Jenny Geddes, or, Presbyterianism and its great conflict with despotism

Cibrarjp of Che Cheolo^icd ^tminavy

PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY

PRESENTED BY

the Estate of

Rp" nQTr^/q U^v-LrloY»o/?Lja^JiQAr?w1 111 e
BR 785 .B68 1869 ;

Breed, William P. 1816-1889]
Jenny Geddes, or,
Presbyterianism and its

OCT 15 1S45

Jenny GrEDDEir

-^'^'.OfilCALSB

>^\^

OR

PRESBYTEPvIANISM

AND ITS GREAT

CONFLICT WITH DESPOTISM.

Rev. W. p. 3PvEED. D.D

PHILADELPHIA :

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,

No. 821 CUESTNUT STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by

THE TRUSTEES OP THE

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Westcott & Thomson,

Stkbeotypers, Philada.

CO]^TE]SrTS,

I.

PAOE

Jenny Geddes and her Stool 9

II.
The Church 23

III.
Church and State 155

IV.

The Great Conflict Between Them 189

1. The Battle-field 191

2. The Invasion 202

3. The Victim and his Victor 208

4. John Knox 214

5. Organization 226

6. The Apparition 229

7. Republicanism 233

8. The General Assembly 240

9. Mary Queen of Scots 248

10. Knox on Trial 255

11. Presbyterianism Nationalized 262

3

4 CONTENTS.

PAGE

12. The Tiilchans 279

13. The Melvilles 3U0

H. James VI 313

15. Clouds, Storm, Smishine 329

16. God's Silly Vassal 344

17. The Kirk Under the Heel of the King 366

18. The Black Saturday 388

19. The Death of James 408

20. Charles I 416

21. The Mine Preparing 431

22. The Impending Crisis 446

23. The Explosion 456

A WORD TO THE READER.

This volume, in tlie aim and intent of the writer, is
much more expository than polemical. Its object is to
illustrate the character of, and to call attention to, the
service rendered to the cause of God and man bj' the
church system to which we hold, and not to attack other
sister evangelical denominations. With them we have no
quarrel. On the contrary, when we consider how God
has blessed them — how many godly ones have lived, la-
boured and died among them — how many souls have been
converted through their instrumentality, and thus the ser-
vice rendered by them to our common Christianity — we
are constrained to bid them God-speed. At the same
time holding, as we assuredly do, that our Presbyterian
system comes nearest of all to the scriptural standard, to
the pattern showed in the mount, and that it is therefore
best adapted for the nourishment and defence of the faith,
we desire, as far as we may, to lead its adherents to deeper
insight into its validity, to higher admiration of its beauty,
and to greater enthusiasm in its maintenance and propa-
gation.

6 PREFACE.

It has long been our conviction that one subject upon
which the common mass of Presbyterians need information
is Presbj^terianism— its distinctive character as an ecclesi-
astical system, and its history. We are persuaded that a
more thorough acquaintance with it would tend, not only
to awaken the great body of its adherents from a sleepy
assent to its validity, but to powerfully confirm them in
their allegiance, and even to enkindle them to enthusiastic
admiration. The facility with which, now and then, one
and another of its children pass into other Christian folds,
the easy carelessness with which parents allow their chil-
dren to be drawn away from the Church of their birth
demonstrate a sad ignorance of the system for which their
fathers fought and bled and died. Recognizing other de-
nomination^ as sound in general evangelical faith, they fail
to see that outside of all such questions lies the great
question of church government, which, when scriptural,
is the divinely-appointed conservator of sound doctrine,
and when unscriptural tends to impair, and often sadly
corrupts it, and very often betrays it to its foes. While
a Presbyterian may himself live a holy life in another fold,
he has more to do than simply to live and die safely. He
is bound to consider the force of his example upon others ;
bound to lend his influence to the upholding of that ex-
ternal form of church polity which, while it shields ortho-
doxy in doctrine from destructive assault, best fosters

PREFACE. 7

piety in the heart, and trains it up toward its loftiest
ideal.

It is greatly to be regretted that as the sweet chestnut
always, so ecclesiastical history is almost always, shut up
in hirsute burs — the burs of a rigid scientific treatment —
putting it out of the reach of all but the highly cultivated,
and generally making its perusal by them more a matter
of duty than of pleasure. And among the objects for
which the Church should devoutly and ardently pray is
the raising up of some Prescott, Motley, Macaulay, Ban-
croft, or Froude, to clothe her history in the winning forms
of a fascinating diction and style of handling, and thus
furnish her thrilling facts with wings on which to fly iato
the welcoming doors of the general mind.

In the mean time, we have put forth this very humble
effort to group together some of the facts and principles
of our Presbyterianism — not to instruct the erudite or to
bring forth new treasures from original sources, but, if we
may, to awaken some new interest in at least a few minds
among the masses of our people in a subject second to
few in legitimate claim to their attention and study. Our
book opens and closes with the scene at St. Giles, Edin-
burgh, in which Jenny Geddes and her stool figured so
conspicuously. And as this scene exhibits the culmination
of a long, sharp conflict between Church and State, we have
first drawn an outline of church government as generally

8 PREFACE.

accepted by Presbyterians, and of the relations that prop-
erly subsist between the Church and the State, at once
separating and uniting them ; adding also a sketch of
Scottish church-history — the story of that memorable con-
flict in which Presbyterianism fought so manfully the bat-
tle of both the Church and the world. With painful con-
sciousness of the imperfection of the work attempted, the
writer still hopes that it may prove the seed of some
salutary fruit.

Philadelphia, Nov., 1868.

JENNY GEDDES AND HER STOOL.

9

JENNY GEDDES

JENNY GEDDES AND HER STOOL.

RITERS of human annals have been accus-
tomed to divide their subjects into two
general classes. The one comprises those
which are truly and in themselves in a
high sense historic, affecting widely and power-
fully the interests of men and nations. The other
embraces agencies and events whose significance
is too trivial, whose influence is too feeble or
plays in too narrow a circle to entitle them to
any marked place upon the historic page.

It is evident, however, that events exceedingly
minute in themselves may, by the force they bor-
row from circumstances, the principles they sym-
bolize, the incidents to which they give rise, or
the interests they come to affect, emerge into true

historic dignity,

11

12 JENNY GEDDES.

Thus history has not disdained to record that
in the infancy of the Massachusetts colony, Canon-
icus, tlie Iiaughty chief of the Naragansetts, sent
to Plymouth a bundle of arrows bound together
with the skin of a rattlesnake, and that Governor
Bradford filled the skin with powder and shot and
sent it back to his Indian majesty. Not that
either Indian or arrows, powder or shot, or their
exchange was a matter of any moment, but in this
case the affair was a declaration of war on the one
hand and an acceptance of the challenge on the
other — a war which, had it been prosecuted, might
liave annihilated either an Indian tribe or the in-
fant colony in which lay embosomed a nation and
a civilization.

A few words from the lips of a monarch are
in themselves no more than the shaking of a leaf
in the wind, but spoken in the ear of a foreign
ambassador at his court may not only shock the
finances of a continent, but may bring nations into
hostile and bloody collision.

The advent of a little seed upon the shore of
some island in the sea is in itself an event lost
in its own insignificance. But if that seed em-
bosom the germ of some nutritious fruit, and,
springing up into j^rolific maturity, in the course

HER STOOL. 13

of years reproduce its kind until the whole island
is supplied with its productions, its landing on
those shores comes to be an event of historic mag-
nitude and importance. Its fruit may not only
feed thousands of native islanders, but, becoming
an article of commerce, enrich them, build them
houses, improve their domestic habits, cover their
nakedness with comely habiliments and clothe the
island in the rich attire of an advanced civiliza-
tion. Nay, more, it may awaken the cupidity of
greedy foreigners, and tempt the navies of distant
powers to take forcible possession of those fertile
fields, and other powers, jealous of this intrusion,
may protest, and follow their protest with armed
resistance ; and thus out of the bosom of that little
seed shall grow events the record of which shall
fill many a bloody page of human history.

The personage named upon our title-page was
one of so humble a rank in life, of such grade of
intellectual powder and culture, and of such general
insignificance, that the mention of her as a subject
of discourse might seem only an excuse for literary
trifling. She was the consort of no monarch — the
daughter of no queenly or titled mother. She was
no cultivated Aspasia, fit to lecture on eloquence
in the presence of a Socrates and captivate the

14 JENNY GEDDES.

heart of a Pericles. Neither was she a Hannah
More, nor a Florence Nightingale, nor a brilliant
beauty, dazzling the eyes of some royal court.
Far from it ; and yet, if we mistake not, it will
be found that the part she played in life's drama,
though of a very humble and uncouth sort, was,
if not a prolific cause, at least the symbol and
instrument of principles and events second in
importance to very few in the course of human
history.

Jenny (or Janet) Geddes was a Scotch woman,
a native of that land of great minds and heroic
champions of Calvinistic orthodoxy. Born per-
haps about the close, before or after, of the six-
teenth century, toward the middle of the seven-
teenth she found herself a resident of the city of
Edinburgh. No doubt her position in life was
very humble — her food and raiment, perhaps of
the coarsest kind, procured by the labour of her
own hands.

Whether this was her maiden or matrimonial
name history does not say. She was certainly
poor, for in the great cathedral church of St. Giles
there was no place for her in the pew, if indeed
these conveniences had yet found place there; so
she went to church with her stool in her hand,

HER STOOL. 15

and sat upon it in the aisle wherever she could
find a convenient and unoccupied spot.

She was evidently a person of decided character,
and did her own thinking, at least on certain sub-
jects ; and as the sequel will show could, upon
occasion, without consultation with her husband,
if indeed she were blessed with matrimonial alli-
ance with any one of the rougher sex, do her own
acting also, and that with decision and energy.
She was a Presbyterian of the orthodox hue, and,
familiar with her Bible, she demanded conformity
to its teachings in all matters of faith and worship.

It was in the month of July — a month since
become so memorable in the history of human
freedom — on the twenty-third day of the month,
that Jenny emerged from domestic obscurity to
historic celebrity and renown. On that day there
w^as a strange ferment throughout Scotland and
a wild excitement in the city of Edinburgh.
King Charles had resolved to make Presbyterian-
ism give place to Prelacy throughout the realm.
A book of canons had been prepared subversive
of the whole system of Presbyterian government,
and had been enjoined upon the realm by procla-
mation upon the king's simple prerogative. Fol-
lowing this book came a liturgy as a law of public

16 * JENNY GEDDES.

worship, and a royal edict bad commanded its
introduction into all the churches of the realm on
this memorable Sabbatb day. Notice to this effect
bad been given the Sabbath before, and hence this
intense excitement. For the Scottish people knew
that if this measure were carried into effect by
the authorities, Presbyterianism was virtually in
its grave.

As the hour of Sabbath service approached, the
streets of Edinburgh were thronged with crowds of
jjeople — every bosom throbbing, every eye flaming
with excitement. But whither were they directing
their steps? Conspicuous from many a point in
the city of Edinburgh is a lofty tower, terminating
in an open, carved stonework, with arches spring-
ing from tlie four corners and meeting together at
the top in the form of a crown. Already more
than +hree centuries were looking down from that
tower-top. It rose from the centre of a vast and
venerable pile, including the High Church at the
eastern end, Avhere Knox so often preached, and
within which pile '^ forty altars" were at one time
supported. It was thither mainly the crowds were
pressing, and among them Jenny Geddes. Not
being overburdened with modesty, she elbowed
her way through the crowd to a convenient place,

HER STOOL. 17

in near proximity to the pulpit, and seated her-
self on her throne.

