M&R S? 1994 
 
 BR 
 161 
 
 v. 
 
 c 
 
 V 
 
In compliance with current 
 
 copyright law, LBS Archival 
 
 Products produced this 
 
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ERRATUM. 
 
 At page 315, vol. v., line 4, for "Both of them ended," &c., read — 
 " Both of them ended -with the three collects. The confession and 
 absolution -were not likely to excite opposition." 
 
^EYu ui^C^Et i^ASSKESffiiXp 
 
 MODERATOR OF GENERA'^ ASSEMBLY 189 
 
 
THE 
 
 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, 
 
 PAST AND present: 
 
 ITS HISTORY, ITS RELATION TO THE LAW AND THE STATE, 
 ITS DOCTRINE, RITUAL, DISCIPLINE, AND PATRIMONY, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 y 
 
 EGBERT HERBERT STORY, D.D. [Edin.] F.S.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, 
 AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPLAINS, 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM MACKENZIE, 69 LUDGATE HILL, E.C.; 
 
 EDllsBURGH, GLASGOW, & DUBLIN. 
 
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 K E^i'. w" © CE f;^ ^ ^ C [E © , ©„[&., L L= © = 
 
 from a. E^^ to 3v T. Sc R_ Annau St S o 
 
KE¥. ffiSlE^r FLO f3"T , E) 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 
 
 Prom a Photo ov J Moffax 
 
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 (7^ fui n [=: " r? r?;- n 'js- pt- [t? 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY 
 
 rrom a. Fnotograph by J Moffat 
 
W 13 V ''■■■" " ^ p P ,? V.'^ Wl n n ri p ip A p,p fT^, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL C R I T I CI S M A B E R D E E N UNIVER3:"~ 
 
 FrcTn. b. rhitc "c." "E-Geeon^ 
 
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 o 
 w 
 r 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Rev. THOjVIAS LEISHMAX, D.D., 
 
 MINISTER OF LINTON. 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. ANDREW EDGAR, D.D., 
 
 LATE MINISTER OF MAUCHLINE. 
 
 TEINDS OR TITHES AND CHURCH 
 PROPERTY IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 NENIOK ELLIOT, Esq., S.S.C, 
 
 CLERK TO THE COURT OF TEINDS. 
 
THE RITUAL 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, 
 
 Eev. THOMAS LEISHMAN, D.D. 
 
THE RITUAL 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 
 
 It may be thought that when the history of a nation's religion 
 has to be written, the lightest part of the task is to describe its 
 worship. Eeligious rites are visible to every eye, and connect 
 themselves with the chief events of every life. It seems as if 
 it ought to be very easy to collect and record this class of facts. 
 The earliest history of Scotland, however, is almost a blank. 
 As we approach the era of the Eeformation we know what the 
 worship of our fathers was, because it was regulated by a stand- 
 ard which, when rejected here, was preserved in other lands. 
 For two generations after the Eeformation our sources of infor- 
 mation are more limited. The Church records of the period were 
 destroyed in our own day at the very moment when they were 
 brought to light, like the Scottish Eegalia, after having disap- 
 peared for more than a century. Large extracts had, indeed, 
 been taken from them, but probably two-thirds of the trans- 
 actions of our Assemblies from 1560 to 1616 were lost for ever 
 at the burning of the Houses of Parliament The records of 
 lower courts do not supply their place. Many of them have 
 perished by carelessness or decay, and such as remain are little 
 known except to local investigators. From general history we 
 learn less than might have been expected. What every one 
 knows no one records, unless it becomes matter for controversy, 
 and the Church's earliest controversies were more about the 
 rights of the Church than the worship of the people. When 
 that was the subject of strife we hear more of the demerits of 
 threatened innovations than of the customs that were in posses- 
 sion. Besides, the amount of historical material is even less 
 than we seem to have. The annalists of the time, like the old 
 
308 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 minstrels, saw no reason for varying the tales of their prede- 
 cessors. We constantly find the same incidents, the same jests, 
 the same stretches of narrative coming from different pens. 
 Scanty as our information is, this is clear, that no generation 
 transmitted its heritage of usage to its successor unimpaired, 
 So long as men saw most of the details unchanged with which 
 they had been familiar from childhood, they were not concerned 
 if a few old forms were dying out and a few novelties coming 
 in. It was only when the rate of movement was accelerated 
 by royal or popular pressure that they noticed how they were 
 leaving the ways of their fathers behind them. We shall un- 
 derstand this better when we observe how recent is the origin 
 of many observances which people but lately have been 
 passionately defending as precious memorials of reformers and 
 martyrs. 
 
 We know nothing of the forms under which our ancestors 
 worshipped in the first Christian ages. Here, as in England, 
 there was a Christianity contemporaneous with the Eoman occu- 
 pation. But even less here than in England are there traces of its 
 history. We may, however, safely assume that the ritual of the 
 next era was not that of Eome. She had not begun to exact that 
 rigid uniformity on which she has insisted in later times. When 
 Augustine of Canterbury consulted Gregory the Great as to the 
 future worship of the province which he hoped to reconquer for 
 Christ, he got for answer, that whatever rites in the Eoman, the 
 Galilean, or any other church he thought likely to be more 
 pleasing to God, he should carefully combine and appoint to be 
 for the special use of the Angles. But not even a ritual con- 
 structed on this eclectic principle could conciliate them. They 
 fixed the date of Easter not by the Eoman calculation, but 
 by the old Niceean rule, which had come to them from the East 
 through some channel which cannot now be exactly traced. They 
 had baptismal rites of their own. Their religious music differed 
 from that of the strangers, who probably wished to introduce 
 the new Italian mode, which still bears St. Gregory's name. 
 Their tonsure was cut after a different fashion. All the indigen- 
 ous churches of the British islands seem to have been at one 
 in maintaining against Eome such national distinctions as these. 
 Southern England soon gave way. In time the northern part 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHTJECH. 309 
 
 of the Heptarchy followed the example. But in Ireland and in 
 Scotland the mastery of Rome was not secured till the Norman 
 Conquest had brought all three nations into closer relations with 
 the Latin races. "We know almost nothing of the worship of 
 the Scots during this long interval. There is nothing to prove 
 that they were keeping up with the Roman development of 
 doctrine, and they are not likely to have followed the elabora- 
 tion of ritual which accompanied it. The date of that interesting 
 relic, the " Book of Deer," falls within this period, but the litur- 
 gical fragments appended to it are of a later date. We hear of 
 advances made to Rome by Macbeth, of nearer approaches in 
 the reigns of Canmore and his sons under the influence of an 
 English wife and mother, tUl, long before the wars of Independ- 
 ence, the Italian supremacy was secured. What little is known 
 of the Scottish Church at the time of the change comes through 
 those whose sympathy was with the new state of things. They 
 have to teU of irregular marriages, neglect of the Lord's Day, 
 disuse of the Communion, and what seems to be considered of 
 hardly less importance, a misplacing of the first day of Lent. 
 It is likely that after centuries of isolation and barbarism, 
 weightier matters than the calendar needed amendment. The 
 Culdee settlements, once centres of light to a people sitting in 
 darkness, had become secularized, and their inertness contrasted 
 unfavourably with the fresh zeal of those who came to supersede 
 them. With new institutions and doctrines new usages of wor- 
 ship were introduced. StUl there was considerable toleration 
 of provincial peculiarities, and everything distinctive of the 
 English or Roman system was not at once enforced. Scottish 
 patriots of a later day reckoned among the wrongs done to their 
 country by Edward I. that when he came to Scone to carry off 
 the Stone of Destiny, he collected and destroyed all the Scottish 
 service-books, and forced the nation to accept the use of Sarum 
 instead. It seems, however, to have been adopted in some 
 dioceses at an earlier date, probably to protest against the claim 
 of primacy over Scotland made by the archbishops of York. 
 No doubt Canterbury had advanced the same claim, but that 
 of York had been more recent and more persistent, and there 
 was a defiance of it in adopting the service which was of primary 
 authority in the province of her remoter rival. 
 
310 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 The Pontifical of Bernham, bishop of St. Andrews, in the 
 thirteenth century, has been lately published, and might lead 
 to the conclusion that the consecration of churches was then a 
 novelty in Scotland. It certainly was in use elsewhere. There 
 are allusions to it as early as the time of Constantine. We 
 cannot doubt that it was general throughout our island in the 
 eighth century, for it is alluded to in an ordinance of the Arch- 
 bishop of York, full of the jealousy with which southern pre- 
 lates — proud of their connection with Eome — looked on the 
 Celtic churches : — " They who have been ordained by bishops 
 of the Scots or Britons, who do not wear the tonsure as other 
 presbyter-ecclesiastics do, nor observe Easter as we observe it, 
 ought to be confirmed by an orthodox bishop, with laying on 
 of hands and prayer : in like manner churches consecrated by 
 these bishops ought to be sprinkled with holy water." ^ But 
 the custom had at least fallen into disuse, for the Pontifical 
 records the consecration by Bernham of more than half of 
 the churches under his rule, and the dates do not cover the 
 whole term of his episcopate. One of the churches consecrated 
 was Kelso, which had been founded more than a century 
 before. There is a trace of the use of provincial service-books 
 in a list made in 1436 of books belonging to Aberdeen Cathedral. 
 It contains three Pontificals, but one is distinguished from the 
 others as being "de usu Curiae Eomanae."^ Later still in 
 date is the Aberdeen Breviary, drawn up by Bishop Elphin- 
 stone, and printed by Chapman in the beginning of the six- 
 teen,th century. It and the earlier Arbuthnott Missal are 
 made interesting, not so much by liturgical variations, as by 
 references to ancient Scottish saints. Apparently the Breviary 
 was one of a series of service-books which was issued about 
 that time as an assertion of ecclesiastical independence. An 
 Act of Council, in 1507, pro\dded that no books of Sarum should 
 be allowed but mass books, manuals, matin books, and breviaries 
 " after our own Scottish use." Now that the organ has been 
 reintroduced, many would wish to know the date of its earliest 
 use in Scotland. Tytler, the historian, founding on allusions in 
 Fordoun, carries it back to the time of Alexander III. Calder- 
 wood and the older Tytler say that it was introduced by James I. 
 
 ^ Robertson's " Concilia," ii. 276. ^ Kcgistrum Episc. Aberd. ii. 137. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 311 
 
 By the time that the Scottish worship, through a process of 
 gradual assimilation, had become practically the same as that of 
 all western Europe, there were signs o£ an approaching change. 
 The very unity, so carefully built up, made the Scots more 
 ready to respond to the call for reformation which rose simul- 
 taneously from many Christian lands. Presently they saw 
 England suppressing monasteries and defying the Holy See. 
 English translations of Scripture found their way across the 
 Border. So early as 1543 the use of them was allowed by 
 the Eegent Arran, who at that time favoured the new opinions, 
 and though after a while he changed sides, he could not recall 
 the results of his sanction. But the origin and progress of the 
 Eeformation are not indicated by the acts of sovereigns and 
 councils. The enactments which make 1560 the accepted date 
 of the change were only the of&cial recognition of what had 
 been going on for more than twenty years. In Scotland, as in 
 England, men adhered to the ritual of Eome longer than to her N^ 
 doctrine. We do hear of Knox's dispensing the Lord's Supper 
 after the Reformed fashion at St. Andrews, in 1547, but this 
 was an exceptional instance. When he paid a short visit to 
 Scotland eight years after, he found that the custom among the 
 Reformed was to attend mass and the other ordinances of the \^ 
 Church, while they met at other times and places to listen to 
 itinerant orators pleading for the new opinions. The incon- 
 sistency of this did not readily occur to men who had all their 
 lives been accustomed to see the common ordinances of religion 
 divorced from preaching. Besides, they knew that many of the 
 clergy, while still conforming to the existing order of things, 
 were doctrinally in full sympathy with them. Knox left a 
 strong protest against this system behind him when he returned 
 to the Continent. After his departure meetings for prayer and 
 Scripture-reading became very frequent. But nearly two years 
 more passed before any attempt was made to establish uniformity 
 of worship on a Reformed basis. At the end of 1557 the Lords 
 of the Congregation, as they were afterwards called, met at 
 Edinburgh, entered into a solemn bond by which they separated 
 themselves from the Roman communion, and issued the following 
 ordinance : — 
 
 " First, it is thought expedient, advised, and ordained, that in 
 
312 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 all parishes of this realm the Common Prayers be read weekly on 
 Sunday, and other festival days, publicly in the parish churches, 
 with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament, conform to the 
 order of the Book of Common Prayers ; and if the curates of the 
 parishes be qualified, to cause them to read the same. And if 
 they be not, or if they refuse, that the most qualified in the 
 parish use and read the same. Secondly, it is thought necessary 
 that doctrine, preaching, and interpretation of Scriptures be had 
 and used privately in quiet houses, without great conventions of 
 the people thereto, while [till] afterward that God move the 
 Prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers." 
 It may seem strange that the ability of some of the clergy to 
 read an unfamiliar English book should be in question. No 
 other meaning can be put on one of the petitions transmitted 
 to the Ecclesiastical Council of 1559, that no clergy should be 
 appointed to kirks in future but such as " can distinctly and 
 plainly read the Catechism, and other directions that shall be 
 directed unto them by their Ordinaries, unto the people." It 
 may seem strange also that a section of the barons of Scotland 
 should in terms so authoritative prescribe a form of worship to 
 the whole nation. The last words of the ordinance show that 
 they hoped to have their resolution confirmed by the Crown. 
 A petition to this effect was presented by them to the Queen- 
 Eegent, and courteously received. But fully to understand their 
 action, we must remember how strong the power of feudalism 
 still was in Scotland, and how weak the central authority. The 
 vassals of one of the great lords were ready to think as he 
 thought on the great question which was dividing the nation, as 
 they were ready to follow his standard in war. The curates or 
 incumbents within his territory would be men of exceptional 
 firmness to refuse to read the Missal, if he took one side, or the 
 Book of Common Prayer, if he took the other. The Eegent was 
 little disposed, and the prelates had little power, to take extreme 
 measures against those who obeyed the command. It is not 
 known that more than one man suffered death as a heretic for 
 ten years before the Parliamentary Pieformation. Now that the 
 barons had given the signal, the towns — those at least which 
 lay nearest to the Continent — were ready to take possession of 
 their churches for the Pieformed worship. To some extent Edin- 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 313 
 
 burgh and Dundee had anticipated the decision. How far it 
 was acted on throughout the country is a question which cannot 
 be answered with precision ; but it is certain that the new 
 worship was soon heard in many parishes, not seldom from the 
 lips of the old rector or vicar. For want of trained preachers 
 there was as yet little public preaching, but the meetings for the 
 study of Scripture enjoined in the second part of the ordinance 
 continued and increased. In 1559 proceedings, which led to 
 nothing, were taken against several of the leading reformers for 
 celebrating Easter Communion at different churches in Angus. 
 In the same year the Common Prayer was regularly read in the 
 Abbey Church of Holyrood, and there were public prayers, ser- 
 mons, and communion in St. Giles' itself. Thus years before the 
 Reformation the churches and clergy were divided in an unknown 
 proportion between the old system and the new. It was an 
 anticipation of what was repeated at intervals in after-times, 
 sometimes in defiance of authority, sometimes with its concur- 
 rence, as when churches and benefices were held by the Pro- 
 testers in the time of the Commonwealth, by indulged Presby- 
 terians under the second Episcopacy, by conforming or intruding 
 Episcopalians under the Pievolution settlement, and by the 
 fathers of the Secession for eight years after their separation. 
 
 It is no longer a question what the Book of Common Prayer 
 was which was used in this period of transition. It was the 
 early form of the English Liturgy, known as the Second Book of 
 Edward VI. It had been published in 1552 as a modification 
 of the First Book of 1549, which retained more of the usages and 
 doctrine of the ante-Eeformation worship. The Second Book 
 has undergone various revisions since, and received some addi- 
 tions, but it was essentially the same as the present Prayer-book. 
 Eighty years afterwards the preface to the Scottish Liturgy of 
 Charles I., quoting the ordinance of the Reforming Lords as to the 
 Common Prayer, adds, "meaning that of England, for it is known 
 that divers years after we had no other order for Common Prayer." 
 There were many who would not receive evidence coming from 
 such a source. Eor long they held that it was not the Anglican 
 service, but an early form of the Book of Geneva or Common 
 Order, adopted by the Church of Scotland at a later date. A 
 letter has come to light in this century which was written by 
 
314 THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Sir William Kirkcaldy in July, 1559, and it settles the matter : 
 " As to parish churches . . , they command that no masses 
 be said in them ; in place thereof the Book set forth by godly 
 King Edward is used in the same churches." A letter from 
 Cecil has also been found, written a few days later, to the same 
 effect : " They have received the service of the Church of Eng- 
 land according to King Edward's Book." There was at one time 
 some controversy over a passage in Buchanan's History bear- 
 ing on the question. He said that at the time of the Leith 
 treaty the Scots accepted the English worship; "Eeligionis cultui 
 et ritibus cum Anglia communibus, subscripserunt." Wodrow 
 owns that this passage " did vex him a little " till he saw An- 
 derson's explanation of it, which was that the Eeformed religion 
 was adopted in Scotland as it had already been in England. 
 One great argument against the literal rendering of the words 
 was the want of confirmatory evidence. It can hardly be ques- 
 tioned that this has now been found. 
 
 It is easy to understand why the barons, when they wished 
 to consolidate their party by a common worship, adopted the 
 Book of Edward. In his time Scotland was still in communion 
 with Eome. Many Scotsmen who had imbibed the new opinions 
 betook themselves to England, which had separated from Eome, 
 and served in the ministry of the National Church. But since 
 the enforced reaction under Philip and Mary, it was no longer a 
 refuge for them. Knox and others went abroad. Some, however, 
 returned to their native country, where there was no such per- 
 secution as that under which England was groaning. They were 
 now among the most prominent of the Eeformed preachers, and 
 in close relations with the lay leaders of the movement, them- 
 selves in frequent correspondence with friends in England. 
 Nothing would seem more natural to these Anglo-Scottish' 
 ministers than to use and to recommend to the barons the book 
 which they knew so well, and which was as yet the only one in 
 the English tongue that could be easily procured. 
 
 How many of the various offices in the Liturgy came into 
 general use is a question of interest, but one which at this dis- 
 tance of time we cannot hope to see solved. The only parts of 
 such a book that could be in constant use are the Morning and 
 Evening Services, and they alone could be read by the lay sub- 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 315 
 
 stitutes who took the place of unwilling or incompetent curates. 
 There was nothing in them to provoke controversy. Opposition 
 to set forms as such was as yet unknown in Scotland. These 
 services were very short, much shorter than at present. Both 
 of them ended with the three collects, and in the Evening Sorvi c e 
 ^ 1 was W c mLlng that now pr o oodca tho Lord's Prnj^pr . The 
 confession and absolution in the morning were not likely to 
 excite opposition. There had been no such forms in the First 
 Book of Edward, nor in the- pre-Eeformation services, and they 
 had been added to gratify the early Puritans. A simpler form 
 for public worship, or one giving a fuller prominence to Scripture, 
 could hardly be devised. No doubt it would be often used daily, 
 as the structure of the book suggested and the usages of the 
 time required. If the rubric was followed when it was used 
 as the ordinance of the Lords required, " on Sundays and other 
 festival days," morning prayer would be followed by the Litany; 
 indeed, without this, there would be a deficiency in the element 
 of devotion. The Litany would be the more acceptable on 
 account of the prayer for deliverance " from the tyranny of the 
 Bishop of Eome and all his detestable enormities," which is not 
 to be found there now. 
 
 Whether and how far the sacramental and other occasional 
 offices came into use we have no means of determining. They 
 could be used only where the incumbents themselves con- 
 formed to the ordinance. If there was any feeling against 
 these parts of the book it was more likely to be excited by 
 the ceremonies than by the doctrines. There had been in 
 England since King Edward's time a growing dislike to such 
 accompaniments of the services as the cross in baptism, the 
 kneehng at communion, the surplice, and the wedding-ring. 
 It was as likely to be found in Scotland, which afterwards went 
 beyond England in abhorrence of these things. But whatever 
 may be thought now as to the theology of the baptismal service, 
 it was in general harmony with the old Scottish Confession and 
 Calvin's Catechism, both of which the nation accepted soon after- 
 wards and clung to for nearly a hundred years. The office for 
 Communion was more distinctly Protestant than that which is 
 now in the English Liturgy. There was no commemoration of 
 the faithful departed in the prayer for the church militant. 
 
816 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 The first sentence in each of the present forms for giving the 
 elements to communicants was wanting. But it is likely that 
 the occasions were few on which the fitness of the Communion 
 office was in question. Hitherto the people had known the 
 Lord's Supper under two aspects. As a sacrifice to be contem- 
 plated and adored, it had been the central act of public worship; 
 as a communion to be received by the congregation at large, it 
 was a privilege partaken of at long and irregular intervals. The 
 Mass was now being discontinued. We may suppose that the 
 Holy Supper was in this transition period too readily dispensed 
 with, as it had often been before, as it constantly was, and for 
 longer periods, after the Eeformation was settled and complete. 
 The Ordinance had spoken of the rarity of public preaching. 
 There seems reason to believe that to supply this want the 
 English Book of Homilies was sometimes used along with the 
 English Prayer-book. Early in 1560 we find the vicar of Lin- 
 trathen pleading, in a case about his tithe, that " he has been in 
 possession these divers years byegone, and has caused the Com- 
 mon Prayers and Homilies be read weekly to the parishioners 
 of the said parochin." ^ Nor was this a solitary case, or one 
 peculiar to the provisional state of things then existing. In the 
 license granted to Lekprevik, the King's printer, so late as 1567, 
 he is protected against the importation of certain books, one 
 of which is "the book called the Omeleyis for readers in 
 Kirks." The list is not an index expurgatoriiLS, for it in- 
 cludes such books of general use as the Psalms of David and 
 the Catechisms, the Acts of Parliament, and "a general gram- 
 mar to be used within schools of this realm." The object is to 
 protect his monopoly in printing these books. The privilege, 
 with the Homilies again included, was renewed in 1570.'' 
 
 It seems clear, then, that for years before the Eeformation was 
 established the English service was extensively used, and was 
 the only one having anything like authoritative sanction. But 
 from the circumstances of the time we may surmise that as it 
 was not adopted in all places, so it was not invariably adopted 
 in all its parts. Sometimes it would be used as a manual for 
 daily devotion, public or private, sometimes for ordinary Sunday 
 
 ^ Miscellany, Spalding Club, ii. xxv. 
 * Principal Lee's " Memorial for the Bible Society," 27, &c. 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 317 
 
 worship, sometimes in its entirety for all the offices of religion. 
 It is possible that there were places where the old worship and 
 the new were heard in the same church and from the same 
 ministrant. Not long before, in King Edward's time, this had 
 been done in England, when the Latin Mass, celebrated in the 
 ancient fashion, was followed by a vernacular service for giving 
 the Communion to the laity. In 1559 the Queen-Eegent of 
 Scotland wished that Mass and Common-prayers might be used 
 in St. Giles' one after the other, though the proposal was rejected. 
 One of the requests made to the Provincial Council of that year 
 by those who desired reform without separation from Eome, was 
 in languasie almost identical with the ordinance of the barons. 
 They asked "that the Common-prayer, with litanies in our 
 vulgar toDgue, may be said in every Parish Kirk upon Sundays 
 and other holy days after the divine service of the Mass, and that 
 the evening prayers may be said after noon in like wise." Those 
 who desired this would be ready to put their proposal in practice 
 where they had power to do so. Then we read of lay persons who 
 went to the other extreme, and took on themselves to administer 
 sacraments in private and even in public. Winzet, the Eoman 
 controversialist, taunts the Eeformers with it in one of his tracts, 
 and his evidence is confirmed by the Eirst Book of Discipline, 
 which declares that the offenders were worthy of death for 
 "falsifying the seals of Christ Jesus." Sometimes when the 
 property of the Church had been secularized by corrupt compacts 
 or direct spoliation, the house of God was closed and all worship 
 ceased. On both sides there was the fervour of devotion, the 
 spirit of compromise, and the thirst for plunder, making almost 
 any combination of results a possibility. 
 
 The adherents of Eome made some attempts to avert the im- 
 pending revolution, but they were directed more to the amend- 
 ment of clerical morals and a better administration of the Church's 
 affairs, than to the purification of her worship. Her system was 
 not at this point elastic enough to accommodate itself to unex- 
 pected pressure. There were several meetings of the Provincial 
 Council, a convocation or General Assembly of the Scottish 
 clergy, which had been accustomed to meet at irregular intervals 
 for centuries. From them came in 1552 the vernacular Cat^c 
 chism, known as Archbishop Hamilton's, to be used on SundaJ^ 
 
318 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 for the confusion of heretics. At their latest meeting, in 1559, 
 they issued a short address to be read when the Communion was 
 administered. Both are interesting, as remains of the Scottish 
 tongue when it was the language of a court and literature. But 
 they were too late to be of any polemical value. From the same 
 source came repeated injunctions to bishop and priest alike, to 
 preach if they could, or to train themselves for the duty if they 
 had neglected it. It was less humiliating to do so, because cer- 
 tain decrees on the subject, issued by the Council of Trent, then 
 sitting, had to be enforced. Regulations were made assigning 
 livings for the support of itinerating preachers, and fixing the 
 number of sermons which were to be delivered in each church 
 throughout the year. But they did not reach the modest mini- 
 mum asked by the same petitioners, who wished also an Eng- 
 lish service after Mass — a weekly sermon in every church, or at 
 the least on Yule, Pasche, Whitsunday, and every third or fourth 
 Sunday. In truth it was as difficult to find hearers as preachers. 
 One of these councils lamented that of late years few even in 
 the most populous parishes came to Mass on Sundays and high 
 festivals, or deigned to be present at the preaching of the word 
 of God. And it also frankly recorded its conviction that " the 
 inferior clergy of this realm, and the greater part of the prelates, 
 were not yet so advanced in their acquirements in sacred learning 
 as to instruct the people rightly in the Catholic faith and other 
 things necessary to salvation, or by their own zeal to reclaim the 
 erring."^ Preaching had come to be looked on as a function 
 apart from the routine duties of the secular clergy. It was 
 left almost entirely to friars, who made it their peculiar work. 
 Many of the men whose earnest appeals were carrying the new 
 doctrines to the hearts of the people came from their trained 
 ranks. Humbler controversialists were everywhere reading 
 and discussing the Scriptures. The champions of Eome fought 
 as best they could with their unfamiliar arms. But the con- 
 test did not last long. The fabric which they defended sank 
 in ruin as soon as the French army left Leith for their native 
 country. In a few weeks more the Mass was proscribed, and 
 the Confession of Knox and his brethren owned as the national 
 creed. 
 
 ^ Robertson's " Concilia," ii. 1S6. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 319 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose that the severe laws passed 
 in Edinburgh caused the Eoman worship to cease throughout 
 Scotland. As the Book of Edward had been used within the old 
 Establishment, so the forbidden rites were continued under the 
 Establishment reformed. Under the protection of feudal mag- 
 nates, the old order refused to give place to the new over large 
 territories in the far north and in the south. All over the country 
 there were places where, when opportunity offered, priests 
 officiated openly and none ventured to disturb them. A con- 
 fession in the Common Order, added years after the Eeformation, 
 goes so far as to say, " The whole body of this miserable realm 
 still contiuueth in their former impiety. Eor the most part, 
 alas ! following the footsteps of the blind and obstinate Princess, 
 utterly despise the light of Thy Gospel, and delight in ignorance 
 and idolatry." Bishop Grindal tells of certain Puritans who, 
 coming to Scotland in 1568 as to a land of greater light, were 
 horrified to see on Good Friday people going barefoot to Dunbar 
 church, to " creep to the cross," one of the distinctive ceremonies 
 of the day.^ The terms of the Ptecord of Assembly, in 1570, 
 are not without significance when it speaks of "persons in a 
 reformed parish or city, where order and discipline is observed." 
 So late as 1585 and 1595 masses were said in Lincluden Abbey 
 and Elgin Cathedral. At that time eight or nine counties were 
 still in the main Eoman Catholic, and of the peers of Scotland, 
 excluding minors, thirteen were Eomanists, as against twenty-six 
 Protestants, besides seven who were doubtful.^ Even among 
 those who accepted the new creed and worship, conformity 
 was not always sincere. There are indications of this in the 
 dealings of the Assembly with the first generation of ministers 
 and readers. Thus certain ministers are referred to who encou- 
 raged pilgrimages to the old holy wells, and gave the Communion 
 to their people for seven or eight years, without ever receiving 
 it themselves.^ It is reported that a certain Sir Walter 
 Eobeson, evidently an old priest, though now a reader, " passed 
 with a dead corpse to the kirk, having the supercloth (surplice) 
 upon him in Popish manner."^ An allusion in an Aberdeen 
 record, shows that a Eeformed reader, when he took office, 
 
 1 " Eemains," 2D5. 2 Tjtler, ix. 39, 876. 3 " Book of the Universal Kirk," 638. 
 
 * Ibid., 287. 
 76 
 
320 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ■went to the deprived bishop to take collation to the vicarage 
 belonging to it.^ 
 
 But let us return to the events of the year of Eeformation. 
 The signal for the change had been the Treaty of Leith. Sir 
 James Balfour says in his Annals that in this treaty " they did 
 not meddle v^ith religion for divers respects : but the chief was 
 that as yet the Scots were not resolved whether to embrace the 
 Eeformation of England or that of Geneva." There had been 
 no delay in issuing a Confession, but it was one wliich at that 
 time would have been accepted in either place. Standards of 
 policy and of worship were yet to come, Their Book of Policy, 
 known as the Book of Discipline, was given to the world at the 
 beginning of 1561, though there is some difference of opinion as 
 to the exact time of its composition. There is also some question 
 as to its authorship and text. Eow^the_son^f_one of the com- 
 mittee responsible for it, says that the Assembly assigned different 
 portions of it to the different members, and that when it was 
 returned as complete, they abridged some parts of it. S pottis - 
 woode, the son of another, says that it was " framed " by Knox, 
 and he inserts it in his History " word by word." Knox also 
 inserts it in his History, and his version is in some places larger 
 than Spottiswoode's. Some have assumed, in the face of the 
 latter's assertion that the text was given verbatim, that he falsi- 
 fied it. A simpler and certainly more charitable explanation is, 
 that the larger text is that presented to the Assembly, the other 
 the form which it bore after their excisions. This Book of Dis- 
 cipline contains the first hint of what the service-book of the 
 future was likely to be. Speaking of the sacraments, it says, 
 " Albeit the Order of Geneva, which now is used in some of our 
 kirks, is sufficient to instruct the diligent reader how that both 
 these sacraments may be rightly administered ; yet for an uni- 
 formity to be kept, we have thought good to add this as super- 
 abundant." Both texts are here at one. The passage is sometimes 
 quoted thus: "The sacraments should be ministered after the 
 order of the Book of Geneva." But these words are taken from 
 a short sum of the book, printed for the first time in 1722, from 
 a manuscript of unknown origin. There are two other allusions, 
 but in the larger text alone. Calvin's Catechism is recom- 
 
 ^ "Spalding Miscellany," iv. 25. 
 
THE rJTUAL or THE CIIUECII. 321 
 
 mended for use "as we have it now translated in the Book of 
 our [the, edition of 1722] Common Order, called the Order of 
 Geneva," and again as " printed with the Book of our Common 
 Order." Let us go back a little way to trace the origin of this 
 book, then recently and partially introduced, but which holds so 
 important a place in the history of our worship. 
 
 Before the Eeformation took an organic form in Scotland it 
 was far advanced abroad, and various church-books had been 
 completed and were in use. The communions using the French 
 tongue had generally adopted one by Calvin. When Knox and 
 other English refugees fled at Mary Tudor's accession they drew 
 together at Frankfort, and were allowed to form a congregation 
 there on condition that they conformed to this French ritual. 
 Such of the English as thought that their Eeformation had not 
 gone far and fast enough were ready to do so. But others would 
 not change the worship to which they had been accustomed 
 at home. After a long contest, in which Knox took the lead, 
 what may be called the French party withdrew to Geneva with 
 him as one of their ministers. In Frankfort they had an English 
 translation of Calvin's book. Now in 1556 they had another 
 version specially prepared for themselves, and this our fathers 
 knew as the Book of Geneva, from the place where it was pub- 
 lished and used. Single copies of it are likely to have found 
 their way to Scotland. But if the book attracted attention it 
 was not likely to rouse national feeling. The scene of the 
 quarrel was distant. Almost all the disputants were Englishmen, 
 except Knox, and his was not the name of power in Scotland ^ 
 that it afterwards became. Accordingly there is no record of 
 controversy here as to the comparative merits of this book and 
 the Book of Edward. "We have seen that at the time of the 
 purging of the churches in 1559 the English book was the re- 
 cognized substitute for the old worship, and apparently it was 
 keeping its place at the Treaty of Leith a year afterwards. And 
 yet a few months later the Book of Discipline ignores it, and 
 speaks of the Genevan book as already in occasional use. The 
 fact receives confirmation from a very different quarter. Quintin 
 Kennedy, abbot of Crossraguel, in a controversial work published 
 in 1561, alludes to " their book called the Form of Prayers," and 
 quotes words which are to be found in the Communion service 
 
322 THE EITUAL OF THE CIIUKCII. 
 
 of the Common Order. ^ The names of those who drafted the 
 Book of Discipline are known. "Willock was perhaps the most 
 prominent leader of the reformers when Knox arrived from 
 
 ^ abroad. The same Kennedy writes that the reformers said of 
 him that "he was chosen primate of their religion in this realm." ^ 
 For many years before the death of Edward he was well known 
 as a London clergyman and chaplain to the father of Lady Jane 
 Grey. After serving for some years as superintendent of the 
 West he returned to England, and ended his days as rector of 
 Loughborough. Douglas, afterwards archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 ^1 had been one of the most active reformers in Scotland all 
 the time that the English book had been in use. Spottiswoode, 
 <?/ superintendent of Lothian, had been ordained by Cranmer. 
 Eow, and Winram, superintendent of Fife, were recent proselytes. 
 So lately as in 1559 the one had been resident in Eome, and 
 ^ the other sitting in the Provincial Council of the unreformed 
 Churcli, There was nothing in the antecedents of any of these 
 men to make them hostile to the book that was in possession — 
 much, in the case of some of them, to attach them to it. The 
 only remaining name is that of John Knox. Whatever reasons 
 caused the new book to be preferred, we may assume that his 
 influence went into that scale. No doubt he too had been for 
 a term of years in the Church of England. He had been one 
 of Edward's chaplains and was offered the see of Eochester. 
 Still he was one of that party who wished the distance between 
 the Anghcan Church and the Eoman to be widened. Like 
 
 \, Bishop Hooper he was an early advocate for the sitting posture 
 at Communion, and a sermon on that subject which he preached 
 before the King was probably the first step towards the insertion 
 of the rubric, which still stands at the end of the English Com- 
 munion office, defining more distinctly than many Anglicans 
 like the difference between Eoman and Eeformed eucharistic 
 doctrine.^ The interesting fragment of his own Communion 
 Service when he was stationed at Berwick, in 1549, brought 
 to light by Dr. Lorimer, shows that here at least he was 
 not a strict conformist. But at the time of his stay in Eng- 
 land he had, as he told the men of Erankfort, a good opinion 
 of the Liturgy ; afterwards he found in it " things superstitious, 
 
 ^ M'Crie's "Knox." note D.D. ^ "Wodiow Miscellany," 2C7. ^ Loiimei's "Knox." 
 
THE rJTUAL Oi" THE CHURCH. 323 
 
 impure, unclean, and imperfect." After his collision with one 
 section of the English refugees there, he seems to have considered 
 himself the chosen champion of the one book against the other. 
 His feeling was strengthened by his intercourse with Calvin, 
 and the free hand allowed him in preparing the new form of 
 the Order of Geneva. On his way home, when exasperated by 
 Elizabeth's refusal to let him return through her dominions, he 
 writes a letter from Dieppe, using language about the English 
 Liturgy so strong that its suppression in Scotland must have 
 been in his eyes a sacred duty. He describes as a part of the mark 
 of the beast " all these dregs of Papistry which were left in your 
 great book of England, any jot whereof will I never counsel any 
 man to use." When he found the abhorred book holding an author- 
 ized place in his native church, a man of his masterful tempera- 
 ment would not conceal his sentiments, nor fail to carry them 
 into action. When before long we have a document issued of 
 which he was a chief promoter, in which the English book is 
 tacitly set aside, and the one which he had been using for years 
 referred to as already accepted in some quarters, we can hardly 
 doubt that during the interval he had been fighting the old 
 battles over again, both among the compilers and throughout the 
 Church. If there was any attempt in the committee to withstand 
 his will, one of the events of the day furnished him with a new 
 and strong argument. 
 
 The Book of Edward had just lost the prestige which 
 belonged to it as the national liturgy of the other British 
 kingdom. At midsummer, 1560, it had been superseded by 
 the new liturgy of Elizabeth. The two books were almost the 
 same in form, but such changes as were made were all reactionary. 
 A new rubric on vestments, the same which has been so fruitful 
 a source of discord and litigation in our own day, brought the 
 law back to what it had been ten years before. The prayer for 
 deliverance from the Pope was expunged from the Litany. 
 The Pioman forms in giving the elements, which had been omitted 
 in the last book, were restored and set before those which had 
 taken their place ; and the rubric on kneeling, in which Knox 
 had been so much interested, was for the time blotted out. 
 These were potent weapons ready for his hand. He could plead 
 that Scotland would be unwise to identify herself with a form 
 
Nf 
 
 ^^v^ 
 
 324 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 of worship) which was changing, and changing in the direction 
 of Eome. If the subject ever became the occasion of public 
 dispute, and was seen to turn on the respective merits of English 
 and Erench service-books, popular sentiment was likely to be 
 on the same side as Knox. The barons who had introduced 
 the one were in close alliance and sympathy with the English 
 Protestant interest. But in the eyes of the people Englishmen 
 w^ere still our ancient enemies, the victors at Elodden and Pinkie, 
 the marauders who had lately given Edinburgh to the flames. 
 The old French alliance was not to be so easily forgotten. No 
 doubt France had tried to dictate to Scotland in the matter 
 of religion. But the interference came from the court party. 
 There, as in Scotland, the aristocracy, people, and territory 
 were divided between the two faiths. It was the worship of 
 Eeformed France that was being offered to Scotland. There 
 is no greater mistake than the popular notion that our fathers 
 were content to take their worship, their church order, or their 
 creed from an insignificant Swiss canton. Calvin was a French- 
 man by birth and training. His habits of exact thought, his 
 clear and uncompromising reasoning, were purely French. His 
 system became on the one side of opinion the belief of the 
 most powerful intellects in the most cultured country of Europe. 
 The men of Geneva protected and obeyed the great thinker, 
 whose opinions swayed so strongly the kingdom at whose 
 threshold they lay. And so their city held provisionally the 
 place which belonged to Paris as metropolis of the Eeformed 
 in France and the countries adjacent. To Scottish eyes a 
 French Eeformed service emanating from Geneva would appear 
 far more cosmopolitan than any that Canterbury could produce. 
 It may be added that the French Book or Canons of Discipline 
 was drawn up in 1559, on the same lines as the Scottish 
 Book of Discipline, and was identical with it in innumerable 
 particulars. It seemed fitting that the forms of worship and 
 forms of policy, appearing almost simultaneously, should all 
 be bonds to draw the old alliance closer. 
 
 "Whether these are adequate reasons or not, the fact is un- 
 doubted that at this point the Book of Edward disappears, and 
 the Book of Geneva comes into view. It is presented tentatively 
 at first, and some years pass before it has primary authority. 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 325 
 
 It would be unwarrantable to suppose that its rival, closely con- 
 nected as it had been with the dawn of the Eeformation, was at 
 once suppressed. One chance notice, as we have seen, reveals ^ 
 the fact that the English Homilies were in use ten years after 3 1 G 
 the Eeformation, and in sufficient numbers to make the right of 
 printing them a privilege of value. In the same way a preference 
 for the English Liturgy may have lingered here and there for a 
 while. The Common Order was to some extent made imperative 
 in 1562, by the fourth of our General Assemblies. "It is con- 
 cluded that a uniform order shall be taken or kept in the 
 administration of the sacraments, and solemnization of marriages 
 and burials of the dead, according to the Book of Geneva." 
 There is no allusion to the Common Prayers, for which service- 
 books are mainly used. Indeed it was only in that year that 
 the Common Order was published for the first time in Scotland, 
 and with additional prayers for daily service. It is conceivable 
 that the English daily prayers, which, as we have seen, were 
 shorter than now, and gave no foothold for controversy, were 
 keeping their place. But in 1564 there were both a new edition 
 of the Common Order with further changes, and an Act of 
 Assembly enjoining the use of every portion of it. "It is 
 ordained that every minister, exhorter, and reader shall have 
 one of the Psalm Books lately printed in Edinburgh, and use 
 the order contained therein, in Prayers, Marriage, and adminis- 
 tration of the Sacraments." The Service-book and Psalter, bound 
 in one volume, were then and long afterwards called in common 
 speech the Psalm Book, since the Psalms, with music, filled 
 most pages and were for the people's own use. The name, 
 " Book of Common Order," exactly describes the smaller portion ; 
 for it contained not only liturgical forms, but a confession of 
 belief, with regulations as to church meetings, and the appoint- 
 ment and duties of office-bearers. At later periods manuals for 
 discipline and the observance of fasts were added. But no part 
 was rejected till the whole was silently abandoned at the "West- 
 minster era. It has been more carefully guarded abroad. If 
 Scotsmen wish to know how their ancestors worshipped 300 
 years ago, there are many congregations in France, Holland, and 
 Switzerland where essentially the same service is to be seen, 
 and even the same prayers heard, especially the Confession, with 
 
\ 
 
 B26 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 which the daily service in Knox's Liturgy began, and which 
 ^7as a bond of brotherhood among the Genevan family of Re- 
 formed Churches. It is a curious fact, that for a time the same 
 worship was maintained in the most southern and most north- 
 ern parts of the British dominions. The Channel Islands, in 
 consideration of their French tongue, were allowed to adopt the 
 Huguenot worship, and to retain it for a part of the seventeenth 
 century. An old manuscript history of the Bermudas, lately 
 printed by the Hakluyt Society, describes a dispute which arose 
 among the clergy and people of the settlement as to the use of 
 the sacramental and marriage services of the Church of England. 
 \^ The governor settled the difficulty by substituting "the Liturgy 
 used in the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, the which being of His 
 Majesty's dominions, and by him tolerated, . . . being one 
 and the very same with that of the French Protestants, those of 
 the United Provinces, and even Geneva itself" After he had 
 himself translated it, the Communion was celebrated in this 
 form on Easter day, 1620. "And this form was generally 
 observed throughout the whole islands (the governor enduring 
 no variation) in these particulars of the Sacraments and Mar- 
 riage all the time of his government there, and for ought I know- 
 so continueth to this day."^ It was probably for the use 
 of the Channel Islands that a French version of the West- 
 
 ^ minster Directory, a copy of which is in the British Museum, 
 was printed at Charenton, the great centre of the French Re- 
 formed. After the islands became more distinctively Anglican, 
 traces of the old system remained. To this day the lessons in 
 
 ^ the country churches are read by readers, as in France and old 
 Scotland. 
 
 The book, as a whole, is ponderous in style, just because it is 
 weighty with doctrine and controversial allusion. For this the 
 age is responsible more than the country. It is French in origin 
 with Scottish additions, but the same characteristics are to be 
 found in English forms of devotion written at that period. All 
 readers of the English Liturgy who are sufficiently free from 
 early associations to make a discriminating estimate, feel that 
 its beauties lie in those parts which have been gathered from 
 other lands and ages. It is to be regretted that the Scottish 
 
 1 p. 171. 
 
 \. 
 
THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 327 
 
 book was not filled from the same fountains, or from more 
 copious springs then almost unknown. The age was one of 
 inquiry, not of contemplation. The purification of belief was its 
 peculiar mission. When it attempted liturgical composition, the 
 jar of polemics disturbed the sweetness of devotion. 
 
 The Common Order, in its completed form, is more cumbrous 
 than the original Book of Geneva, from the promiscuous fashion 
 in which the successive additions were appended. When its 
 general structure is compared with that of the English Liturgy, 
 greater differences are at once apparent. While it provided for 
 the sequence and language of worship, it left such matters as 
 vestments, attitudes, and visible ceremonial in general, to be 
 determined by usage. These soon settled themselves, and were 
 perpetuated by unwritten tradition, which has been more uniform 
 than might have been expected, considering that there was no 
 standard of appeal. Some customs came from abroad with the 
 book. Some were inherited from the old worship, though those 
 who used them soon forgot the source from which they came. 
 Some were self-originated in after-years. A principle was 
 kept in view, which was defined more distinctly and held 
 more firmly in later controversies, that no absolute authority 
 ought to be claimed for human appointments, however ex- 
 pedient and seemly. 
 
 Another feature of the book was that it was so framed 
 as to make responsive worship impossible. The worshipper 
 was to follow the continuous prayers with silent ac^rd, 
 probably without even an audible "Amen." At Frankfort 
 the signal for the outbreak of hostilities between the two 
 parties was the loud responses of the Anglicans when a 
 liturgy of compromise was read. The ground which Knox 
 had taken up there, he was not likely to abandon in Scotland. 
 His position would be that the people's vocal part in divine 
 service was the singing of Psalms ; for the preface to the 
 original Geneva Book says : " Prayers are after two manner of 
 sorts, that is, either in words only or else with song joined 
 thereunto." Then provision was made for keeping a due 
 balance between liturgical and free prayer. There was as yet 
 among our fathers no objection to forms of public devotion. 
 Nothing can be more distinct than the words of Knox's friend 
 
Nv 
 
 328 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 and leader, Calvin : " I highly approve of it that there be a cer- 
 tain form from ^yhich the minister be not allowed to vary : that, 
 first, some provision be made to help the simplicity and un- 
 skilfulness of some ; secondly, that the consent and harmony 
 of the churches — one with another — may appear; and lastly, 
 that the capricious giddiness and levity of such as affect inno- 
 vations may be prevented. To which end I have showed that 
 a Catechism will be very useful. Therefore there ought to be a 
 stated Catechism, a stated form of prayer, and administration 
 of the Sacraments." Forms prepared by him with these ends 
 in view were adopted verbatim by the Scottish Church; but 
 they followed him also in guarding jealously the right of free 
 prayer, especially before and after the sermon. Now it alone 
 remains. The popular belief has come to be, that from the 
 Eeformation onwards, preaching set o£f by free prayer and the 
 singing of psalms was the sum of weekly worship. 
 
 It will be necessary to examine with some fulness of detail 
 the worship which became universal as soon as the Common 
 Order was recognized as the Directory of the Church. With 
 slight modifications it continued till the days of the Common- 
 wealth, and notwithstanding the losses and additions of that 
 time, is the basis of that which has come down to us. We 
 shall not follow the somewhat confused arrangement of the 
 book, but the natural order of the several parts, and consider, 
 first, the daily, and then the sacramental services. "We say 
 daily service, for it was not usual then, as now, to keep the 
 door of God's house closed from Sunday to Sunday. In towns 
 there were public prayers every day, and in Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, at least, churches remained open for private devotion.^ 
 During the week there were sermons preached on one or 
 two days. In the country the number of week-day services 
 depended on the nearness and number of the population. On 
 Sunday there were two services. It has been the later usage to 
 begin worship a little before noon. In this respect we have 
 departed far from the old custom of the country, which was to 
 begin several hours earlier than now. Before the Eeformation, 
 service had necessarily been early, because Mass had to be 
 celebrated before the first meal, and the familiar custom was 
 
 1 Wodrow, " Biog. Coll.," ii. 22. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUKCII. 329 
 
 continued. When there was Communion the service began 
 at a still earlier hour; in Edinburgh, for instance, in 1566, 
 at four o'clock.^ For the ordinary Sunday service three 
 bells were rung, one to tell that the hour of worship was at 
 hand, the second for the reader's service, the last for the 
 sermon. One or both of the earlier ringings on Sunday 
 morning are still kept up in many places, though few who 
 hear them know what they once meant. On week days bell 
 and worship have long ceased. Notices in the Session Eecords 
 of Glasgow and Aberdeen show that when the congregation 
 were assembling men and women took their places in different 
 parts of the church, as is still the custom in some countries of 
 Protestant Europe.^ The service began with a short exhortation 
 or preface, calling all who were present to hear and follow 
 in their hearts the confession of sins in the form common 
 to all the Churches technically called Eeformed, as distin- 
 guished from the Lutheran. The Common Order makes no 
 mention of any other than the minister, anticipating the time 
 when every church would be filled by one commissioned to 
 fulfil all the functions of the ministry. But at first the 
 ministrant was generally a reader, who did no more than read 
 the liturgy and lessons. 
 
 Here the question rises, In what attitude were these prayers 
 offered to God ? It has been common among us to assume 
 that the custom of standing, lately so general, prevailed in 
 Scotland without interruption since the Eeformation, and that 
 in Britain at least kneeling was peculiar to the Church of 
 England. On the contrary, kneeling was the Scottish usage 
 so long as the Common Order was the guide in worship. 
 In time it changed into sitting, the most careless and irreverent 
 of all postures, and that was afterwards amended by borrowing 
 from Episcopacy the more decent attitude of standing. Many 
 an advocate of this last attitude must have been puzzled in 
 reading Calderwood's History to find him including among 
 " superstitious rites entered in the Kirk" in the early ages "not 
 to kneel in time of prayer on the Lord's Day," ranking it with 
 reservation of the Communion and the sign of the cross.^ 
 No doubt he refers to the well-known canon of the Nicaean 
 
 ^ Lee's " Lectures," L 3So. ^'tt'emyss' " Life," 17 ; " Aberd. Sess. EecV 40. =» i. 38, 
 
330 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 Council. At the Eeformation the Scottish Church made no 
 reference to the subject. No controversy between Eomanist and 
 Reformed turned upon it, and there was therefore no catise for 
 disturbing the existing custom. Kneeling at the time of receiv- 
 ing the Communion was forbidden, but this had no connection 
 with the attitude taken at Common Prayers. The practice of 
 Calvin may be gathered from a passage where, spealdng of 
 having something like a declaratory absolution after the Con- 
 fession, he says: "I would have introduced this custom from 
 the beginning, but some fearing that the novelty of it would 
 give offence, I was over-easy in yielding to them ; so the 
 thing was omitted, and now it would not be seasonable to 
 make any change, because the greatest part of our people 
 begin to rise up before we come to the end of the Con- 
 fession."^ Strange to say, the First Book of Edward, sup- 
 loosed to be so favourable to Eomish custom, treats kneeling 
 as optional, while the French Discipline enforces it. The former 
 says: "As touching kneeling, crossing, holding up of hands, 
 knocking upon the breast, and other gestures, they may be 
 used or left as every man's devotion serveth, without blame." 
 But the Huguenot canon is, " That great irreverence which is 
 found in divers persons, who at public and private prayers do 
 neither uncover their heads nor bow their knees, shall be 
 reformed, which is a matter repugnant unto piety and giveth 
 suspicion of pride, and doth scandalize them that fear God."** 
 The custom which the Scots inherited from their fathers 
 was to kneel on the church pavement. It may be sup- 
 posed that sitting began and grew common as pews gradually 
 encroached upon the floor and galleries blocked up the 
 pillars. From an order of the General Session of Glasgow in 
 1587, it appears that the change was already attracting notice. 
 It required " that all persons in time of prayer bow their knee 
 to the ground." But kneeling was in use long after. Calder- 
 wood, writing so late as 1623, says: "Kneeling is the posture 
 of one who adores. It does not follow . . , that we re- 
 ceive the elements on our knees, because we now offer adoration 
 on our knees in prayer. . . . AVe pray on our knees of our 
 free will, not because we are compelled by any law. . . . 
 
 1 " Eutasia," 22. ^ " Discipline," x. 1. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCn. 331 
 
 Both Scripture and nature commend to us kneeling at prayer."^ 
 An incidental allusion by Gillespie shows that before the West- 
 minster period sponsors knelt at baptism, and Alexander Hen- 
 derson told the Assembly of Westminster that the custom of Scot- 
 land was either to kneel or sit at the consecration prayer. In a 
 volume of his sermons published some years ago, there are 
 not only discourses and prayers, but his prefaces, in which, 
 as the Common Order required, he calls the congregation 
 to pray, sometimes saying: "Let us now fall down before 
 the Lord our God;" once at the close of a sermon, "I would 
 have all of you to bow your knees ; " and more frequently, " Let 
 us humble ourselves," a phrase of which the import as it was 
 then used is often missed. It meant kneeling, the lowly atti- 
 tude of the body as well as of the soul. 
 
 The Common Order has no mention of the reading of Scrip- 
 ture. In this it does not differ from the Continental Eeformed 
 liturgies of the same period. Both here and abroad, however, 
 the practice was universal, and did not cease in Scotland till 
 the reader's office fell into disuse. Indeed, the Scripture, which 
 was not formally enjoined, was read longer than the liturgical 
 prayers, which were. Its sanction came from the Book of 
 Discipline, which, though never ratified, was always listened 
 to as an authority : " We think it a thing most expedient and 
 necessary, that every kirk have a Bible in English, and that 
 the people be commanded to convene and hear the plain 
 reading and interpretation of the Scripture, as the Kirk shall 
 appoint." Still less was it thought necessary to add a Lec- 
 tionary to the Common Order. The Book of Discipline 
 distinguishes between things necessary and things merely 
 profitable, and gives as instances of the latter, singing of 
 psalms, "that certain places of the Scripture be read when 
 there is no sermon," and the number of the days of worship 
 in each week. But it enjoined what, so far as each congre- 
 gation was concerned, was tantamount to a Lectionary, that 
 each book of Scripture should be begun and orderly read 
 to the end, and the same rule was to hold as to the preacher. 
 There was to be no " skipping and divagation from place to 
 place of Scripture, be it in reading or be it in preaching," 
 
 ^ " Altare Damascenum," pp. 785, 790. 
 
332 THE RITUAL OF THE CHUKCII. 
 
 and for generations both injunctions were strictly observed. 
 There was never in the Scottish Church any Authorized Ver- 
 sion of the Holy Scriptures. The Book of Geneva and the 
 Genevan version of the Bible came into use together, and 
 were silently superseded about the same time. The present 
 version gradually took the place of the other, but it was 
 never imposed by any authority, civil or ecclesiastical, ex- 
 cept the canons, which came from England in IGS'G, only 
 to be rejected. The dedication to King James, so well known 
 by sight and so seldom read, has reference only to its use 
 in England. Pieces of the Genevan version are to be found 
 embedded in the Westminster Standards themselves.^ 
 
 The singing of the psalm was the link uniting the reader's 
 service to the preacher's. A universal characteristic of the 
 Eeformation was the eagerness with which the people took 
 up congregational singing as against that of officials. Nowhere 
 was the movement more enthusiastic than among the Erench 
 Pieformed, whose Psalter, by Marot and Beza, was naturally 
 a model for Scotland, and here at least Scotland and England 
 were also at one. The author of the " Troubles of Erankfort " 
 says that the English colony there used "a Psalm in metre 
 in a plain tune, as was and is accustomed in the French, 
 Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Scottish Churches." Versions 
 of the Psalms were made in metrical form, partly to aid the 
 memory, partly to represent the artificial structure of the 
 Hebrew poems, which necessarily disappeared in translation. 
 They were set to music on a principle thus described by 
 Cranmer, in writing to Henry VIII. about certain translations 
 of Church hymns which he had made " for a proof to see 
 how English would do in song." He says : " In my opinion 
 the song that shall be made thereunto would not be full of 
 notes, but as near as may be for every syllable a note." 
 Another rule was observed that in sacred, as in secular music, 
 the same words were sung to the same tunes. The new mode 
 caught the popular ear and affection. Psalms were sung in 
 the home, on the journey, wherever there was a gathering of 
 the multitude. In public worship the usage came to be that 
 there were two psalms, the people's part of the service, as a 
 
 ^ Lee's ■' Additional Memorial," 66. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CIIUECH. 333 
 
 prelude and a sequel to the minister's. Cartwright, the Puritan 
 leader, describes the psalmody " used in the Eeformed Churches, 
 which is in the singing of two psalms, one in the beginning 
 and another in the ending, in a plain tune, easy both to be 
 sung of those which have no art in singing, and understanded 
 of those which, because they cannot read, cannot sing with 
 the rest of the Church." 
 
 The accepted translation in England was that of Stern- 
 hold and Hopkins, and continued till its place was taken 
 by Tate and Brady. With the exception of a small pro- 
 portion of the Psalms, the Scottish version, authorized in 
 1564, was the same as the English; bound in one volume 
 with the Common Order, it was in general use till both 
 were superseded, the one by Eous' Psalms, the other by the 
 Directory. The Scots, however, did not hold the opinion 
 sometimes attributed to them, that nothing but the Psalms 
 of David ought to be used in musical worship. There were 
 only Psalms in the first edition, but there were soon added 
 metrical paraphrases of the New Testament songs, the Deca- 
 logue and Lord's Prayer, besides the Creed, the Veni Creator, 
 and other non-scriptural forms. There were also many versions 
 of the doxology to be sung at the end of psalms, afterwards the 
 cause of much discord between the old Scottish Churchmen 
 and the men of English sympathies. Many of these forms 
 had been versified at an earlier period for use abroad, and 
 at home by the Wedderburns. The doxology had been in 
 use in Scotland from the date of the Pififormation.^ The 
 edition of the Psalm Book published in 1595 has this peculi- 
 arity, that a short prayer, hardly longer than a collect, is 
 joined to each psalm. 
 
 The psalm within the church, and the third bell without, 
 marked the close of the service from the desk or lateran, and 
 intimated that the service from the pulpit was about to begin. 
 When, as before long was generally the case, there were both 
 a- minister and a reader in the parish, the minister seems 
 not only to have left the first service to his subordinate, but 
 to have absented himself from it. His first act on entering 
 was to bend in secret prayer. Of this "bowing in the pul- 
 
 1 Keith, m. 490. 
 
334 THE rJTUAL OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 pit," a continuation of the genuflexions of the old worship 
 freed from their superstition, we shall also hear hereafter. 
 PiOW describes a scene in St. Giles' church, in 1586, when Arch- 
 bishop Adamson went into the pulpit to preach before King 
 James, "and after the English form began to beck in a low 
 courtesy to the King, whereas the custom of this Kirk was 
 first to salute God, to do God's work, and then, after sermon 
 and divine worship closed, to give reverence and make cour- 
 tesy particularly to the King."^ After his private devotions 
 the minister — sometimes with, sometimes without a preface — 
 offered a prayer for grace, not of great length probably in the 
 first age. But as the liturgical prayers became less regarded, 
 and were joined in by fewer worshippers, these " conceived " 
 prayers grcAV in importance and length. They were not 
 necessarily extemporaneous. Among the manuscripts left by 
 Principal Eollock to his literary executor were his prayers " as 
 he uttered them in pulpit before and after sermon."^ Hender- 
 son's, as we have seen, are printed with his sermons. 
 
 The Common Order does no more than indicate the place of 
 the sermon. Its length was not so portentous as it has been 
 the fashion to represent. An hour, measured by the sand-glass, 
 was the ordinary length. James Melville, speaking of youthful 
 doubts as to his fitness for the ministry, says : " I thought it a 
 thing impossible that ever I could have the ability to stand 
 up and speak when all held their tongue and looked, and 
 to continue speaking alone the space of an hour."^ Knox 
 took half an hour to open up his text, and then proceeded 
 with the application of it. A sermon an hour in length 
 is more than the taste of the present day tolerates, but not 
 more than was common within living memory, not more than 
 a student even now looks for from his professor, less than is 
 \. endured and expected from political orators and literary lec- 
 turers. The incessant call for shortening more and more the 
 time allotted to preaching must have some cause peculiar to 
 itself; whether in the increasing inefficiency of speakers, increas- 
 ing indifference on the part of hearers, or the absence of those 
 lively excursions into political controversy which our fathers 
 loved, we shall not try to decide. But the time of the most 
 
 1 P. 115. 2 :\i'Crie's " MelviUe," ii. 422. ^ Autobiogi-aphy, 23. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 335 
 
 lengthy preaching was not yet. The days of " taking another 
 glass " came later. When they began they were not the 
 characteristic of any one party. Livingston, whose fame and 
 success as a preacher were so great, seldom preached for 
 more than half an hour. Forbes, the first bishop of Edinburgh, 
 whom his opponents represented as drawing nearer to Eome 
 than any Scottish prelate of his day, preached for five or six 
 hours at a time. 
 
 The afternoon service was generally catechetical. At the 
 present day catechizing is considered the work of the parent 
 or other Sunday instructor of the young. In those days 
 it was a branch of ministerial work. Calvin's or the Heidel- 
 berg Catechism was used as a text-book for the instruc- 
 tion of young and old, from the pulpit, on Sunday afternoon. 
 The name of catechist given in later times to lay preachers in 
 the North serves to connect the two conceptions of a Christian 
 worker instructing children from a catechism prepared mainly 
 for them, and a minister teaching his flock at afternoon service, 
 not from a text of Scripture, but from one of the fifty-two 
 sections of Calvin's Catechism. 
 
 The sermon was to be followed by "a prayer for the whole 
 estate of Christ's Church." Though • thus described it is pre- 
 ceded by a prayer for a blessing on the word, and ends with the 
 Lord's Prayer, followed . by the Apostles' Creed. "When there 
 was no preacher all these would be repeated by the reader 
 immediately after the earlier prayers. But there is no trace 
 of his reading them after another had preached. The minister 
 had the option of using free prayer after as well as before the 
 sermon, and often did so. Whether after thus invoking the 
 divine blessing on his teaching, he prayed for all conditions of 
 men in the liturgical form, lay with himself. The custom of 
 having the prayer of general intercession after and not before 
 the sermon was an invariable rule, and has continued to our "X/ 
 day. It is in accordance with the usage of the first Christian 
 ages, when the instruction rose out of the Scripture for the day, 
 and the prayers for the body of the faithful, with the Creed and 
 the Lord's Prayer, were part of the Communion Service with 
 which the worship of every Lord's Day closed. Other branches 
 of the Eeformed Church had generally this prayer after the 
 
 77 
 
 X 
 
336 THE FJTUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 sermon. It was at first the custom of the Eeformed Church of 
 Eno-land. The prayer for the Church militant was, and still is, 
 in that part of the Communion office which follows the sermon. 
 In the First Book of Edward it was even part of the Consecra- 
 tion Prayer. The daily prayers for the Sovereign, clergy, and 
 all sorts and conditions of men were added at a later time, 
 because there were no petitions for them when the Litany and 
 Communion Service were not read. The custom often adopted 
 of late years in England of preaching after the three collects at 
 evening service, admits the principle that the sermon ought not 
 to be the culminating part of worship. Some among ourselves 
 are reversing the change, and offer the prayer of general inter- 
 cession before they preach. In this they can claim the support 
 of the Directory. But that provision was resisted by the Scots. 
 They succeeded in having a rubric inserted which sanctions our 
 national custom as an alternative. It was the Independents 
 who were most anxious to have this prayer early in the ser- 
 vice, that they might conform literally to the exhortation in 
 1 Timothy ii 1. In course of time it became very common in 
 Scotland to say the Lord's Prayer before the sermon, and the 
 Creed altogether disappeared ; but down to the Great Ptebellion 
 it was tenaciously maintained as an essential part of the Bap- 
 tismal service. Baptisms were always in public and after the 
 sermon. The Creed at the end of the last prayer may have 
 been laid aside from a feeling that there need not be two repeti- 
 tions of it so close to each other. If there was any reason in 
 this it has lost much of its force, when so many baptisms are 
 celebrated elsewhere, and those that are performed in public 
 are delayed till one service may serve for many children — as if 
 it were a hardship to minister and people that their prayers 
 should be offered for a solitary child. 
 
 The last prayer ended, the congregation sang a psalm, and 
 the service closed with a benediction, either the old Jewish form 
 as in the sixth chapter of Numbers, or the apostolic at the close 
 of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. When the Second 
 Book of Discipline was adopted by the Church, a few years 
 after the Keformation, it spoke more distinctly of the benedic- 
 tion as peculiarly a ministerial function than the earlier stand- 
 ards had done. " It appertains to the pastor to bless the flock 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 337 
 
 committed to his charge in the name of the Lord, who will not 
 suffer the blessings of His faithful servants to be frustrate." 
 
 Such was the weekly worship of Scotland from the age of the 
 Eeformation, and it retained its general features unaltered till 
 the time of the Westminster Assembly. It was not affected 
 by changes of Church government. Cowper, bishop of Gallo- 
 way, published between 1612 and 1619 a controversial work 
 in defence of Protestantism, under the title of '' Conference 
 between a Catholic Christian and a Catholic Eoman." The 
 Romanist is taken by his friend to a Scottish church on Sunday 
 morning, and a dialogue, after the manner of Izaak Walton, 
 ensues : — 
 
 E. " What is this the people are going to do ?" 
 
 C. "They bow themselves before the Lord, to make an 
 humble confession of their sins, and supplications for mercy, 
 which you will hear openly read out by the public reader. 
 Now, when it is done, what think you of the prayer ?" 
 
 E. " Truly I think there is nothing in it, but that whereunto 
 every good Christian should say Amen ; and it hath done me 
 much good to see the people, with humble reverence sighing 
 and groaning, accompany the prayer up to God. But what go 
 they now to do ?" 
 
 C. "Every one is preparing (as you see) their Psalm-book, 
 that all of them, with one heart and mouth, may sing unto the 
 Lord. There is the psalm which the reader hath proclaimed ; 
 if you please you may sing with them, or if you cannot, follow 
 them in your heart." 
 
 E. " So I will. What doth the reader now ? is he making 
 another prayer ? " 
 
 C. " No. Yonder book which now he opens is the Bible. 
 You will hear him read some portion of Holy Scripture. 
 Understand you what he saith ?" 
 
 E. " Yes, forsooth, well enough, for he reads very distinctly." 
 
 C. " These are the three exercises which are used in all our 
 congregations every Sabbath, one hour before the preacher 
 comes in ; first prayer, then psalms, then reading of Holy Scrip- 
 ture ; and by these the hearts of the people are prepared the 
 more reverently to hear the word, and you see all is done with 
 great quietness, devotion, and reverence." 
 
338 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECn. 
 
 E. "I see that, indeed. . . . But what are they doing 
 now ?" 
 
 C. " You hear the third bell ringing, and in this space the 
 reading ceaseth, and at the end of the bell ringing the preacher 
 will come." 
 
 E. (After some discussion). " But we must let this alone, for 
 there comes the preacher. And now, I pray you, tell me how 
 I should behave myself." 
 
 C. " Trouble you not, do as you see others beside you ; for 
 first he will conceive a prayer, at the which the people humble 
 themselves ; thereafter he reads his text of Holy Scripture, this 
 the people hear with reverence ; then he falls to the preaching, 
 which some hear with their heads covered, some otherwise ; in 
 that you may do as your health requires ; the preaching being 
 ended, he concludes all with a thanksgiving, after which there 
 is a psalm sung by the whole congregation, and then the minis- 
 ter blesseth the people in the name of the Lord, and so dimits 
 them. You will see no other thing here." 
 
 Compare with this Henderson's account of the worship after 
 Presbytery had been restored. His "Government and Order 
 of the Church of Scotland," published in 1641, had a semi- 
 official character. In it he says: "When so many of all sorts, 
 men and women, masters and servants, young and old, as shall 
 meet together, are assembled, the public worship beginneth with 
 prayer and reading some portion of Holy Scripture, both of the 
 Old and New Testament, which the people hear with attention 
 and reverence ; and after reading, the whole congregation joineth 
 in singing some psalm. This reading and singing do continue 
 till the preaching begin; at which time the minister, having 
 prefaced a little for quickening and lifting up the hearts of the 
 people, first maketh a prayer for remission of sin, sanctification, 
 and all things needful, joining also confession of sins and 
 thanksgiving with special relation to the hearers. After which 
 in the forenoon is another psalm, and after the psalm a prayer 
 for a blessing upon the preaching of the word. . . . After 
 sermon he praiseth God, and prayeth again for a blessing, join- 
 ing earnest petitions for the Church universal, and for the 
 coming of the kingdom of Christ ; for all the afflicted churches, 
 for the churches in His Majesty's dominions, for the Church of 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 339 
 
 Scotland, ministry, and people ; for the King, the Queen, the 
 Prince, and their whole royal progeny ; for all the members of 
 that particular congregation, as well absent in their lawful 
 affairs as present ; for all that are afflicted among them, in body, 
 mind, or means. The prayer ended, a psalm is sung, and the 
 people dismissed with a blessing." 
 
 Let us now consider the sacramental and occasional services 
 of the Church, as established by the Common Order. In the 
 form for administering the Lord's Slipper, what first strikes the 
 reader is its extreme simplicity. It appears, however, to be 
 more meagre than it really was. The prayer for grace and 
 sacramental blessing with which it began is to be found in 
 another part of the book appended to the Common Prayers at 
 the point where on other Sundays the last psalm followed the 
 Creed. Even with this addition we miss what in later times 
 came to be considered necessary parts of the service — prayer 
 for a blessing on the elements, words to be spoken at the 
 moment of giving the bread and the cup, and addresses to the 
 communicants as they sat at the table. Though no words of 
 administration are prescribed, it was not intended that the 
 elements should be given silently. The Book of Discipline 
 says, "that commandment ought to be given that the bread 
 should be taken and eaten, and that all should likewise drink 
 of the cup of wine, with declaration what both the one and the 
 other is, we suppose no godly man will doubt." From the 
 pulpit the minister reads the words of institution, followed 
 by an address taken partly from the English, partly from the 
 Genevan Liturgy, embodying among other things what is now 
 known as "fencing the table," repelling the unworthy and in- 
 viting the faithful. Then coming to the table he offers a prayer, 
 which is one of thanksgiving only. The elements are given and 
 •received while the reader from his desk is reading some place of 
 Scripture regarding our Lord's passion, A few words of prayer 
 follow, a psalm and benediction, and the service is ended. The 
 administration might be repeated many times when the number 
 of communicants was great; for it must be remembered that 
 the separate table for the elements and the reception of them 
 by the worshippers in the seats where they sat on other days, 
 common as they are now, were in those days unknown. It 
 
340 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 was believed that the significance of the sacrament was lost 
 unless there was a long table prepared as for a feast, with the 
 communicants seated along its sides. When the congregation 
 was large the necessities of the case were provided for in 
 different ways. John Knox once continued the celebration 
 for seven days together. It was common to have Communion 
 in the earliest morning, sometimes by torchlight, and a second 
 celebration in the forenoon. Very frequently the sacrament 
 was continued on a second Lord's Day. The absence of pews 
 often admitted of several tables being set up side by side with 
 that at which the elements were consecrated and first received. 
 And there was the expedient, which afterwards became general, 
 of having successive companies of communicants at one pro- 
 longed service. But on one point no variation of custom was 
 tolerated by those who cherished the traditions of the Eefor- 
 mation. The communicant must be seated when he received 
 the elements. The custom was chiefly a British one, for among 
 the Continental Pieformed standing was the more frequent 
 attitude. In England, Hooper, Knox, and A'Lasco advocated 
 sitting at an early period. They thought that this was the 
 nearest approach which our customs allowed to the attitude 
 in which the disciples partook of the first Communion. The 
 Anglican attitude of kneeling was considered as little less than 
 idolatry. One of the most unpopular of the Five Articles of 
 Perth was that which enjoined it. It was only partially 
 obeyed, and after its rejection at the great Glasgow Assembly 
 was never revived. 
 
 As time went on, the clergy seem to have used the discre- 
 tionary power allowed to them in expanding, somewhat, this 
 very simple Communion service. Calderwood, who in his 
 younger (^ays was less devoted to the old usages than after 
 his return from banishment, says that for thirteen years he 
 had not followed its forms, and that many did as he did.^ 
 Giving a general description of the sacrament as it was 
 celebrated in 1623, he calls the Communion prayer a bene- 
 diction or thanksgiving, and says that the minister repeated 
 our Lord's very words in giving the elements, and exhorted 
 the people as long as the distribution continued. Sometimes 
 
 ^ " Altai-e Damasc," 613. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 341 
 
 the Scripture account of the Passion was read as required 
 by the Book, but it was only while the table was being filled 
 by new communicants.^ Henderson's account in 1641 differs 
 little from Calderwood's or from our traditional practice, except 
 that the sacrament is given in this form, "Take ye, eat ye: 
 this is the Body of the Lord which was broken for you," &c. 
 An extract from the session-book of Anstruther, quoted by 
 Principal Lee in his Lectures,^ implies that in 1592 none were 
 permitted to receive the sacrament after twelve o'clock. The 
 minister at that time was Durie, one of the Presbyterian leaders 
 banished in 1606. This notice implies that the Communion was 
 in those days received fasting, and is confirmed by a passage in 
 Blair's Autobiography, where he says that being present at a 
 Communion at Irvine when very young, apparently about 1605, 
 " I was greatly ravished in my spirit at the first exhortation at the 
 table and desired earnestly to communicate, but having gotten 
 my breakfast I durst not, for it was then a generally received 
 opinion that the sacrament behoved to be received fasting." 
 In a pamphlet of Calderwood's published in 1628, he shows, 
 what it is difficult to realize now, that the two parties then 
 in the Church could be distinguished by the quantity of the 
 elements taken by each. Under the Pastor "they eat and 
 drink in such measure as they may find themselves refreshed 
 sensibly;" the Prelate "hath turned the refreshment of eating 
 and drinking into a pinched tasting."^ 
 
 The preparatory services connected with the Communion 
 were very different from those to which Scotland has been 
 accustomed in later times. There was the long-continued 
 examination of the communicants, which succeeded the ante- 
 Eeformation custom of going to confession before the Easter 
 Communion. There was a meeting to which all persons who 
 were at variance with each other were summoned that they 
 might be reconciled before going to the holy table. The Com- 
 munion fast-day was unknown. The only one of the offices 
 of religion to which fasting was formally conjoined was ordina- 
 tion. National and local fasts, extending frequently over 
 many days, were frequent. It happened at times that some 
 of these coincided with the Communion. But if this was by 
 
 1 " Altare Damasc," 778. ^ j, 402. 3 u Pastor and Prelate," 9. 
 
342 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 design it was that the fast might be concluded by the Com- 
 munion, rather than that the Communion might be preceded 
 by a day of abstinence. Tradition connects the Communion 
 Monday with the revival at Shotts in 1630. It is said that 
 John Livingston, on the day after the Communion there, 
 addressed the assembled multitudes with such fervour and so 
 rich a blessing that the custom was continued till it became 
 permanent. If this was its origin in Scotland the idea 
 probably came from Ireland. Blair in his Autobiography 
 speaks of having to preach on Monday at an Irish Presbyterian 
 Communion, at an earlier date than this, when the minister ap- 
 pointed failed to appear. Some say that Livingston had already 
 been in Ireland. Blair was certainly his companion at Shotts, 
 being on a visit to his friends in Scotland. The celebrated 
 sermon was probably suggested by the Irish experiences of 
 one or both. But it was some time before the service became 
 general. The only one of the "preaching-days" which has 
 any claim to be coeval with the Eeformation is the Saturday. 
 There is in the session-book of Canongate a notice of an 
 exhortation to be on the Saturday afternoon before Communion 
 in 1566, and there are references to the preparation sermon 
 at intervals from that time onwards. There were, of course, 
 daily prayers and week-day sermons in every town every week 
 of the year, and when so rare an event as the Communion was 
 at hand these would be used for the edification of the intendinfr 
 communicants, 
 
 A rubric before the Common Order service for the Lord's 
 Supper says that " it is commonly used once a month." These 
 are merely words descriptive of Swiss usage, transferred to the 
 pages of the Scottish reprint, and not disturbed in subsequent 
 editions. There is no evidence of any intention or attempt 
 to make them a reality, nor are they known to have been 
 so at any period of our history since the Eeformation or before 
 it. One of the points at issue between Queen Margaret and 
 the native clergy, was that there was no coming to the sacra- 
 ment, even at Easter, when, if ever, the usage of Christendom 
 required men to communicate. The reason given was the same 
 that is to be heard in some places at the present day : " Since 
 we know ourselves to be sinners we fear to come to that 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 843 
 
 mystery, lest we eat and drink judgment to ourselves." During 
 the following centuries, in Scotland as elsewhere, Mass was 
 regularly celebrated as an edifying spectacle and an instru- 
 ment of indirect blessing to the living and the dead. But 
 the laity received the one element allowed to them very rarely. 
 The fourth Lateran Council issued a canon enjoining all 
 Christians of full age to communicate at least every Easter. 
 Other canons, apparently neglected, required that the sacra- 
 ment should be received at least thrice a year. When, in 1549, 
 the men of Devon rose against the Eeformation, one of the 
 articles setting forth their grievances was : " We will have the 
 Sacrament of the Altar but at Easter delivered to the lay 
 people, and that but in one kind.''^ Everything tends to 
 show that the prevailing custom of the laity at the time 
 of the Eeformation was to communicate only once a year, 
 except in the case of the very devout, or at the approach 
 of death. To this Popish practice the people of Scotland ^ 
 adhered with remarkable steadfastness. Calvin denounced 
 it as an invention of Satan. Even he could not have his 
 ideal of monthly Communion realized. The French Dis- 
 cipline says that most of their churches did not have it more 
 than four times a year, but they desire to have it oftener.'^ 
 Scotland fell short of France. The Assembly of 1562, 
 which directed attention to the Book of Geneva, disre- 
 garded it by an ordinance that there should be Communion 
 four times a year in towns, but only twice in the country. In 
 this they followed the Book of Discipline. The clergy in their 
 turn disregarded the Assembly. Quarterly Communion was 
 treated as a devout imagination. Two men, Scrymgeour of 
 Kinghorn, and Scot of Abercorn, are recorded in the seven- 
 teenth century as having observed the law, but evidently these 
 cases were exceptional.^ After the Eeformation Edinburgh did 
 begin with the mediaeval minimum of three Communions, but 
 had fallen back to two before Knox was in his ffrave, and no 
 town ever seems to have thought of having more. Glasgow had 
 two Communions in only six of the sixty-two years preceding 
 the publication of the Directory. In rural parishes annual Com- 
 munion was the rule, and the ecclesiastical records are full of 
 
 ^ Cianmer's " Remains," 173. 2X11.14. ^Calderwood.vii. 413 ; Scott's " Fasti," i. 104. 
 
344 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 cases in which years, sometimes many years in succession, 
 passed without any celebration. Under presbyter and bishop 
 alike this scandalous neglect prevailed. In most of our country- 
 parishes there are people still living who can tell the year in 
 which the scanty measure of privilege promised to them by the 
 Assembly of 1562 was for the first time conceded. 
 
 The orde7' of baptism begins with a rubric forbidding two 
 Eomish practices, baptism by women, and baptism in private. 
 Another of the grievances of the Devonshire rebels had been : 
 " We will that our curates shall minister the sacrament of 
 baptism at all times, as well in the week-day as on the holy- 
 day."^ "But," says the Common Order, "the Sacraments 
 are not ordained of God to be used in private corners, 
 as charms or sorceries, but left to the consrecration. and 
 necessarily annexed to God's word as seals of the same." 
 For many years this was enforced, but there was a tendency 
 to dispense with it for special reasons, which increased till 
 it was sanctioned by one of the Articles of Perth, but only 
 to be repressed again by the Assembly of 1638. There is 
 reason to suppose that the language of the service, with 
 the exception perhaps of the long exposition of the Creed, 
 was strictly adhered to by ministers. Ever since the Church's 
 Xiturgy ceased to be used, they have generally baptized by a 
 fixed form of their own, as is fitting when solemn obhgations 
 are to be imposed which ought to be known beforehand. 
 The most obvious difference from later practice is that the 
 child was accompanied by both father and godfather. God- 
 parents were retained as long as the Church remained in close 
 affinity with the Eeformed Churches abroad, all of which 
 allowed them. In popular speech they were called witnesses. 
 It is not to be supposed from this that they were no more 
 than spectators asked to be present, that they might be able 
 to testify to the administration of the sacrament. That might 
 have been necessary had private baptism been allowed, but 
 not when it was performed in the public congregation. The 
 Eeformed conception of the office is described in the French 
 Discipline.- It claims for it no divine authority, but com- 
 mends it as " an ancient and accustomed order, very good 
 
 ^ Cianmer's "Remains," 175. 2 XL 12, 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 345 
 
 and profitable," and enacts that "Pastors shall diligently 
 exhort all godfathers and godmothers to weigh and consider 
 their promises made at the celebration of baptism, and parents 
 also to choose such sureties for their children as are well 
 instructed in religion, and of a godly life and conversation, 
 and that are as much as may be of their acquaintance, and by 
 whose means, if there should be a necessity for it in the course 
 of God's providence, it is most likely that their children will 
 have a religious education." But if more than a spectator, 
 the Eeformed godparent was not identical with the Eomish. 
 He did not displace the parent at the ceremony. He did not 
 answer as if invested with the personality of the child. He 
 was not considered as becoming the spiritual kinsman of the 
 baptized, so as to prevent marriages which, but for this arti- 
 ficial relationship, would have been lawful. It was probably 
 with an eye to this that a statute of the Scottish Church, 
 three centuries before the Eeformation, enacted that when 
 more than the canonical three received the child from the 
 font, the others should be called witnesses, not godparents.^ 
 This verbal distinction was evidently in the mind of the 
 Lords of the Congregation when they addressed one of 
 their demands to the Queeu-Eegent in these terms: "That 
 the Holy Sacrament of Baptism may be used in the 
 vulgar tongue, that the godfathers and witnesses may not 
 only understand the points of the league and contract 
 made between God and the infant ; but also that the Church 
 then assembled, more gravely may be informed and instructed 
 of their duties which at all times they owe to God, according 
 to that promise made unto Him when they were received 
 into His household by the lavacre of spiritual regeneration." 
 Evidently they clearly distinguished witnesses from godparents 
 in spiritual affinity on the one hand, and spectators on the 
 other. But after the Eeformation was accomplished the words 
 godparent and witness became convertible terms. In the 
 Eecord of the Assembly of 1566, the name witnesses is applied 
 to persons who had been godparents at Eomish baptisms ; 
 and in England, about the same time, Archdeacon Calfhill 
 says that in St. Augustine's time "the witnesses made answer 
 
 1 "Concilia," ii. 31. 
 
346 THE PJTUAL OF THE CIIUHCII. 
 
 in the infant's behalf to the articles of the faith." ^ At first 
 godmothers seem to have been allowed in Scotland. Winzet, 
 when taunting the Eeformers with receiving at least some 
 traditions, asks : " Wliy have ye godfathers and godmothers, 
 since the whole congregation there present may be witness? 
 "WTiy had ye godmothers in the beginning, and now repel 
 the same ? " ^ 
 
 In Aberdeen, for at least twelve years after the Eeformation, 
 the old rule as to the number and sex of godparents was 
 adhered to.^ But in 1596 the sponsors of the Princess Eoyal 
 of Scotland, the ancestress of our Queen, were all males.* 
 " The English Ambassador, holding her up as witness for Queen 
 Elizabeth, named her Elizabeth." A little before this. Brown, 
 the father of English Congregationalism, came to Edinburgh 
 with a letter of introduction from Andrew Melville, and began 
 to vent his opinions. Among other things which startled the 
 Scots, he argued that " witnesses in baptism were not a thing 
 indifferent, but simply evil," which would have been an absurd 
 position had they been intended merely to testify to a fact. 
 Another difference between the earlier and later practice of 
 the Church was, that whoever presented the child for baptism, 
 not only assented to the Apostles' Creed, but repeated it. 
 All these changes have made our baptismal service very different 
 from what the Reformers meant it to be. It has no liturgical 
 form, no godparents, too often no creed, and no congregation 
 to receive the young soldier of Christ to the fellowship of 
 His Church, and to be reminded of their own baptismal 
 covenant. 
 
 The service with which ministers were ordained was of Scot- 
 tish origin. In the spring of 1560-61, "a form and order of 
 the election of the superintendent " was drawn up for the admis- 
 sion of Spottiswoode as superintendent of Lothian. It was 
 afterwards appended to the Book of Common Order, and con- 
 tinued to be used for the admission of all ministers till the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, when, after the introduc- 
 tion of Episcopacy, a new service appeared, more Anglican in 
 spirit. This seems to have been accepted without opposition. 
 
 1 " Answer to Marshall," 213. - Keith, iii. 4C4. ^ " Spalding Miscellany," ii. 34. 
 •» Calderwoud, v. 438. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 347 
 
 It has no form for the ordination of deacons. That for minis- 
 ters is a compromise between the Common Order and Common 
 Prayer ; that for the consecration of bishops approaches more 
 nearly to the English ; but in neither is there the form, "Eeceive 
 thou the Holy Ghost," &c. The Common Order form was still 
 in use down to the time of the Perth Assembly, for the protest- 
 ing minority appeal to what " the ministers of this Church, by 
 order of the same printed and inserted before the Psalm Book, 
 at their admissions respective promise in the presence of God." 
 The new Ordinal, as printed in the " Wodrow Miscellany," bears 
 the date 1620. But it appears that, as with all liturgical forms 
 in Scotland, a large discretion was allowed. We find one of 
 the Eow family ordained by the Bishop of Duukeld with the 
 old form in 1624, and down to 1638 there are traces more or 
 less distinct of the ordination service being relaxed both in 
 Scotland and in the north of Ireland to relieve scrupulous 
 consciences. Here, as in many other matters, we are depend- 
 ent on accidental allusions for what we know. Consecrations 
 were rare. Ordinations took place at the bishop's residence, 
 and were for those only who were inducted to livings. Two 
 or three men on an average would be ordained by each prelate 
 annually. The ceremony attracted little notice, and its details 
 found no recorder. 
 
 One point must be noted in the form prepared for Spottis- 
 woode's admission. It says nothing of the imposition of hands. 
 It could not; for this reason, that he had been in English orders 
 for more than twenty years. It was inserted in the Common 
 Order as it stood, not omitting even his name or the prayer 
 for him as " charged with the chief care of Thy Church within 
 the bounds of L." (Lothian). "What was once admitted into 
 the Psalm-book was never changed. And so this service was 
 read, mutatis mutandis, for sixty years at the admission of all 
 ministers without any mention of imposition of hands, though 
 the ceremony was used for at least most of that time. As a 
 rule those who were first admitted under it were in Spottis- 
 woode's position. They were clergymen already. The omission 
 would not call for notice were it not for a passage in the First 
 Book of Discipline which says : " Other ceremony than the 
 public approbation of the people and declaration of the chief 
 
348 THE FJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 minister that the person there presented is appointed to serve 
 the Church, we cannot approve ; for albeit the apostles used 
 imposition of hands, yet seeing the miracle is ceased, the using 
 of the ceremony we judge not necessary." Of course the Book 
 of Discipline was not a binding authority. It was never 
 sanctioned by the State. And we have seen in the case of the 
 passage enjoining four Communions annually, that in purely 
 ecclesiastical matters the Church did not hesitate to disregard 
 the recommendations of its compilers if it seemed fit. It is 
 certain that if the Scots ever departed from the primitive 
 practice of imposition of hands, they very soon returned to it. 
 The Second Book of Discipline made it imperative, but our 
 information as to the practice during the previous interval of 
 seventeen years is very scanty. The oft-cited license of the 
 minister of Garvald by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because 
 he had been ordained according to the use of the Scottish 
 Church, was granted in 1582, and says that he had received 
 imposition of hands about five years before. Local records 
 make it a little earlier, but in any case the date of his ordina- 
 tion was earlier than the date of the Second Book of Discipline. 
 The interval is still further narrowed by the fact that Erskine, 
 the superintendent of Angus, in an "Epistle to the Faithfull," 
 written in 1571, describes the mode of admitting ministers 
 to be " public, by imposition of hands by the pastors, with 
 admonitions, fasting, and prayers passing before."^ If the 
 Assembly records had been preserved, it is likely that some- 
 thing bearing on the question would have been found registered 
 in the year 1570. The summary which remains shows that 
 the Eegent was asked to concur with the Church in certain 
 articles, of which admission to the ministry was one. The 
 preface to the Ordinal of 1620, already referred to, says that 
 the Assembly of 1571 appointed diligent examination to be 
 made of the learning, qualities, and good conversation of 
 pastors before their entry, " and their admittance to be by a 
 public and solemn form of ordination." Calderwood preserves 
 a question referred to the next Assembly with its answer. 
 ."What punishment shall be inflicted on such ministers as 
 refuse to be inaugurate in the ministry? Answer: If they 
 
 ^ ' Spalding IMiscellany," iv. 101. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 349 
 
 will not be received according to the order taken by the Kirk, 
 let them not be admitted." 
 
