Melville's sketch of Knox.
James Melville, whose plastic nature and gentle spirit retained through life the impressions then made, supplements in his Diary the notices in Bannatyne's Memorials, and, in a passage which has been often quoted, gives a very fresh and vivid sketch of the old reformer. "Bot of all the benefites I haid that yeir"—the first year he was a student in St Andrews, and had "drunk of St Leonard's well"—"the greatest," he tells us, "was the coming of that maist notable profet and apostle of our nation, Mr Jhone Knox, to St Androis; wha be the faction of the Quein occupeing the castell and town of Edinbruche was compellit to remove thairfra with a number of the best, and chusit to com to St Androis. I hard him teatche ther the prophecie of Daniel that simmer and the wintar following. I haid my pen and my litle book, and tuk away sic things as I could comprehend. In the opening upe of his text he was moderat the space of an halff houre; bot when he enterit to application he maid me sa to grew and tremble that I could nocht hald a pen to wryt. I hard him oftymes utter these thretenings [against the faction then] in the hicht of their pryde, quhilk the eis [i.e., eyes] of monie saw cleirlie brought to pass withinfew yeirs upon the captean of that castle, the Hamiltones, and the Quein hirselff. He ludgit down in the Abbay besyde our Collage."[228]So far was it from being true, as is commonly asserted, that he had caused the destruction of the abbey and of the abbey church or cathedral in 1559, that in 1571 he found a habitable building there, in which he, a frail old man, with his wife and children, could pass the winter in comfort. It, we know from a letter of his antagonist, Archibald Hamilton, was "the new ludgene of the abbey,"[229]ornovum hospitium, built for the reception of Mary of Guise, the queen of James V.[230]It was in the immediate vicinity of St Leonard's College, and our diarist further tells us: "Our regents, Mr Nicol Dalgleise, Mr Wilyeam Colace, and Mr Jhone Davidsone, went in ordinarilie to his grace [or devotionalexercises] efter denner and soupper.... Mr Knox wald sum tymes com in and repose him in our Collage yeard [that is the gardens immediately to the west of thenovum hospitium, adjoining St Leonard's College], and call us schollars unto him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw God and His wark in our contrey, and stand be the guid cause, to use our tyme weill, and lern the guid instructiones, and follow the guid exemple of our maisters."[231]No wonder, in these circumstances, that he is able to add, "Our haill collage, maisters and schollars, war sound and zelus for the guid cause," or that we can now still further add that thence proceeded several of the men who were to uphold it most resolutely in the evil days which followed.
Opposition in St Andrews.
In the New College we are told, "whowbeit Mr Jhone Dowglass, then Rector [and Principal] was guid aneuche," yet the "uther maisters and sum of the regentes war evill-myndit," and "hated Mr Knox and the guid cause";[232]and two of them, Archibald and John Hamilton, soon after apostatised, betook themselves to the Continent, and rose to high office in the Universities of Louvain and Paris, where the one in not inelegant Latin, and the other in courtly Scotch, sought to vindicate their conduct, and to traduceand refute their former co-religionists. Some of the masters of the Old College also, as Bannatyne has recorded, hated the plain-speaking reformer, though "be outward gesture and befoir his face thei wald seime and apeir to favore and love him above the rest."[233]The Hamiltons especially seem to have given him considerable occasion to complain of their bitter and unguarded criticisms, and one of them, stung by his denunciations, challenged him to defend his doctrine in the schools of the university. This he at first refused, maintaining that the pulpit was not to be controlled by the university schools, nor the church put into subjection to the academy.
