Matthew Vogan
2. A Nation Revolutionised and Reformed
1. A Revolutionised Nation.
As the last state reformation in Europe, the Scottish Reformation was remarkably peaceful in its transition: the popish regime crumbled without the scale of brutal response witnessed elsewhere in Europe. As the historian Gordon Donaldson has noted, there were no massacres or wars of religion as in France, few of the horrific executions in England and little of the brutality witnessed in Germany and the Low Countries.2
We therefore use the word revolution cautiously and advisedly as meaning broad, fundamental and lasting changes in important aspects of people’s behaviour and in major features of society’s institutions. In applying the word revolution, we cannot emphasise too strongly that the Reformation in Scotland was the work of the Most High in His holy providence, plucking up and pulling down, and building and planting. If we consider the influence of the nobility as a factor in the success of the Reformation, it was the work of God to turn these men from the darkness of Romanism to the truth. John Knox observed that “the thirst of the poor people, as well as of the nobility here, is wondrous great”.3
W Stanford Reid wrote: “Of all the countries that accepted the Reformation in the sixteenth century, Scotland was probably the most unlikely. With a turbulent nobility, a corrupt church and a relatively poor economy, there seemed to be little chance that a radical religious and social reform would take place. Yet Scotland experienced a religious and intellectual revolution that drastically altered its whole orientation.”4 Previously, it was centred around the Roman Church and the traditions of men; now it was centred around God and His Word alone. The English correspondent Thomas Randolph observed this at first hand, commenting that “it is almost miraculous to see how the Word of God taketh place in this country. They are better willing to receive discipline here than in any country that ever I was in.”5
It is hard to overestimate the scale and significance of the radical changes effected with such speed and decisiveness by the Reformation. At a national level, it transformed government and politics, international relations, law and order, poor relief and education. We shall consider some of these in due course.
The extent of the corruptions requiring reform and the degree of reformation achieved are what highlight the revolutionary character of what took place in Scotland. Thomas M’Crie observes that “the corruptions by which the Christian religion was universally disfigured, before the Reformation, had grown to a greater height in Scotland than in any other nation within the pale of the western Church”.6
One of the most evident changes to community and family life was that the familiar markers in the calendar such as Romish festivals were swept away as the mere appointments of men, and the Christian Sabbath carefully observed instead. Thomas M’Crie made the following assessment of the importance as well as the national benefits of this change: “This thorough reform” in “abolishing at the Reformation . . . holidays and a multitude of other ceremonies, constitutes the high distinction of Scotland among the Protestant Churches. Its beneficial influence has extended to all departments of society; it has improved our temporal as well as our spiritual welfare.”7 The sheer number of holidays was a burden upon productivity whereas the Sabbath was conducive to it.
Previously, the Sabbath had been profaned by manual work at mills and salt-pans, shearing and harvesting, and by holding markets and fairs. Kirk sessions were careful to deal with offenders who profaned it in similar ways, or else by sporting activities or hanging out washing. It was to be kept “straitly”, or strictly, as a day of public and private worship. Sabbath-breakers could expect to be fined as well as to make public repentance. Burgh councils, for their part, ensured church attendance and saw that the Sabbath was not broken. The faithful exercise of discipline bore fruit for some kirk sessions such as that of St Andrews, where by 1600 it was necessary to establish a parallel Sabbath afternoon service.8
The scriptural standard of Sabbath observance has been one of the great boundary markers of the Reformation and its benefits in Scotland. There are few more powerful visual indications, therefore, of the extent to which Reformation truth has been trampled under foot in this land than the way in which the Sabbath is entirely profaned for business and pleasure throughout almost the whole land today.
The changes brought about by the Reformation affected the life of the individual citizen from cradle to grave in terms of an entirely different manner of administering baptism, marriage and burial. The individual would also have witnessed a complete change in the nature of the service that they attended, where they were now able to understand the service in their own language (rather than Latin) and were even permitted to participate in the praise. Even the way that the church building was organised presented a powerful visual symbol of change, with the pulpit taking over the central place that the altar had previously occupied. This often meant that the congregation now faced a pulpit placed on the south wall rather than the altar, which had been in front of the east wall. The focus of medieval Romanism was upon the mass, while the focus of the Reformation was upon the Word of God.