The edifice was filled to repletion with titled
nobility and the nobler untitled nobility of the
Scottish Presbyterian masses. There were present
archbishops, bishops, the lords of the session, the
magistrates of the city, members of the council,
" chief captains and principal men," and Jenny
Geddes and her stool.

The excitement was becoming every moment
more intense. The minutes dragged themselves
along with tormenting tardiness and the suspense
was becoming almost breathless.

AVhen the feeling was wrought up to its highest
tension the Dean of Edinburgh made his appear-
ance, clad in immaculate surplice, book in hand —
the fatal book of the liturgy — the device of
English Prelacy for the reform of Scotch Pres-
bytery. The book was opened and the service
begun.

The cup Avas now full, though as yet no one
pretended to know, no one dreamed, what form
of expression the pent-up indignation of the out-
raged people would assume. The question was
soon decided.

No sooner had the first words of the book,

18 JENNY GEBBES.

through the lips of the clean, reached tlie ear of
Jenny, the stern prophetess on her tripod, than a
sudden inspiration seized her. In an instant she
was on her feet, and her shrill, impassioned voice
rang through the arches of the cathedral :

"Villain! dost thou say mass in my lug?'^ and
in another instant her three-legged stool was seen
on its way, travelling through the air straight
toward the head of the surpliced prayer-reader.

The astounded dean, not anticipating such an
argument, dodged it, but the consequences he
could not dodge. He had laid his book, as he
thought, upon a cushion — the cushion proved a
hornet's nest. In an instant the assembly was
in the wildest uproar. Hands were clapped ;
hisses and loud vociferations filled the house, and
missiles, such as the hand could reach, filled the
air. A sudden rush was made toward the pulpit
by the people in one direction, and from the pul-
pit by the dean in the other.

On the retreat of the dean, the Bishop of Edin-
burgh took his place in the pulpit, and solemnly
commanded the winds and waves to be still, but
no calm followed. He was as rudely handled as
his brother in o}>pression, and nothing but a vig-
orous onset of the magistrates saved his lawn and

HER STOOL. 19.

mitre from the rough hands of Jenny Geddes'
soldiery.

At length, the people having been forcibly
ejected from the house, the affrighted dean re-
entered the pulpit and resumed the service ; but
the uproar without, the pounding at the doors,
showers of stones hurled through the windows,
turned the place into a bedlam, drowned the voice
of the dean and compelled a suspension of the
service.

When the dean and the bishop came out of the
church, decked in their prelatical plumes, they
were in no small danger of being torn in pieces
by the excited, outraged masses, and were followed
through the streets with the cries —

" Pull them down ! A pope — a pope ! Anti-
christ— antichrist !"

The magistrates managed to keep the peace in
the afternoon, but when the performance w^as over
the tumult in the streets was greater than ever.
The Earl of Roxborough, returning with the
bishop in his carriage, was so pelted with stones
and so pressed by the crowd that his life was in
danger.

Thus the scene that opened with such pomp
and circumstance closed in discomfiture and cha-

20 JENNY GEDDES.

grin. The liturgy, prepared with such care and
painstaking, and from which so much was hoped,
went up like a rocket and came down as rockets
are wont to descend. Here ended the first lesson.

Now, he would be marvellously astray who
should suppose that this sudden hurricane at St.
Giles was but a passing and unmeaning summer
squall. It was in truth the outburst of a national
feeling. A mighty ferment at this time pervaded
the national mhid. Great principles were at stake,
and the Scottish masses, well comprehending their
nature and the drift of events, were solemnly re-
solv^ed to vindicate their settled religious convic-
tions in the great controversy at whatever hazard
and cost.

When that irregular band of patriots, dressed
in Indian attire, marched through the streets of
Boston and tossed those tea-chests into the bay,
they at the same time virtually tossed British
sovereignty overboard; and Jenny Geddes' party
at St. Giles signed the death-warrant of civil and
ecclesiastical tyranny in both Scotland and Eng-
land ! The storm had been gathering for nearly
forty years, and this bursting of the cloud marked
a crisis in a great national revolution. It was the
first formidable outbreak against the tyranny of

HER STOOL, 21

the Stuarts, and Jenny Geddes' stool was the first
shell sent screaming through the air at those mer-
ciless oppressors of the two realms, and the echoes
of that shell are reverberating to-day among the
hills.

"Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual
sovereignties, popes, and much else. Presbyterian-
ism carried out the revolt against earthly sovereign-
ties and despotisms. Protestantism has been called
the grand root from which our whole subsequent
European history branches out; for the spiritual
will always body itself forth in the temporal his-
tory of men. The spiritual is the beginning of
the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is
everywhere for liberty, equality, independence, and
so forth ; instead of kings, ballot-boxes and elec-
toral suffrages."

THE CHURCH.

23

II.

THE CHURCH.

I HE powers that came into collision that clay
at St. Giles were not merely a mob on the
, one hand, and heady, imperious ecclesiastics
on the other, but deep-lying principles of civil
and ecclesiastical authority. That outbreak was
but one incident in the protracted war between
Church and State — a war which began centuries
before, and which is not yet ended. And it has
been characterized by a sterner severity, has evoked
into play higher and wilder passions, has given
occasion for the display of grander heroisms on
one hand and more savage tyrannies on the other,
than most of the collisions between man and man.
We now direct attention to the Church as one of
the great parties in the conflict.

"The Church'' embraces the w^hole body of
believers, in all ages of the world. " Christ loved
the Church, and gave himself for it," Eph. v. 25.
"A church" includes, sometimes, a handful of be-

25

26 JENNY GEDBES.

lievers, worshiping or living in a single house.
*' Greet Priscilla and Aquila ; likewise the church
that is in their house/' Kom. xvi. 5^ 6. But when
we read of '"' the Church of God which is at Co-
rinth" (1 Cor. i. 2), we are confronted with a body
of professed believers, organized under govern-
mental forms, with officers and laws, and through
these possessing the unity of a single body. And
in writing of the Churchy we propose simply to
direct attention to the form which cJiurch govermneiit
assumed in a][)ostolic times under the teaching of the
Holy Ghost.

The necessity for government among professed
believers in Christ arises from the same sad fact
that compels the organization of civil governments
among men — namely, human depravity.

True, indeed, the Christian is a new creature.
He has been born again of water and of the Spirit.
New views, new desires, new principles of action
control the mind, and through it the man.

But this change, great as it is in fact and in
ultimate consequences, does not, except when it
occurs in the moment of death, upon the instant
transform man into an angel. It only dej)osits
in the nature a new leaven to contend with old
depravities, and gradually, in the hand of the Holy

THE CHURCH. 27

Ghost, to master and finally expel all that remains
of sin and depravity. It lays a basis for new
exercises and for a new history. A new life is
introduced into the fast-decaying nature, wliich
in its movements calls into new and healthful
play all the innate or connate powers of the soul.
As the main stream sweeps along in its current
the feebler tributaries, so does this new life grap-
ple with and carry along in its heaven-tending
sweep all the natural issues of the mental and
moral life. But in this effort it meets with stub-
born and constant resistance.

Were Christians perfect, a few simple rules
would suffice for the preservation of order and
the harmonious and effective working of the whole
machinery of ecclesiastical life. But the obvious
imperfection of all, and the inability of Christians
to read their own hearts, much more the hearts
of others, open the way for the sure introduction
of tares among the wheat — unconverted members
to communion-tables, unconverted pastors into
pulpits — and hence roots of bitterness are cer-
tain to spring forth, needing some efficient power
to eradicate them ; controversies are generated
that can be allayed only by the strong arm of
authority.

28 JENNY GEDDES.

Hence, if the Church is not to become a mass
of decay and confusion, and sink to worse than
inefficiency, there is absolute necessity for some
effective system of government, to decide upon
the qualification of candidates for the pulpit and
the communion-table, and then, if need arise, to
discipline and eject the unfit and unfaithful.

For want of such government, many a Church,
once pure in doctrine and efficient in action, has
become first an unsightly deformity, then a fort-
ress and propagandist of soul-destroying heresy,
and then an utter ruin. The golden candlestick
has been removed out of its place and a darkness
more dense than ever has enshrouded the people.
And even when the evil has not reached such
extremes, in many a noted instance a powerful
Church has become divided against itself; gross
errors in doctrine nestling side by side with ortho-
doxy ; wickedness and piety dwelling together
under the shadow of the same altar.

A striking example of what a Christian Church
may become through want of anything like an
efficient system of government and discipline, may
be seen in the present condition of the Church of
England. Of this venerable, and in many respects
noble Church, no Christian heart can desire to

THE CHURCH. 29

think, no Christian tongue to speak, in other
thoughts and terms than those of respect and
affection. She has been too long a main bulwark
of Protestantism ; her records show too brilliant
a list of nanles respected for talent and distin-
guished for piety ; she has given too noble a band
of martyrs to the flames, and has furnished our
libraries with too many volumes on sound the-
ology and practical piety, to be lightly treated with
disrespect. But even charity that covereth the
multitude of sins cannot be blind to, and ought
not to be silent respecting, the many flagrant de-
relictions of even such a Church. With an unex-
ceptionable creed, it is difficult to say what forms
of heresy in doctrine, and what style of immorali-
ties in life, both among clergy and people, are not
at this day to be found in the bosom of this
Church. From what it requires a very keen vision
to distino-uisli from rank Romanism and flas^rant
Unitarianism, down to rationalistic iiifidelity,
through every grade of error, the darkness is
spread. True, pious and learned prelates and
clergy of lower rank utter frequent and manly
protests. True, many within her bosom grow sick
at heart at the sight of evils they cannot stay or
expel. But, as with the patient under a hopeless

30 JENNY GEDDES.

disease, the recuperative power is too weak, and
the noble witnesses protest and submit.

The sickening story of Colenso attests her utter
impotency for discipline. At a recent meeting of
'' convocation" a well-known ^' dean" spoke nearly
four hours in the '^ lower house" upon this case,
in which he made these fearful statements : '^ I
might mention several prelates, and many obscure
clergymen, Avho certainly, on some of these mat-
ters, hold the same opinion as the Bishop of Natal.
I might mention one who has ventured to say that
the Pentateuch is not the work of JNIoses — that
the narratives of historical incidents are coloured
by the necessary infirmities of the human writers —
and that individual is the one who now addresses
you !" And then he asked why they did not lay
their hands on him.

Now, although much of his language in that
speech was somewhat guarded, and some of his
expressions are capable of an interpretation that
would not shock the Christian sense, yet uttered
as they were in defence of such a man, and by one
who distinctly avows his own agreement and the
agreement of bishops and obscurer clergy with the
principles of that man, it can only be understood
as the expression for himself, and the imputation

THE CHURCH. 31

to those of whom he speaks, of sentiments so
nearly infidel that orthodoxy can give them no
other name. Bat where in that Church is the
power to purge itself of these heresies and eject
from her bosom those who thus corrupt the faith
once delivered to the saints?

The necessity of some well-ordered and efficient
government in the Church being manifest, a ques-
tion of grave importance arises as to its legitimate
and wisest form.