St Andrews at that time was therendezvousof others of the adherents of the young prince, who did not feel themselves safe under the faction then in possession of the castle and city of Edinburgh. One of these, Mr John Durie of Leith, was "for stoutness and zeall in the guid cause mikle renouned and talked of." He was an enthusiastic leader of the volunteers of his day. "The gown was na sooner af and the Byble out of hand fra the kirk, when on ged the corslet, and fangit was the hagbot, and to the fields."[234]Another was Robert Leckprevick, the famous printer, who brought his types and printing-press with him, and so did notable service to the cause.Patrick Adamson."He haid then in hand," Melville tells us, "Mr Patrik Constant's [or Adamson's[235]] Catechisme of Calvin, converted in Latin heroic vers, quhilk with the author was mikle estimed of";[236]and deservedly so, for Adamson was an accomplished scholar, was using his scholarship for the church's good, was eulogised by Lawson, Knox's colleague and successor, and had not yet developed that spirit of subserviency to the powers that be which afterwards proved his ruin.
The printer had also the honour of publishing in St Andrews the last work which engaged the thoughts of the reformer. This was his 'Answer to a letter of a Jesuit named Tyrie.' It had been drawn up some years before, but was now carefully revised and enlarged, and exhibited his matured views respecting several of the most notable subjects of controversy between the reformed and unreformed churches. Possibly itmay have been because he had detected through all their disguises the secret leaning of the two Hamiltons to Romanist or semi-Romanist views regarding the apostolical succession, the nature of the sacraments, and the unfailing visibility and perpetuity of the church, that he now so fully entered into a controversy which previously he had been inclined to shun. Perhaps this is what is hinted at in the preface, in which he says: "Wonder not, gentill reidar, that sic ane argument suld proceid fra me in thir dolorous days after that I have taken gude-night at the warld and at all the fasherie of the same.... There ar sevin yeares past sen a scrole send from a Jesuite to his brother was presented unto me be a faithfull brother requyring sum answer to be maid to the same.... Amongs my other caires I scriblit that which followis, and that in few dayis; which being finished I repented of my laubour, and purposed fullie to have suppressed it. Which, na dout I had done, if that the devil had not steirit up the Jesuites of purpois to trouble godlie harts, with the same argumentis which Tyrie usis, amplifyed and set furth with all the dog eloquence that Sathan can devyse for suppressing of the free progres of the Evangell of Jesus Christ." Then, after a touching reference to the hard lot of his dispersed flock "suffering lytill les calamitie than did the faithfull efterthe persecutioun of Steaphen," and an earnest petition that God would grant them one day to meet in glory, he entreats the brethren to pray forhim, that God "in His mercy will pleis to put end to my long and panefull battell," as he was unable to fight as erewhile he had done, and longed for release, though still resigned to bear patiently whatsoever God saw meet to lay upon this, his "wicked carkase."[237]
The St Andrews Assembly.
In March 1572 the General Assembly was held at St Andrews in the schools of St Leonard's College.[238]This place was no doubt chosen in part at least for the convenience of the aged reformer, whose counsel in that time of trouble was specially needed. It was the last Assembly at which he was able to be present, and probably the first witnessed by Davidson and Melville. "Thair," the latter narrates, "was motioned the making of bischopes, to the quhilk Mr Knox opponit himselff directlie and zealuslie";[239]and thus probably were implanted in the youthful student's mind the germs of those presbyterian principles which were nurtured by intercourse with his uncle Andrew Melville, and were retained by him to the last with heroic tenacity.