 It is certain that the indifference expressed in the First 
 Book of Discipline was not shared by Churches abroad. 
 The French Discipline required that " the election of minis- 
 ters shall be confirmed by prayers and imposition of hands, 
 always avoiding superstition." ^ And Calvin repeatedly de- 
 fends the ceremony in his writings, once even calling it 
 a sacrament, though evidently not in the strictest sense 
 of the word.^ But let the largest possible concession be 
 made to those who hold that there were no ordinations by 
 imposition of hands immediately after the Reformation, there 
 are not eleven years between the time when the Book of Dis- 
 cipline could not approve of it and the time when Erskine 
 says that it was the established custom. Assuming that there 
 was a break during this interval, the circumstances were such 
 as made it of little importance. The first Reformed ministers 
 who were allowed to perform all ministerial functions, includ- 
 ing ordination, were a small and select class, who in most cases 
 had been clergymen before the change. For years their num- 
 bers were mostly recruited from the inferior and larger body 
 of Readers, who also had in a vast proportion been clerics 
 under the former system. Fourteen years after the Refor- 
 mation the superior grade did not amount to 300 men. Such 
 a body would necessarily be men of middle life or beyond it. 
 If there were any among them unordained they must have 
 been a mere handful. In Scotland the number of ordainers 
 has never been limited. If a layman had to be ordained at 
 the close of the eleventh year, his mission would not be 
 invalidated by the presence among the assembled presbyters 
 of one or two whose ordination was questionable. Ordination 
 may have been resumed earlier than 1571, if it ever was 
 abandoned. But the date might have been considerably later, 
 and yet be early enough to prevent a severance between the old 
 ministry and the new. 
 
 If as a matter of fact the continuity of ordination was pre- 
 served, as a matter of principle it was at first little thought of by 
 many. Much stricter views prevailed by the time that the 
 
 U 7. 2 li Com_ pirst Timothy," iv. 14 ; " Instit." iv. 3, 9. 
 
350 THE RITUAL OF TEE CHURCH. 
 
 Second Book of Discipline was issued. But so late as 1597, 
 when certain individuals and church courts gave their opinions 
 on the subject, in answer to a question propounded by 
 the Eling, it appears from Calderwood's reports of their 
 replies that many still held it to be a matter of indifference. 
 One instance of irregularity in practice at that date is well 
 known. Bruce of Airth performed ministerial duties for 
 years without ordination, till, much against his will, he 
 received imposition of hands in 1598. Livingston's explana- 
 tion is that a minister on a Communion day " entrapped him " 
 by leaving the church before his duty was done, and putting 
 the responsibility of finishing it or dismissing the congregation 
 on Bruce, who, as an expectant, had been seated at the table. 
 Having begun he continued, unwilling to acknowledge that 
 his ministrations were invalid. Wodrow says : " It is the 
 only instance of irregularity of this kind which I know of that 
 is objected in this Church. ... As practice in his case has 
 never been improven by Presbyterians in Scotland, to any 
 deviation from the reasonable and ordinary method of ordina- 
 tion of gospel ministers by imposition of hands, so I am of 
 opinion that such a case as his will never occur again." ^ 
 
 Those who are interested in this matter are concerned not 
 about the validity of their orders, but their nationality. They 
 know that if it were necessary they could, as a last resort, 
 
 ^>^ fall back upon the English succession, which was repeatedly 
 blended with the Scottish in later times. To prelatical ordi- 
 nation as such they are indifferent, but it carries what they 
 consider requisite, the transmission of the ministerial character, 
 through presbyters. They have, however, neither wish nor 
 need to derive their mission from Italy through Augustine of 
 Canterbury. They claim to represent the Celtic Christianity 
 of Scotland, having its probable origin from the East, the 
 cradle of the faith. Their belief is not disturbed by the pos- 
 sibility that, for a very few years at most, the Scottish Church 
 neglected the visible sign of ordination, nor by her earlier associa- 
 tion with Eome ; for they remember that even Eome testifies 
 
 V to their own belief, that the presbyterate is the radical order 
 of the ministry. She makes it the highest of her seven orders, 
 
 1 " Life of Bruce," 14. 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 351 
 
 with the prelate no more than a variety of the presbyter, and 
 the Pope of the prelate. To separate the prelate as absolutely 
 from the presbyter as the presbyter from the deacon, is a 
 provincial theory developed by local circumstances, held within 
 narrow limits, and even there " nee semper, nee ubique, nee 
 ab omnibus." 
 
 The form of marriage begins by requiring that banns shall 
 be published three several days. It was not necessary that 
 they should be Sundays. In this they followed the ancient 
 custom, as the Church of England also did, till an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, in George II.'s time, specified three Sundays. It was 
 common in Scotland to consign a sum of money in the hands 
 of the parish authorities as a pledge that the contract thus 
 announced would be fulfilled. In many cases the consigna- 
 tion money was not reclaimed, but left for the benefit of the 
 poor. It has been said that when this became general, it came 
 to be considered one of the dues of the Church, under the 
 name of proclamation fees. Some of the Reformed Churches, 
 like the Greek Church, had two separate services, one of be- 
 trothal and one of nuptials. Wheatley says that the first of 
 these is represented by the two first questions in the English ser- 
 vice, and, indeed, but for this reason they seem to be superfluous. 
 There are occasional traces of some such formal contract or rite 
 of espousals in Scotland.^ The celebration of marriage was 
 as much a public and ecclesiastical act as the proclamation 
 of it. The Assembly of 1581 confirmed the injunctions of the 
 Reformers by forbidding, in one comprehensive enactment, the 
 private celebration of marriage or of either sacrament. To 
 many the time of the earlier Scottish marriages will seem as 
 startling as the place. The Common Order requires them to be 
 celebrated before the sermon, and the Book of Discipline pro- 
 vides that it shall be on Sunday forenoon, and " on no day else 
 without the consent of the whole ministry." These rules were 
 strictly enforced without regard to the rank of the parties. 
 There are several instances in which leading churchmen were 
 rebuked for marrying in houses. The first relaxation of the 
 law was by a statute of 1579, renewed in 1602, which allowed 
 the ceremony to be on a week-day, if there was sermon and 
 
 i"Book of the Universal Kirk," 171,343. 
 
 X, 
 
352 THE FJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 a sufficient congregation. It was not till the "Westminster 
 period that Sunday marriages were forbidden. It will be ob- 
 served that in the marriage service there are no prayers, except 
 a benediction at the close. The explanation may be, that as it 
 was read when the reader's service was over and the minister's 
 about to begin, his right of free prayer at that time enabled 
 him to supply the deficiency. The great difference between 
 the Scots and English was as to the use of the ring. Winzet, 
 in 1563, says that "in some places the ring is still given." ^ 
 But it was always objected to then and afterwards, on the broad 
 principle that no ceremony ought to be imposed for which there 
 was not scriptural warrant. In this case there was the addi- 
 tional aggravation that it was a pagan ceremony. Calderwood, 
 however, intimates that as a social usage with no ecclesiastical 
 authority or ritual significance attached to it, it would have 
 been unopposed. 
 
 The provision made for the burial of the dead is contained 
 in a single sentence, and even that is longer than the corre- 
 sponding section of the original Genevan Book. It had required 
 the minister, after the silent interment of the body, to go to the 
 church and make some comfortable exhortation to the people 
 touching death and resurrection. The Scottish Book adds : 
 " If he be present and required." These words were not in- 
 serted till 1564, two years after the Assembly had ordered 
 the Genevan Book to be used at funerals. It must have been 
 their intention in 1562 that there should be a service in church, 
 for that is the only positive injunction in the section. But 
 the new clause, read in the light of the Book of Discipline, 
 is plainly meant to discourage such services. That book 
 dwells on the dangers which might attend them, and even 
 hints that cemeteries had better be elsewhere than at the 
 church. Some difference of opinion, however, is indicated by 
 the following sentence in Spottiswoode's text, after singing, 
 reading, and all ceremonies have been forbidden : " Yet we are 
 not so precise in this, but that we are content that particular 
 churches, with consent of the minister, do that which they 
 shall find most fitting, as they will answer to God and the 
 Assembly of the Universal Church within this realm." The 
 
 ' Keith, iii. 466. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 353 
 
 French Discipline was very stringent; it forbade not only 
 prayers and sermons, but even " any dole of public alms." 
 Cartwright and the early Puritans agreed with those Scots who 
 disliked funeral sermons and churchyards. They also disap- 
 proved of mourning apparel and almsgiving. Their opinion 
 was that the minister might be better employed than in 
 attending funerals, and they were disposed to strengthen their 
 position by appeals to the twenty-first chapter of Leviticus, ^ 
 forbidding the priests to be defiled for the dead.^ Funeral 
 sermons never found much favour in Scotland. There is, how- 
 ever, in the "Wodrow Miscellany," a simple and beautiful 
 burial service, of uncertain date, which was used at Montrose. 
 It consists of an exhortation, one of the prayers from the 
 burial service of the Book of Edward, and one of Wedder- 
 burn's hymns. 
 
 The form for fasting, like that for ordination, was embodied 
 in the book on the first occasion on which it was required, and 
 remained as a guide for future use. It was drawn up by Knox 
 and Craig, about the time of Eizzio's murder, for the first national 
 fast ordered by the Church after the Eeformation. It is dis- 
 tinguished by having special lessons appointed ; by a time, not 
 less than a quarter of an hour, being set apart in the middle of \^ 
 the service for prostration in silent prayer; and by the injunc- 
 tion that some at least of the prayers should be used without 
 alteration. Strict directions are given, too, as to abstinence, 
 showing that the modern sense of the word fast-day was un- 
 known. Calderwood gives a vivid description of the public 
 part of such a service held by the General Assembly in 1596.^ 
 
 We have now examined so much of the Common Order as 
 fixed the character of the Scottish worship for nearly a century. 
 "VVe have dwelt on the subject because, notwithstanding the 
 changes which came at the end of that period, the continuity 
 of usage was not broken. Having treated of its contents, we 
 may notice one important omission, to which the Scottish 
 Church has steadfastly adhered, with every national church in 
 Europe against her. There is no recognition of the great 
 Christian festivals. Among the Churches which cast off the 
 Eomau yoke there was a variety of opinion and practice on 
 
 1 Whitgift's Works, iii. 361. 2 V. 406. 
 
\. 
 
 354 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 this question. The Lutherans and Anglicans retained many 
 holidays in honour of departed saints, in addition to the annual 
 commemoration of events on which all Christian belief rests — 
 the nativity, passion, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, 
 and the descent of the Holy Ghost. The communions with 
 which the Scottish Church was at one in government and wor- 
 ship made a distinction between the two classes of anniver- 
 saries, rejecting the one and retaining the other. There were 
 hesitations and changes among them, and their ultimate deci- 
 sions were not uniform. Some did not observe every one of 
 these days, some added Circumcision and Epiphany. But the 
 general principle was accepted as soon as usage was consolidated. 
 It seemed at first that the Scots would go with their brethren. 
 The Ordinance, to which we have so often referred, required the 
 Book of Edward to be read on Sundays and other festivals. 
 The expression was a vague one, but it certainly included the 
 sreat festivals. In 1559 we find Willock and others of the 
 leading Pieformers celebrating Easter Communion in Angus. 
 The first discordant note comes from the Book of Discipline. 
 It includes among things repugnant to the gospel, " Keeping of 
 holy days of certain saints commanded by man, such as be all 
 those that the Papists have invented, as the feasts, as they term 
 them, of the apostles, martyrs, virgins, of Christmas, Circum- 
 cision, Epiphany, Purification, and other fond feasts of our^^y, 
 which things, because in God's Scripture they neither have 
 commandment nor assurance, we judge them utterly to be 
 abolished." 
 
 This professes to denounce only saints' days. No doubt a 
 place is found in the list for Christmas and some other feasts 
 in memory of our Lord's infancy, but it is as feasts in honour 
 of the Virgin that they are forbidden. They do not venture 
 to assail them in connection with Him, and the still greater 
 feasts which are in His exclusive honour, Easter and the 
 others, are not alluded to. In a later page of the book, how- 
 ever, Easter is mentioned: "Four times in the year we think 
 sufficient to the administration of the Lord's Table, which we 
 desire to be distincted that the superstitions of times may be 
 avoided as far as may be ; for your honours are not ignorant 
 how superstitiously the people run to that action at Pasche, 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 355 
 
 even as if the time gave virtue to the sacrament, and how 
 the rest of the whole year they are careless and negligent, as 
 if it appertained not unto them but at that time only. We 
 think therefore most expedient that the first Sunday of March 
 be appointed for one time to that service, the first Sunday of 
 June for another, the first Sunday of September for the third, 
 the first Sunday of December for the fourth. We do not deny 
 but any several kirk, for reasonable causes, may change the 
 time and may minister oftener, but we study to repress super- 
 stition." Of Good Friday, Ascension, and Pentecost there is 
 no mention ; reference is made to Easter alone, and what is 
 objected to is not the commemoration of the resurrection, but 
 the celebration of the Communion on that day. The Eefor- 
 mers wished — though, as we have seen, in vain — to discourage 
 the Eomish custom of communicating once a year only. It 
 would be impossible to carry out their purpose of teaching 
 their people to communicate every three months, if they kept 
 the date of the Communion, which till now had been considered 
 the only one that was imperative. Communicants would 
 flock to it as they had been used to do, and neglect the others. 
 The only way to prevent this was to fix such dates as made it 
 impossible for Easter and the Communion Sunday to fall on the 
 same day. There was no attempt to guard against the sacra- 
 ment coinciding with the other great Sunday festival of Pente- 
 cost, which could have been done by selecting the third 
 Sunday of the months chosen. 
 
 The proposal seems never to have been carried out. The 
 first three of these Sundays were kept in 1560 in Edin- 
 burgh, and that was before the Book was published. Neither 
 there nor elsewhere has any other record of their observance been 
 noticed. Though these two passages are not conclusive, they 
 indicate a disposition in some quarters to set aside the festivals, 
 followed up as they were by a very distinct expression of opinion 
 from the Assembly of 1566. In that year the second Helvetic 
 Confession was sent to Scotland to be approved, as it had been by 
 other Eeformed Churches. It contained the following passage: — 
 " If churches, in right of their Christian liberty, commemorate 
 religiously our Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, and 
 resurrection, with His ascension into heaven and the sending 
 
356 THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of the Holy Ghost upon the disciples, we highly approve 
 thereof. But feasts instituted in honour of men or angels we 
 approve not." The answer was: "This Assembly would not 
 allow the days dedicate to Christ — the Circumcision, Nativity, 
 Passion, Eesurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost days ; but took 
 exception against that part of the Confession." This was a 
 step beyond the ground taken up in the Book of Discipline. 
 Their next decision on the subject seems to retire from it. In 
 1570 this point was submitted to the Assembly: Whether the 
 Communion may be ministered upon Pasche Day or not ? The 
 answer given was : Why not, where superstition is removed ? 
 Almost certainly Knox was in this Assembly, as his first serious 
 illness did not come on till later in the year. His two close 
 friends^ Lawson and Craig, were on the small committee which 
 sent up the reply. After this, till the end of the century, there 
 is a succession of decisions on particular cases in which the 
 festivals had been observed. They all evince a dread that 
 these jfiays might be used to foster superstition. They were 
 associated with the old system in the memories of men, the 
 cases were often from districts where the power of Eome was 
 still s^ong, and they were mixed up with other irregularities. 
 The Assembly's decisions may at first have been influenced by 
 mere local or temporary dangers, but with the increase of 
 precedents there grew a belief that the Pieformed faith and the 
 festivals could not exist together. Not that there was any statute 
 law as yet to strengthen common law and common opinion. The 
 Confession and the new Book of Discipline were silent on the 
 subject. There is no such trenchant utterance as Cartwright's 
 in England, that " if the days were as indifferent as they were 
 made, yet being kept of the Papists, which are the enemies of 
 God, they ought to be abolished." Many holidays continued 
 to be known as dates fixing terms, markets, and merrymakings, 
 and there was a list of them in the Common Order itself; 
 but as days of religious observance they were forgotten. 
 Calderwood, recording the events of 1609, when some Anglican 
 fashions were introduced, says: "There was such keeping of 
 Christmas as was not for thirty years," marking the date at 
 which a stricter suppression of it had begun. Long after that 
 time records of presbyteries tell of vigorous proceedings against 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 357 
 
 the ancient customs belonging to Yule and St. John's Day, the 
 midwinter and midsummer holidays of the people. As if the 
 first passage quoted from the Book of Discipline expressed the 
 mind of the Church more truly than the second, the feeling 
 against Christmas seems to have been stronger than against 
 Easter. It was long the custom for the Assembly to sit on Christ- 
 mas Day, and for the law courts long after that ceased. But 
 Easter Communion was not uncommon. In the days before the 
 Perth Articles, Patrick Simson had it "many times without 
 scruple," till he saw that it was " to be a colour to advance the 
 ceremonies." At a still later time we have confirmation of the 
 fact in the journal of a Eoman Catholic priest who came to 
 Scotland on mission work in the early years of the Civil War. 
 He describes his risks on a certain Easter Sunday when he 
 was stealing away from Edinburgh to find his way northwards. 
 In parish after parish between Leith and Stirling he was in 
 dread of being observed and detected by the crowds who were 
 gathering for the celebration of the Communion.^ 
 
 One dominant opinion of our Eeformers, which runs through 
 all their writings on this class of subjects, was that the authority 
 of the Church should never make anything imperative which 
 had not the authority of Scripture. But their experience of 
 festivals was that they were enforced not only by ecclesiastical 
 power, but by civil law and social usage. The first required 
 appropriate worship; the second, cessation of labour; and the 
 last, merriment running into license. Their principles led them 
 to resist this multiplied pressure upon conscience. Week-day 
 festivals were therefore proscribed absolutely. But the Lord's 
 Day was already a holy day, was sacred from work, and pro- 
 tected from license. If it happened to be Easter Sunday or 
 Pentecost, the strictest could hardly say that there was a sur- 
 render of liberty in things indifferent, if any voluntarily con- 
 nected the services of the day with the resurrection of the 
 Saviour, or the mission of the Holy Spirit, or fixed on one of 
 them as the day for administering the Lord's Supper. The 
 question did not become a burning one till James VI. made 
 the observance of the five great festivals one of the Articles of 
 Perth. It is not to be wondered at that prejudice then deepened 
 
 ^ Blakhall's Karrative : Spalding Club. 
 
358 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUIiCH. 
 
 into active hostility. It was plainly part of the scheme for 
 forcing the Northern Church into conformity with the Southern 
 which had been maturing ever since the union of the crowns. 
 To ask the assent of the General Assembly was a mere form, 
 for a proclamation had been issued seven months before that 
 court met, ordering the observance of the days, and forbidding 
 all work on pain of being treated as " rebellious persons, con- 
 temners of His Majesty and authority." 
 
 During these months further light had been thrown on the 
 royal views and intentions on such matters by the first attempt 
 to publish the Book of Sports. No doubt the Assembly of 
 1616 had enacted that there should be communion on Easter 
 Sunday. But when the next Assembly was asked to sanction 
 all the five days they delayed consideration of the subject. 
 When the native ecclesiastical authority was thus defied by 
 the civil power — acting, as it was believed, under foreign 
 influence — the irritation of the country was so great that the 
 Act, when wrung from the Assembly, was not enforced and very 
 partially obeyed. When the opportunity came, twenty years 
 afterwards, it was abrogated, and the observance of these days 
 was for the first time distinctly forbidden by statute. After 
 the Eestoration few attempts were made to revive them. In 
 this as in other things the Prelatists kept to the old ways of 
 the Kirk. After the Eevolution the dislike to the festivals, 
 then more than a hundred years old, had become a fixed charac- 
 teristic of the Scots, and remains, with some abatement, to the 
 present time. Any change of opinion is mostly in favour of 
 Christmas, the day most plainly denounced at the Eeformation, 
 while Easter, an anniversary of more assured date, more closely 
 associated with the foundations of our belief, and looked on 
 with greater tolerance by our fathers, is as yet little noticed. 
 But the abhorrence once felt for all these days has greatly 
 diminished. Thoughtful men see that the other national 
 churches, which were reformed on the same model, have 
 retained them without being brought nearer to Eome. The 
 people at large are necessarily becoming familiar with them as 
 intercourse with England increases. They are also becoming con- 
 scious of a deficiency in our system of worship begun long ago 
 when daily prayers ceased in our churches, and now being 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 359 
 
 completed by our giving up week-day services at Communion 
 seasons. Soon perhaps the void may be in part supplied by 
 the great festivals in honour of the Son and Holy Spirit. 
 
 Before concluding this review of our worship during the first 
 period after the Eeformation, it may be interesting to trace to 
 its origin that divergence of opinion in the Churches of Scot- 
 land and England as to the relative importance of worship and 
 instruction, which tends so much to keep them apart. It might 
 have been expected that dividing between them one narrow 
 island, speaking one tongue, having the dates of their final 
 Pieformation separated by only a few months, using for a short 
 time the same service-book, and having for a longer period 
 what is now called mutual eligibility among their clergy, they 
 would not differ much, and that their differences would tend to 
 disappear. A difference in church government does not ade- 
 quately account for it; for among ourselves the same form 
 of worship was found equally suitable for the Presbytery of 
 Andrew Melville's time and the Episcopacy of the Eestoration, 
 the second being perhaps a degree less liturgical than the first. 
 In 1560 England was less prelatical, Scotland less presbyterian 
 than at either of these eras. There could be no impassable gulf 
 between them at a time when the General Assembly of the one 
 church sent for a Leicestershire rector to occupy the IModerator's 
 chair, and the Primate of the other licensed an East Lothian 
 minister to preach throughout his province, because he had 
 been ordained "according to the laudable form and rite of the 
 Picformed Church of Scotland." If the two communions have 
 come to be distinguished as the Preaching Church and the 
 Praying Church, theories of church government do not account 
 for it. It is partly, though not wholly, explained by a corre- 
 sponding difference between the two service-books, of which 
 Scotland having tried and rejected one, adopted the other. 
 The Common Order gives a marked prominence to the ordin- 
 ance of preaching. The sermon is not an occasional adjunct to 
 the service. Without it other ordinances are incomplete : some 
 of them are hardly valid. " Neither judge we that the sacra- 
 ments can be rightly ministered by him in whose mouth God 
 hath put no sermon of exhortation," says the Book of Disci- 
 pline ; and one of the standing arguments against private com- 
 
360 THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 munion and baptism was that they were disconnected from the 
 preaching of the word. Marriage was to be celebrated at the 
 time of sermon. In the Book of Geneva, as the Scots first knew 
 it, a sermon followed the burial of the dead. 
 
 These things gave the sermon prominence, but hardly pre- 
 eminence. We must refer this not only to the Book, but to the 
 persons who in process of time used the Book. It is common 
 to confound two classes of men who bore the same name, the 
 one in the age of the Eeformation, the other in the generations 
 following. It must be remembered that a vast body of the old 
 clergy accepted the Eeformation, It has been said that there 
 were in the country 4000 ecclesiastics of various ranks and 
 orders. Those who would not submit to the change had no 
 alternative but to fly or conceal themselves. Of the rest, such 
 as held preferment had two-thirds of their livings secured to 
 them. Of these, and of the unendowed clergy and the regulars, 
 there were many willing to serve under the new regime. In 
 1571 it was reported to the Convention of Leith, that of the old 
 chapter of Glasgow there were six " ministers professors of the 
 true religion," and of the chapter of St. Andrews no fewer than 
 fourteen. In 1573 the Eegent, writing to the General Assembly, 
 said : — " Seeing the most part of the persons who were canons, 
 monks, or friars within this realm, have made profession of the 
 true religion, it is therefore thought meet that it be enjoined to 
 them to pass and serve as readers, at the places where they 
 shall be appointed." The lack was not of men but of means, 
 so unsparing had been the plunder of church property by both 
 parties. Those with whom it lay to make selections from 
 among the conforming clergy, and assign their spheres of work, 
 desired before everything to have the people enlightened. The 
 private meetings and exercises were doing much, but a preach- 
 ing ministry was needed, which could not only speak of duties 
 and doctrines known before, but teach to an unlearned people 
 things new as well as old. But few of the clergy had been 
 trained to preach. Some of these who heartily embraced the 
 Eeformation were settled in the great towns ; others were sent 
 to itinerate as evangelists, with a general supervision over a 
 cluster of parishes. Their connection with the separate con- 
 gregations was necessarily slight. These depended for the 
 
THE rJTUAL or THE CHUHCH. 361 
 
 common ordiDances of religion on a class of resident incum- 
 bents, who read the liturgy and Scriptures in church, and per- 
 formed other pastoral duties during the week. They were 
 called Eeaders, a name familiar to the people as belonging to 
 one of the orders of the Eoman Church. It was not imperative 
 that they should have been ordained, but they received formal 
 collation from the superintendent. All evidence goes to prove 
 that as a rule they had been of the clergy before, and were not 
 merely, in the words of Dr. ]\rCrie, " certain pious persons who 
 had received a common education" — a very rare advantage in 
 pre-Eeformation days. Sometimes the old incumbent con- 
 tinued to minister to his flock ; sometimes the office was held 
 by a brother from some suppressed monastery near. Their 
 position was by no means so humble as it has often been rei)re- 
 sented to be. In the eyes of their parishioners they must have 
 held much the same status as the vicars who had been serving 
 700 of the parishes of Scotland, that the greater tithes might 
 go to swell the revenues of chapters and religious houses. The 
 Provincial Council of 1559 had fixed as an adequate provision 
 for a curate twenty merks in the northern dioceses, and twenty- 
 four in the others. It need hardly be said that curates meant 
 resident clergy in general, as it does in the English Prayer-book. 
 The Book of Discipline requires for a reader forty merks, 
 and the Leith Convention provided that they might be bene- 
 ficed in all vicarages up to the value of forty pounds. Of 
 late years two lists have been published, containing the names 
 and emoluments of the readers who were officiating through- 
 out Scotland in 1567 and 1574 Erom the wreck of church 
 property the full amount of forty merks is not often reached; but 
 on the other hand the curate's minimum of twenty is generally 
 exceeded. Many are said to have the vicar's tithes, and a large 
 proportion hold the kirk lands of the parish in addition. Now 
 and then accidental references are made elsewhere to readers 
 as vicars. The man who in one of the above lists appears 
 as reader at Inchinnan, is mentioned in the Glasgow session 
 records under his old style, as one of the " Pope's knights," 
 Sir Bernard Peebles, vicar of the parish. Wodrow the his- 
 torian claims as his ancestor Patrick Woodruif, vicar of Eagles- 
 ham at the Eeformatiou. He is entered in the list as reader 
 
362 THE rjTUAL of the church. 
 
 there. The Assembly of 15 G 3 includes readers in an injunc- 
 tion to all who had manses to reside in them, that the people 
 might not want " the continual comfort which their presence 
 should give by mutual conference of the minister with his 
 flock." And the Book of Discipline requires that " to the 
 ministers, and failing thereof the readers, must be restored 
 their manses and glebes, for else they cannot serve nor attend 
 their flocks at all times." A readership was therefore not 
 beneath the acceptance of the old clergy, and their position 
 was that of incumbents who, like their predecessors, did not 
 preach. But they were encouraged to qualify themselves for 
 this duty also, that they might be advanced either to the full 
 ministry or to tlie office of the exhorter, who was allowed to 
 expound Scripture, to baptize, and to marry. There are cases 
 recorded from time to time in which readers ventured to cele- 
 brate these ordinances, and even the Communion. The decisions 
 given by the Assembly are not quite uniform, but they seem 
 to be ruled by the general principle, that the sacraments and 
 marriage ought to be joined to the preaching of the word. 
 There is not a hint of wishing to apply to these offenders the 
 other principle laid down in the Book of Discipline, that death 
 was the merited penalty for those who ministered sacraments 
 " without all vocation." It is easy to understand how such 
 an irregularity would be committed in a case where the reader 
 was a clergyman, and long intervals passed without a visit 
 from the preaching minister under whose supervision the parish 
 was. It was reported to the Assembly of 1569 that at Falkirk 
 and at Whitekirk the people had not received the sacraments 
 since the Eeformation, nor heard the word twice preached. 
 
 It was some time before the Church saw a trained preacher in 
 every parish. Colleges for their education had to be founded 
 or remodelled. Endowments for their better support had to 
 be reclaimed. Gradually, as the readers of the first generation 
 died or were removed, resident ministers took their place. 
 But by this time the office had been found too useful to be 
 dispensed with. Wherever they were competent they had acted 
 as teachers of the young. AVhen the minister of the district 
 came to preach, the reader probably read the liturgy and lessons, 
 as on other Sundays, before his superior mounted the pulpit. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CIIUECII. 363 
 
 The function had thus come to be considered a secondary one, 
 and the new minister was not unwilling that he should be 
 relieved of it by the person who succeeded the old priest- 
 reader in his secular duties. A new class of readers thus came 
 into existence with the same name, but a different position. 
 They were no longer collated by the superintendent, drawers 
 of the teind, occupants of manse and glebe, the local repre- 
 sentatives of the Church. If the parish did not provide a 
 reader, tlie minister might take the first service himself; but 
 if there was a reader, it lay with him to read prayers and 
 Scripture, till the moment came when the minister and part 
 of the congregation entered the church for the first time. The 
 conceived prayer and sermon that followed were magnified in 
 popular estimation. The more familiar service from a sub- 
 ordinate sank in the same degree. The time came when it 
 was not uncommon to omit the prayers, and Scripture only 
 was read while the people were assembling, and in this form 
 the reader's service lingered in some places till the present 
 century. Now the only memorials of the reader and his work 
 are the name of lettern given to the place from which he read, 
 and the proclamation of banns by the " taker-up of the psalm." 
 Out of all this grew that disproportioned regard for the 
 Church as a teaching institute which Scotsmen share with "^ 
 Eome, and which expresses itself in their common speech when 
 they talk of going to sermon, not to service, to hear such a 
 minister, not to worship God, and when they describe the Holy 
 Communion as the Preachings. 
 
 In England, from the first, the current of events set in in 
 an opposite direction. The many who wished to outrun the 
 gradual and regulated course of reform favoured by the Court, 
 found among the clergy leaders of eloquence and fervour. To 
 lessen their influence, the right of preaching was subjected to 
 strict control. Such men as were " apt to teach " must have 
 a license, and that was sparingly allowed. Half a dozen 
 accredited preachers were supposed to be sufficient provision 
 for the wants of a county or diocese. For the rest it was 
 enough if they read at the close of service one of the authorized 
 homilies. At first some such state of things was unavoidable 
 in both countries, but there was not the same eager desire in 
 
364 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 England as in Scotland to have the number of preachers mul- 
 tiplied. And yet there it would have been easier, from the 
 greater vs^ealth of the universities and the better protected 
 endowments of the Church. As the incumbents died out who 
 had passed through the crisis of the Eeformation, successors 
 were appointed who, like them, looked on preaching as a 
 superfluous or unattainable accomplishment. When the public 
 duties of the holy office were so easy, many were ordained 
 whose antecedents had allowed no preparation for it. But 
 they were clergymen. They had no resident superior to whom 
 they must surrender the ministration of the sacraments and 
 the duty of public instruction. The Prayer Book could not 
 fall into disrepute, as the Common Order did, from being 
 generally seen in the hands of a lay official. The sermon was 
 only an occasional privilege ; and the homilies, excellent in their 
 way, were not likely to develop in the people a taste for the 
 eloquence of the pulpit. And so in the course of generations 
 there grew that feeling of reverence for the book as the embodi- 
 ment of worship, wliich to an Englishman seems so natural, 
 and to Scotsmen so incomprehensible. England has had many 
 noble preachers, but preaching has never been the strong point 
 of her clergy as a body. "When their numbers are considered, 
 it is remarkable how few in each of the past generations are 
 remembered as masters of eloquence, such as France has 
 liberally produced. Learning has been their claim to eminence 
 more than the power of swaying multitudes by the living voice; 
 and often it has been the learning of the schoolmaster, rather 
 than of the divine. 
 
 When the opinions and customs of our fathers had been con- 
 solidated after the Eeformation, there was little change till the 
 next great ecclesiastical upheaval, in 1638. Considerable liberty 
 was allowed to ministers in the use of the Common Order, and 
 they largely availed themselves of their right; but the book itself 
 was jealously guarded from change. A proposal to revise it 
 was made in 1601, but the Assembly forbade all alterations, 
 though it was ready to permit well-considered additions. It 
 must have been in constant circulation when, in 1602, the 
 inventory of an Edinburgh bookseller, by no means the best 
 known at the present day, contained 2000 copies of it. Minis- 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 365 
 
 ters seldom read the daily prayers, and their deputies, the readers, 
 were not permitted to change them. As to the offices for the 
 sacraments and marriage, Scot of Cupar, one of the most 
 unyielding champions of Presbytery, says that they were con- 
 tinued " till the declining of the Kirk," by which he meant the 
 aggressions of Prelacy. Calderwood, equally stanch on the 
 same side, had not used them for thirteen years. Two feelings 
 were in the minds of men as to the book. Patriotism made 
 them keep it in its integrity as a badge of Scottish nationality. 
 But there was also their favourite doctrine, that the voice of 
 authority was not imperative as to things neither enjoined nor 
 forbidden by a higher law. Therefore the book was printed ^^^ 
 without change, and used with constant change. But the time 
 was now come when their doctrine as to things indifferent had 
 another principle opposed to it, thus neatly formulated by King 
 James : " The bishops must rule the ministers, and the king 
 rule both in matters indifferent and not repugnant to the Word 
 of God."^ While Scotland was a separate kingdom, a native 
 king sitting in her Parliaments and Assemblies, busying himself 
 in all her affairs, could carry out this ideal with considerable 
 success. But the case was different when he succeeded to 
 another crown and made his home in a foreign capital. The 
 feeling of nationality became more sensitive and exacting. 
 Every encroachment on the part of a sovereign no more seen, 
 surrounded by new counsellors, and accepted as head of the 
 National Church in his new dominion, would be watched and 
 withstood. The astute course, with the ends which he had in 
 view, would have been studiously to avoid the appearance of 
 imposing on the Scots any English usages till time and common 
 interests had softened old hatreds and formed new sympathies. 
 But after his migration to England, there was no cessation in 
 his efforts to secure and exercise supremacy over the Scottish 
 Church, that he might mould her after the English model. 
 Having with difficulty imposed upon her an Anglican episco- 
 pate, his next advance was to modify her worship. After a 
 contest lasting through several Assemblies, held in provincial 
 towns, five usages were sanctioned, all opposed to existing 
 custom, and borrowed from the practice of England. These 
 
 ^ Spottiswoode, iii. 241. 
 
366 THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 were : kneeling at the Communion, the private ministration of 
 both sacraments, confirmation, and the observance of the great 
 festivals. Nothing could have been better devised to rouse the 
 spirit of a proud nation than the grounds on which these changes 
 were demanded and conceded at Perth. The Dean of Win- 
 chester entered the Assembly, and read and recommended as best 
 he could a royal letter, containing sucli sentiments as these : 
 " The greater content there is amongst yourselves the greater 
 is our contentment. But we will not have you to think that 
 matters proponed by us of that nature whereof these articles 
 are, may not without such a general consent be enjoined by 
 our authority; this were a misknowing of your places, and 
 withal a disclaiming of that innate power which we have by 
 our calling from God, by the which we have place to dispose 
 of things external in the Church as we shall think them to be 
 convenient and profitable for advancing true religion amongst 
 our subjects. Therefore let it be your care by all manner of 
 wise and discreet persuasions, to induce them to an obedient 
 yielding unto these things, as in duty both to God and us they 
 are bound ; and do not think that we will be satisfied with 
 refuses, or delays, or mitigations, and we know not what other 
 shifts have been proponed ; for we will content ourselves with 
 nothing but with a simple and direct acceptation of these 
 Articles in the form by us sent unto you," &c,^ Packed, influ- 
 enced, and browbeaten as the Assembly was, there was stout 
 resistance. Even the Primate, both in his sermon and from 
 the chair, admitted that he disliked the Articles, and that but 
 for the royal order he would have opposed them. Upwards 
 of forty clergy did, and such was the feeling throughout the 
 country that the disastrous victory could not be followed up. 
 Two-thirds of the congregations refused to receive the sacra- 
 ment on their knees. King James, who knew his countrymen 
 of old, was able to read the signs of the times. He saw that he 
 had built too much upon his success in introducing an Anglican 
 episcopate. To the ordinary Scotsman of that day it was of 
 secondary moment who presided at synods and ordinations in 
 the cathedral town, which he seldom entered, or that the bishop 
 rode up the High Street among the Estates of Scotland when 
 
 1 " Book of the Universal Kiik," 1146. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 367 
 
 the Parliament met, or was in some vague way associated with 
 the lawyers in registering the laird's will. To himself the 
 Church was what it had always been. The Kirk Session and 
 Presbytery met and did their old duties in the old way ; the 
 worship and the doctrine were the same that he had known 
 from childhood. But his composure was disturbed when he 
 was told that orders had come from London that he must kneel 
 like an Englishman beside the holy table, instead of sitting 
 there as Christ's guest. King James saw that he had better 
 not press the controversy further. Parliament was given to 
 understand, through the Marquis of Hamilton, "that the Church 
 should not be urged with any more novations." Such as con- 
 formed to the Perth Articles stood higher in the King's favour, 
 but the others were gently dealt with. It would have been 
 well if the lesson had been remembered twenty years after. 
 
 Had the Articles come from a different source, and, like many 
 of the agenda in the old book, been recommended rather than 
 ordered, their reception might have been different. The 
 travelled clergy had been familiar with some of them when 
 they lived or served among the Dutch and French Reformed, 
 with whom the Scottish Church was in full communion. One 
 of the grievances of the minority at Perth was that they, were 
 -not allowed to vote on them one by one, which implies that 
 some would have found more favour than others. Indeed all 
 except that which ordered the communicant to kneel had virtu- 
 ally been allowed by the preceding Assemblies at Aberdeen and 
 St. Andrews. Against it the feeling was most intense, and the 
 feeling for it not strong. Even Bishop Lindsay, one of the 
 royal champions at the Assembly, and afterwards its historian, 
 said in debate—" On my conscience I neither know Scripture, 
 reason, nor antiquity that enforceth kneeling, sitting, standing^ 
 or passing. ... I judge yielding to his Highness' desire 
 to be the only best." Later experience shows that the people 
 would have been only too ready to welcome back the Ptomish 
 custom of private baptism. The receiving of the Communion 
 in private was necessarily optional, and any grievance would 
 be not a lay but a clerical one, when it was sought from a 
 minister whose conscience forbade him to administer it. As to 
 confirmation, no objection was likely to be made against a formal 
 
 79 
 
 ^ 
 
368 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 owning of their baptismal vows by young persons before their 
 first Communion. Calvin had approved of it. ^ The question 
 at issue was, who should receive them ? The Aberdeen 
 Assembly two years before held that the parochial bishop could 
 confirm as well as the diocesan, as has been the usage in the 
 Greek Church, and occasionally, it is said, by delegation, in the 
 Anglican. "With the example of the foreign Churches before 
 their eyes, the Scots might have admitted the permissive 
 observance of the five festivals, even the week-days, Christmas, 
 Good Friday, and Ascension. But a royal fiat commanding 
 their observance, though registered by a subservient Assembly, 
 ■was resented as an intrusion on the domain of conscience. The 
 actual result was a drawn battle between the King and the 
 country : the one retired in nominal triumph, the other kept 
 its ground. 
 
 No breach in the unity of the Church followed, for the 
 modern custom of erecting a new sect in perpetual memory 
 of an old quarrel was as yet not understood in Scotland. 
 No marked change passed over the national worship. Some 
 there was, as had always been the case, and the rate of 
 movement was a little faster than before. There was a widen- 
 ing difference between the National and the Court parties. 
 Some began to depreciate old customs when they found that 
 they were also English ; some were disposed to introduce 
 changes because they were English. On the occasion of royal 
 visits surplices were seen and organs heard. English prayers 
 were used not only then, but in colleges, and in the cathedrals 
 of some of the rash young bishops, who hastened the outbreak 
 of 1637. Different districts leant to different sides. Within 
 recognized limits there was a manifest distinction between the 
 worship of Ayrshire and that of Aberdeenshire. There was 
 much party spirit, more dangerous probably than it would have 
 been had annual meetings of Assembly provided an outlet for it, 
 as in the older time. Still there was a nominal uniformity in 
 worship as there was in government and creed, and though 
 the first period of the Eeformed Church's history was drawing 
 to a close, there was little to forewarn men of the revolution 
 that was at hand. 
 
 ^ "Instit.,"iv. 194. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 3(39 
 
 During this period, however, measures were bein- quietly 
 taken to further King James's design of "making that^stubborn 
 •Kirk stoop more to the English pattern." Politicians and 
 ecclesiastics were busy about it, though the public knew little 
 of what was going on. The full particulars have only lately 
 coine to light. Had the Perth Articles been accepted as tamely 
 as the King expected, that change was to have been followed 
 up by another. The Common Order was to be displaced by a 
 new liturgy more nearly allied to the EngHsh service-book 
 Ihis scheme took form at Spottiswoode's accession to the 
 primacy m 1615. The first step towards carrying it was an 
 instruction sent by the King to the Assembly of 1616 which 
 111 accordance with his wishes, enacted as follows :-" That a 
 uniform order of liturgy or divine service be set down to be 
 
 '^?1.1 1 f ^"^" "'" ^^'' ''^'''^'y ^^y' °^ P^^y^^' ^nd every 
 Sabbath-day before the sermon, to the end the common people 
 may be acquainted therewith, and by custom may learn to 
 serve God rightly. And to this intent the Assembly has ap- 
 pointed the saids Mr. Patrick Galloway, Mr. Peter Ewat, 
 Mr. John Adamson, and Mr. William Erskine, minister at 
 [Denino], to revise the Book of Common Prayers contained in 
 the Psalm Book, and to set down a common form of ordinary 
 service to be used in all time hereafter ; which shall be used 
 in all time of Common Prayers (in all kirks where there is 
 exercise of Common Prayers), as likewise by the minister before 
 the sermon where there is no reader." Though no doubt 
 
 ot rr/ir''-'"''' ^^ '^' ^""^ '^ '^' ^i"g' *^« °«tensible 
 objec of this injunction was to discourage the growing opinion 
 that liturgical prayers were only fit to be read and joined in 
 by lay persons. Orders were issued at the same time for 
 the preparation of a confession, catechism, and canons The 
 persons chosen to revise the liturgy represented fairly the 
 different sides in the Church. Hewitt and Erskine were of 
 tha party who opposed the Court. It has always been known 
 that the work was taken up, that a form of service was pre- 
 pared, and that negotiations connected with it were carried 
 on at intervals between Edinburgh and London. But a flood 
 
 light has been thrown on the subject by the pubHcation 
 
 01 Dr. Sprotts " Liturgies of the Peign of James VI" He has 
 
370 THE EirUAL OF THE CHUllCII. 
 
 collected and arranged a mass of information illustrating this 
 obscure corner of history, and lias patiently traced the stages 
 by whicli the moderate revision first intended was altered and 
 then laid aside to make way for the liturgy of 1637. 
 
 The book contains two services. One is believed to be the 
 work of Hewitt, and to have been rejected. It contains no more 
 than the service for daily prayer. It begins with introductory 
 sentences of Scripture, followed by a prayer of confession, 
 the ninety-second Psalm, read or sung, a shorter prayer, ending 
 with the Lord's Prayer, and thereafter a Gospel and Epistle. 
 Afterwards another prayer is said, another psalm read, and the 
 Creed recited. The concluding prayer of intercession is of 
 greater length than the three earlier prayers together. All 
 of them are evidently written by the compiler himself, and 
 are favourable specimens of the devotional compositions of 
 that age. The prayers of the Common Order are retained as 
 alternative forms, but with some omitted which had too ex- 
 clusive reference to the age in which they were first published. 
 The more important service is that which the committee seems 
 to have adopted and presented as the result of its labours. 
 The material of the Common Order is to a considerable extent 
 retained, in combination with much taken from the English 
 liturgy. But all peculiarities in it likely to be offensive to 
 the Scots are avoided. There is no mention of vestments, of 
 the cross in baptism, or the ring in marriage. Such changes 
 were introduced as the Perth Articles made necessary. The 
 Anglican element preponderated in the sacramental services and 
 in the morning daily prayer much more than in the evening. 
 There are hardly any responses. There is a special service for 
 Sunday, in which more is conceded to Scottish custom than 
 in some other parts of the book. A rubric in it preserves the 
 memory of an old usage : " It was the ancient custom of our 
 Church, upon the Sundays at afternoon, to sing the 119tb 
 Psalm, which we think best to be still retained in use, b}- 
 sinsincr a section of the same before sermon and another after." 
 Burial service is barely permitted. A lectionavy is introduced 
 and also a simple catechism for the young, in accordance 
 with the Assembly's ordinance. The care that is taken to 
 preserve the language of much of the Common Order shows 
 
THE rJTUAL OF TEE CHURCH. Sjl 
 
 how familiar it was to the ears and dear to the hearts of the 
 Scots. It could not have been the neglected and forgotten 
 manual that some represent it to be. Two of its prayers in 
 the Sunday service are preceded by the words : " One of these 
 confessions following, wherewith the people is accustomed, to 
 be used." On the whole it was an order not likely to arouse 
 opposition, if it had come spontaneously from the Church. As 
 soon as it was completed it seems to have been sent to London. 
 A license was granted to an Edinburgh printer, giving him the 
 monopoly of its publication. But delay seemed advisable when 
 difficulty was found in obtaining the assent of Assembly and 
 Parliament to the Five Articles. The result was that the pub- 
 lication was indefinitely postponed, and the project was allowed 
 to sleep till Charles I. had been for some years on the throne. 
 In 1629 the draft was again sent to London for review. The 
 manuscript from which the print in Dr. Sprott's work is taken 
 has some amendments written into it, some with an English, 
 some with a Scottish bias, and there seems every reason to 
 believe that it is the very document which Laud on the one 
 hand, and some of the Scottish bishoj^s on the other, had under 
 their united consideration. The conference ended in Laud's 
 advising the King to impose on Scotland the English liturgy 
 pure and simple. The Scottish divines knew what risks this 
 involved, and the liturgy of compromise was laid aside, to be 
 seen no more till our own day. The subject was taken up a 
 third time when Charles, with Laud in his train, came to 
 Scotland to be crowned in 1633. As before, the alternatives 
 considered were — the English liturgy or a distinctive Scottish 
 one. The King, after his return to London, announced his 
 decision to the Archbishop of St. Andrews. A litur<^y was 
 to be framed "as near as can be to this of England." Its 
 preparation was the work of years. Laud's determination 
 seems to have been, that since his plan of making the books 
 the same was defeated, the differences should not be approxi- 
 mations to the Scottish worship, but changes in another direc- 
 tion ; and to a great extent he had his will. The final revision 
 was virtually his, and then it was sent down with orders that 
 it should be at once adopted. It found the nation already 
 sufficiently irritated by the Book of Canons, a substitute for 
 
 "~^ 
 
 ^ 
 
372 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 the old Books of Discipline, which had preceded it by a few 
 months. 
 
 The liturgy of 1637 is now little known in Scotland, 
 but it was the occasion of such momentous changes in our 
 history that it cannot be dismissed in a sentence. In the 
 greater part of it it carried out the King's desire that it 
 should be framed " as near as may be " after the model of 
 the English. To those who compare it with the English book 
 of to-day the resemblance appears closer than it then was, 
 for some of its novelties were embodied in the other after 
 the Eestoration. Still there remain some marked differences. 
 The English word priest, which had come to be the equivalent 
 at pleasure of either the prcshytcr or the sacerdos of antiquity, 
 became more exact in meaning by being brought back to its 
 primitive form of presbyter. Apocryphal Scripture all but 
 disappeared. King James's version of the canonical Scripture 
 was everywhere used, to the exclusion both of the Genevan, 
 with which the Scots were most familiar, and Coverdale's 
 version in the English liturgy. But by far the greatest dif- 
 ference was in the Communion office. The presenting of 
 offerings at the table was substituted for the then English 
 custom of putting them into the poor-box. The presbyter 
 was to "offer up and place" the elements on the table. At 
 that time there was nothing corresponding to this in the other 
 book. The English prayer for the Church militant ended 
 then with the petitions for those in adversity. It was no 
 more than the beginning of the prayer which in the Eirst 
 Book of Edward stood before the consecration and ended 
 with the commemoration of the departed and direct prayer 
 for them. The commemoration without the intercession was 
 now restored. When the consecration prayer was reached 
 the most important changes began. The rubric required that 
 the presbyter "during the time of consecration shall stand 
 at such a part of the holy table where he may with the 
 more ease and decency use both his hands." Both then in 
 Scotland and in England after the Eestoration, when a sen- 
 tence to the same purpose was inserted, it was argued that 
 this had little meaning unless it were meant to allow the 
 eastward position. Its ambiguity has been proved by the 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 373 
 
 always-beginning, never-ending disputes as to its import in 
 the present day. There is no doubt what Laud intended it 
 to mean, for the Scottish rubric as he drafted it ran thus : — 
 " Shall stand in the midst before the altar that he may with 
 the more ease use both his hands, which he cannot so con- 
 veniently do standing at the north side of it." Then followed 
 the prayer of consecration, of which the words immediately 
 before the w^ords of institution ran thus : " Hear us, merciful 
 Father, we most humbly beseech Thee, [and of Thy almighty 
 goodness vouchsafe so to bless and sanctify with Thy Word 
 and Holy Spirit these thy gifts and creatures of bread and 
 wine that they may be unto us the body and blood of Thy 
 most dearly beloved Son] ; so that we, receiving them accord- 
 ing to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, 
 in remembrance of His death and passion, may be partakers of 
 the same, His most precious body and blood, who in the night," 
 &c. The words within brackets are not in the present English 
 prayer, but are those which in the First Book of Edward 
 were at once followed by the words of institution. But in 
 the Scottish book, the presbyter, instead of at once adminis- 
 tering the Communion, continued with "the memorial or 
 prayer of oblation," as the Book of Edward had done, ending 
 with the Lord's Prayer. The words of administration were 
 also those used in Edward's book ; that is, they were the first 
 only of the present English sentences. 
 
 In one respect the Scottish book protested more distinctly n^ 
 against Eoman teaching than the English does. The ancient 
 liturgies never wanted an invocation of the Holy Spirit's blessing 
 on the elements. Rome had suppressed it that there might be 
 nothing to disturb her dogma, that the whispered words, " hoc est 
 enim corpus meum," &c., made the sacrament. The Easterns, 
 on the contrary, held that these words, though necessary, were 
 not sufficient without the Spirit's blessing invoked in prayer- 
 However superstitious may have been their belief as to what 
 was done in answer to the invocation, their view was not so 
 utterly material as that of Eome. The compilers of Edward's 
 First Book so far returned to primitive usage as to insert 
 before the words of institution a reference to the Holy Spirit, 
 though less distinct than was usual in the old liturgies. But 
 
374 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 in the Second Book, as in the present, and in the Common 
 Order, this was wanting. A feeling seems to have pervaded 
 all sections of the Scottish Church, that their form of merely 
 offering thanks was deficient. Calderwood speaks of bene- 
 diction as a rite without which the sacrament is invalid.^ 
 Eow, describing an Easter Communion celebrated by one of 
 the opposite party, speaks of "the prayer of consecration, 
 wherein there is not one word of 'Lord bless the elements or 
 action.'"^ Maxwell, bishop of Eoss, writing anonymously in 
 England after his deprivation, says : " Eor ought I know there 
 is no consecration used by them in that holy action."^ 
 
 "Whether any concession to Scottish opinion was intended or 
 not, the change made at this point from the English form was 
 a testimony against Eome. And yet it is incomplete. The 
 principle that the words alone are the essence of the sacra- 
 ment seems to be admitted elsewhere in both the En<Tlish 
 and Scottish offices, for in both a rubric provides that when 
 a second consecration is necessary a repetition of the words in 
 1 Cor. xi. without invocation is enough. This Oriental element 
 introduced into the consecration prayer did not conciliate 
 the Scots. The hard literalism of the Eoman doctrine as to 
 a naaterial change in the elements might lurk behind a non- 
 Eoman opinion as to the means and moment of the change. 
 It was noticed that both at the invocation and at the admin- 
 istration the words of the missal were retained, with altera- 
 tions indeed, but not such as came nearer to Eeformed doctrine. 
 The Eoman prayer asks that "this oblation may be made unto 
 ns the body and blood," the Scottish that the " bread and wine 
 may be unto us," &c. In the Eoman form the sacrament is 
 given thus : " The body of the Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy 
 soul to everlasting life;" in the English: "The body of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body 
 and soul unto everlasting life." There was a return to early 
 usage in the place given to the Lord's Prayer, which, perfect 
 always, is never fuller of significance than at the moment before 
 the Commimion is dispensed. It cannot be thus used after 
 consecration and before Communion without seeming to testify 
 against transubstantiation in "Give us this day our daily 
 
 ^" Alt Dam.," 520. -md.,B3l. ^ u Burden of Issachar," 5. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 375 
 
 bread." There is said to have been a time in the earlier ages 
 when it alone formed the consecration prayer. The whole 
 office, notwithstanding its variations from Eome, paid little "J 
 respect to Scottish custom and feeling. Its purpose seemed to 
 be to restore as much as was possible of the Prayer-book of 
 1549, the disuse of which has always been regretted by extreme 
 Anglicans. The Scots felt that they were being treated on 
 the principle, "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili," and rejected 
 the nostrum accordingly. 
 
 Some at the present day suppose that the Communion 
 office of 1637 is the same as is now in occasional use 
 among Episcopalians in Scotland. This dates only from the 
 reign of George III. It is constructed from the same materials 
 as the Anglican and the book of 1637, but in a different 
 order from either. More plainly than they do it opposes 
 the Eoman belief that the Scripture words alone make the 
 sacrament, for it invokes the Spirit's presence after both 
 they and the prayer of oblation liave been spoken, and when 
 a second consecration is necessary it repeats the invocation as 
 well as the institution. But at another point it is more Eoman 
 than Eome herself. Instead of "May be made unto us the 
 body and blood," it reads : "May become the body and blood." 
 
 At the first attempt to use the new service-book in St. Giles', 
 the impending storm broke. Like the Porteous affair a hundred 
 years later, it seemed to be a spontaneous outburst of popular 
 indignation, but as in that case, traditions of secret preparations 
 for it long lingered in the city. One of the Stewarts of Colt- 
 ness, excellent authorities on such a subject, told Wodrow that 
 it was " the constantly believed tradition " that many of the ^ 
 female rioters were prentices in disguise, and that the first 
 stool was thrown by the wife of John Mein, merchant in Edin- 
 burgh. If this was, as is probably meant, the well-known 
 leader of those burgesses who opposed the Court, his wife was 
 closely connected by mamage with Blair and Livingston, and 
 a more substantial figure in history than the shadowy Jenny 
 Geddes.'^ The country followed the example of the capital. 
 Before long the Covenant in a new form was proclaimed, the 
 Assembly revived, the Perth Articles abrogated, and the Epis- 
 
 ^ '• Analecta," i. C4. 
 
 N 
 
\. 
 
 376 THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 copate abolished. Partisans who in anticipation of the coming 
 service-book had been introducing Anglican novelties, were 
 fortunate if their premature action did not lead to processes of 
 deposition. " All we have been doing these thirty years past 
 is thrown down at once," said the Primate. But among the 
 body of the clergy there was little alteration in the form of 
 worship. Still any visible movement was necessarily in the 
 direction of unliturgical services, since extremes on the one 
 side were sharply checked, and those on the other had free 
 scope. Men's minds were full of the subject, busy pens were 
 at work on it, and all the discussions were intensified by the 
 feeling of outraged nationality. It breathes in the titles of the 
 books that came from the press. Baillie, who was in Episcopa l 
 order s ; who in the first of his interesting letters, written when 
 the great drama is beginning, says, " Bishops I love ;" and who 
 never came to be in full sympathy with the strong re-action 
 going on around him, most keenly assailed the alien ritual in 
 his " Canterburian's Self-conviction." George Gillespie, a man 
 of the new time, caught the same keynote when he named his 
 contribution to the controversy, the "English-Popish Cere- 
 monies." And the great storehouse of fact and argument now, 
 as for fifteen years before, was Calderwood's "Altare Dama- 
 scenum." He called it so to point a parallel between the events 
 of the time and the scriptural story of Ahaz, who, admiring the 
 altar which he saw when he went to Damascus, sent a pattern 
 of it to Jerusalem that such another might be set up in the 
 temple. 
 
 Many think of Calderwood as no more than a painstaking 
 compiler of chronicles. If his great work were better known, 
 he would hold some such place in relation to Scottish 
 ecclesiastical polity as has been conceded to Hooker in the 
 South. He wrote it smarting under the sentence which had 
 driven him from his flock and his country, and carried some 
 opinions further than most of his countrymen were ready to 
 follow him. But when his views triumphed, the old man, 
 repelled by the excesses which grew out of them, fell back on 
 the memories of youth, and, sturdy Scotsman always, assailed 
 the new-fangled importations of English sectarianism as fear- 
 lessly as he had battled with the encroachments of James. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CnUKCII. 377 
 
 The interest awakened by these discussions on worship did 
 not die out when the new liturgy had been rejected. It was 
 not long before the victors were at war among themselves. 
 Soon after the Glasgow Assembly, at the same time as the 
 Independents began to appear as an organized force in England, 
 a party began to organize itself in Scotland, which even then 
 had something in common with them, and was in closer alliance 
 with them afterwards. Its principles have so much influenced 
 the history of our country that it is well to trace its origin. 
 From the earlier years of the century, a stream of Scottish 
 emigrants had been pouring from the south-western counties 
 into Ulster, still the home of their descendants. AVliile the 
 long contest about Episcopacy and the Perth Articles was going 
 on, ministers whose opinions were furthest from those of the 
 sovereign, sometimes crossed to Ireland. They found a Ee- 
 formed episcopate there as well as in Scotland, but they, as 
 foreigners ministering to their compatriots, were tolerated as 
 French or Walloon ministers were in London. Sometimes they 
 were allowed to share the temporalities of the Irish Church. 
 They came from a strongly Protestant district. Their Protest- 
 antism became more uncompromising in their new home, with 
 Popery as a visible and powerful enemy. There was in the north 
 of Ireland an element of English Puritanism of a pronounced type. 
 The whole community were more dependent on private religious 
 exercises than they had been in Scotland under the complete 
 parochial system now settled there. Under aU these influences 
 their religion took something both of the form and spirit of 
 Congreiiationalism. From time to time a new adherent came 
 from the other side in the shape of a minister or preacher who 
 had been in collision with the Archbishop of Glasgow or Bishop 
 of Galloway. But of late years the Irish bishops too had 
 become strict, and Ireland was not the secure refuge that it had 
 been. Some of them returned home again. These were marked 
 men, for whom there was no preferment. They lived as best 
 they could, doing much Christian work, and winning the respect 
 which is readily yielded to zeal and constancy. The views which 
 they had adopted in Ireland as to the forms and principles of 
 worship found favour with the people. When Episcopacy fell, 
 the bar to their employment in the ministry was removed. 
 
^ 
 
 378 THE RITUAL OF THE CIIUKCH. 
 
 The nucleus of a party was formed. The older ministers 
 found themselves confronted in church courts with opinions 
 familiar to England and Ireland, but heretofore hardly dis- 
 cernible in Scotland. The tendency of such movements is to 
 choose as party badges some of the details of worship. Soon 
 it came to be understood that one of the new school was to be 
 known by his refusing to kneel for private devotion on entering 
 the pulpit, by not saying the Lord's Prayer, by not having 
 the Doxology sung at the end of a psalm, by administering bap- 
 tism without the Creed, by arguing against set forms of prayer, 
 and generally by an indifference to all rules of ceremonial, 
 however simple. The greatest name among their supporters 
 was that of Samuel Rutherford, who, though not a Westland 
 man by origin, as a Galloway minister was in constant inter- 
 course with them. They had also the sympathy of the young 
 Gillespie. On the other side were Henderson, Douglas, Calder- 
 wood, and Baillie. The two parties came into open collision at 
 tlie Assembly of 1640, when Henry Guthrie, minister of Stirling, 
 took proceedings against a certain Laird of Leckie, lately resi- 
 dent in Ireland, a great promoter of private meetings, and still 
 remembered as the man who pronounced the Lord's Prayer 
 to be a "threadbare prayer." After long discus^ons the 
 controversy was stifled for the moment. But the new prac- 
 tices were continued on the one side and opposed on the 
 other. 
 
 At this moment a question of wider interest arose. Scot- 
 land was not satisfied with having defeated the aggressions 
 of England. Events had occurred which awakened the hope 
 ^ of her being able to impose her own form of ecclesiasticism on 
 her neighbour. The war between Charles and the Long Parlia- 
 ment had begun. The interests of the Crown and Church of 
 England were so interwoven that to oppose the one was to 
 assail the other, and men began to speak of bringing in some- 
 thing like the church system of Scotland. Certain divines 
 made advances to the General Assembly, asking for the benefit 
 of their experienced counsel. The advice wished was not so 
 much how to establish Presbytery as how to curb the rising 
 power of Independency, " and that so much the rather be- 
 cause we sometimes hear from those of the aforesaid judgment^ 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 379 
 
 that some famous and eminent brethren, even among your- 
 selves, do somewhat incline unto an approbation of that form 
 of government." The General Assembly, like other people, did 
 not like to have their domestic differences commented on by 
 strangers. They officially denied the existence of any such 
 leaven among them, and assured their correspondents that 
 church courts like their own would purge England of it. They 
 suggested further, an alliance between the two Churches on the 
 basis of common standards. As the proposal was Henderson's, 
 he was urged by his brethren to take the first steps. But 
 he soon abandoned the attempt, pleading want of time and 
 strength, and the propriety of acting in concert with the other 
 two kingdoms. He adds, " Nor could I take it upon me to set 
 down other forms of prayer than we have in our Psalm Book, 
 penned by our great and divine Eeformers." ^ The proposal, how- 
 ever, found favour in England, and the celebrated Westminster 
 Assembly was convoked by the Parliament in June, 1643. 
 The Scottish Assembly was invited, at its meeting in August, 
 to send up assessors to help their deliberations. They did so, 
 but at the same time ordered a Directory of Worship to be 
 drawn up for their own use. Their object seems to have been 
 to heal the breaches made by the innovations of the Irish 
 party. In the debate Nevay is found assailing the Lord's 
 Prayer, and Eutherford proposing to give up the Doxology and 
 the minister's silent devotion, called " bowing in the pulpit." 
 
 The commissioners chosen for Westminster were Douglas, 
 Henderson, Ptutherford, Baillie, and George Gillespie, as minis- 
 ters, with the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Johnstone of 
 Warriston. Douglas and Cassilis never took their seats. The 
 other four ministers were all representative men. Henderson, 
 besides a well-deserved reputation for learning and self-command, 
 had a remarkable power of leading men. The others were less 
 men of affairs than he, but they all held a high place as 
 scholars and divines. Baillie and Eutherford represented the 
 two oldest universities, and but for Gillespie's early death, no 
 dignity would have been too high for him. They represented 
 different sections of the Church. Eutherford and Gillespie be- 
 longed to the movement party. Eutherford in after-years 
 
 iBaiUie, ii. 2. 
 
380 THE rjTUAL of the church. 
 
 became a Protester; Gillespie died before that schism took 
 place. The King's death and Cromwell's conquest of Scot- 
 land might have modified his views as they did those of others, 
 but it is certain that as long as he lived his heart was with 
 Itutherford and his friends. It might have been expected that 
 Calderwood would have been one of the first chosen. Certainly 
 he was not best known as a theologian. But there was more 
 likely to be substantial unity between England and Scotland 
 in that field than on questions of government and worship, 
 and in these he was an acknowledged authority. But he was 
 broken by age and suffering. His voice and manner were not 
 attractive. Even in his own Assembly the new generation 
 were impatient of his reverence for the past. He was not 
 conciliatory enough for a council where compromise was needed 
 at every step. During his banishment in the Low Countries 
 he had observed closely the action of the Brownist exiles, and 
 liad formed a very unfavourable estimate of them. Several 
 of these very persons were prominent members of the West- 
 minster Assembly. Had Calderwood been sent there, the Jeru- 
 salem Chamber would have witnessed violent scenes between 
 them. It is possible, too, that if the honour had been offered 
 it would have been declined by a man who, in one of his later 
 works, had written : " The pastor, by the government of the 
 Church prescribed in the word, is strong to resist or suppress 
 schisms, heresies, corruptions, and all the spiritual power of 
 sin and Satan, but hath no strength to withstand the temporal 
 power and authority of princes. . . . The pastor acknow- 
 ledgeth his prince to be his only bishop and overseer, superin- 
 tendent over the whole Church in his dominions, as being the 
 preserver of the liberties of the Church and keeper of both 
 tables." ^ Among the deputies who were chosen, differences 
 in church politics at home did not prevent their acting har- 
 moniously at Westminster. Their knowledge of the topics 
 discussed, and their experience in ecclesiastical courts, gave 
 them, few as they were, a great influence over the debates 
 and decisions. 
 
 The lay representatives of Scotland, like the clerical, were 
 of different opinions. Lord Maitland and Johnstone, the one 
 
 ^ " Pastor and Prelate " 43. 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CHUKCII. 381 
 
 an accomplished man of letters, the other a trained lawyer, were 
 men whose views tended in opposite directions. Still they were 
 close friends, and any difference between them was trifling, 
 though readers of later history do not connect in their thoughts 
 Lauderdale the persecutor, and Warriston the Cromwellian 
 peer. 
 
 In due time the Directory for Public Worship was completed 
 and accepted by the ruling powers of both countries. The 
 original draft of it was mainly the work of the Scots com- 
 missioners, and it retains the outlines of the form in which 
 they shaped it. But many days were spent over it, and these 
 have left their traces in the significant omissions and calculated "v( 
 ambiguities in which it abounds. They do not attract notice 
 till the text i"^ compared with the notes of debate kept by 
 Lightfoot, Gillespie, and Baillie. There are also in Dr. 
 AVilliams' Library in London the scroll minutes of Byfield, one 
 of the scribes of the Assembly. About twenty years ago the 
 trustees allowed a transcript to be made for the use of the 
 Church of Scotland. A part of it, with an interesting intro- 
 duction by Professor Llitchell of St. Andrews, was printed in 
 1874. The Independents wrung not a few concessions from 
 the Assembly, not by their voting power, but through their 
 growing influence out of doors. To understand the views of i 
 the English Presbyterians we must strike a balance between 
 the Directory and the Savoy proposals, the one their Irenicon / 
 with the Independents and the Scots, the other with the Epis- 
 copalians. 
 
 Of the observances about which there had been so much dis 
 puting in Scotland, the Lord's Prayer alone was protected, 
 and bowing in the pulpit alone forbidden. But this last 
 was an act of the Scottish Assembly, offered as a concession 
 to English prejudice. When the Directory, as finally adjusted, 
 was sent down to Edinburgh the Scots were gratified to find 
 that the arrangement of the ordinary worship was nearly the 
 same as that to which they had been accustomed. It had this 
 pecuHarity that the reader's and minister's services were com- 
 bined, with the understanding that the reader was to be super- 
 seded, and the whole duty done by the minister. There were 
 to be, as of old, the prayer of confession, the reading of Scripture, 
 
382 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 aud the psalm, which had been the signal for the minister's first 
 appearance. Thereafter he was to conduct the service in the 
 accustomed order, the sermon being preceded by a long prayer, 
 and followed by a prayer, a psalm, and the benediction. The 
 old way and the new seemed at first sight to be the same. But 
 there was a question to be settled which had been stiffly con- 
 tested at Westminster and disposed of for the moment by some 
 vague sentences of rubric. AVhat was the minister's duty in 
 connection with the lessons of Scripture ? We have seen that 
 he had learned to regard the reader's duty as work beneath 
 him, and which he need not even honour with his presence. 
 He must consecrate every ordinance which he administered by 
 his special function of preaching. As he prefaced a little when 
 he gave out a psalm or called his people to pray, so if he was 
 to read Scripture ought he not to magnify his office by inter- 
 polating or adding his own comments ? The subject had been 
 thoroughly ventilated at Westminster, and his countrymen 
 had been active in the debate, but the records of it are not 
 very clear. It seems to have turned on two questions : Was 
 reading of Scripture a pastoral function or not ? If so, ought 
 it not to be accompanied by exposition ? Baillie, in a " paper 
 to his colleagues " which is still preserved, pleaded strongly for 
 retaining the Scottish reader ; but they do not seem to have 
 supported him, and the result was a rubric which limits the 
 right to ministers a"nd those who intend the ministry, and gives 
 the option of expounding, but on condition that it shall not 
 begin till the reading is over. 
 
 It has been said that by the words " who intend the 
 ministry," we may understand young persons in colleges. 
 The true meaning is distinctly indicated in "Jus Divinum 
 Ministerii Evangelici," a work published by the Presbyterians 
 at Westminster as an official statement of their views un- 
 alloyed by Independency. It introduces this very passage 
 of the Directory as follows : — " These sons of the prophets, 
 or as they are commonly called these Expectants, are not 
 allowed in the presbyterial government to preach without 
 approbation and license. The Directory stablished by both 
 nations is: 'That such as intend the ministry,'" &c.^ And 
 
 ip. 113. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 383 
 
 George Gillespie, who of all men knew what the Westminster 
 Assembly meant, also quotes the passage to prove that " these 
 sons of the prophets may not run to such occasional work with- 
 out approbation and license." ^ What is remarkable is that the 
 Scottish Assembly chose to treat the permission to expound 
 as a command. The Scots Commissioners at Westminster had 
 a dispute on the subject referred to them by their countrymen 
 at Rotterdam, and answered tliat " the exposition of a chapter 
 at once is not only lawful, but since the Reformation has been 
 always practised in some of the Kirks of Scotland, and now is 
 appointed by Synod of London to be part of the uniformity of 
 divine service in all the Kirks of the three kingdoms." ^ No 
 doubt they conveyed the same impression to their friends in 
 Scotland, for the Act of Assembly by which they supplemented 
 the Directory ordered that service should begin half an hour 
 earlier to afford time for this exposition. The clergy in their 
 turn seem to have read a new meaning into this act of their 
 own Assembly. They began as before with the first psalm. 
 They cut off all that represented the reader's service, including 
 the two lessons of Scripture so plainly, and the portion of the 
 prose psalter more vaguely, enjoined; and in lieu of them 
 they introduced into the forenoon service after the long prayer 
 a lecture on a text of many verses. Baillie had warned his 
 colleagues, in the paper just referred to, that the suppression of 
 the reader would be the suppression of daily prayers, and he 
 proved a true prophet. For three or four years the ministers 
 in Edinburgh had daily prayers with exposition, but they tired 
 of it.^ The only one of the national usages for which this 
 paper pleaded with success was having the prayer of inter- 
 cession after sermon, which was allowed to the Scots as an 
 alternative. 
 
 The baptismal service followed the order of Scotland, but 
 with no godfather, nor Creed, nor Lord's Prayer. Baillie and 
 Henderson would fain have retained the Creed, but their two 
 colleagues do not seem to have supported them. The form of 
 the sponsor's vows was repeatedly changed, and at last there 
 were negotiations with Scotland on the subject.'* The present 
 
 ^ " Slisccll. Quest.," iii. 5. ^ Steven's " Scots Church at Rotterdam," 7. 
 
 3 Wochow's " Analecta," ii. 290, 368. ^ Jlitchell's " Baii-d Lecture," 147. 
 
 80 
 
384 THE ETTUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 va^ue words, "requiring his solemn promise for the perform- 
 ance of his duty," were accepted, and even these were more 
 than the Independents wished to concede. The public admin- 
 istration of baptism, at that time rare in England, was made 
 imperative.^ 
 
 The Communion service agrees with the fuller forms by 
 which recent custom had remedied the extreme simplicity of 
 the Common Order. The exhortation preceded the words of 
 institution instead of following them. The invocation of the 
 Spirit was distinct. The words of administration were fixed, 
 but in a different form from those used in Scotland. "Take 
 ye, eat ye ; this is the body of Christ, which is broken for you," 
 &c. The greatest controversy which rose between the repre- 
 sentatives of the two nations was one connected with this 
 service. It lasted for three weeks, and it seemed at one time 
 as if it would end in an open breach. In England the cus- 
 tom, till Laud's very recent innovations, had been to bring the 
 altar-table nearer the nave from the place eastward where 
 it generally stood. After consecration the elements were taken 
 from it by the minister and given to the communicants, kneel- 
 ing for the most part in the places where they had been 
 worshipping. The Scottish custom, as we have seen, was to 
 have a longer table, or more than one, at which the communi- 
 cants sat on both sides, and gave the bread and wine one to 
 another, after those nearest the minister had received them 
 from his hand. The two points on which they insisted were 
 that they should communicate at a table, and seated. This, 
 more than anything else, had been the distinction between 
 Scottish and English practice in the most solemn of ordi- 
 nances, and what they had refused to a Scottish king they 
 would not yield to an English convocation. On the question 
 of attitude the English were ready to make concessions; but 
 what they contended for was that aU should receive at once. 
 At a single table, of whatever size, this would often be an 
 impossibility, especially as the Independents held that every 
 communicant should partake of the bread before any received 
 the cup. Nye, one of their leaders, had his favourite symbolism 
 to oppose to that of the Scots. He required " that the minis- 
 
 1 Baillie, ii. 204 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 385 
 
 ter should be discovered [uncovered] as a servant, and the 
 guests all covered." ^ At last all parties agreed on the words : 
 " Orderly sit about the table or at it." Then other difficul- 
 ties arose, till, as Baillie confesses, " we were forced to leave 
 all these things, and take us to general expressions, which, 
 by a benign exposition, would infer our Church practices." ^ 
 The Scottish Assembly, however, took care to make these 
 benign expositions authoritative by enacting that the passage 
 "be not interpreted as if in the judgment of this Kirk it 
 were indifferent and free for any of the communicants not to 
 come to and receive at the table ; or as if we did approve 
 the distributing of the elements by the minister to each com- 
 municant, and not by the communicants among themselves." 
 ; The Directory marriage service does not materially differ from 
 the Common Order, except that it supplies the prayers which 
 in the other are wanting, and says that though the ceremony 
 must be in church, it had better not be on the Lord's Day. 
 The section regarding burial of the dead forbids service in the 
 house, and seems to be as much opposed to any ceremonial 
 at the grave as the older form was. And yet Lightfoot says 
 that tlie Assembly passed the section with an understand- 
 ing that words of committal, at least, might be said at the 
 time of interment. The other sections do not contain im- 
 portant changes or injunctions as to the form or order of 
 worship. An Appendix, which was added as an afterthought, 
 contains a prohibition of all holy days, except the Sabbath, 
 making no distinction between saints' days and the great com- 
 memorations. 
 
 But the Directory does more than fix the order of service, 
 it also provides the material of prayer, and, in the sacramental 
 services, of exhortation also. These are not, like the corre- 
 sponding parts of the Common Order, set down in the form 
 of direct addresses to God or to man, but are descriptions of 
 what they ought to be, rising out of the preceding rubrics. 
 The preface tells how these materials are to be used. There 
 is in it some vagueness of expression, not accidental, but the 
 result of long discussion, seeking to satisfy, and, if possible, 
 reconcile conflicting views. The intention is said to be that 
 
 1 BaUlie, il 149, 195. ^Ibid. ii. 204. 
 
386 THE KITUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 "the general heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, may 
 be known to all," and yet that the minister "may be care- 
 ful to furnish his heart and tongue with other and further 
 materials," There was one section of the Assembly who ob- 
 jected to all forms of prayer, and another who defended them, 
 and made no secret of their intention to use the book as a 
 liturgy. Neal, the Independent, says that it " passed the 
 Assembly with great unanimity, those who were for set forms 
 of prayer resolving to confine themselves to the very words 
 of the Directory, while others made use of them only as heads 
 for their enlargement."^ 
 
 There is in the British Museum a book of devotion for 
 the use of ships at sea, which shows how some thought 
 themselves entitled to use the Directory. It professes to 
 be published by authority, and its date is immediately sub- 
 sequent to the issue of the other book. There is first a 
 V series of prayers for ordinary service, and these are simply 
 the Directory forms used verlatim as prayers. This part 
 of the work proves how another of the vague utterances 
 of the Assembly was understood in England. It requires a 
 portion of the prose psalter to be read in addition to the lessons 
 from the Old and New Testament. The rest of the book con- 
 tains prayers from some other source for the use of those at sea. 
 The Directory was formally sanctioned by the General 
 Assembly of 1645. But it passed at the same time a supple- 
 mentary Act drawn up by Gillespie, full of additions and caveats. 
 Most of these w^ere intended to secure the celebration of the 
 Communion according to Scottish usage. Kone of them are 
 obsolete even now, except that which requires the examination 
 of every communicant before the sacrament. The Act also 
 recommended that the minister's secret prayer at the beginning 
 of service should be given up. The new party, which had risen 
 among the Westland ministers and their Irish brethren, were 
 fast gathering strength. They would naturally wish that the 
 same Act which pronounced against bowing in the pulpit should 
 also condemn the Doxology, The attempt was made, and was 
 opposed by Calderwood, as he withstood other parts of the Act. 
 "^^ It was probably on this occasion that he cried out, " Let that 
 
 1 BaUlie, iii. 129. 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 387 
 
 alone ! I hope to sing it in glory." Gillespie, who records his 
 opposition, evidently took the other side. He says that "it was 
 thought good to make no act about this, as there is made about 
 bowing in the pulpit, but to let desuetude abolish it." ^ 
 
 Of the "three nocent ceremonies," as their enemies called 
 them, there remained only the Lord's Prayer to be disposed of. 
 This had to be done cautiously. It was not easy to forbid it 
 in the face of the Directory. Wodrow says that it was gener- 
 ally used in Edinburgh till 1649. The full story is told by 
 Sir Hugh Campbell of Cawdor, who in Queen Anne's time 
 carried on single-handed and for years a contest for its restor- 
 ation. He says that he had it from men who sat in the 
 Assembly of 1649, the last year of which we have the records. 
 A member " of more than ordinary credit among his brethren " 
 proposed that the use of the prayer should be forbidden. 
 The ]\Ioderator was directed to draw the act, and made 
 several attempts to do so. "At last he told the Assembly 
 that he could not find language or words for such an act, as 
 would undoubtedly displease all the Protestant churches abroad, 
 and a great many friends as well as others at home." He sug- 
 gested that when the members returned to their parishes, they 
 should cease using it themselves, and let their Presbyteries 
 know what the mind of the Assembly had been. Sir Hugh in 
 his curious little volume adds, with much satisfaction, " Some 
 do observe that as the General Assembly laid aside the Lord's 
 Prayer, so our Lord, who composed and commanded the use of 
 that prayer, laid aside the General Assembly." The Moderator 
 was Eobert Douglas, whose known opinions on all such subjects 
 would have led us to expect less temporizing. The name of the 
 man " of more than ordinary credit " can only be speculated 
 on. Were it known, let us hope that it would now have more 
 than ordinary discredit attached to it. Samuel Eutherford was 
 in the Assembly, and the man of greatest credit on that side. 
 Writing in earlier days he had allowed the use of the prayer 
 in family worship.^ There is no record of his assailing it as 
 others did in the Assembly of 1643. The great Gillespie was 
 gone. His brother Patrick, a man of coarser mould, Mr. John 
 Nevay, whose haranguing against the prayer in the earlier 
 
 1 Baillie, ii. 260 ; Gillespie's Westminster Notes, 120. ^ "Peaceable Plea," 326. 
 
N/ 
 
 388 THE EITUAL OF THE CIIUECII. 
 
 Assembly " all heard with disdain," ^ and many minor lights of 
 the party -were there. From among them doubtless the motion 
 came. 
 
 The hopes of those who saw in the new Directory the British 
 service-book of the future were not realized. It found little 
 favour with the people of England. Early associations made it 
 impossible for those who tried to use it liturgically to be 
 reconciled to a form so unlike their own. It had too many 
 ambiguous utterances for those who were willing to follow 
 it as a directory. To the Independents, notwithstanding its 
 concessions to them, it was a fetter on Christian liberty. 
 The Savoy Liturgy, drawn up at the Eestoration in the Presby- 
 terian interest, is so free from traces of it that we may conclude 
 that fifteen years' trial had failed to naturalize it. When it 
 came to Scotland the Common Order was laid aside to make 
 way for it. But the new guide was treated as its predecessor 
 had been. It was modified at the pleasure of those who used 
 it. "What was old in it was followed, not because it was written, 
 but because it was the way of their fathers ; what was new 
 was judged according to its supposed merits. Some engrafted 
 on it novelties learned from the Puritans, or varied it by con- 
 ceits of their own. There were districts in which it was received 
 with general coldness, and everywhere there were those who 
 showed their dislike. It may have been in allusion to those 
 who would not join in any but the old prayers, that the Com- 
 mission in 1650 included among their reasons for a public fast, 
 " the people's muttered words of their own in prayer time." 
 The Directory never found its way to the heart of the Scottish 
 people as the Westminster Catechism and Confession did. 
 Much more ready and lasting was the welcome given to the 
 new version of the Psalms, sanctioned in the same year iu 
 which the Lord's Prayer was laid aside. It was the work of a 
 Cornishman, Erancis Rous, a member of the Long Parliament. 
 Its admirers in England had some difficulty in having it pre- 
 ferred to the rival translation of William Barton, which Baillie 
 pronounces to be of the two " the more poetical paraphrase." It 
 was revised by order of the Scottish Assembly, and was to have 
 been extended by versions of other parts of Scripture ; but in 
 
 1 BaiUie. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CIIUECH. 389 
 
 the unstable state of things then prevailing, it was thought better 
 to publish it as it stood. Notwithstanding its foreign origin, 
 Scotland made it her own from the first. In the Savoy Liturgy- 
 it has only an alternative place after Barton's, and is described 
 as " that version perused and approved by the Church of Scot- 
 land, there in use." These two versions, they say, are the best 
 that they had seen, and are to be used " at least until a better 
 than either of them shall be made." The old version had been 
 long marked for abolition. A new one, the honour of which is 
 divided between King James and the Earl of Stirling, had been 
 published with the canons and service-book, and had shared 
 their fate. 
 
 After this the course of events tended to change still further 
 the Scottish worship. When Cromwell became master the 
 General Assembly was suppressed. The Church, deprived of 
 its supreme court, lost all unity and continuity of action, and 
 soon the anarchy of the civil estate was reflected by the ecclesi- 
 astical. Those who had organized themselves in defence of the 
 Western novations, and had been always characterized by a fuller 
 sympathy with English and Irish Puritanism, withdrew from 
 communion with their brethren under the name of Protesters or 
 Eemonstrants. They are frequently spoken of as a party within 
 the Church. They were rather, in the language of our day, a new 
 evangelical denomination. Their leaders, Guthrie, Simpson, and 
 Patrick Gillespie, with others, were deposed by the Church. 
 All of them were apart from her. When they were not nu- 
 merous enough in any Presbytery to dominate it, but suffi- 
 ciently numerous to form a canonical quorum, they did not 
 hesitate to erect a rival Presbytery. We may be assured that 
 if Cromwell had allowed it, their aggregate forces would have 
 been gathered into a higher court. But meetings of General 
 Assembly suited neither his interests as an autocrat, nor his 
 principles as an Independent. Their numbers increased, for 
 when a young man of the party had an opportunity of secur- 
 ing the temporalities of a parish, English support, civil and 
 military, was at his command. Thus the country during the 
 later years of the Protectorate became familiar with the spec- 
 tacle of two rival establishments partitioning the land between 
 them. The reasons why they are so often spoken of as a 
 
\, 
 
 ■390 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 part}", and not as a sect, are that they were incumbents of 
 so many parishes, and that the Revolution Assembly wisely 
 passed an Act of Oblivion in their favour, notwithstanding the 
 opposition of some stricter churchmen. 
 
 The schism was caused by a dispute which was as much 
 political as religious. They insisted that no one should take 
 the field for the King without also taking the Covenant. A 
 course which hampered the operations of the Royalists made 
 Cromwell more tolerant of them than of their opponents, and 
 lessened the distance between them and his co-religionists, the 
 Independents. The most remarkable of their novel fashions 
 were their customs in connection with the Communion, though 
 these were the outgrowth of circumstances rather than the 
 development of any principle. The Communion, always too rare, 
 had become rarer since the breach in the Church. Glasgow had 
 it only six times between 1645 and the Restoration. The cities 
 of Edinburgh and St. Andrews were each without it for six 
 years in succession during the same period. In parishes 
 where the Protesters had not been able to appropriate the 
 churches and livings, they as separatists were not admitted 
 to the Lord's table. This created a difficulty, especially in 
 large towns, where the magistrates were generally creatures 
 of Cromwell. The clergy, deterred from admitting them by 
 their consciences, and from excluding them by their fears, 
 delayed the celebration of the sacrament from year to year.^ 
 Infrequency and irregularity of date had been so common 
 that an indefinite lengthening of the interval did not disturb 
 their parishioners. When the Protesters were able to cele- 
 brate the Communion, it was not only for their own people, 
 but for their adherents from all parishes within journeying 
 distance. Great crowds implied multiplied services and many 
 preachers, and a system hitherto unknown in Scotland was 
 established. A pamphlet of 1657 vividly describes it as it 
 was in its infancy. " Our dissenting brethren have taken up 
 a new and irregular way. To omit their way of admitting 
 persons who come from other congregations, they do not now 
 usually celebrate that ordinance but they have a great many 
 ministers gathered unto it, six and seven, and sometimes 
 
 1 Lee's "Lectures," I 394 ; Baillie, iii. 280. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECII. 391 
 
 double or more, whose congregations most part are left des- 
 titute of preaching that day ; great confluences from all the 
 country, and many congregations about, are gathered at them; 
 and on every day of their meeting, which are Saturday, the 
 Lord's Day, and Monday, many of these ministers do preach 
 successively one after another ; so that three or four, and 
 sometimes more, do preach at their preparation, and as many 
 on the Monday following. And on the Lord's Day sometimes 
 three or four preach before they go to the Action, besides those 
 who preach to the multitude of people that cannot be contained 
 in the Church." ^ 
 
 It will be observed that the Communion fast-day is not 
 mentioned. Perhaps its introduction was as yet so partial 
 that the writer did not think that it called for notice. Eraser 
 of Brea says in his Autobiography that at his admission 
 to the Communion about this time, he kept a personal 
 fast on the Thursday before, which he was not likely to 
 do if there was already a congregational one. Burnet, recalling 
 the new Communion customs, with which he was quite 
 familiar, says: "On the Wednesday before, they held a fast 
 day with prayers and sermons for about eight or ten hours 
 together." Fasting had always been common in the Church. 
 Sometimes, like Lent, it extended over a period of many days. 
 When it was for a single day it was very frequently Sunday, 
 which was a constant subject of controversy with prelatists. 
 It was only now that it was being made an invariable con- 
 comitant of the Communion. Stevenson in his history speaks 
 indeed of a Communion fast-day in Glasgow so far back as the 
 time of the Assembly of 1638 ; but he seems to be quoting from 
 Baillie's Letters, then in manuscript. When we refer to his 
 authority, we find it stated that a libel against the archbishop 
 was read in the cathedral after sermon on the Thursday before 
 the Communion, which, at a time when week-day services and 
 sermons were so constant, had no reference to what was after- 
 wards known as a fast day. Stevenson, who wrote when the 
 new custom had becotne an old one, was doubtless trying, in 
 perfect good faith, to make Baillie's statement more distinct. 
 All these Communion observances, identified with the party to 
 
 ^ " A True Representation," &c, 35. See also Burnet's " History," Book I. 
 
392 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 which most of the deprived ministers of the Eestoration and the 
 reponed ministers of the Eevolution belonged, were perpetuated 
 by their successors. Changes like these were more easily made 
 in the time of the Commonwealth than would have been pos- 
 sible at any earlier period. There was no Assembly to repress 
 or regulate them ; synods, if they met, did so at the risk of 
 being dispersed ; Protesters defied the Church presbyteries with 
 impunity. The whole Church system was shattered and weak. 
 During this period another change was observable, but it 
 had little of a party character. Till now the Scottish sermon 
 had been generally constructed on a uniform plan. Burnet 
 describes it as it was adhered to down to the Eestoration : 
 "The preachers went all in one track, of raising observations 
 on points of doctrine out of their text, and proving these by 
 reasons, and then of applying those and showing the use that 
 was to be made of such a point of doctrine, both for instruc- 
 tion and terror, for exhortation and comfort, for trial of them- 
 selves upon it, and for furnishing them with proper directions 
 and helps ; and this was so methodical that the people grew 
 to follow a sermon quite through every branch of it." The 
 Directory, in the section on preaching, assumes this to be the 
 normal method, and does what it can to make it permanent. 
 But a different type of sermon was coming into vogue, which 
 Baillie describes, speaking of Andrew Gray, a youth of very 
 popular gifts, who had just been settled in Glasgow. " He 
 has the new guise of preaching which IMr. Hew Binning and 
 Mr. Eobert Leighton began, contemning the ordinary way of 
 exponing and dividing a text, of raising doctrines and uses; 
 but runs out in a discourse on some common head, in a high, 
 rom ancin g, unscriptural style, tickling the ear for the present, 
 and moving the affections in some, but leaving, as he confesses, 
 little or nought to the memory and understanding. This we 
 must misken [ignore], for we cannot help it." ^ We can judge 
 for ourselves the three whom he mentions, for they all took 
 their place among the pulpit classics of the Scottish people. 
 Their discourses, tested by the standard of our day, have not 
 a trace of the showy, unsubstantial character which he attri- 
 butes to them. The truth is, that Gray's settlement had been 
 
 J Baillie, iiL 258. 
 
THE EITUAL OF TUE CIIUECH. 393 
 
 promoted by the Protesters, and Baillie, though he had ceased 
 to love bishops, had not learned to love Protesters. Wodrow 
 records that Douglas, the great church leader, was accustomed 
 to preach without doctrines, " skimming the text." ^ His name 
 and Bishop Leighton's, set against Binning's and Gray's, are 
 enough to prove that the new mode of preaching had no party 
 stamp. 
 