On this our appeal must he to the will of the
King. The divine will might be signified in one
or other of two ways : First, an explicit and com-
plete system might have been laid down, as in
the case of the Mosaic constitution, in plain, literal
terms, thus forestalling controversy, and binding
the Church by formal legal enactments. Or, in
the absence of this, the will of the great Head of
the Church might appear, as indeed it does appear,
in the course actually adopted in the organization
of the original society. In the sacred edifice
erected by apostolic hands we may assuredly find
a safe model for all climes and generations, to
depart from which necessitates a clear and valid
justification on the part of those who venture
upon such departure. The Church most nearly

32 JENNY GEDDES.

like that of the New Testament, in the rank, func-
tions and names of its officers, is without doubt
that which may most safely challenge the scruti-
nies of reason and conscience.

In our quest for a church model in the New
Testament, we may not, however, forget that, from
the nature of the case, we shall come upon many
customs, agencies and officers necessary during
the emergence of the Church from Judaism, and
its secure establishment upon its own independent
foundations, but destined to pass away when the
new empire had made good its claim to existence
among men. To displace Judaism on the one
hand, and Gentilism on the other, required that,
for a time, the Church be clothed with miraculous
mastery over the powers of nature, over sicknesses,
demons, and even over death itself. But this work
once accomplished, these miraculous powers are for
ever withdrawn. To ascertain, then, w-hat is now
demanded to conform the Church to the New Tes-
tament model, we must carefully distinguish be-
tween the temporary and permanent, between tlie
preparatory and complete, the scaffi^lding and the
building itself.

. Turning our eyes, then, toward that scene of
organization, the first and most imposing object

THE CHURCH. 33

that arrests our attention is the Divine Head;
the groat Master Builder; High Priest, and now
only Priest in Zion, and King as well as Priest —
" His head and hairs white as snow, his eyes as
a flame of fire, his feet like unto fine brass, as if
they burned in a furnace, with the seven stars in
his right hand, walking in the midst of the golden
candlesticks.'' He was and is the Church's King.
His word is law, his dominion absolute. Once
on earth, he is now in heaven, ascended thither
to a throne, in full sovereignty as Head of the
Church, and Head over all things to the Church.
He left no successor below. He appointed no
visible vicar. Who claims such an office is a
usurper — that " wicked," whom " the Lord shall
consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall
destroy with the brightness of his coming !"

The government of the Church, then, is in a
high and holy sense an absolute monarchy, for
Jesus Christ is the Head and Source of all govern-
mental power and authority received by and ex-
ercised over men.

Grouped around this sacerdotal Monarch we
find a great variety of religious officers, some of
whom are appointed merely for the exigencies
of the time, not intended to be permanent, and

34 JENNY GEDDES.

whose offices ceased for ever with the life of the
incumbents.

1. Among these are the Twelve Apostles, princes
in Zion, according to the number of the tribes of
Israel.

The very character of their endowments and
the nature of their official functions rendered their
office incapable of transmission to successors, ex-
cept by a perpetual series of miracles. An essen-
tial qualification for the apostleship was the ability
to testify as eye-witnesses to the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead, and hence the incum-
bent must have seen him alive after his resurrec-
tion ; but this could be the case Avith none others
than those of that one generation without a mi-
raculous revelation of tlie risen Saviour to each
successive candidate for the holy office.

The importance of Christ's resurrection from
the dead, as a great fact in the history of redemp-
tion, is recognized in many provisions and doc-
trines of the gospel scheme. To glorify this event
the observance of the Sabbath was transferred, not
to the day of the week on which Jesus died, but
to the day on which he rose from the dead. It
was also essential to complete the plan of re-
demption.

THE CHURCH. 35

This plan was one complex whole, which could
lack no one part without becoming wholly vain.
The golden chain that binds the redeemed soul
to the throne of God, consisted of seven several
links: the incarnation of Christ, his obedient life,
his atoning death, his resurrection, his ascension,
his session at the right hand of God, and his active
intercession there in behalf of those for whom he
died. Strike out any one of these links, and the
whole chain is a mere rope of sand, leaving our
poor bark drifting upon the rocks of sin, con-
demnation and woe. But our salvation is most
intimately connected with the last — the inter-
cession.

For all the rest is vain for us until the Spirit
apply to us the purchased redemption. But this
Spirit is given in response to Christ's intercession.
" He is able to save them to the uttermost that
come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to
make intercession for us.'' But if he be not raised
from the dead, there can be no intercession in
heaven and no salvation on earth.

Besides, Christ himself staked all his claims to
the Messiahship upon his resurrection.

Over and over again he assured his disciples that
he would rise again. Almost his last words to them

36 JENNY GEDDES.

were these : " After I am risen, I will go before
you into Galilee — there shall ye see mep Nor had
he merely whispered this assurance in the ears of
his friends — he had thundered it in the ears of his
foes. And they well remembered it, saying, " We
remember that this deceiver said, when he was yet
alive. After three days I Avill rise again." Hence
their request for a seal and a guard for his se-
pulchre ; for they saw that even if his body were
stolen away by the disciples, and the report go
abroad that he had risen, " the last error would be
worse than the first."

If, now, though he had been a three years' won-
der to the nation, and had uttered many admirable
words, yet had he failed to fulfil this oft-repeated
assurance, what could his friends say, and how
could his foes be brought to believe in him? Had
he not risen from the dead, all faith in him would
have been for ever buried with him in his own
sepulchre.

And all remember Paul's elaborate exposition
of the bearing of this great fact upon the whole
scheme of salvation : " If Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also
vain. If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ;
ye are yet in your sins. Then they that are

THE CHURCH. 37

fallen asleep in Christ are perished/' 1 Cor. xv.
12-19.

Thus the whole evidence of Christianity is em-
bosomed in the one fact of Christ's resurrection
from the dead. If, indeed, he rose, then is there
one glorious Name given, under heaven, among
men, whereby men may be saved; if not, the
whole scheme is a vanity and vexation of spirit —
nothing more.

Hence this fact was too vitally important to be
left to its OW'U authentication. An inspired jury
of twelve men must be ordained, who could go to
prison and to death as w itnesses thereto. And the
one fundamental, distinguishing duty of the apos-
tolic office was to certify the world of this great focty
and to authenticate their appointment to this office by
working miracles in the name of the Risen One,
They were to organize churches and oversee the
w^hole neW' empire; but all their other Avorks were
grounded upon this one great duty of witnessing
to the resurrection of their Lord.

The word apostle means messenger, and in this
general sense many were called apostles, but none
other than the sacred twelve are ever mentioned as
the Apostles.

And, for the time, the appointed number must

38 JENNY GFDBFS.

be retained. Henee, when Juclas fell, Peter said
to the one hundred and twenty, all of whom had
seen Jesus after his i-esurrection, " Of those which
have companicd with us from the beginning,
must one be ordained to be witness with us, with
us of his resurrection^^ None others could fill the
office assigned to the twelve but such as were
solemnly ordained thereto. They were to be wit-
nesses on the stand, testifying before all the world
to the great culminating, crowning fact in the
history of redemption — the resurrection of Christ.

So Jesus named them. " In those last solemn
moments," writes the Rev. Albert Barnes, upon
this point, "when he was about to leave the world,
when the work of atonement was finished, and
when he gave the apostles their final commission,
he indicated the nature of their labour and the
peculiarity of their office in these w^ords : ^Thus
it is uTitten, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer^
arid to i^ise from the dead on the third day, and
ye are avitnesses of these things,' " Luke xxiv.
46-48.

This peculiar title and office the apostles ex-
pressly challenged for themselves. At Pentecost,
Peter, standing with the eleven, charged home the
murder of Jesus upon the Jews, and then added :

THE CHURCH. 39

" This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are
wUnesseSy" Acts ii. 22,

Again, to the Sanhedrim, " Peter and the other
apostles" said, " The God of our Fathers raised up
Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him
hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour,
and we are witnesses of these things."

So essential was it to the unique office of the
apostleship to have actually seen Jesus after his
resurrection that Paul was fitted therefor by a
miraculous exhibition to his eye of the Risen One !
And to this he appeals in justification of his claim
before the Corinthians : " Xva I not an apostle ?
Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord ?" 1 Cor.
ix. 1. "And last of all he was seen of me, also, as
of one born out of due time," 1 Cor. xv. 8.

Thus, from the very nature of the case, the
apostles could have uo successors ; and who lays
claim to such succession must be able to show that
by miracle he too has seen Jesus Christ our Lord.

A second marked j^eculiarity in the office of the
apostle is seen in the extent of his sphere of
labour. The whole Church was his parish. He
might go with his fellow apostles or singly,
"whithersoever the exigencies of the case required.'
Ko province, no city, no presbytery, Avas exempt

40 JENNY GEDDES.

from his oversight. Pastors, elders, deacons, if
delinquent or erratic, were open to their rebuke.

In this the only claim to succession is that put
forth by the triple-crowned tyrant on the banks of
the Tiber, the Great Apostle of the Apostasy.

2. Besides the twelve witnesses, our blessed
Saviour also appointed, on a certain occasion,
seventy others, and sent them forth, two and two,
into every city and place whither he himself would
come, investing them with miraculous powers, and
charging them to preach the gospel of the king-
dom, Luke X. 19. These, however, instead of
constituting a band of permanent officers, disapj)ear
again almost as soon as they appear. The object
of their appointment was merely to spread the
knowledge of the kingdom more widely than was
possible to the twelve.

3. The twelve apostles and the seventy evan-
gelists were the only officers appointed immediately
by the Saviour ; and they, or at least the former,
were appointed as organizers of the Church ; but
neither the one nor the other formed any part of
the permanent organization.

Besides these, in later days, many other officers
were employed for the time, but who left no suc-
cessors. Some of these are named in the twelfth

THE CHURCH. ~ 41

of First Corinthians. After the apostles, prophets
are mentioned — "men who spake for God as the
occasional organs of the Spirit/' Then teachers —
*' uninspired men who had received the gift of
teaching.'^ After that, miracles, or " men endowed
with the power of working miracles." Then gifts
of healings — " persons endowed with the power of
healing diseases.'' JJeljys — "persons qualified to
help the officers of the church, probably in the
care of the poor and the sick." Governments —
" those who had authority to rule." And, finally,
diversities of tongues — " persons having the gift of
speaking in foreign tongues."

" On this enumeration," whites Dr. Charles
Hodge, "it may be remarked that it is not in-
tended to be exhaustive. Gifts are mentioned in
verses eighth and tenth, and elsewhere, which
have nothing to correspond Avith them here.

" Secondly, every office necessarily supposes a
corresponding gift. No man could be an apostle
without inspiration, nor a healer of diseases with-
out the gift of healing. If any man, therefore,
claims to be an apostle, or a prophet, or a worker
of miracles, without the corresponding gift, he is a
false pretender.

"Thirdly, the fact that an office existed in the

42 jExyy geddes.

Apostolic Churoli is no evidence that it was in-
tended to be permanent. In tliat age there was a
plenitude of spiritual manifestations and eixlow-
ments demanded for the organization and propaga-
tion of the Church wdiich is no longer required.
The only evidence that an office was intended to
be permanent is the continuance of the gifts of
which it was the organ^ and the command to ap-
point to the office those who are found to possess
the gifts. Had the gift of sight been discontinued,
it would avail little that men should call the
mouth and nose eyes, and demand that they should
be recognized as such. This is precisely what the
Romanists and others do when they call their
bishops apostles, and require men to honour and
obey them as though they were."

