CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE; OR, THE BOOKE OF THE POLICIE OF THE CHURCH.
I regard the First Book of Discipline as, in several respects, the most thoughtful, judicious, practical, and comprehensive of the documents connected with the organisation of the Reformed Church of Scotland. It was drawn up by the same six men[180] who were subsequently entrusted with the preparation of the Confession of Faith; and it has been said that they first settled the titles of the several chapters, and then apportioned the preparation of so many of them to each. But this is matter of pure conjecture. The portion on the universities, from the multitude of its practical details, we cannot but assign mainly to Douglas, the Principal of St Mary's College, and Wynram, the sub-prior of Knox's part in its preparation. the Augustinian Monastery at St Andrews. One can hardly doubt that the rest, if not actually drafted by Knox, was carefully remoulded by him; and it bears evidence of acquaintance with books which were far more likely to have been known to him than to any of the others—as Herman of Cologne's Book of the Reformation, Latin versions of some of the earlier Kirchenbücher or Kirchenordnungen of the German Protestants, and probably of the famous Ordonnances of Calvin, as drafted at Geneva after his return from exile.
I. The Government of the Church.
The opinions of our reformer and his associates respecting the government and discipline of the church are gathered partly from the opening chapters of the Book of Common Order, but mainly from the treatise ultimately entitled the First Book of Discipline. I believe that a careful study of these will lead to a pretty definite conclusion as to what these opinions actually were, and to a pretty decided conviction that, like their opinions respecting matters of doctrine and ritual, they were substantially in harmony with those to which the Scottish nation has been so long and firmly attached. It may be admitted that there were some of Knox's associates who, whatever may have been their own private sentiments, would, on grounds of expediency, have been contented to retain the former hierarchical government of the church; and if on such a point any weight is to be allowed to the assertions of Spottiswoode,[181] the popish Archbishop of St Andrews might possibly in that case not have refused to follow the course taken for a time by his relatives in St Mary's College, and to remain at his post at the head of the reformed church. But from the disastrous issue of the compromise in their case, as well as from what is known and indisputable of his own history and character, there is no reason to suppose that anything was lost, but on the contrary that incalculable gain accrued to the reformed church from this temptation not being put in his way. It was long maintained by the leaders of the Scottish episcopalians that Knox himself, to a certain extent, yielded to the wishes of his less thoroughgoing associates, and was implicated with them in certain attempts to continue or restore the semblance of a hierarchy in the new church. In fact, some of them went so far as to assert that it was not till after his death that controversy arose as to whether the episcopal or presbyterian form of government was the more primitive and scriptural. These views, if I understand rightly, are now abandoned by their ablest men; and it was full time that they should be so. The works of Whitgift, which have been republished in our own day and made more generally accessible, clearly show that the controversy about the presbyterian government of the church had been formally raised even in England at least as early as 1568; while the Later Helvetic Confession, approved by the Church of Scotland in 1566 at the request of Knox himself,[182] as clearly shows that the principles on which the controversy fell to be decided had been generally adopted by the followers of Calvin even at an earlier date. These principles were:Permanent Office-bearers. First, that the names of bishop and presbyter are in Scripture used indiscriminately to denote the holder of the same office; second, that the only office-bearers of permanent divine appointment in the church are the pastor, the doctor, the elder, and the deacon. In fact, at the head of Calvin's Ordonnances Ecclesiastiques, drawn up, if not printed, as early as 1541, we find the following: "Il y a quatre ordres d'offices que notre Seigneur a institue pour le gouvernment de son eglise, premierement les pasteurs, puis les docteurs, apres les ancients, quatrement les diacres," which passed substantially into the Book of Common Order in 1556. This being the case, we are not guilty of any anachronism in attributing substantially presbyterian opinions to our reformer, even if we have to grant that the particular church court first known as the greater eldership or presbytery, and now exclusively enjoying the title of presbytery, existed at that time only in a rudimentary form.