 Amid much discord, and with a considerable range of varia- 
 tion, Scottish worship never lost its nationality. Anglicanism, 
 of course, had been crushed. Praser of Brea's " Memoirs " 
 speak of an English congregation in Edinburgh, but we may 
 suppose that it was composed of officials in Cromwell's ser- 
 vice and of his persuasion. An Independent chaplain, or a 
 lay preacher from among the troops, might occasionally take 
 possession of a pulpit. But English influence worked chiefly 
 through Scottish sympathisers. At last came the Piestoration ; 
 whatever other changes it brought, it made no material altera- 
 tion in the nation's worship. The circumstances of the time 
 were such as made this impossible, "With Scotland divided 
 between two religious communities at bitter enmity with each 
 other, it was not difficult to re-ingraft Prelacy on the common 
 Establishment. Had she presented a united front, this would 
 have been a hopeless attempt. A majority of the clergy 
 submitted to a change which not many of them desired, 
 and but for the folly and insolence of some who were in 
 authority, many more would probably have followed their 
 example, and taken an attitude of passive endurance and 
 protest, as the Presbyterians had done at the former intro- 
 duction of Prelacy. It was provided by Government that 
 the vested rights of all who had been in the ministry for 
 twelve years should be undisturbed, that the ordination of 
 the younger men should be unchallenged, and that their titles 
 to their livings, whether they were Eesolutioners or Protesters, 
 should be confirmed on a presentation, which the patron was 
 obliged to grant, followed by a re-institution by the bishop. 
 There were bishops not unwilling to relieve scrupulous con- 
 sciences by reducing as far as possible this last provision. 
 But Archbishop Fairfoul and his coadjutor Middleton brought 
 
 1 " Analecta," L 168. 
 
N^ 
 
 394 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 matters to a crisis in the diocese of Glasgow, which contained 
 a fourth of the parishes of Scotland, and was besides the 
 stronghold of the Protesters, who, being generally the younger 
 men, had more frequently their rights as incumbents at stake. 
 In a district where authority showed itself more tyrannical 
 than elsewhere, and where its victims had already become 
 indifferent to the blessing of national catholicity, revolt was 
 to be expected. When it came, and had been stimulated by 
 making it unlawful for a minister to be absent from a synod, 
 or a parishioner to be absent from church, it would have 
 been madness to exasperate further the minority, or strain 
 the cold acquiescence of the majority of the clergy by a 
 revolution in worship. Therefore no more was done than to 
 lay aside the changes brought in by the party in the Church 
 from which the Protesters sprang. An exception was made 
 in favour of the new Communion customs, especially the 
 additional week-day services, and the infrequency of celebra- 
 tions. In Glasgow, a cathedral city, under six successive 
 archbishops, with capitular and jDarochial clergy, there were 
 only two Communions during the twenty-eight years of the 
 second episcopacy, one under Leighton, the other under Arch- 
 bishop Burnet. When it was administered the sacrament was 
 received as of old, by communicants seated at the long table. 
 Hardly any attempts were made to observe the Five Articles 
 of Perth. 
 
 The ritual tests of conformity for the clergy were using the 
 Lord's Prayer and Doxology, and abstaining from lecturing. 
 Headers, who had never altogether disappeared, became more 
 numerous, but they seldom read prayers, only the Scriptures, 
 and sometimes the Creed and Decalogue, or a portion of the 
 prose Psalter. The worshippers were not interfered with. One 
 historian complains that persons to whom the test was admin- 
 istered were sometimes taken bound to stand at the Doxology. 
 The fact proves how slight the difference between the parties 
 was, while it shows that both were accustomed to sit when 
 psalms were sung. The two periods of Episcopacy had this in 
 common, that towards the end of each there were ministers 
 found here and there eager to go as far as possible in imitating 
 the English worship. But no attempt was now made to impose 
 
THE EITUiU. OF THE CHURCH. 395 
 
 it by authority. So late as in 1680 it was thought necessary 
 to have au act of Privy Council passed before the English liturgy 
 could be read in private families. The recently published 
 minutes of the Synod of Dunblane during the episcopate of the 
 saintly Leighton, illustrate the worship of the period on testi- 
 mony which all parties will now receive with perfect trust. Year 
 after year he presses the same counsels on his clergy and their 
 flocks, and his persistence shows how slowly the few restora- 
 tions of old Scottish order were making way. He complains 
 of the neglect of the Lord's Prayer, the Doxology, the Decalogue, 
 and the Creed. He presses the reading of a lesson from each 
 Testament with a portion of the Psalter, if not by a reader, by 
 the minister himself. He argues with his clergy against the 
 new custom of lecturing instead. As to the Communion, he says: 
 " It is one of the great defects and reproaches of our Church that 
 that great ordinance, being so useful for the increase of holiness, 
 should be so seldom administered as with us it is, even where 
 it is oftenest ;" and in another place, " more frequent celebration 
 whereof is so much to be wished, but so little or scarce at all 
 to be hoped in this Church." 
 
 His appeals seem to have borne little fruit. After his de- 
 parture, it is recorded that in 1683 most part of the parishes 
 had it not; in 1685 very few had it. At another time he advises 
 not confirmation, but a reception of the young to their first 
 Communion by their own minister, with solemn acknowledgment 
 of their baptismal vow. He often complains of the habit of 
 sitting at prayer, and this begins so early in his episcopate as to 
 show that it had been inherited from the preceding period. He 
 recommends the minister to " endeavour to reduce the people 
 from the irreverent deportment they have generally contracted 
 in public worship, particularly from their most indecent sitting 
 at prayer." We can only guess what the limits of the period 
 were within which it had been contracted. They could not have 
 been very remote. Kneeling had been common thirty years 
 before. Experience tells how easily, when the worshipper is 
 indolent or irreverent, the one posture passes into the other. 
 Counsels to the same effect might be quoted from the minutes 
 of other synods, in dioceses so far apart and dissimilar as Gallo- 
 way and Aberdeen. Many of the parishes were now filled by 
 
396 THE PJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 indulged ministers, mostly men who had been dispossessed in 
 1662, and were brought back to their own or other parishes 
 on terms which showed how easily that disaster might have 
 been avoided, had the limit of prescriptive right been brought 
 down from 1649 to the Eestoration. Douglas, who had preached 
 at the King's coronation, who had spent years in prison as a 
 lioyalist, and yet would not take the bishopric that was in his 
 offer, was content to serve on this humbler footing in a rural 
 parish. It was no hardship to these men to worship as their 
 fathers had done, and as their neighbours were doing still. 
 Even the service at a conventicle or an open-air Communion 
 would seem almost the same to a stranger who did not under- 
 stand the significance of such distinctions as saying or refusing 
 to say Our Father. 
 
 Controversy on ritual was forgotten in controversy about 
 rule. In the days before the Commonwealth the introduction 
 of English rites was the popular grievance. The Episcopal 
 yoke was easy. But the finger of the new prelacy was thicker 
 than the loins of the old. The laity were infuriated by fines, 
 military occupation, and frequent bloodshed. A new spring 
 of enthusiasm had been opened by the adoption of the Cove- 
 nants. King Charles's policy of bringing the three kingdoms 
 into unity had been revived. But then England was the 
 pattern to which the others were to conform ; now Scotland 
 was to be the archetype, and the Solemn League the guarantee. 
 The watchwords were Episcopacy and Scotland's Covenanted 
 work of Eeformation. The polemical preaching and literature 
 of the age no longer concerned itself about altars of Damascus. 
 When the toleration came, in James VII.'s time, it found 
 the nation still at one in its worship, with the exception of 
 the Eoman Catholic remnant. We have an impartial witness 
 to this in Morer, an English chaplain stationed in Scotland 
 while the Eevolution was in progress, and who afterwards 
 published his reminiscences. "The Episcopal Church have 
 hitherto used no liturgy at all, no more than the Presbyterians 
 who now govern, and their whole service on the Lord's Day 
 . . . depends on these particulars: — First, the precentor, 
 about half-an-hour before the preacher comes, reads two or 
 three chapters to the congregation of what part of Scripture 
 
THE HITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 397 
 
 lie pleases, or as the minister gives him directions. As soon 
 as the preacher gets into the pulpit, the precentor leaves 
 reading, and sets a psalm, singing with the people till the 
 minister, by some sign, orders him to give over. The psalm 
 over, the preacher begins, confessing sins and begging pardon, 
 exalting the holiness and majesty of God, and setting before 
 Him our vileness and propensity to transgress his command- 
 ments. Then he goes to sermon, delivered always by heart, 
 and therefore sometimes spoiled by battologies, little imper- 
 tinences, and incoherence in their discourses. The sermon 
 finished, he returns to prayer ; thanks God for that opportunity 
 to deliver His word ; prays for all mankind, for all Christians, 
 for that particular nation, for the Sovereign and royal family, 
 without naming any, for subordinate magistrates, for sick 
 people, especially such whose names the precentor hands up 
 to him, then concludes with the Lord's Prayer, to sanctify 
 what was said before. After this another psalm is sung, named 
 by the minister, and frequently suited to the subject of his 
 sermon, which done, he gives the benediction and dismisses 
 the congregation for that time. This is the morning service, 
 which being repeated pretty early in the afternoon, because 
 in the interim they eat nothing, makes up the Lord's-day duty 
 as to public worship, . . . This is the Church's way in 
 Scotland, and it seems to us Presbyterian. . . , They both 
 do it after the same manner, saving that after the psalm the 
 Episcopal minister uses the Doxology, which the other omits, 
 and concludes his own prayer with that of the Lord's, which 
 the Presbyterian refuses to do." He goes on to describe a 
 public baptism, differing in no particular from our traditional 
 form. The Eucharist, he says, was rarely administered, perhaps 
 once or twice a year — to a sitting congregation. "Burials are 
 made without a minister, whom they will have so far from 
 Popery concerning the dead, that he must not be concerned in 
 interring the corpse, and is seldom seen at their most solemn 
 funerals."^ 
 
 At the Eevolution there was no legislation on worship. 
 Parliament did not legalize the Directory as it legalized the 
 Confession of Faith, and the earlier sanction of it had been 
 
 ^ Ecclesiastical Records, Spalding Club, p. Isix. 
 
Nv 
 
 398 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 swept away by the Act Eescissory. It had taken no hold of 
 the people. Morer speaks of the Episcopalians "having an 
 eye to" a Directory, but he evidently means the Common 
 Order, for he alludes to the Calendar in it. There was no 
 meeting of Assembly for nearly eighteen months after the 
 change of dynasty, and it only renewed earlier enactments 
 against the private celebration of sacraments. For four years 
 more it had no regular meeting. During this time the worship 
 of the future was settling itself. Many parishes had become 
 vacant. The ministers had been expelled, either by the rab- 
 blings, or because of their refusal to obey the act of Privy 
 Council ordering them to pray for William and Mary. Another 
 large body of the incumbents remained in possession in a 
 position like that of the indulged men under the late order 
 of things, submitting to the new church government, but not 
 taking part in it. The Presbyterians of all schools were 
 not so numerous as to fill all the empty livings. It was 
 ■with difficulty that some of the stanch old churchmen, as 
 Pitcairn and others, were brought to own the schismatical 
 Protesters without their undergoing some process of discipline. 
 When this difficulty was got over, and all the available men, 
 licensed or ordained at home or abroad during the late troubles, 
 were beneficed, those old-fashioned men found that they were 
 in a minority. With the exception of some attempts to make 
 the use of the Lord's Prayer and Doxology ecclesiastical offences, 
 all the members of this somewhat mixed body were left to wor- 
 ship as they pleased. As the conforming Episcopalians, though 
 accustomed to sit as members of the Presbyteries before the 
 Revolution, were now excluded from them, they had no oppor- 
 tunity of defending, otherwise than by their example, the 
 Eeformed usages of which they had been the protectors; and 
 as the heirs of the Protesters predominated in the church 
 courts, the general result was that the traditions of the Com- 
 monwealth were established and perpetuated. In some cases 
 the laity resisted. A pamphlet of the day says that the 
 Doxology was not put down in Lady Tester's Church till the 
 town-guard was called in.^ 
 
 On the whole, after the Ptevolution, as before it, there was 
 
 1 " Plain Dealing," 7. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 399 
 
 not, and could not be, much controversy, as to worship, between 
 two bodies whose forms of service were in effect the same. 
 But when Queen Anne succeeded to the throne, the prospects 
 of the prelatists brightened. There was an expectation that 
 an Act of Toleration would be passed for their benefit. Pam- 
 phlets innumerable by those who feared and those who hoped 
 for it were published, making the most of the points in which 
 they differed, and among others, those of worship. This con- 
 troversy throws much light on the new state of things. The 
 Directory was a sharp weapon in the hands of the Episcopal 
 combatants when they had to speak of such things as lessons 
 of Scripture and the Lord's Prayer. No doubt these taunts 
 promoted the passing of an Act of Assembly in 1705, which 
 recommended, for the first time since the Eevolution, a better 
 observance of the Directory. But there was another cause. 
 Sir Hugh Campbell had begun that agitation for the use of the 
 Lord's Prayer to which reference has been made. Principal 
 Carstares, in a letter to him, hints that this act was meant 
 to meet his wishes, and Wodrow says so still more plainly.^ 
 
 Sir Hugh's persevering endeavours deserve some notice. He 
 was not a man of extreme opinions. He had been a generous 
 friend of ousted ministers in the time of persecution. Eraser of 
 Brea, for whom he became surety to the extent of 5000 merks, 
 says he was " something Whiggish." But on this question he 
 was an enthusiast. He strove, through the local courts, through 
 the Assembly, and through the press, to arouse the Church, 
 appealing to Scripture, to ancient and universal custom, to 
 Scottish usage, and to the Directory, but all in vain. The leaders 
 of the Church had evidently neither the power nor the will to 
 do more than pass the Act drawing attention to the Directory. 
 He met with more active opposition from Hog, minister of Car- 
 nock, a writer of many pamphlets, and afterwards well known 
 as a supporter of the "Marrow" men. He published, in 1705, 
 a " Casuistical Essay on the Lord's Prayer," treating it, as many 
 others have done, as a basis for instruction and devotion ; but 
 he added a lengthy appendix against the use of it in public wor- 
 ship. Some of its sentiments may illustrate the spirit of the 
 time. He admits its use down to 1649, but " some dregs of that 
 
 ^''AnalectV'i. 297. 
 81 
 
X 
 
 400 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 sort remain even in the Eeformed Churches." "Must we 
 always repeat these words ? Were not this a manifest pros- 
 titution of them, and a downright turning all into a lifeless, 
 sapless, and loathsome form ? " He speaks of the idea that 
 saying it "made amends for whatsoever, through infirmity, 
 might have been amiss in our merits at that duty," and con- 
 tinues : " Seeing our antagonists make use of this as the 
 special reason for concluding public prayers with these words, 
 rather than mentioning them at any other time, or in any 
 other manner ; I must say it, and doubt not of the concurrence 
 of those who are exercised to godliness, that it is (in this sense) 
 an engine of hell, not only far contrary to the divine prescript, 
 but likewise perversive to the Gospel of Christ." But such 
 opinions were not universal. Sir Hugh is at pains to collect 
 and record the cases of ministers who used the prayer. They are 
 those at Eyemouth, Ormiston, Turriff, Bellie, Strathspey, Dunkeld, 
 and "the whole Presbytery of Athole." We hear of other attempts 
 made by men whose Presbyterianism was beyond question. It 
 was used in 1710 at the Eenfrew Communion by Simson, one of 
 a line who had held a foremost place among the clergy since 
 the Eeformation, a kinsman of the Gillespies, and who had 
 himself been expelled at the Eestoration. The news reached 
 Wodrow, and he "spoke to him anent it." The old man's 
 vindication is simple and touching. When the last table had 
 been served, he told his flock " that there were three things that 
 had Christ's name particularly given them: the Lord's Day, 
 and the Lord's Supper, and the Lord's Prayer ;" and said the 
 prayer. "He told me that for several days before his Com- 
 munion he had a strong impression on his spirit once before 
 he died to testify his communion with the whole Christian 
 Church, by the public using of the Lord's Prayer; that he 
 was now eighty- two years, and many of the young ministers 
 might have it to say that they never heard this prayer made 
 use of by the old men, and make this a further excuse for 
 the total disuse of it. " ^ And Anderson, of Dunbarton, one 
 of the most vigorous disputants against Prelacy, introduced 
 it into his service, with his neighbour, the minister of Cardross, 
 to support him ; Wodrow says that it was done under Edin- 
 
 ' " ADalecta," L 297. 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 401 
 
 burgh influence, to test the West country people, and it seems 
 to have failed.^ M'Ure, a local historian, says that in after- 
 years, when this same Anderson was minister of the Eamshorn 
 parish in Glasgow, a new church was built, and that much 
 resentment was excited when " he had a kind of consecration 
 sermon, devoting the church from thenceforth to the service 
 and worship of God." 
 
 In the pamphlets referred to above, there are frequent 
 allusions to postures in prayer. The general conclusions to 
 be gathered from them are that no rule was prescribed, 
 that kneeling, sitting, and standing were all to be seen, but 
 that sitting was the most common. In the Episcopal meet- 
 ings standing prevailed. Thus at St. Andrews, when an 
 Episcopal minister prayed for Queen Anne and the Electress 
 Sophia, " the most part of his hearers, in testimony of their 
 not joining, sat down in the time, and rose again when that 
 was over." "^ There was, especially among those who qualified 
 to Government, a growing feeling in favour of kneeling, as one 
 of the usages of the Church of England, with which it was 
 their interest to identify themselves as far as possible. In 
 time the Church people seem to have given up their un- 
 seemly attitude, but they did not return to their own earlier 
 custom. Standing became general, and with other observances 
 of no very remote origin, is earnestly defended at the present 
 time by many who look back on the expanse of their 
 Church's history with a scope of vision too limited to take 
 in foreground and distance, but able only to rest on the space 
 between. 
 
 Another custom had long prevailed in Scotland — that 
 of being covered during sermon, taking the hat off only at 
 prayer. It had been forbidden in the canons sent from England 
 in 1636; but England herself had not been faultless. Cartwright, 
 describing the church service in 1573, says: "Wlien Jesus is 
 named, then off gocth the caij, and down goeth the knees ;" and 
 Whitgift, his opponent, does not contradict him.^ This custom 
 was only beginning to be given up in 1703. An Episcopal pam- 
 phleteer says : " I have observed the vulgar in time of prayer to 
 give but half-cap, and scarce the same, to the great and dreadful 
 
 J " Analecta," i. 218, 297. ^ j^j^^ y_ 59^ 3 Whitgift's Works, iii. 384. 
 
402 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Majesty of heaven and earth."^ His adversary's rejoinder 
 is : " Many uncover their heads in time of sermon, and for my 
 part I very much approve of it, and so do all I have spoken 
 with upon that head."" This approver of innovation was Eamsay 
 of Eyemouth, afterwards of Kelso, and more than once Modera- 
 tor of Assembly. He was one of the only two men in the south 
 whom Sir HuL;h Campbell mentions as using the Lord's Prayer. 
 No doubt he was denounced in both particulars for imitating 
 English ways. To this day the hat is often worn in time of 
 sermon in Holland, and not long ago it was sometimes to be 
 seen at home. 
 
 After the Revolution there seems to have been some change 
 in clerical dress. Morer in his tract says : " Whilst Episcopacy 
 kept its standing, the prelates and ministers wore gowns and 
 cassocks, which, as they are garments of distinction, so they 
 warn the wearers to walk more carefully and do nothing 
 unbecoming their profession." And a somewhat later work by 
 an unknown author, published by the Spalding Club, says that 
 the new ministers would have gained more influence " had they 
 but, on their first settlement, used the Lord's Prayer and Dox- 
 ology, and worn something of an ecclesiastic habit."^ The " Scottish 
 Presbyterian Eloquence " says : " They have no distinguishing 
 garb from laymen," and has the usual story to illustrate the 
 charge. The answer asks, "What Churches, except those of Eome 
 and England, do distinguish their clergy by their garb ? Our 
 ministers wear a grave and decent habit, and are mainly 
 distinguished from the people by the gravity and edifyingness 
 of their conversation, which is a better characteristic than a 
 close-sleeved gown on a drunken and swearing priest." The 
 dress of his period is one of the last things that a historian 
 thinks of recording, and accidental allusions are not so many or 
 so clear as to show distinctly what the usage had been. We know 
 that in England the surplice and other pre-Eeformation vest- 
 ments were worn by the clergy when they were officiating, for 
 they were the occasion of violent controversy. Out of church 
 the gown and cassock, or one of them, were worn as a clerical 
 undress. The Scottish idea seems usually to have been that 
 they ought to wear, in public at least, and in the pulpit as else- 
 
 ^ " Full and Final Answer," 14. * Ibid. 18. ^ " View of Diocese of Aberdeen," 74. 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CHURCH. 403 
 
 where, what may be called a distinctive rather than an official 
 dress. The question is made mo-re difficult by King James's 
 sumptuary laws for the clergy. But an address of some of 
 them to his son in 1634, implies that he made little use of the 
 power which he claimed. They say that " since he did forbear 
 to command any change of their former habits, we are bold to 
 presume that in his great wisdom he thought fit that their 
 apparel used in time of divine service should be continued as 
 decent in the Church, which has ever been used since the Eefor- 
 mation of religion to the time of his decease, and so continues 
 to this day."^ Judging from pictures and passing references, 
 they seem to have worn black robes of some kind. Confusion 
 arises afterwards from the use of the word cloak, which, to 
 the present day, is popularly applied to a minister's gown. 
 Eay the naturalist, who was in Scotland at the time of the 
 Restoration, says that the people all wore cloaks, especially on 
 Sundays, but that they also ploughed in them.^ It is not 
 unlikely that in this, as in other things, the notions of the 
 Independents got a footing in Scotland, and that ministers 
 then began to wear lay dress in some grave colour, though we 
 read of Mr. Patrick Gillespie preaching an adulatory sermon 
 before the Protector "in his velvet rarely cut cassock."^ Among 
 the poor wanderers a professional dress would have been only 
 a source of danger. "When their time came, and the distinctions 
 between them and the prelatists were so few, they may have 
 willingly added this to the number. The " Scotch Presbyterian 
 Eloquence" has a gossiping tale of their rebuking Lord Car- 
 michael for wearing a scarlet cloak when he was Commissioner 
 in the first Eevolution Assembly, and his retorting that he 
 thought it as indecent in them to appear before him in gray 
 cloaks and cravats. Calamy, when he visited Scotland in 1709, 
 observed that "the ministers, even in the most solemn audi- 
 tories, preached with neckcloths and coloured cloaks, which a 
 little surprised me. It was their common way, unless they 
 were professors of divinity, or persons remarkable for age or 
 gravity."* Evidently he expected to see bands and gowns. 
 When cloaks became antiquated as a dress for the laity, they 
 were no more seen in the pulpit. A peculiar garment worn 
 
 1 Row's " History," 377. ^ " Itinerary," 189. 3 Baillie, iil 370. < " Life," a. 111. 
 
\ 
 
 404 THE ErruAL of the church. 
 
 by the quasi- ecclesiastical men of the far north can, perhaps, 
 be traced back to them. It has been said that the well- 
 known phrases "Black Prelacy" and "True-blue Presby- 
 terianism " are a memorial of the different dresses of the two 
 parties. It was not till towards the end of the last century 
 that black gowns reappeared on Sundays, but not as the 
 garb of daily life. 
 
 Long before the men of the Ptevolution era had passed away, 
 the amalgam of Eeformation tradition and Covenanting usage 
 had hardened into a foundation for the worship of the nation, 
 and was not disturbed for many a year. The eighteenth century 
 was not given to violent change. Silently indeed a great modi- 
 fication of theological opinion went on; but the unwritten 
 code which regulated the forms of the sanctuary was little 
 altered, except by the omissions and negligences of men who 
 had none of the fervour of the former age. Meanwhile the 
 older customs associated with the Common Order — the lessons 
 of Scripture, the bended knee, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, 
 the Doxology, the godfather, the public prayers on week-days, 
 the private devotion in church on Sundays — were laid aside as 
 completely as the book itself. The prelatists as well as the Church 
 people were discarding it. Many were verifying Morer's descrip- 
 tion of them as people who " could be content to be made a pro- 
 vince to England that the English service might take place in 
 that country." About twenty years after the Eevolution a con- 
 certed movement began for introducing the English Prayer-book. 
 Some of the indulged Episcopal incumbents were concerned 
 in it. Hundreds of copies were sent to them from England^ 
 and distributed among their parishioners. The exotic did 
 not thrive in the northern air. The nonconforming Epis- 
 copalians followed the same course. Presently the interest 
 of the struggle was centred in one man, a Mr. Greenshields, 
 minister of a congregation in Edinburgh. His right to use 
 the English service was challenged by the local authorities, 
 ecclesiastical and civil; the magistrates committed him to 
 prison, and the Court of Session supported the magistrates. 
 But the Union had taken place. The House of Lords reversed 
 the decision, and before long an Act of Parliament granted 
 toleration to Greenshields and his friends on their taking the 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 405 
 
 oaths to Government. But there were other prelatists whose 
 devotion to the Stuarts prevented their being conformists in 
 any degree. These men were not so ready to assimilate them- 
 selves to the English Church, whose falling away from the old 
 family they regarded with horror. Their development was 
 rather in an Eastern direction. But traces both in worship 
 and order of what had been usage before the Eevolution lon<^ 
 lingered among them and their descendants. Disputes arose 
 in their ranks, and separation followed. In time their breaches 
 were healed. The rival episcopates, like the Resolutioners 
 and Protesters, agreed to forget past denunciations and deposi- 
 tions. But the victory of Anglicanism over them was difficult 
 and slow. They had always more of the kindly Scot in them 
 than the worshippers in the English chapels. For many a year 
 free prayer, elders. Communion tokens, and other like things \^ 
 remained as indications of what their earlier history had been. 
 
 Of changes in the Sunday worship of the Church of Scot- 
 land, now its only public worship, that which was most noticed 
 and most disliked was the reading of sermons. Up to this 
 time it had been unknown in Scotland and over Europe, 
 except in England, where, though not universal, it followed 
 naturally the use of the Book of Homilies. There it had not 
 been confined to churchmen, as we learn from what Baillie 
 says of Nye, the Independent, when he visited Edinburgh in 
 1643, that he "did not please, because he read much out of 
 his paper book." It was a novelty in 1731, when a Mr. Arm- 
 strong, preaching before the Commissioner and Assembly, read 
 his discourse, and his action became matter of debate in the 
 Court. Once introduced, the practice continued to make its 
 way, but it was much disliked by the people. The promin- 
 ence given to the ordinance of preaching made them intolerant 
 of a change which lessened its force, and the more because it 
 came from the young and growing school of the Moderates. 
 Even at this day it has not quite outlived its unpopularity. 
 
 After the Eevolution the Church was ready to resume the 
 work of improving its psalmody, which had been stopped when 
 the Assembly was suppressed by Cromwell. Among the un- 
 printed acts of the third of the new Assemblies is a " reference 
 to the Commission to cause revise the Scripture Songs." A 
 
\ 
 
 '406 ■ THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 book entitled " Spiritual Songs " was recommended for private 
 use in 1704. The printed acts of 1706 and 1707 show that it 
 was being prepared for congregational use, and the Commission 
 in 1708 is empowered to "conclude, establish, publish, and 
 emit it for the public use of the Church, as was formerly done 
 on the like occasion, and when our version of the Psalms was 
 published in the year 1649." But at this point the new book 
 was dropped, and nothing was done till 1745, when a collection 
 of versions of other parts of Scripture besides the Psalter was 
 published, and sent down to presbyteries. It had the old name 
 of Paraphrases, which former Assemblies had been accus- 
 tomed to give to metrical translations of the Psalms. It was 
 partially adopted throughout the country, but was not popular. 
 As in other cases, the Church's later practice was consecrated 
 by a fictitious antiquity. No one remembered a time when 
 anything but the Psalms of David was sung, and it was there- 
 fore assumed that this was the only form of praise acceptable 
 to God. Men forgot that Scripture contained other hymns, 
 that the fathers of the Eeformation used these in metrical 
 versions, and even sang non-Scriptural compositions, such as 
 the Creed and Yeni Creator, and still more recently the Dox- 
 ology, at once a hymn and a creed. There was no proposal to 
 displace Eous' Psalms, round which so many solemn associa- 
 tions had gathered. Still many excellent people were pained 
 at the appearance of the new collection, and after thirty years 
 had passed, it was still looked on with suspicion. The Assembly 
 then had it revised, extended, and re-issued in the present form. 
 It is remarkable that it was never formally authorized by the 
 Church. It was introduced to the notice of the people as the 
 Common Order had been two centuries before, and left to make 
 its own way. 
 
 At the same time another innovation or restoration connected 
 with the service of praise was being carried out. The Scots, 
 like their favourite exemplars the French, had at first sung 
 psalms and hymns continuously. But in England, even in 
 the Church of England, it had been usual for the leader 
 to repeat each line in monotone, keeping^the^note on which the 
 music was to be taken up again, then singing it with the people. 
 But for the vain repetition, it might have been taken for a rude 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 407 
 
 form of antiplional singing. The Westminster Directory re- 
 commended the continuance of the practice, on account of the 
 ignorance of the commonalty. Henderson opposed it, and seems 
 to have succeeded so far as to have the injunction toned down.^ 
 Thus the custom was naturalized in Scotland,^ Being con- 
 nected with their own part of the service, it became rooted in 
 the affections of the people, and was supposed to be national 
 and ancient. It died out very slowly. Till of late years it was 
 used in the Lowlands, when communicants were leaving the 
 table, and there are many northern parishes where it is still to 
 be heard every Sunday. These two revivals of older custom 
 were fruitful sources of dissent. Several of the first congrega- 
 tions of nonconforming Presbyterians owed their origin to the 
 use of Scripture paraphrases and the disuse of reading the line 
 in the parish church. There is little doubt that by this time 
 the singing of the Scottish people had greatly deteriorated, and 
 though often hearty and devout, did not do justice to their fine 
 old melodies. The Psalm-book with words and music printed 
 together, and wedded to each other as in every other kind 
 of vocal music, was no longer in every hand. Improvement 
 was impossible when untrained congregations were at the 
 mercy of untrained leaders, choosing tunes at random from a 
 very small repertory, and breaking off the music, and often the 
 sense, at every sixth or eighth syllable. Wodrow was told, by 
 an ancient man who had been in the ministry since the time 
 of the Westminster Assembly, that " he thought the Church of 
 Scotland was short of other Churches for the exercise of singing 
 praises to God." ^ He did not trace it to any cause, but he had 
 seen the Common Order Psalm-book go out, and the reading of 
 the line come in. 
 
 During the whole of the eighteenth century another change 
 was going on, but one more promoted by the laity than the 
 clergy. The old custom of private baptism was recovering 
 from the ban laid on it by the Reformers. The law was 
 strictly observed till the Kestoration, and ministers under 
 the new prelacy, in this as in other particulars, continued the 
 practice which they found prevailing. On this point Ptamsay 
 of Eyemouth is a safe witness when, in a tract of 1703, he 
 
 1 Lightfoot, 344. ^ " Analecta," ii. 160. » "Analecta," ill 113. 
 
408 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 writes: "Baptism is not refused to weak, dying infants, that 
 cannot be brought to church. I very well remember the 
 practice of prelatical ministers in this matter, and I as well 
 know that of Presbyterians now. And I do assert that where 
 there was one child baptized out of the church there are 
 six baptized now."^ 
 
 It had been found impossible to keep rigidly to the prin- 
 ciple of public baptism among those who frequented con- 
 venticles. The Archbishop of Glasgow, in his "History of 
 the Assembly of 1690," says that when the Act forbidding 
 the private administration of sacraments was under discussion, 
 the strict rule as to baptism was hrisldy opposed by Kirkton the 
 historian and others, and that the Moderator said, "There is a 
 distinction both of times and places, for in times of persecu- 
 tion I think an honest minister riding on the way, may go into 
 a man's house, baptize a bairn, and come out and take his 
 horse again." ^ Eamsay's experiences, past and present, were 
 of the east Border. Wodrow, in the covenanting west, bears 
 the same testimony, but the evil was less. Colman of Boston, 
 in corresponding with him, had expressed the regret with 
 which he heard that "public baptism was so rare in North 
 Britain." He had noticed, when in Europe eighteen years before, 
 that baptisms were generally private in London and Bath. But 
 he expected better things of the ' Church of Scotland. Where 
 it was seen in Massachusetts, " 'tis from the dominion of the 
 gentlewomen." Wodrow, replying, confesses that it prevailed 
 in Edinburgh among people of fashion, " having come down to 
 us from the south," and that Glasgow was following the example, 
 but he denies its prevalence throughout the countrj'.^ The 
 "N^ gentlewomen of Scotland seem to have been at one with their 
 sisters of Boston. The example spread downwards. Perhaps 
 the change was accelerated among certain classes by the fact that 
 the first baptism in each family was often connected with a 
 stigma, making parents shrink from the public rite. "Wliatever 
 the causes, the result has been that over great part of Scotland 
 public baptism is a ceremony almost unknown. The Act of 
 1690 suggested a device to cover the irregularity. Ptamsay 
 says of it, in the pamphlet quoted above, " Presbyterian minis- 
 
 1 "Toleration's Fence Pvemoved,"' 19. 2 p. 51. 3 » Correspondence," ii. 3G8, 370. 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 409 
 
 ters are careful to have the face of a congregation present when 
 they baptize in private houses, and people are duly warned for 
 that purpose generally, though in the north, and particularly 
 at Dundee, the sacrament of baptism is sometimes administrate 
 without that solemnity." 
 
 The people learned to speak as if the naming of the child were 
 the essence of the sacrament. Parliament, less tolerant of delay 
 than the Church, has of late somewhat disturbed this delusion; 
 in most cases the name is fixed by registration before it is given 
 in baptism. It was a frequent charge against the clergy of that 
 time that they pledged sponsors to maintain the Westminster 
 standards, and some said the covenants. Few probably went 
 further than to recommend the Confession and Catechisms as 
 guides. That eccentric amateur theologian, Steele the essayist, 
 had published some such animadversions. Wodrow wrote to a 
 common friend, vindicating his Church, and adding, " You can 
 well let him know how much ignorance appears in confound- 
 ing the holy ordinance of baptism with the engagements laid 
 on parents as to the education of their children before that 
 ordinance is dispensed."^ Unhappily the ignorance which 
 fails to distinguish between the educational pledge of the 
 sponsor and the personal obligations of the baptized has be- 
 come well-nigh universal. 
 
 The mode of celebrating the Communion brought in by the 
 Protesters continued with little change. The multitudes who 
 followed their ministers to a neighbouring "sacrament" gave to 
 it something of the character of a camp meeting. The open- 
 air services brought to the old Covenanters recollections of 
 gatherings among the hills, and their children learned to love 
 the "occasions" for their fervour and their freedom. The bustlino' 
 crowds broke in on the home-quiet of the residents, and this 
 was doubtless one cause of the fast day ceasing after a while 
 to be a day of abstinence.. Any attempt to limit the services 
 was unpopular. Wodrow speaks of a Communion at Kilwin- 
 ning, where there was only one minister assisting on the Satur- 
 day, the Monday, and the Communion day, and he supposes 
 that such a thing had not been since the Eevolution twenty 
 years' before.^ A second Communion in the same year was 
 
 ^"Con-espondence," iL 81. See also Warden, 212. ^"Analecta," i. 220. 
 
410 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 almost unknown. Indeed, when it was intended for the in- 
 habitants of a large tract of country — and the open-air preach- 
 ing in the churchyard or in some natural amphitheatre hard 
 by was as important a part of it as the sacrament within 
 the church — a celebration in the winter months was not to 
 be thought of. It was more common for years to pass with- 
 out any Communion in a parish. This was partly remedied 
 by the many opportunities offered to the devout of receiving 
 in other parishes than their own, and it was this that made 
 public opinion tolerate such negligence. 
 
 As an instance of what continued to be the form of the services 
 down to the end of the century, and as an example of the spirit 
 in which they were upheld by men who had none of the earnest 
 enthusiasm from which they sprang, an extract from the old 
 Statistical Account of Campsie may be of interest: — "The Sac- 
 rament is given once in the year : three discourses on the fast 
 day, two on Sunday, two on Monday; the action sermon in 
 the church, and the evening sermon, besides preaching in the 
 tent [a movable covered pulpit]. People have complained 
 that the tent preaching was prejudicial. I am inclined to 
 believe the contrary from experience : first, on account of its 
 bringing a considerable collection for the poor; and secondly, 
 it accustoms a number of people to meet together in a decent, 
 cheerful, and respectable manner." Such a passage gives no 
 conception of the length of the Sunday service. Not less than 
 two hours passed before the minister left the pulpit to head the 
 procession of elders bearing the Communion elements and vessels 
 to the table. Each successive company of communicants not only 
 received the sacrament, but listened to an address on the ordin- 
 ance, both before and after, so that nearly half an hour passed 
 between their taking their places and rising again. The last 
 of these services was followed by an address from the minister 
 of the parish to the whole body of communicants, and that by 
 a sermon of thanksgiving from another preacher. In large 
 congregations, requiring twelve or fifteen table services, a 
 circuit of the clock was sometimes nearly completed before 
 the worship was. Of this series of services the last stage was 
 the " perlicuing " {perlego) before the benediction was spoken on 
 Monday. The minister of the parish summed up, as well as 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 411 
 
 his memory and his aptitude allowed, all the discourses which 
 the people had heard, the preachers listening with varied feel- 
 ings as their productions were mangled or mended. 
 
 All over Scotland the general form of administration was the 
 same. There were some local differences. Two of these, one in 
 the north, the other in the south, seemed to be protests against 
 changes made at the Eeformation as to the elements of the 
 Lord's Supper. In the parishes along the Solway unleavened 
 bread was used, not wafers, but solid cakes prepared for the 
 purpose. In Aberdeenshire the wine was mixed with water. 
 "Wodrow heard of it as practised in 1731,^ but it was continued 
 at a later time. The Dumfriesshire custom has been given up 
 very recently. These kindred peculiarities are not to be ex- 
 plained by anything in the later history of the districts. If 
 one was the country of the Prelatists, the other was of the 
 extremest Covenanters ; but both had been strongholds of 
 Eomanism in the sixteenth century, and the usages, having 
 survived the Eeformation, lived on without any doctrinal sig- 
 nificance. There were in the Church higher and lower 
 views of the sacraments, but they were not marked by local 
 boundaries. Men brought them from their universities, or 
 learned them from trusted leaders. The new school generally 
 made less of the sacraments. In this, as in other things, 
 they fretted against the restrictions laid on them by the 
 creeds and customs of the past. The clergy of the opposite 
 school, having fallen on quiet times, had not the impatience 
 of authority and antiquity which marked their ecclesiastical 
 forefathers. They were proud of the Westminster traditions 
 and of those of the Eeformation, so far as they had not been 
 effaced by Westminster compromises. Hence the writings of 
 men like Boston and Willison and Warden contain opinions on 
 the sacraments for which we may search the works of Moderate 
 theologians in vain. As to their practice, we find some of them 
 introducing services, such as Calvin and Leighton recommended, 
 for the formal reception of catechumens to their first Com- 
 munion, when they acknowledged and confirmed their bap- 
 tismal vows. This was quite in the spirit of the Church's 
 earlier teaching, though the observance did not stand out pro- 
 
 1 " Analecta," iv. 269. 
 
412 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 minently at a time when communicants of all ages were ex- 
 amined before every Communion as to their worthiness. The 
 questions which Boston used at this service are preserved in 
 his Autobiography. The first seceders, who had been ecclesi- 
 astics of this school when in the Church, carried with them 
 these opinions and practices, and they survived for a time 
 among their descendants. The session records of the congrega- 
 tion of Mr. Shirra, a well-known dissenting minister in Fife, 
 contain the form which he prepared and used at the reception of 
 young communicants, ending with three questions, one as to 
 their acceptance of the standards and covenants, a second as to 
 their personal acceptance of Christ, and the third: "In respect of 
 His being your God, you do here renew your promise to be 
 His, and your vow to renounce the devil, the world, and the 
 flesh," ..." the men signifying the same by bowing, and 
 the women by becking." 
 
 The small body of Lifters in the west of Scotland owed 
 their origin to the same type of opinion. The rule of the 
 Reformers in forming their Communion service was strictly 
 to follow the Scripture record of the Lord's acts at the Last 
 Supper. As He took the bread before thanksgiving, the 
 Common Order said at this part of the service, " The 
 minister taketh bread, and giveth thanks." For centuries the 
 uninterrupted usage was to lift the bread and cup from the 
 table, and then say the sacramental prayer. It was not a sur- 
 vival of the Eomish elevation of the host, as some have thought, 
 for that was the exhibiting of it for worship after consecration. 
 In the middle of the century it became common to neglect 
 this observance, but it was never abandoned altogether. The 
 writer well remembers how, when he had to celebrate the Com- 
 munion for the first time, he was told by a father of the Church 
 on no account to omit this old form. In the Associate Synod 
 a keen controversy on the subject arose about 1780, which 
 ended in a small subdivision withdrawing themselves and 
 forming a new communion with this as their badge. The 
 Lifters became extinct, and are now forgotten. 
 
 By the time that the Evangelical revival began the doctrine 
 of the sacraments had been greatly modified all over Scotland. 
 It is remarkable that while in other particulars there was a 
 
THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 413 
 
 return to strict confessional belief, this has never risen again 
 above the Moderate level. The duties of the baptized, as set forth 
 in question 167 of the Larger Catechism, are never enforced from 
 a Scottish pulpit. The line of distinction between the Euchar- 
 istic doctrine of Calvin and Zuinglius, once so sharply drawn, 
 is all but obliterated, and Calvin does not hold the ground. 
 Edward Irving, in his earlier days, continually dwelt on the 
 Church's declension from her old sacramental doctrine ; but it 
 was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and when it 
 began to sound more discordant notes men ceased to listen. 
 
 In the eighteenth century the celebration of marriage in 
 private houses began. The Westminster Independents had 
 been its advocates, and Baillie says that the Scots did not 
 beat down their opposition to our custom till "after two 
 days' tough debate and great appearance of irreconcilable 
 difference." The English, defeated for the time, had their 
 views ultimately adopted in Scotland, but not till long after. 
 Indeed, with the exception of Communion in pews, it was their 
 latest triumph over us. The change was gradual, and had more 
 than one cause. The working of the Puritan leaven may have 
 had some influence. The easy requirements of Scottish law did 
 not tend to add solemnity to the marriage union. The desire 
 of the vulgar rich to have their marriages hid from the com- 
 mon gaze contributed to the result. The old custom lingered 
 longest among the poor in remote districts. Dr. Sommer- 
 ville, in his Autobiography, says that it was kept up amon§ 
 them "within his remembrance, and he lived till 1830. When 
 marriage in church was given up, the new system was discovered 
 to be somehow a bulwark of the Presbyterian form of church 
 government. So things continued till fashion reversed her fiat, 
 and having borrowed the private ceremonial from one party in 
 England, it is now borrowing the public from another. Let us 
 hope that all classes will soon have returned to the way of 
 their fathers, and leave it no more. Scotland has had enough 
 discredit by private marriages at the hands of functionaries 
 other than clerical. She will do herself honour by leaving such 
 privileges to those who have cause for preferring them. 
 
 During this period the Directory's injunction as to the burial 
 of the dead was strictly obeyed. Religious service, either in the 
 
 "^ 
 
414 THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 house or at the grave, was not thought of. Eespect was shown 
 to the departed by lykewakes, when relays of neighbours 
 watched by the remains, and by an assemblage of friends to 
 bear, and follow, the coffin from the house to the churchyard. 
 Eveiy parish had its death-bell, and one of the kirk officer's 
 duties was to pass along the street of town and village, ringing 
 it, and announcing the death. A second time he made his 
 round to announce the time of the funeral, and when the day 
 came he went before the procession, still ringing, till they 
 reached the grave. It was expected that the good feeling 
 shown by attendance at the lykewake and the funeral would be 
 acknowledged by acts of hospitality, and the result was that 
 both became a byword for the riot that accompanied them. 
 The evil could be cured only by an evasion of the law which 
 forbade religious service. It became usual for a minister or elder 
 to come to the kisting (the laying of the dead in the coffin) and 
 offer prayer, a custom still kept up in some parts of the country, 
 and the minister had a service before the funeral procession left 
 the house for the grave. No doubt the Directory said that "to 
 pray by or towards the dead corpse, in the place where it lies 
 before it be carried to burial, is superstitious." But it had oc- 
 curred to some ingenious casuist that the minister might ask a 
 blessing and return thanks over the food and liquor provided for 
 the guests, and prolong the devotional act so as to make the scene 
 solemn and profitable. Amendment came very slowly. The 
 mingling of the sacred and secular was often sadly incongruous. 
 The minister of Campsie, already quoted, outlines the picture 
 vividly : — " It was customary till within these few years, when 
 any head of a family died, to invite the whole parish: they were 
 served on boards in the barn, where a prayer was pronounced 
 before and after the service, which duty was most religiously 
 observed. The entertainment consisted of the following parts : — 
 First there was a drink of ale, then a dram, then a piece of 
 shortbread, then another dram of some other species of liquor, 
 then a piece of currant bread, and a third dram, either of spirits 
 or wine, which was followed by loaves and cheese, pipes and 
 tobacco. This was the old funeral entertainment in the parish 
 of Campsie, and was styled their service ; and sometimes this 
 was repeated, and was then styled a double service, and was 
 
THE KITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 415 
 
 sure to be repeated at the dredgie (dirige). ... No person 
 was invited by letter, and though invited against ten of the 
 clock, the corpse was never interred till the evening, time 
 not being so much valued in those days." Of late years services 
 at the grave have become common. They are as much or as little 
 in accordance with Westminster principles as the now well- 
 established house service, but public feeling is evidently in 
 their favour. A change so obviously wise would have come 
 sooner, had not a prejudice against all churchyard services been 
 created by some words in the burial service of England. 
 
 Church architecture is a matter of much less importance 
 than the edification of the living church, but it claims 
 some notice in a dissertation like this. Down to the middle 
 of the century most of the ancient churches of Scotland were 
 standing. Small and plain as many of them were, their struc- 
 tural features fixed their date. The honest workmanship pre- 
 vented their falling into ruin, and there was no thought of 
 demolishing them so long as they were sufficient for shelter 
 on one day of the week. When alterations were needed, no 
 one saw anything unseemly in mean material or incongruous 
 arrangement. Thatch took the place of lead or stone. When 
 fixed seats came into use, the interior was blocked above and 
 below with strange erections in woodwork. If light and access 
 were wanted, doorways and windows, for which the village 
 street supplied models, were broken out in the tough walls. 
 Still the building was reverenced for its associations apart from 
 all questions of ugliness or beauty. Lands did not change 
 owners so fast, nor the peasantry migrate so freely as now, 
 and high and low alike had a hereditary tie to it. They had 
 no wish that it should be pulled down, though it was shattered 
 and mutilated, and seemed sinking into the earth through the 
 moulderiDg dust of successive generations rising round its 
 walls. There is no reason why most of these churches should 
 not have been standing now, like others of the same date in 
 other countries. But the ambition of the young clergy of that 
 day was to be reckoned men of taste, superior to prejudice, and 
 abreast of the spirit of the time. The mode was to treat medi- 
 aeval architecture as something barbaric. Therefore the first 
 object of such a man, when he entered on a living, was to have 
 
 82 
 
^ 
 
 416 THE KirUAL OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 the gloomy old " kirk and queir " removed to make way for a 
 snug modern edifice, which, if the heritors were frugal, took 
 the form of a quadrangle, combining the maximum of sitting 
 room with the minimum of assessment ; if they were generous, 
 was built on some bastard classical design. Fortunately their 
 construction was generally such as to guarantee their speedy 
 decay. 
 
 Some of the notices in the old Statistical Account reflect 
 
 faithfully the spirit and knowledge of the time as to ante- 
 
 Eeformation architecture. "We are told that one-half of the 
 
 church of Covington is an old cathedral. The exact account 
 
 given by the minister of Tranent of what seems to have been 
 
 a good church, is as amusing as it is provoking: — " The outward 
 
 form resembles three oblong buildings placed sideways, the 
 
 middle being considerably longer at each end than the other 
 
 two. The communication within is by arches of different 
 
 forms and sizes. A square tower rises from the centre of the 
 
 whole, supported by the side walls of the middle building and 
 
 by two cross arches. The roof is vaulted and covered with 
 
 stone." The minister of Dalmeny, who was something of an 
 
 aesthetic in his day, does not conceal his admiration for his 
 
 beautiful church. He admits that it is Saxon, but that is " a 
 
 mixed species between the Greek and Gothic. The windows 
 
 have a very elegant Grecian appearance, and were it not for 
 
 the Gothic capitals of the columns, and the shafts being too 
 
 thick for their height, the whole might be taken for Greek 
 
 architecture." The minister of Eoxburgh indicates the time 
 
 when the work of destruction was beginning: — "The church 
 
 was built in the year 1752, the first modern house of that kind 
 
 in this corner of the country." Only a few churches escaped, 
 
 to be protected and restored when the country repented of its 
 
 indifference to these memorials of the past. 
 
 Till the eighteenth century was somewhat advanced there 
 was little interest in the state of the Celtic population in 
 the north and west. From the slow progress of the Reforma- 
 tion, and the temperament and isolation of the race, there 
 must have been much in their worship peculiar to them- 
 selves, but great obscurity rests on the subject. For a Mobile 
 the Church does not seem to have possessed the simplest 
 
THE RITUAL OF THE GHTECH. 417 
 
 statistics as to the condition of the Highlands. The only- 
 notice taken of them is when Argyll and the Isles are excluded 
 by name. Thus it is reported to the Assembly in 1596 that 
 there are 400 churches in Scotland in which there is no preaching, 
 besides Argyll and the Isles. In the rich mines of local fact 
 opened in Scott's "Fasti" there are names of incumbents in 
 those early years, but it is often doubtful whether they were 
 not mere tithe-holders. There seems to have been at best 
 only a skeleton establishment of preachers and readers. It 
 is well known that the first book published in Gaelic was a ^ 
 translation of the Common Order by Carswell, superintendent 
 of Argyll, for the use of his people. There is appended to it 
 a simple service to be used when a ship is leaving the shore : — 
 
 " The steersman says, ' Let us bless our ship.' 
 
 " All the crew respond, ' God the Father bless her.' 
 
 " S. ' Let us bless our ship.' 
 
 " E. ' Jesus Christ bless her.' 
 
 " S. ' Let us bless our ship.' 
 
 "E. 'The Holy Ghost bless her.' 
 
 "S. 'What do you fear since God the Father is with you ?' 
 
 " E. ' We do not fear anything.' 
 
 " S. ' What do you fear since God the Son is with you ?' 
 
 " E. ' We do not fear anything.' 
 
 "S. 'What are you afraid of since God the Holy Ghost is 
 with you.' 
 
 " E. ' We do not fear anything.' 
 
 " S. ' God the Father Almighty, for the love of Jesus Christ 
 His Son, by the comfort of the Holy Ghost, the one God, who 
 miraculously brought the children of Israel through the Eed 
 Sea, and brought Jonas to land out of the beUy of the whale, 
 and the apostle St. Paul and his ship to safety from the 
 troubled raging sea, and from the violence of a tempestuous 
 storm, deliver, sanctify, bless, and conduct us peaceably, calmly, 
 and comfortably through the sea to our harbour, according to 
 His divine will, which we beg, saying. Our Father,'" &c.^ 
 
 The Eeformation must have made a lodgment in many dis- 
 tricts, especially when some great family, like the house of Argyll, 
 identified themselves with it. But it is certain that there were 
 
 ^Martin's " Western Islands," 129. 
 
418 THE EITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 large tracts in which the authority of Kirk and King were 
 equally slighted, and where Eomish priests were the only 
 spiritual guides. Under prelacy the northern bishops were 
 often absent, sometimes serving parochial cures in the south. 
 The clergy were under little supervision; the people were 
 unlearned, and there was as yet no complete version of the 
 Scriptures. It was not till after the Eevolution that systematic 
 work was begun to bring the Highland into true unity with the 
 Lowland Church. The Irish Church had translations made for 
 the benefit of its Celtic population much sooner than the 
 Scottish, and thousands of copies of the Scriptures in their 
 dialect were sent from London to Scotland, for which the 
 Eevolution Assembly sent a message of thanks. At the same 
 time the Synod of Argyll was directed to " dispatch the whole 
 Paraphrase of the Irish Psalms to the press — if the principal 
 copy can be recovered," which suggests that one had been 
 preparing before the Eevolution, and had disappeared in the 
 troubles of the time. The word Irish, however, was at that 
 period as ambiguous as the word Scottish had been a few ages 
 before, and when books in that tongue are spoken of, one is at 
 a loss to know whether Hibernian Gaelic or Caledonian Gaelic 
 is meant. In 1695 the Assembly press the use of this version 
 of the Psalms, "understanding that in some parts of this 
 National Church, where preaching and prayer are used in 
 Irish, the psalms are sung at the same diet in a different 
 language." In 1699 Bibles were still being sent into the king- 
 dom, printed some in the Eomau, some in the Irish character, 
 but a late impression of the Bible " in the Highland language " 
 is spoken of. Martin's book on the "Western Islands throws a 
 few rays of light on the religious usages of the people at this 
 time. He speaks of the islanders, where there was no minister, 
 going on Sundays to some one of the numerous chapels which 
 
 N were still standing, that they might repeat together the Creed, 
 Lord's Prayer, and commandments. The people of St. Kilda 
 used a form of prayer such as Bishop Carswell's at the hoisting 
 of their sails. The great festivals were observed, he does not 
 
 ^ say in what manner, by the Protestant islanders of Lewis, 
 Slcye, Jura, Islay, Mull, and Arran. The Propagation Society 
 and other kindred agencies were now beginning their work. 
 
THE rJTUAL OF THE CIIUECH. 419 
 
 Wodrow, speaking of the state of the Highlands in 1729, says : 
 "Work enough remains at this day, though I believe more 
 hath been done this way since the Eevolution than was or 
 perhaps could well be got done, since our first Eeformation 
 from Popery."^ 
 
 Till the suppression of the rising in 1745, the Highlander 
 was still looked on as an alien, and the Highland Church 
 as a series of missionary outposts, hardly keeping their ground, 
 in the midst of a half - heathen, half - popish population. 
 When the soldierly qualities of the race, and the writings 
 of Johnson, and still more of Scott, made everything con- 
 nected with the Celt an object of intere&t throughout the 
 empire, his countrymen were astonished to find how much of 
 culture and of devotion had been hidden behind the barriers 
 of an inaccessible country and an unintelligible tongue. In 
 some parts the Eoman worship was adhered to steadily, though 
 without turbulence. The rest of the people, however, had 
 adopted heartily the Eeformed faith. There were peculiar 
 developments of it among them, some suggesting analogies with 
 Eome, some carrying them to a greater distance from it. Their 
 way of observing the Communion has more than anything else 
 attracted the attention of southerners. They have done more 
 than continue the infrequent and prolonged services of the 
 Lowlanders. Wodrow, who knew these so well, notes what 
 he heard, at that early date, about Highland Communions 
 as something beyond his experience. His information from 
 Sutherland was: "That at their Communions there they have 
 vast confluences; that people come fifty miles to a Com- 
 munion, and the bulk of the religious people through the 
 country wait on them ; that they are very much straitened 
 what to do, by the vulgar notion they have in that country, 
 that it is not lawful to take money for the entertainment of 
 strangers from neighbouring places at such occasions; and yet 
 the charges to the place where the sacrament is are so great 
 that ministers, for the people's sake, only have the Communion 
 once in two years." ^ It has been common to have not only 
 the attendant preachings, but the Communion itself in the 
 open air. There is a feature peculiar to themselves in the 
 
 > " Life of Carswell," 137. ^ » Analecta," iv. 4. 
 
\. 
 
 420 THE EITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 Friday meeting, at which the men " speak to the question," as 
 the phrase is, discuss in the middle of a congregation, and 
 under the presidency of the minister, some point of practical 
 or personal religion proposed by one of their number. To their 
 influence and that of the ministers who are in sympathy with 
 them, is generally attributed that extreme unwillingness to 
 receive the sacrament which brings those vast multitudes 
 together, not as communicants, but as listeners and onlookers. 
 So strong was the feeling that the Communion is less a congre- 
 gational privilege than an ordinance for the benefit of a wide 
 district, that when some ministers, retaining the great summer 
 least, began to have a winter celebration that they might be 
 alone in quietness with their own flock, great bitterness was 
 excited against this private Communion, as it is called. It is 
 another of those cases in which usages of recent and accidental 
 growth come to be regarded by good people, in all sincerity, as 
 ancient and essential. In their singing many Highland con- 
 gregations tenaciously adhere to the Westminster innovation 
 of reading the line. It had been already received in the south 
 when the Reformed worship was being universally established 
 in the north, and the want of education and of Gaelic books 
 made it indispensable for the time. Though the necessity no 
 longer exists, custom has made it so dear to the people that 
 they will not part with it. As used by Gaelic precentors, it 
 lias a peculiarity of its own. It is not a monotonous drawl, 
 but is inflected at the end of each line by a plaintive cadence, 
 the far-off echo, it may be, of forgotten chants. The opinion, 
 now extinct in most parts of the Lowlands, that nothing ought 
 to be sung but metrical versions of the Psalter, is still general 
 in the north. 
 
 This review having reached the century in which we live, 
 let us recall the customary worship of its first years, for 
 it has been so much changed of late that the young hardly 
 know how their grandparents served God in His house. 
 
 The afternoon service, once general, had disappeared, except 
 in towns and th« larger villages. Through this change old dis- 
 tinctions between the modes of instruction proper to each service 
 had been forgotten. At first the morning text had followed the 
 succession of verses in some one of the sacred books, and the 
 
niE KITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 421 
 
 catechetical doctrine of the afternoon the order of the Cate- 
 chism in use. In later times the continuous text was repre- 
 sented by the lecture — the subject of the sermons being 
 promiscuously chosen. Boston speaks of the distinction then 
 as being between the law sermon and the gospel sermon. The 
 reading of Scripture between the second and third bells had 
 been almost everywhere given up for want of hearers. The 
 order of the first service was a psalm, a long prayer, the ex- 
 position of a considerable passage of Scripture, then, after a 
 psalm and a shorter prayer, the sermon, a prayer ending 
 with supplications for all conditions of men, a psalm or para- 
 phrase, and benediction. When there was afternoon service it 
 was the same, except that the sermon followed immediately 
 on the first prayer. Standing at prayer and sitting at singing 
 were the invariable attitudes. 
 
 An era had now opened when all existing institutions 
 were being questioned, tried, and modified, and it was to 
 be expected that in worship, too, the inevitable progress of 
 change would be accelerated. About the time that funeral 
 services in the place where the dead lay were being brought 
 in, a premature attempt was made to introduce instrumental 
 music. It had been cast out by the Reformers, that every 
 possible line of reaction towards Home might be closed. Some 
 thought that now, when so much time had passed, and other 
 reformed churches almost identical with ours, which had 
 retained it, were seen to be as free from Eoman influence as 
 ourselves, it might be safely resumed. The attempt was made 
 in 1807 in St. Andrew's Church, Glasgow ; but public opinion 
 became so excited that it was given up, and the change was prob- 
 ably delayed longer than otherwise it would have been. In 1824 
 another innovation was questioned in the same city, but with 
 a different result. It will be remembered how stanch the 
 Scots had been at "Westminster in defending their national 
 custom of communicating at a table, and how their own 
 Assembly passed an Act to remove all ambiguity from the 
 words of the Directory. The practice of the English, so dis- 
 tinctly forbidden, was now creeping in. The elements were 
 consecrated apart at a small table of altar-form, and the com- 
 municants, with the exception of one or two sitting by the 
 
422 THE RITUAL OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 minister, received elsewhere. The irregularity was at first 
 compromised by having pews so constructed that on a Com- 
 munion day they might take the form of sacramental tables, 
 and allow communicants to sit opposite each other. But 
 even this was evaded ; aind some irregularity of the kind in 
 the new Church of St. John's, in Glasgow, brought the matter 
 before the General Assembly. The innovation was condemned. 
 To sit "at or around a Communion table or tables" was 
 declared to be "the law and immemorial practice of the 
 Church of Scotland." But opinion was in favour of the change, 
 and the encroachment went on. To increase the space occupied 
 by communicants, was to lessen the number of administrations 
 and shorten the service. Simultaneous Communion was at last 
 reached. The custom has come to be that the elements, after 
 consecration, are taken from the Lord's table and carried 
 through the church to every pew, sometimes even to galleries. 
 Except in a very few country churches, the old Scottish table, 
 bearing the sacred vessels, and with the communicants seated 
 along its sides, is never seen. Should the controversy as to 
 kneeling Communion arise again it will be difficult to plead 
 so strong a case for the sitting posture as our fathers had, 
 for when there is no table to receive the Lord's guests, the 
 significance of the posture is gone. The defence would be 
 further weakened by the conduct of those who sit at times 
 when they profess to be bending their knees in prayer. If 
 they persuade themselves that the two attitudes are one, they 
 are not likely to discriminate more clearly, should the question 
 come to be between sitting and kneehng in sight of a distant 
 table. 
 
 When the secession of 1843 had come and passed, the Church 
 was for some years concerned with other matters than the 
 details of worship. But many minds were occupied with the 
 subject. Here, as throughout Christendom, the principles and 
 history of Church service were being examined, and little 
 research was needed to find that in many things we were 
 disowning our own past. The first indication of reviving 
 interest in these matters, on the part of the Church, was her 
 appointment of a committee, in 1849, to prepare forms of 
 service for her people, either at home or abroad, when they 
 
THE PJTUAL OF THE CHUKCH. 423 
 
 met without a minister to lead their devotions. "When their 
 work was completed nine years after, the Church, following 
 her own precedents in the case of the Common Order and 
 the Paraphrases, recommended rather than imposed the 
 book. It kept in view the neglected forms and usages of 
 earlier days. The prayers of the Common Order and others 
 of the same age, as well as material from the Directory and 
 its age, were largely embodied in it. While the general 
 arrangement of our service was continued, the prose Psalter, 
 Scripture lessons, and the Lord's Prayer were included. By 
 another Act of 1856, the clergy themselves were enjoined to 
 read Scripture lessons from both Testaments, and generally 
 to pay more attention to the principles of the Directory. 
 
 Another most important work which the Church herself has 
 undertaken has been the preparation of a hymnal of great 
 excellence, of which not the least merit is that, unlike many 
 other such collections, it is not weighted by original com- 
 positions of local authors, hoping to win fame by fixing them- 
 selves in a permanent place by the side of great hymnologists. 
 In addition to the Church's own action, there have been 
 movements within her borders which she has watchfully 
 observed, sometimes restraining, sometimes approving. For- 
 tunately these have been in the direction of restoration rather 
 than innovation. No one did more to bring the whole of 
 this class of subjects under discussion than the late Dr. Eobert 
 Lee. The controversies of which he was the centre are too 
 recent to need record. Putting aside all questions as to the 
 point at which Church authority ends and individual freedom 
 begins, every candid person must admit that most of the 
 changes which can be traced to his action had the Church's 
 sanction in some earlier period of her history. An exception 
 was the use of instrumental music. It had been unknown 
 in the Church since the Eeformation, for uniformity can 
 hardly be said to have been broken by the tentative use of 
 it on one or two occasions in the Chapel Eoyal, or the Glas- 
 gow church. But it was an innovation which Dr, Lee saw 
 the nation was ready to adopt. Many were startled at first; 
 some, who were personally favourable to it, opposed it from 
 a belief that it would be distasteful to the body of their 
 
424 THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 countrymen. Experience has shown these fears to be ground- 
 less. Scottish intelligence declined to see a breach of the 
 second commandment in the use of an organ, which is neither 
 an object nor an ordinance of worship. As an accessory of 
 worship, it was found to be a steadier support to the singers* 
 voices than the larynx of a precentor. The h-elp of an instru- 
 ment has been welcomed in town and country, and if there 
 are districts where a feeling against it remains, it is not 
 likely to be lasting, unless wrong-headed men strengthen it 
 by attempts to force the new mode on those who are pre- 
 judiced against it. 
 
 One of the changes of attitude in which Dr. Lee led the 
 w^ay was, perhaps, an innovation. It is doubtful if at any 
 time standing at singing was prevalent in Scotland. At 
 one period worshippers stood as they sang the Doxology, be- 
 cause it was a profession of faith in the Holy Trinity. From 
 time immemorial the people of Orkney have been accustomed 
 to stand at praise, but this was no more than a local custom. 
 Apart from significance or usage, the change has everything 
 to recommend it, in the greater power and freedom which it 
 gives to the voices of those who would " sing aloud unto God 
 their strength." To kneel in prayer was only returning to 
 an attitude which ought never to have been abandoned. It 
 is to be regretted that so many, instead of doing this, are 
 reverting to an attitude not more reverential than that 
 which they have given up, but far less so — one which their 
 forefathers gave up for very shame in an age that made 
 less pretence to outward decorum than we do. If the transi- 
 tion takes this form, many who hailed it with gladness will 
 look back with regret to the day when the people rose up to 
 do God honour. No doubt many churches have seats so con- 
 structed that to kneel is difficult or impossible. In every 
 church that is built or refitted the excuse ought to be removed. 
 But even now there are multitudes not kneelinrr who misht 
 do so, and of them many do not offer to their Maker such 
 scanty reverence as to bow the head before Him, 
 
 Since Dr. Lee's time there has been a growing desire to 
 restore the union of liturgical and free prayer. This desire 
 has been stimulated by the work of the Church Service 
 
THE mXUAL OF THE CIIUECII. 425 
 
 Society. From humble beginniDgs it has come to embrace 
 in its brotherhood more than a third of the clergy. It has 
 promoted the private study of subjects which till lately were 
 outside the range of clerical reading. It has published suc- 
 cessive books of devotion, showing how our forms of worship 
 may be remodelled in a spirit of loyalty to our own past, 
 and to what is best in the past of Christendom. By the 
 combination of its members it has preserved a uniformity of 
 advance, without sacrificing that measure of liberty which 
 our ministers have always claimed. It lies with the Church 
 to determine whether the changes, which changing circum- 
 stances always require, shall be left in future to the empirical 
 fancies of individuals, or to the united action of a society, 
 or whether she will take the work into her own hands. The 
 forms for social worship, the hymnal, and her late action in 
 providing that there shall be a celebration of the Communion 
 at the meeting of her Assembly, show that on occasion she 
 can guide as well as follow. If she thinks fit to leave the 
 clergy to their own judgment, they ought to use the discre- 
 tion allowed to them under a deep sense of responsibility. 
 It is well to look beyond the limits of their own Church and 
 their own island ; but they ought to be true to the memories 
 of their own people. A little inquiry will convince them 
 that to keep to the unwritten law of ritual, by which the 
 past generation walked, is not to identify themselves with 
 the Reformers. It inherited much from them, but it also 
 rejected much. "What had displaced customs of theirs, so far 
 as it was of native growth, was very recent ; so far as it was 
 foreign came from men who withstood us as Presbyterians, as 
 loyalists, and as Scotsmen. 
 
 But in clearing away these accretions they ought to guard 
 against quitting one extreme for another. If the Church has 
 laid aside forms of prayer, the evil is not to be remedied by 
 exchanging free prayer for liturgical, but by using both. 
 Experience shows that it is not easy to keep the equipoise 
 between them. Some think that they see a disposition already 
 appearing among us to let the privilege of free prayer remain 
 unused. The days of scanty and unmusical praise are 
 passing away. That is no reason for abandoning altogether 
 
426 
 
 THE RITUAL OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the psalms and melodies which those before us loved, still 
 less for making praise the point of central interest among the 
 offices of religion, and looking on the house of God as no more 
 than the scene of a Sunday morning concert. The undue pro- 
 minence given to preaching had cast out other parts of service, 
 or made them mere variations of rhetorical display. Now, when 
 these are being restored and purified, the sermon in its turn is 
 sometimes unduly depreciated by the hearer, contracted or 
 diluted by the speaker. In all coming amendments or restora- 
 tions, our care ought to be that every part of divine service 
 shall have its just proportion of place, no more and no less, 
 and all be helpful to the soul seeking to worship the Lord 
 in the beauty of holiness. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Rev. AND REV/ EDGAR, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "OLD CHUECH LIFE IN SCOTLAND; • "CATECHISM FOR YOUNG COMMUNICANTS, 
 " THE BIBLES OF ENGLAND." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The word discipline is a word of many meanings. At one time 
 it was synonymous with education or instruction, and in some 
 English versions of the Scriptures it is used in that sense. 
 Where, in our Authorized Version, we read, " Hear counsel and 
 receive instruction," the words in the Douay Version^ are, " Hear 
 counsel and receive discipline." And contrariwise, where 
 we read in the Authorized Version, "He openeth their ear 
 to discipline," we find in the Eevised Version, "He openeth 
 their ear to instruction." Not only, too, does discipline stand 
 in some writings for the act of teaching or imparting know- 
 ledge, but it is employed also to designate the subject taught, 
 whether that subject pertains to art or to science. Even when 
 applied to ecclesiastical affairs, the word discipline is used in 
 more senses than one. Two famous declarations of the policy 
 of the Church of Scotland are familiarly known by the names 
 of the First and Second Books of Discipline, In the ear- 
 lier of these historic documents there is a chapter headed 
 "Ecclesiastical Discipline," and in that chapter ecclesiastical 
 discipline is defined to be the reproof and correction of such 
 faults as " drunkenness, excesse be it in apparell or be it in 
 eating and drinking, fornication, . . . wanton words and 
 licentious living tending to slander, which the civil sword 
 either doth neglect or may not punish," But in both of these 
 Books of Discipline, other matters than the cognizance and 
 censure of offences are discussed. In short, in the title and 
 
 ^ In modern revisions of the Douay Bible the word discipline is in this passage dis- 
 placed by instruction. 
 
430 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH, 
 
 text of these expositions, the word is used in two senses, 
 a larger and a narrower. In the larger sense, it is synonymous 
 with ^policy or polity ; in the narrower sense, it is restricted 
 to the ecclesiastical way of dealing with ecclesiastical faults. 
 
 In the following pages the word discipline shall be used in 
 a sense akin to, but somewhat wider than, that last mentioned. 
 It shall be taken to signify two things : first, the means 
 employed by the Church to maintain and promote purity of 
 conduct among her members, and nourish them in spiritual 
 life; and secondly, the means employed by the Church to 
 discover and correct misdeeds, and restore to her communion 
 persons that have fallen under scandal. In other words, discipline 
 shall be considered under the two heads of educative discipline 
 and corrective discipline — the discipline for the faithful and 
 the discipline for the unfaithful ; and although this is not a 
 common way of using the term, it is one that not only is 
 warrantable on grounds of reason, but is indirectly sanctioned 
 by venerable authority. In the Second Book of Discipline it 
 is declared that "the haill policie of the Kirk consisteth in 
 three things, namely, in doctrine, discipline, and distribution; 
 and, according to the pairtes of this division arisis a threfald 
 sort of office-beirars in the Kirk, to wit, of ministers or 
 preachers, eldaris or governours, and deacons or distributours." 
 In the constitution of the Church, therefore, the special work 
 assigned to elders is the administration of discipline. But 
 other duties than the detection and correction of evil man- 
 ners are required of that class of office-bearers. They are 
 appointed to watch diligently over the flock committed to 
 their charge, " that ua corruption of religion or manners enter 
 therein ;" to be careful in seeking the fruit of the word in 
 the people; to assist in the examination of those that come 
 to the Lord's Table; to cause the acts of the Church to be 
 put in execution ; and " to hald assemblies, with the pastors 
 And doctors, who are also of their number, for the establish- 
 ing of good order;" as well as to administer discipline in 
 the strict and customary sense of that term.'^ One of the 
 
 1 In the Church of Scotland's Order of Ecclesiastical Discipline, 1567, discipline is said 
 to be, inter alia, " an order left by God unto his Church, whereby men learn to frame 
 their wills and doings according to the law of God, by instructing and admonishing one 
 another," &c. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 43 1 
 
 most correct writers of the English language says that iu 
 olden fmes the young "were prepared and disciplined for 
 conflrmation, and it may. in like manner, be said that one 
 of the aims of every Church should be to prepare and dis- 
 ciphne her members for continual communion with Christ 
 on earth, and for the glorified lite with Christ in the worid 
 
 exhib t both the educative and the corrective discipline of 
 «>e Church ,n Scotland, alike in pre-Eeformation and Tpos . 
 Eeformation times; and thus to show wherein the discipline 
 m the Protestant period of the Church's history accords with 
 o has departed from, the discipline that was in vogue when 
 the Church Avas unreformed. 
 
 83 
 
432 TEE DISCIPLINE OF THE CmiRCH. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 EDUCATIVE AND EDIFICATIOKAL DISCIPLINE FOR THE FAITHFUL. 
 
 By the faithful are here meant those persons that have been 
 baptized into Christ, and have not, on account of any flagrant 
 scandal in their lives, been excommunicated, or suspended from 
 the enjoyment of Christian privileges. For these people, the 
 members proper of the Church, there is an appropriate disci- 
 pline required. The young have to be prepared for Communion, 
 and those that have been admitted to Communion have to be 
 kept in a state of moral and spiritual qualification for continued 
 participation in that sacramental ordinance. All, moreover, 
 have to be edified in the faith, and built up to the stature of 
 perfect men in Christ. The way in which these things are 
 done, or attempted to be done, by the Church, is by applying to 
 people, in a manner suited to their age, education, and state of 
 spiritual culture, the means of grace. 
 
 One of the most important of the means of grace is prayer ; 
 but it is customary to speak of prayer as an act of worship 
 rather than of discipline. Either form of nomenclature is 
 allowable. Considered in reference to God, prayer may be 
 regarded as an act of homage or worship; but considered - 
 reflexively, in the influence it has on the offerer, it is an act of 
 discipline. It is, in more ways than one, a defence against 
 temptation. It is not only a means of securing for ourselves 
 divine help, but it is a putting of ourselves into a serious and 
 solemn frame of mind — a calling to remembrance of all our 
 frailties and shortcomings, so that we may be humbled and 
 awakened to concern — a realizing of our high calling in Christ, 
 and of the momentous issues that lie before us in death, so that 
 we may be impressed with a sense of the supreme importance 
 of the things that make for our spiritual peace and everlasting 
 welfare. The way, therefore, in which the Church calls her 
 members to prayer, and supplies them with services of prayer, 
 is part of her edificational discipline. 
 
 There are three kinds of prayer — viz. common or public 
 prayer, family or household prayer, and personal or solitary 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 433 
 
 prayer. The first of these is essentially a part of Church dis- 
 cipline ; the second and third may, from the manner in which 
 they are pressed on people by the Church, be parts of Church 
 discipline also. 
 
 In every Church, Catholic and Eeformed, common prayers 
 have in all ages formed part of the congregational Sunday 
 service. In Scotland the common prayers on Sundays, in 
 the times before the Eeformation, were liturgical. They were 
 written in set forms, and they were read aloud by the officiating 
 priests as they were written. They were not the priest's 
 own compositions or extempore utterances ; but prayers of the 
 Church, prepared under the Church's directions, and appointed 
 by the Church for regular use in all her places of worship. 
 They were written in Latin, too, so that in this country, and 
 indeed in every other country, not one hearer in a thousand 
 had the slightest knowledge of their import as he heard them 
 read. And yet we should not be warranted in saying that they 
 were either unedifying or unsatisfactory to the people. Every 
 worshipper knew that prayer was being made when the Latin 
 book was opened and perused ; and many of the ignorant wor- 
 shippers felt a solemnizing and sanctifying influence proceed 
 from the place, the surroundings, the associations, and the 
 sonorous strains of the tongue that to them was unknown. It 
 is said that, in the first days of the Eeformation in England, 
 when Latimer was thundering from the pulpit against the 
 corruptions of Popery, and was treating his hearers to prayers 
 they could follow in their own language, some of the country- 
 folks exclaimed against his innovations, and demanded to have 
 the prayers read to them in Latin as their fathers had.^ 
 
 One of the points urgently pressed by the Eeformers, how- 
 ever, both in England and Scotland, was the importance of 
 having the services of the sanctuary conducted in a language 
 understood by the people. One learned historian of liturgies, 
 in writing of Henry VIII. and the work of Eeformation in 
 
 ^ In 1640 a resolution was passed in the upper house of Convocation, when Laud was 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, that the King should be petitioned to cause the Book of 
 Gominon Prayer to be printed in Latin : " Reverendissimns cum unanimi consensu 
 praelatorum et cleri hujus sacrae synodi decrevit regiam majestatem supplicandam fore, 
 ut liber publicarum precnm, in Latinum versus, reimprimatur." — CardweWs " iSi/nodaUa,'" 
 p. 628 ; see also pp. 596, 671, 683. 
 
434 THE DISCIPLI^'E OP THE CHUliCH. 
 
 England, says quaintly that "the first onset the King gave 
 in order to this work was the bringing of God Almighty and 
 His people acquainted, by causing them to understand each 
 other; for whilst the people spake to God, they knew not 
 what, because they understood the Eomish religion better 
 than the Romish tongue ; therefore to redress this very great 
 mischief to their souls, this King's first care was to render 
 divine offices in a tongue — their native English — familiar to 
 them. But this he effected not all at once, but by degrees. 
 First he began with the great essentials of religion, the Pater- 
 noster, Creed, and Decalogue; these were imparted to them 
 in the English tongue by his injunctions, anno 1536. Then 
 he proceeded to the communication of the sacred Scriptures 
 to them, by a translation of his own authorizing, anno 1540. 
 But as yet the publick service was kept lockt up from them ; 
 to indulge them therefore his royal favour in this particular 
 also, he caused an extract to be drawn out of the Latin service, 
 containing many of the best and most edifying prayers, which, 
 with the litany, all translated into the vulgar tongue under 
 the title of his Primer, he published for the good of his 
 subjects." ^ 
 
 In Scotland, the Latin service of the Catholic Church 
 was loudly denounced by the Eeformers. One of the detest- 
 able practices of "the Roman Antichrist," abjured in the 
 National Covenant of 1580 and 1638, was "his praying or 
 speaking in a strange language." And, what is more to 
 the point, as showing the change in the service of public 
 prayer that was demanded by the " professors " in Scotland 
 before the Eeformation was effected, there was presented to 
 the Queen-Eegent, in 1558, an "oration and petition," of 
 which the first crave was: "That as we have, by the lawes 
 of this realme, after long debate, obteaned libertie to reads 
 the holie bookes of the Old and New Testament in our com- 
 moun tongue, as spiritual foode to our soules, so from hence- 
 furth it may be lawfull that we may meete, publicklie or 
 privatlie, to the commoun prayers in our vulgar tongue."'' 
 
 ^ L'Estrange's "Alliance of Divine Offices," Cbap. i., letter R. 
 
 2 Caldem'ood, vol. i. p. 335. This petition was referred by the Queen-Regent 
 to a Provincial Council of the Catholic clergy, and their reply to the crave for common 
 prayers in the vulgar tongue was : " That the Council had no power to alter the order 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CEURCH. 435 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that in respect of the language in which 
 public prayers were offered, there was in this country at the 
 Tteformation an instant, universal, and wide departure from 
 the ancient custom of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Long after the Eeformation a liturgy continued to be used 
 in the Church of Scotland. And not only were set prayers 
 allowed in the Church, but they were specially appointed to 
 be read by all ministers. Gradually, however, a conviction 
 spread over the Church and country that read prayers 
 were not, as a means of grace, so blessed and efficacious as 
 unpremeditated supplications. It came to be the custom, 
 therefore, as has been explained in the dissertation on the 
 Eitual of the Church, that on Sabbath days prayers were 
 read from a book by the reader, who was generally the school- 
 master, at a preliminary morning service; but when that 
 service was ended and the "third beU" rung, the minister 
 entered the pulpit and gave an extempore prayer, i By and 
 by readers also laid the prayer-book aside. In the "Lar^e 
 Declaration," penned by Dr. Balcanquhal in name of Charles I, 
 and published in 1639, it is stated that before King James 
 left for England there was « no set or public form o"f prayer 
 used in Scotland, but preachers, or readers, and ignorant 
 schoolmasters, prayed in the church, sometimes so ignorantly 
 as It was a shame to all religion to have the majestic of God 
 so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously that 
 their prayers were plain libels, girding at sovereignty and 
 authority." 2 i^ the first days of the Covenant, between 1637 
 and 1651, read prayers were barely tolerated by the Church, and 
 were by some zealots positively banned. The Presbytery of 
 Ayr, in 1642, exhorted the reader in a rural parish within 
 their bounds, to "concoct prayers, although the brethren did 
 not condemn read prayers in church."^ Samuel Eutherford 
 writing in 1640, says :— " Anent read prayers : I could never see 
 precept, promise, or practice for them in God's word. Our 
 Church never allowed them, but men took them up at their 
 
 l.P^nr'^'/^i^'P. • • •• -observed for centuries in the Catholic Church, and 
 t eiefore could not sanction the proposed change of language. For private devotion 
 every one was free to use what language he pleased."-£e;/e<^e «, i,. 241 
 2 .. T "r" n"*-? ^°°^T°f ." in collected works of Bishop William Cowper, 1629 
 Large Declai-at.on," 16. ^ " Old Church Life in Scotland," First Series, 60. 
 
436 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 own choice. I had never faith to think well of them. In 
 my weak judgment, it were good if they were out of the 
 service of God. I cannot think them a fruit or effect of the 
 spirit of adoption, seeing the user cannot say of such prayers, 
 * Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my 
 heart, be acceptable in thy sight, Lord, my strength and 
 my redeemer.' " ^ And the way in which the Church of Scot- 
 land has generally, from (say) 1600 downwards, endeavoured 
 to make public prayer a means of grace and discipline to her 
 faithful members, is by bringing to bear on them, through 
 her ministers, the spiritually inspiring influences of extempore 
 oration. Within the last few years a tendency has shown 
 itself, in some quarters, to revert to the older forms of the 
 Church, and to make the service of prayer more disciplinar}^ 
 by an enunciation. Sabbath after Sabbath, of the deepest wants 
 of the soul in well-set words that never vary. 
 
 In ancient times the service of public prayer was not rele- 
 gated to Sundays and feast-days ; but on every day of the week 
 there were prayers read in church, for the edification of the faith- 
 ful and the conversion of unbelievers. This Catholic custom 
 was continued for many a day in the Reformed Church of 
 Scotland. About the time of the second reformation it was 
 in force in some parishes and not in others. One minister 
 in the west reported to his Presbytery, in 1642, that in his 
 parish "publict prayers wer used and reading of the Scrip- 
 tures morning and evening;" while another minister in the 
 same district reported to the same Presbytery, in the same 
 year, that in his parish "there wes no exercise of prayer or 
 reading on the week dayes, because thair could not ane audience 
 be had in the clauchan, but on the Sabbath day, before preach- 
 ing." ^ A few years later these daily conventions for read 
 prayers were changed into meetings for the exposition of 
 
 ^ Letter 303, Bonar's edition. Rutherford's statement tb.it the Church of Scotland 
 never allowed read prayers is not correct. lu the preface to the Scottish Service-book, 
 1637, it is said: "Our first Reformers vrere of the same mind with us, as appeareth 
 by the ordinance they made, that in all the parishes of this realm the Common Prayer- 
 book should be read weekly on Sundays, and other festival days . . . conform 
 to the order of the Book of Common Prayer. This is recorded to have been the first 
 head concluded in a frequent council of the Lords and Barons professing Christ Jesus. 
 We keep the words of the history (p. 218), Religion was not then placed in rites 
 and gestures, nor men taken with the fane ie of extemporary prayers.'''' 
 
 ^ " Old Church Life in Scotland," First Series, 59, 'JO. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCH. 437 
 
 Scripture. "In steid of evening and morning prayeris, the 
 ministeris . . . concludit in the beginning of March, 1650, 
 that all the days of the week a lectorie sould be red and exponit 
 in Edinburgh be everie minister thair, jpcr vices, quhilk accord- 
 inglie wes put in practice, and so began this holie and hevinlie 
 exercise."^ Such a large supply of spiritual food could not 
 continue for any length of time to be provided by ministers, 
 however gracious and gifted they might be ; and, indeed, few 
 of the people had appetite for so much strong meat. The 
 daily lectorie, therefore, was but a short-lived institution in 
 Edinburgh, and in very few other places was it ever established. 
 But a meeting once a week, on a work day, for the word and 
 prayer, came to be a customary part of every minister's duty.'' 
 Parochial records, however, reveal the painful fact that these 
 meetings, either from declining zeal on the part of the clergy, 
 or from want of encouragement by the people, became less and 
 less frequent. In some parishes they were held once a fort- 
 night, then once a month, and afterwards at irregular inter- 
 vals, as occasion called for them. At the present day such 
 gatherings, under the altered name of prayer-meetings, are held 
 weekly, fortnightly, or monthly by many ministers; and in 
 a few city churches the older practice of having a daily service 
 of prayer, without lecture or sermon, is being revived. 
 
 Both before and -after the Eeformation, private as well as 
 public prayer was urgently enjoined by the Church on all her 
 members. There were different forms in which this exercise was 
 enjoined by the Catholic Church as a part of spiritual discipline. 
 She directed the faithful to enter the open sanctuary and to 
 kneel down alone before the image of some favourite saint, and, 
 under the hallowing influence of the associations thereby 
 awakened, to pour out their hearts privately in earnest suppli- 
 cation. In her form of public worship she had a special 
 
 1 Nicol's " Diary of Public Transactions," &c., 1650-67. 
 
 2 In many places such meetings were held prior to 1650. David Dickson, when 
 minister of Irvine, preached to a large congregation every Monday; and his ministry in that 
 town ended in 1641. The extant records of the Presbytery of Ayr go no further back than 
 1642, but in that year one of the members of Presbytery reported, at the presbyterial 
 visitation of his parish, that " he preached twyse on the Sabbath, and every Twysday 
 once, sumtyme by preaching and sumtyme by catechising, and declared the frequent 
 meeting of the people to that effect." The following year, 1643, another member of 
 that Presbytery was exhorted to preach catechetical doctrine once a week, besides giving 
 two sermons each Sunday. 
 
438 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 service, termed prosphoneses or bidding prayers, in wliicli the 
 officiating deacon announced, after brief intervals of one or two 
 seconds, successive subjects of prayer, and called on the people 
 severally and silently to offer unto God their personal requests 
 on these matters.^ The disciplinary effect of this service was 
 twofold. It nourished personal piety, and it fostered interest 
 in themes outside the range of selfish care. Every day, too, 
 Ave-Mary bells were rung, morning and noon, and whoever 
 heard these bells was directed to desist instantly from the 
 work he had on hand, and betake himself to prayer. In the 
 Reformed Church of Scotland these forms of private prayer 
 had no place or appointment. No countenance was ever given 
 by Scottish Protestants to the notion that any building is more 
 sacred than another, or that prayers offered in church are more 
 beneficial than prayers offered in the fields, or in a private 
 dwelling. Whether Scottish Protestantism has not gone too 
 far in this contention may be matter of opinion. It was the 
 remark of a good English Protestant : " I could never hear the 
 Ave-Mary bell without an elevation, or think it a sufficient 
 warrant, because they (Catholics) erred in one circumstance, 
 for me to err in all, that is, in silence and dumb contempt." * 
 In that remark some Protestants at the present day will doubt- 
 less concur. The kind of private prayer, however, enjoined 
 by the fathers of the Reformed Church in Scotland was dis- 
 sociated from church, bell, and allocution. It was closet 
 prayer, like that enjoined by Christ, or prayer sub ficu, like 
 that of Nathanael's commended by Christ.^ 
 
 But the special form of devotion that the Reformed Church of 
 Scotland aimed at instituting, as the best supplement to public 
 prayers, was the family " exercise," in which the head of the house, 
 
 1 See " Alliance of Divine Offices," Chap, viii., letter L.; also article " Prosphoneses," 
 in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 
 
 2 Sir Thomas Browne's " Religio Medici," Part I., Sec. III. 
 
 ^In 1647 the General Assembly issued directions for secret and private worship, &c., 
 in which it was said that, " Besides the public worship in congregations, mercifully 
 established in this land in great purity, it is expedient and necessary that secret worship 
 of each person alone ... be pressed and set up ; that with national reformation 
 the profession and power of personal godliness be advanced. . . . It is most 
 necessary that every one apart and by themselves be given to prayer and meditation, 
 the unspeakable benefit whereof is best known to them who are most exercised therein. 
 This being the meane whereby, in a special way, communion with God is entertained, 
 and right preparation for all other duties obtained." It will be seen, therefore, that 
 it was for spiritual discipline that private prayer was specially enjoined by the Church. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 439 
 
 morning and evening, called together the members of his house- 
 hold, read with them a portion of Scripture, and then, as the priest 
 on his own hearth, offered up a simple prayer in homely words 
 of his own. In the times of the second reformation the 
 Church's zeal in this matter was particularly conspicuous. 
 In 1639 the General Assembly enacted that " in every familie 
 the worship of God be erected where it is not, both morning 
 and evening, and that the children and servants be catechised 
 at home by the masters of the families, whereof account shall 
 be taken by the minister, and elders assisting him, in the 
 visitation of every family." In 1694, after the Church was 
 established on its present presbyterial basis, it was further 
 enacted by the Assembly, "That the ministers and elders in 
 each congregation take care that the worship of God be per- 
 formed in the several families thereof, and if any family be 
 found which neglecteth this necessary duty, the head of that 
 family is to be gravely, seriously, and earnestly admonished, 
 until he amend his fault." How enactments of this kind, too, 
 were obeyed by local judicatories may be gathered from the 
 following minute of a rural kirk session, of date, December, 
 1639 : — " The minister presentit ane book and red it in the 
 sessioune, quhilk is to be put in prafctice, conforme to the 
 Act of the General Assembly, intituled Family Exercise, that 
 every familie sould have morning and evening prayers, publict 
 and private reading, psalms and uther exercises of God's 
 worship, as in the said buke is conteinit. And to this end, 
 for the better ordering heirof, and that this service be not 
 neglectit in families, it is thought meit that ilk elder within 
 the paroche, in his pairtis nixt about him, have ane speciall 
 care and charge hereof, and see what religion, what prayer, 
 what reiding, and what uther exercise of God's service they 
 use in their house." ^ So recently as 1700 the Synod of Glas- 
 gow and Ayr issued orders to all kirk sessions within its 
 bounds : " That elders make conscience of visiting families 
 within their districts, exhorting heads of families to set up 
 the worship of God in their houses, reproving those who 
 
 ^ In presbyterial visitations of parishes about this date, 1639 and subsequent years, 
 it was customary to ask ministers whether family exercise was generally established in 
 the parish or not. This was in terms of Act of Assembly, 1638, Sess. 23, Art. III. 
 