Later still in the history of the Church we find
the title "angel of the Church/' as in Rev. i. 20:
" The seven stars are the ano;els of the seven
churches.'^

These Avords form a part of the glowing intro-
ductory vision of the Apocalypse. The Son of
man appeared to the Seer of Patmos walking in
the midst of the golden candlesticks, and in his
right hand, the hand of firmer grasp, seven stars.
The candlesticks are the churches and the stars

THE CHrnciL 43

tlie angels — that Is, the officers of those churches.
The Son of man, the Sun of Righteousness, the
blazing source and centre of all spiritual light,
employs these angel-stars as the official human
medium through which he pours upon the
churches to which they severally minister the
light of instruction, example and consolation.

This term, angel, is a favorite Scripture title for
the minister of religion. The prophets are called
angels : ^^ Thus spake Haggai, the Lord's angel."
So also the priests : " The priest's lips should
keep knowledge, for he is the angel of the Lord
of Hosts,'' Mai. ii. 7. And the Jews were accus-
tomed to o^ive this title to the minister who offi-
ciated in the service of the synagogue. And the
seven epistles in Revelation are addressed to the
angels of the churches, to which they severally
ministered.

And in these epistles the title is given, not to
any one man, but to the collective body of min-
isterial incumbents in the churches specifically
named. Thus, in the epistle to the angel of the
Church at Smyrna, we read, ^' I know tliy works ;
fear none of the thino^s which thou shalt suffer.
Behold, thou angel, the devil shall cast some of
you into prison, that ye may be tried. Be thou

44 JENNY GEDDES.

faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown
of life.'^

The object here addressed, now collectively and
now distributively, is the same, for the words
specify impending dangers and persecutions, and
then consolations to support under them ; and we
may not accuse the venerable exile of the rhetorical
confusion of attemj^ting to administer comfort to
one person, or body of men, under affliction, by
telling others of consolations in store for them, or
them of consolations in store for others.

The first of these epistles is addressed to the
angel of the Church at Ephesus. That this angel
consisted of no single person may be seen in the
account given in the twentieth of Acts of the scene
at Miletus: "And from Miletus, Paul sent to
Ephesus, and called to him the elders of the
Church,'' and these elders he thus addressed,
" Take heed to all the flock of God, over the
which the Holy Ghost hath made you hishopsJ^
Thus, we have here the collected body of pastoral
Ephesian bishops, to which John afterward wrote,
styling them the angel of the Church at Ephesus.

And in the fourteenth chapter of this book the
aggregate Christian ministry in all the world is
called an angel: "And I saw another angel fly

THE CHURCH. 45

in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting
gospel to preach utito every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and peopled

Thus the whole Christian ministry in the world
is the angel of the whole body of professing Chris-
tians in the world ; and any given number of min-
isterial brethren, Avho represent an aggregate of
Christian congregations, are, in Scripture language,
the angel of that aggregate; and each pastor is
the ano^el of the cono-reo-ation to which he min-
isters.

Besides the temporary officers of the Church,
appointed and qualified for its organization under
the form, there were permanent officers called dea-
cons. An account of the institution of this office
is given in the sixth of Acts. The deacon, as will
there be seen, was not to be a ruler, but only a
distributor of alms to the needy, godly poor.

The Church then was not organized under gov-
ernmental forms while Christ was yet on earth.
The preparations were all made. John the Baptist
did his work, and the seventy temporary evangel-
ists finished theirs, and their official character is
never mentioned in the New Testament after the
resurrection. Up to the time of Christ's death,
whereby he *^ finished transgression and made an

46 JENNY GEDDES.

end of sin, and made reconciliation for iniquity"
by the one great sacrifice, the old Church could
not give place to the new. Nor did the disciples
and apostles, in their dismay and bewilderment,
know what to think or do till the Holy Ghost at
Pentecost enlightened their minds and marked
out a clear ])ath before them.

In proceeding now to unfold the system of gov-
ernment instituted by the apostles, let it be re-
marked :

1. That each Church was placed under perma-
nent rulers.

The Church, as organized, was not a pure de-
mocracyj in which the government was adminis-
tered by the people in the mass, but a system
under which certain rulers, however designated
and inducted into office, were invested with the
powers and exercised the functions of government.

Dr. John Mason writes : '^ There are three terms
employed in the ^ew Testament to express the
authority which is to be exercised in the Christian
Church — one meaning to lead, another to stand
before, to preside over, and the third, to act the part
of the shepherd;^' and all the powers thus specified
are named as beloup-ino; to Church officers. In
Heb. xiii. 7, 17, 24, we read: "Remember them

THE CHURCH. A^J

which have the rule over you — your rulers" —
^^ obey them and submit yourselves. Salute all
tJiem that have tlie rule over you/' It is signifi-
cant that these rulers are spoken of as many,
without any hint that the ]>owers of government
were ever invested in an individual. The term
here employed to signify ride is the same as that
found in Matt. ii. 6 : " Thou Bethlehem in the
land of Juda art not the least among the iwinces —
rulers — of Juda, for out of thee shall come a gov-
ernor — ruler — that shall 7nUe my people Israel."

In 1 Thess. V. 12 it is written: "We beseech
you to know them which labour among and are
over you in the Lord." In the single Church at
Thessalonica there were several persons in official
position over the brethren. The word here em-
})loyed nieans to preside over and govern, as we
see in 1 Tim. iii. 4: "A bishop must be one that
ruhth well his own house."

Again, in 1 Pet. v. 2, 3 : " The elders which are
among you I exhort; feed, act the shepherd to,
govern, control the flock of God which is among
you, taking the oversight thereof, acting as bishop
over them." And in Acts xx. 17, 38, the elders
are commanded to feed the flock over which they
had been made overseers. This word, act the

48 JEXyY GEDDES.

shepherd, is common in the Greek classics as a
designation of the kingly office; kings are called
the shepherds of the people. Of David it was
said in 2 Sam. v. 2 : '' Thou shalt feed, act the
shepherd to ray people, and be a captain over
them."

Of Christ, also, it is said in Matt. ii. 6, " He
shall rule — feed — be shepherd to my people."
And in Rev. ii. 27, the same word is used, ^^ He
shall rule them with a rod of iron."

Thus we see that the several churches were
placed under officers who were invested with all
the powers necessary for the exercise of a wise and
authoritative government and discipline.

2. These rulers Avere elders. " Let the ciders
that rule well be accounted worthy of double
honour," 1 Tim. v. 17. "The elders which are
among you feed^ rule, govern the flock of God
which is among you, taking the oversight thereof,
exercising the duties of the bishopric," 1 Pet. v.
1, 3. "From Miletus Paul sent to Ephesus and
called the eldet's of the Church and said to them :
Take heed to all the flock over the which the
Holy Ghost hath made you bishoj)^, to feed, rule,
govern the Church of God," Acts xx. 17, 28.
Thus in the one Church at Ephesus there were

THE CHURCH. 49

several who filled the office of rulers, and these
rulers were elders. Paul and Barnabas '^ ordained
elders in every church, or church by churchy^' Acts
xiv. 23. Having brought the work of organiza-
tion to a certain degree of maturity in Crete, Paul
left Titus, his assistant and companion, there '^to
set in order the things that were wanting, and
ordain elders in eirry city,^ Titus i. 5.

3. As these elders are called rulers and invested
with all governmental authority, so in fact they
exercised their powers in the icork of discipline and
control.

As Mr. Barnes well says, there were hundreds
of churches, yet only two instances are mentioned
in which the apostles in any way interfered in
cases of discipline. That calls for discipline were
very numerous is evident from the fearful defec-
tions from the faith mentioned in the E2)istle to
the Galatians, and from pure morals among the
Corinthians. And as each of these churches w^as
organized under an eldership commanded to rule
the flock, the work of discipline naturally and
necessarily fell to them.

Accordingly, in 2 Thess. iii. 14, Paul charges
the Church, " If any man obey not our word by
this epistle, note that man and have no company

60 JENNY GEDDES.

with him/' They were to censure him and au-
thoritatively debar him from Christian privileges.
This charge being given to the Church as an
organized body, must be addressed to those officers
whose duty it was to "feed," rule, govern the
flock and act the bishops over it.

Again, in the 5th chapter of 1 Cor. an account
is given of an instance of gross immorality calling
for rigorous discipline — for the infliction of a
penalty which consisted in delivering the offender
over " to Satan for destruction of the flesh.'' Now
Paul, as an apostle, lield by virtue of his office
the right to interfere anywhere and at any time in
the affairs of any Church. But in the Church at
Corinth he felt a peculira' interest as its founder
and the instrument in the hands of God of the
conversion of many of its members. They were
his spiritual children dearly beloved. " For
though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ,
ye have not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I
have begotten you through the gospel," 1 Cor. iv.
15. Now in our churches cases not unfrequently
arise in which discipline by the ordinary methods
is impossible. Sometimes the body of the church
and the elders are so at variance that any censure
by the latter is felt by the former to be the result

THE CHURCH. 61

of prejudice, or the eldership may be so divided as
to make an effective decision impossible. In such
a case, the presbytery sometimes lays its com-
mands upon the session or eldership, and they are
constrained to proceed accordingly. Sometimes,
not very unfrequently, the presbytery takes the
whole matter into its own hands, and of itself
settles the question.

In the case before us, among the Corinthians,
from some cause, discipline in the ordinary way
was hindered and the offender went unpunished.
There were now three legitimate methods in which
the apostle might have proceeded in this case :

Firsty he might have committed the whole
matter to Timothy, his travelling companion, and
bid him to settle the matter. He sometimes did
this : " I besought thee to abide at Ephesus when
I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge
some that they teach no other doctrine,'' 1 Tim.
i. 3. And Timothy was now at Corinth with a
commission from the apostle to execute just such
tasks as this : " For this cause I have sent unto
you Timotheus, my beloved son and faithful in
the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance
of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every-
where in every Church," 1 Cor. iv. 17.

62 JENNY GEDDES.

Or, second, the apostle might have decided the
matter himself by virtue of his plenary authority
as an apostle, and sent a formal excommunication
of the offender with the bearer of this epistle.

Or, lastly J in proper recognition of the dignity
and authority of the eldership, he might simply
direct them as to the course they were to pursue,
and thus reinforced by an apostle's judgment they
could control all opposition and carry the matter
to a final settlement. Now, in fact, the apostle
chose the last course of the three. Leavina:
Timothy entirely out of view, he directed the
Church to take the matter in hand and issue it in
the regular way : " For I verily, as absent in body
but present in spirit, have judged already as if I
were present concerning him that hath so done this
deed.'^ To his own mind the proper course was
perfectly clear : ^' In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, vjlien ye are gathered together, and my
spirit" — Paul was in spirit among them as a
member of their eldership — " with the power of
the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one to
Satan." Thus, even as an apostle, he yet acted
with and through the eldership. The Church
obeyed and inflicted the condemnation. The pun-
ishment was "inflicted of many," 2 Cor. ii. 6.

THE CHURCH. 63

The bench of ruling elders performed their task,
and the result was, ^^ that the offender was brought
to such sorrow that he was likely to be over-
whelmed/' 2 Cor. ii. 7. And now another act of
government was needed. The offender must be
restored. But, as Mr. Barnes says, ^' Even an
apostle did not assume the prerogative of saying
that he should be reinstated in the Church ; he did
not of his own authority restore him; he placed
him before the Church and asked them to do it."
^' Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, so
that contrary wise" — reversing your judgment —
"i/e ought rather to forgive him. Wherefore I
beseech you that ye would confirm your love to-
ward him. To whom ye forgive anything I
forgive also." The Church Jirst, and then the
apostle. He simply confirms their sentence.

