds and nobles. The First Book of Discipline was not clear on the national church court but it was entirely clear in its instructions at a more local level. They included the following: “Once a week in every town, that exercise that St Paul calleth prophesying is to be held”. The reference is to 1 Corinthians 14:31: “That ye may all prophecy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted”. This “exercise”, for Bible study, was to be attended by ministers and elders within a six-mile radius and was not only for the benefit of the ministers themselves but for the education of readers and exhorters, who thus had a door open to them to become ministers over a period of time if it could be shown that they had benefited by this weekly class.11
The Reformers urged the importance of the exercise for the Church of God in Scotland, though with certain cautions against doctrinal error, over-curiosity, and the use of invective in the free discussion.12 This weekly meeting of all the ministers in an area became the basis of the meetings of presbytery. The First Book of Discipline recognised four classes of ordinary and permanent office holders: the pastor, the doctor or teacher, the elder and the deacon. Two other offices, that of superintendent and reader, were created, having in view the scarcity of ministers and the needs of the times; they were not expected to continue when the situation became more settled.13
Another important book, The Book of Common Order, was written by Knox and was an extension of a book of common order he had written, with help from Calvin, for the English Church he had pastored in Geneva. It was a guide to ministers in performing their functions and bound up with it were the Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms and the Apostles Creed. It was used by readers to conduct worship in the absence of a minister. It was published in 1662 in Edinburgh and confirmed by the General Assembly in December of that year as “a uniform order to be kept”.
1Last month’s article provided an introduction to the subject.
2James Kirk, Patterns of Reform, T & T Clark, 1989, pp 1,2.
3Kirk, Patterns of Reform, p 10.
4Kirk, Patterns of Reform, p 12.
5J J Murray, The Reformation 1560, p 29.
6G D Henderson (ed), The Scots Confession of 1560, Saint Andrews Press, 1960, p 3.
7Francis Lyall, Of Presbyters and Kings, Aberdeen University Press, 1980, p 13.
8Institutes of the Christian Religion, Beveridge translation, Eerdmans 1957 reprint, vol 2, p 436.
99J H S Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland, pp 156-7.
10See J H S Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland, p 172.
11J H S Burleigh, A Church History of Scotland, p 169.
12See J J Murray, The Reformation 1560, p 43.
13Thomas M’Crie, The Story of the Scottish Church, Free Presbyterian Publications 1988 reprint, p 48.