Two months before this a convention at Leith had given its sanction to a sort of mongrel episcopacy, nominally to secure the tithes more completely to the church, but really to secure the bulk of them by a more regular title to certain covetous noblemen who sought in this way to reimburse themselves for their services in the cause of the Reformation.[240]Chief among these noblemen was the Earl of Morton, then one of the chief supporters of the young prince, and soon after regent of the kingdom. Having secured a presentation to the Archbishopric of St Andrews for Mr John Douglas before mentioned, he came over to the city, had him elected by the chapter in terms of the convention, and on the 10th of February inaugurated into his office. This function was performed by Wynram, Superintendent of Fife, according to the Order followed in the admission of Superintendents, save that the Bishop of Caithness, the Superintendent of Lothian, and Mr David Lindsay, who sat beside Douglas, laid their hands on his head. Knox had preached that day as usual; but, as Bannatyne is careful to tell us, had "refuised to inaugurat the said bischope";[241]and as others add had "denounced anathemaThree Kinds of Bishops.to the giver, anathema to the receaver,"[242]who as rector and principal had already far more to do than such an aged man could hope to overtake.[243]It was in reference to the same appointment that Adamson, as yet uncorrupted by Court influences, had a few days before in a sermon from the same pulpit given utterance to his famous distinction of three kinds of bishops, my lord bishop, my lord's bishop, and the Lord's bishop, the first of whom had been in time of popery, the second was now brought in merely to enable my lord to draw the kirk rents, and the third was the evangelical pastor as he should be in times of thorough reformation.[244]
One more brief sketch from the Diary of the quaint but graphic chronicler on whom I have repeatedly drawn may conclude our notice of these last labours of the reformer, and bring us to his last illness and death. "The town of Edinbruche recovered againe [out of the hands of the queen's faction] and the guid and honest men therof retourned to thair housses,[245]Mr Knox with his familie past hame to Edinbruche." During the time of his residence in St Andrews he was very weak. "I saw him everie day of his doctrine," says Melville, "go hulie and fear with a furring of martriks about his neck, a staff in the an hand, and guid godlie Richart Ballanden, his servand, halding upe the uther oxtar, from the abbey to the paroche kirk; and be the said Richart and another servant lifted upe to the pulpit, whar he behovit to lean at his first entrie; bot or he haid done with his sermont he was sa active and vigorus that he was lyk to ding that pulpit in blads, and fly out of it."[246]
Soon after his return to Edinburgh he found himself quite unable to preach in the large church which he had formerly occupied, and a smaller one was fitted up for him in the westernHis Message to Charles IX.part of the nave of St Giles.[247]But not even so were his services to be long available. On one occasion only after his return may it be said that the old fire burst out with all its former fierceness and brilliancy. This was in September, when tidings reached him of the bloody massacre of St Bartholomew's day in France. "Being conveyed to the pulpit," Dr M'Crie tells us, "and summoning up his remaining strength, he thundered the vengeance of God against 'that cruel murderer and false traitor, the King of France,' and [borrowing the language of the Old Testament prophets] desired Le Croc, the French ambassador, to tell his master that sentence was pronounced against him in Scotland, that the divine vengeance would never depart from him nor from his house, if repentance did not ensue; but his name would remain an execration to posterity, and none proceeding from his loins should enjoy his kingdom in peace."[248]The only further notice of his work is by Melville, who simply informs us that after "instituting in his roum, be the ordinar calling of the kirk and congregation, Mr James Lawsone, a man of singularlearning, zeal, and eloquence, ... he tuk him to his chamber and most happelie and comfortablie departed this lyff."[249]
With this kindly notice by his youthful admirer this lecture would have ended, had I not promised to the late Dean Stanley several years ago that, when a suitable opportunity occurred, I would not fail publicly to advert to a shameless misrepresentation of the closing scene to which he had directed my attention. This originated with Archibald Hamilton, already referred to as one of the two masters of the New College, who apostatised from the Protestant faith, and after his flight to the Continent published the most barefaced lies of his old antagonist and the noble men who were associated with him in his hard battle and well-earned triumph. These lies were exposed and refuted at the time by Principal Smeton of Glasgow, himself a convert from that Society of Jesus which Hamilton ultimately joined. But as they have been revived in our own day, and distributed in the form of a tract by Popish emissaries at the doors of Protestant churches in London, and as one of a series bearing the sensational title of "Death-bed Scenes," I shall, in fulfilment of my promise, subjoin a brief account of the reformer's last illness and death, taken almost exclusively from the contemporary narratives of Bannatyne and Smeton, the former of whom was an eye-witness, and the latter of whom had full information from Lawson,[250]who also was an eye-witness of all. This, I feel assured, is all that is required to set matters in their true light.
Popish Calumny.