The only other case of discipline in which the
apostles are mentioned as taking part is one al-
luded to in 1 Tim. i. 20: " Hymeneus and Alex-
ander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that
they may learn not to blaspheme." In giving
charge to Timothy, Paul incidentally speaks of
this case of discipline in which he, as an apostle,
had authoritatively acted.

It is not stated, nor can it be known where this

54 JENNY GEDDES.

case of discipline occurred, whether in Macedonia
where Paul now was, or during some earlier period
Avhen Timothy was with him. All that we can
gather is, that it was a case with which Timothy
was familiar. We learn from it that there were
occasions in which, owing to the inexperience of
the elders, or to divisions among them, or to the
confusion into which the Church had been thrown
by the boldness and recklessness of blasphemers,
it was necessary that the apostle exercise directly
his undoubted right to inflict the extraordinary
penalty of delivering over to Satan. And it may
be that in this case also, as in that at Corinth, the
apostle, as himself an elder, acted with the other
elders and through them.

4. These elders were the only permanent officers
ordained to hear rule in the Church of the New
Testament.

The Epistle to the Philippians is addressed to
"all the saints at Philippi, with the bishops and
deacons." The whole Church, including its board
of officers, is here addressed, and the only officers
are bishops and deacons. Tlie deacons were not
rulers, but officers to receive and distribute alms
to the poor. In this one Church at Philippi were
several bishops. These bishops were ehlers. " For

THE CHURCH. 55

this cause I left thee in Crete to ordain elders in
every city, if any be blameless, for a bishop must
be blameless." Blshoj^s and elders are the same,
and the epistle is addressed to the elders and dea-
cons. And as this Church was organized by Paul
himself, we may be sure that it was complete in
all its appointments.

And as Jesus, while labouring in the narrow
field of Palestine, required not only twelve apostles
to be constantly with him for their instruction,
but for a time seventy evangelists, to go before
him whithersoever Jie himself would come, and
whose office ceased when he ceased his travels, so
the Apostle Paul, the great Church organizer, with
the whole world before him, required and ap-
l^ointed at least two elders, Timothy and Titus,
to be his companions in travel, and, when occasion
required, to remain behind him and finish work
which he had begun.

About the year 53, Paul associated Timothy
with him at Lystra, as a ^' minister*^ and helper,
Acts xix. 22. At the close of this year he was
with liim at Berea, Acts xvii. 14. When Paul
reached Athens he sent word for Timothy to rejoin
him there, and to come with all speed, v. 15. At
Corinth, Timothy reached his spiritual father, Acts

58 JENNY GEDBES.

xviii. 5. The next two years he made a part
of the apostle's retinue; was w^ith him when he
wrote both Epistles to the Thessalonians, 1 Thess.
i. 1 ; 2 Thess. i. 1, and at the close of that period
was sent with Erastus into Macedonia, Acts xix.
22. Three years after he was sent to Corinth,
1 Cor. iv. 17, and tlie next year had returned, and
was with Paul when he wrote his second Epistle
to the Church there, 2 Cor. i. 1. He was one of
the seven who composed the apostle's train that
same year when he left Greece and Avent into
Asia. Thus Timothy acted as '^ minister" to Paul
and did the " work of an evangelist," 2 Tim. iv. 5.
Paul " besought him to abide a while at Ephesus"
to do a certain work, expecting soon to join him
there, and to be diligent in his work ''till he
come," 1 Tim. i. 3; iii. 14; iv. 13. Timothy had
no thought that Ephesus was his home and the
special field of his labours, and he remained there
only at the earnest request of the apostle. The
only instances in which he is known to have been
at Ephesus at all, are — first, the time when he was
sent thence into Macedonia, Acts xix. 22, and the
time when Paul begged him to remain there '' till
he come," 1 Tim. iv. 13.

Now, as a "minister" to an apostle and an

THE CHURCH. 57

"evangelist," he was entrusted with tasks that
might just as well have been assigned to any other
travelling elder. As Paul's representative, during
the brief parenthesis of time he spent in this place
and that, he could ordain elders, commit the things
which he had heard of Paul among many wit-
nesses to faithful men, who should be able to
teach others also, put the brethren in remembrance
of these things, charge them that they teach no
other doctrine, and execute any other service en-
trusted to him by tlie apostle, who was constantly
inspecting his work, correcting any errors into
wliich he might fall, and setting his seal upon
any work done according to the will of the Holy
Spirit.

It has been hastily assumed that Paul calls
Timothy an apostle in 1 Thess. i. 1 ; ii. 6, where,
after thus opening the Epistle, " Paul and Syl-
vanus and Timotheus," he says, " We might have
been burdensome to you as the apostles of Christ."
If this were so, it was very different from his
mode of speaking in 2 Cor. i. 1, ^' Paul an apos-
tle, and Timothy" not an apostle, but " owr
hrother.^^ And in Col. i. 1, "Paul an apostle of
Jesus Christ, and Timotheus our brother.'^ He
does not write, Paul and Timotheus, apostles of

58 JENNY GEDDES.

Jesus Christ, though in Phil. i. 1 he does write
" Paul and Timotheus, servants of Jesus Christ."
And in 2 Thess. ii. 1-6, we read, " Ye know that
we were shamefully entreated at Philippi." But
Timothy was not shamefully entreated there. So
in 1 Thess. i. Paul writes, w^hen we could no
longer follow we thought to be left in Athens
alone. We, I Paul alone. And Paul is speaking
of himself alone when he says, "We might have
been burdensome to you as apostles of Christ,
but tve were gentle among you as a nurse cher-
isheth her children; wherefore we would not
come unto you, even I, Paul, once and again."
Thus Timothy is called an evangelist, a minister,
a brother, but never an apostle in the New Tes-
tament.

Timothy, then, was simply an itinerant mission-
ary, and where he was' when Paul wrote his second
letter to him it is impossible to say. That he was
not at Ephesus is seen in 2 Tim. iv. 12, where
Paul says, " I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus,"
which he would hardly say to one at Ephesus ;
for Tychicus, already on his way to Ephesus,
would reach it before the letter arrived, if he were
not already there. Then Paul says, " Trophimus
I left sick at Miletum," and Paul would hardly

THE CHURCH. 59

write all the Avay from Rome to tell one In Ephe-
sus that he had left another sick only thirty miles
off.

Titus was another of these itinerant evangelists.
For a while he was left in Crete to set in order
the things that were wanting and ordain elders in
every city, and in the apostle's name to instruct
them and the people in their duties, Titus i. 5.
Then when judicious elders had been placed in
office these churches were to be left to their con-
trol, and Titus was to hasten away elsewhere.
" When I shall send Artemus unto thee, or Ty-
chicus, be diligent to come unto me to Nicopolis,"
Titus iii. 12. Again, we find Paul sending him
from Ephesus to Corinth, 2 Cor. xiii. 18 ; and
then leaving Ephesus himself he expected to meet
Titus at Troas, in which he was sadly disap-
pointed : '' I came to Troas, but had no rest in
my spirit because I found not Titus my brother,"
2 Cor. ii. 12, 13. So he went on to Macedonia,
where Titus rejoined him, 2 Cor. vii. 5, 6. Again
Paul sent him to Dalmatia : " Demas hath for-
saken me and is departed unto Thessalonica, Titus
to Dalmatia,'' 2 Tim. iv. 10. And should we
inquire, as certain persons did, " Who is this
Titus ?" Paul answers " he is" — not an apostle, but —

60 JENNY GEDDES

" my partner and fellow-helper concerning you/'
2 Cor. viii. 23.

Thus Titus^ like Timothy^ was simply an elder,
employed by the apostle to do certain important
services here and there, to hasten from place to
place, and assist in organizing the churches under
a permanent eldership, and to instruct those elders
in the duties of their high office.

The elder or presbyter, then, is the only ruling
officer in the New Testament Church ; and who-
ever lays claim to any governmental office higher
than this or other than this within the Church of
Christ, and especially one who challenges authority
over elders, must make good his claim by some
plain revelation of God given subsequent to apos-
tolic times. The Romish cardinals may elect one
of their number to headship in the papacy, and
when elected and inducted into office he shall be
the vicar, not of Christ, but of the conclave, while
in the Church of Christ he is nothing. The pres-
ent female head of the English Church estal)lish-
ment may nominate or apj^oint, and by her
^' license, under her royal signet and sign manual,
authorize and empower one to be" a bishop or
archbishoj:), and this officer may be a baron, and,
as such, sit in the House of Lords and act as

THE CHURCH. 61

secular legislator, and may hold his courts of va-
rious character, but in the Church of Christ he
can be at the highest no more than an elder, and,
as such, is capable of no other acts than such as
pertain to the eldership.

5. This office of the eldership was but the con-
tinuation of one that had existed from the earliest
period in the Church of God.

It is a well-known fact that the human race,
as it radiated in various directions from its ancient
home in the East, bore with it those seeds and
animals which are most needful for its service
and support. Rice, wheat, pulse and the vine;
the horse, the ass, sheep, goats and cows, and
many other animals, have been, from the first, and
still are, the almost inseparable companions of
man. The same is largely true also of those
words that denote family relations — father, mother,
child ; of words that designate the various parts
of the body ; of names of the heavenly bodies,
and of those expressive of various bodily acts, as
eat, drink, sleep and walk. Through all migra-
tions, through all changes of climate, customs and
institutions, however great and diversified they
may be, those things which either grow out of
the life of a people or are most needful for its

62 JENNY GEDDES.

well-being cling to man in steady and almost un-
varying relationship.

The same is true of those institutions through
which the domestic and civil life have been taught
from earliest years to express themselves. And
thus we see the chosen people of God, while part-
ing with many things during the lapse of ages,
and adopting and naturalizing among themselves
many new customs and habits, yet, through all
migrations, vicissitudes and revolutions, still cling-
ing to the eldership as to a part of its social,
tribal and national being.

Even during the residence in Egypt, at first as
the adopted children and favorites of the realm,
and then as its slaves, under hard bondage in
brick and mortar, that people, so far from sinking
into anarchical dissolution among themselves, re-
tained, in the venerable eldership, something more
than the mere semblance of a reo^ular orsrani-

CD O

zation — whether from force of habit or from a
half-unconscious assurance that the day would
dawn when this institution would come to play
an important part in their national life. How
far anything like a thorough governmental econ-
omy obtained among the enslaved people it is not
easy to say. But that the hour for putting on

THE CHURCH, 63

tlie sandals for the march to the land of promise,
freedom and national power found a sort of magis-
tracy in the eldership, is very certain. For out of
the burning bush God gave the command to Moses :
'' Go and gather the elders of Israel, and say, The
God of your fathers, tlie God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob appeared unto me," Ex. iii. 16. Equally
certain is it that these elders were and acted as
the acknowledged representatives of the people.
The command to Moses was : " Thus shalt thou
say to the children of Israel, Go gather the elders
of Israel and say unto them.'^ And in Ex. iv.
20-31, ^' Moses and Aaron went and gathered
together all the elders of Israel, and Aaron spake
all the words which the Lord had spoken unto
Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the
peoj)le.^' Thus the people were in the elders, and
the elders stood and saw and acted for the people.
The seventy elders mentioned in Numbers xi.
25, who acted as assistants to Moses and Aaron,
were not then first ordained to office, but merely
selected for a special purpose from a body of men
already in official position. They are spoken of
as "seventy of the elders," Ex. xxiv. 1. In dis-
tress and humiliation for tlie defeat at Ai, Joshua
and the elders of Israel put dust upon their heads.

