The Supreme Power.
They, who had been obliged long to contend with a corrupt and obstinate clergy which would grant no real reform in doctrine, no substantial concessions for the alleviation of practical grievances, boldly laid down the principle that "to kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates ... chieflie and most principallie the conservation and purgation of the religioun apperteinis; so that not onlie they are appointed for civill policie, but also for maintenance of the trew religioun, and for suppressing of idolatrie and superstitioun whatsoever.... And therefore wee confesse and avow that sik as resist the supreme power doing that thing quhilk appertains to his charge, do resist Goddis ordinance, and therefore cannot be guiltles."[260] Melville, who was called to contend with a king bent on securing autocratic power in the church as well as in the state, laid down, with the utmost precision, the principle in chapter x., "Although kings and princes that be godlie, sumtymes be their awin authority whan the kirk is corruptit and all things out of ordor, place ministers and restore the trew service of the Lord efter the examples of sum godly kings of Juda and divers godly emperours and kings also in the light of the New Testament; yit quhair the ministrie of the kirk is anes lawfullie constitute and they that are placeit do thair office faithfullie, all godlie princes and magistratis aucht to heir and obey thair voice, and reverence the majestie of the Son of God speiking be them";[261] or, as in chapter i., where it is laid down, "As ministeris are subject to the judgement and punishment of the magistrat in externall things if they offend, so aucht the magistratis to submit themselfis to the discipline of the kirk gif they transgresse in matteris of conscience and religioun."[262]
Hill Burton sarcastically remarks that "if we grant that those who prepared it were what they called themselves—the Church of God, presided Limits of Ecclesiastical Power. over by the Lord Jesus Christ as the representative of the Godhead on earth—it would be difficult to refuse assent to what follows. Nothing can be more perfect than the analysis by which the two ruling powers are separated from each other, and the ecclesiastical set above the secular."[263] If this is not quite borne out, one can hardly help feeling that more care should have been taken to mark out the limits of ecclesiastical authority, and to show that the power of ministers and elders was as distinctly limited by the laws of Christ as that of kings and magistrates ought to be by the laws of the land; or, in other words, that ministers and elders may err in interpreting the laws of Christ, just as civil rulers may err in interpreting the laws of the land. No doubt the limitation contended for is in words admitted, "the magistrat neither aucht to preich, minister the sacraments, nor execute the censuris of the kirk, nor yit prescrive any rewll how it sould be done; bot command the ministeris to observe the rewll commandit in the Word, and punish the transgressours be civill means. The ministeris exerce not the civill jurisdictioun, bot teich the magistrat how it sould be exercit according to the Word."[264] "It is proper to kings, princes, and magistrates to be callit lordis and dominators over their subjectis, whom they govern civilly; bot it is proper to Christ onlie to be callit Lord and Master in the spirituall government of the kirk, and all utheris that beiris office therein aucht not to usurp dominion therein, nor be callit lordis, bot onlie ministeris, disciples, and servantis. For it is Christis proper office to command and rewll His kirk universall, and every particular kirk, throw His Spirit and Word, be the ministrie of men."[265] But it is not made sufficiently prominent anywhere in the Book that these men are only entitled to unreserved obedience when they truly speak Christ's mind and truly follow His Word. Those who have made most of the Book have neither clearly perceived this nor have they realised the full meaning of the lucid and explicit statement made by Rutherfurd when he was contending against the Erastians and Independents of England. Had they done so, I cannot but think that the bitter divisions among Scottish Presbyterians would have been fewer, and that there would have been far less occasion for the reproach often cast on them, that new presbyter is but old priest writ large.
Rutherfurd's Opinion.
"That the magistrate is not obliged," Rutherfurd affirms, "to execute the decrees of the church without further examination, whether they be right or wrong, as Papists teach that the magistrate is to execute the decrees of their Popish councels with blind obedience, and submit his faith to them, because he is a layman and may not dare to examine whether the church doth erre or not, is clear. 1. Because, if in hearing the Word all should follow the example of the men of Berea, not relying on the testimony of Paul or any preacher, [and] try whether that which concerneth their conscience and faith be agreeable to the Scriptures or no, and accordingly receive or reject; so in all things of discipline the magistrate is to try by the Word whether he ought to adde his sanction to these decrees which the church gives out for edification, and whether he should draw the sword against such a one as a heretick and a perverter of souls. But the former is true; the magistrate's practise in adding his civill sanction and in punishing hereticks concerneth his conscience, knowing that he must do it in faith as he doth all his moral actions; ergo, the magistrate must examine what he practiseth in his office according to the Word, and must not take it upon the meer authority of the church, else his faith in these moral acts of his office should be resolved ultimate on the authority of the church, not on the Word of God, which, no doubt, is Popery, for so the warrant of the magistrate's conscience should not be 'thus saith the Lord,' but 'thus saith the church in their decrees.' 2. The magistrate and all men have a command to try all things, ergo, to try the decrees of the church, and to retain what is good (1 Thes. v. 21); to try the spirits even of the church in their decrees (1 John iii. 1). 3. We behooved [in that case] to lay down this Popish ground that ... the church cannot erre in their decrees.... Its against Scripture and reason that magistrates, and by the like reason all others, should obey the decrees of the church with a blinde faith, without inquiring in the warrants and grounds of their decrees, which is as good Popery as, Magistrates and all men are to beleeve as the church beleeveth, with an implicite faith, so ignorance shall be the mother of devotion. Whoever impute this to us—who have suffered for nonconformity, and upon this ground, that synods can erre, refused the ceremonies—are to consult with their own conscience whether this be not to make us appear disloyall and odious to magistracy in that which we never thought, far lesse [presumed] to teache and professe it to the world."[266]
Gillespie's Opinion.