The vague charges of immorality brought against the reformer by those calumniators, ancient and modern, may be dismissed at once as nothing more than the stock-in-trade of hard-pressed controversialists in the sixteenth century. Had there been the slightest foundation for them, some of Knox's many opponents in Scotland—Ninian Winzet, or the Abbot of Crossraguel, or Tyrie the Jesuit, or Hamilton himself before he left the country—would not have scrupled openly to upbraid him with them. Neither would the culprits among the Protestant clergy and laity, whom at various times he subjected to so rigorous a discipline, have borne this patiently at his hands had he himself been a known offender. It was his character which gave him his influence both at home and abroad, both with friends and with foes, and could it have been successfully assailed, it would not have been left to two Jesuits in aforeign land to lead the assault after he was silenced in death.
Such, however, I hardly need to assure you was not the end of the restorer of a really holy church in Scotland, if aught of credit is to be given to the unanimous testimony of those who attended him during his last illness and witnessed its closing scene, though it may have been the end which Popish controversialists in the sixteenth century deemed meet for him—as well as for Luther and Calvin and many more of whom the world was not worthy—as it is in one of the foulest legends with which their successors in the nineteenth century think it fair to supplement the legends of their predecessors in the sixteenth. According to them Luther was the child of a demon, not figuratively but literally; Calvin was eaten up of worms, like Herod who slew the children of Bethlehem and was smitten by the judgment of God, because (though apparently in this they confound him with a later Herod) he affected divine honours. To mention such slanders, as the sceptical Bayle has said with special reference to the case of Knox, is all that is needed to refute them. They are the product of malignity so evident that it defeats itself. I know but one parallel to them in our literature, and it has the excuse that it has come down to us from thedark ages.[251]Some would persuade us that the time has come when we might afford to forget old controversies and to shake hands with our former antagonists, but such occurrences as these tend to show that such forgetfulness and affectation of cordiality is likely to be all on one side.
And now let me simply set over against these fables, in as abridged form as I can, the unvarnished statements of Bannatyne and Smeton, the latter of which was published in reply to Hamilton who first gave shape to these charges, and which hitherto has been deemed a conclusive refutation of them.[252]
His last Illness.
On the 10th of November, the day after he inducted Lawson as his colleague, he was seized with a violent cough and began to breathe with difficulty. Many, who desired ardently, if it were possible, to detain him a little longer here, advisedhim to call in the assistance of skilful physicians. He readily complied with their advice, though he felt that the end of his warfare was now nigh at hand. Next day he caused the wages of all his servants to be paid, and earnestly exhorted them all to be careful to lead holy and Christian lives. On the 13th, being obliged by the increase of his malady to leave off his ordinary course of reading in the Scriptures (for every day he had been wont to read some chapters of the Old and New Testaments, especially some of the Psalms and Gospels), he directed his wife and servant to read to him each day the 17th chapter of St John's Gospel, one or other of the chapters of St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, and the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. On the 14th he rose early, apparently supposing it had been the Lord's day, and being asked why he did so when he was so ill, he replied that he had been meditating all night on the resurrection of the Lord (the subject which would have fallen to be treated next in order by him in his ministry), and that he was now prepared to ascend the pulpit to communicate to his brethren the consolation he had enjoyed in his own soul. Next day, though very sick, he prevailed on Durie, already mentioned, and another friend, Steward by name, to remain to dinner with him, ordered a hogshead of wine in his cellar to be pierced for them, and desiredHis Dying Exhortations.Steward to send for some of it as long as it lasted, for he should not tarry till it was done. Little is recorded of him for several days after this, but it was probably in this interval that he was visited by many of the chief of the nobility, including the Earl of Morton, so soon to be created regent,[253]and by many members of his congregation. All of these he "solidly exhorted" and comforted. On the 20th or 21st he gave orders that his coffin should be prepared. On the 22nd he sent for the ministers, elders, and deacons of the church, that he might give them his last counsels and take final farewell of them. In the brief but solemn address which he delivered to them he called God to witness, whom he served in the Gospel of His Son, that he had taught nothing but the pure and solid doctrine of the Gospel of the Son of God, and had never indulged his own private passions, or spoken from any hatred of the persons of those against whom he had denounced the heavy judgments of God. He exhorted them to persevere in the truth of the Gospel and in their allegiance to their young sovereign, and dismissed them with his solemn blessing. To Lawson and Lindsay, whom heasked to remain behind, he gave a last earnest message for his old friend Kirkaldy of Grange, the commandant of the castle, who had gone over to the party of the queen,[254]and whose soul, notwithstanding, he said, was dear to him—as being one of his congregation in the castle of St Andrews, and a sharer in his hard lot in France—so that he would not have it perish if by any means he could save it. "Go and tell him," he said, "that neither the craggy rock in which he miserably trusts, nor the carnal prudence of that man whom he regards as a demigod, nor the assistance of foreigners, as he falsely flatters himself, shall deliver them, but he shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment and hung on a gallows in the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life and betake himself to the mercy of God."
