1. A Thorough Work
D Hay Fleming
If the Reformation in Scotland had to be characterised in one word, that word might be thorough. Its thoroughness was at once its chief characteristic and its glory. Writing in 1566, John Knox boldly affirmed that, as for the administration of the sacraments and for doctrine, there was no realm on the face of the earth that had them in greater purity, or even in the same degree of purity. Other countries, even those sincere in doctrine, retained in their churches “some footsteps of Antichrist, and some dregs of Papistry”; but “we (all praise to God alone) have nothing within our churches that ever flowed from that man of sin”.
It was not only in doctrine and in the administration of the sacraments that the Scottish Church forsook the “footsteps of Antichrist” and rid itself from the “dregs of Papistry”. As the leaders had informed Mary of Guise,2 in November 1558, they not only desired to have the lives of the clergy amended; they wished “Christ’s religion to be restored to the original purity”, so that “the grave and godly face of the primitive Church” might be restored, ignorance expelled, and true doctrine and good manners appear again “in the Church of this realm”.
Had there been a strong ruler on the throne determined to oppose the Reformers, their task in overthrowing the Papacy and in trying to bring about their ideal of a Church would have been much more difficult, perhaps impossible. John Row, the historian, explains how they formed their ideal: the ministers did not take “their pattern from any Kirk in the world; no, not from Geneva itself; but, laying God’s Word before them, made reformation according thereunto, both in doctrine first, and then in discipline”.3
This John Row was born in the winter of 1568-69, and was a son of the John Row who helped to prepare the 1560 Confession of Faith and the First Book of Discipline, and therefore ought to have known fairly well how the work of reformation had been planned; but the statement quoted cannot be accepted as literally accurate. Possibly all that he meant was that, in preparing the Confession and Book of Discipline, the framers did not follow any other Church implicitly or blindly; but, having the open Bible before them, they judged for themselves. The commissioners of the Church of Scotland, when in London in 1644, thus spoke of their reforming predecessors: “They had no other rule and pattern of reformation but the Word of God, and the practice of the apostolic churches in the Word. . . . Our chiefest Reformers had indeed their education in other churches, which was the goodness of God to them and us; there did they see examples of reformation, and conversed with other Reformers by whom they were taught from the Word in the ways of God, and thence did they bring . . . models of church government, that comparing one with another they might fix upon that which was builded upon the foundation of the Apostles.”
That they were influenced to some extent by other Churches is certain. A F Mitchell has shown that, while the Confession of 1560 has characteristics of its own, it often coincides in expression, and agrees generally in its definitions of doctrine, with the other Reformed or Calvinistic Confessions. The Order of Geneva, used in the English congregation at Geneva, of which Knox was a minister, was adopted bodily in the Scottish Book of Common Order and afterwards enlarged.
The Confession of Faith, after being read before the lords of the articles4 and afterwards in open Parliament, was on 17 August 1560 ratified by the Three Estates5 “as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of God’s Word”. It was published not as a mere ecclesiastical, but as a national, document in the name of “the Estates of Scotland with the inhabitants of the same professing Christ Jesus’ holy evangel”; it was addressed “to their natural countrymen and to all other realms and nations professing the same Christ Jesus with them”.
The paragraph following the greeting may, with considerable certainty, be ascribed to Knox, but it is also evidently intended to run in the name of the Estates and the inhabitants of Scotland: “If any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugnant to God’s holy Word, that it would please him of his gentleness, and for Christian charity’s sake, to admonish us of the same in writing; and we of our honour and fidelity do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God (that is, from His holy Scriptures) or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss”.
The sentences which immediately follow are also remarkable, and are not such as would, in these degenerate days,6 be readily inserted in a declaration by Parliament: “For God we take to record in our consciences that, from our hearts, we abhor all sects of heresy and all teachers of erroneous doctrine; and that with all humility we embrace the purity of Christ’s evangel, which is the only food of our souls; and therefore so precious unto us that we are determined to suffer the extremity of worldly danger, rather than that we will suffer ourselves to be defrauded of the same. For hereof we are most certainly persuaded that whosoever denies Christ Jesus, or is ashamed of Him, in presence of men, shall be denied before the Father and before His holy angels. And therefore, by the assistance of the mighty Spirit of the same Lord Jesus, we firmly purpose to abide to the end in the Confession of this our faith.”
This Parliament was in several respects exceptional; it was an outstanding feature of the Reformation. It was held in virtue of the concessions granted, on 6 July 1560, to the nobles and people of Scotland by two of the commissioners whom Francis7 and Mary had appointed with full powers. It was agreed that, on certain conditions, the Scottish Parliament should meet and be “as valid in all respects as if it had been called and appointed by the express commandment of the King and Queen”.