440 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 neglect it, and delating them upon their continued neglect." ^ 
 Ample proof, too, may be found in the history of the Church 
 of Scotland of the widespread institution, at one time, of this 
 blessed exercise, and of the wonderful grace and dignity with 
 which it was conducted in the humblest cottages. 
 
 Another instrument of educative discipline, which has in all 
 ages been more or less faithfully used by the Church, is preach- 
 ing. If discipline be only another word for instruction, and 
 especially religious instruction, it will follow that preaching is 
 one of the most potent instruments of discipline. And such it 
 has been long regarded by many divines in the Catholic as well 
 as in the Protestant Church. But preaching was a form of dis- 
 cipline that in ancient times was not used by the Catholic 
 Church as persistently and as effectually as it might have been. 
 Even to this day it is not. A distinguished Catholic exponent 
 of the canon law states, that although, by the decrees of the 
 Council of Trent, bishops are required to preach personally, it 
 is only now and then that they put themselves to the trouble 
 of delivering a sermon. And the same author says, that 
 although rectors are held to sin grievously if they fail to preach, 
 either personally or by a properly qualified substitute, for either 
 one continuous month at a time, or for twelve Sundays in the 
 course of a year, it is nevertheless the custom in some parts 
 of the United States of America, to discontinue preaching in 
 Catholic churches during the whole months of July and August 
 annually.^ For a hundred years and more before the Eefor- 
 mation, there was, according to common testimony, very little 
 preaching heard from either bishops or priests in Scotland, or 
 anywhere else. One well-informed writer avers that in Eng- 
 land, in the days of Edward VI., when the Eeformation 
 was well advanced, "sermons were rare — very rare; in some 
 places but once a quarter, and perhaps not then."^ It was 
 
 1 " Old Chnrch Life in Scotland," First Series, 205. In recent years the General 
 Assembly has contented itself with issuing pastoral letters of admonition, instead of 
 penal enactments, on family worship. One such pastoral was issued in 1836. 
 
 2 Smith's " Elements of Ecclesiastical Law," i. 359, 441. 
 
 3 " how horrible was that confusion, that one man sould be permitted to have two, 
 three, foure, five, six, or seven benefices, who skarselie in the yeere did so often preache." 
 — Knox, from Geneva, to the people of England, 1559 (see Calderwood, i. 428). How 
 much preaching bad been neglected in the Catholic Church of Scotland may be judged 
 from the reforming canons of the Provincial Council, 1549: "According to the injunc- 
 tions of the Council of Trent, every ordinary is to preach publicly at least four times in 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCH. 441 
 
 much the same in Scotland. While there were one or two 
 bishops, like Kennedy of St. Andrews (1440-66), who laboured 
 in doctrine and tried to teach the people knowledge, prelates, 
 as a rule, never preached at all, and parsons very seldom. The 
 work of preaching was relegated almost entirely to the friars, 
 who were illiterate people, and by their unskilful handling of 
 the word made preaching contemptible. In no respect was the 
 Eeformed service that was set up in Scotland more differentiated 
 from the Catholic service it displaced, than in the prominence 
 assigned to the office of preaching.^ 
 
 Ever since the Eeformation preaching has in the Church of 
 Scotland been regarded as the principal part of the sanctuary 
 service. All the chief reformers in Scotland, Wishart, Knox, 
 AVillock, &c., were preachers; and it was mainly by their 
 preaching that they were mighty, through God, to the pulling 
 down of strongholds. Their immediate successors, Andrew Mel- 
 ville and James Melville, Eobert Bruce and Kobert Eollock, 
 were all famous preachers too. So were the heroes of the 
 second reformation, Henderson and Dickson, Eutherford and 
 GiUespie. But notwithstanding the zeal of preaching that 
 characterized the Scottish reformers, preachers could not for 
 many a day after the Eeformation be found for all the churches 
 in Scotland. In many parishes the people had to content 
 themselves with a service of set prayers and bare reading of 
 Scripture. As soon as ministers could be obtained, however, 
 preaching was instituted in every parish ; and from the days 
 of the Eeformation down to the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury it seems to have been a common, if not the general, 
 practice in Scotland for ministers to treat their congregations 
 every Sabbath to both a forenoon and an afternoon sermon;^ 
 
 the year." Rectors of parishes were requii-ed to do the same. " Abbots, priors, and 
 other superiors are to make arrangements for a certain number of their religious to preach 
 at intervals in the parish churches; and the parish priests are to note down the number 
 of times that the religious preach in their churches, and to report to the bishop accord- 
 ingly." In 1559 bishops were enjoined to preach oftener than four times a year 
 (Bellesheim, ii. 204-5, 210, 247). 
 
 ^ " It is not the chanting, nor mummiling over of certane psalms, the reading of chap- 
 ters for matins, an even song, or of homilies only, be they never so godlie, that feede the 
 soules of the hungrie sheepe. . . . Where Jesus Christ is not preached (marke weill 
 that I say preached), there hath the sacrament neither life nor soule: and farther, 
 that I say, none can be a lawful minister of Christ's sacrament, who first is not a 
 minister of his bletsed word." — Knox (see Calderwood, L 428, 433). 
 
 2 Some expressions in old records would, by themselves, lead us to infer that between 
 the dates of the first and second reformations (1560 aod 1638), it was customary for 
 
442 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECF 
 
 during the greater part of that period, too, ministers were 
 expected or required to preach once a week on another day 
 besides Sunday.^ Both very comprehensive and very free 
 discourses, too, were the sermons of Scottish ministers in olden 
 times. They were expository, doctrinal, and practical. They 
 first of all, by reference to the context, explained the argumen- 
 tative point of the text ; they next unfolded all the doctrine 
 contained in the text ; and then they made fearless application 
 of the doctrine to present times, existing customs, and living 
 personages.^ The actions of public men, whether kings or 
 subordinate magistrates, and the conduct of private persons, 
 members of the congregation, were bluntly designated by such 
 terms as the licensed preacher, speaking in the name of the 
 Lord of Lords, thought fittest. The phrase " Scottish sermon " 
 came to be a well-understood expression. Baillie, in one of his 
 letters from the Westminster Assembly in 1644, writes that on 
 " a solemne fast for General Essex's armie, Mr. Palmer and 
 Mr. Hill did preach . . . two of the most Scottish and free 
 sermons that ever I heard anywhere. . . . They laid well 
 about them, and charged publicke and parliamentarie sins .on 
 the backs of the guilty." And whatever may be said in dis- 
 
 ministers to preach only once on Sundays. In an Act of Assembly, 1580, it is alleged 
 that " thron a great part of the countrie, the afternoone exercise and doctrine upon 
 Sabbath days is not usit ; " and it is consequently ordained th.at pastors " travell with 
 their flocks to conveine to the afternoone's sermons, alsewell they that are in landwart as 
 they that are in burghs." In 1595 the Presbytery of Glasgow urged that in the city of 
 Glasgow there should be " twa preichings in twa several! kirkes on the Sonday efter 
 noone; and the catechisme on Sunday eftir noone to be teichit." From the (manuscript) 
 records of presbyterial visitations of parishes in Ayrshire in 1642, it seems to have been 
 the custom of ministers in country parishes at that date to preach on Sunday twice in 
 summer and once in winter, and in burghal or populous parishes twice on the Sabbath 
 all the year round. 
 
 1 First Book of Discipline, chap. xi. sec. 3. Henderson, in his " Government and Order 
 of the Church of Scotland" (1641), says that from the Reformation it had been customary 
 in cities and large towns to have sermon on two days a week besides Sunday. In the 
 Book of Common Order it was ordained that ministers and elders should hold an assembly 
 or consistory every Thursday, and that " everie week once the congregation assemble to 
 hear some place of the Scriptures orderly expounded." At these congi"egational meetings 
 every man was permitted to speak or inquire as God moved his heart and the text 
 ministered occasion ; and if any contention arose, such as were appointed moderators were 
 either to satisfy the parties or refer judgment to the ministers and elders "in their 
 assemblie before mentioned." 
 
 ^ In 1648 the General Assembly ordained that "eveiy minister do, by the word of 
 wisdom, apply his doctrine faithfully against the public sins and corruptions of these 
 times, and especially against the sins and scandals in that congregation wherein he lives, 
 according to the Act of the General Assembly, 15'J6, revived by the Assembly at Glas- 
 gow, 1638 : appointing that such as shall be found not applying their doctrine to 
 coiTuptions, which is the pastoral gift, ... be censured according to the degree of 
 their faults," &c. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 443 
 
 paragement of the sermons preached in the Church of Scotland 
 from the Reformation to the Revolution, they at least fulfilled 
 well their disciplinary purpose. They kept the people well 
 acquainted with Scripture, and brought home to the minds of 
 hearers the precepts and promises of the gospel for moral 
 guidance and spiritual comfort. 
 
 And by other means than preaching did the Reformed 
 Church, both in Scotland and elsewhere, endeavour to in- 
 struct the community in the knowledge of Christ, so as to 
 draw outsiders into her fold, and build up her members in 
 sound doctrine. One of the most effective of these other 
 means of instruction was the public reading of the Word. 
 For at least 200 years before the Reformation, the Catholic 
 Church in this country had shown herself very reluctant 
 to place the Bible in the hands of the people. Not only were 
 translations of the Scripture into English, such as Tyndale's 
 Testament, publicly burned — on the alleged ground that they 
 were mistranslations of the divine word and were devised 
 for the propagation of heresy — but ecclesiastical acts, and 
 civil acts promoted at the instance of ecclesiastical persons, 
 were passed, which practically made the reading of Scripture 
 in anything but the Latin version (called the Vulgate) a penal 
 offence.^ In Scotland the public reading of God's word was, 
 in 1536, positively prohibited; so that the Duke of Norfolk, 
 writing from Berwick in 1540, said in one of his letters, 
 "Daily cometh unto me some gentlemen and some clerks 
 which do ilee out of Scotland, as they say, for reading the 
 Scriptures in English, saying that if they were taken they 
 would be put to execution."'^ And although, in 1543, there 
 
 ^ In 1414 it was declared in England that all who presumed to read the Scriptures 
 in their mother tongue should "forfeit land, catel, lif, and goods from theyr heyres for 
 ever." During the reign of Henry VIII., English versions of the Bible were alternately 
 allowed and disallowed to be read. The Great Bible, published in 1539, was specially 
 authorized by the King to be used iu chmches; and all the clergy were requii-ed to 
 have a copy of " the same sett up in summe convenient place within the churches that they 
 had the cure of, whereat their parishioners might most commodiously resort to the 
 same and rede yt." Four years later an Act was passed by Parliament for the 
 " advancement of true religion," in which it was declaimed that " no manner of persons 
 . . . should take upon them to read openly to others in any church or open assembly, 
 within any of the King's dominions, the Bible or any part of the Scripture in English, 
 unless he was so appointed thereunto by the King or by any ordinary." Women and 
 apprentices were by this Act, 1543, debarred even from a private perusal of the Bible 
 at home. 
 
 2 F.adie's " English Bible," i. 416. 
 
444 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 was an Act of relief passed, which made it "lawful to all 
 our Sovereign Lady's lieges to have the Holy Writ, both of 
 the New Testament and the Old, in the vulgar tongue, in the 
 English or Scottish, of a good and true translation, and that 
 they shall incur no crimes for the having or reading of the 
 same," the Catholic Church, nevertheless, gave no countenance 
 to the English translations of the Bible, nor endeavoured to 
 instruct her members in the knowledge of divine Scripture. 
 Even so late as 1582, when the English Catholics "scattered 
 abroad " felt it necessary to issue the New Testament in an 
 Euslish version of their own, the translators were frank 
 enough, in the preface to their work, to confess that the Holy 
 Church, while not positively forbidding Catholic translations 
 of the Scriptures, did not allow "the publishing or reading 
 of any absolutely, and without exception or limitation." 
 They also recited the declaration of the Council of Trent, 
 " that the Holy Scriptures, though truly and catholicly trans- 
 lated into vulgar tongues, yet may not be indifferently read 
 of all men, nor of any other than such as have express license 
 thereunto of their lawful ordinances." In the fact, however, 
 that Protestants universally took their stand upon Scripture 
 as the ground of their faith and teaching, it was implied 
 that the reading of Scripture should be part of the Eeformed 
 ecclesiastical discipline. Accordingly, in every religious service 
 held by the reformers portions of Scripture were read. In 
 every well-ordered Protestant house there were family prayers, 
 usually at meals, at which there was a "chapter read, and 
 every man about gave his note and observation upon it."^ In 
 the First Book of Discipline the views of the Scottish reformers 
 in regard to the reading of Scripture are explicitly stated as 
 follows, chap. xi. sec. vi. : — " We think it most expedient and 
 necessary that every kirk have the Bible in English, and that the 
 people be commanded to convene and hear the plain reading and 
 interpretation of the Scripture, as the Kirk shall appoint ; for by 
 
 ^ A counterpart to this custom, or possibly the immediate origin of it, will be 
 found in a Catholic ordinance. The Catholic Church urged on her clerg}' the duty 
 of reading the Scriptures in the Authorized Version thereof — that is, in the Latin 
 Vulgate ; and one of the canons passed at the Provincial National Council held at 
 Edinburgh in 1.549, was to the effect that " the clergy are to observe the decree 
 of the Third Council of Toledo, which enjoins the reading of Holy Scripture during 
 meals." — Belleskeim's ^'■History of the Catholic Church of Scotland" ii. 203. 
 
TIIS DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 445 
 
 frequent readiag, this grosse ignorance, which in this cursed 
 Papistrie hath overflowed all, may partly be removed. "We 
 thinke it most expedient that the Scripture be read in order, 
 that is, that some one book of the Old or New Testament 
 be begun and orderly read to the end; and the same we 
 judge of preaching, ... for this skipping and divaga- 
 tion from place to place of Scripture, be it in reading or be 
 it^in preaching, we judge not so profitable to edifie the Kirk 
 as the continual following of one text." 
 
 Along with the reading and preaching of the word, the 
 fathers of the Eeformed Church in Scotland enjoined the 
 catechising of the young. But this excellent practice was 
 not peculiar either to Scotland or the Eeformed Church. It 
 is at the present day, and has all along been, part of the 
 Catholic discipline.^ It is enjoined in the English Prayer-book 
 also. " The same rule is observed by the Belgick Church; and so 
 did the Palatine divines advise at the Synod at Dort, that it 
 should be an afternoon exercise." ^ WhOe in most churches this 
 catechising has been relegated to the afternoon or evening diet of 
 worship, it was not so, or at least not universally so, in the Ee- 
 formed Church of Scotland. In 1578 the kirk session of Aber- 
 deen ordained that " howoft the prayers be read on the Sunday 
 in time coming, the reader shall read a portion of the Catechism, 
 and the bairnis shall answer him." And so also in 1599, the 
 Presbytery of St. Andrews, in response to a local petition, 
 licensed the schoolmaster of Porgan to " catechise the barnes of 
 the parochin, upon Sundays hefore the sermonth." So recently 
 as 1747 a recommendation was issued by the Presbytery of 
 Ayr to all ministers and congregations within the Presbytery's 
 bounds, " that the ancient good custom of repeating the Cate- 
 chism in church on the Lord's Day, hefore sermon in the forenoon, 
 and betwixt sermons" should be revived.^ And not only was the 
 
 ^ Catechising is one of the duties of pastors, and it is usually discharged in Sunday- 
 schools on Sunday afternoon. — Smith's ^''Elements of Ecclesiastical Law^' i 
 
 * '' Alliance of Divine OiSces," cap. iv. letter A. 
 
 ' The Catechism, however, vcas sometimes associated specially vrith the afternoon ser- 
 vice in Scotland, as well as elsewhere. In the First Book of Discipline, 1660, it was 
 declared that " after noone must the young children be publicly examined in their Cate- 
 chism in the audience of the people, in doing whereof the minister must take great 
 diligence, as well to cause the people understand the questions proponed as the answers, 
 and the doctrine that may be collected thereof." In July, 1580, the General Assembly 
 enacted that " for as meikle as . . . the people are not dewlie instructed in the 
 
446 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 Eeformed Church of Scotland assiduous in the dissemination of 
 religious knowledge, by the reading and preaching of the word 
 and the catechising of the young, but she made it part of her 
 edificational discipline to establish week-day schools, so that all 
 the youth in her communion might be able to exercise intelli- 
 gently that right of private judgment for which she contended. 
 Her labours in the way of founding and fostering schools are 
 well known, although acknowledged in some quarters with 
 scant cordiality; but it is necessary to emphasize the fact 
 that the education she desiderated was religious, far more than 
 secular. It was her voice that was heard in all education acts, 
 of either Council or Parliament, from the Eeformation to the 
 Revolution; and in the~ preamble of the Education Act, 1567, 
 it is said that if the young be not brought up in the fear of 
 God, and in good manners, and have not God's word rooted in 
 their hearts and minds, all learning is but " tinsel baith of their 
 bodies and saulis." 
 
 It is not out of place to remark here that, besides public 
 instruction, private instruction in duty and comfort have at all 
 times been less or more made use of in the Church, for the purpose 
 of edificational discipline. The manner in which this instruc- 
 tion was conveyed by the Church before the Eeformation was 
 very different from what it has been ever since. In the 
 Catholic Church the vehicle of almost all private religious 
 instruction was the priest, and the place of such instruction 
 was the confessional. There the intellectually perplexed, or 
 spiritually distressed, believer poured secretly into the ear of 
 the priest a full and confidential account of all his doubts and 
 difficulties, all his misgivings and fears, all his sins and short- 
 comings, and solicited from his father in God ghostly direc- 
 tion and help. So important a part of edificational discipline 
 was this private conference accounted by the Catholic Church 
 that, in 1215, a General Council ordained confession to be 
 made once a year at least by every one of the faithful. And 
 in some branches of the Eeformed Church people were allowed 
 
 Catechism and rudiments of religion, all pastors and ministers sail diligently and 
 zealously travell with their flocks to convene to the aftemoones sermones," &c. In 1604 
 an ordinance was emitted by the kirk session of Aberdeen, that "every Sabbath afttr- 
 noon, between the second and third bell, twa scholars of the English school sail stand up 
 before the pulpit, the ane demanding, the other answering with a loud voice in the 
 audience of the people, the short catechism, and form of examination of children." 
 
THE DISCiniNE OF THE CHURCH. 447 
 
 the privilege of confession, if they thought it a benefit. In 
 some of the great Protestant families of England, domestic 
 confessors were retained for more than a hundred years after 
 the Eeformation. But auricular confession was never allowed 
 or countenanced by the Scottish reformers. It was uniformly 
 denounced as a Popish invention ; and in the National Cove- 
 nant of 1580 it is specially mentioned as one of the things 
 detested and refused by " every one of us underwritten." So 
 impressed were the fathers and founders of the Eeformed 
 Church of Scotland with the evils attendant on the confes- 
 sional, that they gave to that ecclesiastical tribunal no place 
 whatever in their constitutions and books of discipline. 
 Instead of directing the people to wait on the priest, and speak 
 to him " in the ear," making confession unto salvation, ministers 
 and elders were enjoined to visit people in their own houses, 
 and there to "reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all long-suffering 
 and doctrine." In these pastoral visitations people were spoken 
 to in a more direct manner than was either expedient or 
 possible in a public sermon from the pulpit. Each individual's 
 negligence and shortcomings in the way of Christian duty were 
 pointed out; and his high calling in Christ was appealed to, 
 as a strong motive to run with patience the race set before him 
 in the Gospel. 
 
 Another form of discipline appointed for the faithful, both 
 in the Catholic Church and the Eeformed, is fasting. In the 
 Catholic Church in Scotland before the Eeformation there 
 were periodical fasts without number. There was the annual 
 fast of the forty days of Lent, and there were weekly fasts 
 on Wednesdays and Fridays. These fasts, being restrictions 
 on the enjoyment of worldly luxuries and gaieties, and par- 
 ticularly in the use of meats and drinks, were appointed as 
 manifestations of sorrow, and stimulants of devotional senti- 
 ment. The Wednesday's fast was designed to express the 
 Church's sorrow in her Lord's betrayal ; the Friday's fast, her 
 sorrow in His crucifixion ; and the Lenten fast, her sorrow 
 in His subjection to the power of death for a season. So 
 with other fasts : they betokened sorrow in some matter with 
 which they were associated. The thoughts of the faithful, 
 
 being impressively directed to these subjects of sorrow, were 
 
 81 
 
448 THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 supposed to be spiritualized by fasting. It need scarcely be 
 said that, in respect of the observance of days and months, either 
 by fasting or feasting, the educational discipline of the Ee- 
 formed Church of Scotland differs radically and widely from 
 that of the Catholic Church. Amono; the things named in 
 the First Book of Discipline as behoving " to be utterly abol- 
 ished from this realm, because in God's Scriptures they neither 
 have countenance nor assurance," is "the superstitious observ- 
 ance of fasting days." In their dislike of these unauthorized 
 forms of discipHne, the Scottish reformers went so far as 
 to call them abominations, and gravely declared that "the 
 obstinate maintainers and teachers of them ought not to escape 
 the punishment of the civil magistrate !" Fasting was, never- 
 theless, acknowledged by these reformers as, in certain cases, 
 an authorized form of divine worship, and a lawful means of 
 profitable discipline. What they contended against was the 
 institution of perpetual fasts without positive precept for them 
 in Scripture. There is no order, they alleged, for the com- 
 memoration, by fasting, of either our Lord's betrayal or our 
 Lord's crucifixion, or our Lord's subjection to the power of 
 death. But there is authority, they maintained, for the 
 appointment of fasts as forms of humiliation and penitence 
 on account of special sins and provocations of divine mercy ;^ 
 and these fasts were tacitly, if not avowedly, declared to be . 
 disciplinary, in so far as they were meant to bring home to 
 men a sense of their sinfulness, and awaken in them a long- 
 ing for righteousness. Being once allowed as warrantable 
 in certain circumstances, they were, without formality, renewed 
 on a recurrence of circumstances precisely similar. They were 
 recognized as lawful preparations for special solemnities, such 
 as, in the times of the first reformation, the ordination of 
 ministers ; and, in the times closely succeeding the second 
 reformation, the celebration of the Lord's Supper. At 
 their first institution in the Eeformed Church they were 
 fasts indeed. Some of the Catholic fasts had, through long 
 observance, lost a little of their pristine austerity. The rigours 
 
 ^ In appointing fasts, the courts of the Church, from the Reformation down to very 
 recent times, were in the habit of vindicating their act by a preamble setting forth suffi 
 cient reasons and causes. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF TUE CIIUnCH. 449 
 
 of Lent were, unhappily, associated with the jollities of the 
 preceding carnival. The Friday's abstinence was little else 
 than a name. But there was no sham nor make-believe, for 
 many a day at least, in the fasts appointed by the Eeformed 
 Church in Scotland. On the 25th December, 1565 (the better 
 day the better deed !), a committee of eight ministers was 
 appointed by the General Assembly to "collect the causes 
 of a public fast." These causes were found by the committee 
 to be the people's tolerance of idolatry, the Queen's resolution 
 to maintain and defend the religion in which she was nourished, 
 the intention of the powers that then were to suppress the 
 Eeformation all through Europe, and the prevalence of wicked- 
 ness in the land, so that " whoredom and adulterie were reck- 
 oned but pastymes of the flesh, and slaughter and murder 
 were esteemed small sins to anie man that had a friend in 
 court." ^ It was then remitted to John Knox and John Craig 
 to " sett down the forme of the exercise to be usit at the fast ; " 
 and from what is printed in this form we can well realize 
 the rigours of that self-denying ordinance. "The abstinence," 
 it said, " is commanded to be from Saturday at eight of the 
 clock at niglit, till Sunday after the exercise at afternoon — 
 that is, after five of the clock (ticenty-one hours) ; and then 
 only bread and drink to be used, and that with great sobriety, 
 that the body craving necessary food, the soul may be provoked 
 earnestly to crave of God that which it most needeth. . . . 
 Men that will observe this exercise may not any of the two 
 days use any kind of games, but exercise themselves after the 
 public assemblies in private meditation with their God.- Gor- 
 geous apparel would be abstained from during the whole time 
 of our humiliation, which is from one Sunday in the morning 
 till the next Sunday at night ; albeit that the straitness of 
 abstinence is to be kept but two days only."' Both the 
 duration and the form of this fast became, for ever so long 
 afterwards in the Church of Scotland, the model of all subse- 
 quent public fasts. 
 
 ^ Calderwood's " History," ii. 305. 
 
 2 It is evident that at this date Scottish Protestantism did not forbid games on Sunday 
 after public worship. 
 
 ^ In the Catholic Church fasting was strictly forbidden on Sunday. The Protestants 
 made Sunday the special day of fasting on this occasion; and on future occasions 
 frequently, if not generally. 
 
450 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUr.CII. 
 
 In March, 1569 (1568, old style), a similar fast to that 
 of 1566 was appointed by Act of Assembly. This fast was 
 " to continow from the first day to that day aucht dayes inclu- 
 sive, and in the nieane tyme (people were) to use the exercise 
 accustomed in the kirk of the first institutione." Superin- 
 tendents and commissioners of provinces, moreover, were 
 authorized to "hereafter institute and use the same order 
 of fasting, so oft as just occasion sail serve, and sail seme meit 
 be their godlie wisdome, without any further appointment by 
 the General Assembly."^ Sometimes the Lord's Supper was 
 appointed to be " ministred upon the same day " as the fast ; 
 and this circumstance has led at least one high authority on 
 questions of Church usage into the strange mistake of sup- 
 posing that, as far back as 1574, "a fast was ordinarily observed 
 in connection with the Communion." ^ The particular state- 
 ment specially founded on for this conclusion is the reply of 
 the minister at St. Andrews, iu 1574, to certain inquiries 
 about his alleged neglect to hold a fast appointed by Act of 
 Assembly. "The fast," he said, "wes observit and concludit 
 (although not on the day named) with ye ministration of ye 
 supper of the Lord, according to ye order observit hidderto in 
 our kirk." This does not mean that a preparatory sacramental 
 fast was part of the order of Communion observed in the 
 Church, but that the fast enjoined by the Assembly was- 
 observed according to the order of Knox and Craig's model, 
 with a Communion service added thereto. 
 
 In the discipline of the Reformed Church of Scotland fasts 
 have bulked more largely during some periods of her history 
 than during others. At the present day they have well-nigh 
 disappeared from Church life. They are never associated now 
 with the ordination of ministers, and they are seldom enjoined 
 as a preparation for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. They 
 
 1" Book of Universall Kirk," Peterkin's edition. Knox and Craig's order was printed 
 and inserted in tlie Psalm-book for convenient use when needed. 
 
 2 While a Communion service, when it could be " done convenientlie," was sometimes 
 added to the exercise of a fast (Calderwood, vol. ii., p. 324:), a fast, on the other 
 hand, was sometimes, for special re.isons, conjoined with the Communion solemnity. 
 On 7th December, 1574, the Kirk, or Kirk Session as would now be said, of Edinburgh, 
 made arrangements for the celebration of a Communion, and thereafter minuted that 
 ''ye Kirk has tboclit g^uid, /oirseand ye greit appeiraiid plage and scourge of pest, &c., 
 (to ordain), with ye celebration of ye holy table, ane publict fast and humiliation for the 
 space of aucht dayes." 
 
THE DISCII'LIXE OF THE CHUECH. 451 
 
 are rarely appointed by the state, either on account of the 
 prevalence of national sins or the imminence of national 
 danger. It was in the later times of the Covenants, from 
 1651 to 1689, that they were most frequent and popular. There 
 were then parochial, presbyterial, synodical, and national fasts 
 on almost every pretext. Monthly fasts were instituted in 
 some places without narrative of special causes; and these 
 fasts lingered on here and there till after the Eevolution. The 
 AVestminster divines, while sitting in conclave on the consti- 
 tutions of the Church, had monthly fasts ; and in 1654 the 
 Protesters were instructed by their leaders to have monthly 
 fasts also. One parish that was blessed with the acceptable 
 services of a zealous Protesting minister was Fenwick; and 
 in the records of that lone and moorland parish there' is a 
 minute, of date 1693, showing that, in the said year of grace, 
 a man was summoned before the session for "driving kine 
 to Strathaven mercat upon the monthly fast in Julie in°stant." 
 And the disciplinary purpose of these fasts is quite apparent. 
 They were meant to awaken and sustain religious concern, 
 to keep believers from lapsing into worldly-mindedness, and 
 to preserve in the grace wherein they stood those that had 
 tasted the good word of God. 
 
 Allied to fasting, there have, in different ages, been instituted 
 or sanctioned by the Church certain forms of voluntary service 
 and self-sacrifice as means of edificational discipline. In the 
 lioman Catholic Church, rites and ceremonies have been multi- 
 plied with this view. Forms of asceticism, too, have been com- 
 mended for mortification of the flesh and quickening of the spirit. 
 On this theory monasticism was founded, and continues to 
 this day an institution in the Eoman Catholic Church. On 
 the questions of ritualism and monasticism, the Scottish Ee- 
 formers were at broad issue with their Catholic adversaries. 
 They regarded all rites and ceremonies not enjoined in Scrip- 
 ture with the greatest horror. While the English Eeformers 
 in their preface to the Prayer-book, modestly advanced reasons 
 why certain ceremonies in the worship of God should be 
 retained and others abolished, the Scottish Eeformers, along 
 Avith Calvin, regarded the retention of all such vanities as an 
 unholy delight in Popish dregs. To monasticism, the Scottish 
 
452 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCH. 
 
 Eeformers were equally opposed. The Eeformatiou, it has heen 
 said, was " a death-war against monachism," and so the Scottish 
 Eeformers not only resolved to oust all monks from their 
 retreats, but to level with the ground all monastic buildings. 
 It must be admitted, however, that while monastic life has 
 been uniformly banned in the Eeformed Church of Scotland, 
 there has, at particular periods, been inculcated in her pulpits 
 a sentiment closely akin to that on which monasticism is 
 founded. In the days of the Eeformation, it was a complaint 
 of Queen Mary's that in Scotland "she saw nothing but 
 oravitie. which she could not weille agree with, for she was 
 brought up in joyousitie." ^ And in the days of the second 
 Eeformation, and of the age immediately succeeding, the 
 " gravitie " complained of by Mary was a still more prominent 
 feature in Scottish religion. It breathes through the writings 
 of Eutherford, Durham, and Brodie, and through the sermons 
 of Peden, Cameron, and Cargill. It is climacterically expressed 
 in a sentence scornfully quoted by Mr. Buckle from the 
 writings of a Covenanting minister, whose works are now, 
 except by a very few antiquated ecclesiastics, utterly forgotten : 
 "The world is a dangerous thing, and a great evil, and the 
 comforts of it are a hell." This doctrine being premised, men 
 are logically constrained to "suspect whatever pleases the 
 senses," and to consider all joy and happiness as soul-de- 
 stroying. For many a day the influence of this teaching was 
 apparent in religious life in Scotland. And the discipline 
 was in one direction salutary. It made Scotsmen men when 
 they came to man's estate. It checked frivolity, restrained 
 worldliness, and produced in people a healthy stoicism and a 
 lofty spirituality. 
 
 It remains to be said that, in all Christian Churches, the most 
 potent instrument of edificational discipline is the sacrament of 
 Communion. Like prayer, that ordinance may be regarded as a 
 form of worship. It is a solemn way of naming the name of 
 Christ, and of rendering to Christ a species of homage to which 
 none but Christ has claim. But it is a disciplinary ordinance 
 also. It is designed to build up men in faith and comfort, to 
 prevent their falling into indifference and unconcern, and to keep 
 
 ^ CalJerwooJ, ii. 159. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 453 
 
 their hearts united to Christ in love and sympathy. In respect 
 of the theory of this sacrament, there is a wide difference be- 
 tween the doctrine held in the Eoman Catholic Church and that 
 held in the Eeformed Church of Scotland. In respect of the 
 way in which the, sacrament is administered, too, there is an 
 equally wide difference in the practice of the two Churches. 
 The Catholic holds that in this sacrament, or " mystery," the 
 bread and wine, when consecrated by sacerdotal blessing, are 
 "transubstantiated" into the very body and blood of the Ee- 
 deeraer; so that the communicant, in eating that bread, does, 
 in a corporal and carnal sense of the term, become partaker of 
 his Saviour's flesh. He may well believe, therefore, that a 
 miraculous sanctifying influence comes over him every time 
 he takes part in the ordinance. The " mystery," too, discloses 
 itself to him as a veritable sacrifice, an offering up of Christ 
 again for the special benefit of those that kneel before the altar. 
 To the Protestant churchman the ordinance has no such tran- 
 scendental significance. The rite performed is not a sacrifice, 
 but only the memorial of one. The elements undergo no 
 transformation, and it is only by faith that the communicant 
 becomes partaker of his Saviour's flesh and blood, with all their 
 benefits, for spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. But 
 in both Churches the ordinance is disciplinary. It is solemn 
 and impressive ; it requires preparation for worthy observance ; 
 it leads men to realize their spiritual relationship to Christ and 
 God; it reminds them of their low and lost estate by nature, 
 of their redemption therefrom through Christ, of their high 
 calling in the gospel, and of their blessed hope which maketh 
 not ashamed. Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, 
 the communicant is changed from glory to glory, even as if by 
 the operation of the Lord's spirit. 
 
 It is the disciplinary theory of this sacrament that mainly 
 determines the frequency with which it should be administered. 
 Were the Communion only an act of worship and an expression 
 of reverential and grateful homage, it could not be too fre- 
 quently celebrated. If the mere opus operatum, again, the mere 
 act of eating transubstantiated bread canonically put into the 
 mouth, did any one good it would be impossible to go too fre- 
 quently to the altar or the table. But if the benefits anticipated 
 
454 THE DISCIPLINE or THE CIIUECII. 
 
 to ourselves are in any way dependent on the feelings evoked in 
 our own hearts by the associations of the ordinance, it will 
 become an open question whether daily, weekly, monthly, 
 quarterly, or annual celebration is most advantageous. Some 
 may argue that we cannot be too often brought into a highly 
 spiritualized frame of mind, and that it would be well to have 
 the Communion daily or weekly administered. Others may 
 contend that too frequent repetition impairs the solemnity of 
 the ordinance, and that more good will be got reflexively by 
 occasional than by very frequent celebration. The Eeformed 
 Church of Scotland, unlike the Catholic Church, has all along 
 practically declared for the latter of these views. In the First 
 Book of Discipline, 1560, it was stated by the Scottish Eefor- 
 mers that " foure times in the year we think sufficient to the 
 administration of the Lord's table." And there must have 
 been very few, if any, churches in Scotland in which the Com- 
 munion was, subsequent to the Eeformation, celebrated so often 
 as that. Once a year must have been much nearer the common 
 rule ; and, strange to say, there were many parishes, even from 
 the beginning of the Eeformation, in which this valuable ordin- 
 ance was not administered for a series of years. As early as 
 1565 some ministers were ordered by the General Assembly to 
 be tried and censured "for not ministering the Communion 
 for six years bypast." ^ And as time wore on greater irregu- 
 larities than that came to light. Both in the perfervid period 
 of the Covenants and Protestations, and in the lukewarm age 
 preceding the Secessions, there were parishes in which the 
 Lord's Supper had not been administered for eight, ten, twelve, 
 or even sixteen years.^ As in the days of the first, so in the 
 days of the second Eeformation, and for some time after, a 
 celebration twice a year was what the Church aimed at. In 
 1642 one minister within the bounds of the Presbytery of Ayr 
 " regraited " that the Communion was not celebrated twice in 
 the year in his parish, and expressed his willingness that it 
 should, if the parishioners would only " pay their part for the 
 
 1 Calderwood, ii., 291. 
 
 ^ For sixteen years (1756-72) the Rev. William Boyd was minister of Carsphairn, 
 and during the whole of that period the Lord's Supper was never once celebrated in 
 the parish (" Fasti Ecclesiae "). And there were strict laws in the church (1712, XI. ; 
 and 1751, VII.), requirinf^ ministers to administer the sacrament once a year at least. 
 
THE DISCiniNE OF THE CHUKCH. 455 
 
 furnishing of the elements, according to the directions of the 
 platt." The year following another minister was admonished, 
 by the same Presbytery, to give his people an opportunity of 
 communicating twice a year.^ There is reason to believe, how- 
 ever, that neither in the seventeenth nor the eighteenth cen- 
 turies were half-yearly Communions general over the Church 
 of Scotland for any length of time. There is positive evidence, 
 also, that in both centuries there were many parishes in which 
 every other year there was no Communion at all." It is quite 
 clear, therefore, that during the greater part of her history the 
 Reformed Church of Scotland was not so assiduous as, from her 
 zeal of God, might have been expected, in using the most 
 potent of all her means of edificational discipline. 
 
 But if Communions were in the Church of Scotland, for the 
 first 200 years of her history, celebrated with less regularity and 
 less frequency than in other Churches, they certainly were not 
 celebrated with any less show of solemnity. On the contrary, 
 it may be questioned if in any Church the Lord's Supper was 
 ever administered with more quickening and spiritualizing 
 effects than it was in the Church of Scotland during that 
 period. The day of Communion was a day to be remembered 
 in every parish. It was like one of the days of heaven on 
 earth. On that day ministers and people alike prepared them- 
 selves for an unusual inspiration. In the elevation of their 
 own spirits, they felt as men may be supposed to do when 
 they ascend the hill of God. The world seemed far behind 
 and far beneath them. The air they breathed was a mountain 
 atmosphere. And although on some occasions, especially 
 during the days of inter-parochial Communions last century, 
 when crowds of non-parishioners came pouring in from all 
 quarters to witness, if not take part, in the solemnity, there 
 were scenes of levity and disorder much to be lamented, the 
 service in itself was always impressive, and those that came 
 for a blessing seldom went away unblessed. In the train of 
 
 1" Old Church Life," First Series, 155. 
 
 2 So far as I can make out, the Communion was celebrated in Mauehline only five 
 times during the decade 1671-80 ; and during that time there was a very able and 
 zealous minister in the parish. At the visitation of the parish in 1723 it was stated 
 that there had been no Communion for three years. Between 1709 and 1716, eight 
 years, the Communion in the neighbouring parish of Tarbolton was celebrated only 
 three times. 
 
456 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 every army there are some disreputable camp-followers ; it is 
 not to be wondered at, therefore, that in the great Communion 
 gatherings of Scotland a century ago there were sight-seers 
 who neither came to the Lord's table nor conducted themselves 
 like the Lord's people.^ But that circumstance does not dis- 
 establish the fact that the Communion service as administered 
 in the Church of Scotland from the Eeformation in 1560 till 
 the Secession in 1843, was a most sanctifying and blessed 
 discipline. 
 
 While the service of Communion may be viewed in this light, 
 as a piece of edificational discipline designed to nurture men 
 in holiness and preserve them from falling into godlessness, it 
 may also be considered as a high Christian privilege, pertaining 
 rightfully to those only that are in a state of grace, and for 
 which some religious qualifications and preparatory training are 
 requisite. To be fit for communicating worthily at all times 
 is just equivalent to being brought into the state of grace and 
 kept in it. To bring and hold men up to the mark of fitness 
 for sacramental Communion may therefore be regarded as one 
 of the chief ends of edificational discipline; and we have accord- 
 ingly to inquire now, what means were employed for that 
 purpose by the Catholic and Eeformed Churches in Scotland 
 respectively ? 
 
 The Eeformers were much more strict than the Catholics 
 in excluding the ignorant from Communion. They not only 
 required the young to undergo and pass an examination on the 
 chief heads of religion, but they required all the members of 
 the congregation, whether old or young, and whether communi- 
 cating for the first or fiftieth time, to undergo examination 
 before each celebration of the ordinance. This requirement 
 continued in force, in some parts of Scotland at least, for about 
 two hundred years after the Eeformation. In 1710 an overture 
 was submitted to the Presbytery of Ayr to have the examina- 
 tion declared unessential. The terms of that overture, however, 
 show wliat a very slight relaxation of the old custom was 
 
 ^In 1595 an Act was passed by the Kirk Session of Galston, and revived in 1635, 
 that " in respect monie cumes to the Kirk on the Sabbath day, quha cumes not to the 
 heiring of the word, but contemes and wilfulHe absteines frae it, remaining at conference 
 in houses at drink ; therefore it is statute and ordainit that whosoever beis fnnden or 
 tryit drinkand or selland drink in tyme of divine service, everie one of them sail pay 
 I'ds. Ad. toties quoties, and make their repentance in the publict place." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 457 
 
 thought even then to be warrantable. " Every minister, know- 
 ing the time when it is expected the sacrament should be in his 
 parish, should," it said, " set himself forthwith to have all ready 
 for it, and the Presbytery ought to be exact in asking an 
 account of their diligence, and not easily put off with excuses, 
 which by too easie admission have become things of course. 
 And they not having examined all of the paroche every year is 
 not a sufficient argument for a delay of the work, for those who 
 have been examined and admitted before may be admitted of 
 new, upon the former evidence of their knowledge, and those 
 of whom the minister is doubtful, or who are known to be 
 ignorant, may be more easily overtaken ; hut this should hold 
 only in case of imlpable inahility to examine all, lest otherwide 
 it furnish encouragement to negligence." And how this exam- 
 ination was gone about or neglected, in different places at 
 different periods of the Church's history, may be gathered from 
 the following references to it in sessional and other records. 
 In 1566 the Communion was appointed to be celebrated in the 
 Canongate Church, Edinburgh, on the 5tli May. Two weeks 
 before that date, namely, on Sunday, the 21st April, "the kirk 
 ordained examination to begin afoir the Comonion, ordanyng 
 the minister publiclie to warn and exhort all commonicants to 
 cum and keep their aun quarter, with thair househalds, for guid 
 exampill given unto' the waiker."^ In 1595 the Kirk Session 
 of Perth found that, although there was a yearly trial of com- 
 municants before the celebration of the Lord's Supper, there were 
 nevertheless "sundry within the congregation ignorant of the 
 principles and grounds of religion;" and the session accordingly 
 thought good to institute, over and above their general conven- 
 tions of the people for sacramental examination, "particular 
 trials of particular persons within faiuilies, that all may be 
 instructed."" 
 
 There would seem in those days to have been " sundry " 
 ignorant people in Dunbarton also; but the kirk session 
 of that castled and well-mounted parish took, as beseemed 
 them, in 1620, a much more drastic way of dealing with 
 culpable ignorance than was taken by the mild-mannered 
 
 ^ I>ee's Lectures, vol. i. Appendix, p. 395. 
 2 Records of the Kii-k Session of Perth. Spottiswood Miscellanj. 
 
458 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUrvCH. 
 
 minister of Perth in 1595.^ They "ordained that everie per- 
 sonne being warned to come to the examination, if they refuse 
 to cum ane of the two dayes quhilk sail be appointed to them, 
 sail pay everie ane four shillings. Leikwayes that if any per- 
 sonne quho cumes to be examined be fund ignorant of the prayer, 
 belief, or commands, in that case they sail pay for everie ane 
 of thes quhereof they sail be ignorant twelve shillings, except 
 that within the space of sax weiks theraftir they lerne them." 
 
 It may be presumed that in some parts of the country, espe- 
 cially in the Laodicean times of the first Episcopacy, this pre- 
 Communion examination of all and sundry was not gone about 
 in a very rigorous, if even in a strictly regular way. Aberdeen 
 was one of the strongholds of Episcopacy ; and when Cant, the 
 Covenanter, was settled there in 1641, some of the Aberdonians 
 complained that he gave them no communion for two years, 
 " quhill first thay wer weill catechist, becaus he alledgit thay 
 war ignorant."^ And the Aberdonians, just because "thay war 
 ignorant," never got over the idea that Cant's catechising was 
 a novation ; for so late as 1655, the provost, magistrates, and 
 council, in a protest which they entered on their minutes against 
 Cant's customs, specially mentioned his refusal to admit to the 
 Communion all that would not " in ane pharisaical way offer 
 themselves to be tried by him, and those whom he called his 
 elders." 
 
 Over the country generally, however, these pre-Communion 
 examinations were common in the days of Mr. Cant. At 
 the Presbyterial visitation of an Ayrshire parish in 1644, 
 complaint was made against the minister, because he had no 
 " catechising but once in the year by examination before the 
 Communion." In 1642 the kirk session of another Ayrshire 
 parish, which happened then to be vacant, petitioned the pres- 
 bytery to allow the sacrament to be administered in their 
 church, " because the people were all examined " by the proba- 
 tioner who was supplying the pulpit. This pre-Communion 
 
 ^ Mr. John Malcolm, a sinpnlarly affectionate and pious, as well as learned man. It 
 was of him that Andrew Melville wrote : — 
 
 Perdius, et pernox dux pregis inter oves, 
 Voce doces vivus, scriptis post fata docebis. 
 
 — See " Fasti Ecclesitc." 
 ^ Spalding's Memorials, ii. 156. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 459 
 
 examination, it may be remarked, was not a custom in all 
 Protestant Churches, nor even in all Puritan Churches, during 
 the seventeenth century. Baillie tells us that in his day the 
 Independents had no catechising before their sacrament of the 
 Supper. That exercise was below their condition, and they 
 were " so happy as to have all their members prepared always 
 sufficiently for the Lord's table, from their first entrance into 
 their Church to their dying day."^ This helps to explain why 
 in the "Westminster Directory, in the compilation of which the 
 Independents had a hand, there is no reference to this examina- 
 tion as part of the sacramental preparation required of com- 
 municants. But in adopting the Westminster Directory, the 
 General Assembly, in 1645, specially ordained that " congre- 
 gations be still tried and examined before the Communion, 
 according to the bygone practice of this Kirk." This examina- 
 tion is perhaps as needful yet as it ever was ; for with all the 
 educational zeal that is abroad, the community at large are less 
 acquainted with the Scriptures now than they were forty years 
 ago. But the sacramental examination is a thing of the past, 
 which cannot be revived. Its continuance in the Eeformed 
 Church of Scotland for two hundred years is a striking illustra- 
 tion of the rational principles on which that Church is based; 
 for it is a declaration that whatever be the religious service in 
 which we take part, whether it be prayer or praise, Communion 
 or benefaction, we should engage in it with understanding as 
 well as reverence. 
 
 Previous to the Communion, and as a preparation thereunto, 
 people were, by the Scottish Eeformers and their successors, en- 
 joined to clear themselves of every matter of scandal or reproach, 
 however slight. It is understood that in early times the 
 Catholic Church required her members to make private con- 
 fession to the priest before they went to the altar. ^ For gener- 
 
 1 "Letters," ii. 91, and " Dissuasive" (1645), 121. 
 
 *A fine account of the old preparation for Communion is attributed to Queen Margaret 
 of Scotland (1069-93) iu a conference witLi some ecclesiastics about Communion at 
 Easter. '• It is," said the Queen, " the man who partakes of the holy mysteries 
 carrying with him the defilements of his sins, without confession or penance, that eateth 
 and drinketh judgment to himself. But we, who many days before have confessed our 
 sins, have cleansed our souls by penance, and washed away our stains by almsgiving and 
 many tears, and then on Easter Day draw near in Catholic faith to the table of the 
 Lord and receive the body of the Lamb without spot ; we eat and drink not to judgmeut, 
 but to the remission of our sius." (Bellcsheim, I 248.) 
 
4G0 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ations before the Eeformation, however, this private confession 
 was not demanded. The only pre-Communion confession 
 appointed was the general confession in the liturgy, which 
 was read over by the priest before the Mass was celebrated. 
 In the Church of Scotland, after the Eeformation, people that 
 were at variance were required to make peace with each other 
 before they were admitted to the sacrament.^ This was usually 
 done at a meeting of kirk session, but sometimes there was 
 a congregational convention appointed for the purpose. The 
 kirk session of Canongate, for instance, in 1611, made an Act, 
 ''concerning ane general and publict meeting of the haill 
 honest neighbours within the congregation to assemble before 
 the Communion for tryell and removing of all eylists and offences, 
 that sould happen to fall out, and for exhortation of the haill 
 neighbours to mutual peace and love, quhereby the celebration 
 of the holy Communion might proceed the more religiouslie, 
 to the glore of God and comfort of the haill people." Three 
 years afterwards, the same kirk session, referring to that Act, 
 and finding that such a meeting as is described therein was 
 " baith necessar and expedient at this first celebration of the 
 haly Communion, thocht meit and descernit, that upon Tysday 
 the 19 of Januar instant, thair be a publict convention of the 
 haill brethren and honest neighbours within this congregation, 
 for the causes foresaid — ^viz., quhatsoever offence or eylist 
 quhilk may be an impediment to the religious celebration 
 of the holy Communion now approaching, may be with honest 
 consent and harmony removit, the haill neighbours stirrit up, 
 and exhortit to Chrictiane and mutuall amitie, quhereby this 
 haly Communion may be the more Christianlie and devotely 
 celebrate, to the glore of God and comfort and contentment 
 of the haill congregation."^ 
 
 When reconciliations were made in the kirk session, the 
 procedure was very specific and sometimes very quaint. 
 In 1567 a man bearing the indefinite name of John 
 Smith was accused by the Kirk Session of Canongate "for 
 sclander geven be him to the Kirk, in molesting of Mungo 
 
 ^ In section 23 of the Confession of Faith, 1560, it was said : — " Suche as eats or 
 drinke at that holie table without faith, or being at dissensioun and divisioun with their 
 bretherin, doe eate unworthilie." (Calderwood, ii. 35.) 
 
 2 Lee's "Lectures," vol. i. Appendix, p. 397. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 461 
 
 Eid ; " and being present, answered : " I confes I have offendit 
 the kirk, and am willing to satisfy, and can nocht come 
 unto the tabill unto the tyme I be reconsilit, and in taken 
 I desir reconsiliation, and am content to gang to the said 
 Mungo, and say: Brother, I confes I have offendit you, and 
 therefor I desir you to forgif me that we may leif togeddir 
 as godle brether, and T desir sum of you to schaw the 
 same to Mungo." Sixty-seven years later, at the meeting 
 for removal of eylists in a rural parish in the West, a man was 
 accused of defaming a woman's character. The man confessed 
 the words complained of, but excused himself on the ground 
 that he was under the influence of drink when he spoke so 
 rashly. He then declared that " he kend nothing to hir but 
 honesty ; and therfoir he humbled himself befoir the sessioune, 
 and she tuke him up hy the hand." ^ The good gained by these 
 processes of reconciliation was great. Misunderstandings were 
 removed, hot blood was cooled, ruffled tempers were smoothed, 
 and people were brought into a fitter frame of mind for 
 approaching the Lord's table. But there were also some 
 attendant evils. Pretexts were furnished for people's abstaining 
 from Communion, "under colour of deadly feuds and other 
 light causes." The underlying principle, too, sound within 
 certain limits but unsound beyond these limits, that people 
 should not have the, privilege of Communion unless they are 
 at peace with all men, was one of the reasons that ministers 
 gave for withholding the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from 
 their people for years at a time.^ 
 
 Certain religious exercises, too, were from a very early period 
 observed in the Eeformed Church of Scotland as part of the 
 pre-Communion discipline. One of the first of these exercises 
 to come into use was a service of public worship on the 
 
 ^ In 1643 two " parocheners of Cammonell refused to be reconciled, as they wer 
 delated by the minister, and wer ordained to be proceided against by admonition," 
 that is, with a view to their excommunication. Records (MS.) Pres. of Ayr. 
 
 2 How long this doctrine continued to be held in the Church of Scotland, that a 
 man's being at feud with another debars him ipso facto from the Lord's table, it is 
 diflacult to say. So recently as the year 1716, complaint was made to the Presbytery 
 of Ayr, by Lady Coilsfield, that her parish minister, the minister of Tarbolton, went 
 to the Lord's table at St. Evox, in July last, without seeking to have her husband, the 
 laird of Coilsfield, reconciled to him. It turned out, however, that the mini.ster was free 
 from blame in that matter, for " the very night in which Coilsfield did him injury, he 
 showed inclination to have all differences done away, and his overtures were declined." 
 C" Old Church Life," First Series, 123.) 
 
462 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 Saturday preceding the celebration. In the session records 
 of Canongate Church, for 1567, it was minuted that the 
 Communion would be administered on a certain specified 
 Sunday, and that "the exhortation would be given on the 
 Saturday afternoon afoir." ^ In the Ayrshire parish of Galston 
 the sacrament was, in 1634, administered on two successive 
 Sabbaths, and on the Saturday preceding each of these sacra- 
 mental Sabbaths there was a preparatory service in church. 
 Other instances to the like effect could easily be adduced.^ 
 And what the object of this preparatory service was, needs 
 scarcely be stated. It was designed to stir up devotional 
 feeling, to make people realize the purpose of their intended 
 Communion, and so enable the congregation to join in the 
 ordinance all the more worthily and beneficially. To this 
 preparatory service on the Saturday there came, in the course 
 of time, to be added another disciplinary exercise. This was 
 the sacramental fast, and it is not to be confounded with a more 
 ancient institution of similar name. There was an old custom 
 in the Catholic Church for communicants to receive the Com- 
 munion fasting. It was thought that, for the greater honour 
 of the sacrament, the transubstantiated bread should, on the 
 Communion day, have precedence of all other food. That 
 notion lingered for a while in the Eeformed Church of Scotland 
 also, and Communions were appointed to be held at such early 
 hours as five, four, and three in the morning. But the fast 
 here referred to was different, and it was held several days 
 before the Communion. It was a day of humihation and 
 prayer, sanctified by abstinence, and improved by preaching. 
 And probably parochial sacramental fasts were, in the Church 
 of Scotland, first held on the Sabbath preceding the Communion.^ 
 
 ^The expression "the exhortation" is given in this minute as a familiar phrase. In 
 1558 there was a brief address, entitled the •' Godlie Exhortation," published by the 
 authority of Archbishop Hamilton, the Catholic primate of Scotland, and " ordered to 
 be read by the clergy to the faithful before administering to them tlie Holy Communion" 
 (Bellesheim, ii. 2li0. Dr. Sprott states that it was about 1620 when the Saturday 
 preparation service came to be generally held in the Church of Scotland. 
 
 2 The Westminster Directory for Public Worship allows the preparatory service to be 
 held either on the Sabbath preceding the Communion, "or on some day of that week." 
 The General Assembly, however, in 1645, enacted that " there be one sermon of preparation, 
 delivered in the ordinary place of public worship, upon the day immediatehj preceding.'' 
 
 3 Long ago people held private fasts as preparations for Communion. In 1634 
 John Livingstone had a dav of private fasting and prayer on the Saturday before a 
 Communion: and in 1C52 Brodie of Brodie made the Monday before a Communion 
 a day of fasting and humiliatiou. 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 4G3 
 
 As far back as 1626, the Sabbath before the Communion 
 is, in the records of Galston parish, called " the day of 
 fast;" and in the records of the same parish for 1645, a 
 still more explicit expression is found : " Sunday, the first 
 of June, heing the fast before the Communio7i." So late as 1673 
 Sunday sacramental fasts continued to be held in that exem- 
 plary parish. On the Monday after the Communion in that 
 year, there was entered in the kirk register a minute regarding 
 the collections lifted "upon Sabbath was eight days, being 
 the Fast day, and upon Saturday, Sabbath, and this day." 
 In 1651, however, or shortly after that date, some of the 
 Protesters (so called because of their protestation against the 
 public resolution to receive into the army all fencible per- 
 sons, who were not excommunicated, notoriously profane, or 
 professed opposers of the Covenant) appointed a fast to be 
 held on the Wednesday before their Communion. This fast, 
 accompanied " with prayer and sermons for about eight or ten 
 hours together,"^ gave a new and special solemnity to the 
 ordinance ; and fasts thereafter rose so much in favour with 
 devout people that, without any ecclesiastical appointment, 
 they came to be a universal preliminary to the celebration 
 of the Lord's Supper. And well did they serve their end for 
 many a day. People took occasion on these fasts to call their 
 sins to remembrance, and to consider their unworthiness of 
 the Saviour's love. This humiliation stirred up penitence, and 
 led to vows of new obedience ; and so, on the Sabbath following, 
 communicants went well disciplined to their high vocation. 
 Since the introduction of railways, sacramental fasts have been 
 gradually losing their sanctity and their sanctifying influence; 
 and they have even been perverted to uses the very opposite 
 of their first intention. So in many parishes they have been dis- 
 continued as a degradation of the sacrament and a scandal. 
 
 It will now be seen that in respect both of fulness and 
 fitness, the edificational discipline of the Church in Scotland 
 since the Picformation compares favourably with the edificational 
 discipline that was in use before the Eeformation. The former 
 of these statements may possibly appear doubtful. It may be 
 thought by some people that whatever may have been the 
 
 ^ Burnet's " History of his Own Times." 
 85 
 
464: THE EISCIPLIXE OF THE CHUnCH. 
 
 character of the discipline for the faithful in the Church 
 in Scotland before the Preformation, there was at least more 
 of it than has ever been used in the Church since it was 
 reformed. There were so many religious orders or fraternities 
 with their respective rules — so many special days of solemnity 
 besides the Lord's Day — so many religious ceremonies — and so 
 many special calls to worship in the old Catholic Church which 
 have no place in the Church Eeformed, that one may be dis- 
 posed to conclude that Catholics before the Eeformation had a 
 fuller discipline for their spiritual nourishment than Protestants 
 have ever since enjoyed. The Catholic discipline, however, 
 made provision for the aspirations of the few, rather than for 
 the wants of the many. One of the broadest and deepest 
 differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, is that the 
 latter-named system throws on individual men far more personal 
 responsibility than does the former. To the multitude, Cathol- 
 icism practically says — " Go to the priest and seek the aids of 
 his priestly influence ; commit your souls unto him as unto a 
 faithful shepherd, and he, by his prayers and masses, will make 
 your calling and election sure." The common layman is thus 
 relieved of spiritual care. Unless he either falls into such gross 
 sin as demands a service of penance, or aspires to a more than 
 common measure of personal grace, he is made to believe that 
 he needs 710 spiritual discipline. Protestantism, on the other 
 hand, says to her children — " Every one of you must bear his 
 own burden ; every one of you must be judged by his own faith 
 and accompanying works ; every one of you must personally 
 make his peace with God through Christ ; every one of you 
 that seeks for glory and honour must cultivate holiness in the 
 fear of the Lord; and every one of you that desires to be owned 
 by Christ as a brother must walk worthy of the high vocation 
 wherewith you are called." Despite the fact, therefore, that 
 justification by faith is the cardinal doctrine of the Protestant, 
 and justification by works is the watchword of the Catholic, 
 personal sanctification bulks far more largely in Protestant than 
 in Catholic soteriology. Protestantism declares that there is no 
 way by which any man can compensate or compound for a life 
 of religious indifference — there is no priest but one to whom 
 a man can jro for availinjj intercession — there is no atonement 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 465 
 
 to be found in any prayers one can purchase, or in any amount 
 of masses one can pay for. Each individual must work out liis 
 own salvation with fear and trembling. Protestantism thus 
 tells men they have more to do personally than Catholicism 
 says they have; and the Protestant consequently feels a spiritual 
 discipline far more needful for him than the Catholic does. 
 He needs more safeguards, more guidance, more stimulation, 
 more enforced subjection to Christ; and what his Church 
 tells him he needs she endeavours to supply. She feeds him 
 with the sincere milk of the word ; she engages his heart in 
 prayers he can follow and understand ; she appoints him fasts 
 occasionally, for reasons he can appreciate; she gives him 
 knowledge, that he may in his own house become a priest unto 
 God ; she provides him with rational instead of mystical Com- 
 munions, that they may bring home to his mind the obligations 
 he is under to the crucified Eedeemer. 
 
 In its fitness or adaptation to the end in view, which is the 
 culture of Christian life and growth in grace, the edificational 
 discipline of the Eeformed Church in Scotland far transcends 
 that of the pre-Pteformation Church. The character of the one 
 was mystical and ritualistic; that of the other has all along been 
 mainly moral and intellectual. Catholicism and Protestantism 
 alike aim at moving the feelings and gaining the heart; but 
 the one works by ritual, and the other by reason. The one 
 tries to keep the obligations of religion before the mind by 
 means of oft-recurring solemnities, images and pictures, rosaries 
 and crucifixes, prostrations and processions, symbolisms and 
 mysteries; the other founds all her edificational discipline on 
 reason. She says to men, ascertain what you want, and how it 
 may be got ; consider what is required of you, and how your 
 requirements can be implemented. Go to the word, and learn 
 what the word has to tell about the way, the truth, and the life. 
 Seek to grow in the knowledge of Christ, and use such pre- 
 cautions as may prevent the shipwreck of your faith. Let your 
 discipline be based on Scripture precept, and be such as you 
 can justify in reason, such as shall exercise on your heart a 
 manifest moral and spiritual influence, and not merely such as 
 shall be supposed to count for so much service to, or propitia- 
 tion of, God. 
 
4:66 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCII. 
 
 TAFtT IT. 
 
 COREECTIYE AND EESTORATIVE DISCIPLINE; OR THE DISCIPLINE 
 FOR THE UNFAITHFUL. 
 
 By "the unfaithful" are meant here those members of the 
 Christian Church that have fallen under such grievous scandal 
 as infers their suspension from the enjoyment of church privi- 
 leges. It is clear that within the pale of any Church, however 
 pure, there may be professing Christians that bring discredit 
 on the Christian name by the sins they commit or the heresies 
 they vent. Such sins and heresies are not to pass unnoticed 
 and uncensured, to the shame and dishonour of the Church, 
 and to the encouragement of those that would willingly make 
 light of the obligations of Christian virtue or the sanctity of 
 Christian doctrine. At the same time, persons that commit 
 such sins or vent such heresies are not to be permanently cut 
 off, without any hope of restoration, from the Communion of 
 the saints. Means are to be used to bring those that have 
 been overtaken in faults, or led astray by ignorance, to a proper 
 sense of their sin or error ; and thereafter, on satisfactory show 
 of contrition, they are to be received back into the fold of the 
 faithful. For this course of dealing there is Scripture warrant. 
 In the days of the apostles one member of the Church at 
 Corinth was, under colour of Christian liberty misnamed, lead- 
 ing openly a life of such infamy as would not have been 
 allowed among the Gentiles ; and the notoriety of that fact 
 was both bringing the Christian Church into disrepute and 
 creating misapprehensions of the Christian morality. St. Paul 
 accordingly, in much anguish of mind, wrote to the saints at 
 Corinth, that they must instantly cast out of their community that 
 Avicked person. But when, not long afterwards, it was reported 
 to Paul that the excommunicated man had been brought to see 
 the sinfulness of his conduct, and had both avowed penitence 
 and shown a beseeming sense of shame for the scandal he had 
 caused, the apostle wrote to the Corinthian brethren that sufficient 
 for the offender was the punishment he had now received, "so 
 that contrariwise they ought rather to forgive him, and comfort 
 
THE DiscirLixE or the ciiuuch. 467 
 
 him, lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with overmuch 
 sorrow." In these directions the apostle indicates, in a general 
 way, the course of corrective and re-edificational discipline that 
 should at all times be adopted with the erring and sinful 
 children of the Church. And it is in reference to the Church's 
 dealings witli this class of people, her unfaithful members, that 
 the word "discipline" is most generally, if not exclusively, 
 employed in common speech. In popular language discipline 
 means some sort of punishment. And while that word, as we 
 have seen, is in the Douay Bible used synonymously with 
 instruction, it is also in the Douay Bible used in the sense of 
 chastisement. In Isaiah liii. 5 we read : " The discipline of our 
 peace was upon him, and with the waile of his stripe we are 
 healed." 
 
 In treating of the corrective and restorative discipline in 
 the Church of Scotland, botli before and after the Eeformation, 
 we shall consider particularly the inquisition that was made by 
 the Church into people's lives and conduct ; the censures that 
 were inflicted for offences ; the course of penitence that was 
 enjoined; the circumstances under which, and the formalities 
 by which, absolution was granted. And it is to the post- 
 Eeformation discipline that our attention shall be chiefly 
 directed. 
 
 INQUISITION AND SURVEILLANCE, 
 
 Before corrective and penitential discipline is resorted to, 
 there must either be proof of a scandal, or well-grounded sus- 
 picion of a scandal. We have to inquire, therefore, in what 
 way and by what means scandals were brought to light, both 
 in the Catholic Church before, and in the Protestant Church 
 of Scotland after, the Eeformation; what surveillance of 
 people's lives and manners was taken by the two Churches 
 respectively ? what offences were noticed by the ecclesiastical 
 authority ? and by what agencies was conviction brought home 
 to the hearts of offenders ? It may be assumed that, in both 
 Churches, surveillance was more strict at one period than at 
 another ; and that in both Churches, but more particularly in 
 the protean Protestant Church, which was sometimes Presby- 
 terial and sometimes Episcopal, the subjects and manner of 
 inquisition varied from time to time. 
 
468 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Ill the Catholic Church, for several hundred years before the 
 Eeformation, the chief means used for the discovery of offences 
 was the Confessional. The members of the Catholic Church 
 were taught that confession of sin is a Christian duty ; and 
 ever since the fourth Laterau Council, 1215, the Catholic 
 Church has required all her members to make confession of 
 their sins once a year at least. It may be open to doubt 
 whether even the best of Catholics were always honest enough 
 to confess to the priest the whole of their secret faults, or 
 whether they were sometimes satisfied with reciting only a 
 few of the least reprehensible and reproachful of their tres- 
 passes. It may be open to question, also, whether the Con- 
 fessional is good for the morals of either priest or people. But 
 it must be admitted that the Confessional was instituted for a 
 legitimate and praiseworthy object. It had been found by 
 experience that in many cases great scandal and much mis- 
 chief had arisen from public disclosures of vice, and it was 
 concluded that a more excellent way of dealing with sinners 
 would be to receive their confessions in private. It was sup- 
 posed also that by this means people would be induced to 
 confess their sins more frankly and more fully, and that the 
 blessed sacrament of penance would accordingly be made more 
 potent for good. 
 
 In the Reformed Church of ScotTand the Confessional never 
 had a place. The Scottish Eeformers professed to see in the 
 Confessional nothing but evils, and they spoke with mockery 
 and scorn of " shrift in the ear." They preached up, as much 
 as Catholics did, the duty of confession ; but the kind of con- 
 fession they enjoined was open confession before the ecclesi- 
 astical authority, which was not the priest or minister, but 
 usually the court called the kirk session. In some cases a 
 still more open confession — in face of the congregation — was 
 enjoined. The virtue of voluntary confession, too, was extolled 
 above that of confession by constraint ; and in many cases, 
 therefore, voluntary confession was obtained from delinquents. 
 But it must be said that Scotsmen generally, ever since the 
 Beformation, and probably before that date, have required the 
 pressure of considerable constraint to induce them to make con- 
 fession of any form of sin where disclosure might put them to 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 4G9 
 
 either sliame or sorrow. It is satirically remarked by a well- 
 known essayist, that if King David of Israel had been a 
 Scotsman he would, before pronouncing judgment on the man 
 of many herds and flocks who slew the poor villager's pet 
 lamb, have asked the name of the rich and covetous sheep- 
 owner. There is a widespread belief abroad, therefore, and it 
 is founded on good presumptions, that Scotsmen have always 
 been, and still are, very unwilling in kirk sessions to make 
 self-damaginrr confessions which are not unavoidable. It is 
 usually when their iniquity cannot be hid that Scotsmen have 
 the grace to confess their sins. And their confessions, as de- 
 tailed in session records, are often impudently, as well as 
 ludicrously, meagre. A common thing for men to do, when 
 charged with fighting and swearing, was to confess the valour 
 but deny the blasphemy imputed to them. Other forms of 
 modified confession are not infrequent in session records. A 
 woman accused of drunkenness, 1657, confessed to the session 
 in a qualified way that she was indeed " somquhat distempered, 
 but not altogether throw much drink, but by reason of meeting 
 with that sort of drink that did not agree with her."^ In 
 times of rigid discipline, however, people were obliged, for 
 expediency's sake, to make confessions. If, on what their kirk 
 session held as proof, they would not acknowledge guilt, they 
 were declared scandalous, and were refused the benefit of 
 sealing ordinances. And if, when there was only an uncleared 
 suspicion of guilt against them, they would not confess guilt, 
 they were treated as suspected persons, and debarred from the 
 privilege of Communion. Very considerable constraint, it will 
 thus be seen, was, in the Eeformed Church of Scotland, and 
 especially in periods of disciplinary zeal, laid upon people to 
 acknowledge their transgressions. Occasionally there was some 
 glory got by confession, in which case confession was made 
 with a will. In Covenanting districts there was nothing that, 
 in the days of the Covenants, feathered a man's cap like a con- 
 fession of sin for conforming to some "late" prelatic or Erastian 
 order. The man that, for such a sin, had the discretion to 
 humble himself before the kirk session was held to have 
 " witnessed a good confession," and was not unlikely, before 
 
 ^ Kilmarnock Session Becords, MS. 
 
470 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CllUrCII. 
 
 long, to have liis claims for the parochial eldership favourably 
 entertained.^ 
 
 In the Reformed Church of Scotland, down to the end of 
 last century, the most common way of bringing offences under 
 ecclesiastical cognizance was not by voluntary confession, but 
 by delation. At a meeting of kirk session the minister or one 
 of the elders would intimate that a particular /a/na, which was 
 specified, was in circulation regarding some particular person, 
 who was named. A member of session or a committee of 
 session would then be appointed to wait on the defamed person, 
 apprise him of the delation, ask him whether the fama against 
 him was true or false, and then report to the session the result 
 of the inquiry. If, on this report, it seemed to the session that 
 the fama was without foundation, a minute to that effect would 
 be written, and the case would come to an end; but if it 
 seemed to the session that the fama had possibly some founda- 
 tion in fact, a summons would be issued for the accused to 
 appear before them on a day specified, and if a confession of 
 guilt was not then tendered, a trial might be instituted in much 
 the same manner as in a civil court. Witnesses might be cited 
 and examined on oath ; and if the charge were found neither 
 clearly proved nor clearly disproved, the case might be stayed 
 till further light was shed on the matter. And this stay, or 
 suspension of the case, might be continued for any length of 
 time. There are instances on record of cases that, within the 
 present century, were left undetermined for more than thirty 
 years, the accused being all the while excluded from the enjoy- 
 ment of Church privileges. During last century such instances 
 of long-sisted procedure were of still more frequent occurrence. 
 The only means of relief to which the person libelled had 
 recourse, beyond appeal to the presbytery, was an "oath of 
 purgation," and the benefit of that oath might be, and often 
 was, refused.^ 
 
 1 " In 1693 one Sluir of Bruntwood compeared before the Session of Galston, and 
 having stated that in the lait tymes he had been induced to swe t and subscribe the 
 Test, ' did publicly, before the Session . . . express the sense he had of that 
 horrid sin, and his willingness to make profession of the same in the most public place 
 of the Church,' &c. . . . Soon afterwards, his name was placed on a list of suitable 
 persons for the Eldership of Galston." (" Old Chmxh Life," First Series, 284.) 
 
 2 A confirmation of this statement will be found in the following minutes, extracted 
 from the manuscript records of Mauchline parish. 
 
 "1696, November 8th. R. M. being called according to former appointment, and com- 
 
THE DISCiniXE OF THE CHURCH. 471 
 
 For a long period kirk sessions seem to have had something 
 like a lihcruvi arhitriiim in the way of dealing with famas. 
 But their mode of procedure, on whatever customs or consti- 
 tutions it M'as founded, was in its main features very uniform. 
 It was, nevertheless, felt to be desirable that a definite order 
 of process should be drawn up and enjoined by the supreme 
 court of the Church ; and in 1707 such an order was drawn 
 np and passed into a statutory regulation. The principal 
 clauses relative to famas in this form are the first, second, and 
 eighth sections in the second chapter, and the tenor of these 
 clauses is : — 
 
 " Members of kirk sessions are wisely to consider the infor- 
 mation they get of scandals, and consult with their minister 
 thereanent, even before the same be communicate to others, 
 that thereby the spreading of the scandal may be prevented, 
 and it may be removed by private admonition, according to our 
 Lord and Saviour's rule (Mat. xviii. 15), which, if amendment 
 follow, is the far better way of gaining and recovering a lapsed 
 brother, whereas the needless spreading of a scandal does some- 
 times harden the guilty, grieve the godly, and is dishonourable 
 to religion. 
 
 "When any business is moved in a church judicatory, whether 
 by information, petition, or otherwise, they are in the first place 
 to consider, whether the matter in its circumstantiate case be 
 proper for them to enter upon, and whether it be orderly 
 brought in, and proper for them to cognosce and discuss it 
 themselves, or prepare it for superior judicatories : and should 
 endeavour to shorten their work as much as with the edification 
 of the Church they can, especially as to the head of scandal, 
 but still on all occasions the office-bearers in the house of God 
 are to show all prudent zeal against sin. 
 
 " There seems to be no need of accusers or informers in 
 ecclesiastic processes, where the same are not raised at the 
 
 pearing, adhered to his denial, and again offered to purge himself hy oath, but the Kirk 
 Session, too much fearing tliat he was guilty, did not admit him to swear. 
 
 " 1704. April 16th. J. ^I. appeared, and says he will take the oath in the tenor and 
 words that the Presbyterie appointed. — (He appeared again and again without getting 
 further satisfaction, till) December 3rd. J. M. after sermone appeared before the pulpit, 
 and wes content to take the oath of purgatione, it being read to him by the minister, 
 but the minister wes in such a consternation that he could not administer it till the next 
 Lord's day. — December 17th. J. M. swore the oath of purgatioue on his knees." 
 
472 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 instance of a party complaining formally, but the party if cited 
 by order of the judicatory is to answer the judicatory in what 
 is laid to his charge ; yet so, that if the party cited be found 
 innocent and acquitted, those who informed the judicatory, 
 whether the party require it or not, ought to be noticed, for 
 either their calumny or imprudence, as the judicatory shall 
 find cause." 
 
 What we have mainly to consider here, however, is the 
 practice that has prevailed in the Eeformed Church of Scotland, 
 both before and after 1707, in reference to the treatment of 
 famas. Whether it was founded on Acts of Assembly, or was 
 the outcome of private sessional resolutions, this practice shows 
 the way in which famas were actually dealt with in the Church. 
 
 In olden times it was held to be part of an elder's duty to 
 delate to the kirk session every rumour he heard affecting the 
 Christian character of any member of the congregation. In 
 1568 the elders in Aberdeen were specially sworn to faithful- 
 ness in the discharge of this duty. And long after 1568 it was 
 customary at meetings of kirk sessions to make inquiry "if 
 there were any public scandals known to any of the elders." 
 Such a relentless way of exposing every peccadillo was no doubt 
 meant to make the consequences of transgression so socially 
 terrible that men should be frightened into good behaviour. It 
 was nevertheless an advertisement of sin ; and it is to be feared 
 that by " spreading scandals it must sometimes have hardened 
 the guilty, grieved the godly, and done dishonour to religion." 
 Sins and scandals of every kind and magnitude were reported 
 to the kirk session. Single instances of drunkenness were 
 reported; so were domestic broils and scolding matches; so 
 were breaches of the Sabbath ; and so, in times of high political 
 excitement and civil war, were acts of compliance with the 
 enemy.^ Sometimes, as at Edinburgh in 1574, people were 
 
 •' The following will serve as examples: — 
 
 Drunkenness. — H. B., who compeared and confessed that he "had drunken aqua 
 vvtie, which bad made him so madd as to stryk all that came in his gate." Kilmai-uock 
 (MSS), 16.53. 
 
 Domestic broils. — ^J. R., " for the wronging of her goodfather by casting some peas at 
 hi3 face." Galston, 1647 (MSS.) 
 
 "The session being informed that A. W. had beat her mother-in-law, E. H., and par- 
 ticularly bad wounded her in the head by a stroke with the iron tongs to the eiiusion of 
 her blood," &c. Mauchline, 1713. 
 
 Sabbath breakiny. — " Delated for vaging idly about the coal-hengh on Sabbath." 
 Kilmarnock (MSS.), 1707. "Delated as scandalous in sending to several persons upon 
 
THE DISCirLINE OF THE CIIURCII. 473 
 
 delated for being usurers and " lenners of money for profeit." 
 Sometimes, as at Edinburgh in the same year, frolicsome 
 maidens were delated for " disagysing of themselves in welvot 
 breikes, and dansing in menis clothing." Sometimes, as at 
 Fenwick, in 1654, young women were delated for living alone 
 without fitting and beseeming company.- Sometimes, as at 
 Ptothesay, in 1660, information was lodged that some one 
 "gangs with the faryes." Sometimes, as at Kilmarnock, in 
 1648, graceless fellows were delated "for cursing speeches 
 against the minister."^ 
 
 In the Order of Discipline, 1707, there is an entire chapter 
 devoted to "processes which natively begin at the kirk session, 
 but are not to be brought to a final determination there." In 
 that chapter minute regulations are given for kirk sessions 
 to observe in dealing with offences that are either in them- 
 selves very heinous, or have been aggravated by repetition. 
 In regard to such cases the form of procedure in earlier times 
 was not so strictly prescribed, nor was the relationship of 
 the kirk session to the presbytery so well defined. Prior 
 to 1645, when the Westminster form of church government 
 was approved by the General Assembly, it was a moot point 
 whether kirk sessions were separate constituent courts of the 
 Church, or merely executive committees of presbytery. Baillie 
 says, in one of bis letters, that the Scots Commissioners at 
 Westminster sent in to the great committee of the Assembly 
 there a paper, "wherein they asserted a congregational elder- 
 ship, for governing the private affairs of the congregation ;" but 
 that "Mr. David Calderwood had censured them grievouslie 
 
 the Lord's day, to -come and switch her lint on Munday nest thereafter." Kilmarnock 
 (RISS.), 1681;. " For scliarping his yions upon ane isolemn fasting day."' Kilmai'nock, 
 1648. 
 
 Entertaining a Quaker. — Two men "for entertaining a quaker that had been expelled 
 some other place for scandalous conversation. The session recommended to Bailie Tough 
 to apply to the mac^strates to take course with them, and to expel the quaker out of the 
 town, which he did efFectuallie, and prosecuted the quaker till he fled and left the place." 
 Kilmarnock (MSS.), 1706. 
 
 Compliance with the eneviy. — " P. G. delate for bearing company with troupers and 
 convoying Callender toward Machliue Muir. . . . One of the bailies for " urging, 
 stenting, poynding, and impersoning for tlie engagement, also for hindering the townsmea 
 to ryse and help to chase the troupers." Kilmarnock (MSS.), 1648. 
 
 ^ In the manuscript records of Kilmarnock Session there is a minute, of date 1707, 
 which states that " M. B. was delated for using unlawful means for the recovery of a 
 beast," in asking a woman of whom sbe was jealous to lay her hand upon a sick mare 
 and " sain it." 
 
474 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 for SO doing, showing that our books of discipline admitts of 
 no Presbytrie or Eldership but one : that the Commissioners 
 put themselves in hazard to be forced to give excommunica- 
 tion, and so entire government, to congregations, which is a 
 great step to Independencie." And Bailie adds that Henderson 
 acknowledged the force of Calderwood's remarks. Such bein^ 
 the state of opinion in 1644, it need not surprise us to find 
 that at that date there were cases of discipline that came 
 before Presbyteries not so much by way of reference or appeal 
 from kirk sessions as by simple delation. ^ When a kirk 
 session could make nothing of a man whom they had taken 
 in hand to deal with, the minister reported the fact at the 
 first meeting of presbytery thereafter, and then more cogent 
 measures of discipline were adopted.^ In the records of the 
 Presbytery of A}^- it is minuted that, on the 27th September, 
 1643, a man was "delated for uttering of blasphemous speeches 
 in his ordinar discourse, and for drunkenes," and his trial for 
 these offences was appointed to take place at the next meeting 
 of presbytery. ^ On the 4th June, 1644, two men were, in 
 like manner, delated to the same presbytery by their respective 
 ministers for offences that are usually left to the consideration 
 of kirk sessions. One of the two men was a kirk officer, who 
 was delated " for ordinar drunkeness," and the other was a 
 
 ^That such presbyterial delations were not common, and were bv many people con- 
 sidered not constitutional, may be inferred from the fact that no mention is made of them 
 ill " The Burthen of Issachar." The disciplinary functions attributed in that book (pub- 
 lished in 164:4) to presbyteries are much the same as those that are exercised at the 
 present day. Presbyteries, it is said, have to deal with references by and appeals from 
 kirk sessions, great crimes, and faults that infer excommunication, &c., p. 4. 
 
 2 "Things which are proper and peculiar to one congregation, pertain to the particular 
 eldership (i.e. kirk session) : things which are common to many congregations pertain 
 to the common (classical) eldership (i.e. presbytery). In case of small congregations, 
 who have but few office-bearers, and those, it may be, not sufficiently able for church 
 government, a congregation may not independently and by itself exerciise jurisdiction." 
 (Parker, quoted by Gillespie, in "Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scot- 
 land," pp. 124-5.) A phrase of Gillespie's is, " the Presbyteries of particular churches, 
 which are in Scotland called Sessions " (" Assertion," Postscript, p. 3). Jn the Second Book 
 of Discipline it is said to be " meit that some elders be chosen out of everie particular 
 congregatione, to concurre with the rest of their brethren in the common Assemblie 
 (Presbytery), and to take up the delation of offences within their awiu kirks, and bring 
 them to the Assemblie." 
 
 ^When members of presbytery were themselves defamed they reported the defamation 
 to their own court, as the following minute will show: — Ayr, 17th May, 1643. "This 
 day in respect of a grievous complaint given in against D. G., servitor to Mr. William 
 Scot, minister at Cuilton, by sundrie of the Brethren, the said Mr. Williair^wes appoynted 
 to produce his man (?) before the Presbytrie the nixt day, to answer for his blasphemous 
 oathes, and for abusing of sundrie of the Brethren with godless and unreverend 
 speiches." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECn. 475 
 
 country laird, who was delated for urging tlie session clerk 
 "by threatening speeches and by holding a baston over his 
 head" to grant him a certificate of penitential satisfaction. 
 And so also, at a presbyterial visitation of Dalmellington, in 
 1647, " the minister of Carsfairne," who was not a member of 
 presbytery, delated a Dalmellington man " for dryving of naut 
 (oxen) by the said kirk on the Lord's Day in tyme of sermon." 
 
 In the Pioman Catholic Church, at the present day, it is lawful 
 for the ecclesiastical authority to receive and make trial of 
 what are termed " denunciations." ^ These denunciations have 
 to be presented in writing, and the denouncer must indicate 
 tlie nature of his proof, and submit the names of the witnesses 
 that have evidence to give. Anonymous denunciations are 
 rejected "as calumnious and unworthy of belief." And if it 
 turn out, on investigation, that a denunciation has been know- 
 ingly and maliciously made in falsehood, the denouncer will 
 himself be punished as a calumniator. The word " denuncia- 
 tion" seldom, if ever, occurs in the judicial records of the 
 Eeformed Church of Scotland. But there is a practice analo- 
 gous to denunciation frequently mentioned in old session 
 records. One person would go to the kirk session, either 
 from a sense of duty or from a feeling of resentment, and 
 accuse another person of some particular sin. People, for 
 instance, would complain of having been slandered by evil 
 and false speeches, of having been robbed, assaulted, or be- 
 witched, and they would submit to the session the nam6 of 
 the person by whom they had been injured ; and accusations 
 of this kind, if orderly lodged, were heard and examined. 
 The most trivial, as well as the most serious, charges made 
 in this way were listened to and investigated, so that justice 
 might be fairly meted out to every complainant, and misconduct 
 be censured and repressed. But a grave responsibility was 
 imposed on the accuser. He was required to prove his case, 
 under penalties in the event of failure ; and these penalties 
 had, under the name of consignations, to be laid down by 
 the accuser beforehand, so that if the charge were found not 
 proved, the exaction of the penalty should involve no trouble. 
 One extract, of date 1682, from the records of a rural kirk 
 
 ^ Smith's " Elements of Ecclesiastical Law," i. 147-8. 
 
476 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 session, will illustrate the procedure commonly adopted in 
 cases of this sort : — " The supplication of B. E. being renewed, 
 and the particulars specifiet, it's admitted relevant, and she 
 is appointed to consign £2, and if she prove not the particulars 
 laid to the delinquent's charge, she is to forfeit the £2, and 
 the names of the witnesses are to be given in to the Clerk 
 against the next Session." ^ And many were the instances in 
 which, from failure or defect of proof, these consignations were 
 forfeited for pious uses ; showing that even the certainty of 
 punishment will not restrain misguided people from making 
 railing accusations. 
 
 In olden times there was, both in the Catholic and in the 
 Protestant Church, a not inconsiderable amount of espionage. 
 In the Catholic Church, before the Eeformation, that espionage 
 was directed chiefly to the discovery and seizure of what were 
 reckoned heretical publications. So strict was this espionage 
 that it was with the utmost difficulty, and at the greatest risk 
 of personal danger, that the Reformers, before the Eeformation 
 was established, could get any of their writings put into print 
 and scattered over the country. The printer had to work in 
 secret ; the author had to lurk in concealment ; the bookseller 
 had to study and practise strategy. There are few stories 
 in history more romantic than the publication of the first 
 printed Bibles in English. And in other matters as well as 
 heresy there doubtless was in olden times, as there still is, 
 a great amount of espionage in the Catholic Church in Scot- 
 land. The priest has a wonderful knowledge of all the on- 
 goings in his people's houses. All the downsittings and all 
 the uprisings of his people are known to him; and there is 
 scarcely a word on the tongue of one of his congregation that 
 is not heard by him afar off. But this espionage is only a 
 one-man espionage — the priest has no assessor or colleague 
 in this work. And, in respect of morals, this priestly espionage 
 could not have been, in Scotland, very teasing in the days 
 immediately preceding the Eeformation. According to all 
 
 1 These accusations, which at one period were very frequently brought before kirk 
 sessions, were termed " bills,'' and the consignation was sometimes designated " bill 
 silver," as the following minute (Galston JISS.) will show: — 1G33, 21st July. "Mar- 
 garet Smyth gave in aue bill uppon Jonet Ritchmond. and consiguit her bill silver in ye 
 minister's hand." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECH. 477 
 
 accounts, Catholic and Protestant alike, the priests in Scotland 
 at that time were themselves very loose in their lives, and 
 they had no zeal either in the repression of vice or the pro- 
 motion of purity. 
 
 When the Church became Eeformed, a great zeal of right- 
 eousness and holiness at once sprang up ; and in all local 
 kirk sessions a most effective system of espionage was 
 instituted. It was not till the days of the second Eeforma- 
 tion that this espionage came to its height ; although as 
 early as 1560 it was declared, in the First Book of Discipline, 
 to be one of the duties of elders to assist their minister " in 
 having respect to the manners and conversation of all men 
 within their charge."^ And, from 1560 downwards, instances 
 of ecclesiastical espionage are to be found in all extant records 
 of kirk sessions. It was in 1648, however, that the espionage 
 system in the Church of Scotland was perfected. That year 
 it was ordained by the General Assembly that, as a remedy 
 for the grievous and common sins of the land, "every Elder 
 have a certain bounds assigned to him, that he may visit the 
 same every raoneth at least, and report to the Session what 
 scandalls and abuses are therein."^ And although it is said 
 by Principal Hill, in his "View of the Constitution of the 
 Church of Scotland," which was published in 1817, that the 
 Church in the exercise of her temperate discipline never 
 shows any " solicitude to engage in the investigation of secret 
 wickedness,"^ the statement must be considered as referring 
 more particularly, if not exclusively, to modern times. 
 
 1 That this duty was held to be the chief function of the parochial eldership appears 
 from the following expression in the minutes of a rural kirk session (Galston), in 1647 : 
 " The Session did consider they had need of some more elders for watching over the 
 manners of the Congregation." 
 