His Consolation.
On the 23rd the difficulty of his breathing had greatly increased, and he seems to have thought that his end was near at hand. To one of his most intimate friends who asked him if he felt great pain, he replied that that was not reckoned as pain by him which would be the end of many miseries and the beginning of perpetual joy. And soon after, apparently supposing his end was come, he repeated the Lord's Prayer and theApostles' Creed, adding certain paraphrases of his own on each petition of the prayer and article of the creed to the great comfort of those who stood by; and then lifting up his hands to heaven he once more said, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." During the succeeding night he caused the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians to be read and re-read to him, and repeatedly said to himself, "O! how sweet and salutary consolation does the Lord provide for me in this chapter." The following day, about noon, he once more sat up in bed, but owing to his extreme weakness was not able to remain long in that posture. About three in the afternoon one of his eyes failed, and his tongue performed its office less readily than before. About six in the evening he again said to his wife, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor," referring to the instructions he had given on the 13th.[255]
When this had been done, he continued for some hours in troubled slumber. It is in this occurrence alone that there can be got the slightest foundation for the slanders which his traducers have circulated. And it is only necessary to quote the account given of it by those who witnessed it to show that it was as honourable to the dying confessor as the gross misrepresentation of it was dishonourable to his opponents. During these hours he uttered frequent sighs and groans, so that those who stood by could not doubt that he was contending with some grievous temptation. When he awoke they asked him what was the cause of his distress. He answered that in the course of his life he had had many contests with his spiritual adversary. Often he had been tempted to despair of God's mercy because of the greatness of his sins, often also tempted by the allurements of the world to forget his calling to endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. But now the cunning adversary had assailed him in another form, and endeavoured to persuade him that he had merited heaven itself and a blessed immortality by the faithful discharge of the duties of his high office. "But blessed be God," exclaimed the dying reformer, "who hath brought seasonably to my mind those passages of Scripture by which I was enabled to quench the fiery dart, 'What hast thou, that thou hast not received?' 'By the grace of God I am what I am,' and 'Not I, but the grace of God in me' ... wherefore I give thanks to my God by Jesus Christ who has been pleased to grant me the victory. And I am firmly persuaded that ... in a short time, without any great bodily pain, and without any distress of mind, I shall exchange this mortal and miserablelife for an immortal and blessed life through Jesus Christ."
His Peaceful Death.
This persuasion of his speedy and happy departure was soon to be justified by the event. After evening prayers Dr Preston, his physician, asked him whether he had heard them, when he replied, "I would to God that ye and all men heard them as I have heard them, and I praise God for that heavenly sound." Shortly after the signs of immediate dissolution appeared, his friends gathered round his bed, and his faithful servant addressed him: "Now, sir, the time that you have long called to God for, to wit an end of your battle, is come. And seeing all natural power now fails, remember those comfortable promises, which often times ye have shown to us, of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And that we may understand and know that ye hear us, make us some sign." And so he lifted up one of his hands, and incontinent thereafter rendered up his spirit apparently without pain or movement, so that he seemed rather to fall asleep than to die.
