The nature of the church, and the notes by which the true church is to be discerned, are explained in chapters xvi. and xviii. As in most of the other Reformed or Calvinistic Confessions, greater prominence is assigned to the Invisible Church, consisting of the elect of all times and nations, than to the general visible church subsisting at any particular time in the world and embracing all who profess faith in Christ and submit to the godly discipline He has prescribed. The notes by which it may be discerned whether any branch of the professing church is indeed part of the true Kirk of Christ are stated negatively—not to be "antiquitie, title usurpit, lineal descente, place appointed, nor multitude of men approving," as Roman Catholics were wont to allege; and positively to be "the trew preaching of the Worde of God," "the right administration of the Sacraments," and "ecclesiastical discipline uprightlie ministred as Goddis Worde prescribes."[130] "These articles," as Principal Notes of the True Church. Lee has so pithily expressed it, "have been almost as disagreeable to some Episcopalian writers as they were to the most servile adherents of the pope. It is thought a most dangerous omission to make no mention of uninterrupted succession and conveyance of authority from the apostles. This omission has been somewhat incorrectly charged against the reformers of our church. They do certainly mention lineal succession, but they mention it only to disown it. They say that though the Jewish priests in our Saviour's time 'lineally descended from Aaron,' yet no 'man of sound judgment will grant that they were the Church of God.'"[131] They further assert that wherever the three notes given above are found and continue for any time (be the number never so few above two or three), there without all doubt is the true Kirk of Christ, who according to His promise is in the midst of them; and in this they are borne out not only by Calvin but by Luther, who boldly affirmed: "Were I the only man on earth that held by the Word, I alone would be the church, and I would be justified in pronouncing of all the rest of the world that it was not the church."
The only other parts of the Confession I deem it necessary to refer to in this review of it are the chapters relating to the sacraments and the right use of them. It was asserted some years ago by a leader of modern thought in Scotland that Knox did not go beyond the Zwinglian doctrine regarding the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and that his Order for the administration of it was a bold protest against the "mystical jargon" which Luther employed, and from which Calvin was not free. When he made this assertion he seems to have forgot that the address in Knox's Order for the administration of the Lord's Supper was little else than a translation of that in Calvin's Liturgy, and teaches exactly the same mystical doctrine. This doctrine is no less explicitly taught in the Confession; and Stähelin, whose competence to judge in the matter cannot be questioned, maintains that the Zwinglian doctrine is as explicitly rejected as the Romano-Lutheran; and that the language as well as the doctrine closely resembles Calvin's.Two Sacraments only. The text of the common editions of the Confession speaks of two chief sacraments only as being appointed under the New Testament as well as under the Old. From this expression, some, who are more familiar with Anglican than with Calvinistic formularies, have concluded that Knox, like several of the earlier English reformers, attributed a quasi-sacramental character to some of the other rites regarded as sacraments by the Romanists. But in the copy of the Confession reprinted in Dr Laing's edition of Knox's History the word chief is omitted in the second instance, and the clause runs two sacraments only.[132] Perhaps it will be accepted as some confirmation of the correctness of this reading that it is identical with that found in Alasco's 'Epitome Doctrinæ Ecclesiarum Frisiæ Orientalis,' from which treatise the opening sentence of chapter xxi. of the Scottish Confession may possibly have been taken,[133] though the verbal coincidence with the early edition of Calvin's Institutes is in some respects more marked.
Such are the main contents and general bearing of this ancient Scottish Confession. Notwithstanding the confident assertions to the contrary made of late both within and without the Presbyterian churches, I venture to think that no one who, with a good conscience and honest intent, could sign that Confession, and answer in the affirmative the questions regarding election put to candidates for the ministry at their ordination, need hesitate to put his name to that which in 1647 was received as "in nothing contrary" to the former, and held its place alongside of it even after the restoration of Charles II., and under the episcopal régime.[134] Most assuredly at least no one need hesitate to do so who would have put his name to that Confession which was drawn up in the time of the first episcopacy,[135] and which is quite as distinctively Calvinistic as the Westminster Confession, while it ventures incidentally to determine some points the Westminster divines have wisely left undetermined.[136] The old Confession can advance no claim to the terse English style, the logical accuracy, the Type of Scottish Theology. judicial calmness, and intimate acquaintance with early patristic theology which characterise that mature product of the faith and thought of the more learned Puritans of the south. I am not ashamed to avow that it has long appeared to me that there is somewhat to be said in favour of the opinion that Scottish presbyterianism gained quite as much as, nay, more than, it lost, by being brought into contact with the broader, richer, and decidedly more catholic spirit of the south, and adding to its earlier symbolical books those which it still holds in common with almost all the orthodox presbyterians of the Anglo-Saxon race. No one who will take the trouble to read the report of the discussion on Arminianism in the Scottish General Assembly of 1638[137] will, I am sure, be so bold as to affirm that the type of theology then prevalent among Scottish ministers was in any material respect different from that which was set forth in the Confession of 1647, and which has never since, either under episcopal or presbyterian régime, been set aside in the National Church. The teaching of the latest of our symbolical books imposes nothing in regard to the doctrines known as Calvinistic[138] but what is explicitly contained in or fairly deducible from the earliest Confession drawn up for the English church at Geneva, of which Knox was pastor, and adopted (along with the larger one on which I have been commenting) at the beginning of the Reformation in Scotland, and printed in Scotch psalm-books[139] as late as 1638, in which it is asserted "which church is not seene to man's eye but only knowne to God, who of the lost sonnes of Adam hath ordained some as vessels of wrath to damnation, and hath chosen others as vessels of His mercy to bee saved, the which also in due time He calleth to integritie of life and godly conversation to make them a glorious church to Himselfe."[140]
Unmeasured Language.