 2 In 1600 the Kirk Session of Stirling ordained that " everie eldar and diacan be 
 appointed to ane particulare portione of the toune, quha salbe hauldin chieflie to tak 
 attendance to the maneris of the pepill thairin." In 1616, during Episcopacy, the 
 General Assembly " ordaynit that every minister give up the names of idle sangsters 
 within their paroche to the Justices of Peace, that they may be callit and convenit 
 before them and punischit as idle vagabonds." 
 
 ^ Midwives were at one time employed by kirk sessions in a way that would not be 
 tolerated now. In the records of Mauchline Kirk Session the following minutes occur : — 
 1692, March 25. . . . "The midwife Margi-et Wat, being with her in her gi-eatest 
 pains, did challenge her if ever she had ado with any other man, and threatened that she 
 would leave her to die in her pains if she would not tell the truth, and she cryed out and 
 wished that she might never be better if any man was the father of that child but J. W." 
 . . . 1786, May 18. ''The Session, notwithstanding . . . denial, are informed 
 that she is still believed to be with child, therefore order that she be inspected by 
 
478 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECIT. 
 
 Long ago kirk sessions were extremely inquisitorial. Tliis 
 was particularly the case iu the days subsequent to the second 
 Eeformation, when the discipline of the Church had reached 
 its full development. In those days scouts were every night 
 sent through all the ale-houses in every town and village to 
 see if any person was either drinking or selling drink after 
 "elders' hours." ^ Scouts were, in like manner, sent through 
 every village every Sunday during divine service to see if any 
 that should have been in Church were drinking in taverns.^ 
 In 1648 the session of Galston unanimously concluded and 
 ordained that two of the town elders should, " each of them, 
 night about, go visit the toune and Gatesyd on the Sabbath 
 night, about seven hours, and see that none be in toune except 
 the inhabitants thereof." At every fair or race there were 
 elders told off to perambulate the market-place or the race- 
 course, as the case might be, and report every immorality they 
 saw or heard. Not a wedding or a merry-making could be held 
 without ecclesiastical detectives being set to inquire into all 
 that happened thereat, and inform the kirk session of the num- 
 bers present and the nature of the entertainment. And any 
 
 Llrs. Russell, midwife." Acknowledgment followed . . . 1795, July 2fi. " It is 
 reported that she denies her being with child, notwithstanding; the cuiTent report afSrnaing 
 the same; and as she owns that she intends leaving; the place, the Session order their 
 clerk to make out a representation of this affair, and lay it before Bailie Hamilton, 
 praying for warrand to cause a midwife or surgeon to inspect her, and if she be found on 
 inspection to be with child that the give security not to leave the place until she declare 
 the real father of her child." Warrant was granted by Bailie Hamilton as craved, 
 and confession followed. Jlinutes of similar purport appear in the kirk session records 
 of Galston, &c. 
 
 1 These scouts at that date were elders, as appears from the following minute of 
 Galston Kirk Session:— 5th January, 1640. "Ordained that William Black and Hew 
 Hutcheson, Elders, quhilk might go throw the clachan at ten at night, and advertise the 
 minister that the hour may be neir keiped." In respect that the duty on which these 
 scouts were sent was a civil rather than a spiritual one, they were sometimes termed, 
 in old records, " the civillisers." 
 
 2 Tliese Sundav scouts were usually elders also, and in some places, such as Kilmar- 
 nock, they continued till last century to make their tour of the taverns " forenoon and 
 afternoon" every Sabbath. At an earlier period some kirk sessions seem to have thought 
 that the civilliser's work should be done by civilians. Instead, therefore, of appointing 
 elders to act as scouts, kirk sessions (Aberdeen, 1611) desired the magistrates to go 
 through the town on preaching days and cause people to resort to sermons. In leuii 
 the Presbytery of Ayr recommended all sessions within the bounds of the Presbytery to 
 apply to the civil magistrate and principal leading men in their respective parishes to 
 relieve them of their civiliser's function, by appointing censors in place of elders "to go 
 about, visit, and delate delinquents for cursing, swearing, drunkenness," &c., on week- 
 days and Sabbaths alike. From what is stated in Wodrow's Collections, it would seem 
 that in the mad times about the middle of the seventeenth century the Kirk Session of 
 Glasgow had, for the discovery of breaches of the Sabbath, " clandestine censors, and gave 
 money to some." 
 
THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 479 
 
 remissness on the part of elders in discovering and delating 
 immoralities was not only censured by presbyteries, but com- 
 plained of by the people. In 1718 a long complaint was given 
 in to the Presbytery of Ayr by the parishioners of May bole 
 against their minister. One of the articles in that complaint 
 was, that there was no delation in the kirk session " of immor- 
 alities on the streets and in taverns ; and at untimely hours, 
 in drinking, sM'earing, and the lyke ; whether on the Lord's 
 day or other days, . . . tho instances thereof have been 
 seen in private persons, and elders too, to the offence of some." 
 Complaints of this kind were encouraged by the courts of the 
 Church ; and people were informed that it was their duty to 
 reveal to their elders all misconduct they heard of, so that the 
 works of darkness might be exposed and condemned. Among 
 other things that at one period people were desired to reveal to 
 their elders was the authorship of poetical squibs. In the session 
 records of Ayr, of an old date, there is a minute which declares 
 that " in case ony persoun or persouns at ony time sail find, heir, 
 or see ony ryme or cokalane, that they sail reveil the same first 
 to ane eldar privatlie, and to na uther, and in case they faille 
 therein in revelling of the same to ony uther, that person saU be 
 esteemed to be the authour of the said ryme, and sail be 
 punished therefor, conforme to the Acts of the Kirke and ye 
 laws of ye realm." 
 
 And it was not only every form of positive transgression 
 that was searched out by elders and reported to kirk sessions, 
 but every omission of religious duty also. We have seen 
 that in 1639 the General Assembly ordered family worship 
 to be established in every household. One kirk session, 
 whose records at that date happen to be in good pre- 
 servation, in its desire to obey the Act, minuted, in Decem- 
 ber of that year, that "to this end, for the better ordering 
 heirof, and that this service be not neglectit in families, it is 
 thought meit that ilk elder within the paroche, in his pairtis 
 nixt about him, have ane special care and charge hereof, and 
 see what religion, what prayer, what reiding, and what uther 
 exercise of God's service they use in their house." ^ And so 
 
 1 In 1642 the Presbytery of Ayr made a visitation of all, or nearly all, the parishes 
 •within its bounds, and iu the record of these visitations there are references to the 
 practice of fainilj worship in different parishes. In Auchinleck the minister, after 
 
 86 
 
480 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 recently as 1700 the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr passed an act, 
 which was appointed to be read in all kirk sessions within the 
 bounds, requiring elders to "make conscience of visiting families 
 within their districts, exhorting heads of families to set up the 
 worship of God in their houses, reproving those who neglect 
 it, and delating them upon their continued neglect." This act 
 did not soon become a dead letter either. In the records of 
 the Presbytery of Irvine for 1723 there is a list of questions 
 to be put to elders at privy censures; and among these questions 
 are the three following : — " Do ye inform yourself of the con- 
 versation of your division, particularly whether they have 
 family worship and attend ordinances ? Do ye give account 
 of what scandals fall out which deserve public censure ? Do 
 ye deal with their consciences who are guilty of such Escapes 
 as do not deserve to be represented to the Session?" And 
 that every kirk session's surveillance of its parish should be 
 complete, all incomers were required to produce testimonials 
 from the session or minister of the parish from which they had 
 migrated. It was thus impossible for any scandalous person 
 to conceal his shame by a discreet departure from the place 
 that knew him. His disgrace followed him like a shadow. In 
 that busy year of disciplinary legislation, 1648, the General 
 Assembly ordained that " all persons who flit from one paroch 
 to another (should) have sufficient testimonials." They ap- 
 pointed this rule also "to be extended to all gentlemen and 
 persons of quality, and all their followers, who come to reside 
 with their families at Edinburgh or elsewhere." Eor many a 
 day after the passing of this act the want of such a testimonial 
 put a man under scandal. Kirk sessions minuted in their 
 records that they ordained this person and that person to be 
 publicly declared scandalous, and not to be owned for parish- 
 ioners till they produce sufficient testimonials. Some kirk 
 sessions were very chary, too, about granting testimonials to 
 people that wished a change of residence. As late as 1701 the 
 I^rk Session of Galston minuted a resolution that all who 
 
 testifying that his elders "wer religious, podlie and discret men, and more willing to 
 promove the work of God nor he wes himself, and that he had no complaint against the 
 people, in dissobedience to God or to the Covenant," added, " that familie exercise wes 
 established throw the parochen and practised." In Alloway the minister reported that 
 " famihe exercise had been exhorted to both in publict and in privat, and that it wes 
 keiped." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 481 
 
 neglected " the catechising " should be refused testimonials ; 
 and years after that date disreputable people without testi- 
 monials were ordered by kirk sessions, and by magistrates at 
 the instance of kirk sessions, to leave, and had to leave, the 
 parish in which, for a bite of bread, they had sought a humble 
 settlement.'^ 
 
 The espionage of local courts was supplemented by presby- 
 terial visitations of parishes. These visitations occurred at 
 irregular intervals, and in some periods of the Church's history 
 they were more frequent than at others.^ They constituted a 
 formal inquisition into the conduct of all the members and 
 office-bearers in the congregation. First of all, the minister, 
 after giving auricular proof of his pulpit gifts by preaching a 
 sermon from "his ordinary text" (that is, on the subject which 
 formed the logical sequence to the subject of his discourse the 
 previous Sunday), was removed, and the elders were questioned 
 about his ministerial diligence and manner of life. After the 
 elders had been questioned regarding the minister, they were 
 themselves removed, and heads of families were interrogated 
 concerning the life and conduct of the several members of 
 session. The precentor and beadle were, in like manner, put 
 under inquisition; and the full circle of inquiry was sub- 
 sequently completed by removing heads of families, and 
 questioning minister and elders if they had anything to say 
 about the congregation generally, or about any individual 
 members of it in particular. The effect of these visitations was 
 to expose some sins that sessions winked at, and to stimulate 
 zeal where there was remissness in disciplinary work. In some 
 cases the presbytery records of these visitations expressly bear 
 that " the minister being removed, the session were charged to 
 
 ^ In 1691 the Kirk Session of Fenwick forbade all landlords in the parish to let their 
 lands or houses to any persons that had no certificates from their former place of resi- 
 dence ; and when a landlord, in 1692, declined at the session's order to put away his 
 cottar, the session "resolved to commit the said (landlord) to the civil magistrate." 
 ("Old Church Life," First Series, 214.) 
 
 '^ In 1638 the General Assembly thought it expedient that all parishes should be pres- 
 byterially visited once every year. Shortly after this date, therefore, we find a great run 
 of visitations. In the summer of 1642 there was a visitation by the Presbytery of Ayr 
 of all, or nearly all, the kirks in Kyle and Carrick. In the first week of this visitation, 
 the presbytery met at JIauchline on Monday, the 16th May; at Ochiltree on Tuesday, 
 the 17th May; at Auchinleck and Muirkirk, in two separate committees, on Wednesday, 
 18th May; and at Cumnock on Thursday, the 19th May. The following week other four 
 days were devoted to the visitation of the parishes of Dundonald, S}'mington, Riccar- 
 ton, Monkton, St. Quivox. and Ayr. The remaining parishes were overtaken later on. 
 
482 THE DiscinixE or the church. 
 
 declare what they had to say against him in his doctrine and 
 disciphne, life or conversation, and in all the poyntes of his 
 ministerie," and thereafter that " the session being removed, the 
 minister was requyred what concurrence they gave to him in 
 the discipline of the kirk." Sometimes, as at Craigie in 1644, 
 the parishioners complained that " discipline was not par- 
 ticularly exercised, nor order taken with sundrie persons who 
 absented themselves on the Lord's day from the public worship."^ 
 Sometimes the minister, as at Alio way in 1642, in acknow- 
 ledging the elders to be, " according to their knowledge and 
 power, faythfull and assisters of him in the Lord's worke, 
 desyred that they might be admonished for better keiping of 
 the session." Sometimes regret wEis expressed by the minister 
 that neither his elders nor his congregation were as mindful of 
 their Christian duties as they ought to be. At Kirkoswald, in 
 1642, "it wes regrated by Mr. Johne that some of the 
 parocheners refused to pay thair parts for the furnishing of the 
 elements to the Communion, according to the decreit of the 
 platt made thairanent ; it wes further regrated by the minister 
 that he had not such men upon the session as he wold wish, 
 and that thair wer some of his elders who did not concurr with 
 liim in discij)line, as also did not resort to the kirk of the paroch 
 as they should, bot went elsewhere, or else remained at home 
 in thair own houses on the Lord's day ; and thirdlie, it wes 
 regrated that the parocheners coriveined not upon the Lord's 
 day to the publict w^orship, ather in summer or winter as they 
 sould do." The practical outcome of these pastoral regrets was, 
 that " the gentlemen (landowners) were exhorted to cause thair 
 tenants keip the kirk more frequentlie, and the elders lykewyse 
 in their severall quarters of the paroche to concurr with the 
 minister to that effect, or utherwayes, if they continued in 
 
 1 The following extract from tlie record of the visitation of Ochiltree, in 1650, will 
 show what the eldership had sometimes to say ahout their minister : — " The said Mr. 
 Johne being removed, the eldership called in, being inquired what they had to say of 
 their said minister, they did approve his life and conversation, but wished that he wen- 
 more diligent in visiting the sicke, and that he would take more paines in his privat 
 studies, desyred that he were exhorted to make a week dayes sermon upon the Thursday, 
 that he would be more meeke. and abstein from hastie passione in examining his people, 
 that in preaching to the tymes he would use more cleare and convincing arguments against 
 the enemies of God and his cause, and that in his preaching he would speake more par- 
 ticularly to the conscience, state, and condition of the people, and finally, in respect of 
 the infirmitie of his body, they would be content of a collegue to him." (Records of 
 Presbytery of Ayr, MS.) 
 
THE DiscirLixE OF THE CHURCH. 4S3 
 
 absenting themselves from thair paroche kirke, tliair minister 
 suld be transported." ^ 
 
 And there were other ways in which ministers in olden times 
 stirred each other up to increased diligence and zeal in their 
 pastoral and disciplinary work. Twice a year, immediately 
 before the meetings of the provincial synod, they had in their 
 presbyteries a special diet of privy censure. At this diet each 
 member of presbytery, most candidly and lovingly, revealed to 
 the court every word of gossip and rumour he had heard to his 
 brother-minister's detriment. And if any of the rumours 
 thus reported were' found to have the least appearance of 
 foundation, the minister thus defamed was thereupon exhorted 
 and admonished, as was judged to be expedient for his own 
 good and the good of his congregation. Frequently, or for that 
 part usually, there were no evil tales to tell, and the following 
 may be taken as a common form of minute on such occasions: — 
 
 Ayr, 12th March, 1645. " This day being the day of censure 
 before the Synod, the whole brethren, ministers and ruling 
 elders, present and absent, wer putt upon censure according to 
 the order of the catalogue, and all for the most part approven. 
 They were all exhorted to diligence in their callings, to preach 
 twyse on the Sabbath, to use catechetick doctrine once in the 
 week, to celebrat the sacrament of the Lord's Supper twyse in 
 the year, to urge familie exercise and duties, and to be frequent 
 in visitation of the people at all occasions." 
 
 Such honeyed expressions of mutual approval, however, were 
 not always minuted at diets of censure. A presbytery that went 
 to one synod with a certificate of health and soundness, might be 
 humbled at the next synod with a mournful indictment of 
 w^ounds and bruises and putrefying sores. On the 7th Septem- 
 ber, 1645, the Presbytery of Ayr were again under a j^rocess 
 of self-examination and censure. On this occasion also, it was 
 
 1 At some of these presbyterial visitations disciplinary procedure was enjoined. For 
 instance, at Auchinleck, in 1G42, " it wes appoynted that sundrie persones delated by the 
 minister to be fugitives from uther paroches without testimonials, as also suspect of 
 witchcraft, as wes alledged, suld be discharged the parochen publicklie from pulpit." 
 At Colmonell, in the same year, " warrant was givin to the minister and elders to tak 
 tryell of a slander raised against " a laird and lady of high rank. And at Daliymple, 
 the same year, "the minister was ordained to proceed against J. M. with the last admoni- 
 tion to excommunication, for dissobedience to the decreit of the session against him, for 
 drinking and making of bloaks (bargains) ou the Lord's day ordinarlie." (Records of 
 Presbytery of Ayr, SIS.) 
 
484 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUnCIT. 
 
 minuted that the whole brethren, present and absent, were " for 
 the most part all approven " {sic !) But there were notable 
 exceptions to this general rule. Political feeling was at that 
 date abnormally excited, and men that were of honest report 
 six months previously were loaded with calumnies almost too 
 fearful to be quoted. One of the brethren was reported to be 
 "aged and paralitick, and that notwithstanding he had bein 
 seveine tymes admonished heirtofore by the presbytery for his 
 scandalous cariage in drinking and tipling too frequentlie in 
 aill-houses about the kirk, yet continewed still in that vyce, 
 resorting ordinarlie both Sabbath day and week day in the aill 
 house, and remaining theirin in the week day from morning to 
 evening, except that a litle in the noon tyd he used to go home 
 and tak a sleep, and therefter returned unto it." It was further 
 reported of the " said Mr. John," that he w-as " a mocker of 
 pietie, and of those who wer religiouslie dysposed ; and that he 
 had uttered, both publicklie and privatlie, sundrie malignant 
 speaches against the work of reformation in this land, such as 
 this : — ' That he was sure that this wes not the cause of God 
 for the which we wer fighting, for if it had bein the cause of 
 God it had bein put to a poynt or now.'" Another of the 
 brethren was reported to have " conversed frequentlie with a 
 man knowen to be a perverse malignant, and a diligent factor 
 for the rebells." It was also alleged that this brother forbore 
 " to preach in the tyme of our frayes and troubles, altho he was 
 desyred therto by the cheif of the paroche ; and that he resset 
 plundered goods in his house from the rebells and malignants, 
 as sugger loaves." Other two brethren, colleagues in two united 
 parishes, were " censured for neglecting the catechising of thair 
 people, by doing the same once onlie before the Communion ;" 
 and to crown all, one of these colleagues had charges of mis- 
 conduct brought against him, which led a few months later to 
 his deposition " from the calling and function of the ministrie, 
 ather in doctrine or discipline." 
 
 A strange practice that prevailed at one time in the Reformed 
 Church of Scotland, was the exaction of an oath from people 
 that they were innocent of particular sins of which they were 
 neither formally accused nor reasonably suspected. It was 
 chiefly on the eve of their marriage that people were subjected 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 485 
 
 to this inquisitorial oath. Both bridegroom and bride, before 
 receiving the privilege of wedlock, were required to declara 
 themselves by oath to be free of carnal dealings with each 
 other. The evident reason of this apparently strange exaction 
 was, that in marriage people solicited a spiritual privilege, 
 which could not be extended to persons under scandal. In 
 the First Book of Discipline it is stated that " if any commit 
 fornication with that woman he requires in marriage, they 
 do lose this foresaid benefit (of being admitted to marriage), 
 as well of the kirk as of the magistrate." People were there- 
 fore, before marriage, required to purge themselves of scandal. 
 It cannot be denied that this was "solicitude to engage in 
 the investigation of secret wickedness ; " but it was for many 
 a day, over a hundred years, a practice in the Eeformed Church 
 of Scotland. In the records of the Kirk Session of Perth 
 there is an ordinance, of date 1585, "that aU persons to be 
 married give their oath the night before, under pain of 40s, 
 Scots, or make their repentance public on the stool." As late 
 as 1677 traces of this custom are found in the manuscript 
 records of an Ayrshire parish. ^ The custom seems, however, 
 to have been dying out about that date, as appears from the 
 terms of the following minute: — "Both called before the 
 session, compeared and desired to give ther oaths that they 
 were free of carnal dealing wnth others, declaring solemnly they 
 were free of each other. The session ordains them to be 
 married without giving of oaths, as formerly was thought 
 fit." And it was not only as a preliminary to marriage that 
 oaths of innocence were exacted, but occasionally in regard 
 to other matters as well. It is minuted, for instance, in the 
 records of the same parish, that on the 11th October, 1635, 
 "all the inhabitants of the Galstone, being summondit against 
 this day, compeireit and purgeit themselves be their aith that 
 nane of tliem tak, nor knew who tak, ane daill from ye kirk." 
 
 1 The form of procedure before marriage is shown in the following minute in the kirk 
 eession records of Galston, of date 1644: — " Compeirit Johne . . . and purgeit 
 himself, be liis oath, that he was free of anie carnall deall with Agnes . . . And he 
 and the said Agnes actis themselves to abstein frae all suspect places, and that they sail 
 not keip house together all nyght until the tyme of the mariage, and that under the 
 penaltie of ten punds each of thame in case they failzie, and hes givin command to 
 subscryve this act for them. 
 
 " Hector Campbell, notar, at command." 
 
486 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECII. 
 
 It was customary also for kirk sessions in olden times 
 to exact cautions and demand bonds for good behaviour. 
 These cautions and bonds were generally required of people 
 after they had been convicted of some special offence. For 
 instance, at a meeting of a rural kirk session, in November, 1646, 
 one man acknowledged himself guilty of the sin of "untymous 
 drinking." For this offence he was not only ordained " to give 
 signes of his repentance in the publict place the next Lord's 
 day, and to pay of penaltie 225.," but he was required to " enact 
 himself to abstein from the lyk under the payn of ten merks." 
 On the same day, and before the same kirk session, two un- 
 married persons, man and woman, confessed themselves guilty 
 of a conjoint sin, and for that offence they were not only 
 appointed to pay a fine and give signs of penitence before 
 the congregation, but to find caution " that they should abstein 
 from any suspect carriage " with each other.^ But even when 
 no guilt was either confessed or proved, persons suspected of 
 misbehaviour were required to come under obligations to avoid 
 all appearance of evil." In the same records as those from which 
 the foregoing quotations are taken, it is stated that on the 
 23rd November, 1647, two persons "suspect" of a particular 
 sin, "both denied the samyn, which, becaus it could not be 
 gotten formally proven, the session interdyted the forsaid two 
 of privat companie, or any fellowship save in kirk and mercat : 
 and they enacted themselves to abstain from the forsaid fellow- 
 ship under the payn of ten pounds." 
 
 "VVe thus see what were the salient features of the two forms 
 of surveillance over people's lives and conduct, that were exer- 
 cised respectively by the Catholic Church in Scotland before 
 the Eeformation, and by the Protestant Church in Scotland 
 after the Eeformation. In the Protestant Church of Scotland, 
 the surveillance was, from 1560 to 1800, far more oppressive 
 than it ever was in the Catholic Church, except perhaps in very 
 
 ^ Secnrity was required for many kinds of good behaviour. In 1628 a man appeared 
 before a rural session, and " became cautioun and securitie for J. A., that she sould keip 
 the kirk ordinarlie everie Sabatfa, ami commuuicat in our Kirk everie yeir, she being 
 ■within the parochin." In 1640 a man got a cautioner to the same session " to obsen-e 
 and keep good order with his wyff and leive in love with her as God's word doth allow." 
 (Galston MS. Records.) 
 
 2 In 1674 the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock thought " fitt that Bethia Hamilton be 
 enacted no more to give phvsick or drinks to any with child, and that the Slinister 
 desyre all the weoman in the parish not to meddle with her prescriptions in physick." 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CIIUKCII. 487 
 
 early times. Of course the surveillance in the Eeformed Church 
 was not uniformly strict all through the long period embraced 
 between 1560 and 1800. It is alleged to have been less rigid 
 in the times of the first Episcopacy than it was in the suc- 
 ceeding times of the second Eeformation. But under episcopal 
 and presbyterial government its main features were the same. 
 People's doings and movements were carefully watched by 
 ecclesiastical censors. Almost every misdeed committed in 
 a district was discovered by the ruling elder, and reported to 
 the session. When elders failed to report a scandal, some one 
 injured thereby occasionally turned up as an accuser. In some 
 cases oaths of innocence were imposed for discovery of secret 
 wickedness. The duty and advantage of confession were duly 
 preached ; and whether revealed by voluntary confession, 
 exacted confession, or sworn proof, guilt, when once discovered, 
 became " notour." In its theory the Catholic inquisition was the 
 more gentlemanly. The duty of confession was pressed on 
 men's consciences ; and when confession was made it was made 
 to the priest alone, and the tenor of it was never noised abroad. 
 In some special cases, such as cases of heresy, people were put 
 on trial, and then their alleged crimes were made public ; but 
 for the discovery of common sins the confessional was the only 
 means employed. 
 
 And there was great difference in the zeal that the Catholic 
 Church before, and the Protestant Church after, the Eefor- 
 mation displayed in the investigation of sins and scandals. 
 According to Catholic historians, the Catholic clergy in Scot- 
 land, in the days immediately preceding the Eeformation, were 
 themselves very loose-living men. One of the canons passed 
 at a provincial council held at Linlithgow, in 1549, ordained 
 "the clergy not to keep their illegitimate children with them 
 in their houses, to promote them to benefices, nor to enrich 
 them from the patrimony of the Church." Speaking of the 
 state of ecclesiastical affairs in Scotland ten years later — that 
 is, in 1559, the year before the establishment of the Eeforma- 
 tion — Dr. Bellesheim says : " It cannot be denied that the 
 luxury, disorder, and dereliction of duty that characterised 
 many of the Catholic clergy furnished only too plausible a 
 pretext for the violent and lawless proceedings of their oppon- 
 
488 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 ents." The Bishop of Aberdeen was at that date exercised on 
 the question of ecclesiastical reform and the suppression of 
 heresy, and he asked the advice of his chapter on the subject. 
 The counsel he received was notable. Besides being urged to 
 cause the clergy of the diocese, including the chapter, to break 
 off their illicit connections and reform their lives, he was en- 
 treated to "show good and edifying example; in special, in 
 removing and discharging himself of company of the gentle- 
 woman by whom he is greatly slandered ; without which be 
 done, diverse that are partners say they cannot accept correc- 
 tion of him wdiich will not correct himself."^ From these 
 statements it may be gathered that in the days immediately 
 before the Pteformation the clergy of Scotland had neither 
 the power nor the inclination to convince sinners of sin. 
 They lived in open scandal and were not ashamed. People 
 saw that, and they would consequently not have brooked 
 correction from their priests although it had been offered. They 
 made confession with light hearts, very probably disclosing 
 only what it was convenient to disclose, and withholding what 
 they did not care to communicate ; and as soon as they were 
 washed, they (such at least as were inclined) returned to their 
 wallowing in the mire. 
 
 CHURCH CENSUKES. 
 
 In books of canon law the Catholic Church is proudly de- 
 clared to be a State. There is said to be accorded to her by 
 her divine founder the right of self-government, and that govern- 
 ment is administered by the hands of her priests and prelates, 
 the successors of the apostles of Christ.^ Catholic canonists, 
 however, are not content with making this remark concerning 
 their own Church, but they add that Protestant Churches 
 neither enjoy nor claim the privilege of autonomy. " Protest- 
 ants," says the Catholic author on whose words the foregoing 
 statements are specially founded, "contend that the entire 
 power of the Church consists in the right to teach and 
 
 1 Bellesheim, ii.. 239. 
 
 2 " Ex institutione Christi, Ecclesia est conjunctio hominnm, quae per homines, hoc est, 
 per Petnun et Apostolos, eorumque successores, administratur cum imperio sibi proprio, 
 nee aliunde dependente ; ergo Ecclesia est Status." — Soglia (Smith's " Elements," 
 vol. L, p. 82). 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 489 
 
 exhort, but not in the right to command, rule, or govern." This 
 account of Protestant doctrine is not correct. It may be the 
 doctrine of some Protestants, but not of all, nor of Protestants 
 generally in this country. It is the doctrine usually attributed 
 to Erastus, which, notwithstanding allegations to the contrary 
 that are persistently made in some quarters, never had a place 
 in the creed either of the Church of Scotland or of any con- 
 siderable section of her ministers. Here is what Principal Hill 
 says of Erastus, and of the views on Church government that 
 Erastus held : — " It was his opinion, that the office-bearers in 
 the Christian Church as such, are merely instructors, who 
 fulfil their office by admonishing and endeavouring to persuade 
 Christians, but who have no power, unless it is given them by 
 the state, to inflict penalties of any kind. Everything, there- 
 fore, which we are accustomed to call ecclesiastical censure, was 
 considered by him as a civil punishment, which the state might 
 employ the ministers of religion to inflict, but which, as to the 
 occasion, the manner, and the effect of its being inflicted, was 
 as completely under the direction of the civil power as any 
 branch of the criminal code. ... It seems impossible for 
 any person whose mind comprehends the whole subject, not to 
 perceive that the (this) opinion is false. Even were the Chris- 
 tian society merely a voluntary association ... it would 
 possess the right which is inherent in the nature of all societies, 
 of defending itself against intrusion and insult, and of pre- 
 serving the character it chose to assume, by refusing to admit 
 those whom it judged unworthy of being members, or by re- 
 quiring them to depart." 
 
 The framers of the constitution of the Eeformed Church of 
 Scotland claim for her the same right of independent self- 
 government as Catholic canonists claim for the Church of Eome. 
 In the Second Book of Discipline (1580) it is said (cap. i. sec. 2), 
 that " the kirke hes a certaine power grantit be God, according 
 to the quhilk it uses a proper jurisdiction and government, 
 . . . to be put in execution be them unto whom the 
 spirituall government of the kirk be lawful calling is committed." 
 And again (cap. i. sec. 8), " It is Christis proper office to com- 
 mand and rewll his kirk universal, and every particular kirk, 
 throw his spirit and word, be the ministerie of men." In the 
 
490 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECIT, 
 
 Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), it is still more explicitly 
 declared (cap. xxx. sec. 1, 2) that "the Lord Jesus, as king and 
 head of his Church, hath therein appointed a government in the 
 hand of church-officers, distinct from the civil magistrate. To 
 these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed, 
 by virtue whereof they have power respectively to retain and 
 remit sins, to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both 
 by the word and censures ; and to open it unto penitent sinners, 
 by the ministry of the gospel, and by absolution from censures, 
 as occasion shall require." 
 
 The Reformed Church of Scotland, therefore, is as much a 
 " status, cum imperio sibi proprio, quod per homines adminis- 
 tratur," as is, or ever was, the Catholic Church. And not only 
 is the infliction of censure part of her appointed office, but till 
 within very recent times she was particularly zealous in the 
 discharge of that duty. 
 
 In the administration of censures three objects are kept in 
 view : the maintenance of the Church's purity, the reclamation 
 of offenders, and the restraint of those that might, by the sight 
 of unchecked sin, be tempted to do evil. For the attainment 
 of these ends the officers of the Church are, in the Westminster 
 Confession, directed " to proceed by admonition, suspension 
 from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper for a season, and by 
 excommunication from the Church, according to the nature of 
 the crime and the demerit of the person." This statement 
 indicates the procedure adopted by the Church of Scotland 
 towards offenders, both before and subsequent to 1647, when 
 the Westminster Confession was approved and received by the 
 General Assembly. 
 
 The simplest and mildest of church censures is rebuke ; and 
 rebuke is laid down so clearly in Scripture as a duty for the 
 Church to discharge on her erring children that we must 
 suppose it to have been, in some way, exercised in the Church 
 from the earliest period of her history. Our Lord himself 
 taught His disciples, in express words, how they should deal 
 with offending brethren: — "If thy brother," He said, "shall 
 trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee 
 and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy 
 brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECII. 401 
 
 one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses 
 every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to 
 hear them, tell it unto the Church : but if he neglect to hear 
 the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a 
 publican." This is the way in which Christ directed his dis- 
 ciples to deal with private faults ; and in dealing with private 
 faults, or faults that did not occasion very grave scandal, the 
 Eeformed Church of Scotland endeavoured to follow her Lord's 
 direction. In the First Book of Discipline (1560) it is said : 
 " If the offence be secret or known to few men, and rather 
 stands in suspicion than in manifest probation, the offender 
 ought to be privately admonished to abstaine from all appear- 
 ance of evil, which if he promise to doe, and declare himselfe 
 sober, honest, and one that feares God and feares to offend his 
 brethren, then may the secret admonition suffice for his cor- 
 rection." And how much this private admonition was regarded 
 as part of a ruling elder's duty, in the first days of the Eefor- 
 mation, is shown, indirectly indeed, but still clearly and fully, 
 in the Second Book of Discipline, 1580, where it is said that 
 elders " sould be diligent in admonishing all men of their 
 dewtie, according to the rewl of the evangell : and things that 
 they cannot correct be privat admonitions, they sould brinr^ 
 to the assemblie of the elderschip." In comparatively recent 
 times it was thought fit, within the bounds of some synods at 
 least, that kirk sessions should, at their meetings for privy 
 censures, question each individual elder on his faithfulness 
 in admonishing the people within his district of " such escapes 
 as did not deserve to be represented to the session." ^ 
 
 It may be safely asserted that, in the evil days immediately 
 preceding the Eeformation, those that exercised the pastoral 
 office in Scotland were neither zealous nor laborious in admon- 
 ishing and rebuking privately. Few sins except heresy, and 
 those that accompanied it, such as buying or reading transla- 
 
 ■• Questions appointed by Pres. of Irvine, in 1723, to be put to elders at pri-sy censnres. 
 In the records of the Presbytery of Ayr there appears the following appointment (1723): 
 " In order to comply with the act of last synod as to sessions' observing a day for prayer 
 and privy censures, the ministers of Air are to draw up a formula of questions to be put 
 to members of session." These meetings of session for privy censure of their members 
 were of very old standing, and in some of the records of them which are still extant we 
 find individual elders desired by their brethren to " be mair diligent and carefull over the 
 manors of the people" (St. Andrews, 150G). 
 
492 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 tions of the Bible, were much regarded by the clergy. People 
 sinned and made confession; did penance and bought indul- 
 gences ; and were then favoured with a bill of remission. And 
 with these formalities people and priests were alike satisfied. 
 But with the Eeformation there came a great revival of zeal 
 in godliness ; and admonition thus acquired in the Reformed 
 Church a place it had not occupied in the Catliolic Church since 
 tiie earliest ages of Christianity. 
 
 Besides private and informal admonitions, which ministers 
 and elders were to be constantly addressing, in season and 
 out of season, to the careless, admonitions of a more formal 
 character were appointed by the Church for such of her mem- 
 bers as had fallen into sins that occasioned public scandal. 
 It was when admonition was given in this formal manner 
 that it became, strictly speaking, a church censure. And 
 there were two ways in which formal admonition was given 
 to offenders : sometimes it was given in the church court, in 
 presence of the kirk session or presbytery; and sometimes it 
 was given in public, in face of the congregation. Of these 
 two kinds of formal admonition the sessional was the lighter 
 and less humiliating censure. And yet it was not a light 
 matter. The offender had to listen to a reprimand in the pres- 
 ence of six or twelve men, to whom he was probably per- 
 sonally known, and whose good opinion he was very unwilling 
 to forfeit. His compearance for rebuke was, moreover, inserted 
 Dy the session in their register in perpctuam memoriam rei, 
 so that hundreds of years after his scandal was removed his 
 transgression should remain uncovered. 
 
 The kind of offences that, in the latter half-period of the 
 Reformed Church's history, were judged fit to be visited 
 with sessional rebuke, and nothing more, are specified in the 
 Form of Process, 1707. They are relapses in such sins as 
 drunkenness, breach of the Lord's Day, disobedience to parents, 
 swearing, cursing, scolding, fighting, lying, and stealing. " Ordi- 
 narily in all such offences, the guilty for the first fault should 
 be spoken to in private by the minister or an elder, and 
 admonished ; and on promise from a sense of guilt to amend, 
 they may sist there. But if the person relapse, he should be 
 called before the session, and if found guilty may be there 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 493 
 
 judicially rebuked : where the session, on promise from a 
 due sense of sin to amend, may again sist." It is stated, 
 however, that while in ordinary cases this mild and dilatory 
 procedure should be adopted, "single acts" of the fore-named 
 sins " may be clothed with such circumstances as may be a just 
 ground of process immediately, and even bring the persons 
 guilty under the censure of the lesser excommunication." It 
 will thus be seen that for first offences, of the kind above 
 specified, there was no hard-and-fast line of discipline laid 
 down in the Form of Process, 1707. A single act of drunken- 
 ness or of Sabbath-breaking might, according as it was supposed 
 to be clothed, or not clothed, with aggravating circumstances, 
 either be passed by with a private admonition or be visited 
 with a sessional and even public rebuke. It may be presumed, 
 therefore, that where there was so much latitude allowed to 
 kirk sessions subsequent to 1707, discipline would be exer- 
 cised with different degrees of leniency and severity. Previous 
 to 1707, the discipline in the cases of minor offences,^ although 
 more rigid than it came to be after that date, was regulated 
 by the same elastic and judicious principle of sessional dis- 
 cretion. The following minute from the records of the 
 Kirk Session of Fenwick, 1692, shows on what grounds of 
 expediency the sentences of church courts sometimes rested : — 
 "The Session finding the scandal (of swearing) not verie 
 flagrant through the whole parish, and that the witnesses 
 cannot prove anie thing effectuallie more than (the accused) 
 confesses, and he being of a stifife, proud humour, unani- 
 mouslie resolve that he shall onlie be rebuked before the 
 Session." And long before 1692 kirk sessions were in the 
 way of modifying their censures, according as offences were 
 clothed with extenuating circumstances, and as leniency or 
 severity was judged to be the more expedient. In 1653 a man 
 
 ^ In the First Book of Discipline, 1560, drunkenness, fighting, and swearing are 
 included in the list of heinous crimes, for which the offender should be " called in presence 
 of the minister, elders, and deacons, . . . (where) if signes of unfaigned repentance 
 appear in him, and if he require to be admitted to public repentance, the minister may 
 appoint unto him a day when the whole kii-k convenes together, that in presence of all 
 he may testify his repentance." In 1599 the town officer in Perth was found guilty of 
 drunkenness and brawling on the Sabbath ; and for these offences he was appointed by 
 the kirk session " to come the next Sabbath to the kirk door, barefoot and in linen 
 clothes, and to stand from the second unto the third bell, and thereafter come to the 
 place of public repentance," &c. 
 
494 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 accused of drunkenness confessed to the Session of Kilmar- 
 nock that he had taken some " aqua vytie which had made 
 him so madd as to stryk all that cam in his gate." This was 
 a case not only of intoxication, but of intoxication accompanied 
 with violent behaviour, and it might have been supposed, in 
 those days of disciplinary zeal, to call for severe censure. It 
 is minuted, however, that "this being the man's ^rs^ fault, and 
 the session being desirouse to gaine him, he wes only rebuked." 
 People, nevertheless, both before and after 1653, were some- 
 times subjected to public admonition for offences that would now 
 be reckoned trivial. The records of Mauchline parish show 
 that, in the years 1G74 and lG7o, one man had public censure 
 passed on him for " cursing the elders and swearing;" another 
 for "fighting and scolding;" two for driving a cow along the 
 road on the Sabbath, "about the ringing of the second bell;" 
 one for "selling ale until four hours in the Sabbath morning;" 
 and another for "slandering" a neighbour with a charge of 
 perjury. Sometimes public rebukes were appointed by kirk 
 sessions to be administered to a whole class of the community, 
 for some public scandal of which they had all in common 
 been guilty. In 1702 the Kirk Session of Mauchline "ap- 
 pointed the minister to give a public rebuke to all the brewers 
 in the town for selling drink beyond the ordinary time of the 
 night." 
 
 When a judicial reproof was judged a sufficient testimony 
 by the Church against any particular offence, proceedings came 
 to an end on the offender's submitting himself to the session's 
 sentence ; but if the offender would not submit to reproof in 
 a becoming spirit, it behoved the session to take further course 
 against him. One thing they invariably did was to refuse him 
 certain church privileges till he gave them satisfaction. They 
 might, perhaps, not go so far as to suspend him, by a 
 formal sentence, from the enjoyment of sealing ordinances, but 
 they would refuse him aU the ecclesiastical privileges that 
 it was in their power to grant or withhold. As far back as 
 1574 the general kirk of Edinburgh ordained that no person 
 who has incurred scandal, shall before he has satisfied the 
 Church thereanent presume to present himself at the holy table; 
 or if he do, he " sail not only be raisit therefra," but shall be 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 495 
 
 required to give further satisfaction for his presumption. This 
 refusal of church privileges was a severe privation, but if any 
 one felt aggrieved by it he might seek redress by au appeal to 
 the presbytery, and from the presbytery to the synod and 
 Assembly. And such appeals were sometimes made. In 1570 
 a complaint against a minister was given in to the General 
 Assembly by a blacksmith, because the minister had debarred 
 the blacksmith from the Lord's table for removing " ane shoe off 
 ane horse upon ane Sunday afternoon, when neither preaching nor 
 publick prayers was." And the result of this complaint was, that 
 " after long reasoning the said (blacksmith) was ordainit to be 
 receavit to the participation of the Lord's table, and uther 
 benefites of the kirk hereafter, notwithstanding of the alleadgit 
 fault." As Dr. Hill remarks, however, it was " comparatively 
 a rare thing that a man pushed himself forward (to the Lord's 
 table) in opposition to the wish of the minister, and of the other 
 members of session. It thus happened that, without any 
 formal procedure, privileges were often withheld for a time 
 from those who had given offence by the levity of their conduct, 
 or their disregard of the ordinances of relif'ion"^ 
 
 For very paltry offences, too, communion privileges were 
 refused. In 1772 a woman in an Ayrshire parish, being 
 "charged with entertaining a vagrant beggar, and furnishing 
 her with drams, was ordered to be summoned to attend the 
 Session to answer for the same." What the result of that 
 summons was, does not appear in extant records; but for 
 several years subsequent to 1772 the name of the woman 
 stands on the list of those to whom tokens were to be refused, 
 and the only charge appended to her name is "entertaining 
 vagrants." Very interesting are some of these lists of scan- 
 dalous persons, as showing what kinds of sin were held long 
 ago to exclude people from sealing ordinances. On the Mauch- 
 line list for 1782 there are considerably more than sixty names, 
 which is much beyond the usual number on the black list of 
 that parish last century. Eoughly speaking, about half of these 
 names are the names of persons accused of the conjoint form of 
 iniquity which is the most frequent subject of sessional in- 
 vestigation. Of the other names, five are the names of persons 
 
 ^ " Practice in Church Courts," 12. 
 
 87 
 
496 THE EISCIPLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 charged with a breach of the seventh commandment in its 
 literal sense ; eight, of persons accused or suspected of petty 
 theft ; two, of men delated for fighting ; two, of dissenters 
 guilty of schism ; two, of men whose ofience is called irregu- 
 larity; two, of "soldiers," who from that designation may be 
 presumed to have had no certificates ; one is the name of a 
 man pronounced contumacious, another of a man found to be 
 ignorant, and a third of a woman who bore a " bad reputation." 
 Many of these names had stood for years on the black list, 
 notwithstanding the annual "intimation that was made from 
 the pulpit, for all persons under scandal within the parish, to 
 apply immediately to the session to get their scandals removed, 
 according to the rules of the Church." But all the offences 
 above enumerated were, independently of accompanying dis- 
 respect to sessional authority, judged sufficient to exclude from 
 church privileges, as appears from the following resolution 
 appended to the list in 1781: — "After reading the names of 
 scandalous persons excluded from the sacrament, the Session 
 resolved that the foresaid persons shall, as soon as convenient 
 after the celebration of the sacrament, be summoned to answer 
 to the Session, not only for their respective scandalous behaviour 
 which excludes them from sealing ordinances, but also for their 
 continued impenitence in their sins." 
 
 And it was not only after a scandalous sin had been proved 
 against a man that he was refused church privileges. As soon 
 as any mala fama regarding a member of the congregation was 
 reported to the kirk session, and the session considered that the 
 fama called for investigation, the person so delated was, pending 
 investigation, disallowed the enjoyment of communion with his 
 brethren. On the black list of 1782 referred to in last para- 
 graph, stand the names of two women who had each been 
 refused a token for five successive years, one " for stealing a 
 hen as alleged" and the other for being "suspected of having 
 given birth to a child." In these cases there was pre- 
 sumption, but no proof, of guilt ; and not only were these cases 
 far from being singular, but there are many cases of much 
 greater hardship on record.^ 
 
 ^ In the " Burden of Issachar" (1646), Bishop Maxrvell accused the Preshyterians in 
 Scotland of "bringing ebame upon many young women on groundless suspicion, of 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 497 
 
 In olden times kirk sessions in Scotland did a great deal 
 more than refuse the benefits of Communion to individual 
 persons convicted or accused of special offences. Occasionally 
 they took on themselves to withhold for years the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper from the whole congregation under their 
 charge. This they did on the ground that they considered the 
 congregation was not in a fit frame of mind for taking part in 
 that solemn and comforting ordinance. Sacramental interdicts 
 of this sort were very common during the times of the 
 Protesters. At a meeting of the six sessions of Edinburgh, in 
 1652, it was concluded that the Communion "cannot con- 
 venientlie be celebrate, as is now thought, till there be a lawf ull 
 judicatorie of the kirk to determine anent the present course of 
 defection carried on amongst us, anent the Covenant, and what 
 censure it deserves." Accordingly, in parishes where Protesting 
 ministers were settled, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was, 
 on account of the alleged sins of the people, left unadministered 
 for years. In Stirling, where James Guthrie was minister, the 
 congregation was for nine years prior to 1657 denied the bene- 
 fit of sacramental Communion. And many similar instances 
 are on record, not only during the troublous times of the seven- 
 teenth, but during the still times of the eighteenth century. 
 In 1716 a minister in Ayrshire reported to his presbytery that 
 the Communion in his parish had been hindered through " dis- 
 orders occasioned by some irregular ministers that came into 
 his bounds." In other words, the whole parish was held to have 
 been so much demoralized by the divisive courses of these 
 itinerant preachers, that it was not warrantable to convene the 
 congregation to a banquet of love. One of the special grounds 
 on which the General Assembly, in the year 1705, deposed 
 the minister of Urr was, that he had neither "dispensed 
 the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to others, nor partaken 
 thereof himself for more than sixteen years." And, again, 
 the reason why this minister would not celebrate the Com- 
 munion in his parish was, he said, because "communicating 
 
 putting them in prison till they confessed their secret sins, and of forcing them to clear 
 themselves by oath in the cnngregation of needless jealousies." These allegations are 
 declared by Baillie to be " but a prelatical calumny." It is only when " pregnant pre- 
 sumptions are delated" against a man that he is required to clear himself of scandal. 
 ("Historical Vindication," 164G, 23.) 
 
498 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 with persons scandalous made people guilty of communicating 
 unworthily." 
 
 And Communion was not the only privilege that kirk sessions 
 withheld from people that were under scandal, or suspected of 
 scandal. From time immemorial it has been, and it still is, the 
 custom in the Eeformed Church of Scotland to disallow parents 
 under the scandal of uncleanness to present their children for 
 baptism. Strictly speaking, any offence that would exclude a 
 man from Communion should exclude him from the privilege 
 of sponsorship for a child. And in olden times there were 
 different offences that did exclude a man from that latter 
 privilege. Ignorance was held, as it still is held, to be a 
 sufficient ground for exclusion. But for such sins of omission 
 as not attending diets of catechising, some kirk sessions, long 
 ago, refused people the privilege of holding up their children 
 for baptism.^ And, sooth to say, there were many persons to 
 whom denial of this privilege did not matter much. Among 
 their friends and neighbours they could easily find a sponsor. 
 But there were other privileges in which people were less 
 willing to be represented by substitutes. One of these was the 
 privilege of marriage; and this privilege was at one time refused 
 by the Church of Scotland to all persons under scandal." In 
 1644, during the reign of Presbytery, some ministers in the dis- 
 trict of Strathbogie were censured for marrying persons that 
 were under church obloquy; and in 1668, during the reign of 
 Episcopacy, a minister in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright was 
 actually suspended from the exercise of his ministry for (along 
 with another offence) granting a man under gross scandal the 
 benefit of marriage. A more curious illustration, however, of 
 the Church's practice in withholding from people, on account 
 of their misconduct, the honour and happiness of wedlock will 
 be found in the records of the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock. In 
 November, 1648, a man was ordered to begin his course of 
 public repentance for the sin of killing his sister.^ The foUow- 
 
 1 " Old Church Life in Scotland," Second Series, 223. 
 
 2 In a published minute of St. Andrews Session, of date 1582, the following occurs: — 
 "All benefit of the kirk in time coming, viz. baptism, the Lord's Supper, and marriage." 
 
 *In the famous Act of Assembly anent Remedies of Corruptions and Enormities, 1648, 
 it was ordained that persons guilty of incest or murder should be required to make public 
 profession of their repentance " fifty-two Sabbaths, vi case the magiftrate do not his 
 duty in punishing such crimes capitally " 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 499 
 
 ing Febniary he had so far satisfied the session that he was 
 allowed to subscribe the Covenant, and a month later he " was 
 licensed by the session to have the henefite of the Communion 
 and marriage as occasion should serve, lyk the rest of the 
 parochiners."^ And there was another privilege still that was 
 denied to persons under scandal. This was the privilege of a 
 testimonial on leaving their parish. Without such a testimonial 
 a man became practically excommunicated in the new parish 
 to which he migrated. Sometimes people, for want of such 
 certificates, were refused a settlement in the place to which 
 they removed. And certificates were occasionally refused for 
 offences that do not seem grossly scandalous. An Ayrshire 
 kirk session, which in 1700 refused baptism to a child be- 
 cause its father neglected the diets of catechising, refused 
 also to allow testimonials to people that were guilty of the same 
 neglect. 
 
 It may be said that this practice of withholding ecclesiastical 
 privileges, although answering a disciplinary purpose, was 
 scarcely in the strict sense of the term a church censure. It may 
 be questioned whether in certain circumstances, where guilt was 
 only suspected and no contempt of authority was shown, re- 
 fusal of a token could be construed to mean more than a caution 
 or an advice not to ask for privileges. The censure that comes 
 in when admonition fails is a sentence of excommunication in 
 some form. This means the exclusion of a man, for either 
 a definite or an indefinite period, from the benefits of sacra- 
 mental ordinances. It is a form of censure that has ever been 
 in use both in Catholic and Protestant Churches. It is also 
 founded on Scriptural authority. St. Paul directed the Church at 
 Corinth to excommunicate the incestuous man who had there, 
 by his abuse of the doctrine of Christian liberty, brought on 
 Christianity a very grievous reproach. The same apostle him- 
 self excommunicated Hymenseus and Philetus. One of these 
 sentences, however, was speedily recalled. The incestuous man 
 at Corinth showed signs of penitence, and was, by apostolic 
 order, restored to the privilege he had lost. It came therefore, 
 
 ^ The benefit of marriage was sometimes by the Church refused on grounds that were 
 as justifiable as they may seem comical. In 1594 (1596 new reckoning) the Presbytery 
 of Glasgow minuted that in respect of a certain man's being "in greit det," they could 
 not order a claimant of bis hand and heart "to be mareit upone him." 
 
500 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 iu early times, to be a question how long sentences of excom- 
 munication stand in force ; and with that there arose another 
 question, what amount of deprivation sentences of excommuni- 
 cation carry ? The rise of these questions led to the recognition 
 of grades of excommunication. Some ecclesiastical authorities 
 contended for three grades, and others for two. The twofold 
 division of excommunication into greater or lesser, is the one 
 that at the present day is generally recognized. In the Eoman 
 Catholic Church, the lesser excommunication means exclusion 
 from the eucharist and the prayers of the faithful ; the greater 
 excommunication, on the other hand, implies rejection not only 
 from the eucharist, but from the precincts of the church and 
 the society of Christian people. 
 
 In Knox's Book of Common Order, 1567, there is no mention 
 of any censure corresponding to lesser excommunication ; and 
 Bishop Maxwell, in his "Burden of Issachar" (1646), makes it 
 one of his articles of indictment against Presbyterians, that 
 " they know not much, at least use not much," that spiritual 
 censure. In Eutherford's "Due Plights of Presbyteries" (1644), 
 it is said, p. 283, that "our divines from Scripture make three 
 degrees of excommunication, the first (and lowest) of which is a 
 debarring from the Lord's Supper." ^ This censure, Eutherford 
 remarks, " is not judged a delivering to Satan or excommuni- 
 cation " proper, but it goes by the name of " the lesser excom- 
 munication." And in keeping with this remark of Eutherford's 
 is the statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that 
 the censures of the Church are, admonition, suspension from the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper for a season, and excommuni- 
 cation from the Church. 
 
 In the Porm of Process, 1707, lesser excommunication is 
 specially mentioned as one of the forms of church censure. 
 And long before that date the term was used, occasionally at 
 least, in the courts of the Church of Scotland. In the records 
 of Mauchline parish the following minute occurs under date 
 1681, during the ministry of an indulged Presbyterian: — "This 
 day W. W. ... is appointed to appear in publick place 
 
 ^ The other two gi-ades of escommnnication, according to Rutherford, are: "IT. A 
 delivering to Satan, tlie gieater excommunication ; III. Maranatha, in the Syriac, is 
 utter cursing till Christ's second coming." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 501 
 
 of repentance the next Lord's day, which if he disobey, the 
 minister is allowed to passe the sentence of minor excommuni- 
 cation against him." It is commonly held at the present day 
 that, under the Form of Process, 1707, kirk sessions, in dealing 
 with profane swearers, drunkards, and such like, may of their 
 own accord proceed orderly "till they inflict this censure." 
 It is, says Dr. Alexander Hill, " the highest censure which kirk 
 sessions usually inflict."^ There are cases, however, in which 
 kirk sessions are not at liberty to proceed to this sentence 
 without presbyterial sanction. The form of process directs 
 that " with respect to scandals whose grossness makes it neces- 
 sary to bring the persons guilty oftener than once before the 
 congregation, the rules prescribed by the fourth Act of the 
 General Assembly, 1705, are to be followed." These rules 
 forbid the infliction of a summary sentence of lesser excom- 
 munication on the transgressors referred to. The delinquents 
 are, first of all, to have it judicially declared to them by the 
 session " that they have rendered themselves incapable of com- 
 munion with the people of God in sealing ordinances." They 
 are next to be publicly rebuked (whether they appear penitent 
 or not), and painfully instructed by the session, so as to be 
 brought to a proper sense of their sin and a serious resolution 
 of new obedience. And then, in the third place, when pains 
 have been taken with them " for some competent time for their 
 instruction and conviction, and they still remain grossly ignor- 
 ant, insensible, and unreformed, the minister and elders are to 
 advise with the presbytery of the bounds, and if the presby- 
 tery shall see cause, the sentence of lesser excommunication 
 shall be publicly pronounced against them in face of the 
 congregation,"^ 
 
 ^ If the lesser excommunication means only suspension of church privileges, it may be 
 asked wherein does it differ from the refusal of privileges, previously referred to, for 
 alleged scandals ? The suspension in the one case was only pending trial of scandal and 
 course of discipline connected therewith ; the suspension in the other case was a sentence 
 pronounced after trial and sessional dealing with the delinquent were closed. 
 
 2 The following extracts from the manuscript records of the kirk session of Kilmarnock 
 will show the steps that were taken by church courts in their procedure towards lesser 
 excommunication after the Form of Process. April, 1707, was passed into an Act: — 
 " 1707, October 2nd. The session, considering J. K's scandal now sufficiently proven, and 
 her contumacy, unanimously resolved that she should be rebuked publicly, and laid under 
 the sentence of lesser excommunication, and that the presbytery's advice should be taken 
 thereanent." . . . 16th October. The minister "reported that the presbytery had 
 approven the session's procedure with respect to J. R., and advised to put the sentence 
 they had resolved on in execution, which the session unanimously agi-eed to, and appointed 
 
B02 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUnCIT. 
 
 The greater excommunication was, as the name implies, a 
 much severer censure than the lesser. It was, as the Scottish 
 Reformers said, "the greatest and last punishment helonging 
 to the spiritual ministerie." It behoved, therefore, that so 
 high a censure should be proclaimed with solemnity. In 
 the order drawn up by Knox it was accordingly ordained 
 "that nothing (should) be attempted in this behalfe without 
 the determination of the whole Church." And by " the whole 
 Church " was meant, in that ordinance, not the General 
 Assembly, as the supreme court of the Church representing 
 the Church at large throughout the kingdom, but the local 
 congregation. In its first days, during the lifetime of Knox, 
 the Eeformed Church of Scotland was much more democratic 
 than it came afterwards to be, when its polity was shaped 
 and settled by Melville. While in the Second Book of Dis- 
 ciphne (1578), it is the presbytery that is declared to have 
 power to excommunicate the obstinate ; it is said in the First 
 Book of Discipline (1560), that it is "by the mouth of the 
 minister, consent of the ministry, and commandment of the 
 Kirk," that this power is to be exercised. 
 
 Originally the sentence of excommunication was allowed to 
 be executed more summarily in some cases than in others. 
 Crimes that by the law of God deserve death, such as murder, 
 adultery, sorcery, witchcraft, and open blasphemy, were held 
 fit to be followed more promptly with excommunication than 
 were minor offences, like reversion to papistry, long continued 
 absence from the sacraments, and contempt of church authority. 
 These summary excommunications, however, were subjects of 
 frequent complaint, and in the General Assembly they were 
 often brought up for review. For his rash excommunication 
 
 their officer to cite her to the kirk on Sabbath next for that effect, and that her sentence 
 should be execute whether she appear or not." . . . 20th October. " Kebuked J. R. 
 for calumniating her neighbour E. S., and for her contumacy, and intimat that she was 
 laid under the sentence of lesser excommunication hy the presbytery.'" 
 
 Previous to the .passing of Act of Assembly, IV., 1705, the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock 
 seems to have inflicted sentences of lesser excommunication without advice or order from 
 the presbytery. The following minutes, of dates 10th and 13th August, 1704, appear 
 in the records of that parochial court: — "The session, considering what pains had been 
 taken to reclame them, yet all to no purpose, unanimously resolved and concluded to pro- 
 ceed against them with church censures, and to lay them both under the sentence of 
 lesser excommunication, and the same to be intimated to the congregation next Sabbath." 
 The parties above referred to " appeared both on the pillory, the said John not being 
 absolved from his first scandal, nor the said Bessie from her second, and did intimate 
 to the congregation that both were laid under the sentence of lesser excommunication." 
 
THE DISCIFLINE OF THE CIIUECH. 503 
 
 of the Earl of Angus, one minister was, in 1590, ordained by 
 the Assembly " to confesse his offence to God, and to the said 
 nobleman, in presence of the congregatione, on aue Sabbath 
 day, at the kirk where the said sentence was pronuncit : and 
 the sentence reducing the said proces to be publicklie intimat 
 be ane brother in audience of the congregatione."^ And to 
 prevent invalid and oppressive sentences of excommunication 
 from being rashly pronounced, special regulations were from time 
 to time issued by the Assembly. In 1597 an interim Act was 
 passed discharging summary excommunications altogether, but 
 ordaining that in the case of great crimes, " publick intimation 
 of the same be made, and the committer thereof be suspended a 
 sacris, and prohibite privato convidu." ^ At the Glasgow Assem- 
 bly, 1610, at which full-blown Episcopacy was thrust on the 
 Church, it was ordained "that no sentence of excommunicatione 
 be pronuncit againes any persone, without the knowledge and 
 approbatione of the Bischop of the diocie, quho most be answer- 
 able to his Majestic for all formall and impartiall proceedings 
 therein : and the process being found formall, the sentence to be 
 pronuncit at the directione of the Bischop, be the minister of 
 the paroche quhere the offender dwells." This excellent rule 
 has been practically retained in the presbyterial Form of Process, 
 1707, by the substitution of the word "presbytery" for bishop, 
 
 ^ To the great horror of those that claimed for the Chnrch unlimited spiritual independ- 
 ence, a sentence of excommunication was, in 1576, reduced by the civil authority. The 
 Moderator of the Assembly and the Commissioners from Clydesdale were that year 
 summoned " to compear before my Lord Regent's grace and tne Privie Council, bringand 
 ■with them the act of ordinance, made be the Assembly, for excommunicatione of the 
 Captaine of Craufurd, with the act quhairupon the same proceedit, that the veritv might 
 be knawen." The Moderator and said Commissioners, in accordance with the Assembly's 
 directions, obeyed the summons ; and, on returning to the Assembly, they " declarit that 
 in respect they produced not the acts and ordinances forsaids, quhilks they excused be 
 schortnes of the charge and occupation of the dark, his grace and council hes su&pendit 
 the said sentence of excommunicatione, quliill the productione of the saids acts. Quhair- 
 fore they protestit for the libertie of the Kirk." 
 
 2 In 1590 summary excommunication was allowed by the Assembly, on notoriety of 
 horrible crimes, such as murder, adultery, and incest. In 1595 the King craved from 
 the Assembly the abolition of summary excommunication. The Assembly delayed definite 
 answer, but ordained that, " in the meantyme, none of the ministrie proceid to excom- 
 municate, without citation preceding, nisi periclitetur ecclesia aut respublica." In 1648 
 the Assembly ordained that persons often guilty of gross scandals should be " excom- 
 municat somewhat more summarly nor in an ordinary processe." 
 
 In their zeal for the repression of impurity, presbyteries sometimes went beyond the 
 liberty accorded them in the infliction of summary excommunication. In i593 the 
 Presbytery of Glasgow ordained " A. B. to separat C. D. furtlie of his companie qnhill 
 he obtein license to be mareit on hir, or elUs to be excommunicat the nixt Sondaye be 
 the minister." 
 
504 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CnURCII. 
 
 SO that kirk sessions are prohibited, as indeed they were by the 
 Second Book of Discipline, from passing to the highest censure 
 of the Church without the presbytery's order. 
 
 In all excommunications other than summary, the order 
 1567 appointed a long course of affectionate dealing with the 
 offender to be faithfully observed. Admonitions, both private 
 and public, were first to be used, in order to bring him to re- 
 pentance. "The Sunday after the third public admonition, 
 the minister, being before charged by the session or elders, was 
 thus to signifie unto the Church, after sermon : — It is not un- 
 knowen to you, with what lenitie and caref ulnesse the ministrie 
 and the whole Church, by publick and privat admonitions, hath 
 sought A. B. to satisfie the Church, and to declare himself 
 penitent for his greevous crimes and rebellion, by the which 
 he hath offended God's majestic, blasphemed his holie name, 
 and offended his Church, in whom to this day we find nothing 
 but stubbornness. We are compelled, therefore, in the feare 
 of God, to give the said A. B. into the hands and power of the 
 devill,^ to the destruction of the flesh, if that by that meane 
 he may be broght to the consideration of himself, and so repent, 
 and avoide that fearfull condemnation that sail fall on all 
 inobedient, in the day of the Lord Jesus." But the sentence 
 was not there and then pronounced. That Sunday and the 
 next two Sundays public prayers were made "for the conversion 
 of the impenitent man;"^ and it was not till after the last of 
 these prayers had been made, and "the obstinat appeared not 
 to offer his repentance," that the threatened censure was actually 
 inflicted. The order appointed in the Form of Process, 1705, is 
 in its main points very similar to that of 1567. After intima- 
 
 ^ Strictly speaking, excommunicates were not, in the Reformed Church of Scotland, 
 delivered to Satan ; they were sechided from the fellowship of the kirk in prayers and 
 bacraments, but not from the hearing of tlie word (First Book of Discipline, cap. is.) 
 In other words, the Church did not deprive them of all the means of grace. The 
 mortnlis prohibitio of the ancient church was a tnie delivery to Satan, and excluded 
 a man from sermon as well as prayers. 
 
 2 In old records of church discipline, the first part of the process of excommunication 
 is called "proceeding against (a man or woman) with admonition;" and the second 
 part of the process, '• proceeding by prayers." For instance, in the records of the Pres- 
 bytery of Ayr (MS.) it is stated that, on the 23rd August, 1643, "JI. M'C, in Muirkirk, 
 called, not compeirand, ordained to be proceidit against with admonitione." After the 
 intervention of three Sundays for admonition, the presbytery on 13th September, having 
 called the said M. M'C, who did not appear in response to that call, "ordainit that he 
 be proceidit against by prayers." 
 
THE DISCIPLi:sE OF THE CIIULCII. 505 
 
 tion from the pulpit of the church with which the offender is 
 connected, "that the presbytery intend to proceed to the highest 
 censure, . . . there should," it is declared, " be three public 
 admonitions, and a presbytery should intervene betwixt each 
 admonition." If, notwithstanding these remonstrances, the 
 offender continue impenitent or contumacious, the presbytery 
 are then directed to appoint public prayers to be made for him 
 in his own church, " three several Sabbath days, a presbytery 
 (where its meetings are more frequent) intervening between each 
 public prayer, both to show the Church's tenderness towards 
 their lapsed brother, their earnestness to have him reclaimed, 
 and likewise to create a greater regard and terror of that dread- 
 ful censure, both in the party and in all the people." 
 
 In the registers of particular kirk sessions there are not very 
 many cases of greater excommunication fully recorded. But 
 there are a few, and in these we can trace the process of admoni- 
 tion first, then of resolution to proceed to excommunication, then 
 of public prayers on three several Sabbaths, and finally of pro- 
 nouncing the sentence. In many cases, however, there is no 
 intimation in the extant records that the several steps in the 
 process were orderly taken, but there is reason nevertheless to 
 believe that in these cases all the steps were taken as the Form 
 of Process directs. For instance, in the records of Mauchline 
 parish there is a minute, of date 1751, December 19, in which 
 it is stated that the Presbytery of Ayr having considered de- 
 positions submitted to them, "did unanimously find it clearly 
 proven that J. P, had been guilty of cursing his mother in very 
 shocking terms, and otherwise using her most barbarously and 
 undutifully : and considering likewise his contumacy, did unani- 
 mously agree that he be summarily excommunicated. And 
 therefore the Presbytery appoint Mr. Auld to intimate the said 
 sentence of excommunication, between and the next meeting of 
 the Presbytery, when he is to report his diligence." The only 
 other notices of this case in the session records are the follow- 
 ing: — 1752, March 22. "As to J. P.'s affair, the minister re- 
 ports that the Presbytery ordered that he be peremptorily 
 summoned to next meeting of Presbytery, on the last Wednes- 
 day of April ; with certification tliat, if he appear not, the 
 Presbytery will proceed to judge in his affair;" and, 1752, 
 
506 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCII. 
 
 July 5. "This day J. P. was, according to appointment of 
 Presbytery, laid under the sentence of the larger excommuni- 
 cation." It will thus be seen that nearly seven months elapsed 
 between the date of the presbytery's resolution that this J. P. 
 " be summarily excommunicated " and the date on which the 
 sentence was executed. The prescribed prayers between meet- 
 ings of presbytery for the man's reclamation were doubtless 
 offered in his parish church during this long interval.^ 
 
 The social and political consequences of excommunication, 
 even in the Pieformed Church of Scotland, were at one time 
 very severe. In the ancient order of excommunication, 1567, 
 not only was the excommunicate publicly declared to be cut 
 off from the body of Jesus Christ, but after the sentence was 
 solemnly pronounced the minister was directed to " admonishe 
 the Church, that all the faithfuU doe hold the excommunicat 
 as an ethnick: that no man use his familiar companie."^ Those 
 that presumed to disregard this instruction, and would "not 
 forbear the company of persons excommunicat," were declared to 
 be themselves subject to excommunication. And how rigorously 
 the Church executed her ordinances against the entertainers of 
 excommunicated persons may be gathered from the following 
 deliverance of the General Assembly, 1582: — " The Assemblie 
 ordayns James Montgumrie to make publick satisfactione and 
 repentance in the paroche kirk of Glasgow, for speaking with 
 Mr, Robert Montgomrie, after his excommunication dewlie 
 intimat, in respect of his confessione, and to acknawledge his 
 
 1 Sentences of excommunication were intimated far and wide. The following minute 
 occurs in the records (MS.) of the Presbytery of Ayr:— "1643, 26th July. This day 
 a letter wes presented from Mr. Johne Nave (Nevay), minister at Newmilles, shewing that 
 he had excommunicat one J. F. his parochener, who dwelt in Lowdon hill, and wes 
 fugitive from the censures of the Kirk for the sinne of murther committed by him. And 
 therefore the Presbvterie ordained that intimation of the said J. F. his excommunication 
 suld be maid throw all the kirks of the Presbyterie." In the same records it is notified, 
 25th April, 1644, that a letter had been received from the Commissioners of the General 
 Assembly " requyring that intimation suld be maid with all diligence, in all the kirks of 
 the Presbyterie, "of the excommunication of George, Marquis of Huntlie. and his adherents, 
 for their unnaturall insurrection and raising of armies in the north ; quhilk was con- 
 descendit unto." In the First Book of Discipline (1660),. it is said that " the sentence 
 of excommunication must be published universally throughout the realme." In later 
 times a less degree of publicity sufficed. 
 
 2 ''After which sentence may no person (l"s wife and family only excepted) have any 
 kind of conversation with him, be it in eating and drinking, buying and selling, yea in 
 saluting or talking with him ; except that it be at commandment or license of the 
 ministerie for his conversion; that he, by such means confounded, seeing himself abhorred 
 by the godly and faithful, may have occasion to repent, and so be saved." (First Book 
 of Discipline, 1560, cap. ix.) 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 507 
 
 offence tliair, promising in tyme coming to abstaine from the 
 lyke, under the pain of the censures of the kirk." ^ Nor was 
 the Church content with this measure of severity ; but time 
 after time she made application to the civil power to load the 
 excommunicated with civil penalties. In 1566 the Assembly 
 appointed " some of the brethren, in name of the haill Kirk, 
 to make supplication to the Lords of Secret Council and Session 
 of Justice, that no excommunicat person have process before 
 their honours, unto the tyme they be reconciled to the Kirk." 
 In 1600 the Assembly, with the King's own advice, drew up 
 certain articles to be craved of the next convention for taking 
 order with Jesuits, Papists, and Seminary Priests. One of 
 these articles craved " that all excommunicat Papists be chargit 
 to satisfy the kirk, within the space of thrie moneths, under 
 the payne of hornyng, and if they failzie, to be denuncit thereto 
 that their escheits and lyfe rents, in caice of year and dayes 
 rebellion, may be intromittit with be his Majestie's Thesaurer." 
 Still later, in 1608, the Assembly overtured the King, " that 
 excommunicat Papists, especially such as be of ranke, be appre- 
 hendit and put in close ward, and none have accesse unto them 
 except such as are of religione presently prof est." 
 
 In hot times sentences of excommunication were frequently 
 witnessed in Scotland. Before the Eeformation people were 
 excommunicated for holding Protestant tenets; and after the 
 Eeformation Catholics were excommunicated for not conforming 
 to Protestant rites. In the days of the second Eeformation, 
 Episcopalians were excommunicated for holding doctrines and 
 using ceremonies which, by a long stretch of interpretation, 
 
 1 On March 30, 1649, the commissioners of the kirk wrote to Charles II., then at the 
 Hague, regarding Montrose, in the following terms: — "We do represent in the name of 
 the Kirk of Scotland Ibeir earnest desire, that such as lie under the sentence of excom- 
 munication may be discountenanced by your Majesty and removed from your court ; 
 especially James Graham, late Earle of Montrose, being a man most justly, if ever any, 
 cast out of the Church of God. It bath been the custom of Christian Princes in all 
 places and times, to maintain so far the discipline of all Churches which themselves did 
 protect by their laws, as to decline the familiar conversing with eveiy one whom the 
 highest censure of excommunication made as Ethnicks and Publicans " (Baillie's 
 " Letters," vol. iii., 612). It is curious to find Baillie, in speaking of the civil penalties 
 attached to excommunication in Scotland, say, first, there is no "civil hazard to any 
 . . who will sufler himself to be brought to any measure of repentance. Secondly, 
 were they never so impenitent there is no harm can come to them a whole year after the 
 long process and final sentence of excommunication. Thirdly, after a year's contumacy, 
 though the letter of the Act of Parliament be heavy, ... yet (few or none) have 
 been hurt in their goods, imprisoned, or bauithed." (•' Historical Vindication," 59.) 
 
508 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 were declared by the Church to be abjured in the anti-papistical 
 covenant of 1580.^ A few years later, public men, such as 
 Montrose, Middleton, and Strachan, who acted a political or 
 military part in antagonism to the wishes of the majority in 
 the Church, were similarly excommunicated. And in the fierce 
 and furious dsiys of the second Episcopacy, while the ruling 
 powers were busily engaged in suppressing nonconformity, 
 the nonconformists were privately taking their revenge by 
 excommunicating the King and his chief agents in the per- 
 secution. In respect both of ecclesiastical warrant and ecclesi- 
 astical form, this last-mentioned act of excommunication was, 
 like "the thundrings of that Roman Antichrist, but vanitie 
 and winde." The vain sentence was, nevertheless, pronounced ; 
 and the person that pronounced it claimed for it both legal 
 and spiritual efficacy.^ The words he is reported to have used 
 were : " I, being a minister of Jesus Christ, and having authority 
 and power from him, do, in his name and by his spirit, excom- 
 municate and cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to 
 Satan, Charles II., King, &c. : and that, upon the account of 
 these wickednesses," &c. 
 
 It may be asked whether ecclesiastical courts have ever, in 
 Scotland, taken on themselves to inflict either fines or corporal 
 punishments. Catholic writers declare that the censures of the 
 Church are chiefly spiritual, as, for instance, excommunication, 
 suspension, and interdict. But some Catholic writers contend 
 that "the Church can inflict temporal and corporal punish- 
 ments" also.^ It seems to be a question, however, whether 
 it is mediately or directly that they can inflict punishments 
 of this kind. One respected authority on canon law says it is 
 certain that the Pope and CEcumenical Councils can, "if the 
 necessity of the Church demands, require a Catholic ruler to 
 impose even capital punishments : " and he adds, it is by no 
 
 1 Baillie writes that in Scotland excommunication is a " very dreadful sentence, and 
 therefore very rare;"' only a few trafSckiiig priests, live or six prelates, one Brownist, 
 &c., having been excommunicated there within the last forty years. (" Historical 
 Vindication," 58.) 
 
 2 This procedure was utterly at variance with the constitutions of the Church of Scot- 
 land. "The Church of Scotland," says Baillie, "notwithstanding all the cross actions of 
 King James or King Charles aijainst her, . . . did never so much as bethink herself 
 of drawing against any of them, or any of their kindred or special servants, the sword of 
 church censures." (" Historical Vindication," 20.) 
 
 '•Smith's "Elements of Ecclesiastical Law," i. t)0. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 509 
 
 means certain that " they cannot directly exercise this power " 
 ■without the intervention of a civil magistrate. 
 
 In the First Book of Discipline (1560) there is a chapter 
 entitled, "For punishment of those that prophane the sacra- 
 ments, and contemne the word of God, and dare presume to 
 minister them, not being thereto lawfully called." In that 
 chapter the Eeformers remonstrate to the Lords of Council, 
 " that, without delay, strait lawes be made against the one 
 and the other of such persons." They go the length of 
 saying also that although they dare not prescribe what penalties 
 should be required of such, they " fear not to affirme that the 
 one and the other deserve death." It will thus be seen that the 
 Scottish Eeformers did not claim to have the right of imposing 
 temporal punishments on men for profaning the sacraments. 
 They admitted that the appointment of civil punishments 
 must come from the civil state. Twenty years later it was 
 declared, in the Second Book of Discipline, that one of the 
 offices of a Christian magistrate in the Kirk is "to assist 
 and mainteine the discipline of the Kirk, and punish them 
 civilly that will not obey the censure of the same, without 
 confounding alwayis the ane jurisdiction with the uther." A 
 different doctrine has been imputed to the Church of Scotland 
 at different periods of her history. After the abjuration of 
 Episcopacy by the General Assemblies of 1638 and 1639, one 
 of the excommunicated bishops charged the Presbyterians 
 with usurping civil authority and ecclesiastically inflicting 
 civil punishments. This charge was vehemently denied by 
 Baillie in his " Historical Vindication of the Government of the 
 Church of Scotland;" and the statement that Baillie makes 
 on the subject is well worth being quoted, as a singularly 
 clear and curious declaration of the principles and practice 
 of the Church with regard to the censure of delinquents. " No 
 church assembly," Baillie says, "assumes the least degree of 
 power to inflict the smallest civil punishment upon any person ; 
 the General Assembly itselfe hath no power to fine any creature 
 so much as one groat. It is true the lawes of the land appoint 
 pecuniary mulcts, imprisonment, joggs, pillories, and banish- 
 ment for some odious crimes, and the power of putting these 
 laws in execution is placed by the Parliament in the hands of 
 
510 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 the inferior magistrates. . . . Ordinarily some of these civill 
 persons are ruling Elders and sit with the Eldership. So when 
 the Eldership have cognosced upon the scandall alone of 
 criminal persons, and have used their spiritual censures only 
 to bring the party to repentance, some of the ruling Elders, 
 by virtue of their civil office or commission, will impose a 
 mulct, or send to prison or stocks, or banish out of the 
 bounds of some little circuit, according as the Act of Parlia- 
 ment or Council do appoint it. But that the Eldership should 
 impose its ecclesiastical and spiritual power for any such end 
 none of us doe defend." 
 
 In accordance with this theory of sword and keys, there 
 was for a long time a strange arrangement in the courts of 
 the Eeformed Church of Scotland. There were certain fines 
 and punishments prescribed by Act of Parliament for certain 
 moral offences, as uncleanness and profanity ; and it was 
 directed that the fines levied for these offences should be 
 applied for pious uses. To secure the benefit of these fines as 
 easily and as expeditiously as possible, kirk sessions endea- 
 voured to obtain from the sheriff a commission in favour of 
 one of their number to act as session bailie. This person sat 
 in the session in both an ecclesiastical and a civil capacity, 
 lie was both an elder and a magistrate ; and thus when a man 
 was convicted before the session of any offence punishable by 
 fine or imprisonment at the word of a magistrate, the session 
 bailie exacted the penalty. It may be said to have been in 
 the perfervid days of the second Eeformation^ that this insti- 
 tution flourished most. Traces of it are to be found in earlier 
 periods of the Church's history ; but for many years before 
 the second Eeformation the custom had, in some parishes 
 at least, fallen into desuetude. At the second Reformation 
 the custom was revived, and it continued more or less in force 
 from that date till near the middle of last century. 
 
 In 1648 the General Assembly recommended that use should 
 be made of the Act of Parliament, 1645, "for having magis- 
 
 1 By "the second Reformation" is meant througliout this section the Reformation of 
 the Scottish Church from Prelacy in 1638. It extended from 1638 to 1661. Bishop 
 Maxwell, in his " Burden of Issachar," applies the phrase to the work of Melville, 1578- 
 1592 ; but that work is rather the second stage of the first Eeformation than a second 
 Eefonnation. 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 511 
 
 trates and justices in every congregation," and that "each 
 magistrate in every congregation exact and make compt to the 
 session " of the sums payable, according to Act of Parliament, 
 for the several offences liable to fine. Fifty years later the 
 office of session bailie had, in some parts of the country, become 
 practically defunct again, as may be gathered from the follow- 
 ing order, minuted by the Presbytery of Ayr in 1698 : — " Each 
 minister in the Presbytery is to use his endeavours to have a 
 magistrate in their paroch elected by the session, having depu- 
 tation from the sheriff, according to law." In November, 1700, 
 the presbytery found that a session bailie had been appointed 
 in most of the parishes within their bounds. But for some 
 reason or other, there was more reluctance on the part of elders 
 to accept the honours, and undertake the obligations, of magis- 
 terial office than the presbytery anticipated. At a presbyterial 
 visitation of the parish of Eiccarton, the minister reported that 
 " any who were pitched upon would not condescend to be their 
 session bailie." And for this hauteur there was perhaps more 
 reason than appears on the surface of the record. In December, 
 1700, the presbytery found it expedient not to press the ap- 
 pointment of magistrates in sessions, "till a new Act of Par- 
 liament thereanent (should) come forth more full to make the 
 nomination of the magistrates effectuall."^ In the adjustment 
 of the revolution settlement, the laws for enforcing the judgments 
 of the church courts by civil authority had been " adroitly cast 
 out." Hence the need of a new Act of Parliament. But the 
 desiderated Act never came. In 1717 a deputation from the 
 General Assembly went to London to demand a restoration 
 of these laws, "but the statesmen repelled the proposal with 
 a brief emphasis."^ Ayrshire ministers, however, seem to have 
 thought that local authority was still ample enough to give 
 commission to elders to act as magistrates for the Church. In 
 1723 the Presbytery of Ayr appointed a committee of their 
 number " to wait on the Earl of Loudoun, principal sheriff, to 
 try if he would give a deputation to some fitt person in each 
 session within the bounds who have not magistrates in the 
 
 ^ In the records of Kilmarnock kirk session Cunprinted), there are minutes of the elec- 
 tion, year after year, at the commencement of last century, of "church magistrates." 
 2 Burton, vol. viii. 
 
 88 
 
512 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 paroch already ;" but the committee reported that " his lordship 
 advanced some difficulties he had." From that time forth the 
 office of session bailie in the west of Scotland may be said to 
 have become a thing of the past. 
 
 How the ecclesiastical and civil offices were administered 
 together in the Church of Scotland will be best illustrated by 
 extracts from session records of different dates. In 1564 a 
 woman appeared before the kirk, or, as would now be said, the 
 Kirk Session of Canongate, Edinburgh, and made a confession 
 to her discredit ; whereupon it was minuted that " the bailies 
 assistane the assemblie of the kirk ordanis hir for to depart 
 furt of the gait, within forty-eight hours heirefter, under the 
 pain of schurging and burning of the scheike." In 1600, the 
 Kirk Session of Stirling were exercised over a troublesome 
 member of their congregation. The result of their conference 
 was, that they thought " meit that the bailleis put hir in the 
 brankis, in the nather end of the toun, in the sycht of hir 
 nychtbouris, . . . with certification gif the lyk be fund in 
 hir heirafter, that the bailleis wilbe desyrit to put hir in the 
 govis." Shortly after the passing of the General Assembly's 
 recommendation, 1648, that there should be magistrates in 
 connection with every church, there was a curious resolution 
 minuted by the Town Council of Glasgow, which shows how 
 zealously the Assembly's advice was taken up by the public. 
 At a meeting of that corporation in 1649, it was agreed that 
 warrant be given to certain persons " quha ar upon the session, 
 that they, in absence of the present magistratis, have commission 
 to exerce the civille power requirit against delinquentis, and 
 uthers lyable to censure, that come before that judicatorie." 
 
 But there can be no doubt of the fact that, rightly or wrongly, 
 lawfully or unlawfully, the Eeformed Church of Scotland, both 
 in presbyterial and episcopal times, did often dispense with 
 the services of the session bailie, and did by her kirk sessions 
 ecclesiastically impose fines and corporal punishments. The 
 following minute occurs in the records of the Presbytery of 
 Glasgow, under date February, 1592, just four months before 
 the civil, and more than ten years after the ecclesiastical 
 establishment of Presbytery in the Church : — " Absent fra his 
 kirk this lang tyme bygane, to haif contravenit his obligatiounes 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUUCII. 513 
 
 quhairin he obligat him, under the pane of ten merkis, to keip 
 his kirk on Sondaye to heir Goddis word, is decernit to pay to 
 the thesaurer of his kirk the said ten merkis, and to make 
 repentance in his kirk, . . . and that he find souertie under 
 the pane of ten poundis, to be present to heir Goddis Word on 
 the Sondaye in tymes coming." A year later, when Presbytery 
 had by law been fairly established and settled in the Church, 
 the folio winjx minute occurs in the register of the same court: — 
 " And that scho paye to the thesaurer of hir kirk pecuniall 
 sowmes as hir minister and elderis sail prescryve the said nixt 
 Sondaye."^ It was a very common practice at one period for 
 kirk sessions to require persons charged with scandal to "satisfy 
 the kirk both in penalty and repentance." In the records of 
 an Ayrshire parish this expression occurs over and over, between 
 the dates 1626 and 1646. The kirk session of that parish, too, 
 sometimes required delinquents to pay their appointed penalty 
 before they were admitted to the privilege of making open pro- 
 fession of their penitence.^ And down to a period within the 
 memory of people still living, fines for sin have been exacted 
 by kirk sessions. Indeed, notwithstanding what the exponents 
 of the Church's doctrine of discipline have been at the utmost 
 pains to make clear, that " the censures of the Church are not 
 to be used (or regarded) as a bodily punishment or penance to 
 satisfy for sin, but a spiritual medicine for humbling and gain- 
 ing of the soul," many kirk sessions have jumbled penitence, 
 penance, and penalty together as if they were all the same thing, 
 and any one of them could be substituted for the other. In 
 1637, the Kirk Session of Galston were petitioned by a deliu- 
 
 ^ The following mintite in the MS. records of Galston shows how kirk sessions not 
 only exacted, but fixed the scale of penalties: — 1627, 7th March. "The quhilk day ye 
 session hes ordained that in all tyme coming ther salbe chargit for penalty from ilk for- 
 nicator the sowme of twenty-sax shillings, eight pence money, for ye first fait; from ilk 
 profainer of ye Sabbath, and from ilk slanderer of his neighbor ye sowme of twenty 
 shillings money for ye first fait; and ye said penalties to be dowbled als oft as ye offenders 
 are relapse in ye forsaids falts." Presbyteries, too, were in the way of referring the 
 amount of penalty to the discretion of sessions, as the following extract from the MS. 
 records of the Presbytery of Ayr, 164.3, will show : — "And for thair penaltie they were 
 remitted to the session of Symington." 
 
 * Oi e of the charges that Bishop Maxwell, in his " Burden of Issachar" (1646), brings 
 against the presbyterian discipline in Scotland, is that "before the dehnquent be admitted 
 to doe his repentance, he is fined in a pecuniary mulct at their (the session's) discretion, 
 . . . which, if he pay not, or at least give security for the payment of it, . . • he 
 will not be admitted to satisfy publicly." Such prepayments occurred in the episcopal 
 period before ItioS, as well as in the presbyterial period after that date. 
 
514 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECII. 
 
 quent to "licentiat liiiii to stand in the permitted place in his 
 ordinary habit, and enjoin him to pey the greater penalty."^ 
 The kirk session minuted a very ingenuous confession that they 
 were sorely in need of " present moneyie," and they resolved 
 accordingly to close with the offer, and enjoin payment of 405. 
 extra, besides the cost of " ane sheit, quhilk wes gevin to a puir 
 dead bodie." So recently as 1809, a motion was made, and 
 unanimously agreed to, in another kirk session in Ayrshire, 
 that for constructive breaches of the seventh commandment, 
 "they should abolish public appearances before the congrega- 
 tion, and substitute therefor a larger fine with sessional rebuke." 
 In the infliction of corporal punishments, as well as in the 
 imposition of fines, kirk sessions frequently dispensed with 
 the bailie's services. In the session records of Dunbarton 
 there is a minute, of date 7th May, 1620, in which it is stated 
 that a man was " ordained to satisfie according as a relapse, and 
 because he has no gear to pay his penaltie, ordained to be 
 punished in his body by prisonne and the joggis conforme to 
 the act."^ The act here referred to was doubtless an act of 
 session; for in other records we find acts of a similar tenor 
 passed by kirk sessions. In 1628 it was ordained by the 
 Session of Galston that " gif nather the man nor the woman 
 be responsible (that is, have gear or money), they shall stand 
 
 ^ Penalties were very heavy when imposed for each of several offences. In 1648 a 
 person was convicted by the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock for uucleanness and profanation 
 of the Sabbatli. For these scandals he was appointed to " stand two days and pay 93s. 
 4cf." (One would have expected the fine to be d'6s. 4d., that is four, and not seven, merks.) 
 
 *In oli session records "imprisonment" figures among the sentences of the local 
 church courts. In 1599 a man was ordained, by the Kirk Session of St. Andrews, " to 
 be imprisoned in the steeple till he find caution to make repentance." Sedernnts"in 
 the joggis " were sometimes, also, by that primitive kirk session, ordained to be continued 
 for twenty-four hours (Lee's "Lectures," vol. ii. 406-7). In 1604 the Kirk Session of 
 Ayr ordained that Sabbath breakers should be " put in the thefis hoal." At Perth, in 
 1585, a man and a woman were taken in the fact of a conjoint sin on the first Sunday 
 of the holy Communion. For this offence, aggravated by the sanctity of the day on 
 which it was committed, the kirk session ordained that they should be " carted backwards 
 through the town, having paper hats on their heids, on Saturday next at ten hours before 
 noon, and thereafter be locked fast in the front on the cross-head, and there stand till 
 three afternoon, and thereafter be warded till Sunday, at what time the officers shall 
 convoy them with their paper hats to the public seat of repentance, that there they may 
 confess their sin." 
 
