The history of the Scottish Reformation is an entirely different one. Instead of being originated and fostered by State authority, it was a fierce and obstinate battle with such authority. Scotland was then under one of its disastrous regencies, that of Mary of Guise, the widow of King James V., acting for her infant daughter Mary, known afterwards in history as the beautiful and unfortunate Queen of Scots. The Reformation in England had sent a wave of agitation into Scotland, and this wave advanced strongly as refugees from the cruel persecutions of Mary Tudor flocked into the Northern Kingdom; and as the Regent, with her coadjutor, the bigoted and relentless Cardinal Beaton, also began to persecute the new faith, and send its adherents to the stake; for it has ever been found to be a true saying, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” In revenge for the burning, in 1545, of one of the saintliest of men, George Wishart, a party of the Reformers murdered the Cardinal in his own castle of St. Andrews, from one of the windows of which he had gloated over the martyr’s cruel death.
In 1557, a number of the Reformers, including several noblemen, and styling themselves the Lords of the Congregation, entered into a mutual bond or covenant, “To defend the whole congregation of Christ against Satan and all his powers; to have prayers made and the sacraments administered in the vulgar tongue; in worship to use only the Bible, and the Prayer-book of Edward VI.” In 1559, the Regent, who was entirely under French influence, and had been gradually filling high offices with Frenchmen, and accumulating French troops, issued a proclamation, forbidding any one to preach or administer the sacraments without the authority of the bishops.
And at this period a sterling man fitted to be a leader in such turbulent times, John Knox, appears in the forefront of the conflict. He had been college-bred, and became a priest, but adopted the Reformation in its Calvinistic phase, and, as he had opportunity, disseminated the new tenets with eloquence and zeal. After Beaton’s death, his slayers, with others, and Knox amongst these, held out the castle of St. Andrews for fourteen months, but had to yield at last to their French besiegers, and were sent prisoners to France. Knox had to work in the galleys on the river Loire. But again he is in Scotland, preaching from place to place. After a powerful sermon against idolatry in a church in Perth, a priest began to celebrate mass. Heated by the glowing words of Knox, the people broke the images in the church. The Regent was very wroth, she deposed the Protestant provost of the city, and threatened it with French troops. The Congregation raised troops and appealed to Elizabeth, now on the English throne, for aid. Elizabeth sent some troops, and there was fighting with varied successes, until, by a treaty made in Edinburgh, the French agreed to abandon Scotland, and the Protestants were to be allowed the free exercise of their religion. In the Scottish Parliament of 1560 there was a solemn abjuration of the Pope and the mass. And the Geneva Confession of Faith was constituted the theological standard of the kingdom.
JOHN KNOX.
Differing from the English Church with its orders, its episcopacy, and its sovereign headship, the Scottish Reformers denied the authority of the sovereign, or secular government, to interfere in the affairs of the Church; determining that these affairs should be under the direction of a Court of Delegates, the greater number being chosen from the ministers, all of whom were of the same standing and dignity, and the remainder—with equal authority in the deliberations—of a certain number of the laity, called Elders, thus forming what is called “The General Assembly of the Church.” The sacraments were to be simple observances, spiritual only as they were spiritually received. Church edifices were regarded as merely stone and lime structures, having no claims to special regard, except during divine service. So to these Reformers, defacing in the churches what had been considered sacred statuary and ornamentation, even to the sign of the cross, was deemed a ready mode of testifying against Popish superstitions. As to the abbeys and monasteries—“Pull down the nests,” said stern John Knox, “and the rooks will fly away.”
Thus the Kirk of Scotland was essentially democratic in its origin, and, although always rigid and often intolerant, it has in the main so continued. Its theological tenets, although wordy and abstruse, were a whetstone to the intellect, and helped to develope a serious and thoughtful, a reading, and an argumentative people. Shepherds meeting each other on the hillsides, weavers with their yarn at the village beetling-stone, would, like Milton’s angels:—
“Reason high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.”