“They exhibit the real character of the internal government of this national church. They display the operation of the principles by which the first Reformers and their immediate successors were actuated. They demonstrate that these men were not more distinguished by zeal for truth, than by loyalty to the head of the government, attachment to true principles, (I do not say of toleration—for that was a term which they certainly did not employ or approve)—of religious liberty and civil subordination. They bear testimony to the strictness and impartiality of ancient discipline. They vindicate the character of those illustrious men whose names have been unjustly aspersed, but who, both by their doctrines and their lives,—by their unwearied exertions and their patient sufferings,—left an example, not indeed of faultless excellence, but assuredly of the most noble, magnanimous, and fearless adherence to the standards of our constitution.
“These Registers also contain much that is capable of correcting erroneous representations of historical facts with regard to the internal state of the kingdom—the institutions, habits, and customs, as well as the morals of the people, and the spirit which was most prevalent at particular periods in various districts of the land. They prove, beyond all controversy, that our Reformers, instead of having been at first actuated by an unrestrained spirit of innovation, were rather, in some respects, disposed to retain too much than to reject too much of the practices of the church from which they had separated, and that this very circumstance prevented them from ever attaining that independence at which they aimed. At the same time, they prove, that from the very first moment, it was the determined object of the leaders of the Reformation, to establish such a Presbyterian Government, as was at last, with the utmost difficulty, completed;—and that even when the name of bishop was introduced, the persons holding that title sat in the General and Provincial Assemblies in no higher rank than the humblest presbyter, and in the Kirk-Sessions were named after the parochial minister, under the designation of elder.
“In addition to all this it may be stated, that, though these documents were less productive of instruction than they are, they well deserve to be preserved with care, as the most venerable remnants of a distant age—as the earliest annals of our infant church, as the (almost sacred) relics—not of canonized saints indeed—but of confessors and martyrs, who counted not their lives dear to them; and who, when they thought it necessary, never shrunk from sealing their testimony with their blood. And if I am again asked—What is the use of attending to these perishing monuments of a period of little refinement?—I have only to answer, that with all my antiquarian propensities, and all my admiration of what is great and magnificent in the works of art, and all my reprobation of the violence which impelled some of our Reformers to demolish the solemn temples which they considered as the shrines of idolatry, and the receptacles of antichristian intruders,—I would much rather share in the disgrace of these acts of violation, than destroy or deface one shred or fragment of these frail memorials of despised and almost forgotten worth, which bear the impress of zeal for piety and learning, loyalty and patriotism, liberty and truth,—and which more conspicuously than even the uplifted banner of the Covenant, present the seal and superscription of glory to God, and good will to man—peace to the church, and happiness to the state.”
THE BOOKE
OF THE
UNIVERSALL KIRK OF SCOTLAND:
WHERIN
THE HEADS AND CONCLUSIONS
DEVYSIT BE THE MINISTERS AND COMMISSIONARIS OF THE PARTICULAR KIRKS THEREOF ARE SPECIALLY EXPRESSED AND CONTAINED.