 It was alleged against the Presbyterians in Scotland by some of their Episcopalian 
 critics that in kirk sessions they sometimes ordered the heads of delinquents to be 
 rounded. On this allegation, Baillie, in his "Historical Vindication" (1646), makes the 
 following remarks : — " That either in Scotland, or anywhere else in the world, the haire 
 of any person is commanded to be cut by any Church judicatory, for disgrace and punish- 
 ment, is (as I take it) but a foolish fable." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CllUnCII. 515 
 
 twa several Sabbaths in the bradzane." Twelve years after- 
 wards there appeared before that session a poor creature who 
 was found to be not " responsible," and accordingly, " not having 
 silver to pey her penalties, the Sessioune ordainit her to stand 
 in the bredzaue, conforme to their former act maid thereanent." 
 Instances without number could be cited to the same effect. 
 Two grades of humiliation, if not of censure, were in somewhat 
 ambiguous terms meted out by the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock 
 in 1650, to a reckless fellow who had been found guilty of two 
 offences. This man "being summoned for abusing and stryking 
 of his wyff, compeiriug, abused the Session with his tongue, 
 . . . for which he is ordained presently to stand in the 
 jouges ; and for stryking of his wyff is ordained to stand two 
 days and confesse his sinne." ^ 
 
 That the discipline of the Church of Scotland, from the 
 Tieformation down to nearly the middle of the present century, 
 was very rigid, not only in respect of espionage, but in respect 
 of censure, is unquestionable. Looking to this fact, we can 
 scarcely wonder that some good men, thinking the courts of 
 the Church, in their zeal of God, sometimes withheld from the 
 people for insufficient reasons the benefit of religious privi- 
 leges, proposed to the divines at Westminster that the 
 offences which justify exclusion from the Lord's table should 
 be specified in the constitutions of the Church. To this pro- 
 posal, which was termed Erastian, the Westminster divines 
 would not consent. The liands of the Church, they virtually 
 said, must not — in the exercise of discipline — be tied. And in 
 
 ' In olden times kirk sessions were not a little troubled by the irreverent pranks of 
 mischievous boys, as well as by the sinful and scandalous conduct of grown-up men. 
 For the corrective discipline of turbulent youths, different courses of procedure were at 
 cifFerent times adopted by local church courts. In 1621 the Kirk Session of Perth did 
 not think it necessary, in such small affairs, to invoke the aids of civil or municipal 
 authority. One of the mercliants of that city made a complaint to the session that on 
 New Year's Day he was abused by two youths, 'and certain others their sociates, young 
 professed knaves, casting of their bonnets at him in tlie kirk " The boys were instantly 
 apprehended, "and presented before the Session for their insolency." By order of the 
 session they were thence "taken to the grammar-school and scourged with St. Bartholo- 
 mew's taws." Fifty years later the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock took a more constitu- 
 tional course with young offenders. On the 22i]d March, 1G77, " ther came in ane 
 complaint that in tym of divine service ther used some young lads to gather together in 
 corners of the kirk, and did fipht and play, and used to creep under the furmes and prick 
 men with pins, and wer a great prejudice to their hearing that sat nixt to them." The 
 kirk session discreetly remitted the matter to the bailies, and appointed detectives to 
 watch under the lofts and report to the bailies the names of lads that were found working 
 mischief. 
 
516 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUnCII. 
 
 the matter of receiving to, or debarring from, the Lord's table, 
 the Church has always exercised a libcmm arlitrium. Her 
 terms of admission have been changed from time to time. 
 Three years after the adoption of the AVestminster Directory 
 the General Assembly enacted that all persons before their first 
 admission to the Communion must subscribe the Covenant. 
 To people living in the nineteenth century this requirement 
 must seem, a very great stretch of authority. It was adding 
 to the word of the Lord an unauthorized commandment, and 
 cursing with a grievous imprecation where God had not cursed. 
 But both in its variableness and severity the discipline of the 
 Church of Scotland was always, in olden times, respected by her 
 members. It was believed to be strictly honest, and to repre- 
 sent the convictions of men who desired to walk in all the 
 statutes and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And except 
 when dealing with political questions of the hour, or the ecclesi- 
 astical controversies of the age, the courts of the Church were 
 never, even by their enemies, suspected of partiality. They 
 were severe in reprimanding all offences, venial or mortal ; and 
 they were strict in debarring from the Lord's table not only 
 those persons that were convicted, but those also that were 
 suspected, of scandal. To this severity, however, it was very 
 rare that members of the Church took exception. As a rule 
 they gave it credit for being well-intentioned : they cheerfully 
 submitted to it as what they .believed to be, in its main features, 
 just ; and they acknowledged that it tended to foster in con- 
 gregations a high notion of Christian life. On one occasion, 
 little more than a century ago, in the year 1760, a man in 
 the west of Scotland complained to the Presbytery of Irvine 
 that he had, by the Session of Kilmarnock, been excluded from 
 the Lord's table on a mere suspicion of his being guilty of a 
 great sin. The answer of the presbytery was notable as illus- 
 trating the principle on which this part of the Church's disci- 
 pline was based. The complainer was informed that "what 
 the Session had done was in tenderness to him, and that when 
 he communicated it ought to be with the love and regard of his 
 fellow Christians." 
 
 AVhether the system of public rebuke, which for more 
 than 250 years was in vogue in the Pieformed Church of 
 
THE DISCirLINE OF THE CHURCH. 517 
 
 Scotland, was altogether for edification may well be doubted. 
 At the present day it would certainly do more evil than 
 good. It would pierce the hearts of the sensitive with 
 insufferable anguish, and would furnish material for ungodly 
 mirth to the scoffing and profane. But the case was different 
 long ago : there was less refinement of feeling then ; lords 
 and ladies advanced to the place of rebuke as gaily as cava- 
 liers to the mouth of the cannon, and instead of beiug afflicted 
 with sorrow unto death, they afterwards looked the world in 
 the face with new-born confidence, because they had done 
 what was honest and honourable — stood the censure that was 
 proportionate to their sin, and received from the whole con- 
 gregation in their parish a certificate of atonement. And what- 
 ever may be said in disparagement of the old discipline of the 
 Reformed Church of Scotland, the fact remains that by that 
 discipline the national life was for more than 250 years 
 fashioned and nurtured, and many of the best peculiarities 
 of Scottish character at the present day are in part the out- 
 come of that discipline. 
 
 It may be remarked, too, that rigid and severe as was the 
 discipline of the Eeformed Church of Scotland, down to the 
 present century its forms of procedure were framed on what 
 were believed to be lines of tenderness. Censures were sel- 
 dom inflicted hastily. On the contrary, they were often 
 executed with most tedious dilatoriness. On many persons 
 overtaken in faults private admonition was tried first, and it 
 was only when this mode of dealing failed to evoke peni- 
 tence that public rebuke was resorted to. And when members 
 of the Church were found guilty of very grave offences, rebuke 
 was added to rebuke, and public prayer renewed Sabbath 
 after Sabbath, before the dreadful sentence of excision from 
 the body of Christ was pronounced. To delinquents this 
 process may have been painful and humiliating, but like 
 prolonged surgical treatment, it was designed to avert a 
 greater sorrow. In the old constitutions and records of the 
 Church, therefore, much is said of the Church's tenderness 
 to her wayward children. In her discipline there was a 
 blending of severity and grace ; and it depended on the point 
 of view from which the matter was regarded whether the 
 
518 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCII. 
 
 grace or severity seemed the more prominent. Offenders 
 thought the discipline severe, administrators called it mild.^ 
 
 PENITENTIAL SATISFACTION. 
 
 Between church censure and penance there may seem to 
 some people little difference. As commonly apprehended, 
 penance means pains and humiliation, wearisome labours and 
 self-sacrifice ; and it may be supposed, therefore, that penance 
 is only one of the forms of church censure. Penance and 
 censure, however, are not the same. A censure is a penal 
 sentence passed on a delinquent by a church court or an 
 ecclesiastical judge : it is an act of the court's or of the 
 judge's, and it is passed without the offender's consent. On 
 the other hand penance is an act of the offender's own ; it is 
 supposed to proceed from his own contrition ; it is an overture 
 on his part to make peace with the Church ; it is a request 
 for absolution. The granting or appointment of it is, accord- 
 ingly, a concession by the Church; and admission to it is a 
 favour or privilege which the offender is expected to appreciate. 
 So far from being a censure, it is in the Eoman Catholic 
 Church declared to be a sacrament. 
 
 In the earliest days of the post-apostolic Church penance 
 was always done in public ; and it was only when Christians 
 fell into very great transgressions that penance was sought. 
 " For the first four hundred years of the Church's history, the 
 three great sins of idolatry, murder, and adultery, or such as 
 were closely allied to them and clearly fell under the same 
 category, were in general the only crimes punished {sic !) by 
 public penance."^ And it was only after long and fervent 
 entreaty that persons guilty of these sins obtained a place of 
 repentance. The favour had to be craved from the bishop, and 
 with the utmost stretch of earnest supplication. Outside the 
 door of the church the fallen man took his stand, clothed in 
 sackcloth and covered with ashes ; and as the worshippers filed 
 past him he threw himself in the dust and cried for mercy. "When 
 
 ^ In 1660 General Monk intimated that in his opinion Presbytery, if not rigid, but 
 moderate and tender, was the most expedient form of church government for Scotland. 
 This remark was thought at the time by Presbyterians to be both strange and un- 
 generous. " It sounds harsh in the ears of honest men,'" said Robert Douglas, " to hear 
 Presbytery, the ordinance of Jesus Christ, reflected on by the epithet of ' rigidity.' " 
 
 - Smith's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," p. 1599. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 519 
 
 the bishop came at leugth to be satisfied with these evidences oi 
 contrition, he sent a deacon to the door to invite and hnucr in 
 the dejected man. With the imposition of holy hands the 
 bishop then admitted the offender to penitence, and opened up 
 to him a hope of pardon and salvation. Long before the Re- 
 formation, however, public penance had ceased to be made in 
 the Catholic Church. There was still penance done, but it was 
 in private, and it was for all kinds of offences, small as well as 
 great. And although the theory had developed that penance 
 is a punishment or payment for sins, it was still represented 
 as a privilege which sinners should solicit for the benefits it 
 brings. 
 
 In the Reformed Church of Scotland the word penance was 
 strictly avoided by careful writers, and the term penitence used 
 instead.^ All the same, however, there was in the Reformed 
 Church a theory of penitential confession similar to what we 
 have just described. Penitential confession was held to be a 
 privilege, to which only those that were worthy should receive 
 admission. In the Form and Order of Public Repentance (1567) 
 it is stated that " none may be admitted to publick repentance, 
 except that first they be admitted thereto by the session and 
 assemblie of the ministers and elders; in the whiche they 
 ought sharplie to be examined, what fear and terrour they have 
 of God's judgments, what hatred of sinne, and dolour for the 
 same, and what sense and feeling they have of God's mercies ; 
 in the which, if they be ignorant, they ought diligentlie to be 
 instructed. For it is but a mockage to present such to publick 
 repentance as neither understand what sinne is, what repent- 
 ance is, what is grace, nor by whom is God's favour and mercie 
 purchased."^ In 1565 the General Assembly ordained that no 
 particular minister should "admitt to repentance" such as 
 " are relapse the third tyme in any kinde of cryme," but should 
 send them to the superintendent of the diocese within which 
 the crimes were committed, in order to obtain " sic injunctions 
 
 ^ In printed copies of some old session records of the Reformed Church the word 
 penance occurs. In Dunbarton Kirk Session Records, for instance, there is the follow- 
 ing minute, of date 16C8 :— '• J. A. entered to penance upon the public plaice in sack- 
 cloith, for the scandell of," &c. 
 
 2 In the First Book of Discipline (1560), cap. ix., sec. 5, it is said: "If signes of 
 unfaigned repentance appeare in him, and if he reqiiire (ask?) to be admitted to publick 
 repentance, the minister may appoint unto him a day," &c. 
 
520 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 as may make tlie offence to be lioklen in horror." And it was 
 not in the first days only of her history that these doctrines 
 were held by the Eeformed Church of Scotland. They are to 
 be found in the treatise on the Eldership ascribed to James 
 Guthrie, the Protester, who was brought to the scaffold by his 
 persecutors in 1661. And in the Act of Assembly, 1705, to 
 which reference was made in last chapter, the same theory of 
 penitential confession is tacitly assumed. In that Act it is said: 
 " The General Assembly ordains that, after a public rebuke, the 
 ministers and elders be at further pains in instructing the minds 
 of the scandalous persons, if ignorant, in endeavouring to con- 
 vince their consciences, and to bring them to a due sense of 
 their sin, and to an engagement and serious resolution against 
 all known sin, and to the performance of all known duty : and 
 that the Session, upon satisfaction with their knowledge and sense 
 of their sin, do admit them to the public profession of their 
 repentance, in order to absolution." 
 
 In the records of kirk sessions and presbyteries, the phrase 
 " admit to repentance " occurs much less frequently than might 
 be expected ; but phrases occur in which the doctrine of peni- 
 tential privilege is covertly implied. People in olden times 
 were not all at once, on their conviction or confession of sin, 
 allowed to declare their penitence in the lieformed Church of 
 Scotland. Such a procedure, it was thought by the fathers of 
 that Church, would make sin appear a less heinous thing than 
 it ought to be accounted. Delinquents had, therefore, to abide 
 for a season under social infamy, and had meanwhile to find 
 caution that they would in due time " satisfy the order and 
 discipline of the Kirk," or as it was more commonly expressed 
 " satisfy the Kirk in penalty and repentance."^ And the pecu- 
 
 ^ 1644. " Refenit liimself in the Session's will, and lies fund cautioner for him that 
 he shall satisfie as the Session shall enjoin for his disobedience." (Galston MS. Records.) 
 
 1689, 5th June. " Did therefore appoint liiin to give bond of caution for himself and 
 his wife to appear when called, and thereupon to have his child baptized." (Kilmarnock MS.) 
 
 This practice was of very ancient date in the Christian Church. Keaudcr says 
 (vol iii., p. 254), '• Entering into obligations to do penance for particular sins, within a 
 determinate time, was a practice which had no existence in this period" (312-590 a.d.) 
 In the Scottish Order of Excommunication and Form of Public Repentance (1567) it is 
 baid that " the Church m.iy not receave anie excommunicate at his first request ; bot in 
 Buche greevous crimes as before are expressed (of others sail be after spoken) fourtie 
 dayes at the least after his first offer may be appointed to trie whether the signes of 
 repentance appeare in the off'ender or not. . . . The first fourtie dayes expired, 
 upoun liis new sute the superinteudcut or Session may enjoyne suche paines as may trie 
 whether he be penitent or not." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCII. 521 
 
 niary satisfaction was frequently required before the spiritual 
 was accepted. There are many cases on record, too, in which 
 applications for leave to make public repentance or satisfy the 
 Kirk were presented to kirk sessions by delinquents, and were 
 taken into consideration. For instance, on the 30th October, 
 1707, a woman voluntarily compeared before the Kirk Session 
 of Kihnarnock " declaring her sense of and grief for her sin, and 
 desiring to be admitted to satisfie for her scandal." The session 
 appointed two of their number to converse and deal with her, 
 and report on her professions and state of mind at a future 
 meeting. A fortnight afterwards these elders reported "that 
 they could find no ground to admitt her to appear." Her 
 application was consequently refused for the time being. Two 
 years later a similar petition was presented to the same kirk 
 session, and the answer minuted was that " the session are in a 
 strait to admitt her, the moderator having tried her knowledge, 
 and found her grossly ignorant of the principles of religion ; 
 yet, it being but for the first diet, they agree she appear next 
 Lord's day." And these are by no means solitary cases of a 
 kirk session's treating public penitence as a privilege rather 
 than a punishment. In the manuscript volume of records from 
 ■which the foregoing extracts are taken, there is mention made 
 of a contumacious person's being laid by the presbytery under 
 the sentence of lesser excommunication, and it is added that 
 "the reason she did not appear before the congregation was 
 because of her former mock appearances." Mention is made 
 also of a man's voluntarily presenting himself before the session 
 and " desiring to be allowed to appear the third diet for his 
 scandal," and of his being told by the session "that, as his 
 practice was not very suitable to his profession, they could not 
 allow him to appear." A very notable minute in the same 
 volume is the following, in respect of its showing that kirk 
 sessions required in those to whom penitential discipline was 
 administered certain qualifications: — February, 1709. "A list 
 of persons unpurged of scandal was read, after which, those of 
 them whom the elders reported as being any way capable of 
 discipline were appointed to be cited against the next session."^ 
 
 ^ A veiy odd and faulty expression occurs in an earlier MS. volume of the same 
 session's records: — 168(i, 26tli September. " The Session knowing lier to be a very base 
 woman, appoint her to present the father, or els they cannot censure her." Kirk sessions 
 
522 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCIL 
 
 111 last paragraph, the phrase " satisfy the Kirk " was quoted 
 as an expression that frequently occurs in the old records of 
 the Eeformed Church of Scotland. The words " satisfy " and 
 " satisfaction " occur in the vocabulary of Catholic discipline 
 also, and they may be considered as borrowed by the Eeformers 
 from that vocabulary. But the doctrine held by the two 
 Churches to be embodied in the words is quite different. It is 
 the doctrine of the Eoman Catholic Church, that a man's works 
 of penance make satisfaction or atonement for his sins, so far at 
 least as to procure for these sins remission of the temporal 
 punishments due to them. This is not only what Protestants 
 allege to be the doctrine of the Eoman Catholic Cliurch, but what 
 Eoman Catholics themselves avow. In the notes attached to the 
 Ehenies translation of the New Testament, it is said. Mat. iii. 2 
 " Doe penance, ... a very usual speech in the New Testa- 
 ment to signifie perfect repentance, which hath not only con- 
 fession and amendment, but contrition or sorrow for the offence, 
 and painefull satisfaction. But the adversaries of purpose (as, 
 namely, Beza protesteth) mislike that interpretation, because 
 it favoureth satisfaction for sinne, which they cannot abide." 
 And in like manner on 2 Cor. ii. 6 it is said, "By this whole 
 handling of the offender's case, we may refute the wicked heresie 
 of the Protestants, that would make the simple beleeve no 
 punishment of a man's owne person for sinnes committed, nor 
 penance enjoined by the Church, nor any paines temporall, or 
 satisfaction for our life past, to be necessary, but all such things 
 to be superfluous, because Christ hath satisfied enough for all." 
 On account of this Popish theory of satisfaction, some Scottish 
 churchmen have objected to the use of the word "satisfaction" 
 in Protestant discipline. James Guthrie, in his treatise of Euling 
 Elders, says : — "The word satisfaction may admit of a tolerable 
 construction in church censures, in order to the removing of the 
 scandal before men; but this being so much abused in the 
 
 could censure any offtiider, however base his character was; but they could not admit 
 every one to public repentance with a view to liis abtolutiou from scandal. The Kirk 
 Session of Perth, for instance, in 1619, intlicted censure (of a corporal kind) where it would 
 have been mockage to admit to repentance. The censure, however, might, iu the circum- 
 stances, have been spared also. '• For as meikle as W. JI., an auld doytit man, has con- 
 fessed his adultery with J. P.. and because that his compearance publickly in sackcloth 
 at the kirk door and repentance stool would be an reproach to the town, therefore it is 
 thought expedient that he be put in ward and detained therein, aye and whill he willingly 
 consent to be banished this town for ever." 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE ' ciiuncH. 523 
 
 Popish Church, and the hearts of men being so prone to turn 
 true gospel repentance to a mere legal penance, and to conceive 
 that by mere outward submission and obedience to the censures 
 of the Church, the guilt of their sin is done away before God, 
 therefore elders should carefully shun everything that may give 
 occasion to the fostering this pernicious opinion, and take pains 
 to instruct offenders in the true nature and ends of the censures 
 of the Kirk." 
 
 The phrase "satisfy the Kirk" has nevertheless been, ever 
 since the Reformation, in constant use in the Church of Scot- 
 land. It may be considered, in the first place, as meaning that 
 offenders will, or shall, meet all the demands of the church 
 courts. From people guilty of particular crimes or sins, so 
 much penalty is declared by Act of Parliament to be exigible 
 for pious uses; and so many days' compearance in a public 
 place of repentance is declared by the Church to be necessary 
 for sufficiently evincing that a man's contrition is proportionate 
 to the gravity of his offences. When a delinquent, therefore, 
 both pays the penalty enjoined by the State, and fulfils the 
 " course of repentance " prescribed by the kirk session or pres- 
 bytery, he is said to have satisfied the Church, or the law and 
 the Church. He has done all he was asked to do. He has 
 satisfied what in old presbytery records is called " the order and 
 discipline of the Kirk." But the phrase, "satisfy the Kirk," 
 should more correctly, in Protestant churches, be taken to 
 mean, "satisfy the courts of the Church that professions of 
 penitence are real and heart-felt, and that it would be for 
 edification to relieve the professed penitent from scandal and 
 restore him to all the privileges of Christian fellowship." 
 
 Such being premised, we have now to consider the different 
 ■ways and means by which penitential satisfaction was exacted 
 by and made to the Church. 
 
 If by " satisfaction " there is meant works that merit remis- 
 sion of sins, it is clear that there will be no penitential satisfac- 
 tion except when works of penance are done, if even then. Mere 
 confession of sin, and declaration of sorrow for sin, are not 
 satisfaction in the Catholic sense of the term. But in the 
 Protestant sense of the word, there is penitential satisfaction 
 whenever the Church is satisfied, by either profession or evi- 
 
524 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 deuces of sorrow for sin, that an offender is truly penitent, and 
 that he is, therefore, entitled to the comforts of the gospel and 
 the communion of saints. 
 
 Confession may accordingly be regarded as the simplest form 
 of penitential satisfaction accepted in the Protestant Church ; 
 and in olden times there were many cases in which the courts 
 of the Eeformed Church of Scotland asked nothing more from 
 offenders than a confession of guilt and a declaration of peni- 
 tence. Sometimes it was only before the kirk session that this 
 declaration had to be made. An admonition would then follow 
 to testify to the Church's zeal for God and her concern for the 
 offender's own welfare. But all that the offender was required to 
 do was, by word of mouth, to confess guilt and promise amend- 
 ment.^ One extract from a session record will suffice to illus- 
 trate the Church's practice in this matter. Opening an old 
 manuscript volume at random, the following minute, of date 
 1692, presents itself: — " Compeired, and confessed that he was 
 at the fishing upon the fast day, and likewise that J. L. was 
 fishing and had a leister in his hand. He was rebuked before 
 the Session and past." And in the form of process it is virtu- 
 ally said that in the case of some offences, which are specified, 
 kirk sessions sJiouhl he satisfied with a private confession of 
 guilt and promise of amendment. 
 
 There were cases, however, in which confession, before it was 
 accepted as penitential satisfaction, had to be made in public.^ 
 And such public confessions were of different kinds. Some- 
 times there was no infamy beyond publicity attached to them. 
 The offender appeared in church in his ordinary Sunday 
 costume, and occupied his ordinary seat or stance. The only 
 unusual thing he had to do was, at a particular part of the 
 service, to stand up and profess his penitence for the sin with 
 which he was charged by the session. In 1620, for instance, two 
 men, " for lowssing their boattis on the Sabbothe, and travelling 
 up to Glasgow with them," were ordained by the Kirk Session 
 
 1 Sometimes the confession had to be made on bended knee, as will be seen from the 
 following minute of a kiik session : — 1640, October 27. " Being summoned compeired 
 J. M'C. f( r nntymous drinking, quho confessed he was overtaken with drink. Therefore 
 the Session ordaynes him to set doune on his knees before the Session and confesse his 
 fault, quch was done accordinglie." 
 
 - Public penitence was made an ordinance in the Reformed Church of Scotland by the 
 very first General Assembly, which sat m Edinburgh in December, 1560. 
 
THE DISCiniXE OF THE CHURCH. 525 
 
 of Dunbarton "to crave God's pardon" the next Sunday. A 
 woman was at the same time, " for swearing opinlie in the 
 streitts, ordanit lykways the nixt Sabboth to crave God's pardon 
 opinlie in the congregation." Six and twenty years later, when 
 Episcopacy was supplanted in the Church of Scotland by Pres- 
 bytery, two men in a Covenanting district were brought before 
 the session on a charge of intemperate drinking on a Sabbath 
 day. They confessed that they were not in church on the after- 
 noon of the day specified, and that they "drank before and after 
 sermon, but none in the tym thereof." Their disregard of the 
 Sabbath was thus curiously combined with a praiseworthy 
 respect for the sermon. The session accordingly were satisfied 
 with ordaining them to " ryse out of their seats the next Sab- 
 bath, and confess their abuse of the Lord's day." 
 
 But public confessions had sometimes to be made under 
 circumstances of greater humiliation than these. Contrition 
 had to express itself with more self-abasement. The greater 
 the offence committed, the greater it was supposed must be the 
 shame and confusion evidenced in true penitence. Some offend- 
 ers were accordingly not allowed the dignity of making their 
 confessions from their own seats. They had to make them- 
 selves more conspicuous by repairing to another part of the 
 church where they were better seen. Sometimes it was to one 
 part of the church and sometimes to another. In every church 
 there was an erection called the public place of repentance, and 
 from this dreaded stand the worst class of offenders had to 
 display their penitence. In some churches, such as Kilmar- 
 nock, 1700-4, there seem to have been both a " pillory " and 
 "a furme before the pulpit;"^ and penitents had either to stand 
 " heich " on the former, or were allowed to stand " laigh " at the 
 latter, according to the measure of their transgressions. Fur 
 penitential exhibitions the church of Galston seems, for a 
 country church, to have been specially well provided with 
 
 ^ The "furme before the pulpit" in Kilmarnock was, strictly speaking, rot a place of 
 penitence at all, but a seat of accommodation for the deaf. On the 30th November, 
 167G, the session ordered their " beddell to set in the furme befor the pulpit that used 
 to stand there befor, and agreed to consider upon some old persons that hear not weel 
 to sit upon it." And in minutes of date 1700 it is designated "the deaf form:" 
 " J. C. appeared before the congregation on the deaf form over against the pulpit for 
 breach of the Sabbath day, but was not absolved, because instead of acknowledging and 
 confessing his fault and bin he endeavoured to excuse and exonerate the same." 
 
526 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEE CHURCH. 
 
 coignes of vantage. The session records of that parish tell of 
 a man that was appointed, 1644, " to give signs of his grieff at 
 the pulpit foot;" of another that had to do the like 
 emotional duty, 1676, "in the body of the kirk near the 
 pulpit;" and of a third that, in 1672, had to humble himself 
 " in the forepart of the loft before the congregation."^ 
 
 Both in situation and in form, the place of public repentance 
 varied in different churches over Scotland, and even in the same 
 church at different periods. Towards the close of last century 
 it was very commonly a pew in the area of the church, in front 
 of the pulpit, and within good view of the greater part of the 
 congregation. At an earlier period it was a more stately 
 erection, and it commonly went by the name of the pillar 
 or high place.^ In the penitential discipline appointed for Paul 
 Methven by the General Assembly, 1566, it was directed that 
 the said Paul should " come to the kirk doore of Edinburgh 
 when the second bell ringeth, clad in sackcloth, . . . and 
 there remaine quhill he be brought into the sermone, and planted 
 in the 2nihlic spectacle above the pcoiolc" And how high above 
 the people penitents had sometimes to stand may be gathered 
 from what is said in church records. The session-book of Gal- 
 ston shows that, in 1635, liberty was granted to two parishioners 
 "to set up ane seat and dask to themselves under the repentance 
 stools at the north-west kirk door." In the same records men- 
 tion is made, forty years later, of another parishioner who was 
 appointed to satisfy the kirk in public penitence, and made a 
 pitiful moan to the session about "his inabilitie and indisposition 
 of health (which) could not allow him to stand high, in the public 
 
 ^ In the records of the Presbj'tery of Irvine there is an appointment minuted, that an 
 offender appear " in on// conspicuons place of the kirk of Kilwinning, 7iear that where 
 penitents usually make their acknowledgments." 
 
 ^ In the session records of Kilmarnock it is generally, about the beginning of last cen- 
 tniT, designated "the pillory." As far back as 1570. at least, the expression "the 
 cornmone pillar of repentance" occurs in the records of the General Assembly. In a 
 passage quoted by Mr. Buckle (ii. 393), from a book called " Presbytery Displayed." 
 the word " pillaries " is applied to the jogges tliat were fixed to the two sides of the main 
 door of the parish church. But it was certainly the place of repentance inside the 
 church that at Kilmarnock was called the pillory ; and so was it elsewhere. In the " Bur- 
 den of Issachar" (164o) the following sentence occurs, p. 8 : — " Sometimes they are forced 
 to make their public repentance in the chm-ch, upon a Pillary, for their unchristian 
 behaviour." A very curious minute in the Kilmarnock records is the following, under 
 date 1649 : — " For the better accommodation and furtherance of the people, both in seeing 
 the minister and heiring the word, that the pillar and pen divyding the ylle called the 
 Mure's ylle ... be taken down, removed, and modified in ane more convenient 
 maner." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 527 
 
 place, by reason of a distemper in his head." He humbly 
 desired, therefore, to be allowed to stand "laigh" in any 
 part of the church they pleased. It is added that the session 
 granted the sick man's request, and " appointed a chair to be 
 set at the foot of tlie stair of the puUic place the next Lord's 
 day." And very similar to this structure in Galston church 
 had been the place of repentance in Monkton, At a visita- 
 tion of this last-named parish, in 1650, the Presbytery of Ayr 
 appointed some alterations to be made on the church for 
 the better accommodation of worshippers ; and in the minute 
 of that appointment the height of the place of repentance is 
 incidentally indicated. The minute runs as follows: — "The 
 Presbyterie did find it needful that there be two loftes, every 
 one of them of equall hight, both in their flooring beneath and 
 deiking and covering above, if any bee, and the flooring and 
 gysting of both loftes be directly of the height of the place of 
 repentance ; . . . that the rowme of the laird of Crosbie's 
 loft be on the north syd of the kirk, the one end joyning to 
 Adamton his loft upon the east syd, and the other to go to 
 the east syd of the west door to the end of the place of repent- 
 ance, and the present place of repentance to be removed to 
 the other syd of the kirk, above the other kirk door." 
 
 It was quite common for several persons to be " planted " to- 
 gether, as the expression was, in the public spectacle. In some 
 churches the place of public repentance was an elaborate 
 structure, containing several rooms or stances, to which peni- 
 tents of different grades were sent. In 1605 the Kirk Session 
 of Perth ordained "a more public place of repentance to be 
 biggit with all diligence, and in it certain degrees, that therein 
 offenders may be distinguished and better discerned by their 
 place and habit." But even where there was in the public 
 place only one floor and only one seat, groups of penitents 
 sat and stood together. Partners in conjoint sins stood side 
 by side.^ There were kirk sessions, however, that thought it 
 
 ^ To show that partners in conjoint sins of illicit affection were ordered to appear 
 totrether, the following excerpts from a minute of a kirk session, bearing date 3rd November, 
 1646, may here be cited — "Compeired, being summoned, J. M. as snspect of fornication 
 with N. D., who confessed. The Session therfor ordaynes that the said J. give signes of 
 his repentance in the publick place the nixt Lord's day. . . . The same dav also com- 
 peired, being summoned, N. D., as suspect of fornication with the foresaid J. M., who also 
 confessed. Therfore the Session ordaynes that she give signes of her repentance in the 
 
 89 
 
528 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 unadvisable to bring breakers of the seventh commandment 
 together to the place of repentance, and ordered them to appear 
 separately. But these kirk sessions found, to their grief, that 
 expediency had sometimes to give way to necessity, as will 
 be seen from the following minute in the Kilmarnock records, 
 of date 1705 : — " Considering that there is a considerable 
 number of persons in this Paroch unpurged from scandal, 
 and that it will require a long time for them to appear and 
 be absolved severally, the Session unanimously concluded 
 and enacted that persons guilty of fornication should both, 
 the man and the woman, appear on the pillory together in 
 time coming." ^ And the records show that for some time aiter 
 that date both parties did appear together on the pillar. 
 
 It was not once only, but in some cases repeatedly, that 
 persons appointed to give signs of penitence had to appear 
 in the public place of repentance. In the old Form and Order 
 of Public Piepentance, 15G7, the penitent was directed to make 
 open confession of his crime, whatever it was, and to declare 
 his desire for God's mercy, and for restoration to the society 
 and number of God's people. This being done, the minister 
 was instructed to " aske the congregation if they judged anie 
 further to be required for their satisfaction and reconciliation 
 of that brother." If nothing further was required by the con- 
 gregation, the minister, after admonition and thanksgiving, pro- 
 nounced and affirmed that the sins of the penitent man were 
 " forgiven, not onlie in earth, but also in heaven." And there- 
 upon the process ended. But in the days of the second refor- 
 mation, and long before, kirk sessions were in the habit of 
 
 publick place the nixt Lord's day." There were cases, however, in which the same kirk 
 session acted more prudentlv. In a case, 1652, where one of the parties was man-ied: 
 " she is ordained the nixt Lord's day to apear in the publick place of repentance with the 
 sackcloth about her, there to be publickly rebuked. And he is injoyned the following 
 Sabbath to apear in the same place in the same maner" (Galston Session Eecords, MS.) 
 The following cases of prudential appointment may be quoted from the records of another 
 parish, viz. Kilmarnock — " 1646, 8th June. Compeirit A. JI. and tooke in hande to give 
 obedience to the former ordinances to satisfie for his scandalous carriage of adultery with 
 J. ]\I., and desired that he might be continued whill J. M. had ended her satisfaction, 
 the which the Session condiscended unto, upon condition he wold find caution that he 
 sould then obey." — 1680, 'Jth June, '"to stand in sack till ther be signes of sorrow 
 for his sin found in him. . . . Appoints also B. A. (the other party) as relapse, to 
 stand in the publick place sis dayes immediately after." 
 
 1 On« would infer from the following minute that in Fenwick, 200 years ago, there was 
 a very prudent arrangement for cases of this sort — " 1674, A. appointed to stand below, 
 and B. in the public place. Also are inhibit one another's company except at kirk and 
 mercat." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 529 
 
 appointing for special offences several appearances in the 
 place of repentance. In the Galston records for 1628, when 
 the Church was under Episcopal government, a certain man 
 is said to have "payit his penaltie and promisit to mak his 
 repentance the next thre Sabbathes, in his lynnin claithes." 
 In the records of the Presbytery of Ayr for 1643, an unfaithful 
 husband, with gray hairs, is said to have been by the presbytery 
 appointed to "give signs of his unfeigned repentance in the 
 public in his parocli kirk, clad in sackcloth, and to stand at 
 the kirk door in the same habit of sackcloth from the second 
 bell to the third, and theirafter to present the public place of 
 repentance, and to enter thereinto ye nixt Lord's day, and to 
 continue from Sabbath to Sabbath after the said order enjoined, 
 by the space of sex months according to the order of the Kirk 
 of Scotland."^ A few years later, 1648, the General Assembly 
 was much exercised over " the grievous and common sins of 
 the land," and ordained that about thirty different " remedies " 
 of these iniquities should be " carefully and conscionably put 
 in practice." One of these remedies was a course of public 
 repentance proportioned in duration to the magnitude of several 
 specified offences. For the sin of fornication, public profession 
 of repentance was to be made three several Sabbaths ; for 
 relapse in fornication, six Sabbaths ; for adultery or trilapse 
 in fornication, twenty-six Sabbaths ; for relapse in adultery or 
 quadrilapse in fornication, thirty-nine Sabbaths ; and for incest 
 or murder, fifty-two Sabbaths, if the magistrate should not 
 forestall the session by hanging the criminal.'^ In connection 
 with these graded courses of repentance, it was further ordained 
 
 ^ In olden times the Chnrch courts occasionally required offenders to give what was 
 called " circular satisfaction," that is, to profess penitence in a number of churches. In 
 1646 a Mauchhne laird, who ''confessed the unnatural murther and killing of . . . 
 his cousin-german, and also his frequent falls in fornication sensyne," was appointed by 
 the Presbytery of Ayr to give signs of repentance publicly in the kirks of Ochiltree, 
 Galston, and Tarboltou, as well as Mauchline. The following year, another Mauchline 
 man was, " for abusing his minister, both in speech and cariage," required by the pres- 
 bytery to make a tour of the same kirks, and pass on to Cumnock afterwards. 
 
 2 It is very odd that while, in 1648, the General Assembly thought it necessary to take 
 such rigorous courses with fornicators and adulterers, Baillie should, in 1646, have said 
 in his " Vindication," that " Scotland, however subject to many sins, is yet, I daresay, 
 much more free of fornicators and adulterers among people of any fashion than any nation 
 I know or have heard of." How much Scotland had to boast of at that date in the way 
 of purity may be inferred from the facts that "in 1644 no fewer than tliirteen couples 
 appeared in sackcloth before the Presbytery of Ayr for literal breaches of the seventh 
 commandment; and in 1643 there were at least eleven couples that for the like cause 
 appeared before the same court in the same habit" (" Old Church Life," i. 329). 
 
530 THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 that while fornicators and " relapses " in fornication should first 
 confess their sin before the session, and proceed direct there- 
 after to the public spectacle ; those, on the other hand, that 
 were guilty of the greater offences above specified, should 
 confess their sin before both the session and the presbytery, 
 and should there " show some signs of repentance before they 
 were brought to the congregation." 
 
 Such a system of discipline, on a national scale, was simply 
 impracticable. Still there are instances to be found, since 1648, 
 of wonderfully tedious courses of repentance. The records of 
 Irvine Presbytery tell of a man that, in 1G91, appeared pub- 
 licly fifteen Sabbaths before the congregation ; and the records 
 of Kilmarnock Session tell of a woman that, in 1698, " appeared 
 on the pillar in sackcloth for the seventeenth diet," and, after 
 humiliation of herself before God and the congregation, was 
 absolved. The duration of penance (we can scarcely avoid using 
 the word for want of a better) was doubtless determined by the 
 signs of penitence that offenders gave.^ Some kirk sessions, too, 
 were probably more easily " satisfied " than others. At the 
 time when adulterers in North Ayrshire were appearing on the 
 pillar for fifteen or seventeen " diets," they were a few miles 
 further south giving satisfaction with about half that number 
 of exhibitions. In 1690 the Session of Mauchline appointed a 
 woman "who had appeared in publict these eight Sabbaths 
 last and w-es publicly rebuked, to pey a leg dolar of penaltie, 
 and to speak with the minister, and as he find her penitent 
 to absolve her." Apparently her signs of penitence at that 
 date, on her interview with the minister, were not quite satis- 
 factory ; for the following Sunday it was minuted " quo die, 
 stood B. E. pro nono;" and a fortnight later, "This Lord's day 
 B. E., having appeared in the public place of repentance, as she 
 did the nine Lord's days preceding, w^as publicly rebuked for 
 her sin of adultery, and having professed her repentance and 
 humiliation thairfor, was absolved from the scandal." The 
 real satisfaction that the Church requires from offenders is 
 
 1 In support of tliis statement the following minute, which is by no means^ singular in 
 its wording, may be cited from the MS. records of Galston Kirk Session :— 1647, Apryl 19. 
 " The session therfore ordaynes him to stand in the publict place in a pair of sheets ay 
 and till he give si<;nes of his repentance." The following, from the MS. records of Kilmar- 
 nock, mav also be quoted :— IGSO, 2l)th Nov. " The Session appoynts her to appear in sack 
 at the church door Sabbath after Sabbath, tUl sufficient signs of repentance be seen in her." 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CIIUECII. 531 
 
 evidence of unfeigned repentance ; and although her penitential 
 discipline has generally been regarded by offenders as a pun- 
 ishment and penance, and has possibly in some cases been 
 imposed by Church courts under that notion, it is simply meant 
 to express by different degrees of humiliation the measure of 
 contrition and penitence that corresponds to offences of different 
 grades.^ Last century the Church was satisfied with a less 
 emphatic profession of penitence than she was the century 
 before, and at the present day she is satisfied with still less 
 display of contrition than she was last century. Writing in 
 1837, Dr. Alex. Hill says : " Some kirk sessions still require 
 public appearances to be made before the congregation, although 
 not with all the circumstances of severity with which our code 
 was wont to be administered. Others, again, adopt a much 
 more lenient mode of proceeding, merely appointing the parties 
 to receive a rebuke in presence of the session.^ Everywhere 
 there is an accommodation, more or less, to the change of times, 
 and the change of feelings in the Christian community. The 
 great objects for which discipline is prescribed, are to secure 
 good order in the Clmrch and to promote edification." 
 
 The conduct of professed penitents in the place of repent- 
 ance was sometimes anything but penitential. This shows 
 that offenders were occasionally admitted to repentance pre- 
 maturely. Their appearance in the seat of contrition was but 
 a " mockage." They should have been kept under rebuke 
 merely, and been obliged to find caution that they would, 
 M'hen called, " satisfy the Kirk in penitence." In the records 
 of almost every kirk session and presbytery which go back 
 200 years or more, there will probably be found instances of 
 gross impenitence and impudence displayed by delinquents 
 in what, to them, was misnamed the place of repentance. In 
 1645 a woman was brought before the Kirk Session of Fenwick 
 for " upbraiding of the Session from off the public place of 
 repentance, when she should have made confession of her 
 fault." In 1G40 there appeared before the Session of Galston 
 
 ^ " The Sessioun may enjoyne suche jmines as may trie whether he be penitent or not." 
 — Order of Excomnninication and Form of Hepentunce., 1567. 
 
 ^ The rebuke is the Church's censure ; the offender's confession and penitence constitute 
 the Church's satisfaction. The Church is not satitfied with rebuking, but \Yith signs of 
 repentance. 
 
532 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 a man who had been appointed to give signs of penitence for 
 giving " his %yjff a shott with his hand upon ye Sabbath day," 
 but who, when "upon the high place, had argued with the 
 minister, speaking something of the gentlemen and noblemen 
 of the paroch, and of new toyes, quhilk could not be cleirlie 
 understood." In 1643, at a presbyterial visitation of the parish 
 of Cumnock during a vacancy there, one of the elders was 
 reported to have " misbehaved himself in giving signs of public 
 repentance for misregarding the day of the last solemne 
 humiliation." On inquiry, it was elicited that the insubor- 
 dinate elder had mounted "the publict place of repentance, 
 with his head covered, and with his sword about him." In 
 1675 three men of good family in Mauchline parish were, 
 for drunkenness and Sabbath -breaking, appointed to be pub- 
 lickly rebuked. And the following Sabbath they all appeared 
 in the public place ; but " instead of giving signs of repentance 
 (they) did strive all the tyme to break the stoole whereon 
 they stood, which accordingly they did." For these exhibitions 
 of effrontery, the misnamed penitents in Mauchline had just 
 to suffer all the more. They brought upon themselves further 
 censure, and the Church in those days was strong enough to 
 execute her sentences. 
 
 From what has already been said it will be seen that there 
 were different costumes in which penitents were directed to 
 appear in the public place. Sometimes it was in sackcloth, 
 sometimes in a linen sheet, and sometimes in ordinarj^ clothing. 
 In the session records of Galston we read of two penitents that, 
 in 1676, were appointed to give signs of their repentance, "the 
 one with the sackcloth gown, and the other with the sheets." 
 Fifty years previous to that appointment, a young woman in 
 the same parish was taken to task for appearing " in the publict 
 place, of repentance with aue uther habite than was enjoined 
 to her be, the. Session;" and for that act of disobedience she 
 was " ordanit to . apeir the next day, in sackcloth or in ane 
 window claith." . And although sackcloth and window cloth 
 were both uncomfortable and dishonourable apparel, all delin- 
 quents wishing to give signs of penitence were compelled, 
 whether they were rich or poor, high or low, to don the one 
 or the other, as occasion required. The General Assembly, 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 533 
 
 in 1573, decreed that "greit men offending in sic crymes as 
 deserves sackcloatli should receave the samen as well as the 
 puire: and that no Superintendent nor Commissioner, with 
 advyce of any particular kirk of their jurisdictione, should 
 dispense with the extreamitie of sackcloath prescryvit be the 
 acts of general discipline, for any pecuniall soume ad pios 
 nsus." And it was not only in sackcloth, but without hats 
 and shoes, that some offenders had to proclaim their penitence. 
 The General Assembly, in 1570, ordained " sic persones as are 
 convict of incest or adultery, and hes not stubbornly contemnit 
 the admonitions of the Kirk nor sufferit the sentence of excom- 
 munication for their offences, to make publict repentance in 
 sackcloath, at their owne kirks, bairheaded and barefooted, three 
 severall dayes of preaching, and after the said third day, to be 
 receavit in the societie of the Kirk, in their own cloathes." Nor 
 was this humiliating form of penitence reserved for such only 
 as were guilty of the two above-named sins. In 1635, during 
 the first reign of Episcopacy in Scotland, the Presbytery of Ayr, 
 " avyseing upon (a certain man's) misbehaviour to his minister, 
 in objecting to him the filthie fact of symonie, ordained him 
 to repair on Sunday nixt to his paroch kirk of Galstoune, and 
 in sackcloth, bairfuted and bairleged to present the penitent 
 place all ye tyme of ye sermon, and publictlie confesse his 
 fault ; and afoire his entiring to pey twentie punds to be be- 
 stowed ad pios usus be the minister and sessioune of Galstoune." 
 Down to about the commencement of the present century 
 sackcloth was prescribed as the garb for some offenders in 
 the public place, and many were the protests and appeals 
 that penitents made to kirk sessions against appointments to 
 stand in sackcloth before the congregation. The repentance 
 stool was nothing to the sackcloth. In 1710 a woman in North 
 Ayrshire agreed to satisfy the order and discipline of the 
 Church in public, but supplicated the Presbytery of Irvine 
 that she might not be obliged to stand in -sackcloth, " because 
 it might deprive her of her livelihood, in regard that no person 
 of any account would thereafter employ her as a midwife." (!) 
 
 Offenders, we have said, were sometimes appointed to crave 
 God's pardon openly in the congregation. When the offence was 
 one that caused injury to a fellow-man the offender was not 
 
:634 THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHLT.Cir. 
 
 infrequently required to crave also the forgiveness of the person 
 he had injured. And this had sometimes to be done in very 
 humble form, as the following extract from the records of the 
 Presbytery of Ayr, of date 1643, will prove : — " Parties being 
 removed, the said A. T. wes fund by the Presbyterie to be 
 a slanderer of Gilminscraft, and thairfore decerned the said 
 Alexander to give signes of repentance thairfore twa Sabbath 
 dayes in the kirkes of Mackling and Muirkirk, where the 
 slander wes publict, the first day in the kirk of Mackling and 
 the second day in the kirk of Muirkirk, and in both kirkes 
 to crave the partie offendit his forgivnes in all humilitie 
 upon his knees." Other instances to a similar effect might 
 be cited from old parish and presbytery records, but the following 
 incident, that was witnessed in the General Assembly, 1577, will 
 suffice to show with what abject humiliation divine and ecclesi- 
 astical forgiveness had sometimes to be craved in the Church : — 
 " Compeirit John Andersone in linnen cloathes, in presence 
 of the haill Assemblie, and beand prostrate upon his knees, 
 confessit he had offendit Mr. Ptobert Boyde, Minister, in drawing 
 of his blood, whereof he repentit with his heart, and askit God 
 and his Kirk forgivness, promiseing, be the grace of God, not 
 to fall in the lyke wickedness in tyme cuming." 
 
 It has already been shown, incidentally, that some persons 
 appointed to give signs of repentance for the remission 
 of their scandals, had not only to appear several Sabbaths 
 on the public place of repentance within the church, but 
 had to stand for an hour at the church door between the 
 ringing of the second and the third bells. It is extremely 
 difficult to determine what appointments by the church courts 
 were meant as punishments or censures, and what as signs 
 of repentance. It will probably be admitted that durance vile 
 in the "joggis" or the "bredyane" was simply a punishment, and 
 the way in which sentences of such durance were pronounced by 
 kirk sessions indicates that it was for punishment, rightly or 
 wrongly, that these appointments were generally meant. But 
 a weary humble stance at the church door was, in many cases, 
 ordained also as a sign of penitence, with a view to readmission 
 into Christian society. In 1570 the General Assembly had 
 under consideration the case of homicides, incestuous persons. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUECIT. 535 
 
 and adulterers, not fugitive from the laws, "but continually 
 suteing to be receavit be the Kirk to publick repentance." 
 After long reasoning and mature deliberation, it was unani- 
 mously concluded " that all sic persons, humbly suteing, shall 
 be receavit, to give the signes of their repentance in their awne 
 kirks, according to the order appoyntit before (15G7), at quhilk 
 tyme the minister shall publickly notifie their crymes, that 
 thereby the civill magistrates may know the crymes, and pre- 
 tend no ignorance thereof" The ojffenders so referred to were 
 of two different classes. Some were excommunicated persons, 
 and others had not been excommunicated. In the case of the 
 former class of suitors, it was enacted that they should " stand 
 bareheaded at the kirk doore, every preaching day, betwixt 
 the assemblies, secluded from prayers before and after sermone, 
 and then enter in the kirk, and sit in the publick place bare- 
 headed, all the tyme of the sermone, and depart before' the 
 latter prayer."^ In the case of the other class of suitors, the 
 humiliation of standing at the church door was not required 
 by this Act of Assembly. But there are many instances of 
 unexcommunicated offenders having been, at a later period, 
 appointed to stand in sackcloth outside the church door 
 first, and thereafter inside the church on the repentance 
 stool. In 1647 an offender in Fen wick was appointed to 
 appear three several Lord's days on the public place of 
 repentance, and the last of the foresaid days to stand at the 
 kirk door. In 1673 the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock ordained 
 a troublesome parishioner, who had been " found four or five 
 times formerly in fornication, to stand at the church end in 
 
 ^ In the order (1567) for receiving the excommunicate again to the society of the 
 Church, it is said: — "The signs of his repentance ought to be diligentlie enquired; as, 
 what hath been his beha^^our since tlie time of his excommunication, what he will offer 
 for satisfaction to the Church, and unto whom he hath exponed the greefe and dolor of 
 his heart? If the excommunicate be found penitent, and obedient in all things, the 
 minister, the nixt Sunday, may give advertisement to the whole Church of his humilia- 
 tion, and command them to call to God for increasse of the same. The nixt session-dav, 
 the minister may appoint to the excommunicate suche satisfaction as they thinke most 
 expedient : to the which if the excommunicate fullie agree, then may the said ministrie 
 appoint unto him a certane day, when he sail fulfill the same. For this is principallie to be 
 observed, that no excommunicate person may be receaved to the societie of the church 
 againe, untill suche time that he have stand (sic) at the church doore, at the least moe 
 Sondayes than one. Which dayes being expired, and the whole satisfaction compleat, 
 some of the elders sail passe to the excommunicate, after that the former pj-aver of the 
 minister in the pulpit be ended, and sail present him to a certane place appointed for 
 the penitent ; where he sail stand in the same habite in the which he made satisfaction, 
 untill the sermon be ended." 
 
53G THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 sackcloth until ye third bell, and then to enter the public place 
 of repentance." And the records of Galston relate that, in 
 1673, a man in that parish "gave signs of repentance both at 
 the kirk door and in the publict place, conforme to the Pres- 
 byterie of Air their ordinance." 
 
 In the matter of public penitence, the Eeformed Church of 
 Scotland departed widely from the practice of the Catholic 
 Church at the time of the Eeformation. For hundreds of years 
 before that date there was, over a large part of the Catholic 
 Church, no such thing as public penance. It was found by 
 experience that much scandal and mischief were created by 
 the publication of vice, and it was deemed expedient to bring 
 offenders to a sense of their duty by other means. In the 
 western part of Christendom public penance was not absolutely 
 abolished, but it was very nearly so. People generally got 
 their penance appointed privately, and the penance was usually 
 of a kind that neither humiliated nor degraded the subjects 
 of it, but rather puffed them up in the vanity of self-right- 
 eousness. The Scottish reformers, however, were revivalists. 
 They laboured to restore practices that had at one time been 
 observed in the Church, but in the progress of ecclesiastical 
 corruptions and spiritual decay had become obsolete. Public 
 penitence was one of the old institutions that the reformers 
 revived ; and all the points of their discipline, in that matter, 
 were founded on ancient custom, or at least had counterparts 
 in ancient customs. 
 
 In very early times admission to penitence was a privilege 
 that was sought. The delinquent stood outside the church, 
 clothed in sackcloth, and importuned the worshippers as they 
 passed to intercede for him in their prayers.^ After he had 
 given sufficient evidence of contrition he was, by solemn im- 
 position of hands, admitted by the bishop to penitence, and had 
 his term and degree of penance assigned him. At a later, but 
 still an early, period of the Church's history, the penitential 
 discipline was much increased in severity. There was less 
 difficulty in the way of admission to penitence, but more was 
 
 ' "To implore God on Lis behalf and make intercession for him with the bishops and 
 presbyters and the whole congregation. . . . His self-abasement was a request to 
 be admitted to the grace of penitence." — iSmith's " JJiciionar^" 16f0. 
 
THE DISCiniNE OF THE CIIUECII. 537 
 
 exacted from the penitent. There was a course of penance 
 prescribed, and in that course there were four stages or stations. 
 Penitents in the first stage were called mourners, and were ex- 
 cluded altogether from the church. They wept and wailed 
 outside, and they were not allowed either to join in the 
 prayers of the faithful or to have the privilege of hearing the 
 word. Those in the second stage were distinguished by the name 
 of hearers. They were admitted within the church at divine 
 service ; but they had to stand afar off, in the lower end of the 
 sacred building. They were allowed the benefit of instruction, 
 but not the comfort of spiritual fellowship. In the third stage 
 of penance were the kneelcrs. These were permitted not only 
 to listen to the word, but to join in public prayer with the 
 congregation. While it was the privilege of ordinary wor- 
 shippers, however, to stand erect in prayer, in token of their 
 having risen with Christ, the kneelers had to make their 
 humble supplications on bended knees. In the fourth stage 
 were the slanders, or co-standers, who were allowed the dignity 
 of standing in prayer along with the faithful members of the 
 congregation. They might be present at the eucharist also, 
 but not to participate. At one time these stages extended 
 over long periods. Their institution was meant to impress 
 men with a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the 
 need of giving no small measure of diligence, especially after 
 falling into post-baptismal transgression, in order to secure 
 their calling and election. The Scottish reformers thought 
 the same teaching necessary. "We cannot lightly absolve from 
 scandal, they said ; we must see signs of penitence before 
 we srant absolution; we must see sinners humble themselves 
 according to the magnitude of the scandal under which they 
 have fallen. iVnd so they required, as in the early ages of 
 the Church, public repentance, humiliation in sackcloth, 
 prostrate supplication, and "seclusion" from the Church's 
 prayers. 
 
 Human nature, however, is alike in all Churches, and in all 
 Churches the same corruptions in the course of time reveal 
 themselves. In the Catholic Church penance came to be 
 regarded as a punishment instead of a privilege, and in the 
 Pteformed Church of Scotland public repentance came to be 
 
538 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUKCII. 
 
 viewed in the same light. It was so much oLloquy and so 
 much chastisement. In the Catholic Church penances came, 
 from good and kindly consideration in some cases and from 
 mercenary motives in others, to be commuted into pecuniary 
 equivalents. There were certain forms of ancient penance that 
 to some people were worse than death ; it might well have 
 been asked, therefore, by good men, is there nothing that could 
 be substituted for these dreaded sentences ? Considering that 
 these forms of penance are not of divine, but only of human 
 specification, common justice and common humanity demand 
 that they should not be imposed on penitents seeking the grace 
 of God. They are heavy burdens and grievous for men to 
 bear. It thus came about that some, who could not be induced 
 to undertake the penance appointed them, were "allowed to 
 substitute for it a pecuniary fine proportionately estimated ; 
 and the money thus contributed was either to be given as 
 alms to the poor, or paid for the ransom of captives, or for 
 defraying the expenses of public worship." This, says Neander, 
 " was the first, in itself considered, innocent occasion of indul- 
 gences." How the scheme of indulgences grew, in the Catholic 
 Church, into a monstrous system of iniquity need not here be 
 discussed. Nothing the least like that scandal of the Church 
 of Eome was ever witnessed in the Eeformed Church of Scot- 
 land. But there was a time when the Church of Scotland 
 was taunted by her enemies with carrying on the same sinful 
 traffic as that with which the Church of Eome had long been 
 reproached. In 1742 the Cameronians issued an indictment 
 against the Church of the nation ; and one of the counts in 
 that indictment was, " a virtual sale of indulgences, by receiving 
 money payments as a substitute for ecclesiastical penance." 
 There is no doubt that the charge is, in one sense, true ; and 
 yet there was nothing very far wrong in the act. The com- 
 mutations were not exchanges for the punishment due to sin 
 against God, nor were they money figures at which the grace 
 of God was sold. They were simply accepted as signs of 
 repentance, in lieu of other humanly prescribed signs which 
 in particular cases were intolerable, and which, however well 
 intended, were unwarranted by the spirit of the gospel. The 
 mistake of the Church was not so much in her winking at 
 
THE DISCirLIXE OF THE CHUllCH. 539 
 
 commutations of penance, but in ever prescribing a particular 
 course, and especially a severe course, of humiliation, as a 
 condition of restoration to Christian fellowship. 
 
 Let us see, however, what the Church of Scotland really 
 did in the way of sanctioning and accepting money payments 
 as a substitute for humiliating signs of repentance. In the 
 first days of the Reformation the Church was strongly opposed 
 to all such commutations. In an Act already quoted, the 
 General Assembly, in 1573, ordained that no superintendent 
 or commissioner should " dispense with the extremitie of sack- 
 cloth, prescryvit be the acts of general discipline, for any 
 pecuniall soume ad pios usus." And in a rude age, when 
 people were not much afflicted with sensitiveness, this rule 
 may have answered well enough. Dames of high degree could 
 perch themselves on the pillar, and look down from the 
 " spectacle " with open countenances on the gaping innocents 
 beneath; while country lairds, with bastons in hand, could 
 make their tour of the kirks on Sunday mornings, and decked 
 as directed, in "window claith" or sackcloth, sit and snore 
 through the service, aloft, without the faintest sense of either 
 the humour or the pathos of the situation. All the people, 
 from the highest to the lowest, were willing in the first days of 
 the Church's power. In 1566 James VI. was born and baptized. 
 The baptism took place in Stirling Castle, and was adminis- 
 tered according to the forms of the Eoman Catholic Church, 
 of which the Queen, his mother, was a devoted member. Among 
 those present on the august occasion was the Lady Argyll; 
 and at a meeting of the General Assembly, in 1567, complaint 
 was made that the said lady, " once being at the table of the 
 Lord Jesus, and professing his Evangell, had revolted therefrae, 
 in giving her assistance and presence to the baptizing of the 
 king in ane papistical manner." Lady Argyll had evidently 
 been cited to the Assembly to hear this libel; and being 
 present, she had the modesty to grant " that she had offended 
 the eternall God, and been ane sclander to the Kirk in com- 
 mitting the premises; and therefore she willingly submitted 
 herself to the discipline of the Kirk and discretion of the 
 Assembly." The Kirk was not satisfied, as it might in all 
 reason have been, with this most gracious confession, but 
 
540 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIIUIICH. 
 
 ordained "the said lady to make publick repentance in the 
 Chappell-Ptoyal of Stirling, upon ane Sonday in tyme of 
 preaching." 
 
 For nearly a hundred years after this date instances will be 
 found of both men and women, in good or even high social 
 position, submitting to the indignity of public penitence.^ But 
 as civilization increased, there grew up in the country an 
 increasing abhorrence of all such humiliating; exhibitions. 
 People that were truly distressed about the sins they had com- 
 mitted, and the scandals they had thereby brought on them- 
 selves and their friends, feared and loathed the ordeal of a 
 public profession that might be turned into ridicule and re- 
 proach by their enemies. In support of this statement cases 
 might be cited by the score. An author of some local repute 
 in the west of Scotland, who wrote about the beginning of this 
 century, alleges that in his day the horror of public repentance 
 led to a not inconsiderable amount of child murder. And to 
 go further back than the beginning of this century, we find, in 
 the records of the "West Church of Edinburgh, that in 1693 a 
 poor cobbler, who for a grave breach of morals had been ordered 
 by the session to " buy ane sack goun, to stand in at the kirk 
 door, and to appear before the congregation," went raving 
 mad before his course of repentance was ended.^ Still further 
 back, in 1676, there was a most pathetic remonstrance addressed, 
 in the form of a petition, to the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock, 
 to spare an old man the distress of seeing his daughter, who 
 had been convicted of drunkenness, set up to public gaze in 
 the church. The old man pled for a mitigation of sentence, 
 "in regard that (the delinquent) was his only child, and had 
 expressed that she wold distract if they used that severitie 
 against her, and that it would bring down his own gray hairs 
 to the grave with sorrow."^ It is not to be wondered at, there- 
 
 1 The following case, one out of many in the records (US.) of the Presbytery of Ayr, 
 will substantiate this statement : — lC43, 12th December. " This day compeared the laird 
 of (say) Crowquill in the habite of sackcloath, and as he wes gravelie challengid, did with 
 all humilitie upon his knees confess (a heinous oflTence). He wes directed to returne to 
 
 the session of , and to satisfie the order and discipline of the kirk in all poyntes, as 
 
 he suld be enjoyned, for giving signes of his publict repentance." 
 
 2 " Leaves from the Buik of the West Kirke," by George Lorimer, 1885. 
 
 3 In the records of Kilmarnock Session the following callous entry occurs, under date 
 28th December, 1701 : — " B. A. appeared on the pillory for the thlid diet, but was not 
 absolved, having fallen down in a swoon in the very time the minister was exhorting 
 
THE DISCiniXE OF THE CHURCH. 541 
 
 fore, that people, sensitive to shame and obloquy, should have 
 asked kirk sessions, if nothing but submission to public infamy 
 and ridicule could be accepted by the Church as evidence of 
 contrition and repentance. The case of Zaccheus, too, who, on 
 admission into the fellowship of the Church's head, exclaimed, 
 in exuberance of joy, " The half of my goods give I unto the 
 poor," may well have occurred to such people as indicating a 
 way, sanctioned by divine approval, in which feelings both of 
 penitence and thankfulness might be legitimately expressed. 
 Commutations of penance by alms, moreover, although apt, 
 without regulation, to lead to evils and grave abuses, had been 
 authorized in the Church long before there was need of a 
 Eeformation. While penalties were therefore, by the civil 
 law, attached in Scotland to particular sins, and were exigible 
 by session bailies for pious uses at the session's discretion, 
 payments of money came also in course of time to be accepted 
 by kirk sessions as commutations of special forms of penitence. 
 The civil penalty and the ecclesiastical commutation were in 
 many instances confounded. When, in 1809, it was proposed 
 to the Kirk Session of Mauchline, by a county gentleman and 
 scion of a family of high renown in the profession of law, " that 
 they should abolish public appearances before the congregation " 
 for all but the gravest forms of iniquity, there was appended 
 to the motion a proviso, that " a larger fine should be exacted, 
 and that the dues paid by delinquents to the session clerk and 
 officer should be doubled." Reverting, however, to the intro- 
 duction into the Church of Scotland of commutations for public 
 penitence, it has to be observed that these commutations were 
 originally made at the earnest suit of the penitents themselves 
 or their friends. For a long period they were exceptional, and 
 were not granted without deliberation and resolution specially 
 minuted.^ Sometimes they were requested for whimsical 
 
 her." In 1704, however, she had the conrnf^e to monnt the piHory again, in company with 
 her partner in guilt, and to hear without fainting the sentence of Jesser excommunica- 
 tion fulminated against her. 
 
 As far back as 1646 some voices in Scotland were raised against the public spectacle. 
 Maxwell, bishop of Ross, in his '• Burden of Issachar," wrote of the Church at that date: 
 "There is no care taken to reconcile the lapsed to God in a private way, and to conceal 
 his offence, but disgraced he is pubhcly. What sound repentance this may work, judge 
 yon." 
 
 1 Among the articles delivered to the lords from the lower house of convocation (Church 
 of England), 1580, was the following :—" That there shall not henceforth be used any 
 
542 THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CIIUECII. 
 
 reasons, and sometimes they were granted for sucli reasons. 
 More frequently they were asked and allowed for reasons that 
 were pathetic. We have seen that, in 1G37, a man in Galston, 
 who had fallen under scandal, " supplicated the session to 
 licentiat him to the penitent place in his ordinarie habite, and 
 to enjoin him to pey the greater penaltie," and that " the session, 
 considering hereupon, having to be with present moneyie, 
 acceptit him." Nearly a hundred and twenty years after this 
 incident, a tailor applied to the same session for absolution from 
 the scandal of an ante-nuptial sin, and begged " to be absolved 
 from the disgrace of a public appearance, as his wife was dead." 
 His petition was not granted in full and sine grano salis, but 
 he was allowed absolution after one appearance, because of 
 " the peculiar circumstances of the case, upon his giving a 
 present to the poor." During the period embraced between 
 these two dates, 1637-1751, similar applications were made to 
 other kirk sessions, and were similarly considered. In 1705 a 
 young man of good social position in a town in the west of 
 Scotland, had the misfortune to fall under scandaL He was 
 summoned before the session, and he confessed his sin. The 
 record then states that, " being removed to a corner of the 
 church, and the session being about to consider of his censure," 
 one of the elders intimated that the youth's father was willing 
 to " give five bolls of meal for the use of the poor, on condition 
 the session would allow his son to stand in his own seat, and 
 absolve him with one day's appearance." The favour of being 
 allowed to stand in his own seat was conceded, but the session 
 declared they were not at liberty to dispense with the requisite 
 number of appearances. In 1719 a similar application was 
 made to the same session with the same result, and the special 
 permit was then passed into a general rule. With the discon- 
 tinuance of public penitence these commutations are now things 
 of the past in the Church of Scotland. Dues to session clerks 
 
 commutation of penance, but in rare respects ; that is to say, either for some great value 
 or dignity of the person, or for fear of some desperate event that will follow, in the party 
 that should be put to open shame. And at such time his penalty of money to be large, 
 according to the ability of the person ; and by the ordinary, with good witnesses, to be 
 employed either to the relief of the poor, or other necessary and godly uses: and yet even 
 in this respect, the party offending, beside such pain of money, shall ever make in his 
 parish church some satisfaction to the congregation, by declaring openly his repentant and 
 sorrowful mind for such offence committed,"— C'ardwe^i's Synodalia, 647. 
 
THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHUECII. 543 
 
 and beadles, in connection with the administration of discipline, 
 conveying, even although it be erroneously, to the public the idea 
 that Church privileges are matters of sale and purchase, are, 
 for the Church's credit and advantage, at an end also ; so that 
 all the benefits of Christian fellowship are obtained from the 
 Church, by every one entitled thereto, without money and with- 
 out price.^ 
 
 That the system of penitential satisfaction introduced into 
 the Church of Scotland by the reformers was quite different 
 from that in vogue in the Catholic Church at the Eeformation 
 is certain and clear. The penances imposed in the Catholic 
 Church were avowedly punishments for sins, and they were 
 declared to constitute atonements for sin. The satisfaction 
 that these penances were said to give was satisfaction to God 
 for the insult offered to His divine majesty by the infraction 
 of His laws. The doctrine proclaimed by the reformers was 
 different. It is by repentance towards God and faith towards 
 Jesus Christ, the reformers said, that forgiveness of sin and 
 redemption from wrath are obtained. We assure men every- 
 where of these truths, and we never say that any works which 
 we prescribe will effect peace between man and his Maker. 
 The absolution we grant is absolution from scandal, and not 
 from sin ; the peace that we restore and establish is not peace 
 with God, but peace with the Church. And what we require, 
 in order to grant to excommunicates and people suspended 
 from church privHeges that absolution and that peace, is reason- 
 able satisfaction or evidence that the persons craving such 
 benefits have truly repented of the sins that have caus°ed the 
 scandal under which they lie. But a mere verbal acknowledg- 
 ment of sin, they added, will not in all cases give us satisfac- 
 tion. If men realize the gravity of those transgressions that 
 infer suspension of Church privileges, they will do more than 
 say coldly or carelessly, we have sinned. Their sense of sin 
 will afflict their souls. They will feel that the suitable garb 
 
 1 In the Church of England scandals very early arose in connection with the commu- 
 tation of penances. In 1597 a constitution was passed to prevent abuses of this kind ; 
 but a few years afterwards, and again a century later, complaint was made in the Church 
 that commutation of penance, without the knowledge of the bishop, even for slight sums 
 and in improper cases, and the private disposal of the money thence arising, without 
 notifying the same to the congregation, are practices of very evil consequence."— Carc/- 
 tcells Si/noda!ia 082, 712. / i 
 
 90 
 
544 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 for them is sackcloth, and the proper place for them to stand 
 is outside the Church, or on the pillar of penitential confession. 
 And the Church cannot be expected to open her arms all at 
 once to every one that has dishonoured his Christian calling. 
 She does not possess divine omniscience. She must test men's 
 professions of repentance, and wait till she sees the fruits of 
 contrition in some amendment of life.^ Hence her requirement 
 of caution to satisfy in penitence and penalty. And hence 
 also the need of retaining for some time, in a state of proba- 
 tion, those that have been admitted to penitence. 
 
 But -when courses of repentance came to be assigned by 
 courts of the Church as punishments for sin, and were regarded 
 by offenders as punishments, there was on the one hand a 
 departure from, and on the other hand a misapprehension of, 
 Protestant principles. The Protestant Church does not, any 
 more than the Eoman Catholic, disclaim the use of censures. 
 She chastises her froward children with rebuke ; and she casts off, 
 with solemn excommunication, those that contumaciously con- 
 temn her authority or commit sins worthy of death. But it 
 is not censure that she inflicts on the penitent. She holds out 
 to them the hope of pardon ; and when she appoints to them 
 acts or exercises that involve humiliation or obloquy, it is 
 solely with the view of giving fitting expression to their 
 penitence and testing the sincerity of their professions. When, 
 therefore, robes of sackcloth and compearance on the pillar 
 were either appointed or considered as degradations and pun- 
 ishments, the light within the Church was darkening,^ and the 
 professors of Protestantism were reverting unconsciously to the 
 doctrines abjured at the Eeformation. 
 
 1 The following minute is a good illnstration of what is here stated: — 1651, 25th 
 November. " For his scandal confessed, to compeir in publick there to be rebucked out 
 of his owne seat the nixt lord's day, being resolved if by his following conversation he 
 give reall evidences of his sence of that his sinne, and be fund in the way of amendment, 
 then the Session is to receave him againe into church fellowship." — Galston Records, MS. 
 
 ^ That the " signs of repentance " were by some kirk sessions regarded as punishments 
 ■will appear from the following extracts: — 1647, 22nd November. ''Compeired R. B. 
 and confessed his overnightes drinking, and that also he was taken with it. The Session 
 therfor ordayned him to give signes of his repentance in the high place, with certification 
 that if he shall be deprehended in the lyk fault he shall be doublie punisht." 1650, 
 2nd July. " Compeired J. P. and G. H. Being accused of drunkeness, confessed ye 
 sameyn. They were therfore ordained to give signs of thair repentance in ye publick 
 place the nixt lordes day, assureing them if they salbe fund in ye lyk fault they salbe 
 treiplie punisht." — Galston iSesdon Records, Mi>. 
 
THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHUECH. 545 
 
 It is to be observed, also, that the theory of public penitence 
 rests on principles of ecclesiastical constitution that have long 
 been repudiated in the Church of Scotland. To whom should 
 penitential satisfaction be rendered ? If only to the session 
 and the other courts of the Church, there is no call or occasion 
 for puUic penitence. The penitence professed in public is 
 meant as a satisfaction to the whole congregation. It is a rite 
 that properly pertains to Congregationalism, and to it alone. 
 In the Form and Order of Public Eepentance (1567) the 
 minister is directed, on receiving the penitent's confession, to 
 " aske the congregation if they judge anie further to be required 
 for their satisfaction and reconciliation of that brother." That 
 question implied a democratic theory of Church government; 
 and for a brief period after the Eeformation, the Church of 
 Scotland was extremely democratic in her constitution. The 
 congregation was the depositary of all ecclesiastical power. It 
 was declared in the First Book of Discipline that " it apper- 
 taineth to the people, and to every several congregation, to 
 elect their minister; and other ceremonie than the public 
 approbation of the people, and declaration of the chiefe min- 
 ister, that the person there presented is appointed to serve the 
 Church, we cannot approve." And as there was no ordination 
 of ministers, so neither was there any ordination of elders. 
 The elders were simply the congregation's representatives in 
 the kirk session, and they were annually chosen, " lest of long 
 continuance of such officers men should have presumed upon 
 the liberty of the Kirk." And these representatives of the 
 congregation were directed " to take heed to the life, manners, 
 diligence, and study of their ministers." If a minister were 
 considered "worthy" of admonition, they were to admonish 
 him; if he were reckoned worthy of correction, they were to 
 correct him ; and if he were found to be " worthy of deposition, 
 they, with consent of the kirk and superintendent, might 
 depose him." 
 
 But the Church of Scotland soon repudiated the demo- 
 cratic theory of ecclesiastical government. The congregation 
 is no longer the depositary of all ecclesiastical authority, 
 and elders are no longer the representatives of the con- 
 gregation, holding office by its election and with its suffer- 
 
546 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ance.^ The government of the Church is now vested in her 
 officers, lawfully and permanently ordained for that end. This 
 fact is set forth with great clearness in a letter by the General 
 Assembly, in 1641, to some ministers in England. These 
 English ministers had written to the Assembly, stating that 
 there were among them " some brethren that hold the whole 
 power of Church-government, and all acts thereunto apper- 
 taining (as election, ordination, and deposition of officers 
 with admission, excommunication, and absolution of members) 
 are, by divine ordinance in foro externo, to be decreed by the 
 most voyces in and of every particular congregation, which 
 (say they) is the utmost bound of a particular Church, endued 
 with power of government, and only some formalities of solemne 
 execution to be reserved to the officers (as servants of the said 
 Church) if they have any, or if none, then to be performed by 
 some other members, not in office, whom the said Church shall 
 appoint thereunto. . . . Now, because we conceive that 
 your judgment in this case may conduce much, by the blessing 
 of God, to the settling of this question amongst us ; therefore, 
 we do earnestly entreat the same at your hands, and that so 
 much the rather, because we sometimes hear from those of the 
 aforesaid judgment, that some famous and eminent brethren, 
 even amongst yourselves, doe somewhat incline unto an appro- 
 bation of that way of government." In answer to this letter 
 the General Assembly wrote : — " Our unanimous judgment and 
 uniforme practice is, that according to the order of the Eeformed 
 Kirks, and the ordinance of God in his word, not onlie the 
 solemne execution of ecclesiastical power and authoritie, but 
 the whole acts and exercises thereof, do jproperly belong unto the 
 officers of the Kirh; yet so that in matters of chiefest importance 
 the tacite consent of the congregation be had, before their 
 decrees and sentences receive final execution, and that the 
 officers of a particular congregation may not exercise this 
 
 1 Many writers contend that the elders are the " representatives of the congregation. " 
 Not to speak of modern authorities, George Gillespie, in his Postscript to his " Assertion 
 of the Government of the Church of Scotland " (1641), refers, p. 13, to " that commoa 
 expression of Divines, that the Elders are the Church representatives;" and defends 
 the expression on the following very unsatisfactory grounds : — " First, what the Elders, 
 with the knowledge and tacite consent of the Church, doe approve or dislike, is supposed 
 to be approved or disliked by the whole Church : Secondly, as we say we have seen a 
 man when haply we have seen nothing but his head, . . . so do we know a visible 
 political Church when we see in the Senate the head and face thereof." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CIILT.Cn. 547 
 
 jiower independently, but with subordination unto greater 
 presbyteries and synods, provincial and national." According 
 to this enunciation of the Church's constitution, it is only to 
 church-officers that penitential satisfaction, except possibly in 
 some extreme cases, is due. Public satisfaction, therefore, is, 
 except in these cases,^ at variance rather than in harmony with 
 the principles of the Church of Scotland's constitution. 
 
 ABSOLUTION. 
 
 In connection with ecclesiastical absolution there are three 
 questions that fall to be considered: — First, are there any 
 scandals, or any judicial sentences, from which absolution is 
 refused by the Church? Secondly, must a definite period 
 elapse before sentences passed by a Church court can be re- 
 called ? And thirdly, what formalities are used in acts of 
 absolution ? 
 
 From what is said in the New Testament, one might think 
 there could not be a Church in the wide world that would 
 deny absolution from any scandal confessed and repented of, 
 unless it were for the sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. 
 "All manner of sin and blasphemy," said Jesus, "shall be 
 forgiven unto men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost 
 shall not be forgiven unto men, . . . neither in this world, 
 neither in the world to come." It appears, however, that in 
 the case of several offences absolution was at one time, in some 
 
 ^ As showing that kirk sessions did really require from some offenders " congregational 
 satisfaction," the following minute may here' be quoted: — 1648, February 27. " Ordaynes 
 that the forsaid John give signes of his repentance in the publict place in sackcloth'two 
 severall Sabbaths, and if then the minister and congregation shall find any evidences of 
 liis repentance, the minister is to absolve him ; if not, the forsaid John is to persist and 
 continue standing ay and till he shall give satisfaction." (Gakton Records, MS). The 
 same records show that, in 1G35, between twenty and thirty persons were on one occasion 
 summoned to " give their conscience befoir the congregatione " whether of a particular 
 parishioner they knew anything " but honestie ; " and that on the day appointed all these 
 persons compeared " in presence of the whole congregatione, and uppon their great oathes, 
 being soleranellie sworne deponit befoir the congregatione that they knew nor kend nothing 
 concerning George W. his particullar sclanders, but that he wes ane honest man." 
 
 In his "Assertion of the Government of the Chuich of Scotland" (1641), Gillespie 
 quotes approvingly, pp. 121-2, the argument of Augustine for the necessity of congre- 
 gational consent to sentences of excommunication. " The end of excommunication 
 cannot be attained if the Church do not consent thereto, ... for it shall be in vain 
 to excommunicate him from whom the multitude in the Church refuse to abstract their 
 communion:'' The itahcized word " communion " is evidently used here in the double sense 
 of fellowship at the Lord's table and fellowship in the world. From both kinds of 
 fellowship with Christians excommunicates were at one time debarred. ("First Book of 
 Discipline," chap, ix.) 
 
548 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 sections of the Church, strictly refused. Excommunication for 
 these offences Avas irremediable. "There are various canons 
 in the Council of Elvira {circa 305 a.d.) which utterly debar 
 offenders from Communion with the faithful for the remainder 
 of their lives." ^ But these canons were never in force over 
 the whole Church. In the case of the greatest criminals, some 
 bishops granted on show of penitence, while others refused, 
 absolution. It may be assumed that, during the century 
 immediately preceding the Preformation, sentences of absolute 
 or life-long exclusion from the Church were unknown in 
 Scotland. And there is no uncertainty regarding the doc- 
 trine held on the subject of absolution by the Scottish re- 
 formers. That doctrine is on record. In the Form and Order 
 of Public Eepentance, 1567, it is said that " suche as deserve 
 death for that crime committed (can) never be admitted to 
 the societie of the Church untill such time as either the magis- 
 trate punish according to the law, or elles pardon the crime ; 
 but such as for other offences, and for their contempt, are 
 excommunicat, may be receaved, when they salle earnestlie 
 seek the favours of the Church."^ It will doubtless strike 
 the reader that in the first clause of this quotation there is 
 manifested a harshness of feeling, with an Erastianism, that 
 he could scarcely have expected from the reformers. The 
 action of the Church is, in that declaration, made to depend 
 on the action of the state. A murderer is not to be received 
 into thp. fellowship of the Church till he has received from 
 the state either punishment or pardon for his crime. That 
 was not a good position for the Church to take up. The 
 
 1 Smith's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," 639. 
 
 2 To show how hard it was for the committers of heinous crimes to obtain absolu- 
 tion from the Reformed Church of Scotland, it may be stated that, previous to 1571, 
 "all adulterers, murtherers, incestuous persons," &c., were required to present them- 
 selves to the General Assembly to " resave their first injunction," and to return to the 
 followina; General Assembly " in linen clothes," and receive a second admonition. It 
 ■was ordained, however, in 1571, that "as divers of the saids otl'enders are far distant 
 frae the places of Generall Assembhes, and uthirs for poverty and deidlie feuds may 
 not nor dare not travel! through the countrie to present themselves before the saids 
 Assemblies," all such offenders should in future be summoned by superintendents and 
 commissioners of provinces "to compeir before them in their Synodall conventions, to 
 be halden by them twyse in the yeir, to receave and take their injunctions, conforme 
 to the order usit before the Generall Assemblies in all sorts." In 1588 a further 
 relaxation of discipline was granted, so that adulterers, homicides, &c., were allowed 
 to give satisfaction " before the Presbyteries, in such forme as they were accustomit 
 before the Synodalls." — Old Church Life in Scotland, First Series, 3l»i, note. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 549 
 
 sentences of the Church should be made independent of civil 
 sentences. Whether the state pardon, or punish, or neglect 
 to punish, the Church should do her own duty to her own 
 children. If a man charged with crime will not yield him- 
 self to the civil power, but will seek to evade justice, the 
 Church may with good show of reason construe his conduct 
 into impenitence ; but the Church goes beyond her proper 
 functions when she steps in to substitute a spiritual punish- 
 ment for a civil one which the state has neglected to inflict, 
 and refuses, because of the state's action or inaction, to remove 
 a sentence when Christian duty calls for such a removal. In 
 later expositions of the Church of Scotland's doctrine regarding 
 absolution, there is no such limiting clause as that in the 
 order (1567) to which exception is here taken. Absolution is 
 declared, or assumed to be, open to all that give to the Church 
 satisfactory signs of repentance. In the Form of Process (1707) 
 it is said that " if, after excommunication, the signs of repent- 
 ance appear in the excommunicated person ; . . . and 
 the presbytery, upon his application, be satisfied therewith, 
 and judge that he ought to be absolved, and thereupon give 
 warrant for his absolution, he is to be brought before the con- 
 gregation, and there also to make a free confession of his sin 
 and sorrow for it," &c. 
 
 In regard to the second question — whether any definite 
 period is required to elapse before a Church sentence, and 
 especially a sentence of excommunication, can be reduced ? — it 
 may be said that the Church has at different periods, and in 
 different countries, acted on different principles. Judging from 
 what is recorded in 2 Cor. ii. 6-11, one would say that the 
 primitive apostolic principle was to grant absolution as soon 
 as signs of penitence warranted the Church's considering an 
 excommunicated person worthy of her fellowship in faith and 
 friendship ; and for many a day this theory prevailed in the 
 Church. In course of time, however, sentences of excommuni- 
 cation came to be less relaxable. Those that were inflicted 
 sine die were recalled with less promptitude and less willing- 
 ness than they formerly were; and there came into practice 
 a new kind of lesser excommunication for a definite num- 
 ber of years. This last-mentioned form of excommunication 
 
550 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 was never in use in the Eeformed Church of Scotland. 
 Persons excommunicated were excommunicated sine die; and 
 persons declared scandalous were declared scandalous in the 
 same manner, sine die, or until they satisfied the Church with 
 signs of penitence; but whenever there appeared in the life 
 of a scandalous or an excommunicated person unmistakable 
 fruits of repentance, the Church rejoiced and hastened to re- 
 ceive her penitent child.^ 
 
 In regard to the third question — by what formalities the 
 act of absolution was completed ? — it may be said that as 
 these formalities are matters for every Church to regulate 
 at her own discretion, so have they varied not only in dif- 
 ferent Churches, but in the same Church at different periods. 
 At the present day all, or nearly all, corrective discipline in 
 the Eeformed Church of Scotland is sessional or presbyterial. 
 There is almost none that is public or congregational. The 
 act of absolution has thus come to be divested of nearly all 
 formalities. Kirk sessions minute that A. B., having confessed 
 his guilt, and made profession of penitence therefor, was gravely 
 admonished by the moderator to be careful of his walk and 
 conversation in time coming, and was thereafter by the kirk 
 session absolved from scandal. When repentance was required 
 to be made in public, the absolution was pronounced in public 
 also. But in many old session records there is very little said 
 
 ^ A fine expression in old session records is " reconciled to the kirk," and the ground 
 of reconciliation is often in these records stated to be "signs of repentance." The 
 following minute, for instance, appears in the Galston records (MS.): — "1652. The 
 next Lord's day to apear in publick, and yr to be rebuked, and if they shall (show) 
 evidences and signs of yr repentance to be absolved and declared reconciled to ye kirk." 
 Still more instructive, both as a picture of social life and a record of disciplinary pro- 
 cedure, are the following minutes from the registers of the same rural parish : — " 1652, 
 9th July. J. S., not as yet being summoned, compeared before the sessione, and 
 acknowledged his scandalous cariadg in shedding the blood of Jlr. A. W., one of the 
 elders of the said sessione, and desyred that the sessione might condiscend upon a way 
 how the scandle wod be removed, and he reconciled to the church. The sessione con- 
 ceaving him somewhat sensible of the forsaid fault ordained him to be publicklie rebuked 
 the nixt Lord's day, and afterwards as he shall give further evidences of his repentance 
 they will proceid to declaire him reconciled to the kirk. In the mean tyme exhorted 
 him to give all just reparatione to the partie injured, quhilk he undertoke to perfonn." 
 " 27th July. Compeared the aforesaid J. S., desyring to be receaved againe into 
 the fellowship of the church, and to give further evidences of his hartie repentance. 
 The sessione after they had inquired at diverse of the elders who had occasione to con- 
 verse most with him since his fall in the forementioned scandle, and finding that his 
 cariadg seams to be lyk as he were realie penitent, does therfore ordaine him the nixt 
 Lord's day into the fellowship of God's people and reconciled to the church: quhilk 
 accordinglie wes done." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 551 
 
 about the absolution of those that underwent a course of repeut- 
 auce. Their appointment to appear in the public place is duly 
 minuted, but never a word about their absolution from scandal. 
 The reason of this seeming informality we need not discuss ; 
 different reasons will probably occur to different persons. And 
 in this matter the practice of kirk sessions, more than two 
 hundred years ago, was not quite uniform. Sometimes, at that 
 date, the fact of absolution was recorded in session books ; but 
 in some of these cases the wording is so inexplicit as to leave 
 the reader in doubt whether the absolution was pronounced 
 from the pulpit in presence of the congregation, or at a meeting 
 of kirk session after the congregation was dismissed. For 
 instance, in an old session book the following minute occurs : — 
 " On Sabbath, December 5, 1646, A. N., having given signes 
 of his repentance (out of his own seat) for his drinking on 
 Sabbath, was absolved." From all that is said in that minute 
 it is impossible to make out when or where, during divine 
 service or after divine service, before the congregation or before 
 the session only, the absolution was pronounced.^ But at a 
 later period, when kirk sessions were more in the way of record- 
 ing in their minutes what took place during divine service on 
 Sundays, the notices of absolution are so explicit as to leave no 
 doubt about the time, place, and manner of its declaration. 
 For instance, in the records of Kilmarnock Kirk Session we 
 find the following minute, and many like it: — "1701, 31st 
 August, Sabbath. Mr. William Wright .... lectured in his 
 ordinary on the twelfth chapter of John, from the 27th verse 
 to the end ; and preached both forenoon and afternoon ^ . . . 
 on the latter part of Eomans ix. ver. 5, and afterwards baptized 
 
 four infants, whose names and parents, &c It: Eodem. 
 
 M. B. appeared on the pillory for ... . the third and last diet, 
 and after exhortation, confession, and humiliation on her knees, 
 
 ^ The following two minutes, from Galston MS. Records, will illustrate with exceptional 
 clearness sessional procedure, in regard to absolution, at the middle of the seventeenth 
 century: — " 1G52. Compeared A. B., desiring to be receaved. . . . After serch of his 
 cariadg the sessione gave him this answer, that they find him no to hav walked penitent 
 lyk, but rather contrare, and therefor they cannot absolve him untill further signes of his 
 repentance appear." — " 1654, Saboth, 10th July. Compeared G. R., after his being rebuked 
 for his fall in fornication ; A. M., after his scandle of drunkenes ; J. N., after his scandle 
 of curssing and swearing ; desiring all to be receaved, and the session having taken serious 
 inspection of their cariadg since yr rebukes, absolved them at the conftssing ofyr sinne 
 before ye congregatume." 
 
00 2 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 was absolved from the scandal, and dismissed with a ' go, and 
 sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.' It : ditto, inti- 
 mate no session on the Thursdays till harvest be over, and finally- 
 pronounced the blessing." It is quite clear from this minute 
 that the absolution was pronounced from the pulpit, before 
 the close of divine service, and before the intimation of pastoral 
 visits. And this was in strict accordance with the ancient 
 Order of Public Eepentance and Absolution, 1567. In that order 
 it is laid down that the minister, having asked the penitent 
 several questions, and received thereto satisfactory answers, 
 shall first address the penitent, and thereafter the congregation, 
 in certain set terms, or in terms similar. And when these 
 addresses are ended, the minister shall proceed to give public 
 thanks to God for the offender's conversion ; and then " sail say, 
 in manner of absolution : ' If thou unfainedlie repent thy former 
 iniquitie, and beleave in the Lord Jesus, then I, in his name, 
 pronounce and affirme that thy sinnes are forgiven, not onlie 
 in earth, but also in heaven, according to the promises annexed 
 with the preaching of His word, and to the power putt in the 
 miuistrie of His Church.' " And the public formality did not 
 end with the utterance of these words from the pulpit. When 
 the presiding minister concluded his office, "the elders and 
 deacons were, in name of the whole Church, instructed to take 
 the reconciled brother by the hand and embrace him, in signe 
 of full reconciliation." Thereafter the congregation were in- 
 vited to sing part of the 103rd Psalm, and when this was done 
 the service was closed with the benediction. It may be assumed 
 that after the enactment of the Form of Process, 1707, and 
 even prior to that date, all the foregoing details of formality 
 were not invariably observed in the act of absolution; but 
 wherever repentance had to be made in public, it behoved that 
 absolution should be pronounced in public also.^ 
 
 In the case of excommunicated persons, the act of absolu- 
 tion has always been clothed with solemnity.^ Kirk sessions 
 have never presumed, in an informal and perfunctory way, 
 
 ^ In 1706 the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock " enacted that before any person should be 
 absolved from scandal, intimation thereof should be made to the congrejjation, that if any 
 had anything to object, they mipht declai-e the same in the session" (MS. i^ecords)— a 
 procedure surely of very doubtful expediency. 
 