From the days of James I many Scottish Parliaments had begun their legislative work by passing an Act fortifying the freedom and privilege of Holy Kirk. But in 1560 the Roman Church, so long regarded as the Holy Kirk, was by Parliament condemned and overthrown. In the Confession of Faith, ratified on August 17, it was referred to as “the horrible harlot the Kirk malignant” and as “the Papistical Kirk”; and on August 24 four Acts were passed which swept Roman Catholic power out of Scotland.
By the first of these, it was ordained that “the Bishop of Rome” should have no jurisdiction or authority within the realm in time coming; that no one should sue to him for any right or title to anything within the realm; and that no prelate of this realm should have any jurisdiction, in time coming, by authority of the Bishop of Rome.
By the second Act, all previous legislation “not agreeing with God’s Word” and contrary to the Confession of Faith, was annulled. Both of these Acts run in the name of the Three Estates of Parliament.
The third Act declares that “it is perfectly known that the sacraments of baptism and of the body and blood of Jesus Christ has been in all times past corrupted by the Papistical Kirk and by their usurped ministers”; and ordains no person or persons say mass or hear mass or be present at it, under pain of having all their goods confiscated, and corporal punishment at the discretion of the magistrate for the first offence, banishment for the second, and death for the third.
By the fourth Act, it was ordained that all parties having cases in the courts of Rome should instead pursue and defend them before a civil court in Scotland. This Act was ratified, approved, and confirmed on 29 November 1581, by James VI and the Three Estates of Parliament, who declared them to have been “a common law” from 24 August 1560.
Of these four Acts, the first three were ratified and approved in the Regent Murray’s first Parliament on the 20th December 1567. On the same day the Confession of Faith was by the Estates “authorised as a doctrine grounded upon the infallible Word of God” (instead of being, as in 1560, “ratified and approved as wholesome and sound doctrine grounded upon the infallible truth of God’s Word”).
1Taken, with editing, from Hay Fleming’s The Reformation in Scotland.
2Wife of King James V and mother of Mary Queen of Scots, she acted as Regent of Scotland after her husband’s death, during her daughter’s childhood.
3John Row, Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1842, p. 12 (with modern spelling).
4A parliamentary committee.
5These were the prelates, the nobility and the representatives of the royal burghs.
6The book was published in 1910.
7King of France and Mary’s husband.
Hypocrisy is as fatal as avowed unbelief.
There are no circumstances in which genuine faith cannot sustain the heart of the pious. Moses’ parents were as calm as if all was right around them when they were utterly disregarding the king’s wicked edict requiring all male children to be put to death. Yet their faith was not presumption. They used all proper means, but they trusted in God to bless the means. He who assures His people of final victory tells them they must be faithful unto death, watch and pray, fight on and never give over till they are safely lodged in heaven. He who despises duty despises promises and Him that made them. God can preserve us in the darkest hour and greatest peril, but He has not bound Himself to protect the reckless.
W S Plumer
The Glorious Gospel
W K Tweedie
Romans 5:6. In due time Christ died for the ungodly.
Not for the virtuous; in God’s eye there are none such, for all are “become filthy”. Not for the penitent, for Christ has been exalted “a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance, and no one can possess it till they come to Christ to obtain it. Not for the reformed, for in God’s estimation there is no valid reformation till men are in Christ and become new creatures under the converting power of the Spirit. Not even for believers, for faith is itself a “gift of God”, and cannot be the procuring cause of His favour.
“For the ungodly” then; for sinners, even the chief; for those who are by nature the children of wrath and dead in trespasses and in sin – for these did the Redeemer die. This is the glorious gospel of the grace of God: salvation for the chief of sinners. Man would be satisfied if he was permitted to think that his tears, at least, or his sighs and his contrition had some share in procuring the favour of his God; but that is only a portion of the smoke from the abyss. The sighs and tears and contrition of a sinner are all tainted by sin, and therefore they can only obtain condemnation from God.
In His wisdom and compassion these are the terms of the gospel: “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” – for those who were without God in the world, were aliens from hope, and had in themselves no portion but sin, no heritage but despair. This is the sheet anchor of the self-condemned. Here is the divine method of meeting the law’s demands, of satisfying the challenges of conscience, and teaching us to join in the noble anthem, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”
Rejoice then and be exceeding glad, O my soul, for here is the good news: Christ died for the ungodly. Hold up the hands which hang down, for Christ died for sinners, even the chief, for the ungodly to make them godly, for sinners to make them saints.
1Taken, with editing, from Tweedie’s volume, Glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace.