Bishop versus Presbyter

To us it may appear to be of relative unimportance to warrant a desperate struggle in which thousands suffered - hundreds of them even to death. What we must remember is that there was a vital principle at stake. Was the Church to be an arm of the State and be under its control, or was the Church to be free to carry out her spiritual functions subject only to the Lord Jesus and his Word?

The monarchs of the day endeavoured to usurp the position of supreme authority in the Church, to determine its beliefs and practices, and to be the ultimate judge in all matters of dispute. This was anathema to the godly in Scotland. Since the Bishops in England, and in Scotland at a later date, were creatures of the monarch, they were under his control and so was the Church through them. One of the Stewart monarchs declared, ‘No Bishop, No King.’ The creed of the Stewarts was that of the ‘Divine Right of Kings.’ This meant that the Monarch, as The Lord’s Anointed, was absolute in all matters, secular and spiritual, both in the State and in the Church. He was not subject to Law for he made it. Through his ministers of state the King controlled the country, through his bishops he controlled the Church.

So it was not a fight merely about Church polity but about the spiritual independence of the Church. As we have seen this involved the rights of King Jesus as the Head of the Church and the rights of his people as members of his Body.

James I (of England) and VI (of Scotland)

He was helped by a device brought in by the greedy nobles. As the old Roman Catholic clergy, pensioned off at the Reformation died, their pensions and their lands became eligible for use by the Church. The Regent Morton and greedy nobles got an informal Assembly to pass an act permitting the old ecclesiastical titles which belonged to the Roman Catholic clergy to be retained. There was no intention to create a hierarchy but to create middlemen through whom the greedy authorities could get the pensions and lands of the former Roman incumbents. A minister could be persuaded to take on the title of Bishop or Archbishop with a stipend and privileges while the bulk of the pension and lands attached to it would be retained by the patron. The next Assembly rejected this provision but a precedent had been set and the titles stuck. It was the thin end of the wedge that James would use.

James took the reins of Government in his hand in 1578 at the age of twelve, and was influenced by his French/Scottish cousin Esme Stewart as we have seen. Certain rebellious nobles carried the young king off and for a time ruled the country and got rid of the King’s unhelpful counsellors but he escaped his captors and turned the tables on them. Thinking that the Kirk was involved in the kidnapping, he issued through a compliant Parliament what has been called the Black Acts. No Assembly of the Church of Scotland could meet without his permission; no one was allowed to criticise the Government; to decline the judgement of the Privy Council in any cause whatever (including ecclesiastical matters) was treason; all ministers must acknowledge the Bishops as their superiors.

In 1590, the King went off to Denmark to marry a Danish princess. The country was managed so well by the Kirk in his absence that he returned to praise it and to repeal the Black Acts. Two years later the Parliament gave official recognition of Presbyterianism as the polity of the Scottish Church. This polity was contained in a document called The Second Book of Discipline. It lays down classic Scottish Presbyterian polity - the Church to be governed by Ministers and Elders meeting in Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods and the General Assembly. A leading part was taken in its formulation by Andrew Melville an outstanding scholar and strong leader.

However the church and James were soon at loggerheads again, this time over the toleration of rebellious Roman Catholic nobles in the King’s house and service. It was during this quarrel that Andrew Melville reminded James that while he was Head of State and would be respected and obeyed as such, he was not Head of the Church but only a member. This bold assertion of truth made James more determined to pursue the installation of Bishops in the Kirk. He went about his work craftily. He got the Assembly to appoint a Commission with whom he could confer. Then he made that Commission the Clerical representatives in Parliament and invited them as the Third Estate of the Realm to take their seats with a nominal title of Bishops. From this device James got his yes-men, the middlemen through whom he could impose his will on the Church. It can be seen that Bishops were the tools of monarchy to govern the Church. We can understand how bitterly they were resisted in Scotland by the Presbyterians.

In 1603 Queen Elizabeth of England died and James became king of England and Scotland. On his entrance to his new kingdom, he was greeted with adulation by the English Bishops. Some fell on their knees and embraced him as the most Christian Prince, and even more so when he promised to harry the Puritan Dissenters out of the Kingdom. One has only to read the Dedication to the Authorised Version of the Bible to see with what flattery and cringing he was treated in England. This tyrant of the church, persecutor of God’s people and arch-dissembler is spoken of as ‘that sanctified Person who under God is the immediate Author of the true happiness of the loyal and religious people of the realm.’