 ^ By excommunicated is here meant under sentence of greater excommunication. 
 
THE DISCIPLIXE OF THE CHUHCH. 553 
 
 to reinstate excommunicates in Cliristian privileges. The earliest 
 order (1567) in the Eeformed Church of Scotland for the absolu- 
 tion of such persons was much the same as that appointed for 
 the restoration of public penitents not cast out of the Church, 
 except that the words of absolution were different. The 
 minister declared that he spake not only in the name of 
 Christ, but " with consent of the whole ministrie and Church," 
 and he not only pronounced the sins of the penitent man to 
 be forgiven in earth and heaven, but declared that the man 
 was now "receaved again to the societie of Jesus Christ, to 
 his bodie the Church, to the participation of his sacraments, 
 and finally to the fruition of all his benefites." It is quaintly 
 directed also, that " the absolution pronounced, the minister shall 
 then call him Brother, and give him admonition to watche 
 and pray that he fall not again in the like tentation." There- 
 after the new-named brother was appointed to receive the 
 embraces of the whole ministry " and such others of the 
 Church as were nixt unto him," and then a psalm of thanks- 
 giving was given out to be sung.^ 
 
 Nothing will better enable us to understand the mode in 
 which absolution was granted to excommunicated persons, in 
 the first days of the Eeformed Church, than a verbatim report 
 of proceedings in some particular case; and the printed records 
 of the General Assembly happen to furnish us with such a 
 report as will sufficiently answer this end. The case is so 
 far peculiar that the absolution was craved from, and granted 
 by, the supreme court of the Church, instead of by a local 
 congregation and session ; but that peculiarity of the case does 
 not much alter the lines of procedure. On the 15th May, 1594, 
 " compeirit Alexander Lord Home in Assembly, and with all 
 
 ^ In the Church of England, as well as in the Church of Scotland, absolutions from 
 escomniunication were required to be pronounced in public. In the canons 1571 it 
 is said, " Ecclesiasticus judex, cujuscunque loci aut ordinis, neminem excommuni- 
 catum absolvet domi suae, aut alioqui in privatis jedibus : sed tantum publice, et pro 
 tribun.ali." (^CardweU's Synodalia" 11'.*.) In the canons 1640 it is said that "no 
 absolutions shall be good or valid in law, except they be pronounced either by the 
 bishop in person, or by some other in holy orders, having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 
 or by some grave minister beneficed in the diocese, being a master of arts at least, and 
 appointed by the bishop, and the priest's name pronouncing such sentence of absolution 
 to be expressed in the instrument issuing under seal out of court. . . . And that 
 no such minister shall pronounce any sentence of absolution but in open consistory, or at 
 the least in a church or chapel, the penitent humbly craving and taking absolution upon 
 his knees, and having first taken the oath de parendo juri et slando mandatis 
 ecclesia.'' — Si/nodalia, 410. 
 
554 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 humilitie cravit that lie might be absoluit from the sentence 
 of excommunicatione led against him, protesting before God 
 lie wald in tyme comeing give proof of obedience and service 
 to God, and maintain the truth of his religione, presently pro- 
 fest be the Kirk here present, to his lyfe's end ; and although 
 lie was sometyme in ane different religione from them, now 
 avowes, he being better instructed in the lieid quherin he some- 
 tymes differed from them, the present Confession of Fayth and 
 religion professit presently be the Assembly ; and if he shall 
 hereafter declyne therefrae, submits him in that case to the 
 Assemblie of the Kirk, hopeing be God's grace never to make 
 defectione therefrae." In response to this crave the Assembly 
 thought meet that certain conditions should be set down in 
 writing, to be subscribed by the petitioner, and that thereafter 
 his " sute of absolution " should be considered. At a subse- 
 quent diet of Assembly, on the same day, the written conditions 
 were severally read over to Lord Home ; and, " in token of his 
 acceptatione " of them, were subscribed with his hand. The 
 Assembly thereupon, " in respect of his repentance schawne," 
 &c., ordained that he should be absolved from excommunication, 
 and his sentence of absolution pronounced by the moderator 
 " the morne at meeting." The following day, therefore, " exhor- 
 tation being first made, the said lord was inquyrit if he was 
 sorie in his heart for the fault of off'ence he had committed, 
 and that he had incurrit the said sentence, and fand ane earnest 
 dolor in his heart for that he was separat from the Kirk here 
 present so long, thirsting maist earnestlie to be joynit theret© 
 as ane member of Christ's bodie, and promising, as he sail 
 answer to God, in tyme coming to continow ane constant pro- 
 fessor in the trouth of his religione, presentlie allowit be the 
 Kirk of Scotland here convenit, to his lyve's end, and to schaw 
 the fruits of ane trew Christiane in his lyfe, removeiug all 
 sclanderous persones furth of his companie ? Quho answerit, 
 in God's presence it was his trew meaning, and that he intendit 
 to schawe the same in evident effects in tyme cuming. Quhere- 
 fore, thanks being given to God, and prayer made, he was 
 solemnly absolvit from the said sentence be the moderator, 
 and receavit be him in name of the said breither, and imbraced 
 as ane member reconciled to the Kirk." 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 555 
 
 The procedure prescribed in the Form of Process (1707) for 
 the Absolution of Excommunicated Persons, is substantially the 
 same as that laid down in the old order of 1567, but is briefer 
 and simpler. Warrant for absolution has to be obtained by 
 the session from the presbytery ; and for the sufficient reason 
 that it was by the presbytery's order that the sentence of 
 excommunication w-as inflicted. The penitent has then to be 
 brought before the congregation to make free confession of his 
 sin and of sorrow for his sin ; and, calling upon God for mercy 
 in Christ, to seek restoration to the communion of the Church. 
 This compearance before the congregation has to be repeated 
 " as often as Church judicatories shall find may be for edifica- 
 tion and trial of the professing penitent's sincerity." "When 
 at length the minister and congregation are satisfied with the 
 penitent's signs of repentance, they are to praise God for 
 "blessing the ordinance of excommunication, and making it 
 effectual by his Spirit to the recovering of this offender." 
 Public prayer is then to be made "that it may please God, 
 by his Spirit and grace, . . . so to accept of this poor 
 believing and returning sinner, whom Satan hath long time 
 holden in bondage, that his former disobedience may never be 
 laid to his charge, and that he may increase in all godliness, so 
 that . . . God may be glorified, the Church edified, and 
 the penitent saved in the day of our Lord," After this prayer 
 the sentence of absolution is to be pronounced; and when that 
 is done, the absolved is to be called " brother " by the minister, 
 to be embraced by the elders, and received by the whole con- 
 gregation as one of their own number. The absolution is to be 
 announced, also, in all churches in which the excommunication 
 was intimated. 
 
 The admonitions and prayers, the thanksgivings and psalm- 
 singing, the new name of "brother" and the brotherly embrace 
 that followed, which were part of the old procedure in public 
 absolution in the Church of Scotland, were doubtless meant at 
 the time of their enactment to indicate kindly Christian feeling 
 on the part of the Church towards the penitent. It was sup- 
 posed that these solemnities would cheer and comfort him. At 
 the present day they would be felt by many people as humilia- 
 tions of a cruel character. They would vex, and deject, and 
 
556 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 cast down irretrievably those they were meant to encourage 
 and strengthen. They would make the subjects of them feel 
 that they did not stand, in the Church, on the platform of 
 self-respect. We cannot but rejoice, therefore, that in the 
 discipline of the Church of Scotland there are no hard-and-fast 
 rules alleged to be, jure divino, of perpetual force ; but that 
 forms and processes are allowed to change from age to age, in 
 accordance with the growth of public sentiment. And it is a 
 sign of progress that men are more sensitive than their fathers 
 were ; and that in matters of such high solemnity as exclusion 
 from, and restoration to, the enjoyment of Christian privileges, 
 they cannot, and will not, brook tlie ordeal of theatric display. 
 
 4<s. 
 
 V 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES 
 
 CHURCH PROPERTY IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 NENIOX ELLIOT, S.S.C, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TEIND PAPERS;" "THE CONVERSION INTO MONEY OF GRAIN AND VICTUAL 
 
 PAYMENTS IN SCOTLAND;" "THE ERECTION OF PARISHES QUOAD SACRA. AND THE 
 
 FEUING OF GLEBES, UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE COURT OF TEINDS." 
 
TEINDS, OR TITHES; 
 
 CHURCH PROPERTY IN SCOTLAND, 
 
 Those Scottish writers to whom we are indebted for special 
 treatises on teinds have not been uniform in the description of 
 their works. Mr. Forbes, in the beginning of last century, and 
 Sir John Connell, early in this century, have both adopted, as 
 a leading part of their titles, the words "On Tithes," while 
 Mr. Buchanan, the latest writer, has described his work as a 
 treatise " On Teinds or Tithes." The first-named writers seem 
 to have felt that without an English title their works would not 
 find their way into the hands of English readers ; but yet when 
 they come to speak of Scottish law and practice on the subject, 
 they are obliged throughout their works constantly to employ 
 the word " teinds." Before going further, therefore, it is proper 
 to state that teinds is the name which has long been applied 
 to tithes in Scotland, and we shall use this name for them later 
 on when we speak of Scottish tithes. The words tithes and 
 teinds simply mean tenths. 
 
 Tithes and property dedicated to the promotion of religion 
 have an ancient history ; and no account of the teinds and pro- 
 perty vested in the Church of Scotland, at the present day, 
 would be complete or quite intelligible without some reference 
 to their origin, and the causes which have brought them into 
 their present position. 
 
 Of the payment of tenths associated with heathen rites and 
 superstitions, it is not necessary to take particular notice. In 
 such cases the use was occasional and limited to particular 
 districts, and did not, so far as is known, extend by ordinance 
 or appointment over any single country. 
 
 91 
 
560 PROPERTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 There are several instances recorded in the Bible, before the 
 giving of the law, in which tithes had been rendered, but which 
 need not be here referred to in detail. A marked change took 
 place, however, when the future possessions of the children of 
 Israel were destined to bear tithes, the law being made perman- 
 ent and applicable to the whole land. How far this followed 
 the custom of Egypt, with the institutions of which Moses was 
 familiar, cannot be stated with certainty. The Egyptian priests 
 had undoubtedly possessions in land, and also received certain 
 dues. During Joseph's administration their lands were not 
 purchased for Pharaoh, because the King made special provision 
 for the priests (Gen. xlviL 22). 
 
 The Mosaic law, which appointed the payment of tithes to 
 the tribe of Levi, was antecedent to the occupation of Palestine 
 by the Israelites. The people were to be divided into twelve 
 tribes, but the territory, situated on both sides of the Jordan, 
 destined for the occupation of the people, was to be divided 
 into eleven parts, and the tribe of Levi, which was not to direct 
 its attention to agriculture, was not to receive a share of the 
 land; and, in respect of its being set apart for attendance on 
 divine service, was to receive from the other tribes tithes, being 
 " all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service 
 which they serve" (Num. xviii. 21). It was also appointed that 
 the Levites should receive forty-eight cities to dwell in, with 
 a certain extent of land adjacent to each, called the suburbs, 
 " for their cattle, and for their goods, and for all their beasts " 
 (Num. XXXV. 3-7). Besides these tithes the priests had right to 
 firstfruits, which the eleven tribes were required to " bring into 
 the house of the Lord thy God" (Exod. xxiii. 19). And the high 
 priest received the heave offering offered to the Lord, " even a 
 tenth part of the tithe" (Num. xviii. 26-28), out of the tithes 
 payable to the Levites. It appears from the computations in 
 the times of Moses and David that the Levites were one of the 
 least of the twelve tribes, while they are supposed to have had 
 almost four twelfth-parts of the produce of the country; and 
 taking the Levites as commonly between 30,000 and 40,000, 
 the proportion allotted to the high priest was equal to that of 
 3000 or 4000 Levites.^ 
 
 ^ Dr. Potter's discourse, cited in Plowden on Tithes, 5i, 65. 
 
TEIXDS OR TITHES. ! 561 
 
 Instead of a money poor-rate such as we have in modern 
 times, a humane provision was made for " the stranger, the 
 fatherless, and the widow" (Deut. xiv. 29; xvi. 11-14), or as 
 Josephus puts it, for " those that want, to women also that are 
 widows, and to children that are orphans."^ This was made 
 by a second tithe, which every two years was given at Jerusalem, 
 and every third year in the gates of the husbandman. Selden 
 points out that this last was not a third tithe, as stated by some 
 writers, including Josephus, but was only a tithe of the third 
 year, the place where it was to be distributed being different 
 from that of the two preceding years.*^ 
 
 In a work published in 1713 an English writer ^ pointed out 
 a distinction between the Levitical and English tithes. He 
 said the Levitical tithes "were brought home to them fully 
 dressed and prepared for the use of the Levites ; that is, the 
 corn threshed, winnowed, and dressed, the grapes made into 
 wine and the olives into oil ; and so it was as to all things else 
 of which they received tithes;" while in England "ministers 
 among us are at great charges and trouble, first to gather and 
 fetch home their tithes, and afterwards to fit and prepare them 
 for use, which makes them at least one fourth-part less valuable 
 to them than they were to the Levitical priesthood." This, 
 observation was equally applicable to Scotland at one period ; 
 but in Scotland the teinds have gradually ceased to be uplifted, 
 as the valuations proceeded under the measures introduced in 
 the reign of King Charles I., of which more hereafter. In 
 England tithes were uplifted till their commutation into a rent 
 charge, under a series of Acts of Parliament commencing in 
 1836. The Levites, however, had no right to uplift tithes, and 
 therefore had less security for the payment; hence the numerous 
 complaints against the other tribes that they failed to render 
 their tithes, and for which they were charged as robbing God 
 (Mai. iii. 8). These tribes had been solemnly warned : " Take 
 heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou 
 livest on the earth" (Deut. xii. 19), and this injunction had 
 been disregarded. No law abrogated the payment of tithes in 
 Palestine, but the carrying away of the ten tribes, including 
 
 1 " Antiquities," iv 8, 22. 2 Selden (edition 1618), 14. 
 
 3 Dr. Prideaux, dean of Norwich, on Tithes, 76, 77. 
 
562 PROPEETY OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 that of Levi (B.C. 720), interrupted the old law, and brought 
 into existence a rival temple on Mount Gerizim, built by the 
 Samaritans. The destruction of Jerusalem with its temple 
 (a.d. 70), and the final dispersion of the remnant of the 
 Jewish nation, after a fresh outbreak (about a.d. 135), made 
 the land desolate, and brought the Levitical system of tithes 
 to a close. 
 
 Our Saviour was not of the tribe of Levi, and made 
 no claim to any share of the tithes towards His ministry. 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews drew special 
 attention to this when referring to the priesthood of Christ. 
 " For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity 
 a change also of the law. For he of whom these things 
 are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man 
 gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident that 
 our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake 
 nothing concerning priesthood" (Heb. vii. 12-14). Yet in 
 His time tithes were rendered, the zealous Jew boasting that 
 he obeyed the law by paying tithes of all that he pos- 
 sessed; in this he was not condemned. Tithes were due by 
 law, and to " render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
 and unto God the things that are God's" (Mat. xxii. 21), 
 was specially enjoined by our Lord, who declared that He 
 had not come to destroy, but to fulfil the law (Mat. v. 17). 
 There was no suggestion here that tithes should be diverted 
 to some other purpose ; but there was certainly condemnation 
 of the scribes and Pharisees, because they paid "tithe of 
 mint and anise and cummin," and had " omitted the weightier 
 matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith" (Mat. xxiii. 
 23). It was their formalism that was condemned. 
 
 When, therefore, it became necessary to provide for the 
 sustenance of the preachers of the Christian religion, occasion 
 was taken to declare that "the labourer is worthy of his 
 hire" (Luke x. 7). From the various passages in the Gospels 
 it has been frequently pointed out that our Lord and His 
 apostles and disciples were supported by pious contributions 
 from their followers and their friends; and it is accordingly 
 maintained that our Lord considered it the duty of those to 
 whom the gospel was preached to give a competent main- 
 
TEINDS Oil TITHES. 5 Go 
 
 tenance to those who preached it. That His disciples suc- 
 ceeded appears from St. Luke's Gospel, where our Lord, 
 having asked them, "When I sent you without purse, and 
 scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? they said, Nothing" 
 (Luke xxii. 35). 
 
 The zeal of certain sections of the early Christian converts 
 carried them so far as to sell their possessions and hold the 
 proceeds for the common behoof. The teaching of the apostles 
 had stimulated this community of goods from an impres- 
 sion that the end of the world was near at hand. But the 
 apostles did not require the converts to make over their 
 property, and the sin of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 
 1-10) consisted in their professing to give up all and keeping 
 back a part. 
 
 In the prosecution of the work of the Christian ministry 
 the apostles were sometimes maintained by their friends and 
 followers ; at other times they were placed in circumstances 
 whicli required them to resort to manual labour for sub- 
 sistence. St. Paul, as opportunity offered, followed his occu- 
 pation of a tent-maker, and touchingly refers to this when 
 he says — "Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have 
 ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with 
 me" (Acts xx. 34). Yet we find a distinct claim also by 
 St. Paul to a maintenance for the Christian ministry when he 
 says — "Do ye not know that they (referring to the Levitical order) 
 which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? 
 and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar ? 
 Even so (referring to the Christian ministry) hath the Lord 
 ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the 
 gospel " (1 Cor. ix. 13, 14). 
 
 The persecutions of the Christians during the early centuries 
 of our era, as recorded by Eusebius and other historians, show 
 that Christianity received little encouragement during a long 
 period. The converts jDcrsevered in their labours, however, 
 in spite of all obstacles, and finally obtained the recognition 
 and support of the civil power. The blood of the martyrs had 
 been the seed of the Church. But it is not within our province 
 here to trace the causes which converted Piome from bein^ 
 
 O 
 
 the seat of a pagan civil power, to become the centre of a 
 
564 PEOPEKTY OF THE CIIUnCIT. 
 
 great ecclesiastical system, which has come to be known as 
 the Church of Eome. As the Church prospered its possessions 
 steadily increased, and we find that by the time of Pope 
 Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, its pro- 
 perty was very considerable. Gibbon has drawn attention 
 to this, and has commended the management and distribu- 
 tion of the revenues of the Church by that pope, whose pri- 
 vate estate, as well as the proceeds of the lands held for 
 the Church, were employed for behoof of the Church and the 
 poor.^ 
 
 The teaching of the Church, in the fourth century, was that 
 the tenth was due by God's law to the Church (St. Ambrose 
 and St. Augustine), and that a less part should not be offered 
 (St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom).^ Canons or decrees of the 
 Church inculcating the payment of tithes were not issued, 
 however, till a later period. The laws made directing the 
 payment of tithes which came into force subsequently were 
 (1) imperial, (2) provincial, and (3) pontifical. We shall have 
 occasion to refer to these in the course of our narrative. 
 
 The first imperial, or civil, law in support of tithes was issued 
 by Charlemagne about 778-779,^ applicable to the French 
 portion of his dominions, and in later years it was applied 
 to other divisions of his extensive empire, embracing as it 
 did parts of Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Hun- 
 gary. The conspicuous example thus set had a wide influ- 
 ence, and encouraged the Church also to enlarge the area of 
 the claim. 
 
 From the Continent, as we know, Christianity was introduced 
 into Britain : and the Christian missionaries who arrived at 
 various periods have left, in addition to many traditions, some 
 record of their labours. There can be no doubt that during 
 the missionary period the Church by degrees acquired great 
 influence, and from time to time received numerous grants of 
 tithes and lands. 
 
 ^ Gibbon (Bohn's edition), v. 134. 
 
 * Selden (edition 1618), p. 63. Lord Sclborne, in his recent work titled "Ancient 
 Facts and Fictions concerning Churches and Tithes," has gone over the gi-ound occupied 
 by Selden, and points out that the documents now available "leave room for something to 
 be added to his (Selden's) researches, sometimes by way of verification or illustration, 
 sometimes by way of correction and supplement." 
 
 3 See Lord Selborne's work, p. 50. 
 
TEINDS OE TITHES. 565 
 
 Lord Selborne, in his " Defence of the Church of England,"^ 
 considers the property belonging to that Church under (1) gifts 
 by private persons, (2) gifts by kings, (3) tithes, and (4) par- 
 liamentary grants. The Church of Scotland has not been so 
 fortunate as to be allowed to retain the gifts of lands which 
 belonged to the old Church before the Eeformation ; nor can 
 we say much in regard to the endowments through parliamentary 
 grants. The amount of these in Scotland is extremely small. 
 As to tithes, his lordship has pointed out that these were in 
 existence in England, and we may add also in Scotland, before 
 the titles were granted through which the present possessors 
 enjoy their estates. 
 
 When Scotland was yet divided into provinces of different 
 races, the Christian missionaries were prosecuting their labours. 
 As Dr. Skene says: "The Church of the Britons of Strath- 
 clyde and of the southern Picts was more immediately founded 
 by St. Niuian, who derived his teaching from Rome. The 
 Church of the Angles was an offshoot of that founded by 
 Augustine, a direct missionary from Eome. The Church of 
 the Northern Picts was derived from that founded by St. 
 Patrick in Ireland."- There is much information bearing on 
 the early settlement of the Church contained in Dr. Skene's 
 last work on " Celtic Scotland,"* which has been industriously 
 collected from a great variety of sources ; and there are 
 numerous instances recorded in it of grants to the Church 
 of land and tithes, to which we can only here refer. 
 
 Such gifts as were made by the ancient inhabitants were 
 necessarily verbal, as they held their lands, as all uncivilized 
 peoples do, by mere possession. Writing was unknown amongst 
 them except in so far as in use by the missionaries themselves. 
 Accordingly, the Church came into possession of its lands with 
 the plenum dominium, or full property, as contradistinguished 
 from grants by a superior to a vassal, belonging to a later 
 period. Property at that period was tribal. Dr. Skene points 
 out that " the next step in the process, as in England, was that 
 the land possessed by the tribe communities came to be viewed 
 
 1 " Defence," &c., p. 182. 
 
 2 " Chronicles of Picts and Scots,' Preface, p. clii. 
 
 ^lu three volumes; vols. 1 and 2 are in second edition, 1886-87. 
 
666 PROPEKTY OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 as terra regis, or Crown land, and the King became the dominus 
 or superior."^ This refers to the introduction of the feudal 
 relation, from which the Church was exempt. In later times, 
 however, the Church granted feus of its own property, thereby 
 becoming superior over its own vassals. 
 
 During the reign of David I. (1124-53) the Church rose 
 to great wealth and importance. This "sair sanct" for the 
 Crown was a profuse benefactor on his own account, and he 
 insisted on the payment of teinds by others. In the reign 
 of William the Lion (1165-1214) precepts or mandates were 
 granted by the Eling for the enforcement of payments, the 
 obligations for which are traceable to the proceedings of 
 David I." "We regard these writings, however, as merely cor- 
 roborative and confirmatory of the state of things which 
 existed before writing came into general use in transactions 
 with the Church. 
 
 The tithes which were granted or confirmed in the reign 
 of David I. were increased by several grants of tithe of can 
 and conveth, which must have been of great importance at 
 that period. Dr. Skene shows that "can" was a payment 
 of dues in kind, while "conveth," originally signifying a 
 feast, came to denote a contribution of animals and produce 
 towards that object.^ These grants may be regarded as con- 
 stituting rights to vicarage teinds, for such seems to be their 
 true character. 
 
 The words can and conveth have been treated of at some 
 length by Dr. Skene and Mr. Cosmo Innes,'* and also more 
 recently by Professor Mackinnon. ^ The last mentions that 
 " in some localities cain still means the portion of rent paid 
 in kind : " and that " conveth, or food rent, has been commuted 
 into mal, the Teutonic mail borrowed into Gaelic, or money 
 rent." "What is said as to cain is not only true as regards 
 the Highlands, but also applies to kain fowls which are 
 paid for or commuted in money at a stated conversion, in other 
 parts of the country. 
 
 In 1225 the Scottish clergy, although they had no metro- 
 
 ^ " Notes to Fordonn," iL 448, Scottish Historian Series. 
 
 ^ See Jlr. Cosmo Innes's preface to " Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland." 
 
 3 "Celtic Scotland," iii. 228, and "Notes to Fordoun." 
 
 *" Legal Antiquities," 204. ^Scotsman, 3rd January, 1888. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 567 
 
 politan, "were empowered by the Pope to meet in legislative 
 assembly. The canons promulgated from that time till 1559 
 have been printed, with a valuable introductory notice, in the 
 "Concilia Scotiae" of Mr. Joseph Eobertson, published in 
 1866, the year of his death. By various canons teinds and 
 firstfruits are specially claimed, vicarage teinds being de- 
 scribed with much detail. The vicar was, by one of these 
 canons, appointed to have a sufficient sustenance, affording 
 proof that though really charged and collected for, and in 
 name of, the vicar, the proceeds sometimes went into other 
 hands, leaving the vicar as a stipendiary very poorly paid. 
 Lord Hailes records several instances in which this regulation 
 received effect.^ The dates of these canons are uncertain, 
 although it is supposed they may have been about or prior 
 to 1269.=' 
 
 In England the information preserved in regard to parishes 
 seems to be earlier in date, and more complete, than in Scot- 
 land. The written records referring to the early Scottish 
 parishes are exceedingly defective, and there is reason to be- 
 lieve that much information was lost about the period of the 
 Eeformation, when many valuable manuscripts were carried 
 abroad or destroyed. Sir Eobert Spottiswoode, afterwards 
 President of the College of Justice, succeeded in recovering 
 on the Continent many manuscripts, which were made use of 
 by his father, Archbishop Spottiswoode, in writing the " History 
 of the Church of Scotland." The library was, however, after- 
 wards rifled by the mob during the troubles, and such books 
 as remained fell into other hands.^ The work entitled " Origines 
 Parochiales Scotiae," compiled partly under the editorship of 
 Mr. Cosmo Innes, contains many early notices of the parishes 
 within the districts to which it refers, but it has not been made 
 applicable to the whole of Scotland.^ 
 
 Farochia or parish, in England,^ and it is believed also in 
 Scotland, was originally and for a long time synonymous with 
 diocese or hishopric. There is evidence also, from the names 
 of places beginning with " chapel," that in early times there 
 
 1 Hailes' "Annals," iii. 153. ^ Robertson, Preface, p. xiii. 
 
 ^Memoir prefixed to Spottiswoode's "Practicks." ^"Scottish Legal Antiquities," 291. 
 ^Toller on Tithes, 8. Connell on Tithes, second edition, i. 18, ID. See also 
 Conuell on Parishes. 
 
5GS PEOPEETY OF THE CHUKCH. 
 
 were districts with probably a considerable resident population, 
 where there was a chapel which had not been elevated into 
 a church with a parish attached. In short, it seems that 
 the missionary work was conducted in outlying districts by 
 inferior clergy or vicars. According to Mr. Cosmo Innes the 
 word mraic was not much used in Scotland before the Eefor- 
 mation.^ 
 
 The parishes in existence prior to the Eeformation appear to 
 have been erected or sanctioned by the Church. Our knowledge 
 as to their erection, however, is exceedingly meagre, and where 
 there have been disputes in regard to boundaries these have 
 been settled by the law courts after an inquiry into the early 
 history of the parish in question,^ and the manner in which 
 rates have been in use to be allocated. Between 1560 and 
 1617 several parishes were erected by royal charter, ratified 
 by Parliament, while others were erected by Parliament alone. 
 Probably the Church had suggested, or been instrumental in 
 promoting, these erections — and there are indications of the 
 Church's sympathy in some instances — but the right of the 
 Church to a voice in the matter is nowhere recognized. By an 
 Act of Parliament in 1617, commissioners were appointed with 
 power to erect parishes ; and the various teind commissioners 
 appointed by Parliament between that date and 1707 had the 
 like power. In this last-mentioned year the powers of the 
 former parliamentary commissioners were by an Act of the 
 Scottish Parliament transferred to the Court of Session, and it 
 still exercises these powers separately as the Court of Teinds. 
 The judges of the Inner House and the Lord Ordinary on 
 Teinds (the second junior Lord Ordinary), any five being a 
 quorum, compose the court at the present time. 
 
 Several parishes later than the Pteformation are of doubtful 
 origin, having been settled by the Church without sufficient 
 authority. Some of these were referred to by Lord Moncreiff 
 in the Stewarton case^ as evidence that the Church exercised 
 the power of erecting parishes, and also of creating second and 
 
 ' " Scottish Le2;al Antiquities," 203. 
 
 ' Inquiry iu Eescobie, see Jurist, xli. 273. There were later questions in St. Boswells 
 and Ballingry. 
 
 ^ Tlie cases referred to by Lord Bloncreiflf will be found iu Robertson's Report of 
 Stewarton Case, 20th January, 18-13, pp. 112-llG. 
 
TEIXDS OR TITHES. 539 
 
 third charges, subsequent to the Eeforination. These parishes 
 are not numerous nor in regular sequence, and the impression 
 rather appears to be that local parties had concurred in the 
 arrangements which developed into the assumption of the 
 parochial relation. It may be that the intention to obtain 
 judicial sanction had from accidental circumstances been omitted. 
 There can be little doubt, however, that had there been oppo- 
 sition from heritors or others interested, as in the case of 
 Stewarton, the parishes and new charges referred to would not 
 have been sanctioned, unless approved of also by the civil 
 authority. 
 
 There is one example of a parish specially set apart by the 
 local parties without judicial authority, and adopted ever since, 
 which is worthy of notice. The parish of Torosay^ is in this 
 position. In 1720 there were two parishes in Mull, named Kilvi- 
 cuen and Kilninian ; and Murdoch M'Lean, younger, of Lochbuy, 
 applied in name of himself and other heritors to the Synod of 
 Argyll, praying to have a third parish erected out of the two old 
 parishes, and to have part of the synod funds for a stipend to 
 the minister of the new parish. The synod approved of the 
 plan, and granted £300 Scots (£25 sterling) of their teind 
 duties for promoting it. ^Yhat further steps were taken do not 
 appear, but in fact the present parish called Torosay was settled 
 in this manner from the two old parishes, and has been treated 
 as a separate charge ever since. 
 
 The fund from which this endowment was taken was un- 
 doubtedly the grant in 1705 by Queen Anne to the Synod of 
 Argyll of " the haill rents, revenues, casualties, and emoluments 
 of the bishopric of Argyle and the Isles for crop 1705, and of 
 all former years resting owing, and in time coming during her 
 Majesty's pleasure for the uses and purposes therein exprest."- 
 This accounts for the special appeal to the synod; and it is 
 worthy of notice that the same Queen was conspicuous for her 
 liberality to the Church of England, when, as Lord Selborne 
 relates, that Church received a gift of the " firstfruits " and 
 "tenths," which in former reigns had been uplifted by the 
 sovereign from the period they were diverted from Eome, 
 
 1 Teind Record for 1784, vol. Ixis. p. 1022. 
 •Teind Prints in cause Officers of State, &c., 1769. 
 
570 PROPEKTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 in the reign of Henry VIII.^ In England the gift was of 
 great value, but in Scotland the amount granted to Argyll, 
 and to other districts which received similar gifts, was in- 
 considerable, though of much benefit to the Church at that 
 period. 
 
 The Stewarton case of 1843, already referred to, settled the 
 point of law that the church courts had not the power to 
 create or erect new parishes, and that this power belonged 
 to the state, or in other words to the Teind Court, which had 
 been specially empowered to erect parishes. We shall refer 
 to the additional power conferred on this court for the erec- 
 tion of parishes quoad sacra, when we come to speak of these 
 parishes. 
 
 The character of the parish also had a distinct bearing upon 
 the teinds. At the Eeformation there were 940 parochial bene- 
 fices, of which 262 were designed patronatc^ the incumbent 
 being appointed by the patron, and 678 as patrimonial, because 
 they were parts of greater benefices belonging to bishops, abbeys, 
 and other religious houses. In the patronate^ the incumbent 
 was styled rector or parson, and had right to the whole teinds; 
 while in the patrimonial the teinds belonged to the bishop, 
 abbey, or other religious house, and the benefice was served by 
 a stipendiary or a member of the corporation. The circum- 
 stance that certain teinds had belonged to a parsonage" in- 
 fluenced the decision in a case before the court so lately as 
 1878, when the authority of Keith's "List of Parsonages" was 
 recognized by the Lord President. 
 
 The religious houses before the Picformation occupied an 
 important position in the country. The abbeys, monasteries, 
 and others, acquired in the course of time, and held, extensive 
 territorial possessions. These were managed with much skill, 
 introducing amongst the people a knowledge of husbandry and 
 other peaceful arts. Thus in their better days they exercised 
 a civilizing influence, and laid the foundation of the future 
 material prosperity of the country. But the seeds of corruption 
 
 1 Lord Selborne's "Defence," &c., pp. 100-104, 1C0-1G3, 1G7; see particularly p. 160. 
 - See Hope's " Minor Practicks,'' 83. 
 
 3 See Keith's " List of Parsonages," 191, 192 ; also printed in Appendix to Conneli on 
 Tithes, ii. 15-17. 
 
 ■■ Ballingry case, 15th March, 1878, "Scottish Law Reporter," xv. 4-11. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 571 
 
 liad been sown amongst the occupant of these houses, to which, 
 as Mr. Joseph Eobertson points out, too frequent references ^ 
 are made in the canons of the Church. They ceased to in- 
 fluence for good, and were swept away. These houses, and the 
 ecclesiastical divisions of the country which existed during 
 pre-Eeformation times, have left their mark on the history of 
 teinds and church property, and we shall therefore refer to them 
 briefly in a collective form. 
 
 Instead of following the order in which the bishoprics and 
 archbishoprics were erected, it may be convenient to bring the 
 whole into view as they existed before the Eeformation, with 
 the dates ascribed to their erection. The dates are in most 
 instances uncertain, and the writers on the subject have 
 assigned different dates. Scotland then was divided ecclesi- 
 astically into two archbishoprics, that of St. Andrews, erected 
 1472, and that of Glasgow, erected 1491. The former had 
 been a bishopric from about the year 870, and the latter from 
 about 560. The bishoprics^ under St. Andrews were, Aberdeen, 
 about 1070; Moray (Malcolm III.);' Brechin, about 1140; Dun- 
 blane (David I.) ; Eoss (Eosemarkie), 1124 ; Caithness, 1066 ; 
 Orkney Islands, 1468. Under Glasgow the bishoprics were, 
 Galloway, about 450 ; Argyll (also styled Lismore), 1200 ; and 
 the Isles, about 447. The diocese of Glasgow comprehended 
 also two archdeaconries — viz. the Archdeaconry of Glasgow 
 proper, and the Archdeaconry of Teviotdale. 
 
 The Archbishop of St. Andrews was primate of all Scotland. 
 The archdeacon administered the whole jurisdiction of the 
 bishop, and was by law as well as practice the judge of the 
 Episcopal Court* 
 
 The bishops sat in Parliament and had precedence over all 
 temporal peers. Each had absolute power of regulating ecclesi- 
 astical affairs within his diocese. 
 
 Next in order to the bishops and the archdeacons, the heads 
 of religious houses are the most important. These religious 
 
 1 Preface, 149. 
 
 2 Edinburgh was erected in 1633 into a bishopric by Charles I. with St. Giles as 
 its cathedral. It is not included above, being a post-Eeformation erection during 
 Episcopacy. 
 
 2 The regnal years of the kings mentioned were — Malcolm III., 1057-93 ; David I., 
 1124-53. 
 
 * See " Lectures on Legal Antiquities," 181. 
 
572 PEOPEKTY OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 houses were too numerous to be mentioned liere."^ They pos- 
 sessed great privileges, and some of them had the power of 
 communicating privileges to their property, which have been 
 given effect to down to the present time. 
 
 Churchmen were divided into Regulars and Seculars. The 
 Eegulars lived, according to certain rules of monastic life, in 
 abbeys, priories, or convents, and consisted of canons, monks, 
 or friars. The Seculars were not so confined or solitary in 
 their mode of life, but lived separately in their cloisters or in 
 private houses near to their churches, and were governed by a 
 dean or provost. Some of the orders had sufficient endow- 
 ments for maintaining them, while others were allowed to 
 beg for a living. The latter included the Black, Grey, and 
 "White friars. 
 
 There were sixteen orders of canons regular, including those 
 of the Templars, to whom we shall make special reference, 
 who had monasteries in Scotland, and the number of houses 
 was no fewer than 129. The canons of St. Augustine had 
 twenty-eight houses, the largest number held by one order; 
 while some, like the Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers, 
 who had a house at Torphichen, were represented by only one 
 house. 
 
 The military orders of the Church of Eome took their rise 
 in the period between the first and second Crusades. The 
 Knights of St. John were the first order in point of time, having 
 been instituted about the year 1099, They were also known as 
 Hospitallers, from the circumstance that they founded an hos- 
 pital in Jerusalem for those who were wounded during the wars. 
 The hospital had extensive privileges conferred upon it by the 
 Pope in 1113. The order of Knights Templars, also a military 
 order, was formed about the year 1118, and had a white habit 
 assigned to it, to which a red cross was added in 1140. 
 This order became very wealthy and distinguished, from 
 the accession to its ranks of the sons of the nobility over 
 Christendom. 
 
 The Templars came to Scotland in the reign of David I, 
 and acquired extensive estates in various parts of the country. 
 The order incurred the displeasure of the Pope, however, and 
 
 ^ See Spottiswoode's list annexed to Hope's " Minor Practicks." 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 573 
 
 it was suppressed in 1312, and much of its property was trans- 
 ferred to the Knights of St. John. Although suppressed two 
 years before the battle of Bannockburn, the Templars have 
 impressed their name on numerous places, not only in Scotland, 
 but also in England and Ireland. In Scotland ^ places named 
 Temple, Templecroft, and so forth, are memorials of the order. 
 Many old houses in Edinburgh and Leith had till recently the 
 cross of the order upon them. 
 
 The last preceptor of the order of St. John in Scotland re- 
 signed the landed estates of that order into the hands of Queen 
 Mary, and in the year 1564 a Crown charter was granted in 
 his favour, by which the estates were erected into the temporal 
 lordship of Torphichen." Part of the estates have continued 
 in this family to the present day. The Templars were so 
 highly privileged that by the canon law their lands were 
 exempt from tithes, and Temple lands enjoyed this privilege 
 in Scotland both before and after the suppression of the order. 
 But in 1748 the law courts held that the Templars being a 
 military order. Temple lands were not church lands liable to 
 be designed as glebe; and in 1800 it was decided that the 
 privilege of exemption from tithes was personal to the Tem- 
 plars, and that accordingly Temple lands were not exempt from 
 paying stipend. 
 
 The last class of religious houses to which we have to call 
 attention is that of the Collegiate Churches,^ which were insti- 
 tuted for secular or parochial clergy. The office-bearers con- 
 sisted of a dean or provost, and prebendaries [prebenda, a living] 
 or canons [canonici], who made up the chapter. The numbers 
 composing a chapter varied. The collegiate churches sprang 
 up in the fifteenth century. They had a number of churches 
 associated with them as prebends. Mr. Laing has made up a 
 list of thirty-eight collegiate churches.* 
 
 The limited use of writing during the early centuries of our 
 era has left much of the history of the period in obscurity. 
 To churchmen, as the only educated men of the period, fell the 
 
 ' See County Directory of Scotland for numerous examples. 
 
 2 See case of Lockhart v, Lockhart, House of Lords, 15th August, 1853, Jurist, xsv., 
 559, as to superiorities of Temple lands. 
 
 3 See Forbes on Tithes, 32, 33 ; Hope's "Minor Practicks," 618. 
 
 * See " Register of Great Seal," published 1882, for much Information as to grants of 
 patronage of collegiate churches. 
 
574 pnorEETY of the chuech. 
 
 duty of chronicling wliat came under their observation ; and 
 what they chose to leave unrecorded must remain unknown. 
 Mr. Cosmo Innes points out that " the very oldest writ in the 
 shape of a charter" is dated about 1094. Such documents 
 were written by the clergy. The reports by clergymen, under 
 the inquiry at the instance of Charles I. in 1627, on the teinds 
 in their parishes,^ is also instructive, as it appears that the 
 minister in some cases was the only person in the parish who 
 could read and write. The elders in some cases are left on 
 record as having declared that they could not write ; and 
 sometimes they have subscribed by a mark — a sad blot on the 
 subscription of elders. 
 
 The position of the clergy during the period immediately 
 preceding the Eeformation is very clearly described by Keith : ^ 
 "The clergy in Scotland were in possession of a great many 
 lands and revenues which by donation pertained in property 
 to the Church ; and besides, the clergy, being almost the only 
 men of letters at that time, came of course to be advanced to 
 the highest places of honour and profit in the kingdom. By 
 means of both which fountains of wealth they not only turned 
 idle and voluptuous themselves, but became likewise the objects 
 of hatred to the great and of contempt to the small, so that 
 to pull them down both nobles and commons could heartily 
 agree." Unfortunately the desire for reformation did not find 
 the higher orders disinterested in promoting that object. Keith 
 observes that "the mob, influenced by the preachers, were 
 not more keen to throw down the buildings, than the no- 
 bility and gentry were to plunder the revenues of the church." 
 We take exception only to the general statement that the 
 preachers, or say reformers, were the cause of the destruction 
 of the old buildings. Some of these, no doubt, can be so 
 charged against even Knox himself, but it has to be re- 
 membered also that some of them suffered from the ravages 
 of war. 
 
 The extent of the possessions of the Church has been vari- 
 ously estimated, and perhaps the best idea of their growth 
 and extent may be formed from the celebrated pleading by 
 
 ^ Printed by the Maitland Clnb. 
 2 Introduction to his " History of Church and State," 2, 3. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 575 
 
 Mr. Thomas Thomson on "the Old Extent." ^ He has there 
 sho\vn that the churcli lands, from the period of Robert Bruce, 
 were assessed for taxes to a large amount. For the purpose of 
 meeting a demand by Pope Gregory X., in 1275, for a tenth 
 of the ecclesiastical revenues for six years for the relief of the 
 Holy Land, a roll was made up, named after his special legate 
 Bagimont's roll, and the roll continued to be the rule not only 
 of papal exactions, but of all ecclesiastical contributions to the 
 state down to the establishment of the new roll of valued rent 
 made up in the reign of Charles II. The spiritual lands of 
 the kingdom were invariably subjected to a separate system of 
 contribution. This was not levied by the sheriff and officers 
 appointed by the Crown, but by collectors of the Church's 
 own appointment. A return of the period about 1366 is 
 referred to by Mr. Thomson, from which it appears that the 
 old taxation of the bishoprics amounted to £15,002 16s., prob- 
 ably, as he suggests, the taxation of Bagimont in 1275, and the 
 true value may be no more than £9396 6s. 6c?. The temporal 
 lands and rents in the several counties, according to the old 
 extent, amounted to £48,249 7s. M., while the true value was 
 £22,239 lOs.^ No safe conclusion can be drawn from the 
 figures here given as to the quantity of lands held by the 
 Church, as compared with those held by the laity or ordinary 
 landowners of the period. In point of quality the church 
 lands were some of the best in the kingdom.^ 
 
 The rights of the liomish clergy in administering and dis- 
 posing of church property were regulated and restricted by 
 papal rescripts and the canons of the Church.* The clergy 
 were also restricted in the manner of acquiring property to 
 the prejudice of heirs. Specially the law of deathbed was intro- 
 duced to secure dying persons against importunity.^ This 
 law was abolished in 1871.^ In spite of all restrictions, how- 
 ever, tl:vere was, before the Pieformation, a considerable num- 
 
 ^ Mr. Thomson's paper is referred to by Mr. Cosmo Innes, " Scotch Legal Antiquities," 
 12. It has not been printed as a separate treatise, but a copy as printed for the law 
 courts may occasionally be had. 
 
 2 Memorial prepared by Sir. Thomson, 24. 
 
 ^ See Mackenzie's observations on Acts of Parliament, 304. 
 
 * See Buchanan on Teinds, 12-15. 
 
 " Forbes, 107. 
 
 ^ Act of Parliament, 34 & 35 Vict. cap. 81. 
 
 92 
 
576 PEOPEETY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ber of grants by churchmen, particularly in the reign of King 
 James V. (1513-42) and his immediate successor, Queen Mary, 
 ■whose reign may be held as extending continuously to the 
 period of her abdication in 1567. 
 
 Soon after the Eeformation an Act was passed (1564, cap. 88) 
 declaring all feus of church lands granted after 8th March, 
 1558, void if not confirmed by the Crown; and by another 
 Act twenty years later (1584, cap. 7), all feus of church lands 
 granted before 8th March, 1558, not confirmed by the Crown 
 or Pope, are declared void. The Act of annexation,^ passed on 
 King James VI.'s attaining majority (1587, cap. 29), annexed 
 the church lands to the Crown under certain exceptions ; 
 and a grant of lands by churchmen not confirmed prior to 
 1587 is not among the exceptions. The rule has been followed 
 in practice of requiring confirmation by the Crown or the Pope, 
 before 1587, to found claims of exemption from teinds under 
 a grant of lands cum decimis inclusis (with the teinds included), 
 the additional words et nunquam antca scfarath (and never 
 before separated from the stock) being essential to make an 
 effectual title. These grants being conveyances by one of the 
 privileged orders of churchmen of the lands, with the teinds 
 included, were peculiar to a short period preceding the Eefor- 
 mation.'' But unfortunately for the holders of such titles, it 
 was not always the case that the teinds had not been separated 
 from the stock, as set forth in these grants, and consequently, 
 so far as the conveyance of teinds was concerned, they failed 
 to establish a right of exemption. Where lands were feued 
 ■with the teinds for a cumulo feu duty, the Act of 1587 provided 
 that the tenth of the feu duty was to go to the titular (person 
 in right of teinds), and the remaining nine-tenths to the 
 Crown.^ As we shall have occasion to observe, the various 
 measures passed for the purpose of preserving the church lands 
 to the Crown failed in their object. 
 
 The rapidity with which the church lands and teinds were 
 appropriated about the period of the Eeformation — say 
 
 ' The Act of Annexation is cap. 8 of Thomson's edition of the Acts. 
 
 2 See Lord Ai'dmillan's remarks in the case of Stewart, 10th July, 1858, 
 Jurist, XXX. 733. 
 
 3 See supplement to Sir George Mackenzie's observations on the Acts of Parliament 
 under decivicB inclusce. There are several decisions on the subject — some of them not 
 reported. 
 
TEIXDS OR TITHES. ' 577 
 
 1558-67 — and sulDsequently, is a serious blot on some of 
 the reformers. They contrived to have the lands made over 
 to them by royal grants, which created the owners of the lands 
 "lords of erection," and the grants of teinds constituted the 
 holders thereof " titulars." The services for which these grants 
 were alleged to be the reward were of the most shadowy 
 description. The unsettled state of the country for a consider- 
 able period during Queen Mary's reign, and afterwards during 
 the minority of King James VI., had favoured these transactions. 
 The King, when he began to take an active part in public 
 affairs, was more engrossed with the form of church government 
 than the preservation of the church lands for the benefit of the 
 nation. It does not fall to us here to record the changes of 
 church government beyond this, that beginning with Presbytery 
 in 1560, Episcopacy was imposed in 1584, and withdrawn in 
 1592 ; again imposed in 1606, and continued into the reign 
 of Charles I. 
 
 The Reformed clergy, at first few in number, experienced 
 great difficulty in procuring the means of subsistence. The 
 old clergy were not at once deprived of their livings, as is 
 commonly supposed ; on the contrary, many of them remained 
 in possession, and abused their position by diverting church 
 property and revenues to other hands. Archbishop Spottis- 
 woode says they took the opportunity to make away "all 
 rents, manses, glebes, tithes, and whatsoever else belonged to 
 the Church unto some great ones that were their friends 
 and kinsmen, who found the means, by making corrupt 
 laws, to strengtlien their titles, and so from time to time, 
 under colour of right, defrauded the Church of her due pat- 
 rimony."^ 
 
 To make provision for the Eeformed clergy, the Privy 
 Council, in 1561-62, by several acts of council,® devised a 
 scheme by which two parts of the rentals of ecclesiastical 
 benefices within the kingdom were to remain with the beneficed 
 persons, and the other third was appointed to be uplifted by 
 
 1 See Keith's " Histoiy," footnote, p. 507. There were four volumes of Records of 
 Compositions in fea chaiters subsequent to March, 1568. Only two are in the General 
 Register House. 
 
 ^ Printed in Keith's " History," Appendix, 175-179. For list of bishoprics and rentals 
 thereof, see p. 180 ; rentals of abbeys, &c., p. 182. See also Forbes on Tithes, 
 pp. 114, 115. 
 
578 PEOPEETY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 collectors nominated by the Queen. Out of the last third Her 
 IMajesty was to support the new ministers, and the surplus 
 (" superplus " it was called) was to be employed by the Queen 
 in the administration of the state. This method of payment 
 proved most unsatisfactory, and was denounced by Knox. His 
 well-known description of it was that two parts were freely 
 given to the devil, and "the third part must be divided be- 
 tween God and the devil." Indeed the third was frequently 
 discharged by the Queen witliout any payment. Thus for some 
 years the provision for the Eeformed religion was exceedingly 
 meagre. 
 
 The Act of Parliament 1567, cap. 10, recognized that the 
 ministers had been long defrauded of their stipends out of the 
 thirds, and ordained that the ministers should be first paid 
 their stipends out of the whole thirds, " notwithstanding ony 
 discharges given by our sovereign lord's mother to quhatsum- 
 ever person or persons of the said thriddis or ony pairt thereof ; 
 ay, and quhill the kirk cum to the full possession of their 
 proper patrimonie, quhilk is the teinds." 
 
 A commission, known as the Commission of Plat,^ was ap- 
 pointed in the Act 1592, cap. 15, to superintend the allocation 
 of stipends out of the thirds, which continued to act for many 
 years.- There were several later Acts of Parliament on the 
 subject of the thirds, to which it is unnecessary to refer, but it 
 may be noted that in the Act restoring bishops, 1606, cap. 2, it 
 was provided that ministers should continue to be paid out of 
 thirds. 
 
 In 1617 a new commission was appointed for plantation of 
 kirks, with powers to assign stipends; and under this act tacks- 
 men of teinds were to receive recompense for additional charges 
 upon the teinds, in the shape of prolongation of their tacks 
 upon favourable terms. These tacks had been obtained from 
 churchmen for long periods of years at nominal tack duties. A 
 number of stipends were dealt with under that Act, which is the 
 last during the reign of King James VI. to which we have 
 
 ^ Plat meant a plan or scheme, apportioning stipend upon places. The modern 
 " Scheme of Locality " has the like object 
 
 2 Several of the registers connected with the payments out of thirds are preserved 
 amongst the records in the General Register House. See also " Wodrow Miscellany," 
 329-394, for a specimen. 
 
TEINDS OR TITUES. 579 
 
 occasion to refer on the subject of stipends. Tlie various 
 measures did not produce the results anticipated, and the con- 
 dition of the clergy was still unsatisfactory. 
 
 The methods by which churchmen uplifted their teinds before 
 the Pteformation were various. They recovered the parsonao-e 
 teinds by uplifting the tenth sheaf from the fields, called tcincl- 
 inrj; or they obtained payment by delivery of a quantity of grain, 
 called rental holls; or they obtained a tach duty from a tacksman, 
 to whom the teinds were let. The vicarage teinds were up- 
 lifted in kind or paid for at a stated conversion. When pay- 
 ment of teinds was refused, there is evidence that in early 
 times the royal writ^ was brought to bear on defaulters, 
 and in more recent times an action was raised in the law 
 courts.^ 
 
 After the Eeformation the titulars and tacksmen to whom 
 the teinds had been made over gratuitously, or for nominal 
 tack duties, were more exacting and oppressive in the manner 
 in which they conducted the teinding than the churchmen had 
 been. This called for the interference of the legislature in 
 1579. An Act (1579, cap. 11) was passed in consequence, which 
 sets forth the injury suffered by the labourers of the ground, 
 through the titular and tacksmen of teinds delaying the teinding 
 and causing the crops to be wasted on the fields, or if removed 
 by the owner causing him to fall in danger of a spulzie (action 
 of damages). The Act provides that teinding should take place 
 within eight days after the cutting of the grain, or other- 
 wise (after intimation) the labourer might separate the stock 
 from the teind at the sight of two neighbours, and leave the 
 latter on the ground, but to be protected from beasts until the 
 1st November. 
 
 Several Acts were passed subsequently, the latest being Act 
 1617, cap. 9, which Sir George Mackenzie referred to as con- 
 taining the current law at the time when he wrote (in 1680).* 
 Indeed it is still the current law, for the law of teinding has 
 not been abolished, and it has only ceased to be operative in 
 respect of heritors having obtained rights to teinds or valuations 
 
 ^ See documents printed in Thomson's edition of Acts of Pai-liament. Index, voce 
 Teinds. 
 
 2 See teind documents in Lord Clerk Register's Departmenr, General Register House. 
 ^ Observations on Acts, 190. 
 
580 PEOPERTY OF THE CHUECH. 
 
 under the measures introduced in the reign of Charles I., to 
 which we shall afterwards refer. Even at the present day the 
 owner of the lands only gets a warrant to "lead and draw" the 
 teinds of his own lands when he obtains decree of valuation. 
 There is one small holding near St. Andrews where certain 
 Crown teinds are uplifted in kind^ to this day, as has been stated 
 by a recent tenant. "Where teinds are unvalued there can be 
 no proper claim to arrears at the instance of the titular, because 
 the claim is an indefinite one, and the titular ought to enforce 
 it during the period when the teinds should be uplifted,*^ other- 
 wise it will be held departed from. 
 
 Tor all practical purposes now the teinds are divided into 
 two classes, (1) the parsonage and (2) vicarage ; and in all cases 
 where augmentations of stipend are granted by the Teind Court 
 at the present day, the augmentation is awarded out of the 
 teinds, parsonage and vicarage, of the parish. Parsonage 
 teinds, as we shall afterwards notice, have been increased 
 by the rule of taking a fifth of the rental instead of a tenth 
 of the produce even where lands are not under cultivation. 
 This fifth, however, is in full of the teinds parsonage and 
 vicarage. 
 
 On the accession of Charles I. in 1625, the Scottish people 
 were still dissatisfied with Episcopacy, which had been forced 
 upon them in the preceding reign contrary to their religious 
 views. On his side the King was dissatisfied with the limited 
 revenues^ derived from Scotland, through the various alienations 
 of church lands and teinds to which we have referred. The 
 measures which were taken, following upon an Act of Ptavocation 
 by the King, and to which we are now to call attention, have 
 influenced teinds in Scotland to the present day. The steps 
 which the King took to recover part of the alienated property 
 embittered his relations with the landowners, who were not 
 
 ^ Lyon's '' History of St. Andrews," footnote, 143. 
 
 2 See case of Lady Graham, 20th February, 1799, Dictionary 15,774. 
 
 * At that time the sovereign had no separate establishment, and the royal and public 
 revenues were mixed up together. Some of the evils thence arising in the reign of 
 Charles L are refen-ed to by Mr. Foster in his life of " Sir John Eliot." It was 
 reserved to a later reign to place these matters on a sounder footing, and to restrict the 
 rights of the sovereign in dealing with public property. The distinction was begun after 
 the restoration of Charles IL, and was improved upon in later reigns, as may be traced in 
 the history of our Civil List. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 581 
 
 unwilling to accept Episcopacy to please the King, while the 
 proceedings for enforcing Episcopacy, which had commenced 
 in the reign of his father, had no less alienated the common 
 people. 
 
 The object the King had in view has been variously stated. 
 Sometimes it was stated to be for the benefit of the occupants 
 of the soil, because they were exposed to the inconvenience and 
 annoyance of tcinding; but this could not have been a pro- 
 minent reason, as tithing was continued in the larger and richer 
 country of England, including Wales, and no provision was 
 made for discontinuing it before 1836. The true reason appears 
 to have been to obtain additional revenue from Scotland, as is 
 openly stated in numerous royal missives of the time. The 
 landowners were certainly not favourable either to the surrender 
 of church lands or the valuation of their teinds, and obstructed 
 the commissioners afterwards appointed to the utmost. It is 
 no less true that landowners now who are fortunate enough to 
 have valuations of the period of Charles I. gladly accept them 
 and insist upon their being adopted to the utmost in the various 
 proceedings for augmenting stipends. 
 
 The Act of Eevocation of Charles I. was executed on 12th 
 October, 1625,^ and extended to all acts done in prejudice of 
 the Crown during the two preceding reigns. In the following 
 year a further proceeding was adopted to set aside the grants 
 by a summons of reduction before the Court of Session.^ The 
 nobnity and others who had profited by these grants became 
 alarmed at these preceedings, and in 1626 presented a petition 
 and remonstrance to the King, pointing out in strong terms 
 that the grants had been the reward of services to the Crown, 
 and the injury that would be sustained by them and those 
 who had derived titles from them were the revocation insisted 
 on. They made no allegation that the church lands had 
 originally formed part of their estates, a view suggested by 
 Dr. Taylor, but which is entirely unsupported;' but they 
 expressed their willingness to treat, and prayed that commis- 
 sioners might be appointed for this purpose. 
 
 1 See Act of Parliament, 1633, cap. 9 (Thomson's edition). 
 
 2 See Connell on Tithes, i. 133, and Appendix. 
 
 3 " History of Scotland," i. 694. For a copy of the petition see Buchanan on Teinds, 
 p. 491. See also same work, p. 26, et seq. 
 
582 PEOPERTY OF THE CIIUPtCH. 
 
 lu answer to this aj)peal, the King, in 1627, appointed a 
 commission for receiving surrenders of church lands and teinds, 
 usually described as Commissioners of Surrenders and Teinds. 
 He had in view, (1) That the Crown should receive an annuity 
 from the teinds; (2) that lands and teinds alienated from 
 the Crown should be restored or confirmed to possessors on 
 suitable conditions ; (3) that churches should be provided with 
 ministers, and the ministers should have competent stipends; 
 (4) that teinds should be valued so as to supersede the up- 
 lifting of teinds from the fields; and (5) that proprietors 
 should be enabled to acquire the teinds of their own lands. 
 In making this classification we have followed the order 
 observed in the submissions and decreets arbitral thereon 
 by the Xing. The purposes are, however, stated in a some- 
 what different order and manner by Lord Justice-Clerk Hope 
 in a case which occurred in 1858.^ 
 
 There were four different submissions executed in 1628 
 and 1629 by (1) lords of erection and others, (2) archbishops, 
 bishops, and clergy, (3) the burghs,^ and (4) tacksmen. By 
 these the King was empowered to adjudicate and annex a 
 certain patrimony to the Crown. The King's four awards — 
 corresponding to the four submissions — are all dated 2nd 
 September, 1629, and bear that His Majesty had consulted 
 " a number of our nobility. Privy Council, and others," but 
 the chief adviser was Sir Thomas Hope, joint lord advocate 
 with Sir William Oliphant in 1626, and sole advocate in 1628, 
 and who prepared the Act of Eevocation in 1625.^ The 
 chief points decided were that the feu duties of the lands 
 embraced in the first-mentioned submission should be redeem- 
 able by the Crown at ten years' purchase, and the Lords of 
 Erection were ordained to give in just rentals; that heritors 
 were to have and enjoy the teinds of their own lands, and 
 •were required to exhibit their rights, the teinds to be valued 
 at one-fifth of the constant rent which the land paid in stock 
 and teind when the same were valued jointly, and where the 
 
 1 Case of Dunlop and Allan, 2nd June, 1858, Jurist, xsx. 630. 
 
 2 The burghs bad received grants of teinds towards maintaining city clergy. 
 
 3 It has been stated that he undertook to bring back all the church lands to the 
 Crown (Burnet's "History," i. 30). See also Omoud's "' Lord Advocates of Scotland," 
 i. & 3-147. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 583 
 
 teinds were valued apart the fifth of the rent was to be 
 taken for teind, deducting one-fifth for ease of the proprietor, 
 afterwards called king's ease ; that the price should be nine 
 years' purchase ; that the heritors were to purchase only sub- 
 ject to ministers' stipends and other pious uses; and that 
 part of the price or yearly duty was to be applied to the 
 Kind's use, and it was remitted to commissioners to determine 
 the amount. 
 
 With reference to the bishops, who claimed that they should 
 not be prejudiced by their submission, it was appointed that 
 they should enjoy the fruits and rents of benefices as at 
 the date of the submission, without burden of the King's 
 annuity, but reserving the right to the annuity on the expiry 
 of tacks. 
 
 As regards the burghs there is a special finding that they 
 were only to pay the annuity on the excess of teinds after 
 providing for pious uses, therein specified as — sustentation of 
 ministers, rectors, and regents of colleges, masters of schools, 
 poor of hospitals of the several burghs. At a later period, 
 as we shall afterwards point out, the words " pious uses " were 
 more comprehensive than here indicated. 
 
 The King was never in a position to pay the price of re- 
 demption of the superiorities of church lands; and so late as 
 last century an Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament (to 
 whose Acts we have been heretofore referring), on the eve of the 
 union with England, discharging the Crown's right of redemp- 
 tion. The Act ^ is entituled : " An Act renouncing the Eeversion 
 of Kirk Lands," and the narrative upon which it proceeds bears 
 " that the said Lords of Erection and their successors in their 
 rights have been always most dutiful to Her Sacred Majesty 
 and her predecessors." Thus, as the reward of their good 
 behaviour when good subjects were considered scarce — if the 
 limited number of beneficiaries, when compared with the 
 rest of the subjects, be considered — they were allowed, gratui- 
 tously, to keep the church lands and superiorities which King 
 Charles I. had been so anxious to recover. 
 
 The words " pious uses " have been referred to in connection 
 with the burgh decreet arbitral, which specifies certain objects 
 
 J Act 1707, cap. 84. 
 
5S4: PEOPERTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 as comprehended therein. They are, however, often employed 
 without any explanation of what things or objects are embraced 
 therein. Indeed, they seem to have been generally employed 
 to avoid specification. We notice them, because they are fre- 
 quently employed in the submissions and surrenders of teinds 
 and the decreets arbitral of the King. In addition to those 
 objects already mentioned, the words were held to include 
 the payment of a reader and a schoolmaster,^ and communion 
 elements, which have been payable out of teinds, and not out 
 of stock, from early times.'' In the memorandum by the burghs, 
 dated 16th September, 1641, anent the new commission for 
 the ministers' stipends,^ they ask that "pious uses" be con- 
 descended on and not remitted generally to the commissioners. 
 It would seem that they were dissatisfied with the too flexible 
 interpretation of the words then in use. The Act, which passed 
 15th November, 1641, does not, however, deal with this, 
 although it provides for stipends and communion elements, 
 and that certain teinds are to be applied to the mainten- 
 ance of the ministry and of the universities and colleges, 
 and "other pious uses." We have not space to refer in de- 
 tail to the other objects which have been held covered by 
 the words.* 
 
 The commissioners appointed by the King's Commission of 
 17th January, 1627, proceeded with the valuations (under 
 instructions given in June, 1628) in 1629, and in 1633 several 
 Acts were passed, the King himself being present in the Scot- 
 tish Parliament, confirming the proceedings and making various 
 provisions. Teinds held by bishops were secured to them upon 
 the terms stipulated, and they continued in possession, during 
 Episcopacy, by uplifting the teind sheaves or rental bolls or 
 the tack duty where the teinds were under tack. Certain 
 proceedings by the clergy in 1627, setting forth the teinds in 
 their parishes, have been held to be of a tentative character, 
 and not capable of being approved by the High Commission 
 as valuations of teinds." 
 
 As the work of the commissioners proceeded and the teinds 
 
 ^ Connell, ii., Appendix 83. 2 jbij. j. ng. 3 Thomson's Acts of Parliament, v. 664, 
 ^See Duncan's "Parochial Law," second edition, 326-329, for further illustrations. 
 5 See case of Daulop and Allan already referred to. Some of these valuations have 
 been printed bj the Bannatjne Club, and have also been already referred to. 
 
TEINDS on TITHES. 585 
 
 were valued, the titular uplifted the amount at which the 
 teinds were valued less the amount due for stipend and other 
 pious uses. His right to teind the crops ceased, and the 
 occupier of the soil was left in possession of the produce, from 
 which he had only to pay rent. The landowners thus became 
 responsible for the teinds and stipend payable therefrom, and 
 as the teinds were valued from time to time the right of 
 teinding ceased. In only a few instances have landowners in 
 Scotland stipulated that their tenants should pay the stipend. 
 The law courts have, however, in these cases held that the 
 landowners were responsible, not merely for the expenses of 
 allocation upon the lands, but also for seeing that it was done 
 with accuracy.^ 
 
 The progress made with the valuations during the reign of 
 King Charles I. was very considerable, although occasionally 
 interrupted by the civil wars. Little was done during the 
 period of the Commonwealth, but the work was again resumed 
 after the restoration of Charles II. New commissions were 
 granted by Parliament at various periods down to 1707, when 
 the work, as we have already mentioned, was devolved on the 
 judges of the Court of Session as commissioners for plantation 
 of kirks and valuation of teinds. Valuations are still dealt 
 with by the present commissioners, and are chiefly disposed 
 of by the Lord Ordinary on Teinds. 
 
 Many of the teind records, along with the other records of 
 Scotland, were sent to London about the year 1650 under the 
 orders of Cromwell, and the greater part was lost at sea in 
 the course of being restored in 1660. Through this disaster 
 and a fire which occurred in the Teind Office, Edinburgh, in 
 1700, the teind records prior to 1700 are in an imperfect and 
 incomplete condition, Eecourse M'as had to the valuations and 
 other decrees in the hands of landowners, from which, under the 
 Act of 1707, a register has been made up which to some 
 extent supplies the want of " the lost records." 
 
 While the effect of the early valuations has been to restrict 
 the amount of teinds now available, it has also had another 
 important effect. Under the old system the teinds were taken 
 from the fields after the crops were reaped, but as much of 
 
 1 Eail of Glasgow, 24th February, 1849, Jurist, xxl 238. 
 
5S6 PROPERTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the land in Scotland is incapable of cultivation, it was pre- 
 viously only subject to payments of a vicarage character. The 
 rental having, however, been made the basis without regard to 
 cropping, the fifth of the rental is taken of lands which were 
 never under cultivation, being the same rate as for lands which 
 have been cultivated. Thus the fifth of the rental is taken 
 in both cases. 
 
 When the fifth of the rent w'as held equal to the value of 
 the drawn rents, after deduction of the King's ease, the rule 
 had a solid foundation, because teind and third was an ordin- 
 ary rent in Scotland at the time. It is illustrated in two 
 ways : — Suppose that the rent of a piece of ground, whereof 
 the product is 100 bolls, is computed at 40 bolls, one-fifth of 
 which is 8 bolls ; these 40 bolls were composed of teind and 
 third, allowing 10 bolls to meet the titular's claim for teinds 
 which he uplifted on the ground, and one-third of the remain- 
 der, or 30 bolls, to the landowner in name of rent.^ By the 
 other method the teind of 100 bolls is 10 bolls, from which 
 deduct one-fifth for the King's ease, the valued teind remains 
 8 bolls,^ as in the other case where one-fifth of the rent is taken. 
 
 The hopes of a permanent increase to the royal revenues 
 contemplated by King Charles I. were never realized. During 
 the progress of the valuations of the teinds the King's annuity 
 was kept in view, and it became possible also to extend it 
 to some degree beyond the valued teinds. But it never 
 extended over the whole teinds of Scotland. The annuity 
 was converted into a security for a debt of £10,000 contracted 
 by the King to one James Livingstone, groom of his bed- 
 chamber, to whom it was assigned. The right was afterwards 
 sold to the Earl of Loudon, who was empowered to sell it to 
 such parties as chose to purchase it. In 1674 it was stopped 
 by royal warrant, which discharged all arrears preceding 1660. 
 It would appear that at one time there had been an intention 
 to resume the Crown's claim to the annuity, but it has not 
 been moved in for more than 200 years.^ 
 
 ^ Another third was allowed for seed and expenses of working a farm, and the remain- 
 ing third was for the tenant's living, llight a similar arrangement not be adopted iu 
 tiie present dav in apportioning produce or its value. 
 
 2 Old Teind'MS. Also Prints in Crieff case, 1812. 
 
 '•* The information was supplied for the second edition of Sir John Connell's work on 
 Tithes (to which we have throughout referred), i. 270, 271. 
 
TEiXDS or. TITHES. 587 
 
 The main purposes of the proceedings instituted by King 
 Charles I., so far as the Crown was concerned, were a failure. 
 The annuity not having been secured out of the teinds of the 
 whole lands in Scotland, but only from a small part of them, 
 yielded an insignificant return, and was soon abandoned ; and 
 the church lands and superiorities ^ remained with those who 
 had received gratuitous grants and their successors (or others 
 who had acquired right from them) without any payment 
 therefor to the Crown.^ 
 
 The right conferred upon patrons to unappropriated teinds 
 falls also to be noticed in this place. After the Eeformation 
 it was usual for patrons ^ to bargain with presentees to pay a 
 limited stipend on condition that the surplus teinds should 
 belong to the patrons. They thus used their position in 
 parishes where the presentee would have right to the whole 
 teinds, to restrict the provision to the minister and secure 
 part of the revenues of the benefice to themselves. These 
 simoniacal contracts were countenanced by the Act 1612, 
 cap. 1, which declared it lawful for the patron to make an 
 agreement with the presentee provided a competent main- 
 tenance were reserved to him. And in the Act 1649, abolish- 
 ing patronage, the patron's right to the unappropriated teinds 
 is declared to be good and valid. Again, in 1662, when 
 the Act of 1649 was rescinded, the patron's right to the surplus 
 teinds is recognized. The patron's rights were still recognized 
 by the Act 1690, cap. 23 ; Act 1693, cap. 25 ; and 10 Queen 
 Anne, cap. 12 ; but whereas by the proceedings in the reign 
 of Charles I. and Act of Parliament 1633, cap. 17, titulars 
 were obliged to sell to heritors the teinds of the lands at nine 
 years' purchase, under the Act 1690, cap. 23, patrons were 
 obliged to sell at six years' purchase. The abolition of patron- 
 age in 1874 has not affected the teind rights except in the 
 matter of compensation to patrons, which is declared payable 
 by four equal yearly instalments out of the first four years' 
 stipend of the new incumbent ; but where the instalments 
 
 ^ See as to grants, Forbes on Tithes, 97-103. 
 
 2 See Lord Justice-Clerk Hope's remarks in Dunlop and Allan's case. 
 
 3 See Lord Kames' "Elucidations," article 38, p. 312, for an interesting article on 
 teinds given to tbe patron by Act 16&0, cap. 23. The practice of bargaining with the 
 presentee seems to have prevailed also in England at one time. 
 
588 PROPEBTY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 are not asked within the period prescribed, the patron's claim 
 to compensation is lost.^ 
 
 "When the teind business formerly conducted by Parliamentary 
 Commissioners was devolved on the judges of the Court of Session 
 by the Act of the Scottish Parliament 1707, cap. 9,^ certain powers 
 were conferred on the new Court of Teinds in addition to those 
 exercised by the former commissioners. The judges when officiat- 
 ing in this new department were, and still are, described as com- 
 missioners for plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds. The 
 business of the court was partly discretionary and partly judicial. 
 In the former category was the augmentation of stipends out of 
 teinds. This question involved a keen struggle between the 
 landowners and the clergy during last century. The court 
 held that only in certain special circumstances, where a stipend 
 had not been dealt with by the court, was it incumbent to grant 
 an increase to the stipend. Two schemes were successively 
 laid before Parliament — one in 1750 and another in 1788 — 
 at the instance of the clergy, proposing to confer power to 
 augment stipends, but the landowners successfully resisted in 
 both cases. The matter was only set at rest by a decision of 
 the Court of Teinds favourable to augmentations, which was 
 affirmed in the House of Lords in 1808. This led to the 
 passing of the Act of that year,^ which is still the regulating 
 statute on the subject. Under this Act, where there were free 
 teinds in the parish, augmentations of stipend were allowed 
 every twenty years, and stipends wherever practicable were to 
 be awarded in grain or victual. 
 
 The efiect of the granting of augmentations of stipend down 
 to the present time has been to recover, from all sources and 
 from all parties holding teinds, such an amount as will, in the 
 judgment of the Court of Teinds, form a suitable stipend. This, 
 however, does not apply to parishes where the teinds have long 
 been exhausted, and which have been augmented under the 
 Small Stipend Acts passed in 1810 and 1824, for which £12,000 
 per annum was granted from the revenue of Scotland. The 
 teinds have also been exhausted through the augmentations 
 
 ' Case of Earl of Strathmore, 1st Febraary, 1888, Scottish Law Reporter, xxv. 272. 
 '^ Cap. 10 of Thomsons edition. 
 *48 George III., cap. 138. 
 
TEINDS OR TITHES. 589 
 
 in many other parishes. Altogether it is believed that in 476 
 parishes the teinds are now exhausted, while in fourteen others 
 the free teind in each case is under £10. The parishes having 
 a larger amount of free teinds are 390 in number. In those 
 instances where the teinds are of large amount the proprietors 
 hold rights to their teinds, and have been indifferent about 
 valuations, seeing that the only claim that can be made upon 
 them under their teind rights is for stipend, which can only be 
 increased at intervals of twenty years under the Act of 1808, 
 as already pointed out. 
 
 Owing to the teinds having been chiefly valued in grain or 
 victual, and the stipends awarded under the Act of 1808 being 
 also chiefly in grain or victual, such estimates of the value 
 of teinds, stipends, and surplus teinds as appear in Parliamen- 
 tary returns cannot be relied on. They have been computed 
 at different periods for augmentation purposes according to 
 the fiars prices of the county, which are struck before the 
 sheriff and a jury in the spring of each year, and consequently 
 these prices fluctuate very much. It is, however, not a little 
 remarkable that the whole teinds, according to the last return 
 (1888), amounted to £375,678, while the rental of the lands in the 
 parishes from which teinds are derived amounted to £12,390,992. 
 The rental of the lands has vastly increased during the last 
 two centuries and a half, while the value of teinds, valued at 
 the beginning of that period, has been stationary. Had one- 
 fifth of the present rental been taken the teinds would have 
 been over £2,000,000 sterling, after allowing for considerable 
 deductions. The effect of the measures of Charles I. (partly 
 carried out in his reign, but much subsequently) for valuing 
 the teinds has been a gain to the landowners of Scotland of 
 upwards of £1,500,000 per annum, while there is so much less 
 available for increasing the stipends of the clergy.^ 
 
 ^ The following notes and summary of the rental of lands and value of teinds, from a 
 return printed by order of the House of Lords, 3rd May, 1888, may be useful for 
 reference : — 
 
 (1) The teinds for each county cannot be stated separately, in respect that several 
 parishes are situated in more than one county, and that the scheme of locality (allocation 
 upon the heritors) of a minister's stipend is made up for the parish without distinguish- 
 ing, when the parish is situated in more than one county, how far the teinds are derived 
 from each county. The parishes are therefore stated according to presbyteries and synods 
 as the nearest to the arrangement required by the return that can be given. (2) The 
 value of the victual teinds is stated in the return at the same conversion as made for recent 
 
590 
 
 PKOPEETY OF THE CIIUKCE. 
 
 From what we have already stated, however, it will be ob- 
 served that where the teinds now available in sundry parishes 
 in Scotland are of small amount, this arises in respect of the 
 early valuations, and not because of the old gratuitous grants 
 to titulars, who undoubtedly did derive much advantage from 
 these for a long period. But the teinds have been taken from 
 titulars and all others holding teind rights whenever they have 
 been required for augmentation purposes ; and so far as teinds 
 are now unexhausted they are still subject to the periodical 
 augmentations which may be awarded to the minister of the 
 parish from which the teinds are derived. There can be no 
 warrant, however, in taking them for any other purpose, in 
 respect that teind rights, acquired in many cases by purchase 
 from the Crown, are subject only to the claim for stipend and 
 augmentations thereof. 
 
 returns (exclusive of shillings and pence), except in cases where a chanfje has occurred 
 by subsequent ausrmentations of stipend, for which separate calculations have been made. 
 (3) The teinds and stipends are not yet accurately ascertained in some cases, and are 
 continued at the amounts stated in former returns, and where teinds are simply unvalued 
 the value is stated in this return at the amount (exclusive of shillings and pence) given 
 in the last return, or if more recent, the last state of teinds. (4) The present return 
 does not include town parishes, in which there are no teinds. A list of these was ap- 
 pended to the return to the House of Commons, No. 315 of the session 1884. (5) The 
 rentals have been taken from the valuation rolls for the year ending Whitsunday, 1887, 
 which were the rolls in force at the date of the order calling for this return. 
 
 The following abstract brings out the results, which are given in greater detail under 
 the respective presbyteries : — 
 
 Synod. 
 
 Lothian and Tweeddale, . 
 Merse and Teviotdale, . , 
 
 Dumfries, 
 
 Galloway, 
 
 Glasgow and Ayr, . . . 
 
 Argyll, 
 
 Perth and Stirling, . . . 
 
 Fife, 
 
 Angus and ilearns, . . . 
 
 Aberdeen, 
 
 Moray, 
 
 Boss, 
 
 Sutherland and Caithness, . 
 
 Glenelg, 
 
 Orkney, 
 
 Shetland, 
 
 Rental. 
 
 £1,319,848 
 727,573 
 637,803 
 497,809 
 
 3,906,454 
 657,157 
 
 1,031,850 
 730,854 
 793,107 
 
 1,001,015 
 474,655 
 209,734 
 223,912 
 159,634 
 71,031 
 48,656 
 
 £12,390,992 
 
 Value of 
 Teinds. 
 
 £43,422 
 
 41,482 
 
 29,220 
 
 11,923 
 
 72,732 
 
 9,642 
 
 38,792 
 
 28.978 
 
 24,229 
 
 30,502 
 
 20,201 
 
 9,S86 
 
 6,078 
 
 3,344 
 
 2,737 
 
 1,910 
 
 £376,678 
 
 Teinds ap- 
 propriated to 
 Stipend and 
 Communion 
 Elements. 
 
 £28,161 
 
 20,876 
 
 15,395 
 
 9,675 
 
 40,421 
 
 9,296 
 
 20,484 
 
 20,816 
 
 19,266 
 
 22,347 
 
 15.343 
 
 7,291 
 
 5,140 
 
 3,330 
 
 2,598 
 
 1,891 
 
 £242,330 
 
 Teinds 
 unexhausted 
 
 £15,261 
 
 20,606 
 
 13.826 
 
 2,248 
 
 32,311 
 
 346 
 
 18,308 
 
 8,162 
 
 4,963 
 
 8.155 
 
 4,858 
 
 2,596 
 
 1,638 
 
 14 
 
 139 
 
 19 
 
 £133,348 
 
TEINDS OE TITHES. 591 
 
 In tlie modern decrees of the court it is still declared that 
 the stipend and augmentations are payable out of the teinds, 
 parsonage and vicarage, of the parish. The vicarage teinds ^ are, 
 however, of small amount at their converted value; the greater 
 part have been lost by desuetude. Under the system of pay- 
 ment introduced at the Eeformation there was room for this. 
 The clergy could only uplift what was assigned to them, not 
 having right to the full teinds, parsonage and vicarage, so that 
 where the vicarage has not been included in a valuation, and 
 no claim made for it for a period of forty years, it has been lost. 
 
 The peculiarities arising from the different privileges of 
 teinds, involving classification in the order of liability for 
 stipend, have ceased to be of the importance they were for- 
 merly. The unprivileged and least privileged, being first liable 
 to appropriation, have been to a large extent exhausted, and 
 questions of privileged teinds occur now in only a few parishes. 
 At one time, where the teinds were under tack, the decree of the 
 court imposed an obligation on the tacksman to pay the stipend; 
 and where the titular claimed the right to allocate the stipend, 
 he was allowed to do so. This right is occasionally exercised 
 to this day. In the general case, however, a common agent is 
 appointed in terms of the regulations laid down by the 
 court. He inquires into the teind rights of the whole heritors, 
 and makes up a state of teinds from which a scheme of locality 
 is prepared by the teind clerk. 
 
 Many heritors, in order to save further claims and to avoid 
 future expense, have surrendered their teinds to the minister, 
 and these are stated in the scheme of locality — not half-meal 
 half-barley, the ordinary rule — but in the quantities of victual 
 (and in money where a part is valued in money) according to 
 which they have been valued in the decree of valuation. After 
 surrendered teinds the order of localling is as follows : — ^ 
 
 (1) Teinds in the hands of the titular — i.e. teinds which he 
 is entitled to uplift from the landowner who has acquired no 
 title to them. 
 
 (2) Teinds to which the landowner has a heritable right, 
 
 ^ Fish teinds fall under this category, and have also suffered restriction. The " Fish 
 Teinds (Scotland) Act, 1864," made provision for commuting these in districts where 
 they were still uplifted, as in Berwickshire. 
 
 ^ See Buchanan on Teinds, 256, et seq. 
 
 93 
 
592 PEOrERTY OF THE CHUECII. 
 
 acquired by purchase or otherwise from the Crown or other 
 titular, 
 
 (3) Bishop's teinds — i.e. teinds which have belonged to 
 bishops at the date of the decreet arbitral in 1629. 
 
 (4) Teinds belonging to colleges. 
 
 (5) Teinds appropriated to pious uses, including teinds 
 granted to the deans of the Chapel Eoyal. 
 
 Had the valuations been as recent as the commutation of 
 tithes in England/ the amount of teinds must, as already 
 pointed out, have been much larger, and there would have been 
 fewer intricate questions requiring the attention of the courts 
 of law. The landowners may be said, in some instances, to have 
 paid in the costs of lawsuits what they would otherwise have 
 paid in teinds. 
 
 The tenants in Scotland have, however, long enjoyed an 
 immunity from teinding which has not been shared by the 
 occupiers of the soil in England, who only received relief under 
 the series of Acts of Parliament commencing in 1836. The 
 rule has prevailed in England of requiring the tenant, as part 
 of his rent, to pay the tithe rent-charge, while, with a very few 
 exceptions, the tenants in Scotland have had no concern with the 
 equivalent payment of stipend. This has been made a griev- 
 ance in England, which can have no other foundation than 
 that thereby the rent may be too high, a matter which should 
 be considered by the tenant in offering for his farm. There 
 seems to be a probability that new arrangements will be made 
 
 ^ A parliamentary return showing the effect of the commntation of tithes in England, 
 ordered by the Hoose of Lords to be printed, 8th August, 1887, shows a striking contrast 
 with the state of teinds in Scotland. The tithes are commuted into a rent-charge, 
 and payable yearly according to the value of grain based on the corn returns. It has 
 to be kept in view, however, that English tithes have been commuted under measures 
 commencing so recently as 1836. We have only space for the " recapitulation " (leaving 
 out shilUngs and pence). 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Total rent-charges payable to clerical appropriators and their lessees, . £680,039 
 
 " " " " additional, 1,655 
 
 " " parochial incumbents, 2,412,103 
 
 " " " additional, . . . 2,936 
 
 " " lay impropriators, 766,205 
 
 " " " additional, .... 128 
 
 " " schools, colleges, &c, 196,056 
 
 Amount of yearly rent-charge, j£4,059,126 
 
TEINCS OR TITHES. 593 
 
 hy which the landowner in England will pay the tithe rent- 
 charge as the landowner in Scotland pays the stipend. 
 
 Stipends were for a long period subsequent to the Eeforma- 
 tion paid in kind so far as they were fixed in grain or victual. 
 Thus the quantity fixed was delivered instead of its being con- 
 verted into money, according to the present practice. The 
 present rule was laid down by the Act of 1808, already referred 
 to, which provides that although the stipend should be fixed 
 in grain or victual it was to be converted into and paid in 
 money according to the highest fiars prices of the county. 
 These prices are struck in each county before the sheriff and 
 a jury. With the exception of Orkney, where they are struck 
 in May, fiars prices are struck in February or March each 
 year for the crop and year preceding, and they are duly 
 reported to the Teind Office. The prices thus fixed are some- 
 times struck from very slender materials. The modes also in 
 which they are struck — for there is no uniform rule — have proved 
 most unsatisfactory, and have given rise to many well-founded 
 complaints. The English system of corn averages, which regu- 
 lates the payment of the commuted tithes, has also, it is true, 
 been made the subject of complaint, and some people referred 
 to the Scottish system, of a proof before the sheriff, as more 
 just. In England it was alleged that insufiicient returns were 
 made, that prices sent in were chiefly those of the higher 
 quality of grain, and that therefore an excessive burden was 
 imposed on the farmer who paid the tithe. A select committee 
 of the House of Commons, which reported on the English corn 
 averages on 11th December, 1888, were of opinion, however, 
 that the present system of corn averages should be maintained, 
 and that the provisions of the Act of 1882, regulating the 
 matter, should be more vigilantly enforced. The teind clerk, 
 who was examined before the committee as a witness in resard 
 to the Scottish system, indicated that fiars prices were un- 
 satisfactory ; that in his view victual stipend in Scotland 
 should be paid according to an average of the past twenty- 
 one years' prices; and that the present system of striking 
 fiars prices should be discontinued. He suggested, however, 
 that corn averages should be obtained in Scotland on the 
 principle of the English system, which would be useful for 
 
594 PROPEETY OF THE CHUKCII. 
 
 Statistical purposes, and might also be made the bases of farm 
 rents. 
 
 Church lands have not been restored for the purposes of 
 the Church to the same extent as the teinds have been made 
 available under proceedings for augmenting stipends. Only 
 small portions of the church lands have been recovered as 
 glebes ^ for the parish ministers. In a few instances the glebes 
 are of considerable extent, and it is supposed these have been 
 enlarged by grants from relatives of the incumbents or others 
 interested - — not necessarily from church lands — to increase the 
 emoluments of the benefice. The remainder of the church 
 lands are embraced in titles of landowners, and are now 
 deemed past recovery. 
 
 Those town parishes which are of earlier date were provided 
 with stipends under special arrangements with the Crown ; and 
 those of more recent date were only erected in respect of 
 obligations to provide stipends out of the municipal or local 
 revenues. As an example, the case of Greenock East Church 
 may be cited. Here, on 8th March, 1809, the Court of Teinds 
 granted decree of disjunction, erection, and annexation, quoad 
 sacra, " on the magistrates and council of Greenock engaging 
 to be answerable for a stipend of £200 sterling per annum, 
 besides communion elements, and appoint them to lodge in 
 process a minute of council binding themselves in the above 
 terms." The minute required was duly lodged. Considerable 
 power was left in the hands of the municipal authorities in 
 adjusting the boundaries of such parishes. 
 
 The annuity tax was a substitute for the original provision 
 for city ministers in Edinburgh, the Canongate, and the second 
 charge of IMontrose. The tax has been commuted, and certain 
 of the town stipends are now paid from the interest on the 
 capital sums held by commissioners, and from seat rents and 
 other revenues, in terms of Acts of Parliament passed in 1860 
 and 1870. 
 
 Church extension has also brought into existence a large 
 amount of property in churches and manses and the endow- 
 
 1 Under the Acts of Parliament 1563, cap. 72 ; 1572, cap. 48, and later Acts. See 
 Duncan's " Parochial Law." 
 
 2 The feuing of glebes under the Glebe Lands (Scotland) Act, 18G6, has greatly 
 increased the revenues of several benefices. 
 
TEINDS OE TITHES. 595 
 
 ments for parishes quoad sacra. The acquisition of property 
 had begun previously, but the Act of 1844^ enabled the Court 
 of Teinds to erect such churches, with districts annexed, into 
 parishes quoad sacra. The minimum stipend to be provided is 
 £100 with a manse, and £120 without a manse. Up to 
 the present time (June, 1891) 402 such parishes have been 
 erected. They embrace four Gaelic churches, situated in towns, 
 which require no district attached, and forty-one parliamentary 
 churches, which have been, with districts attached, erected 
 into forty parishes (two of the churches are in one parish). 
 The endowments of these parliamentary churches alone were 
 provided by Parliament out of the national revenues (which 
 include surplus teinds and bishops' rents) collected in Scotland. 
 All the other endowments have been provided from private 
 sources, and to a very large extent through the endowment 
 committee of the Church of Scotland. These represent a very 
 large capital sum. 
 
 The teinds were at one time allowed to be diverted to other 
 parishes than those from which they were derived, where the 
 titular (being the party in right of the teinds) consented or did 
 not object — it being a matter of no moment to the parties from 
 whom they were exigible to whom they rendered them. The 
 rule decimce dchcntur parocJio — i.e., teinds are due or belong to 
 the parish — has, however, for a long period been strictly applied, 
 and by several decisions the minister of the parish has been 
 found entitled to reclaim teinds formerly allocated to another 
 parish when that parish has free teinds of its own. Eights 
 to teinds have also been acquired by landowners on the distinct 
 condition that they were only liable — in addition to old stipend 
 — to augment the stipend of the parish. As Sir George 
 Mackenzie has pointed out, if teinds could have been granted 
 freely to another parish "it will prove there can be no free teind 
 as long as there is any minister in Scotland unprovided com- 
 petently." ^ The contrary is, however, the fact, there being 
 many parishes insufficiently provided, while in others there 
 are plenty of free teinds which cannot be touched for any 
 other purpose than augmenting the stipend of the parish from 
 which they are exigible. 
 