64 JENNY GEDDES.

And when the hour of victory had come, the elders
went up Avith Joshua before the people of Ai,
Josh. vii. 6 ; viii. 10. During the period of the
judges, the eklers still held their place in the
national and local magistracies, and, from their
numbers, must have exerted a powerful influence
in shaping and controlling affairs. At Succoth,
Gideon found and dealt with elder-princes to the
number of seventy-seven. And in the last chap-
ter of the book of Judges, we find the eldership
of the whole nation in council respecting the in-
terests of one of the tribes. In the book of
Samuel repeated mention is made of the elders,
now deciding the question of war and peace, 1
Samuel iv. 3, and now taking into their own
hands, under God, the momentous matter of a
national revolution, transmuting the republic into
a monarchy, 1 Sam. viii. Even under the mon-
archy they still held their place. It was the
eldership that adjusted matters with David in
Hebron and made him king, 2 Samuel v. 2. And
when David, after the insurrection under Absalom
and the defeat of the rebel prince, looked again
liomeward in his exile, he asked, '^ Why are the
elders of Judah last to bring back their king?"
2 Samuel xix. 11. The elders filled the place of

THE CHURCH. 65

counsellors and assistants of the king. They ac-
companied David when he went to bring back
the ark from the house of Obed-Edom, 1 Chron.
XV. 25.

In Proverbs xxxi. 23, Solomon alludes to the
high and honourable place of the eldership, when
lie writes of the virtuous woman, " Her husband
is known in the gate when he sitteth among the
elders of the land."

The disruption under Rehoboam, which resulted
in the overthrow of pure religion among the
seceding tribes, spared, hoAvever, the eldership.
When the imperious Ben-hadad demanded of
Ahab the surrender of all his treasures, the king
called all the elders of the land to consultation,
1 Kings XX. 2-9. And in 2 Kings x. 1 we find
Jehu writing letters to the rulers of Israel, "the
elders.^^

And the eldership still held its own during the

Babylonish exile: "The letter which Jeremiah

sent from Jerusalem unto the residue of the elders

which were carried away captives,'^ Jer. xxix. 1.

And in their exile the people consulted Ezekiel

through the eldership: "Certain of the elders

came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me."

With the restoration to Palestine the elders
5

M JEN^'Y GEDDES.

bIso came with tlie people. Ezra (x. 8) speaks of
the ^^ council of the princes and the elders ;'' that
is, the princes were the elders.

And Jesus found this venerable institution still
in existence and operation. When he entered the
temple, the chief priests and the elders of the j^eople
demanded of him, " By what authority doest thou
these things? and who gave thee this authority?"
Matt. xxi. 23. And in the crowd that under the
lead of Judas invaded the awful privacies of Geth-
semane, elders of the people held their place, Matt.
xxvi. 47. They were among the accusers of Christ
before Pilate, Matt, xxvii. 12, and also among the
counsellors that invented the falsehood by whic;h
the soldiers were to account for the disappearance
of Jesus from the sepulchre. Matt, xxviii. 12.

It was before the elders that Peter made defence
for the healing of the impotent man, Acts iv. 8-23.
They condemned Stephen, Acts vi. 12. Tliey
were chief among the persecutors of Paul, Acts
xxiii. 14.

Thus, through the whole course of church his-
tory preparatory to the inbringing and establish-
ment of the New Testament system, w^e discern a
twofold principle at work — that of permanence
coupled with that of evanescence, the changing

THE CHURCH. 6?

with the unchanging ; a divine form, clad noAV in
this and now in that, and now in a still diiferent
style of apparel. The fundamental doctrine, like
its divine Author, is the " same yesterday, to-day
and for ever/' From the shutting of Eden's door
upon the fallen race to the transplanting of the
millennial paradise to that of heaven, the plan of
salvation is unchangeably the same — -justification
by faith alone, faith in a substituted, atoning Sa-
viour.

But in its external garb it underwent divers and
numerous changes. Now it appears in patriarchal
rites, antediluvian and postdiluvian. Now it
walks before us in the peculiarities of the Abra-
hamic and now of the Mosaic scheme. Here we
find priest and Levite, and these officiating now in
the ambulatory tabernacle and now in the station-
ary and massive temple. Now the administration
is largely autocratical, as under Moses and Joshua,
and now more formally republican, as under the
judges ; and now regal, from Saul to Zedekiah ;
and then in exile; and then provincial under
Medo-Persian rule ; and then semi-anarchical from
the death of Ezra and Nehemiah to the Romans
and the advent.

But through all other changes the eldership

68 JENNY GEDDES.

remains the one pillar of cloud by clay and fire by
night. Moses passes away and Joshua passes
away, and judges and kings pass away, and with
Malachi the noble, heroic race of the old prophets
passes away, and at last priest, Levite, tabernacle
and temple, altar and sacrifice, and the holy city
itself, all are gone ; while the eldership, modified,
indeed, as to some peculiarities of function, but the
same in all its essential characteristics, still re-
mains, and yet remains, and will remain as the
one enduring ruling office of the Church of God
on earth till the great angel shall lift his hand and
swear that time shall be no longer. And even in
heaven, where no altar, sacrifice, priest or Levite
appears, the relics and memorials of the eldership
are still preserved ; and round about the throne
are the four living creatures representing the hosts
ransomed from the four quarters of the globe, and
the four-and-twenty elders, representing the angel
of the Church, its ministry and government —
twelve ruling elders, and twelve preaching and
ruling elders, according to the number of the
twelve tribes of Israel.*

When, then, we find in the Church one office
holding place through so many centuries, and sur-

^ On this subject see the Princeton Revieiv for Jan., 1847.

THE CHURCH. 69^

viving so many offices that have passed away, we
might reasonably take it to be a part of the official
framework that was to last to the end, and hence
it would awaken no surprise to see the eldership
pass from the Church of the Old Testament into
that of the New.

The Saviour, in his journey ings in every Jewish
town, and the apostles, in very many Gentile com-
munities, found the synagogue. And it was their
w^ont, first of all, within their enclosures to break
the glad ncAvs of the kingdom: ''And when Jesus
departed thence he went into their synagogue,"
Matt. xii. 9. '' And when he was come into his
own country he taught them in their synagogue,"
Matt. xiii. 54. So Paul and Barnabas on that
first missionary tour, when they reached Salamis,
" preached the word of God in the synagogues of
the Jews," Acts xiii. 5. At Antioch, in Pisidia,
they " went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day," Acts xiii. 14. And so at Iconium, Acts xiv.
1. And so everywhere.

But the leading feature in the government and
worship of the synagogue was the eldership, com-
prising a bench of elders, one of whom, called
bishop, overseer or angel, was the presiding officer;
and from this eldershij) appeal lay to the great

70 JENNY GEDDES.

svnao:oo;ue at Jerusalem. And Avlien, as was no
doubt often the case, the whole or the greater por-
tion of the synagogue were converted under the
preaching of an apostle, what more natural than
that the synagogue itself, just as it stood, became
a Christian church ? And when the synagogue in
the main clung to the old faith and drove out the
Christian converts, what more natural than that
they, with the elders that believed, should at once
organize a Christian synagogue upon the model
with which they were so familiar ?

In the words of Archbishop Whately, a dis-
tinguished and learned prelate of the Church of
England, ^^ It appears probable — I might say,
morally certain — that wherever a Jewish syna-
gogue existed that w^as brought, the whole or the
chief part of it, to embrace the gospel, the apostles
did not there so much form a Christian church as
make an existing congregation Christian, by intro-
ducing the Christian sacraments and worship, and
establishing whatever regulations were requisite
for the newly-adopted faith; leaving the ma-
chinery (if I may so speak) of government un-
changed ; the rulers of the synagogue, elders and
other officers, whether spiritual, ecclesiastical or
both, being already provided in the existing insti-

THE CHURCH. 7X

tution. And it is likely that several of the ear-
liest Christian churches did originate in this way —
that is, that they were converte<l synagogues,
which became Christian churches as soon as the
members, or the main part of the membership,
acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah.

"The attempt to effect this conversion of a
Jewish synagogue into a Christian church seems
always to have been made, in the first instance,
in every place where there was any opening for it.
Even after the call of the idolatrous Gentiles, it
appears plainly to have been the practice of the
Apostles Paul and Barnabas, when they came into
any city where there was a synagogue, to go thither
first and deliver their sacred message to the Jews
and ^ devout (or proselyte) Gentiles ;' according to
their own expression (Acts xiii. 16), to the ^men
of Israel and those that feared God.'

"And wdien they found a church in any of those
cities in which (and such were probably a very
large majority) there was no Jewish synagogue
that received the gospel, it is likely they would
still conform in great measure to the same model."

This a point of great importance. For the
apostles, at work now upon the permanent organi-
zation of the Church, would hardly begin upon

72 JENNY GEDDES.

one model and then end upon another. They
would not form the new converts into organiza-
tions which must soon be taken to pieces for
reconstruction upon a different plan.

And this emerging of the synagogue into the
Christian church, this facile gliding of the ancient
eldership into its new relations and clustering of
the new converts about them, explains the strange
fact that no explicit mention is made of the first
organization of the Christian eklership. Of the
organization of the apostolic office, and of that of
the deacons, we have detailed account, wdiile the
first mention of the elders finds them already in
office and is purely incidental ! At the prophecy
of Agabus, at Antioch, respecting the dearth in
Judea, contributions were promptly raised and
sent to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and
Paul, Acts xi. 28-30. And thus in the mother
model church, at Jerusalem, we find elders already
in office, without a hint previous or subsequent as
to the fact, time or mode of their appointment.

This quiet transition of the old Church into
the new, of the synagogue into the Christian con-
gregation, is in harmonious accord with the com-
mon course of Divine Providence in both the
natural and spiritual kingdoms. Except when

THE CHURCH. 73'

absolutely necessary (as in the exodus from Egypt),
there is no violence of transition, no precipitation
from old into new relationships. In nature the
seasons glide quietly the one into the other. The
night melts into dawn, and the dawn into day.
God is never in a hurry. With him one day is
as a thousand years and a thousand years as one
day. It was by no thundering edict, no violent
convulsion that the old dispensation gave place
to the new. They quietly overlapped each other
until knitted together — the latter absorbed the
former. Christ was careful to attend the great
national feasts in the temple, and the last public
act of his life was to engraft the Supper upon the
Passover. And for many years after, the Christians
waited upon God in the temple-service, and Paul
sedulously avoided everything that was calculated
needlessly to shock the prejudices of Judaism.

^' As the Church," writes Neander, " was con-
tinually increasing in size, the details of its man-
agement also multiplied ; the guidance of all its
affairs by the apostles could no longer be con-
veniently combined with the exercise of their pe-
culiar apostolic functions; they also wished, in
accordance with the spirit of Christianity, not to
govern alone, but preferred that the body of the

.'74 JENNY GEDBES.

believers sliould govern tliemselves under their
guidance. Thus they divided the government of
the Churcli, wliich hitherto tliey had exercised
alone, with tried men, wlio formed a presiding
council of elders, similar to that which was known
in the synagogues."

Thus it remains a beautiful illustration of the
identity of the Church, from first to last, that the
eldership, the permanent, never-changing charac-
teristic element of the former ecclesiastical system,
is retained as the sole governmental agency in the
latter and the last.