Such was the account of his last illness and death transmitted by those who attended on him and witnessed it, a death worthy of his noble life, and fully justifying the brief comment of Smeton, "Surely, whatever opprobrious things profane men may utter, God hath in him given us anexample of the right way as well of dying as of living." It is true, as his heartless traducer takes care to remind us, no dirge was chanted over his remains, no mass of requiem was celebrated for his soul. He and his countrymen had long ceased to believe in the worth of such priestly ceremonies, or to imagine that their eternal state could be affected by them, or by aught save Christ's finished work and their own faith and repentance while God's day of grace was prolonged to them here. The brief eulogy pronounced over his grave by the stern and reserved regent[256]was a truer and more impressive testimony to his worth than the most gorgeous celebration of Romish rites which he could but have shared with a Borgia or a Betoun. The stern simplicity of his grave, which, like his master Calvin's, was till lately preserved in the memory of men without stone or bronze to mark it out, tells a tale very different from that his traducer hints at; and if his bitter taunts shall lead the reformer's countrymen now to erect a material monument to him in some measure corresponding to thebenefits he has been honoured to confer on them, this attack on his fair fame will have been overruled for good.
The Scottish Nation his Monument.
But his real monument will never be one graven by art or man's device. It is one more noble, more lasting far. It is to be found in the life God enabled him to live, and the work God honoured him to do. It is to be seen in the plans he devised, in the institutions he founded, in the people he moulded anew, when the old church had confessedly failed in its mission. And while the Scottish nation continues to retain these institutions, and to bear this impress, it will continue the grandest, as it is the most telling, monument to the memory of its noble-hearted and single-minded reformer.
In a previous lecture I have endeavoured to give a pretty full account of the First Book of Discipline. It remains yet to say a few words about the Second Book of Discipline.
Principal John Cunningham has said: "The First Book exhibited a system of polity sagaciously suited to the circumstances of the country and the church: it seemed to grow out of the times."[257]I will add that it was not only suited to the times, but to many of the practical needs of the church of all times. I therefore hold that even yet it is worthy of a higher place than to be deemed merely a "collection of parchments and coins deposited beneath it [i.e., the Second Book] by which future generations may read the story of the times in which the building was begun."[258]TheThe Two Books Compared.Second Book is more a book of constitutional law; and aims, as the Principal says, at elaborating a system from the New Testament without reference to circumstances, and bears far more resemblance to the Ordonnances of Calvin than to the less ambitious and more comprehensive Church Order Books of Germany. But the Second Book of Discipline has even fewer practical details than the ordinances of Geneva. Of course, so far as it actually abolished or modified the regulations of the First Book, these fell to be disused; but in so far as it did not actually do so, they still had a certain validity: and even in the Covenanting times it is generally the Books, not the Book of Discipline, to which reference is made in Acts of Assembly.
No one in our times, perhaps, has shown a more thorough appreciation of the real merits of the First Book than the Duke of Argyll in his well-known essay on "Presbytery." Mr Hill Burton, who depreciates it in comparison with the Second, makes far more than is warranted of the strong language in which it occasionally indulges against the old church, with which he contrasts the more restrained and balanced utterances of the Second Book.[259]I do not yield to many in my admiration of thecourage and calmness of Melville; but I could no more think of placing him, scholarly and bold, yet calm, as he generally was, nor the Book attributed to him, more logical and unimpassionately didactic though it be, before the eager, impetuous, yet sagacious Knox, with his wealth of rude eloquence and thrilling tenderness, and his Book in which these qualities of head and heart are so clearly mirrored, than I would think of placing Calvin, highly as I honour him, before Luther, or his Catechism before the Wittenberg hymn-books.
I do not believe that the principles of the two Books are so widely different as they have sometimes been represented to be, or that the grand ideas of Knox concerning the place of the laity in the church, the education of the young, and the support and kindly treatment of the aged poor, were meant to be rejected or ignored by his great successor; but I do think these matters fall considerably into the background. Some of the noblest conceptions of the earlier Book are narrowed, and the whole system stiffened; and in the contests in which the church had then to engage with the young monarch, in vindication of her independence in her own province, positions were laid down which were soon pressed to consequences from which Knox and his associates would have shrunk.