 ^ 7 & 8 Victoria, cap. ii. ^ Maclcenzie's " Observations," 380. 
 
596 PROPERTY OF THE CEUECH. 
 
 In conclusion, we have to point out that all the endowments 
 vested in the Church of Scotland are strictly parochial, and 
 belong to the parish in the enjoyment of them. The teinds 
 are derived from the lands in the parish, while the church 
 property and other endowments have been provided by heritors 
 and others interested in the parish. The parishioners have 
 thus a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of their 
 parochial endowments of every description. Some useful 
 reforms have yet to be effected to remove grievances in regard 
 to teinds, and the incidence of costs of maintaining ecclesiastical 
 fabrics ; but beyond dealing with these no hand should be 
 allowed to touch the endowments to which we have referred, 
 whicli are essential to the promotion of religion in every 
 parish in Scotland. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 BOOKS I.-IY. (HISTORICAL). 
 
 Page 
 Abbeys of the several relif^ious orders, 366 
 Abbot of the monastery, The, . . 277 
 Abercorn, Monastery of, . . . ly2 
 Aberdeen, Diocese of — the cathedral — 
 altars and hospitals — bishops, dean- 
 eries, and number of parishes, 319-323 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Do. Collegiate churches, . . . 364 
 Aberdour, Foundation of monastery of, 151 
 Abernethy, Foundation of, . . . 101 
 " round tower, . . . 233 
 
 " Primacy lost to, . . 239 
 
 " Monastery of St Bridget,. 242 
 
 Abjuration Oath, .... 607 
 Act of Security, .... 592 
 Adamnan, St. — his birth and scholarly 
 attainments — visit to King Alfred — 
 repairs monastery of lona — his book 
 on the Holy Places — his "■ Life of 
 Columba," .... 202-206 
 Adrian, St., ..... 235 
 African mission, Scottish, . . . 858 
 Agrarian troubles, .... 627 
 Agricola's arrival in Britain — reduces 
 Anglesey and overruns Lancashire 
 and Cumberland — crosses the Forth 
 and advances to Perth — erects a line 
 of forts from the Forth to the Clyde 
 — occupies Fife and defeats the Cale- 
 donians under Calgacus — recalled by 
 
 Domitian, 
 Aidan, St., 
 Aitkenhead, Thomas, 
 Alban, Kingdom of, . . , 238 
 
 " Bishops of, 
 Alban, St., Britain's first martyr, 
 Albannich, the early North Britons, 
 Albany, Duke of, . . 
 Albion, oldest name of island, 
 Albyn, early name for North Britain, 
 Alexander I., . 
 Alexander IL — arranges for Robert 
 
 Bruce to succeed him — the country 
 
 under papal interdict — free provincial 
 
 6-8 
 
 171 
 
 581 
 
 244 
 
 306 
 
 66 
 
 2 
 
 289 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 265 
 
 Page 
 councils — his opposition to the papal 
 legate — introduction of the Domini- 
 can and Franciscan orders — death, . 279 
 Alexander IIL — gains battle of Largs 
 — opposition to Roman interference 
 — annual progress through his king- 
 dom for the redress of wrong — killed 
 by a fall from his horse, . 282-284 
 
 Allectus, Usurpation and death of, . 12 
 Alleluiatic Victory, The, . . . 85 
 Anchorites, .... 218, 255 
 Andrew, St., patron saint of Picts, . 71 
 " the apostle, . . . 805 
 
 Andrews, St. See St. Andrews. 
 Angles, Arrival of the, . . .18 
 Anglesey, a chief seat of the Druids, . 32 
 Anglo-Saxon conquest of England, . 166 
 Angus, Earl of, " Bell-the-cat," . . 297 
 '' the Cnldee, . . . .221 
 Annan, Battle of, ... . 287 
 Anne, Accession of Queen, . . 5'90 
 
 " Death of, . . . .612 
 Annexation, Act of, . . . . 467 
 Anthony, St., founder of monachism, 77, 276 
 Anti-patronage party, . . . 733 
 Antoninus, Wall of, . . . .9 
 Apocrypha controversy, . . . 767 
 " Apologetic Declaration," . . . 552 
 Aran, Island of, oflf Galway coast, . 123 
 Arbroath Abbey, . . . 279, 376 
 Archery, Weekly meetings for practice of, 294 
 Architecture, Cathedral, . . . 271 
 " Dunfermline Abbey and 
 
 Glasgow Cathedral, . 271 
 " Surviving examples of 
 
 Celtic, . . .271 
 Ardchattan Priory, . . . .388 
 Argyll, Diocese of. See Lisraore. 
 
 " Marquis of, executed, . . 536 
 Argyll's Bill, Duke of, on Patronage, . 809 
 Ai"ian heresy, . . . . .67 
 Aristotle's mention of British Islands, 3 
 Armstrong, Execution of Johnny, . 303 
 Arthur, King, 28 
 
598 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Arthur's Oon, Carron round-honse, . 12 
 
 Asaph, Monastery of St., . 
 
 . 112 
 
 " St., .... 
 
 . 114 
 
 Asceticism of the Church, 
 
 . 218 
 
 Assembly, First General, . 
 
 . 443 
 
 " The "muzzled," 
 
 . 483 
 
 " Glasgow, of 1580, 
 
 . 515 
 
 Associate Presbytery, 
 
 . 660 
 
 Athelstane, king of the Saxons, 
 
 . 69 
 
 Auchenshauch Declaration, 
 
 . 611 
 
 " Auchterarder Creed," 
 
 . 619 
 
 " case, 
 
 . 784 
 
 " " Second, 
 
 . 821 
 
 Augustine sent to the English, 
 
 . 167 
 
 Austin Canons, Houses of the. 
 
 . 366 
 
 Avebury standing-stones, . 
 
 . 34 
 
 Bachuil, The barons of, 
 
 . 347 
 
 Bagimond's Roll, 
 
 . 283 
 
 Baillie, Execution of, 
 
 . 551 
 
 Baldred of the Bass, 
 
 . 198 
 
 Baliol, Edward, 
 
 . 287 
 
 " John, . 
 
 . 285 
 
 Balmerinach Abbey, 
 
 . 887 
 
 Bamborough, capital of Bernicia 
 
 . 29 
 
 Bannockburn, Battle of, . 
 
 . 286 
 
 Barrier Act, 
 
 . 583 
 
 "Basilikon Doron," . 
 
 . 477 
 
 Basil, Monks of St., 
 
 . 277 
 
 Beaton, James, 
 
 . 413 
 
 " Murder of Cardinal, 
 
 . 403 
 
 Beattie, James, LL.D., 
 
 . 712 
 
 Beauly Priory, . 
 
 . 388 
 
 Becket, St. Thomas k, 
 
 . 268 
 
 Bede, The Venerable, 
 
 . 18 
 
 Belerion (Land's End), 
 
 . 5 
 
 Bell-towers, 
 
 . 234 
 
 Beltane festival. 
 
 . 36 
 
 Benedict, St., . 
 
 . 277 
 
 Benedictines, Houses of the, 
 
 . 391 
 
 Benefices Act, . 
 
 . 839 
 
 Bernham, David of, . 
 
 . 281 
 
 Bernicia, Kingdom of, 
 
 . 29 
 
 Berwick, Sack of. 
 
 . 285 
 
 " Parliament held at, 
 
 . 285 
 
 Bishops, Consecration of, . 
 
 . 484 
 
 Blaan of Kingaith, St., 
 
 . 157 
 
 Black Acts, The, 
 
 . 464 
 
 Blair, Dr. Hugh, 
 
 . 714 
 
 Blantyre Priory, 
 
 . 370 
 
 Blathmac, Martyrdom of St., 
 
 . 229 
 
 Boethius, St., . 
 
 , 101 
 
 Boniface VIII. remonstrates wit 
 
 h Ed- 
 
 ward I. concerning Scotland- 
 
 — sides 
 
 with Edward, 
 
 . 285 
 
 Bonifacius, Legend of St., . 
 
 , 211,212 
 
 Book of Common Order, . 
 
 . 432 
 
 Botbwell Bridge, Battle of, 
 
 . 547 
 
 Bourignianism, 
 
 . 687 
 
 Boyds, Rise and fall of the, 
 
 . 295 
 
 Bran, father of Caractacus, 
 
 . 64 
 
 Breasal, abbot of lona, 
 
 . 226 
 
 Page 
 
 Brecbannach of Columba, . . . 240 
 
 Brechin round tower, . . 234, 244 
 
 Cliurch of, . . . . 244 
 
 Brechin, Diocese of — the Culdees — 
 
 round tower — cathedral — bishops, 
 
 and number of parishes, . 328-331 
 
 Do. number of churches and chapels, 358 
 
 Do. Collegiate church, 
 
 Brendan, St., • 
 
 Bridget, St., .... 
 Brigham, Treaty of, . 
 Britain, First native history of. . 
 " Christianity introduced into, 
 " Roman, 
 Britain's first martyr, 
 Britannia, a name given by Ccesar, 
 British legends of the apostles, . 
 " races. Early, . 
 " tribes described by Csesar, 
 Britons in the Roman arena, 
 
 " Cities of the. 
 Bronze and iron used as money, 
 Bruce, Robert, rival of John Baliol, 
 Bruce, King Robert — crowned at Scone 
 — battle of Bannockburn — excom- 
 munication by the Pope — treaty of 
 Northampton — death, . 
 Brude, Pictish king, .... 
 Buchanan, R., D.D., 
 Buchanites, The, .... 
 Burghers and Anti-burghers, 
 
 Old Light, 
 Bute plundered by the Norse, 
 
 364 
 
 127 
 
 102 
 
 284 
 
 18 
 
 64 
 
 3 
 
 66 
 
 2 
 
 64 
 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 285 
 
 286 
 . 147 
 . 789 
 . 737 
 . 685 
 753, 775 
 
 282 
 
 Cadroe, St., 242 
 
 Caedwalla, king of the Britons, . . 170 
 
 Cffisar lands in Britain, ... 3 
 
 Caiplie caves, . . . . .237 
 
 Caithness, Diocese of — St. Bar — Gilbert 
 
 d- Moravia — the cathedral — bishops, 
 
 and number of parishes, . 338-342 
 
 Do. number of churches and chapels, 358 
 
 Caledonia invaded by Emperor Severus, 9 
 
 " Territory classically called, . 2 
 
 Caledonians defeated by Agricola, . 7 
 
 " Incursions of the, . . 9 
 
 " Xipbiline's description of, 10 
 
 Calgacus, chief of the Caledonians, . 7 
 
 Calls, Act anent, resciuded, . . 663 
 
 " Overture on, .... 650 
 
 " Declaratory Act on, . . . 778 
 
 Calvin's Catechism, .... 433 
 
 Cambuskenneth Abbey, . . . 370 
 
 Cambuslang Revival, . . . 674 
 
 Cameronian regiment, . . . 568 
 
 Cameronians • . . . .611 
 
 Campanilia, or bell-towers, . . 234 
 
 Campbell, Principal, . . . 711 
 
 J. .'iI'Leod, . . .768 
 
 Candida Casa, Church of, . . . 79 
 
 " Anglic bishopric of, . 199 
 
 Candlish, R. S., . . . . 795 
 
INDEX. 
 
 599 
 
 Page 
 373 
 277 
 366 
 497 
 
 12 
 859 
 244 
 304 
 
 12 
 oGl 
 613 
 
 84 
 389 
 415 
 521 
 
 Canonby Priory, 
 Canonical hours, The 
 Canons of St. Augustine, Houses of, 
 Canons, The new, 
 
 Carausius, Arrival and usurpation of, 
 Cardross case, .... 
 Carham (on the Tweed), Battle of, 
 Carmelites, Houses of the, 
 Carron, The round-house on the, 
 Carstares, William, . 
 " Death of , . 
 
 Carthage, Council of, 
 Carthusians, Houses of the. 
 Catechism of 1552, Authors of, 
 Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, 
 Cathach of Columba used as a standard, 241 
 
 Cathan, St., 156 
 
 Cathedral dignitaries, . . . 272 
 
 '' architecture, . . . 271 
 
 Catholics, Penal laws against, . . 726 
 
 Relief Bill, . . .776 
 
 Celestius the Pelagian, . . .84 
 
 Celibacy, Monastic, . . . 248, 258 
 
 Celtic architecture, . . . .271 
 
 " Church, Decay of, . .256-261 
 
 '• festivals, . . . .36 
 
 " worship,. . . . .39 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas, .... 756 
 
 Chapel Act, The, . . . .781 
 
 " repealed, . . . 832 
 
 Chapel-royal built and endowed, . 297 
 
 Chapels of ease, .... 741 
 
 Chaplainry, The 274 
 
 Charlemagne's Christian zeal. Effects of, 227 
 Charles Edward, .... 682 
 " I., Accession of, . . . 492 
 II., his death, . . .552 
 Chartularies, Extant diocesan, . . 359 
 China mission, ..... 858 
 Cblorns, Constantius, defeats Cale- 
 donians, 12 
 
 Christian life and work. Committee on, 858 
 
 Christianity introduced into Britain, . 64 
 
 Christmas question, .... 606 
 
 Church first called '' Scottish Church," 238 
 
 " land, Freedom of.from exactions,238 
 
 " Organization of the, . . 305 
 
 " Reform Councils, . . . 418 
 
 " wealth. Old, where did it go ? 425 
 
 " lands. Scattering of, . . 428 
 
 patrimony seized by nobility, . 441 
 
 " State of the, in 1574, . 
 
 . 444 
 
 " Council to quit Edinburgh, 
 
 . 475 
 
 " of Scotland re-established, 
 
 . 570 
 
 " and the Episcopal clergy. 
 
 . 599 
 
 extension, . 
 
 . 739 
 
 " " scheme, 
 
 . 843 
 
 " Service Society, . 
 
 . 851 
 
 Ciaran, St., .... 
 
 . 158 
 
 Cistertienses, Houses of the. 
 
 . 381 
 
 Civil penalties annulled. . 
 
 . G02 
 
 Page 
 
 Claim, Declaration, and Protest, . 818 
 
 " of Right, Convention's, . . 567 
 
 " Free Church, . . 818 
 
 Claverhouse and Dalziel flee to London, 559 
 
 " in the Highlands, . . 569 
 
 " Death of, . . . 569 
 
 Clement III., Bull of, . . . 269 
 
 Cluniacenses, Houses of the, . . 380 
 
 Co-arb, Title of 230 
 
 Coldingham Abbey burnt, . . . 236 
 " Monastery, . . . 176 
 
 » Priory 391 
 
 Collegiate churches of the dioceses, . 359 
 Colman, St., .... 102, 176 
 Colonsay, Landing of Columba at, . 132 
 Columba, Druidical opposition to . 40 
 " Miracles attributed to, .41 
 Columba, St. — enters Glasnevin monas- 
 tery — lands in lona, . . 131-137 
 Do. Shrine of, ... . 229 
 Do. Relicsof, transferred to Dunkeld, 231 
 Columban Church extended to Essex, 176 
 Defeat of, . . 182 
 " in South Pictland, .231 
 
 Columban relics used 4s standards, . 240 
 Colum banns, St., . . . .128 
 Commission of Assembly, . . . 625 
 Concordat of Leith, . . . .451 
 Confession of Faith passed by Estates, 408 
 " of 1560, . . 436 
 
 " Second, . . 463 
 
 " The present, .521 
 
 Congan, St -202 
 
 Constantine proclaimed Augustus of West, 12 
 
 " Christianity established by, 66 
 
 " King, . . . 223,237 
 
 " III. becomes a monk, . 306 
 
 Constitutional Associate Presbytery, . 753 
 
 Convention of the Tables, . . . 507 
 
 " of Estates, . . .565 
 
 Convents, List of, . . . • 396 
 
 Cook, Dr. George, . . . .779 
 
 Cooldrevny, Battle of, . . . 132 
 
 Coronation stone carried into England, 285 
 
 182 
 . 279 
 . 513 
 . 541 
 . 513 
 . 27 
 . 857 
 . 292 
 . 248 
 . 272 
 33-36 
 Cromwell, ..... 528 
 Crosier of Columba used as a standai-d, 240 
 Crossraguel Abbey, . . • .381 
 
 Culdees, The, 216 
 
 " Abuses among the, . • 256 
 " Last mention of the, . . 259 
 
 Council of Whitby, . 
 
 " First Provincial, . 
 Covenant, Signing of the, . 
 " Burning of the, . 
 Covenanters, The, . . 
 Cowal district acquired by the Scots, 
 Creed subscription, . 
 Crichton, Sir William, 
 Crinan, abbot of Dunkeld, 
 
 Crofts, 
 
 Crondechs, their uses, 
 
coo 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Culloden, Battle of, . . . . 682 
 Culross Abbey, . . , . 386 
 
 Cnlsalmond case, The, . . .814 
 Cnmbria ceded to the Scots, . . 244 
 Cummene, abbot of lona, . . . 200 
 Cupar Abbey, ..... 385 
 
 Cuthbert, St., 185 
 
 Dalmnlin Jlonastery, . . . 381 
 
 Dalriada, The Scots of, . . 25-27 
 
 Danes ravage British and Irish coasts, 227 
 Darien scheme, .... 685 
 
 Daruley, his marriage to Queen Mary, 447 
 
 David I., 266 
 
 David II., Succession of — his exile in 
 France — battle of Neville's Cross — 
 captivity in the Tower of London — 
 his ransom — his base proposal as to 
 the succession — character and death, 286 
 
 David, St 112 
 
 " of Bernham, . . . .281 
 
 Deaneries of the various dioceses, . 273 
 
 Declaratory Act, .... 762 
 
 " on calls, . .778 
 
 " as to form of worship, 849 
 
 Deer, Book of 151 
 
 " Foundation of monastery of, . 152 
 
 Dcerness, Jlonastery on Brough of, . 247 
 
 " round towers, . . . 234 
 
 Deicolae or anchorites, . . .218 
 
 Deir Abbey, 385 
 
 Demission, Deed of, . . . . 833 
 Deserts or solitudes, . . . .219 
 
 Dewi, St., 112 
 
 Dioceses of Scotland, The thu-teen, . 305 
 " Total number of churches and 
 
 chapels in the thirteen, . 358 
 Diocletian persecution, . . .66 
 Diodorus Siculus' account of the Britons, 5 
 Directory of Public Worship, . . 521 
 Discipline, First Book of, . .431, 437 
 " Second Book of, . .469 
 " Diserts," for solitary meditation, . 143 
 Disestablishment agitation, . . 859 
 Disputed settlements, . . 690, 720 
 Disruption, The, . . . .827 
 Dominicans and Franciscans, Introduc- 
 tion of, 281 
 
 Do. Houses of the, .... 394 
 Donald I., King, . . . .68 
 Donnan, Martyrdom of St., . . 156 
 " Douglas," Tragedy of, . . 696, 706 
 Drostan the diviner, . . . .45 
 Druid terms in Christian worship, . 46 
 
 Druids. The, 30 
 
 Drumceatt, Convention of, . . 150 
 
 Dryburgh Abbey, .... 390 
 DufF, Dr ,the Church's first missionary, 767 
 Duke, The title of, . . . . 288 
 
 Dunbar, Battle of, . . . . 285 
 '• Bishop, .... 302 
 
 Dunbar's " Thistle and the Rose," 
 
 300 
 
 Page 
 Dnnbarton, capital of Strathclyde, 27, 113 
 " Castle, Surrender of, . 298 
 
 Dunblane, Diocese of — St. Blane — 
 cathedral and tower — hishops, and 
 number of parishes, . . 331-336 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Do. Collegiate churches, . . . 364 
 Duncan slain by Macbeth, . . 249 
 
 Dundee, Bruce's coronation recognized 
 
 at, 286 
 
 Dundrennan Abbey, .... 388 
 Dunfermline Abbey, .... 392 
 " as a royal burying-place, 138 
 
 Dunkeld, Church of, founded, . . 223 
 " Culdees of, ... 223 
 
 " Defence of the House of, . 569 
 " Monastery rebuilt, . . 231 
 " plundered by Norwegians, . 240 
 Dnnkeld, Diocese of — origin — Columba's 
 relics transferred to Dunkeld — the 
 primacy transferred to Abemethy — 
 bishopric revived by Alexander I. — 
 the cathedral — its altars — bishops, 
 deaneries, and number of parishes, . 315 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Dnnuichen, Battle of, and its results,. 193 
 Dnpplin Moor, Battle of, . . . 287 
 Easter, Difference in time of observing, 129 
 " and tonsure controversy — the 
 
 crisis, .... 177 
 Eccles in names of places, . . .274 
 
 Eddas, The 49 
 
 Edgar Atheling's flight to Scotland, . 261 
 Edinburgh, Origin of name of, . . 168 
 " acquired by the Scots, . 244 
 
 Education Act of 1872, . . . 854 
 Edward I. invades Scotland — sacks 
 Berwick — defeats Scots army at 
 Dunbar — carries off coronation stone 
 — second invasion of Scotland — 
 
 death 284-286 
 
 Edwin, Conversion of King, . . 168 
 Eigg, Monastery of, . . . .156 
 Elachnave, Monastery of, . . . 127 
 
 Enda, St. 123 
 
 Endowment scheme, .... 844 
 
 English language. Origin of, . . 29 
 
 Enoch, Churches of St., . . .104 
 
 Episcopacy in Scotland, . . 485, 628 
 
 " abolished in Scotland, 555, 567 
 
 Episcopal clergy,Proposed endowment of, 607 
 
 " clergy, Measures against, . 683 
 
 " dissensions, . . . 630 
 
 " encroachments, . . .596 
 
 Erskine, Ebenezer, .... 652 
 
 " His synod speech, . . 654 
 
 " Ejected from the Church, . 659 
 
 Erskine, Dr. John, . . . .714 
 
 Ralph, . . . .657 
 
 Eskdale, Raid of 301 
 
 " Jissav on Heat," Leslie, . . . 757 
 
INDEX. 
 
 GOl 
 
 " Euchologion," 
 
 " Exteiidtd Interdict," The, 
 
 Fail Priory, 
 
 Falkirk, Battle of, . 
 
 " Churcb, 
 Fearn Abbey, . 
 Fechau, St., . 
 Fergus, Legend of St., 
 Mor, 
 
 Page 
 . 851 
 . 803 
 . 381 
 . 285 
 . 226 
 . 391 
 . 219 
 . 212 
 26, 27 
 
 Feu-farm, Act anent letting lands in, 300 
 Fillan, St., .... 103, 202 
 Finan, St., ..... 176 
 Fiuuiaus, The two St., , . . 127 
 Five Articles of Perth, . . . 488 
 Flodden, Battle of, . . . .301 
 Football prohibited, . . . .294 
 
 Foreign missions, .... 742 
 Fortrenn or Pictland, . .' . 238 
 
 "Forty," The, 817 
 
 " Four Tables," The, . . .607 
 
 Francis, St., of Assisi, . . . 277 
 
 Franciscans, Houses of the, . . 395 
 
 Franks, First appearance of, in Britain, 12 
 
 Free Church, 1843, . . . .840 
 
 French Kevolution, . . . .7.^8 
 
 Frisians, Arrival of the, . . .29 
 
 Galloway, Diocese of — Candida Casa — 
 
 Whitherne — shrine of St. Ninian — 
 
 historical review — dilapidation of 
 
 the see — bishops, deaneries, and 
 
 number of parishes, . , 343-347 
 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 
 Do. Collegiate church, . . . 365 
 
 General Assembly, its first meetings, . 443 
 
 " gi-ievances. The paper of, . 495 
 
 Geneva Confession, .... 432 
 
 George I., Accession of, . . .612 
 
 Germanus, St., . . . .84 
 
 Gildas, British historian, . . .17 
 
 Gillespie, Deposition of, . . . 702 
 
 Giric, King .238 
 
 Glas of Tealing, .... 639 
 Glasgow coat of arms, . . .115 
 " origin of the city, . .119 
 
 " Culdees of, . . . . 222 
 " university founded, . . 294 
 " Assembly of 1580, . .615 
 
 Glasgow, Diocese of — site of the cathe- 
 dral — St. Ninian — St, Mungo — the 
 hermit Fergus — refounding of the 
 Bee — the cathedral — the Gutty 
 Steeple — the Bishop's Palace — the 
 see richly endowed — the " spiritual 
 dukedom " — great historical events 
 witnessed within the cathedral — its 
 altars — the crypt altars — holy relics 
 — bishops, archbishops, archdeacon- 
 ries, deaneries, and number of 
 parishes, .... 310-315 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Do. Collegiate churches, . . .363 
 
 Page 
 Glencoe, Massacre of, . . .576 
 Glenluce Abbey, . . . .386 
 
 Golf prohibited 204 
 
 Gowrie Plot, The, . . . .477 
 Graham, Archbishop — wins the ecclesi- 
 astic independence of Scotland — his 
 
 sad end, 296 
 
 Graham of Claverhouse, . . . 542 
 Graham's Act, Sir James, . • 839 
 
 Grampius, Battle of Mous, . . 7 
 
 Greenshields, Case of the Rev. James, 599 
 Gregory the Great, .... 167 
 Grime's Dyke, . . . . . 9 
 
 Guise, Mary of, ... . 303 
 
 " Eegency of, . . 404 
 
 Haco, King 282 
 
 Hadrian, Emperor, .... 9 
 Hadrian's Wall, .... 9 
 Haldane, James and Robert, . . 745 
 Hallowe'en, Origin of, . . . 37 
 Hamilton, John, .... 417 
 Harlaw, Battle of, . . . . 289 
 Harold Fairhair, king of Norway, . 246 
 Hebrides, Solinus' description of, . 5 
 " colonized by Norwegians, . 246 
 " brought under Scottish crown, 282 
 Henry VIII. invades Scotland, . . 304 
 
 Heritors assessed for maintenance of 
 
 schools, ..... 754 
 
 Herodotus' mention of the Tin Islands, 3 
 Hertford's spoliation of Border abbeys, 403 
 Hibernia, Strabo's account of people of, 4 
 Highland Host, The, . . .545 
 
 Hill, Principal, . . . .734 
 Hinba, Island and monastery of, . 152 
 
 Holy Island (Lindisfarne), Monastery of, 173 
 263,369 
 . 389 
 . 14 
 , 396 
 . 398 
 . 709 
 . 711 
 . 856 
 . 48 
 . 247 
 . 379 
 . 3 
 . 373 
 . 366 
 256, 265 
 . 284 
 . 597 
 . 846 
 
 Holyrood Abbey, 
 
 Holywood Abbey, 
 
 Honorius, Emperor, . 
 
 Ho^pitallers, Houses of the. 
 
 Hospitals, List of, 
 
 Hume, David, . 
 
 Hume's " Essay on Miracles," 
 
 Hymnal, Scottish, . 
 
 Iceland, Colonization of, . 
 " Early Christians of, 
 
 Icolmkill or lona Abbey, . 
 
 levnian Isles, . 
 
 InchafFray Abbey, 
 
 Inchcolm Abbey, 
 " oratory. 
 
 Independence, War of. 
 
 Innovations, Act against, . 
 " controversy, . 
 
 " in Old Greyfriars Church, 847 
 
 Inverkeithing case, .... 697 
 
 lona. Landing of Columba at, . . 133 
 " island and monastery, . 137-142 
 " Romish pretensions of supremacy, 143 
 " Bede's testimony of abbots of, . 165 
 " Schism in, . . . . 207 
 
602 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 lona, Supremacy of, over Picts ended, 208 
 ■' Catholic observances introduced, 209 
 " End of the schism, . . . 226 
 " ravaged by the Danes, . . 227 
 " monastery burnt, . . . 228 
 " Monks again slain, . . . 229 
 " Its decline, . . . .232 
 " again plundered, . . . 245 
 
 " Abbey, 379 
 
 Irchard, St., 93 
 
 Ireland, Juvenal's name for, . . 2 
 " originally called Scotia, . . 3 
 Irish Church, Organization of the early, 98 
 " " The early, . . .122 
 
 " saints, ..... 125 
 Irving, Edward, . . . 771-773 
 Isla and Jura, Acquisition of, by Scots, 27 
 Isles, The — conversion of — bishopric of, 248 
 Isles, Diocese of the — early origin — 
 ecclesiastical foundations of lona — 
 chief events in its history — Church 
 of St. Mary — its high altar — con- 
 flicting claims as regards ecclesias- 
 tical jurisdiction — annexed to the 
 bishopric of the Isles — bishops, and 
 numberof parishes of the diocese, 350-354 
 Do. number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Itinerant teachers, .... 747 
 Jacobite plots, ..... 576 
 James I. — his captivity in England — 
 his release and vigorous legislation — 
 vengeance on the Duke of Albany — 
 sharp deaUng with the Highland 
 chiefs, and with thieves and robbers 
 — measures taken as regards the 
 Church — the Lollards — his tragic 
 
 end, 290-292 
 
 James II. — crowned at Holyrood — 
 Crichton and Livingstone winning 
 and losing possession of the boy- 
 king — his marriage — killed by the 
 bursting of a cannon, . . 292-294 
 James III. — crowned at Kelso — seized 
 at LinUthgow and taken to Edin- 
 burgh — his man-iage — Orkney and 
 Shetland given in security for dowry 
 — fall of the Boyds — Lauder Bridge 
 faction — battle of Sauchieburn, and 
 death of the king, . . . 294-298 
 James IV. — crowned at Scone — his 
 penitential chain — insurrection of 
 Lennox and Lyle — growth of a Scots 
 navy — his exploits on horseback — 
 wholesome laws on Church matters — 
 his marriage — law anent letting lauds 
 in feu-farm — raid of Eskdale — 
 war with England — battle of Flodden 
 and death of the king, . , 298-301 
 James V. — his minority — feuds — the 
 fight for the primacy — fight of 
 " (Cleanse the Causeway " — regency 
 
 Page 
 of five — the king educated under 
 Bishop Dunbar — his flight to Stirling 
 — his two marriages — invasion of 
 Henry VIII. — battle of Solway Moss 
 — buth of Mary Queen of Scots — 
 death and character of James, 302-304 
 
 489 
 566 
 371 
 664 
 707 
 81 
 228 
 374 
 294 
 
 James VI., Death of, 
 
 James VII., Deposition of, 
 
 Jedburgh Abbey, 
 
 " Judicial Testimony," 
 
 " Jupiter " Carlyle, . 
 
 Jutes, Arrival of the, 
 
 Kells, chief seat of Columban order, 
 
 Kelso Abbey, .... 
 " James III. crowned at, . 
 
 Kennedy, Bishop, of St. Andrews, 293-296 
 " Quintin, .... 414 
 
 Kenneth Macalpm, King, . . .231 
 
 Kenneth, St., 305 
 
 Kentigem and the pagans of Strathclyde, 62 
 
 Kentigern, St. — his mother — his name 
 of Mungo — separates from Sei-vanus 
 — arrives at Carnock — reaches Glas- 
 gow — consecrated a bishop — leaves 
 for South Wales — founds the mon- 
 astery of Llanelwy — recalled by the 
 King of Strathclyde — labours in 
 Galloway and the north-eastern Low- 
 lands — returns to Glasgow — the 
 Glasgow coat of arms — his meeting 
 with St. Columba — his death — his 
 church the beginning of the city of 
 
 vjiasguw — 1115 Luuiu, . . luo 
 
 Kentigerna, .... 
 
 202 
 
 KilkeiTan, in Kintyre, Origin of name o 
 
 ,158 
 
 Killiecrankie, Battle of, . 
 
 669 
 
 Kilrymont, Church of, . . . 
 
 69 
 
 Kilwinning Priory, . . . . 
 
 376 
 
 Kingai-th, Monastery of, . 
 
 156 
 
 " St. Blaan of. 
 
 157 
 
 Kinloss Abbey, 
 
 383 
 
 Kinross case. The, . . . . 
 
 656 
 
 Kintyre and Knapdale acquired by the 
 
 
 Scots, 
 
 27 
 
 " plundered by the Norse, 
 
 282 
 
 " Court held in South, . 
 
 299 
 
 Kiritanus or Bouifacius, . 
 
 212 
 
 Knights-Templars, Houses of the, 
 
 396 
 
 Knox, John, .... 
 
 403 
 
 " his return to Scotland, 
 
 406 
 
 " his death, . . . . 
 
 450 
 
 Lanark presentation. 
 
 693 
 
 Largs, Battle of, . . . 
 
 282 
 
 Lauder Bridge faction, 
 
 297 
 
 Leechman's case. Professor, 
 
 680 
 
 Lennox and Lyle's insurrection, .■ 
 
 298 
 
 Leslie case, . . . . . 
 
 757 
 
 " John, 
 
 411 
 
 Lesmahagow Priory, . 
 
 376 
 
 Lethendy case, . . . . . 
 
 786 
 
 Lews, Standing-stones in, . 
 
 34 
 
INDEX. 
 
 603 
 
 Page 
 
 173 
 
 227 
 378 
 480 
 155 
 
 Lindisfarne Monastery, 
 
 " attacked by Danes, 
 
 Lindores Abbey, . . . • 
 Linlithgow convention, 
 Lismore, Monastery of, . . _ • 
 Lismore or Argyll, Diocese of — erection 
 of see — transferred from Muckairn 
 to Lismore island — " Book of the 
 Dean of Lismore" — the cathedral— 
 the dress of the canons — bishops, 
 deaneries, and number of parishes, • 347 
 Do. Number of chui-ches and chapels, 358 
 Do. Collegiate church, . . . 365 
 Livingstone, Sir Alexander, . . 292 
 Llaneiwy, ]\Ionastery of, . . . 112 
 Lochleven Island and Monastery, 214, 215 
 " " granted to St. Andrews,243 
 
 " Priory, .... 368 
 Lochlomond islands plundered by Norse, 282 
 Lochlongside plundered by the Norse,. 282 
 Lollards, Persecution of the, . .292 
 Lorn, Origin of the name, . . .27 
 Lothian, Formation of archdeaconry of, 306 
 
 Lowlands, Conversion of the, 
 
 Lucius, King, . 
 
 Macbeth and his queen, 
 
 Macfarlan, Principal, 
 
 Maegidrin, St., 
 
 Maelruain, St., 
 
 Maelrubha, St., 
 
 Magna Charta of Presbytery, Th 
 
 Maid of Norway, The, 
 
 Malcolm IL, . 
 
 Malcolm III. (Canmore), 
 
 Malcolm IV., . 
 
 Man, Isle of, under Scottish crown, 
 
 Manuscript ornamentation. 
 
 Mar, Earl of, regent, 
 
 Margaret, Queen — her zeal, 
 " anival and marriage, 
 
 Margaret, the Maid of Norway, 
 
 Margaret's Stone, St., 
 
 Markinch, Church of, granted 
 Culdees, 
 
 Marnoch case, The, . 
 
 " induction, Eiot at. 
 
 Marrow controversy, 
 
 Mar's rebellion, 
 
 Martin, St., of Tours, 
 
 Martinmas term. Origin of, 
 
 lilartin's Church at Canterbury, 
 
 Martyrs, Last of the, 
 
 Mary of Guise, 
 
 Mary Queen of Scots, Birth of, 
 " " Landing of, 
 
 " " Imprisonment at 
 
 Jjochleveu, . 
 " " Execution of, . 
 
 Maximus, Emperor, .... 
 
 May Isle and Pittenweem Priory, 
 
 Mela, Pomponius, account of the Britons, 6 
 
 82 
 
 . 65 
 
 216, 249 
 
 . 829 
 
 , 237 
 
 . 220 
 
 . 201 
 
 , . 469 
 
 . 284 
 
 . 244 
 
 250, 263 
 
 . 267 
 
 282 
 
 141 
 
 . 287 
 
 250-256 
 
 261-264 
 
 , 284 
 
 to the 
 
 St., 
 
 Page 
 . 381 
 . 173 
 459,479 
 . 858 
 . 277 
 . 394 
 . 406 
 . 858 
 . 858 
 . 742 
 . 776 
 . 225 
 . 750 
 . 237 
 . 109 
 . 155 
 77, 276 
 
 262 
 
 245 
 798 
 807 
 620 
 614 
 77 
 81 
 167 
 553 
 303 
 304 
 406 
 
 448 
 
 468 
 
 13 
 
 368 
 
 Melrose Abbey, 
 
 " Monastery of Old, 
 Melville, Andrew, 
 Membership of the Church, 
 Mendicant Friai-s, . 
 
 " Houses of the 
 
 Mill, Martyrdom of Walter, 
 Mission, African, 
 " China, 
 " Foreign, 
 " Indian, 
 Modan, St., 
 
 Moderates and Evangelicals, 
 Moinenn, St., . 
 Molendinar Burn, 
 Moluoc, St., 
 Monachism founded, . 
 Monasteries, Western and Eastern 
 " Usefulness of the early, 
 
 '• List of. 
 
 Monastery, Officers of a, . 
 Monastic idea of the Church, 
 Moncriefif, Sir Henry, 
 Monenna, St., . 
 Moravia, Bishop Andrew de, 
 Moray, Diocese of — transferred from 
 Spynie to Elgin— the cathedral — 
 bishops, deaneries, and number of 
 parishes, .... 323—328 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 
 364 
 110 
 463 
 103 
 289 
 287 
 281 
 483 
 775 
 202 
 509 
 207 
 18 
 287 
 382 
 
 278 
 366 
 277 
 276 
 756 
 103 
 323 
 
 Do. Collegiate church, 
 Morken, king of Cambria, . 
 Morton, Earl, beheaded, . 
 Mungo, St., ..... 
 Murdac, Duke, regent, his execution, . 
 Murray, Earl of, regent, . 
 Musselburgh Synod, Decrees of, 
 " Muzzled " Assembly, 
 " Narrative and Testimony," 
 Nathalan, St., . . . . • 
 National Covenant, The, . 
 
 Nectan, King, 
 
 Nennius, British historian, 
 Neville's Cross, Battle of, . 
 Newbotle Abbey, .... 
 Ninian, St. — visits Rome — consecrated 
 bishop by the Pope— visits St. Mar- 
 tin of Tours — establishes a monas- 
 tery on the Solway, 
 Ninian's Cave, St., . . . • 
 Non-intrusion Secession, The, . 
 Norse mythology, .... 
 North Inch of Perth, gladiatorial fight, 288 
 Northampton, Treaty of, . 
 Northumbria, Kingdom of, 
 
 " Columban Church in, 
 
 " Mission of Paulinns to, 
 
 " Relapse to paganism, 
 
 " Ascension of King Oswald, 170 
 
 " Aidan sent from lona, . 171 
 
 " Restoration of the Chuixh, 173 
 
 74 
 
 79 
 
 827 
 
 49 
 
 286 
 29 
 165 
 168 
 170 
 
604 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Northnmbria, Extension of kingdom of, 174 
 
 Triumph of Romanism in, 183 
 
 Norway, The Maid of, . . .284 
 
 Norwegians, The, plunder Alban, . 240 
 
 " colonize Orkney, . . 246 
 
 " Conversion of, . . 248 
 
 Oath of Assurance, . . . .576 
 
 Odin, 53 
 
 Old Light Burghers, . . 753, 775 
 
 Oran's chapel and cemetery, St., . 138 
 
 Orkney Islands in Roman times, . 6, 6 
 " Standing-stones in, . . 34 
 " round tower, . . .234 
 
 " colonized by Norwegians, . 246 
 " Conversion of — bishopric of, . 248 
 " allied to Scotland, . . 295 
 
 Orkney, Diocese of — when founded — 
 the cathedi-al — the islands Christian- 
 ized by Celtic missionaries — notable 
 names under this diocese — bishops, 
 archdeaconries, and number of 
 parishes, .... 355-358 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Oswald, king of Northumbria, . . 170 
 
 Oswy, king of Northumbria, . . 174 
 Otterburn, Battle of, ... 288 
 
 Pagan times, Lawlessness of, . . 124 
 Paganism, Surviving memorials of, . 63 
 Paisley Abbey, . . . .380 
 
 Palladins, St., 86 
 
 Papal encroachments, . . .283 
 Parish, The — its subdivisions, &c, . 273 
 " Creation, boundaries, &c., . 275 
 Parish schools, .... 582 
 
 Pastoral idea of the Church, . .276 
 
 Patrick, St, 92 
 
 " and the Druids, . .42 
 
 Patronage abolished in 1690, . .571 
 
 " Restoration of, in 1711, . 602 
 
 " Act, Amendment on the, . 645 
 
 " Law of, established, , . 724 
 
 " Sale of, during vacancy, . 736 
 
 " Duke of Argyll's Bill on, . 809 
 
 abolished in 1874, . . 857 
 
 Paulinas, Mission of, to York, . .168 
 
 Pelagian heresy, . . . .84 
 
 Penal Laws, Catholic, . . . 729 
 
 Penda, king of Mercia, . . . 170 
 
 " killed in battle, . . .174 
 
 Penny Weddings, Act against, . .596 
 
 Perth monastery, . . . .389 
 
 Phoenician traders with Cornwall, . 3 
 
 Pictish Chronicle, The, . . . 244 
 
 Picts and Scots, Incursions of, . .13 
 
 " Battle between, . 134 
 
 Picts, Origin and language of, . .19 
 
 " " The painted people," . . 22 
 
 " Their capital and territory, , 23 
 
 " Conversion of the Southern, 64, 82 
 
 " Extension of Columban Church 
 
 among the, .... 156 
 
 Page 
 Picts, King of, expels Columban clergy, 208 
 " Disappearance of, in Orkney, . 246 
 Pinkie, Battle of, . . . . 404 
 Plantius, Aulus, sent from Rome, , 5 
 "Pluralities," .... 730,761 
 Pluscardine Priory, .... 388 
 Polybius' mention of the British Islands, 3 
 Poor Law provision, • . . 841 
 
 Pope's first confirmation of a Scottish 
 
 bishop, 243 
 
 Porteous Riot, ..... 667 
 Prsecentor of the monastery. The, . 277 
 Pramonstratenses, Houses of the, . 389 
 
 Prayer Book 606 
 
 " Dr. Lee's, . . . 849 
 
 Pre-Reformation documents, . . 430 
 Presbyter-bishop question, . . 145 
 
 Presbytery and Episcopacy, . . 460 
 Printing-press, First, in Scotland, . 301 
 Prior of the monastery, The, . . 277 
 Process, Form of, . . . .593 
 Procopius' information regarding Britain, 16 
 Prosper of Aquitaine, . . .85 
 Provincial Council, First, . . . 279 
 
 Psalmody, 594 
 
 Psalter of Columba used as a standai-d, 241 
 Public worship, Decorum in, . . 594 
 Queensferry, origin of name, . .263 
 Quoad sacra parishes, . . . 839 
 " Rabbling " of the curates, . . 560 
 Raid of Ruthven, .... 464 
 Rebellion of 1745, . . . .681 
 
 Rectory, The, 273 
 
 Rederech, king of Strathclyde, . .113 
 Reform Bill of 1832, . . .776 
 
 Reformation and the Estates, . . 408 
 The, . . . .434 
 " The second, . . . 516 
 
 Reformed Presbyterians, . . . 763 
 Rcgulus, Legend of St., . . .68 
 
 St 305-307 
 
 Reid, Robert, 412 
 
 " Thomas, D.D., . . 711, 712 
 
 Relief seceders, .... 843 
 
 Relief, Presbytery of, . . 704, 718 
 
 Religious houses before 1200, . . 269 
 " Buildings composing one,277 
 
 Rescissory Act, The, . . . 537 
 
 Restennot Priory, .... 372 
 Restoration, The, . . . .636 
 Revolution settlement, State of Church at, 680 
 " Riding Committees," Last of the, . 697 
 Rizzio, Murder of, . . . . 447 
 Robert I. See Bruce. 
 Robert II., first of the Stuart dynasty 
 — battle of Otterbtirn — his numer- 
 ous family — death, . . . 287 
 Robert III. — refuses demand of Henry 
 IV. for homage — defeat of Homildon 
 Hill — family calamities — death. 
 
 Robertson, Principal, 
 
 288 
 713-718 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 605 
 
 Robertson, Principal, his death, . . 733 
 
 liooertson, Dr. James, . . . 844 
 
 Homan occupation, End and results of, 15 
 
 " Church, Better features of, . 423 
 
 " Catholic Relief Bill, . , 776 
 
 Rome, Church of, compared with 
 
 Scottish Church at arrival of Queen 
 
 Margaret, . . . . .261 
 
 Ronaii, St 225 
 
 Kosmarky monastery, . . .211 
 Ross, Diocese of — origin in a Columban 
 monastery — eai'ly cathedrals — the 
 cathedral — bishops and number of 
 parishes, .... 336-338 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 358 
 Do. Collegiate churcli, . . . 364 
 Rothesay, Duke of, staiTed to death, . 289 
 Round house on the Carron, . .12 
 
 " towers, 233 
 
 " Row heresy " case, . . . . 768 
 Royal Infirmary of Edinbni-gh, Institu- 
 tion of, 640 
 
 Rule, St, See Regulus. 
 Rullion Green, Battle of, . . . 543 
 Rye-House Plot, . . . .563 
 Sacristan of the monastery, The, . 277 
 Samhain festival, . . . .36 
 St. Andrews, Foundation of, . .71 
 Culdeesof, . . ,223 
 " its early bishops, . . 243 
 
 " resorted to by devout, . 256 
 
 Priory, . . .366 
 
 St. Andrews, Diocese of — the cathe- 
 dral or "gieat church" — the "old 
 church " — the primate — his juris- 
 diction — bishops, archbishops, arch- 
 deaconries, deaneries, and number 
 of parishes, .... 305, 310 
 Do. Number of churches and chapels, 368 
 Do. Collegiate churches, . .361 
 
 Sauchieburn, Battle of, . . . 297 
 Saulseat Abbey, . . . .389 
 Sasons, First appearance of, in Britain, 12 
 " theu: conquest of England, . 28 
 " their religion, . . .30 
 Scepticism and its opponents, . . 769 
 Scone, Pictish capital, . .211, 238 
 " Coronation stone carried away, 285 
 " Bruce crowned at, . . . 286 
 " Edward Baliol crowned at, . 287 
 " Robert II. crowned and buried at, 288 
 " James IV. crowned at, . . 298 
 
 " Abbey, 366 
 
 Scoonie, Church of, granted to Culdees, 245 
 
 Scotia, original name of Ireland, . 2 
 
 " as applied to North Britain, . 3 
 
 Scotland, Pre-Christian, ... 1 
 
 " Southern boundary fixed, . 244 
 
 " The thirteen dioceses of, . 305 
 
 Scots, First mention of the, . .13 
 
 " occupy Argyllshire, . .19 
 
 Scots, The Dalriadic kingdom of, . 25 
 
 " Capital and language of, . . 27 
 
 " and Picts united in one kingdom, 231 
 
 " Scots Worthies,"' Conclusion of the, 554 
 
 Scottish Church, first time so named, 238 
 
 " under rule of St. 
 
 Andrews bishops, . 243 
 
 " Position prior to 1200, 269 
 
 Scottish and Pictish Churches, Union of, 239 
 
 " kingdom, Commencement of the, 150 
 
 " sees as at 1200, . . .269 
 
 " Episcopacy, . . . 628 
 
 " piety, ..... 755 
 
 " Hymnal, .... 854 
 
 Seceders, Deposition of the, . . 669 
 
 Secession, The Non-intrusion, of 1843, 827 
 
 " State of the Church after the, 828 
 
 " but not disruption, . . 835 
 
 Serf, Legend of St., . . . .213 
 
 Servauus, St., ..... 86 
 
 Legend of, . . .213 
 
 Service-Book for Scotland, . . 497 
 
 Severus, Emperor — invades Caledonia 
 
 — penetrates to the Moray Firth — 
 
 reconstructs the wall of Antoninus, 9 
 
 Sharp, Assassination of Archbishop, . 546 
 
 Sherifi'muir, Battle of, . . .614 
 
 Shetland round towers, . . . 234 
 
 " colonized by Norwegians, . 246 
 
 " Conversion of, . . . 248 
 
 " allied to Scotland, . . 295 
 
 Shrines, 228 
 
 Simson's first case. Professor, . .617 
 " second case, . . . 632 
 
 Site question, 841 
 
 Slave market, British captives in Roman, 166 
 
 Society men, The, .... 549 
 
 Solemn League and Covenant, . . 520 
 
 Solinus' description of Hebrides, . 5 
 
 Solway Moss, Battle of, . . . 304 
 
 Standing-stones, . . . .34 
 
 Stewarton case, .... 823 
 
 Stipends, Proposal to increase, . . 685 
 
 Stirling Bridge, Battle of, . . 2(S5 
 
 Stone churches, Remains of the earliest, 228 
 
 " circles, Uses of, . . . 35 
 
 Strathbogie Presbytery, The, . . 798 
 
 " Suspension of ministers, . 801 
 
 " ministers deposed, . .811 
 
 " " reinstated, . 832 
 
 Strathclyde kingdom, . . .27 
 
 " Britons, Religion of, . 47 
 
 " King Rederech of, . .113 
 
 " Bishopric of, . . . 199 
 
 Sueno, king of Denmark, . . . 248 
 
 Sunday Schools, .... 747 
 
 Sweetheart Abbey, . . . . 387 
 
 Synod of Whitby, . . . .182 
 
 " of Tara, .... 205 
 
 " Decrees of the Musselburgh, . 281 
 
 Tacitus' opinion of the Britons, . . 8 
 
606 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 Tallaght, Church of, . . .221 
 
 Taia, Synod of, . . . .205 
 
 Tenure, Act giving security of, to tenants,294 
 
 Ternan, St., .... 
 
 
 92 
 
 Test Act, The, 
 
 
 550 
 
 Thaney, St., mother of St. Mungo, 
 
 104 
 
 Theodosius the Elder, 
 
 
 13 
 
 Thomson, Andrew, . 
 
 
 756 
 
 Thor 
 
 
 53 
 
 Thule, Abundance of produce in. 
 
 
 4, 6 
 
 " Solinus' description of, . 
 
 
 6 
 
 Tin Islands, .... 
 
 
 8 
 
 " and iron produced by the Britons, 
 
 4 
 
 Tiree, Monastery of. 
 
 
 127 
 
 Tofts, 
 
 
 272 
 
 Toleration Act, 
 
 
 600 
 
 Tongland Abbey, 
 
 
 390 
 
 Tonsure, Difference in form of, . 
 
 
 129 
 
 " Coronal, adopted by the Picts 
 
 208 
 
 Torphichen case. 
 
 
 694 
 
 Trinity Friars, Houses of the, . 
 
 
 393 
 
 " Tulchans " of the Concordat, . 
 
 
 457 
 
 Turgot, Bishop of St. Andrews, 
 
 264 
 
 265 
 
 Twelve apostles of Ireland, The, 
 
 
 127 
 
 Tyningham, ^lonastery of. 
 
 
 198 
 
 Tyronenses, Houses of the. 
 
 
 374 
 
 Union of Scotland and England, 
 
 
 590 
 
 United Presbyterian Church, 
 
 704 
 
 843 
 
 " Secession Church, . 
 
 775 
 
 842 
 
 Urbicus, Lollius, 
 
 
 9 
 
 Urquhart Prioiy, 
 
 
 393 
 
 Usagers and Non-usagers, 
 
 
 628 
 
 Valhalla, .... 
 
 
 67 
 
 Valliscaulians, Houses of the, . 
 
 
 388 
 
 Veto Act, The, 
 
 
 782 
 
 " declared illegal, 
 
 
 793 
 
 " debate on. 
 
 
 794 
 
 " Dr. Chalmers' motion 
 
 
 794 
 
 " null and void, . 
 
 
 831 
 
 Vicarage, The, 
 
 
 273 
 
 Voluntary controversy, 
 
 
 777 
 
 Page 
 Voluntaryism, .... 704, 775 
 Wallace, Sir William— Battle of Stir- 
 ling Bridge — of Falkirk — deserted 
 by barons — resigns office of Gover- 
 nor of Scotland — death, . . 285 
 Waltheof, St., abbot of Melrose, . 267 
 War of Independence, . . . 284 
 Weaimouth Monastery bnmt by Danes, 228 
 Western Isles, Ancient name of, . 352 
 Westminster Confession, . . . 522 
 " ratified, . 571 
 Whig Plot, The Great, . . .562 
 Whitby, Synod of, . . . . 182 
 \\Tiitefield, George, and the Seceders, . 672 
 " at the Cambuslang revival, 675 
 Whitefriars, Houses of the, . . 389 
 Whitherne, Church of, . . . 79 
 Whithorn Priory, .... 389 
 Widows' fund. Institution of the, , 678 
 William the Conqueror, . . .262 
 
 William IIL, 554 
 
 " Landing of, ... 559 
 
 " and Mary, .... 566 
 " Death of, . . . . 588 
 William the Lion — captured and sent 
 to Normandy — the treaty of Falaise 
 — founds Aberbrothic Abbey — ex- 
 pedition to the north — maintains 
 the independence of the Scottish 
 Church — the bull of Clement III. — 
 death of William, . . . 267, 269 
 Winzet, Ninian, .... 410 
 Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, rebuked 
 by the Pope for his patriotism — 
 crowns Bruce at Scone, . . 286 
 
 Wishart, George, burned, . . . 403 
 Wood, Andrew, Naval exploits of, . 298 
 York, Mission of Paulinus to, . . 168 
 " Diocese of, extended to Gram- 
 pians, ..... 191 
 Young Men's Guild . . . 858 
 
INDEX. 
 
 607 
 
 THE CHURCH IN ITS RELATION TO THE LAW AND 
 THE STATE (VOL. IV.) 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, speech in House of 
 
 Lords as to intimidation, 91 
 " his Act, . . . .125 
 Absents from Church, . . 65 
 
 Acts of Parliament — 
 
 Against Church corruptions, . . 24 
 Against the Reformers, . . .24 
 Upholding Pope's authority, , . 25 
 Settling Church government at Re- 
 formation, . . . .27 
 Confirming Confession of Faith, 
 
 (1690), , . . . 27, 36 
 Conferring jurisdiction on Church 
 
 (1579), 28 
 
 Defining powers of Church Courts 
 
 (159'J), 28 
 
 As to chaplains in India (1833), . 30 
 Securing Protestant Religion and 
 
 Church government (1707), . 37 
 For settling the quiet and peace of 
 
 the Church (1693), ... 67 
 
 7 & 8 Victoria, for erecting new 
 
 parishes, ..... 101 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, his Bill, . . . 73 
 
 Assumption of Thirds, . . .62 
 
 Attacks on Church by leaders of 
 
 Seceders, . . . .91, 118 
 Auchterarder, Case of, . . 76, 77, 79 
 " Decision, ... 82 
 
 " 5Ir. Young called to bar 
 
 of Assembly, . . 82 
 " His defence by Dean of 
 
 Faculty, . 82, 83 
 
 " Decision affirmed by 
 
 House of Lords, . 84 
 " Continued refusal of As- 
 
 sembly to take pres- 
 entee on trial, . .85 
 " Same course taken by 
 
 Commission, . . 86 
 " Action for damages by 
 
 Mr. Young, . . 87 
 Auchtergaven, Case of, . . .106 
 Auchtermuchty, Case of, . . , 74 
 Bagpipes, Playing of, on Sunday, . 68 
 Baird, Mr. James, lai-ge endowment by, 48 
 Bishop's Official, .... 17 
 Bishops, earliest, .... 4 
 " Ordination of, per saltum, . 4 
 Blairgowrie, Case of schoolmaster of, . 104 
 
 Blood money, 21 
 
 Campvere. Representation of, in Gen- 
 eral Assembly, . . . .31 
 Canons, Provincial and Synodical, . 11 
 " against Church corruptions, . 24 
 Cai'dross case, 126 
 
 Page 
 
 Celibacy of clergy, . . . .22 
 Chalmers, Dr., moves Veto Act, . 77 
 " urges its repeal, . . 90 
 
 Chapel Acts, Repeal of, . . . 100 
 Charming of kine, . . . .67 
 Charters, early, .... 6 
 Church, its early establishment, . 1 
 
 British 2, 3 
 
 " early administration, . . 3 
 " Ancient Laws, ... 4 
 " under Pictish kings, . . 6 
 " Old Celtic, .... 8 
 " Scottish, when first so called, 8 
 " Councils, . . . 10, 11 
 " represented in Parliament, . 12 
 " its courts, . . . 14-17 
 " its corruption, . . .24 
 " its historical continuity, . 49 
 " confiscation of its property, . 64 
 " when first called the Church 
 
 of Scotland, . . .57 
 " its legitimate Acts protected 
 
 by law, ... 59, 60 
 " its absolute jurisdiction and 
 spiritual independence al- 
 ways recognized by State 
 and Civil Courts — cases 
 of schoolmaster of Blair- 
 gowrie, Kirkpatrick - Dur- 
 ham, Presbytery of Deer, 
 Auchtergaven, . . 104-106 
 " its position towards the law 
 
 and the State, . . 89, 130 
 Churchmen as legislators, and in ad- 
 ministration of justice, . . .14 
 City Churches, Ministers of, nominated 
 
 by Kirk Session, . . . .69 
 Civil Rights, Church never allowed to 
 
 encroach on, . . 15 
 " Veto Act enforced, even 
 
 if it infrmged on, 123, 124 
 Claim of Right, . . . .108 
 " Court did not do what 
 
 is alleged, . 109, 110 
 " Culsalmond case, . 110 
 
 " cases of disciplme, . 112 
 
 " its attack on the Judges, 114 
 
 " its reception by govern- 
 
 ment, . . . 121 
 " its reception by Parlia- 
 
 ment, . . . 121 
 
 Clanship, 6 
 
 " Clerical agitation," . . .118 
 
 Cockbnrn, Lord, his advice to the 
 
 Seceders 123 
 
 Collation, Failure of Church in, . 23 
 
 91 
 
608 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 Collegiate Chnrches, . .43 
 
 Colamba, 2, 5 
 
 Colambanns, 3 
 
 Commission of Assembly, . 32-36 
 
 Commissioner, Queen's, to Assembly, . 57 
 Confession of Faith, . . .27 
 
 " Subscription of, . 38 
 
 Conservator, . . . . .12 
 Consistorial Court, . . . .39 
 
 •' Convocation," Statement of views of 
 
 Seceders by the, , . . .119 
 Corruption of Church, Statutes by Par- 
 liament and by Church for reforming, 24 
 Councils, Scottish, . . . .11 
 Courts of the Church, . . 14-17 
 " Jurisdiction of, . . 60, 61, 67 
 " restrained by Act 1711, . . 70 
 " jurisdiction over witnesses, . 70 
 Crown, Right of, to be present at 
 
 Assemblies, 28 
 
 Crown rights claimed over Church and 
 
 Church property, . 13 
 " right to call and dissolve 
 
 Assemblies, . .67 
 " dispute in 1693, . 68 
 
 Cnldees, 7 
 
 Culross, Case of, . . . .76 
 Cunningham,Dr.Wm. How the Seceders 
 
 were " educated for the disruption," 120 
 Deer, Case in Presbytery of, . .106 
 
 DeicolsE, 7 
 
 "Disruption" in 1717, . . 69,70 
 
 of 1843, ... 71 
 
 Doctrine untouched after Reformation, 56 
 
 Ducking in Clyde, . . . .66 
 
 Endowments of Church, . . .40 
 
 " of Glasgow, . 43, 46, 46 
 
 " North Berwick, . . 43 
 
 " Moray, . . .43 
 
 " St. Andrews, . . 44 
 
 " Paisley, ... 44 
 
 " Melrose, . . .44 
 
 " by the Crown, . .47 
 
 " by Mr. James Baird, . 48 
 
 " legal position of the, . 48 
 
 Episcopacy, earliest form of, . .4 
 
 " Attempt by James VL to 
 
 introduce, . . .56 
 Establishment of Church, . . .27 
 " Principle of, held by 
 
 Free Church, . 125, 126 
 
 Fiacc, Bishop, ..... 4 
 
 General Assembly — Its jurisdiction, . 30 
 
 Its first meetings, . . . 66, 57 
 
 Dispute as to Crown's right in calling 
 
 and dissolving, . . . .58 
 Forms observed at calling and dis- 
 solving, .... 58, 59 
 Refuses to obey judgment of Civil 
 Courts in Auchterarder and 
 Stewarton cases, . 85, 86, 100 
 
 Page 
 19 
 
 129 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 56 
 
 Girth, grith. See Sanctuary, 
 Hamilton, Sir William, his opinion of 
 
 Free Church position, . 
 India, Chaplains in, . 
 lona, gift of island to Columba, 
 " head of Church in Scotland, 
 " Black Monks established in, 
 Irish Church, .... 
 James VI. endeavours to introduce 
 Episcopacy, ..... 
 Judges of Com't of Session, Abuse of, 
 
 by Seceding part}-, 91, 120 
 " their defence by Mr. Taylor 
 
 Innes, . . .120 
 Jurisdiction of Church Courts. See 
 
 Kirk Session. 
 Jus Devolutum, voice of people under, 
 excluded by Veto Act, . . .79 
 
 Kalledei 7 
 
 Kentigern, ..... 7 
 King, his independence of Church, 11, 17 
 Kirkpatrick-Durham, Case of, . . 105 
 Kirk Sessions, their early powers, . 60 
 " large jurisdiction, 60, 61 
 
 " at first the only courts 
 
 of the Church, . 61 
 " Punishments inflicted 
 
 by, . . 65, 66 
 
 " Magistrates to be mem- 
 
 bers of, . . . 66 
 " Ministers of Glasgow 
 
 nominated by, . . 69 
 
 Law Courts, 17 
 
 " after the Reformation, 38, 39 
 
 Lawsuit, early ecclesiastical, . .18 
 Lay Coramendators, . . . .51 
 Lords of Erection, . . . .62 
 Magistrates to be members of Kirk 
 
 Session, . . .66 
 
 " assisting at communions, 67 
 
 " members of Assembly, . 67 
 
 Manorial Churches, . . . .42 
 
 Manses and glebes not annexed to 
 
 Crown at Reformation, . . .53 
 Margaret, Queen, her reforms, . .10 
 Marnoch case — 
 
 Proceedings of Presbytery, . . 93 
 
 Decision of Court of Session, . 93 
 
 Ordination of Mr. Edwards, . . 95 
 Deposition by Assembly of majority 
 of Presbytery, . . . .95 
 Matrimonial causes — Presbyteries and 
 Kirk Sessions exercising jurisdic- 
 tion in, ..... 68 
 Ministers and elders. Courts of. See 
 
 Kirk Session, . . . .60 
 Missionaries in India misled by state- 
 ments in Claim of Right, and by 
 Dr. Duff, .... 116, 116 
 Moderator of Assembly, . . .56 
 Monasteries, Earliest, . . . 4, 8 
 
INDEX. 
 
 609 
 
 Page 
 
 Monastic system 5 
 
 Moncrieff, Sir Henry, his refusal to re- 
 cognize civil rights when conflicting 
 with Acts of the Chnrch, . , 123 
 Monks, their service to civilization, . 26 
 Notaries, . . . . 17, 18 
 
 NotiticB of David, . . . 45, 46 
 Papal authority subservient to that of 
 
 State, ... 11, 12 
 
 " Bulls, 15 
 
 " schism, 12 
 
 Parish, 42 
 
 Parliament, Early independent action 
 
 of, . . . 12, 13 
 " Representation of Chnrch 
 
 in 12 
 
 " Ministers represented in, 56 
 
 Parliamentary Churches, . . .48 
 Parochia, ..... 4 
 Parochial school system, Settlement of, 
 
 under Charles I., . . . .56 
 " Patrimony of the Kirk," . . 50 
 
 Patronage, its history, . . . 71 
 " its abolition opposed by 
 
 Non-intrusionists, 73, 74 
 " Abolition of, . . 74, 101 
 Pictish kingdom, . . . 6, 10 
 " law, Church freed from servi- 
 tude under, ... 6 
 Pope, his jurisdiction, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18 
 Poverty of Clergy, . , .64, 56 
 Presbytery of Glasgow — poverty of cer- 
 tain ministers, . . . .65 
 Priests, Early investiture of, . . 42 
 " title of " Sir," . . .61 
 Privy Council, its powers, . 17, 39, 40 
 " calling of Assemblies, . 57 
 Queen Anne, Act relating to patron- 
 age, 72 
 
 Quoad sacra new parishes erected, 48, 10 L 
 Reformation, State of Church before, . 23 
 Reformed Church not a new Church, . 50 
 Reformers, Statutes against, . 24, 25 
 
 Roman party, 6 
 
 Round towers, ..... 9 
 Royal Burghs, Representatives of, in 
 General Assembly, . . 31, 67 
 
 Page 
 68 
 19 
 6 
 71 
 16 
 
 ques- 
 
 Royal Commissioner, . 
 Sanctuary, Right of, 
 Scriptures, old British version of 
 Secession of 1843, . 
 Serfs, their ordination, 
 
 " Jurisdiction of Church in 
 tions relating to, . 
 Single combat by Churchmen, 
 Spiritual independence and jurisdiction 
 of Chnrch, . 
 " recognized through all the 
 
 disputes, 102, 104, 105, 106 
 " not possessed by Church of 
 England, nor by Free 
 Chnrch, . . 107, 126 
 Spoliation of Chnrch, . . .51 
 State, its independent action, . 11, 12 
 Steeple of Blackfriars Church a place 
 of confinement for offenders against 
 
 69 
 
 Church laws, 
 Stewarton case. 
 Stipends, 
 
 Strathbogie case. See Marnoch 
 Superintendents, 
 Synods of Church, 
 Teinds, . 15, 41, 42, 47, 62, 53, 54 
 
 *' settlement of question under 
 Charles I., ... 
 Thirds of benefices, .... 
 Titulars of Teinds, .... 
 Tribal system, .... 
 
 Union, Treaty of, . 
 Universities, Representatives of, in 
 
 General Assembly, . . 
 Unst, Case of, .... 
 
 Veto Act, 
 
 " proposal to repeal it by Dr, 
 
 Chalmers, 
 " continued refusal of Seceders 
 
 to repeal it, . 
 " its repeal in 1843, . 
 
 Visitors, 
 
 William & Mary, Act for settling the 
 quiet and peace of the Church, . 
 Difference between King and As- 
 sembly as to Assurance, . 57, 58 
 Witchcraft dealt with by Presbyteries, 67 
 
 65 
 95,96 
 63,64 
 92, 93 
 62, 63 
 . 10 
 
 66 
 63 
 62 
 2 
 88 
 
 31 
 76 
 
 77 
 
 90 
 
 123 
 
 124 
 
 33 
 
 67 
 
 THE CHURCH'S DOCTRINE (VOL. IV.) 
 
 Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, . 139 
 
 Aidan, first bishop of Lindisfame, . 140 
 Auricular confession enjoined by the 
 
 Lateran Council, .... 145 
 
 Barclay, Robert, and the Quakers, . 241 
 
 Baron, Robert, professor of theology, . 212 
 
 Baxterianism, 211 
 
 Bibhcal criticism. Spread of, . . 300 
 Bishop and presbyter identical in the 
 
 apostolic age, .... 140 
 Blair, Dr. Hugh, sermons, . . 277 
 Boece, Hector, . . . .135 
 Boston, Thomas, author of " The Four- 
 fold State," 260 
 
610 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 Bourignianism, .... 247 
 
 BourigTion, Antoinette — her life and 
 teaching — her confession of faitb,247, 248 
 
 Boyd, Robert, 208 
 
 Brown, John, his writings, . . 243 
 
 Calvin's Catechism of the Christian 
 
 religion 204 
 
 Cameron, John, his life and char- 
 acter 209 
 
 Campbell, Dr. Archibald, replies to 
 Tindall — suspicions of his ortho- 
 doxy — the Assembly cautions him, 279 
 Campbell, John M'Leod, of Row — his 
 teaching — charged with heresy — 
 the Assembly deposes him from the 
 ministry, . . . .286-288 
 Catechism, The Little, , . .205 
 " Craig's, . . . .205 
 " Larger and Shorter, . 226 
 
 Catholic and Apostolic Church founded, 290 
 Celibacy of the clergy, . . . 169 
 Charteris, Lawrence, his writings, . 241 
 Church government and doctrine, . 134 
 " History of early, . . . 135 
 " State of the, before the Refor- 
 mation, .... 170 
 " The, without a confession, 
 
 catechism, or liturgy, . 233 
 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, on " The Scripture 
 
 Doctrine of the Trinity," . . 263 
 Columba, St. " Life " of, by Adamnan, 139 
 " works miracles by the sign 
 
 of the cross, . . .143 
 " his deathbed instructions, . 152 
 Columban Church, The — three orders 
 in — Encharistic service or mass — 
 transubstantiation — baptism and the 
 sign of the cross — no trace of ex- 
 treme unction — auricular confession 
 unknown — the amcbara or soul- 
 friend — purgatory unknown — cele- 
 bration of mass for the dead — prayer 
 for the intercession of saints — fes- 
 tivals of the Church — diflference in 
 the time of observing Easter, 139-155 
 Confession of Faith, The Scottish — 
 adopted by Parliament as the estab- 
 lished creed of Scotland — synopsis 
 of its articles — preface to it — its 
 statement of doctrine — on the inter- 
 pretation of scripture and toleration 
 — on the power of the civil magis- 
 trate — a golden rule for the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture, . . 178-192 
 Confession of Faith, The King's, . 197 
 Confession of Faith, The, and the Scot- 
 tish Presbyterian Churches — relaxa- 
 tion in subscription, . . 295-298 
 Covenanted Church of Scotland, . 233 
 
 Covenanters, The Scottish — then: con- 
 duct when in power, . .226 
 
 Pago 
 
 Covenanters' motto, " For Christ, His 
 Crown and Covenant" — they reject 
 the indulgence — refuse to pay taxes 
 — renounce allegiance to Charles — 
 excommunicate him and the Duke 
 of York, .... 237-239 
 
 Covenanters' opposition to the Church 
 of the Revolution settlement, . . 244 
 
 Cowper, William, bishop of Gallo- 
 way, 208 
 
 Craig, John, his theological works, . 207 
 
 Crawar, Paul, martyrdom of, . .174 
 
 Culdees, The, first mention of, in Scot- 
 land — their origin — appearance in 
 Scotland as communities — the cus- 
 todians of relics — their irregularities 
 in the celebration of mass — their 
 office at St. Andrews — their service 
 books — character — wherein they 
 differed from Protestantism, . 162-170 
 
 Cuthbert, St. — his vision — becomes a 
 monk at Melrose — " Life '' of, by 
 Bede— his death, . . . 157, 158 
 
 Dickson, David, speech before Glasgow 
 Assembly — his works, . . 215, 231 
 
 Directory for Public Worship, Ap- 
 proval of, 226 
 
 " Disi-uption," The, . . . .292 
 
 Doctrine and duty united, . . 133 
 
 Douglas, Robert, . . . .230 
 
 Episcopacy, Diocesan, abolished, . 194 
 
 " restored by Charles IL, . 234 
 
 Episcopal government restored, . 198 
 
 " Church, Opposition to, . 236 
 
 Erskine, Ebenezer, preaches before the 
 Synod of Perth and Stirling — his 
 assertion of the right of the people 
 to elect their ministers — discussion 
 in the Synod regarding the sermon — 
 they censure him — he appeals to 
 the Assembly — they support the 
 Synod and appoint him to be re- 
 buked and admonished — he protests 
 against the censure — they depose 
 him and his fellow protestors from 
 the ministry — the Assembly's con- 
 ciliatory actions towards them — the " 
 synod reinstates them — they con- 
 stitute themselves a presbytery, and 
 assume jurisdiction as a court — the 
 Assembly deposes them and declares 
 their parishes vacant — the action of 
 the Assembly — the aim of the Se- 
 cession — patronage its chief cause — 
 failure of the Secession to restore 
 the covenants — their successors in 
 the present day, . . . 266-274 
 
 EvangeUcal party. Growth of, . . 285 
 " Union founded, . . 291 
 
 Festivals, Observance of, in the Scot- 
 tish Church 193 
 
INDEX. 
 
 611 
 
 Page 
 Five Articles, The, of Perth, adopted — 
 Garden, Dr. George, on the opposi- 
 tion to them, . . . 200-202 
 Forbes, Dr. Wm., bishop of Edinburgh, 211 
 " John, of Corse, his teaching, . 212 
 Fordonn, John, .... 135 
 
 Free Church, The, removes a professor 
 
 for heresy regarding inspiration, . 297 
 Garden, Dr. George, his work on 
 Bourignianism — summoned to the 
 bar of the Assembly — deposed 
 from the ministry, . . 245-247 
 
 General Assembly's meeting at Glas- 
 gow — discussion regarding doctrine 
 — a commission appointed to try 
 suspected ministers — condemns Ro- 
 bert Rollock, Dr. John Forbes, and 
 others, .... 215,216 
 
 Gib, John, leader of the Sweet Singers, 240 
 Glas, Mr., founder of the Glassites or 
 Sandemanians — deposed for heresy 
 — sentence of deposition recalled, . 280 
 Hamilton's Catechism, . . . 177 
 Hamilton, Patrick, condemned for 
 
 heresy, ..... 176 
 
 Helvetic Confession, The, . . . 193 
 Henderson, Alexander, moderator of 
 
 the Glasgow Assembly, . . .230 
 Hogg, Thomas, and Dr. Lyndsay, Dis- 
 putation between, . . . 203 
 Indulgences to Presbyterian ministers, 238 
 Inspiration of the Bible, Question as to, 298 
 In'ing, Edward, deposed by the pres- 
 bytery of Annan — his last speech to 
 the presbytery — comparison between 
 Campbell and Irving, . . 289, 290 
 Kentigem, St. , " Life " of, by Joceline 
 — his mission to Strathclyde — founds 
 a monastery in Wales — death, 155, 156 
 Knox, John, his theological opinions, . 206 
 Leechman, Professor, on prayer — sus- 
 pected of unsoundness — acquitted, 281 
 Leighton, Archbishop, his writings, . 232 
 Leslie, Mr., appointed to the chair of 
 mathematics in Edinburgh Univer- 
 sity — case of his orthodoxy before 
 the Assembly, . . . 284, 285 
 Liberality, Growing, of the Church, . 283 
 Libran and St. Columba, . . . 144 
 Literature, Scottish, confined to theo- 
 logical polemics, . . 275 
 " Secular, influence of, . 299 
 Lollardism in Glasgow, . . . 175 
 " Spread of, in Scotland, . 176 
 
 Lollards, The 173 
 
 Macgill, Dr. " A Practical Essay on 
 the Death of Christ " — accused of 
 teaching Socinianism — he apologizes 
 and is acquitted, . . . .282 
 Margaret, Queen, conference with the 
 Scottish clergy, . . . .164 
 
 3Q 
 
 Page 
 " Marrow of Modern Divinity," repub- 
 lication of — controversy regarding 
 it — the Assembly condemns it — re- 
 monstrance against the decision of 
 the Assembly — the Remonstrants 
 called before the Commission — 
 queries put to the Remonstrants — 
 their answer — report of the Com- 
 mission to the Assembly — accept- 
 ance of the report by the Assembly, 
 and the Remonstrants rebuked and 
 admonished — they protest — the con- 
 clusion of the controversy, . 253-260 
 Melville, Andrew, . . . .208 
 Moderate party. The, . . 278, 285 
 " School in theology, . . 277 
 Morality and Christianity, . . 133 
 
 Morrison, Mr., a Secession minister, 
 
 deposed, 291 
 
 Nectan, King, orders the Roman Easter 
 Sunday and coronal tonsure to be 
 observed, ..... 161 
 Ninian, St. — goes to Rome to study — 
 state of religion there at the time — 
 his return to Galloway, . 136-139 
 
 Non-intrusionists, The, . . 292 
 
 Northumbrian Church, The, its doc- 
 trines and worship, . . . 158 
 Office-bearers of the Church, ecclesi- 
 astical power of, . . . . 196 
 Origen on the state of the departed, . 146 
 Palatine or Heidelberg Catechism, . 205 
 Popular party, The, . . . .278 
 Prayers for the dead, . . . 147 
 " Preaching on the System," . . 277 
 
 Presbytery versus Prelacy, . .194 
 
 Presbyterianism overthrown by Charles 
 
 II.— re-established, . . 236, 243 
 
 Presbyterians refuse to take the oath 
 of allegiance, and to attend the 
 parish churches, .... 238 
 Quakerism in Scotland, . . . 240 
 Religion, Comparative history of, . 300 
 Remonstrants or Marrow men, . . 255 
 Resby, John, Martyrdom of, . . 173 
 Rescissory Act, The, . . . 234 
 
 Resolutioners, The, and the Protesters, 229 
 Restoration, Presbyterians and anni- 
 versary of, . . . . . 237 
 Revival of Uterature and philosophic 
 
 thought, ..... 276 
 Ritual and doctrine, . . . 133 
 
 Rollock, Robert, . . . .152 
 Roman Catholics and the Church, . 284 
 " Catholic Church, Development 
 of doctrine in, since the Reformation, 293 
 Rutherford, Samuel, . . .231 
 
 Rye, Philip, and the Solemn League 
 
 and Covenant, . . . .219 
 Saints, Communion of, . . . 148 
 Salisbury liturgy, .... 172 
 
612 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Science, Influence of natui'al, . . 300 
 " Scotch Sermons " — one of the writers 
 
 admonished by the Assembly, . 297 
 
 Scotland, Divisions of, at the time of 
 
 St Colnmba, . . . 139 
 " Early church of, difference be- 
 tween, and Roman Catholic 
 and Protestant churches, 159-162 
 Scottish Church, Meeting of the 
 
 provincial general council of the, . 178 
 Scottish Episcopal Church, . . 293 
 Scottish theology, Modem, . . 301 
 Scongal, Henry, his work, . . 242 
 
 Sirason, Professor, charged with teach- 
 ing false doctrine, . . 249-251 
 Simson, Professor, again charged with 
 teaching false doctrine — inquiry into 
 his teaching — his suspension, 261-266 
 Solemn League and Covenant, The, . 217 
 Subscription to the Confession of Faith 
 imposed on all ministers and 
 
 elders, 244 
 
 Supremacy of the Assembly, . . 228 
 Sweet Singers, The, .... 240 
 Test Act of 1681, The, . . ,235 
 Test imposed by the presbytery of 
 Auchterarder, . . . 251, 252 
 
 Page 
 
 Tindall's " Chi-istianity as old as the 
 Creation," .... 278 
 
 Torwood, Covenanters excommuDicate 
 the King, &c, at, ' . . . 240 
 
 Transubstantiation formulated by the 
 Lateran Council, .... 142 
 
 United Associate Synod divinity hall 
 and the atonement, . . .291 
 
 United Presbyterian Synod deposes a 
 minister for heresy regarding eternal 
 punishment, . . . .296 
 
 Vane, Sir Harry, and the Solemn 
 League and Covenant, . . ,218 
 
 Veto Act and the Chapel Act, . . 292 
 
 Westminster Confession — its origin — 
 accepted by the General Assembly 
 and the Scottish estates — the As- 
 sembly's reservations — its contents 
 — comparison of the old with the 
 Westminster Confession, . 220-226 
 
 Westminster Confession the only creed 
 of the Church 243 
 
 Whitefield, George, . . . .283 
 
 Wickliffe the reformer, . , .172 
 
 Wickliffites, errors of, condemned by 
 the Council of Constance, . , 175 
 
 Wright, Mr. of Borthwick, deposed, . 291 
 
 THE CHURCH'S EITUAL (VOL. V.) 
 
 Architecture, Church, . . 413, 414 
 Baptism, Order of, . . . .342 
 " Private, . . . .405 
 Bernham, Pontifical of, . . . 308 
 " Book of Deer," . . . .307 
 Breviary of Aberdeen, . . ,308 
 Burial service of the Common Order, , 350 
 " in the eighteenth century, 411 
 
 Calderwood's " Altare Damascenum," 374 
 Campbell, Sir Hugh, and Lord's Prayer 
 
 in public worship, , . , 397 
 
 Channel Islands, The Liturgy of, , 324 
 
 Common Order, Analysis of Book of, 325 
 
 Communion, change to present style, . 420 
 
 " service of the Common 
 
 Order, . . .357 
 
 " services in the eighteenth 
 
 century, . , . 407 
 " services of the Protesters, 388 
 Congregation, Lords of the, issue an 
 
 ordinance on church service, . . 309 
 Consecration of churches, . . , 308 
 Cromwell suppresses the General As- 
 sembly, 387 
 
 Directory for public worship agreed 
 upon at Westminster — summary of 
 
 its principal articles — sanctioned by 
 the Assembly — supplementary Act 
 passed, .... 379-384 
 Directory, Failure of the, as a British 
 
 liturgy, 386 
 
 Discipline, Book of — its authorship 
 
 and text — the compilers of, . 318-321 
 Dress, Change in clerical, . . . 400 
 Edward VI., Second book of — use of, 
 
 in Scotland, . . .311-314 
 
 Elizabeth, New liturgy of, . .321 
 
 Fast-days, Introduction of, . . 389 
 Fasting and festivals of the Common 
 
 Order, 351 
 
 French Book of Discipline, . . 322 
 Gaelic, Common Order translated into 
 — service to be used when a ship 
 leaves the shore, . . . .415 
 Geneva, Book of, . . . . 319 
 Greenshields, Mr. — Court of Session 
 condemns him for using the English 
 service — the House of Lords reverses 
 the decision, .... 402 
 
 Hats, Wearing of, in church, . . 399 
 Highland communions, . . . 417 
 Highlands, Condition of the Church in, 416 
 
INDEX. 
 
 613 
 
 Page 
 
 Henderson's " Government and Order of 
 
 the Church," . . . .336 
 
 Homilies, English book of, . . 314 
 
 Hymnal, Introduction of a, . .421 
 
 James VL forces the Five Articles on 
 
 the Church, . . .364 
 '' seeks to change the Uturgy, 367 
 Knox, John, his opposition to the 
 
 English liturgy, . . . .321 
 Lee, Dr. Robert, introduces the organ 
 
 and other changes in public worship, 421 
 Leighton, Archbishop, exhortations to 
 
 reform in church worship, . .393 
 
 Leith, Treaty of, . . . .318 
 
 Lifters, Sect of, .... 410 
 
 Liturgy, Partial reintroduction of a, . 420 
 
 " Tie, of 1637— its differences 
 
 from the English liturgy, . 370 
 Lord's Prayer, Use of the, dropped in 
 public worship — controversy regard- 
 ing its reintroduction, . . 385, 398 
 Marriage ceremony, Gradual change in, 411 
 " of the Common Order,349 
 
 Missal, Arbuthnott, . . . .308 
 Morer's description of an Episcopal 
 
 service in Scotland, . . . 394 
 Ordination service of the Common Order,344 
 Organ, Introduction of, into worship, 308 
 
 Page 
 Paraphrases, Introduction of the, . 404 
 Policy, Book of, ... . 318 
 Preachers and readers in Scotland, . 358 
 Preaching, Injunctions concerning, . 316 
 " subordinate in the English 
 
 Church, . . .361 
 Psalms, Adoption of the metric, . 386 
 
 Public worship. Mode of, at beginning 
 
 of nineteenth century, . . . 418 
 Reform, Modern progress in Church, 422 
 Reformation, Change of ritual at the, 309 
 Restoration, Church of the, . .391 
 
 Revolution, Churches of the, . . 395 
 Ritual, Scantiness of historical material 305 
 " Early British, different from 
 
 Romish, . . . .306 
 Roman Worship, Gradual extinction of , 317 
 Rous' translation of the Psalms — adop- 
 tion of, in the Scottish Church, . 386 
 Sarum, Use of, forced. . . . 307 
 Scotland and England, Divergence be- 
 tween churches of, . . . 357 
 Sermons, Reading of, . . . 403 
 Sports, Book of, ... . 35G 
 St. Giles, Riot in, over the new ritual, 373 
 Westminster Assembly, The — the Scot- 
 tish representatives at, . . . 377 
 Worship, Mixed forms of, . .315 
 
 THE CHURCH'S DISCIPLINE (VOL. V.) 
 
 Absolution, .... 545-554 
 Argyll, Lady, makes public repentance, 537 
 Autonomy of Roman Catholic Church, 486 
 Catechising the young. Practice of, . 443 
 Cautions and bonds for good behaviour, 484 
 Censure, Presbyterial diet of privy, , 481 
 Church censures, .... 486 
 
 " fines, 510 
 
 Communion — a disciplinary ordinance 
 — frequency of celebration — solem- 
 nity of occasion — examination of 
 communicants — removal of offences 
 before — preparatory services and 
 
 fasts 450-461 
 
 Commutations for public penitence, . 639 
 Confession, Public and voluntary, . 466 
 Confessional, The Roman Catholic, . 444 
 Corporal punishment, . . . 512 
 
 Delation, Method of inquiry on, . 468 
 
 Democratic theory of church govern- 
 ment — repudiation of, by the Church 
 of Scotland, .... 543 
 
 Denunciations in Roman Catholic 
 
 Church, . . . . . 473 
 Discipline, Ecclesiastical, . . 427 
 
 Discipline, corrective and restorative, . 464 
 " Retrospect of , . . .613 
 Elders, Duties of, . . . 428, 476 
 Espionage in the Church of Scotland, 475 
 " in Roman Catholic Church, 474 
 Excommunication, lesser and greater — 
 mode of procedure — examples — con- 
 sequences — frequency, . . 497-506 
 Famas, Procedure in cases of , . .469 
 Faithful, Educative discipline of the, . 429 
 Fasting in the Reformed Church, . 445 
 Home, Absolution of Lord, . .651 
 Indulgences in the Roman Catholic 
 
 Church, 536 
 
 Innocence, Oath of, . . . . 482 
 
 Inquisition and surveillance, . . 465 
 
 Interdicts, Sacramental, . . . 495 
 
 Penance and censure, . . .516 
 
 " Public, in the early Church, . 516 
 
 " Duration of, ... 526 
 
 " Money payments for, . .536 
 
 Penitence, Public, in the Reformed 
 
 Church, 518 
 
 Penitents, Dress of, . . . 530-532 
 Prayer, Discipline of, . . .429 
 
614 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Prayers, Liturgical — read and extem- 
 pore — public daily — private and 
 family, . .' . . 431-438 
 
 Preaching, discipline of, . . .438 
 Privileges, Kefusal of church, . . 492 
 Protestant and Eoman Catholic disci- 
 pline contrasted, .... 461 
 Punishment, Civil, and the Church, . 606 
 " Church, for sin, . . 542 
 
 Purgation, Oath of, . . . . 468 
 Rebuke, a form of church censure, . 488 
 " Sessional, private and public, 490 
 Repentance, Form and order of public, 617 
 
 Page 
 
 Repentance, Place of, in churches, . 623 
 " Repetitions of public, . 526 
 
 Satisfaction, Penitential, . . . 516 
 " Catholic and Protestant, 520 
 
 Scriptures, Public reading of the, , 441 
 Self-government, Independent, of the 
 
 Church, 487 
 
 Session-bailie, Anomalous position of, 508 
 Surveillance, Catholic and Protestant, 
 
 contrasted, ..... 484 
 
 Unfaithful, Discipline of the, . . 464 
 
 Visitations, Pastoral, . . . 445 
 
 " Presbjterial, of parishes, . 479 
 
 TEINDS OR TITHES AND CHURCH PROPERTY IN 
 SCOTLAND (VOL. V.) 
 
 Anne, Queen, grant to Synod of Argyll, 567 
 Annuity tax, Commutation of, . . 592 
 Benefices, Parochial, . . 668 
 
 Can and Conveth, Tithe of, . . 564 
 Canons relating to teinds, . .565 
 
 Charles I., submissions to and awards of, 580 
 Christ and his disciples. Support of, 
 
 by followers and friends, . . 560 
 Church, Possessions of, . . . 572 
 Church lands. Annexation of , to crown, 674 
 Churchmen, their position and orders, 570 
 Clergy, Position of the, before the 
 
 Reformation, .... 572 
 David I. grants teinds to the Church, 564 
 Fiars prices, . . . . .691 
 King's, The, annuity from the teinds, 584 
 Levites, Cities of the, . . .658 
 Parish, The teinds of the, . . .593 
 Parishes, Erection of, . . .666 
 
 Patrons' rights to nnappropriated teinds, 685 
 Paul, St., and the maintenance of the 
 
 ministry, ..... 561 
 " Pious Uses," Meaning of, . 581 
 
 Plat, Commission of, . .676 
 
 Plenum Dominium, .... 663 
 Poor, Tithe for the, . . . .659 
 Possessions, Territorial, of the religions 
 
 houses, ..... 668 
 Priests' right to firstfraits, . . 658 
 Quoad Sacra parishes, Endowment of, 693 
 Reformed clergy. Poverty of, . . 575 
 Revocation, Act of, . . . . 578 
 Scotland, Ecclesiastical divisions of, . 569 
 Stipends of town parishes, . . 692 
 
 Surrenders and Teinds, Commissioners 
 
 of, 680 
 
 Teinds, the Scottish name for tithes, . 657 
 " Court of, ... . 666 
 " Uplifting of, . . .577 
 
 " Loss of records of , . . . 683 
 " Powers of Court of, . . 586 
 " Value of the, , . 587 
 
 " Vicarage, .... 589 
 " Classification of, . . 589 
 
 Tithes, Mosaic law of, . . . 558 
 " Levitical and English, . . 559 
 " in the early Christian Church, 562 
 Valuations, Work of Commission on, 582 
 
 PRINTED BT WILLIAM MACKENZIE, HOWARD STREET . GLASGOW. 
 
Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer 
 
 1 1012 01127 249