6. These elders are also called hislwps in the
New Testament records.

In the twentieth of the Acts we read that Paul
sent from Miletus to Ephesus and called to him
the elders of the church and said to them, '^ Take
heed, therefore, to all the flock over the which the
Holy Ghost hath made you overseers'^ — bishops in
the original. So also in Titus, the first chapter,
^' Ordain elders in every city, if any be blameless —
for a bishop must be blameless.''

So Neander writes : " The name presbyter, which
is the same as that of elder, by Avhich this office
was first distinguished, was transferred from the
Jewish synagogue to the Christian Church. But

THE CHURCH 75

when the Church extended itself among Hellenistic
Gentiles, with this name borrowed from the civil
and religious constitution of the Jews, another was
joined thereto, which was more allied to the de-
signation of social relations among the Greeks and
adapted to point out the official duties connected
with the dignity of presbyters. The name episco-
pol — bishops — denoted overseers over the whole of
the Church and its collective concerns, as in Attica
those commissioned to organize the states depend-
ent on Athens received the title episcopoi; and, in
general, it appears to have been a frequent one for
denoting a guiding oversight in the public ad-
ministration. Since, then, the name episcopos was
no other than a transference of an originally Jew-
ish and Hellenistic designation of office, adapted
to the social relations of the Gentiles, it follows
that originally both names related entirely to the
same office, and hence both names are frequently
interchanged as perfectly synonymous. Thus Paul
addresses the assembled presbyters of the Ephesian
Church as episcopoi — bishops ; and in 1 Tim. iii.
1 the office is called episcop^ — bishopric; and in
verse 8 the office of deacon is mentioned as the
only existing church office besides. It is certain,
therefore, that every church was governed by a

76 JENNY GEDDES.

union of the elders or overseers chosen from among
themselves, and we find among them no individual
distinguished above the rest who presided as
"primus inter pares — chief among equals — though
probably in the age immediately succeeding the
apostles" (and what departure from primitive doc-
trine and polity do we not find in this age?) "the
practice was introduced" (yes, introduced) of " ap-
plying to such an one the name of episcopos — bish-
op— by way of distinction."

Wickliffe, "the morning star of the Reforma-
tion," was for "rejecting all human rites; and with
regard to the identity of the order of bishops and
priests in the apostolic age he was very positive."
For in those times he says " the distinct orders of
pope, cardinals, bishops, archdeacons and deacons
were not invented."

In England, as late as King Edward VI., the
Reformers " believed but two orders of churchmen
in the Holy Scriptures — namely, bishops and dea-
cons." And the early English Protestant clergy
dared not withhold the right hand of fellowship
from ministers of foreign churches that had not
been episcopally ordained, " there being no dispute
about reordination, in order to church preferment,
till tlie latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign."

THE CHURCH. 77

In January, I088, Bancroft, chaplain to the
archbishop, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, broached
the novelty that '' the bishops of England were a
distinct order from the priests, and had superiority
over them by divine right and directly from God/'
AVhitgift, the learned and zealous Prelatist, said
of this new-fangled fancy that " he rather wished
tlian believed it to be true." Dr. John Reynolds,
regarded at that time the most learned man in the
Church of England, in an answer to this offensive
sermon, said : " All tcho have for Jive hundred year's
last jj«s^ endeavored the reformation of the Church,
have taught that all i^astors, vJiether they he called
bishops or priests, are invested with equal aidhority
and p>ower — as first the Waldenses, next Marsilius
Patavianus, then AVickliffe and his scholars ; after-
ward Huss and the Hussites, and, last of all, Lu-
ther, Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger and Musculus.
Among ourselves we have bishops, the queen's
professors of divinity in our universities, and other
learned men consenting therein, as Bradford, Lam-
bert, Jewel, Pilkington, etc. But why do I speak
of particular persons ? It is the common judgment
of the reformed churches of Helvetia, Savoy, France,
Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low
Countries, and our oivnJ^

78 jExyr geddes.

Against such pressure of authority has the fancy
made its way to acceptance, in one fragment of the
Church of Christ outside of Rome, that in apos-
tolic times the name bishop was anything more
than another name for presbyter or elder !

This perfect equality among the divinely-ap-
pointed rulers in the Church does not hinder, if
temporary exigencies require, the appointment by
his co-equal brethren of an elder to the special
duty of oversight in some one extended field of
labour. Even the pure Presbyterianism of Scot-
land did not hesitate in 1560, on account of the
paucity of ministers, to divide the realm into dis-
tricts, and appoint " one of the Protestant party to
take the general charge of religious matters in
each, giving them the title of su}>erintendents ; but
when it was proposed to make the bishop of Gal-
loway superintendent of Galloway, the proposal
was rejected, lest the appointment of a bishop
should give some colour to the idea that the office
was Prelacy under a different name.'^

7. The question now arises as to the method
by which men legitimately find their way into
official position in the Church.

To this it may be answered that the whole pro-
cess is initiated, controlled and concluded by the

THE CHUBCH. 79

Spirit of God: "Feed the flock over wliich the
Holy Ghost has made you overseers." In this
procedure his first step is to call men by faith and
repentance to Christ : " To all that be in Rome
called to be saints/' Out of the body thus called
the officers of the Church are to come. Even in
the Jewish commonwealth no foreio^ner could wear
the crown ; much less in that of Christ may aliens
and strangers bear rule. Then, in the heart of
some professed and acknowledged citizen of the
kingdom, the Spirit Avorks the desire or willing-
ness to fill, sometimes pressing by powerful con-
straint the candidate to seek admission into this
high and holy office : '^ For, though I preacb the
gospel, I have nothing to glory of; yea, woe is
unto me if I preach not the gospel.''

And now the Church — the people — nuist inter-
vene. The candidate must apply to the Church,
or the Church, discerning through the Spirit his
evident qualifications, must apply to him. In
either case it is the privilege and duty of the
Church to utter its voice.

For the Church antecedes the officers. It is
her spiritual need that requires official service.
The officers are for the Church, and not the Church
for the officers. As in tlie State, government is a

80 JENNY GEDDES.

mere agency to execute the will of God for the
weal of society, so in the Church. And as in the
State the inalienable right resides in the people
to say who shall do their work and God's in the
solemn service of making and executing laws, so
even more may the acknowledged citizenship of
Christ's kingdom have a deciding voice in the
appointment of rulers over them. Christ has or-
dained offices and incumbents to meet the spiritual
necessities of his people, and not that men may
enjoy governmental dignities and emoluments.
It was to save souls that Christ died: "Christ
loved the Church, and gave himself for itj^ The
Christian, then, not the officer, is the special object
of Christ's love — the Christian in or out of official
position. An elder-bishop may be lost — a Chris-
tian never can.

It accords with the whole drift of ecclesiastical
rule, as developed in both the Testaments, that
the people, as led by the Spirit of God, shall say
who shall bear rule over them. In both the
rulers are emphatically styled the ^^ elders of the
people'' (Ex. xix. 17; Matt. xxi. 23).

" Christ,'' writes Dr. Cunningham, " has giveii
to the Church the ministry as well as the oracles
and ordinances of God. Rome declares that where

THE CHIJBCH. 81

there is not a valid ministry, there is not a true
Church. Protestantism answers that where there
is a true Church, there is, or may be, a valid min-
istry." And it is the Spirit of God in the hearts
of the peoj^le that calls a man into actual ecclesi-
astical position.

As to the scriptural method of procedure in
this matter, we are not left without intimation
sufficiently clear in the New Testament records.

" Respecting the election to offices in the
Church," writes Neander, •' it is evident that the
first deacons, and the delegates who were ap-
pointed by the Church to accompany the apostles,
were chosen from the general body, Acts vi ; 2
Cor. viii. 19. From these examples we may con-
clude that a similar mode of procedure was
adopted at the appointment of presbyters. But
from the fact that Paul committed to his dis-
ciples, Timothy and Titus — to whom he assigned
the organization of new churches or such as had
been injured by corruptions — the appointment,
likewise, of presbyters and deacons, and called
their attention to the qualifications for such offices,
w^e are by no means justified in concluding thai
they performed all this alone, without the co-
operation of the churches.. The manner in which

82 JENNY GEDBES.

Paul was accustomed to address himself to the
whole Church, and to take into account the co-
operation of the whole community, which must
be apparent to every one reading his epistles,
leads us to expect that where a Church was al-
ready established he would admit it is a party
in their common concerns. It is possible that
the apostle himself, in many cases, as on the
founding of a new Churchy, might think it ad-
visable to nominate the persons best fitted for
such offices, and a proposal from such a quarter
would naturally carry the greatest weight with
it. In the example of the family of Stephanas,
at Corinth, we see that those who first undertook
office in the Church were members of the family
first converted in that city.''

The choice of elders by the people is not ob-
scurely intimated in the very word employed to
signify their ordination to office, as in the four-
teenth of Acts — '^ when they had ordained elders
in every Church. '^ In this passage the pronoun
" they'' seems to refer only to Paul and Barnabas.
But the word translated "ordained" originally
signifies to vote by stretching out the hand, and
here covers the whole process of designation for
and induction into office. Hence the "they" in-

THE CHURCH. 8S

clucles, with Paul and his assistants, the people
also.

Baptist W. Noel writes upon this point : " Ac-
cording to apostolic precedents, which have the
force of law among Christians, the churches elected
their ministers ; and the appointment of pastors
for the churches of Asia Minor by Paul and Bar-
nabas is thus recorded by Luke : ^ When they had
elected elders for them by the shoiv of hands in every
church, and had prayed with fast'mg, they commend-
ed them to the Lord.' Congregational election hav-
ing thus been instituted by the apostles, continued
for a considerable period in Christian churches.
Mosheim, the learned Presbyterian historian, Bing-
ham, the Episcopalian collector of ecclesiastical
antiquities, Dean Waddington, Paolo Sarpi, the
Roman Catholic historian of the proceedings of the
Council of Trent, and Beza, one of the fathers of
the Calvinistic Church, Neander, the Lutheran his-
torian of our own days, Bost, the author of the
'History of the Moravian Brethren,' and even
Hooker, w^ith his strong anti-popular predilec-
tions, all acknowledge this to be the fact. Hence,
congregational election became the principle of all
the Calvinistic and Presbyterian churches. It was
recognized in the Saxon, Helvetic and Belgian

84 JENNY OEDDES.

Confessions, and the French churches embodied it
in one of their canons of discipline."

The Keformers held "that the ordinary members
of the churches or Christian congregations had a
right to choose their own pastors and other office-
bearers ; and that, of course, a fortiori, they were
fully entitled to prevent any pastor from being in-
truded upon them without their consent or against
their will. This position of the Reformers has
been disputed, but I have no hesitation in saying
that this is not a question where there is room for
honest difference of opinion among competent
judges.''*

Thus there exists in the New Testament Church
no ecclesiastical person or body invested with the
authority to impose an elder upon a church, or to
constrain a church to accept the services of an
officer whose qualifications they distrust, or who is
to them from any cause unacceptable.

Having now been called, both by the Spirit in
his heart and by the same Spirit through the
people, still another step awaits the candidate be-
fore he can enter upon the functions of the elder-
ship. The work before him is too solemn, preg-
nant with interests too high and sacred, and with
* Cunningham.