With the army and navy of England behind him, James could now deal with the Scots Presbyterians. He forbade the meeting of the Assembly without his permission and when some godly men went ahead and held it, he arrested six of the leaders, had them tried and convicted of treason and banished them. Andrew Melville was summoned to London, put in prison for four years and banished to France where he became a professor in the Protestant College of Sedan. He never set foot in Scotland again. James, through packed Assemblies, got the Bishops appointed as permanent Moderators in Assemblies, Synods and Presbyteries. Three men went to England to be consecrated by English Bishops. Then in order to assimilate the Scottish Church to the Anglican system he inspired a packed Assembly to pass the Five Articles of Perth. The Lord’s Supper was to be received kneeling; it could be administered in private; Baptism could be administered in private; children were to be confirmed; Christmas, Easter, etc., were to be observed. The King, through a packed house, presumed to dictate to the Church how it was to conduct its worship. At first the acts were a dead letter, people went on doing as they always did. But as the Bishops grew in authority and arrogance the screws were tightened. The pressure in the boiler of the Scottish people was building up.

Charles I.

Charles had two helpers. One to bring the country into shape and the other the church. Wentworth was the soldier, and Laud the ecclesiastic. This unholy trio embarked on a policy of what they called ‘Thorough.’ The King’s absolute authority in State and Church was to be enforced with the severest penalties for dissenters. Bishop Laud went to Scotland with Charles in 1633 and was far from happy with the simple worship of the Scottish Church. He determined to remedy the situation and on going back to England devised a Service Book along Anglican lines. It came to Scotland, not to be presented to the Assembly for consideration, but by royal decree. Every minister was required to provide himself with two of these books and it was to be used in all churches.

When the service book was read in St Giles, Edinburgh by the Dean, it caused a riot. It is said that a certain Jennie Geddes threw her stool (no pews in those days) at the Dean’s head for saying, as she put it, ‘mass in her lug.’ The book was but an amended version of the Roman Catholic Missal and this is what caused the indignation. It was also introduced by arbitrary decree.

The riot in St Giles was the unstopping of the indignation of the Scottish people. Realising that their Church was under threat, they banded together. A National Covenant was signed in the churchyard of Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh. Many nobles, gentry, ministers and ordinary people signed it and pledged to preserve the doctrine and discipline of the Church of Scotland even with their blood. Charles regarded the Covenanters as he called them as traitors and called the document damnable. He would have no more authority in Scotland if it prevailed. These were his sentiments.

In 1638 the General Assembly met. It comprised 140 Ministers and 98 Elders among whom were some of the greatest nobles in the land. It abolished the office of Bishop and set aside the Articles of Perth. It ruled as null and void the ordinance regarding the Service Book. At the conclusion of the Assembly, the Moderator, Alexander Henderson, dismissed the ‘Fathers and Brethren’ with the words that they had cast down the walls of Jericho.

Charles, to assert his authority, marched to the borders with an army. He was met by a Scottish army led by David Leslie. The King withdrew but next year he mustered another force and went north. This time the Scots invaded England and defeated his forces at Newcastle. It was not long after that the Civil War began in England. The Scots and the English needed each other and a Solemn League and Covenant was signed between the two nations. The main idea was to have a Reformed church common to both countries. Out of this agreement came the Westminster Assembly which met to thrash out a common faith, worship and polity for both nations. It produced the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms and the form of worship that we practise today.

The Westminster Assembly met in 1643 but by the time it concluded its work there were serious differences between the English and the Scots. Cromwell the victorious Puritan General was now in control in the English Parliament. He was a Calvinist but an Independent. He and his soldiers wanted nothing of Presbyterianism. Then he ordered the execution of the King (1649) who became a martyr in his death. The sentimental Scots still clung to their monarch (after all he was Scottish!) and they proclaimed his son as King of Scotland. Cromwell marched north with his ‘Ironsides’ and defeated the Scots at Dunbar. A few years later a Scots army marched south to join English Royalists and restore Charles II as king of both realms. Cromwell smashed the Scots and Royalists at Worcester in England. He called this victory his "Crowning Mercy". Under Cromwell Scotland was treated very leniently. He suppressed the General Assembly but allowed Presbyterianism to flourish. There was great spiritual blessing in the land under Cromwell’s regime.

Charles II.

Cromwell died in 1659, and his son was no successor. Through General Monk and the army, Charles II was invited to accede to the throne. Charles was a rake who determined on two things: he would never go on his travels again, and he would rule not in name but in reality. This man, called the ‘Merry Monarch,’ together with his political and ecclesiastical agents, was to cause much suffering in Scotland. Rigid conformity to Anglican ritual and polity was enforced on the English Puritans. Some 2000 ministers left the church, being commanded not only to adopt Anglican forms but to enjoy doing it! The turn of the Scots was to come. When crowned King of the Scots in Scotland after his father’s death, Charles had subscribed to the Confession and to the Solemn League and Covenant but this had been expediency. He believed that ‘Presbytery did not become a gentleman.’ The Assembly sent one of their members to treat with Charles about ecclesiastical matters in Scotland. The man, James Sharp, went to London a minister and came back a bishop! The Scottish people for one reason or another were far too timid in dealing with Charles. They waited on his pleasure and it was not a nice pleasure. Charles never went to Scotland, but he committed the carrying out of his policies in Scotland to a Council of State. It had on it, among others, renegades from the Presbyterian Church - Sharp, Middleton and Lauderdale (the latter had represented the Scottish Church at the Westminster Assembly!) These men, now converts to Anglicanism, joined in the reaction to the Puritanism and Presbyterianism of the previous decade. It was the reaction of Royalist and Anglican against the previous regime of Cromwell and the triumph of Parliament over monarchy and its associated ecclesiastical polity. The Scots Parliament under Charles’ direction rescinded all legislation since 1637 as the King had not ratified it. This included the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, and the abolition of Bishops in the Scottish Church. Later on in the same year, a decree was proclaimed in Scotland by the Scottish Council that the government of the Kirk by Bishops was to be restored. All who opposed this were to be imprisoned at the Council’s pleasure. This was done on royal authority without any semblance of consulting the Assembly or Parliament. Four men were sent to London to be consecrated Bishops. Among them was the saintly Leighton whose commentary on 1st Peter is a classic. Ultimately this godly man had to leave his post and retire to England. The harshness of his fellow-Bishops and the intransigence of some of the Scottish Presbyterians made him despair of doing any good. When they returned from England the Bishops were given full honours by the Scottish Parliament, Episcopal ordination was made obligatory, and all in positions of authority were required to take an oath denouncing the Covenants. The Council decreed that all ministers inducted since 1649, since they had not been presented by patrons, were unlawfully inducted. They must seek the approval of the Patron and the approval of their appointment from the Bishop. They were given a few months to comply. Some 400 ministers were ejected from their congregations for non- compliance. They were succeeded by men presented by patrons and ordained by the Bishop. For the most part the Presentees were ignorant and even vicious. The people left the church with their ministers and attended their ministry under another roof. But this was not to be allowed. The people must be compelled to worship in Government-approved churches under Government-sponsored pastors. Ruinous fines, the quartering of rapacious soldiers on stubborn communities, and imprisonment, were all part of the persecuting mechanism used to establish Anglicanism at the direction of a tyrant in London. Remember that this tyrant chose Anglicanism as his tool because it was the best instrument for ensuring his supremacy in everything. In his heart Charles II was a papist. Aided by his hand-picked Council of State, bolstered by the Anglican reaction to its discomfiture in the previous regime and served by ruthless soldiers such as Turner, Dalziel and Claverhouse, Charles was able to implement to a large degree his cruel and cynical policy. Nearly all his minions in Scotland were men without feeling or conscience - especially the captains of the military. As the pressure mounted so did the resistance. Open rebellions occurred. Certain right-wing Presbyterians known as Covenanters, because they covenanted to own no king but Jesus, publicly disowned and even excommunicated the Stewart Kings. In the rebellions the Covenanters came off worse (except at Bothwell Brig where Claverhouse and his dragoons were routed) and the aftermath was even harsher measures against all Presbyterians. Prisoners taken in these rebellions met the gallows or were transported as slaves to the West Indies. Ministers caught preaching at open field services called Conventicles were hanged. Torture was freely used to obtain information. People were shot on the spot without trial if suspected of being Covenanters. Two women were tied to stakes in the Solway Firth and left to drown as the tide came in. It is alleged that 18,000 people - men and women - suffered severely in one way or another during the days of the ‘Merry Monarch’ and his successor. When Archbishop Sharp was murdered by extremists there was another baptism of blood. Undoubtedly there were extremists among the Covenanters and some did unwise things but their bitter persecutions made them desperate and impolitic.

James II

James II was a dissenter from the Anglican Faith, being a Roman. In order to give relief to his fellow-Romans and so as not to arouse suspicion, he gave some relief to all dissenters, except the Covenanters. They could worship in their own places providing they gave notice of their meetings and did not use them for political ends. Most Presbyterians accepted this Indulgence as it was called. The Cameronians, or followers of Richard Cameron, ie. the Covenanters, rejected the offer. They would not take as an indulgence from a tyrant what was theirs by right.

However, there was no political indulgence in Britain. A Scottish army was used to intimidate the English while an Irish army was ready to subdue Scotland. James began to choose his ministers of State from nobles who were now converts to the Roman Faith. It was obvious what his game was. He asked Parliament to grant more liberty to the Catholics and when he was refused, he ordered the Council to remove all restrictions against his co-religionists. The Council also refused and was purged. English Bishops, on refusing to agree to publishing the Indulgence in their jurisdiction, were imprisoned and put on trial. Their acquittal produced great expressions of joy. By this time, even the English Bishops had had enough of James II. They joined in a plan to appeal to Mary the daughter of James I, and her husband William of Orange, a Dutch Prince, to come over and take the throne. William landed in the south west of England in 1688. James fled the country disguised as a servant and went to form a government-in-exile in France from which was to come two attempts to restore the Stewart dynasty by the Old and the Young Pretenders in 1715 and 1745 respectively.

The nightmare was over. The Stewart Kings with all their absolutism and cruelty were gone. England would remain Protestant and Anglican, and Scotland, Protestant and Presbyterian.