It is now increasingly recognised that psalm singing was a crucial factor in the success of the Reformation in Scotland and elsewhere.9 This was the way in which the Word of God took hold upon the hearts of a people who were not on the whole able to read it for themselves. Singing was a vital part of the life of society and the home at this time but previously it had been virtually absent from church. Knox tells us of one Elizabeth Adamson, who when dying asked for Psalm 103 to be sung because, she said, “at the teaching of the Psalm, began my troubled soul first effectually to taste of the mercy of my God”.10
The First Book of Discipline, which was the manual of church order introduced by the Reformers, declares that men, women, and children should be exhorted “to exercise themselves in the Psalms, that when the church conveneth and does sing, they may be the more able together with common heart and voice to praise God” (Ninth Head). By the end of the century it could be said that the people in general knew all or at least most of the psalms by heart. An event that demonstrated this was the return to the city, after enforced exile, of one of Edinburgh’s ministers, John Durie. He received a rapturous welcome by a crowd of 2000 who joined in the singing of Psalm 124.
We can compare the Reformation in Scotland with that which took place under Hezekiah’s reign: “Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly” (2 Chr 29:36). Scotland saw a sudden, radical and complete transformation. Maitland of Lethington witnessed it first hand and recorded: “It was no small wonder to see what victory the truth obtained by so uniform consent”.11 The Covenanter church historian, James Kirkton, wrote that “in Scotland the whole nation was converted by lump; and within ten years after Popery was discharged in Scotland, there was not in all Scotland ten persons of quality to be found who did not profess the true reformed religion, and so it was among the commons in proportion. Lo! Here a nation born in one day, yea, moulded into one congregation, and sealed as a fountain with a solemn oath and covenant: this was singular.”12
2. A Reformed Nation.
The Reformers sought Reformation of the whole of Scotland, which was now the first formally Presbyterian nation. “Christ’s religion” alone and no “other face of religion” was to be permitted in the realm.13 The First Book of Discipline urged it as necessary that Christ’s “evangel [or gospel] be truly and openly preached in every kirk and assembly of this realm; and that all doctrine repugnant to the same be utterly suppressed as damnable to man’s salvation” (First Head: Of Doctrine).
The Scots Confession could claim that “such [true Reformed] kirks we, the inhabitants of the realm of Scotland, professors of Christ Jesus, confess ourselves to have in our cities, towns, and places reformed” (chapter 18). The changes that Calvin had endeavoured to make in doctrine and practice within a city of 10 000 people were in Scotland successfully implemented across a very large land mass with a population of around one million. The Scottish Reformed Church claimed the active allegiance of all citizens within an entirely reformed nation which was the key difference with, for example, the Reformation in Holland.
Some are quick to observe that, while the Reformation created a Protestant nation, it did not create a nation of Protestants.14 The Reformers themselves were all too aware that their work was only beginning and accordingly they set out a blueprint for a godly society. They worked to establish, not just church discipline, but a Protestant state with civil laws and punishments in accordance with Scripture. Both Church and civil courts complemented each other in seeking to transform what was (in one historian’s words) a “particularly violent and disorderly society”.15 The First Book of Discipline draws the distinction between these jurisdictions. “Blasphemy, adultery, murder, perjury” were to be punished by the state. Other sins such as “drunkenness, excess (be it in apparel, or be it in eating and drinking), fornication, oppression of the poor . . . wanton words and licentious living tending to slander, do properly appertain to the Church of God, to punish the same as God’s Word commands” (Seventh Head: Of Ecclesiastical Discipline).
In defining the role of those engaged in civil government, the Scots Confession emphasised that, “not only they are appointed for civil policy, but also for maintenance of the true religion, and for suppressing of [any] idolatry and superstition whatsoever: as in David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others, highly commended for their zeal in that case, may be espied” (chapter 24). Among the first concerns of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was that “none be put in judicial offices to be magistrates, as provosts, baillies and officers of towns, excepting them who are also known to be plain and true professors of the evangel” and that this should also extend to judges and the national governing council known as the Lords of Secret Council.16
In 1564, the General Assembly expressed their concern at the “horrible crimes” abounding “without any correction”.17 The same year, Parliament responded to this pressure from the Kirk to uphold the moral law, and Acts against breaches of the Third, Fourth and Seventh Commandments were passed and posted in every burgh and sheriffdom in the land. This was a new feature and showed the national extent of the application of laws conformable to Scripture. Before the Reformation, the law courts in Scotland were denounced by the poet William Dunbar as corrupt. After the Reformation these were properly established, together with legal literature and education, and the bishops’ courts were abolished.