The Book of Common Order of 1556 is the earliest authentic document casting light on the opinions of our reformers respecting the government and discipline of the church. The introductory part of the book treats at length of the permanent office-bearers of the church, the manner of their election, the duties of their respective offices, and the assemblies they were to hold in common for government and discipline. The enumeration of the office-bearers and the description of their duties is quite in harmony with what the Books of Discipline subsequently laid down. The office-bearers recognised are the minister, the elder, the deacon, and the doctor; and the duties assigned to each are such as have generally been allotted to these functionaries in the presbyterian churches. The terms in which the last-named of them is referred to are specially deserving of notice. They effectually close a loophole, that might otherwise have been imagined to be left, Superintendents temporary. for the introduction of either bishop or superintendent as an essential and ordinary office-bearer in the church on the pretext that, even if he were so, he could be of little use in the single English congregation at Geneva.[183] "Wee are not ignorant," it is said, "that the Scriptures make mention of a fourth kind of ministers left to the church of Christ, which also are verie profitable where time and place doth permit; but for lack of opportunity in this our dispersion and exile we cannot well have the use thereof, and would to God it were not neglected where better occasion serveth. These ministers are called teachers or doctors, whose office is to instruct and teach the faithfull in sounde doctrine, providing with all diligence that the puritie of the Gospel be not corrupt either through ignorance or evill opinions."[184] Now, can it be supposed that Knox would have said all this of the doctor and not a word of the superintendent, if he had deemed both to be of like permanence and necessity in the church of Christ; or that he would have devoted several pages to explain the duties of the office-bearers, and their assemblies for the interpretation of the Scriptures and the administration of discipline, and not have uttered one word about the bishop, had he believed that that official was the chief or even an essential minister of the church? Can it be supposed likely that he would have been so silent, even if there had been no bishop, as confessedly there was no doctor, among the English in Geneva; or possible that he could have been so with Miles Coverdale,[185] a regularly consecrated bishop attending on his ministrations and acting as an elder in his congregation, unless he had regarded (and wished it to be known that he regarded) the simple presbyter as jure divino on a level with the diocesan bishop, to say nothing of the fact that his party at Frankfort had refused to have a bishop or superintendent over their congregation?
This examination of the introductory chapters of the Book of Common Order will enable us the better to understand and explain the parts of the Book of Discipline drawn up in 1560 respecting Necessity of Preaching. the ministers and office-bearers of the church. Even the ordinary ministers of the church must all be well qualified to preach the gospel of salvation, as many of the common people were unable to read,[186] and could only be saturated with its teaching by the living voice of the preacher who, by sermons and catechising on the Lord's day, and in the towns also by the sermon during the week, was to his utmost to carry home the truth to their hearts. Our reformers judged it necessary "that His Gospell be truely and openly preached in every church and assembly of this realme";[187] that no one "unable to edifie the church by wholesome doctrine" should be promoted to or retained in ecclesiastic administration;[188] and held that the sacraments cannot be "rightlie ministred by him in whose mouth God hath put no sermon of exhortation."[189] Instead of entrusting parishes, as was so often done in England, to men able only to read homilies prepared by others, they affirmed that it was alike to have no minister at all and to have an idol in place of a true minister, yea, in some cases it was worse.[190] Men of best knowledge of God's Word and cleanest life were to be nominated annually for election as elders and deacons.[191] The former were to assist the minister in all affairs of the kirk, to hold meetings with him for judging of causes, admonishing evil livers, yea, to take heed to the life, manners, diligence, and study of the ministers, as well as of the flock.[192] The deacons were to assist in judgment, but chiefly to collect and distribute what was provided for the poor. They might also, as in the French Church, be admitted to read the Scriptures and common prayers in the congregation if required and qualified to do so.[193] Besides ministers, elders, and deacons, generally recognised in the reformed churches as holding offices of divine institution, and being of "the ministry" or consistory of the church, certain other functionaries are mentioned in this Book of Discipline, to whom special duties are assigned, at least for a time. These are the readers, or exhorters, and the superintendents, and both classes appear to be spoken of in such a way as to make it clear that they were not to be permanently retained as orders of office-bearers in the church distinct from those above named.
Readers.
Readers, or exhorters, were to be provided for those churches which could not presently be supplied with ministers. These readers were to be men judged most apt distinctly to read the common prayers and the Scriptures, but they were to be encouraged and urged so to exercise their gifts that they might grow in knowledge and utterance, and in time might come to be entrusted with the power of preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and discharging all the functions of the ordinary pastor.[194] Special provision was made for the spiritual improvement of these readers or exhorters in those weekly meetings for the interpretation of Scripture which, originally introduced among the exiles at Frankfort and Geneva, were after their return set up by them in England under the name of prophesying, and in Scotland under the name of the exercise.[195]