The Supreme Power.
They, who had been obliged long to contend with a corrupt and obstinate clergy which would grant no real reform in doctrine, no substantial concessions for the alleviation of practical grievances, boldly laid down the principle that "to kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates ... chieflie and most principallie the conservation and purgation of the religioun apperteinis; so that not onlie they are appointed for civill policie, but also for maintenance of the trew religioun, and for suppressing of idolatrie and superstitioun whatsoever.... And therefore wee confesse and avow that sik as resist the supreme power doing that thing quhilk appertains to his charge, do resist Goddis ordinance, and therefore cannot be guiltles."[260]Melville, who was called to contend with a king bent on securing autocratic power in the church as well as in the state, laid down, with the utmost precision, the principle in chapter x., "Although kings and princes that be godlie, sumtymes be their awin authority whan the kirk is corruptit and all things out of ordor, place ministers and restore the trew service of the Lord efter the examples of sum godly kings of Juda and divers godly emperours and kings also in the light of theNew Testament; yit quhair the ministrie of the kirk is anes lawfullie constitute and they that are placeit do thair office faithfullie, all godlie princes and magistratis aucht to heir and obey thair voice, and reverence the majestie of the Son of God speiking be them";[261]or, as in chapter i., where it is laid down, "As ministeris are subject to the judgement and punishment of the magistrat in externall things if they offend, so aucht the magistratis to submit themselfis to the discipline of the kirk gif they transgresse in matteris of conscience and religioun."[262]
Hill Burton sarcastically remarks that "if we grant that those who prepared it were what they called themselves—the Church of God, presidedLimits of Ecclesiastical Power.over by the Lord Jesus Christ as the representative of the Godhead on earth—it would be difficult to refuse assent to what follows. Nothing can be more perfect than the analysis by which the two ruling powers are separated from each other, and the ecclesiastical set above the secular."[263]If this is not quite borne out, one can hardly help feeling that more care should have been taken to mark out the limits of ecclesiastical authority, and to show that the power of ministers and elders was as distinctly limited by the laws of Christ as that of kings and magistrates ought to be by the laws of the land; or, in other words, that ministers and elders may err in interpreting the laws of Christ, just as civil rulers may err in interpreting the laws of the land. No doubt the limitation contended for is in words admitted, "the magistrat neither aucht to preich, minister the sacraments, nor execute the censuris of the kirk, nor yit prescrive any rewll how it sould be done; bot command the ministeris to observe the rewll commandit in the Word, and punish the transgressours be civill means. The ministeris exerce not the civill jurisdictioun, bot teich the magistrat how it sould be exercit according to the Word."[264]"It is proper to kings, princes, and magistrates to be callit lordisand dominators over their subjectis, whom they govern civilly; bot it is proper to Christ onlie to be callit Lord and Master in the spirituall government of the kirk, and all utheris that beiris office therein aucht not to usurp dominion therein, nor be callit lordis, bot onlie ministeris, disciples, and servantis. For it is Christis proper office to command and rewll His kirk universall, and every particular kirk, throw His Spirit and Word, be the ministrie of men."[265]But it is not made sufficiently prominent anywhere in the Book that these men are only entitled to unreserved obedience when they truly speak Christ's mind and truly follow His Word. Those who have made most of the Book have neither clearly perceived this nor have they realised the full meaning of the lucid and explicit statement made by Rutherfurd when he was contending against the Erastians and Independents of England. Had they done so, I cannot but think that the bitter divisions among Scottish Presbyterians would have been fewer, and that there would have been far less occasion for the reproach often cast on them, that new presbyter is but old priest writ large.
Rutherfurd's Opinion.