Even more notable are the utterances of George Gillespie, when vindicating against the Erastians of the south that more free government of the church by its own courts from which they feared so many evils. "I dare confidently say," he affirms, "that, if comparisons be rightly made, presbyterial government is the most limited and the least arbitrary government of any other in the world."[267] And, after entering into details to make good this affirmation in regard to the papal and prelatical forms of government, he proceeds to maintain that Independents "must needs be supposed to exercise a much more unlimited or arbitrary power than the presbyterial churches do," because they exempt individual congregations from all control and correction by superior courts, and because it is "one of their three grand principles which disclaimeth the binding of themselves for the future unto their present judgement and practice, and avoucheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract."[268] Some who think that, after all recent changes, they more truly hold the opinions of Gillespie than we do, have laid it down very dogmatically that even although the constitution of a national church were in all other respects scriptural, yet if it did not reserve this power to alter and retract without let or hindrance, it would still be at variance with the tenets of the Covenanting times; but you see here that Gillespie affirms that that was a principle of the Independents, not of the Presbyterians, and claims[269] it as a special merit of the latter that they were willing to explain their doctrine and discipline to the civil authorities, and, getting these sanctioned, to abide by them till they were again altered by consent of church and state. He denies that in claiming a distinct government for the church the Presbyterians meant to deprive the Christian magistrate of that power and authority in matters of religion which the Word of God and the earlier Confessions of the Reformed churches recognised as belonging to his office. On the contrary, he maintains that not only in extraordinary cases when church government doth degenerate into tyranny, or those who manage it make defection from the truth, "the Christian magistrate may and ought to do diverse things in and for religion, and interpose his authority diverse wayes so as doth not properly belong to his cognisance, decision and administration ordinarily, and in a reformed and well constituted church";[270] but also that, in ordinary cases, he is free to act as his own conscience directs in giving or refusing his sanction to the government and discipline of the church; and that if he is offended with any sentence of its courts, "they ought to be ready, in all humility and respect, to give him an account and reason of such their proceedings, and by all means to endeavour the satisfaction of the magistrate his conscience, or otherwise to be warned and rectified if themselves have erred."[271]
Its Influence not unmixed.
Had the principles thus laid down been more clearly kept in view by the framers of the Second Book of Discipline, its influence for good on Scottish Christianity would have been more unmixed than it has been. Had they been more consistently acted on by Rutherfurd and his associates, who consented to their formal insertion in our later standards, many sad troubles which then and afterwards befel the church, for which they lived and laboured, would have been altogether avoided, or more easily provided against; but as it is, great misunderstandings have certainly arisen. The two Books of Discipline have been too much read apart, instead of being regarded as complementary each of the other; and while all that is liberal and progressive tends, I think, more and more to rally round the one, I believe that much that is narrower, but still earnest and resolutely Christian, will continue to draw its inspiration from the other.
The Second Book of Discipline, as well as the First, failed to commend itself to the ruling powers, and to obtain a place in its full form on the statute book. Those of its clauses relating to the functions of the several church courts were inserted almost word for word in the Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1592, reckoned the charter of the presbyterian church. It was, however, several times ratified by the General Assembly, and was partially carried out by its authority from the time of its ratification; and to this extent it, as well as the First Book of Discipline, appears to have been fully recognised. The question of its authority was very fully argued in the famous Auchterarder case. The counsel for the presbytery and the minority of the judges did not venture to argue, however, that as a whole the Second Book of Discipline had received the sanction of the state save in irregular times; but they contended that the notes, contained in Spottiswoode's History, of the clauses respecting which the king and the commissioners of Parliament had come to agreement with the ministers, should be accepted as determining the extent to which it was law. It was affirmed, however, by the majority of the judges that only the clauses Its Theory of the Church. actually inserted in the Act of Parliament could be so regarded, and it has since been maintained by Mr Peterkin that the alleged notes of agreement between the king and the church's commissioners are not actually found in the manuscript copy of the History which is preserved in the Advocate's Library.[272] The general theory of the church, however, which may be said to underlie the most important statement of the Second Book of Discipline, is not materially different from that which finds expression in the First. "The kirk of God," it is said, "is sumtymes largelie takin for all them that professe the Evangill of Jesus Christ, and so it is a company and fellowship, not onely of the godly, but also of hypocrites professing alwayis outwardly ane true religion. Uther tymes it is takin for the godlie and elect onlie, and sumtymes for them that exercise spiritual function amongis the congregation of them that professe the truth."[273] These last, ministers, doctors, elders, and deacons, are taken to represent the church in its wider sense, and must have a lawful calling from it. This lawful calling is said to consist of two parts—viz., election and ordination. Election is defined to be the choosing out of a person or persons most able for the office that is vacant, by the judgment of the eldership and consent of the congregation to which the person or persons are appointed. Ordination is defined as the separation and sanctifying of the person appointed of God and His kirk after he be well tried and found qualified. The ceremonies of ordination are declared to be fasting, earnest prayer, and imposition of the hands of the eldership. Then follow two of the most important paragraphs in the Book, which come nearest to supplying that which I deem defective in it, a clear and distinct admission that human rulers in the church as well as in the state have but limited powers. "All thir [i.e., those various kinds of office-bearers], as they must be raisit up be God and be Him made able for the wark quhairto they ar callit, so aught they [to] knaw their message to be limitit within God's Word, without the quhilk bounds they aught not to passe. All thir sould tak these titils and names onlie ... quhilk the Scriptures gevis unto them, as these quhilks import labour, travell and wark; and ar names of offices and service, and not of idlenes, dignitie, warldlie honour or preheminence, quhilk be Christ our Maister is expresslie reprovit and forbidden.... And generallie thir twa things aught they all to respect, the glorie of God, and edifieing of His kirk, in discharging their dewties in their callings."[274]