Probably, however, the main argument against recurring to the old Scottish Confession of 1560 is that derived from the unmeasured language of vituperation in which it, as well as the contemporary forms of recantation[141] required of priests at that date, indulges when referring to the teaching of the members of the pre-Reformation church. No doubt it might be deemed sufficient proof of this to subjoin the examples furnished in chapter xviii. on the "Notis" or marks by which "the trewe Kirk is decernit fra the false," where the old church is designated the "pestilent synagoge," "the filthie synagogue," and "the horrible harlot, the kirk malignant"[142]—the last words no doubt meant as a translation of the Vulgate rendering of Psalm xxvi. 5, ecclesiam malignantium,[143] translated "the congregation of evil doers" in our authorised English version. But I may add, in corroboration, that in chapter xxi. on the true uses of the sacraments, the papists are charged with having "perniciouslie taucht and damnablie beleeved" the transubstantiation of the bread into Christ's natural body and of wine into his natural blood,[144] and that in the last chapter the language of Rev. xiv. 11 ("the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image") is adduced in proof of the ultimate fate of those who delight in superstition or idolatry.[145]
The same unrestrained spirit is shown in some contemporary Confessions, notably in the earliest Danish one, the framers of which seem to have kept closer to Luther than to the more gentle Melanchthon: but however excusable it may have been in the fierce battle then forced on them, there can be no doubt that the calmer and more measured language of the later Confession is a decided improvement on the statements of the earlier one; and I do not hesitate to say that, with the simpler formula of 1693-94 recently restored, and the explanatory act which accompanies it—emphasising the distinction between matters of minor importance and the great doctrines of the faith—the position of the ministers of our church in these respects is as nearly what it should be as is that of the ministers in any of the allied Presbyterian churches.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER.
This, though in point of time the first composed of the symbolical books of the Scottish Reformation, was the last to be formally assigned its honoured place. The title it commonly bore in that age was the Book of Common Order. In the First Book of Discipline it is called "the Order of Geneva" and "the Book of our Common Order."[146] In recent times it has been more generally designated as Knox's Liturgy. It has usually been deemed sufficient to say that it was drawn up and first privately and then publicly printed at Geneva, and was directly taken from the liturgy then used there, as well as approved by Calvin. But this is only partially true. The first English congregation on the Continent which invited Knox to be one of its pastors was that formed at Frankfort in 1554, and admitted to hold its services in the same church as the congregation of French-speaking exiles on condition of using the same ceremonies and Confession of Faith as the French.[147] The minister and other office-bearers accordingly signed the Confession of Faith along with those of the French congregation, and it was ultimately incorporated into the Book of Common Order as the exposition of the Apostles' Creed in the baptismal service. The first draft of the Book of Common Order was drawn up before the end of 1554, and privately printed,[148] At Frankfort. to implement the stipulation for conformity with the French in ceremonies as well as in Confession of Faith, and it seems to have been mainly owing to Knox that it was not adopted at once, but that time was given for circulating and examining it. Unfortunately the ambitious plan was taken of inviting the English exiles at Strassburg and Zurich to join with them in their proposed action, which led to those unfortunate disputes, chronicled at length in the 'Troubles at Frankfort,' and to the departure of a large number of the English exiles to Geneva, where through the kindness of Calvin a hospitable reception was promised them, and the Church of Marie la Neuve was assigned for their services and those of the Italian exiles, but without any hampering clause about identity of ceremonies or Confession of Faith. The congregation which shared with the English exiles the church of "the white ladies," or Cistercian nuns, at Frankfort, consisted chiefly of the company of French-speaking exiles which had been originally gathered at Strassburg by Farel, tended for several years by Calvin, and then by Poullain, or Pollanus, under whom, when the Interim was imposed on the city, they had to seek a new home. This they ultimately found in England, to which Bucer and Martyr from the same city had already been invited and had gone. Glastonbury Abbey was assigned for their residence by the king and council, and there they lived in peace and quiet till the close of the reign of Edward VI. In 1551 Pollanus published the first edition of his 'Liturgia Sacra seu Ritus ministerii in ecclesia peregrinorum profugorum propter Evangelium Christi Argentinæ.' No doubt he had heard that the favour shown to Alasco and his congregations of French and Flemings in London was intended to help on further reformation in the Church of England also, and so in a lengthy dedication to the king he bespeaks his favour not only to his congregation but also to their book, affirming "ut in cultu Dei externo ita etiam in disciplina morum nullam esse puriorem aut quæ propius accedat ad illam quæ fuit temporibus Apostolorum." No doubt it was in a similar spirit and in similar terms that he pressed the forms of his book on the acceptance of the English exiles at Frankfort, and to a great extent with success. Their Book of Common Order is founded on Farel's and Calvin's services, but is so after these services have passed through the alembic of Pollanus and been modified and supplemented by him. This will appear from several of the notes subjoined, and will be more fully shown in the Appendix.[149]
Its Authority.