"That the magistrate is not obliged," Rutherfurd affirms, "to execute the decrees of the church without further examination, whether they beright or wrong, as Papists teach that the magistrate is to execute the decrees of their Popish councels with blind obedience, and submit his faith to them, because he is a layman and may not dare to examine whether the church doth erre or not, is clear. 1. Because, if in hearing the Word all should follow the example of the men of Berea, not relying on the testimony of Paul or any preacher, [and] try whether that which concerneth their conscience and faith be agreeable to the Scriptures or no, and accordingly receive or reject; so in all things of discipline the magistrate is to try by the Word whether he ought to adde his sanction to these decrees which the church gives out for edification, and whether he should draw the sword against such a one as a heretick and a perverter of souls. But the former is true; the magistrate's practise in adding his civill sanction and in punishing hereticks concerneth his conscience, knowing that he must do it in faith as he doth all his moral actions;ergo, the magistrate must examine what he practiseth in his office according to the Word, and must not take it upon the meer authority of the church, else his faith in these moral acts of his office should be resolvedultimateon the authority of the church, not on the Word of God, which, no doubt, is Popery, for so the warrant of the magistrate's conscience should not be 'thussaith the Lord,' but 'thus saith the church in their decrees.' 2. The magistrate and all men have a command to try all things,ergo, to try the decrees of the church, and to retain what is good (1 Thes. v. 21); to try the spirits even of the church in their decrees (1 John iii. 1). 3. We behooved [in that case] to lay down this Popish ground that ... the church cannot erre in their decrees.... Its against Scripture and reason that magistrates, and by the like reason all others, should obey the decrees of the church with a blinde faith, without inquiring in the warrants and grounds of their decrees, which is as good Popery as, Magistrates and all men are to beleeve as the church beleeveth, with an implicite faith, so ignorance shall be the mother of devotion. Whoever impute this to us—who have suffered for nonconformity, and upon this ground, that synods can erre, refused the ceremonies—are to consult with their own conscience whether this be not to make us appear disloyall and odious to magistracy in that which we never thought, far lesse [presumed] to teache and professe it to the world."[266]
Gillespie's Opinion.
Even more notable are the utterances of George Gillespie, when vindicating against the Erastians of the south that more free government of the church by its own courts from which they fearedso many evils. "I dare confidently say," he affirms, "that, if comparisons be rightly made, presbyterial government is the most limited and the least arbitrary government of any other in the world."[267]And, after entering into details to make good this affirmation in regard to the papal and prelatical forms of government, he proceeds to maintain that Independents "must needs be supposed to exercise a much more unlimited or arbitrary power than the presbyterial churches do," because they exempt individual congregations from all control and correction by superior courts, and because it is "one of their three grand principles which disclaimeth the binding of themselves for the future unto their present judgement and practice, and avoucheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract."[268]Some who think that, after all recent changes, they more truly hold the opinions of Gillespie than we do, have laid it down very dogmatically that even although the constitution of a national church were in all other respects scriptural, yet if it did not reserve this power to alter and retract without let or hindrance, it would still be at variance with the tenets of the Covenanting times; but you see here that Gillespie affirms that that was a principle of the Independents, notof the Presbyterians, and claims[269]it as a special merit of the latter that they were willing to explain their doctrine and discipline to the civil authorities, and, getting these sanctioned, to abide by them till they were again altered by consent of church and state. He denies that in claiming a distinct government for the church the Presbyterians meant to deprive the Christian magistrate of that power and authority in matters of religion which the Word of God and the earlier Confessions of the Reformed churches recognised as belonging to his office. On the contrary, he maintains that not only in extraordinary cases when church government doth degenerate into tyranny, or those who manage it make defection from the truth, "the Christian magistrate may and ought to do diverse things in and for religion, and interpose his authority diverse wayes so as doth not properly belong to his cognisance, decision and administration ordinarily, and in a reformed and well constituted church";[270]butalso that, in ordinary cases, he is free to act as his own conscience directs in giving or refusing his sanction to the government and discipline of the church; and that if he is offended with any sentence of its courts, "they ought to be ready, in all humility and respect, to give him an account and reason of such their proceedings, and by all means to endeavour the satisfaction of the magistrate his conscience, or otherwise to be warned and rectified if themselves have erred."[271]