One area where the laws of the nation were reformed according to Scripture was marriage, which is foundational to a properly ordered and godly society. The First Book of Discipline asserts that marriage, as “the blessed ordinance of God, hath been so contemned and weakened” by “cursed Papistry” (Ninth Head) that no one married could be assured that they would continue to be so if the bishops and prelates wished to dissolve the marriage. The Romish Church before the Reformation had imposed restrictions on who could marry which went far beyond the prohibitions found in Scripture. Even when the relationship was no more than that of godmother or godfather (sponsors at the baptism of an infant) it was treated equally as incest.
Divorce was allowed in Scotland on the grounds of adultery from 1560 and on the grounds of desertion from 1573. The very first General Assembly of the Church of Scotland petitioned the state to make laws according to the prohibitions laid down in Scripture. The First Book of Discipline outlines a joint role for the Church and state in ensuring that the honour of marriage is preserved according to Scripture. Perhaps due to the way that marriage was weakened and despised by Romish regulation, adultery had become a widespread evil within the land. It was necessary to urge “that the law may now and hereafter be so established and executed, that this ungodly impunity of sin have no place within this realm” (Ninth Head).
In its canons of 1563 the Roman Catholic Council of Trent thunders anathemas of excommunication against those who say that the Roman Church does not have a right to establish impediments to marriage as it pleases and that only biblical prohibitions may be applied. It should be evident that divorce or the annulment of marriage was a very easy thing to obtain when there were any number of possible impediments. Similar impediments still exist today in the Roman Catholic Church, allowing Church authorities wide latitude in declaring an existing marriage null and void by interpreting canon law in favour of annulment. The effect of this is that, although a couple may have been legitimately married in the eyes of the state and/or a Protestant Church and have subsequently had children, the Roman Catholic Church can declare that the marriage never existed. Richard Bennett estimates that there are over 110 canon laws in relation to marriage which only a Roman Catholic canon lawyer can interpret accurately.18
When we consider together all of these changes within the nation, we can understand the significance of Roger Mason’s observation that the Reformation redefined “what it meant to be a Scot”.19 There was a desire that the moral condition of the people should conform to the requirements of God’s Word through godly laws. A new Scotland, a reformed Scotland, had been born.
1Last month’s article provided an Introduction to this Theological Conference paper.
2The Scottish Reformation, Cambridge University Press, 1960, p 75.
3Quoted in Iain H Murray, The Puritan Hope, Banner of Truth, 1971, p 5.
4″The Earls of Argyll and the Reformation”, Scottish Tradition, vol 17, 1992, pp 1-50.
5Quoted in Alec Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation, Manchester University Press, 2006, p 190.
6Life of John Knox, 1831, vol 1, p 14.
7Quoted in James Gilfillan, “Sketches of Sabbath Literature”, Anthology Of Presbyterian & Reformed Literature, vol 5, p 224.
8There are numerous further examples of insufficient space for increased congregations from Orkney to Berwickshire. Similar success against Sabbath-breaking can also be identified in Perth, Elgin and Newbattle. Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland, Yale University Press, 2002, pp 43,45.
9See John McCallum, Reforming the Scottish Parish: The Reformation in Fife, 1560-1650, Ashgate, 2010; Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, pp 71-72; Andrew Petegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp 60,64. Margo Todd suggests that “giving out the line” by the precentor would have helped the congregation to learn the metrical psalms by heart due to the repetition involved.
10The History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland, 1831, p 84.
11Peter Lorimer, The Scottish Reformation: A Historical Sketch, 1860, p 246.
12James Kirkton, The Secret and True History of the Church of Scotland, 1817, pp 21-22.
13An Act anent the Jurisdiction of the Kirk was passed in December 1567 by the Scottish Parliament, declaring that “there is no other face of Kirk, nor other face of religion, than is presently by the favour of God established within this realm, and that there be no other jurisdiction ecclesiastical acknowledged within this realm, other than that which is, and shall be within the same Kirk, or that which flows therefrom concerning the premises”. The Actis of King James the Sixt (Edinburgh, 1568), ff 12v-13r. This is also quoted in the National Covenant of 1638.
14John McCallum, Reforming the Scottish Parish, p 1.
15Michael F Graham, The Uses of Reform: “Godly Discipline” and Popular Behavior in Scotland and Beyond, 1560-1610, Brill, 1996, p 3.
16The Book of the Universal Kirk of Scotland, Alexander Peterkin, 1839, pp 3-4.
17The Book of the Universal Kirk, p 29.
18See relevant chapter in Richard Bennett, Catholicism: East of Eden, Banner of Truth, 2010.
19“Usable Pasts: History and Identity in Reformation Scotland”, The Scottish Historical Review, 76:1, April 1997, pp 54-68.