THE CHURCH. 85

consequences too momentous to be entered upon
without significant formalities. He must now be
ordained. There mu§t be a solemn convocation of
the electors, the people, together with the existing
eldership. There must be solemn religious ser-
vices, prayer and fasting, and laying on of hands
of the eldership, and a solemn commendation of
the candidate to God and his assisting grace.
"And Avhen they had ordained elders in every
church, and had prayed with fasting, they com-
mended them to the Lord on whom they be-
lieved," Acts xiv. 23.

Thus it was that Timothy, the spiritual child
and beloved friend of the Apostle Paul, was or-
dained. " [N'eglect not/' his spiritual father writes
to him — "neglect not the gift that is in thee, which
was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of
the hands of the presbytery ^^^ 1 Tim. iv. 14. Pro-
phecy had foretold his elevation to this office, and
the local eldership or presbytery, finding him en-
dowed with the proper qualifications, ordained
him. And as the apostles were also elders — "the
elders which are among you I exhort, who am also
an elder," 1 Pet. v. 1 — they with their brethren
participated in the laying on of hands. So Paul
took part in the ordination of Timothy : " Where-

86 JENNY GEDDES.

fore I put thee in remembrance that tliou stir np
the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on
of my hands/' 2 Tim. i. 6. Of what particular
persons other than Paul this presbytery was com-
posed we are not told. If other apostles took part
in the transaction, they did so as presbyters, as
elders, for a ijreshytery can consist only of such.
And no ingenuity of criticism, no shrewd hints as
to the specific meaning of terms, no suggestions as
to what might have been, have ever been able to
w^rest these passages to any other meaning than
that which lies upon their face as a simple, plain
record of presbyterial ordination.

8. And now what authority, what powers, has
the candidate found in the office into which he
has entered ?

The original source of all ecclesiastical power
is the Saviour alone. Under him all power is in
the Church — the mass of the Christian people.
But inasmuch as the office-bearers in the Church
are the representatives of the people, and, for the
purposes of their office, are the people, the general
authority belonging to the Church is aggregated
in the office. Who shall exercise this authority
the people are to say ; but when the candidate
reaches the office, he finds there certain powers.

THE CHURCH. 87

and when he leaves that office he leaves those
powers where he found them.

At this point there is a break in the analogy
between sacred and secular government. In the
latter the people may create or abolish offices,
change the whole framework of government; may
withdraw powers from one office and transfer
them to another. Not so in the Church. No
other ecclesiastical office may be created than
those designated in the New Testament, and no
authority, civil or religious, may either enlarge
or contract the powers ordained for such offices.
An elder may be called to discharge a great va-
riety of duties, but in all he retains the sole eccle-
siastical grade of an elder, and as such can legiti-
mately possess and wield no other powers than
those of the eldership.

"The constitution and laws of His kingdom
have been fixed by him, and cannot by any
human authority be altered, abrogated, or ex-
tended. The office-bearers of God's Church are
not lords over God's heritage; they have no do-
minion over man's faith ; no jurisdiction over
the conscience, but are the mere interpreters of
Christ's will, the mere administrators of the laws
which he has enacted."

SS JENNY GEDDES.

The office of the eldership embraced a twofold
function — preaching, and, as has already been
shown, ruling also. Both were joined in that of
the teaching-elder, while the ruling-elder as such
never officially dispensed the Word and sacra-
ments.

The duty of the preaching-elder is pointed out
in Titus i. 5, 9 :

" For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou
shouldst set in order the things that are wanting
and ordain elders in every city, holding fast the
faithful word as he hath been taught, that he
may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and
convince the gainsayers."

Sometimes these duties are mentioned together,
as in 1 Tim. v. 17 : ^' Let the elders that rule well
be counted worthy of double honour, especially
they who labour in word and in doctrineJ'

"It is surely abundantly evident in Scripture
that pastors have a power of ruling — of exercising
a certain ministerial authority in administering,
according to Christ's word, the ordinary, neces-
sary business of his Church, and we have irre-
fragable evidence in Paul's address to the Pres-
bytery of Ephesus that he contemplated no other
provision for the government of the Church, and

THE CHURCH. 89

the prevention of schism and heresy, than the
presbyters or bishops faithfully discharging the
duties of their office^ in ruling as well as preach-
ing" {Cunningham).

This power is involved in the very idea of the
eldership. The elders of the people are the peo-
ple's representatives and act for them in Christ's
name. These elders of the Church are, for gov-
erning purposes, within their legitimate sphere,
the Church itself. Their official acts are the acts
of the Church for which they act.

When the parochial eldership receives a candi-
date to the communion-table, in accordance with
the laws of Christ, it is the Church that issues
the decree of admission. And the act of a single
such eldership, in many cases, binds the whole
Church of Christ; for in and through them, by
his Spirit, Christ himself is acting. If, on proper
grounds, this eldership admits one to the com-
munion-table, it admits him to membership in
the Church of Christ, and no particular church,
with evidence of this admission and without evi-
dence that he has proved himself unworthy of
his position, may, without gross wrong, forbid
that one a place at the Supper of the Lord.

And, as has already been made apparent, this

90 JENNY GEDDES.

eldership is invested with all needful authority
and powers of discipline witliin its sphere. For,
as no individual or body of officers is gifted with
insight into the heart, it is impossible to guard
against the introduction of the unworthy — wolves
in sheep's clothing — or of some Avho have mis-
taken a sudden glow of religious feeling for true
inborn piety. Then, even the truly good may,
under temptation, be led astray in word, deed or
doctrine. And these evils unchecked would de-
vour and destroy the Church. Hence, to meet
exigencies that may arise through human im2)er-
fection and sin, and to quell disorders, the pa-
rochial presbytery is authorized and bound to
vigilant watchfulness, to reprove, rebuke, exhort,
to try, censure and expel, according as the case
may require.

The fundamental law for the exercise of such
authority is laid down by our Saviour himself:
*' Moreover, if thy brother trespass against thee,
go and tell him of his fault between thee and
him alone ; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained
thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then
take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth
of two or three witnesses every word may be
established. And if he shall neglect to hear them,

THE CHURCH. 91

tell it to the Church; but if he shall neglect to
hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen
man and a publican/^ Matt, xviii. 15-17.

" In regard to this passage it may be remarked,
first, that it is to be presumed that the Saviour
designed to embody the principles of discipline
here so that they might be applied in all ages of
the world, and so that this in all circumstances
would be an adequate direction. There is not
anywhere in the Xew Testament a more formal
direction given on the subject of discipline, and
it can hardly be presumed that on such an occa-
sion the Saviour would have omitted what he de-
signed should be an essential and permanent prin-
ciple. Second, the apostles had been chosen and
ordained before that direction was given (Matt, x.),
and if he had designed that they alone should
have the power of administering discipline, it is
unaccountable that there is no intimation whatever
that so important a function was conferred on
them. The direction ^ tell it to the Church^ is not
one which would be understood as referring to the
apostles as being in fact ^ the Church.' It is a
direction which would be naturally understood as
referring to the assembly of the faithful" [Barnes).

Thus we have a single congregation under the

92 JENNY GEDDES.

oversight and control of a single eldership ; but
not far away, on all sides, are others like them.
Is it the will of Christ that these bodies shall
remain in isolation from one another, each pursu-
ing its own course, itself the only interpreter of
Christ's laws for itself, and thus, through the di-
versity of views incident to human nature, working
confusion and frequent collision? Far from it.
God never made an anarchy; in his domains
order and harmonious adjustment of inferior to
superior reign everywhere in nature, and not less
so in the Chinxh of Christ. Christ's coat is seam-
less; Christ's body is one, and his Church is that
body. It is a kingdom, with careful subjection
of inferior to superior authority ; and all these
churches are bound to realize the great principle
of constitutional unity inherent in his Church.
If the will of the great King were not hindered
by human imperfection, all the particular congre-
gations in the widest empires would be found
joined together, not only in harmonious alliance,
but under subordination to one great supervising,
controlling power.

How necessary such union is, is seen in the
simple fact that, except in cases that very rarely
occur, no individual congregation can so much as

THE CHURCH. 93

become organized under a parocliial eldership with-
out the interposition of the eldership above them.
No congregation, no one man, may ordain another
to the high office of the pastorate; hence a number
of churches within convenient reach are by nature,
as it were, and by New Testament hiw, associated
in subordination to the aggregate eklership of the
body ; and these ten, twenty, or thirty elders in
convocation, according to the original and true
idea of the eldership, are, for governing purposes,
the Church they represent. Tliey together consti-
tute the 'presbytery spoken of by Paul in 1 Tim.
iv. 14.

And as presbyteries and councils may err at all
times, and especially in their insight into charac-
ter, and as men are often deceived with regard to
themselves, it follows that unworthy men will
sometimes find way into the eldership aiid become
heresiarchs, teaching doctrines of devils, and, as
wolves, devour the flock they were ordained to feed.
Hence, the power to admit to office for the good of
the flock involves the power to oversee and watch
those once admitted, and to censure and eject from
office those wlio betray their trust.

And to this higher eldership is committed the
watchful oversight of tlie aggregate of churches

94" JENNY GEDDES.

Avliich they represent. They must hold pastors
and churches to their duty — may, in accordance
with the laws of Christ, lay commands upon them,
and see that those commands are obeyed, or con-
strain delinquents to show good cause for disobe-
dience— may inspect the records of their proceed-
ings, and approve or censure. If a congregation
fall into divisions or corruptions which the paro-
chial eldership, either through indifference or in-
ability, fails to reprove and rectify, then the whole
duty passes legitimately into the hands of the su-
perior eldership. Thus the powers inherent in a
lesser also inhere in the larger presbytery, and what
a parochial presbytery may do in a congregation
the superior presbytery may do, if occasion call, in
any or all the congregations within its bounds.

But a Church may include thousands of congre-
gations spread over a wide territory, making it
impracticable for any one presbytery to meet and
exercise proper supervision over all. Hence, pres-
byteries must be multiplied ; new centres of eccle-
siastical authority must be located, and contiguous
presbyteries, each invested with like authority, over-
spread the land.

But what about the relation of these presbyteries
to one another ? May they exist severally in inde-

THE CHURCH. 95

pendent isolation? Does chiircli government begin
in order and end in anarchy ? By no means ; the
Church, however large, is still one body, and its
inlierent unity must still find embodied expression.
This is done either by the constitution of an elder-
ship or presbytery, which shall embrace the whole
body of existing rulers in the Church ; or, if this
be impracticable, each presbytery may appoint a
given number of its members to assemble at spe-
cified times, and thus form the great presbytery —
^' the angel" of the whole Church. And the fact
that this body is a body of delegates, and not the
actual aggregate of rulers in the Church, implies
no modification of its powers as a true presbytery,
for even the parochial presbytery is also a repre-
sentativ^e body standing for the church it repre-
sents. And the presbytery next higher is also a
representative body, embracing only a part of the
actual congregational elderships within its bounds.
And it is the essential idea and spirit of the repre-
sentative eldership that it stands for, and for pur-
poses of government is, the Church it represents,
whether that eldership be that of a single congre-
gation or that of a wide provincial Church.

AVe have already seen that in apostolic times
individual churches were organized by the ordina-

96 JENNY GEDDES.

tion of elders in each one ; and we have also seen
these churches organized under presbyteries, or-
daining to office and administering discipline. Let
us now glance at the records of the first gene-
ral PRESBYTERY assembled at Jerusalem.

The inspired account of this presbytery, as
found in Acts xv., well illustrates and confirms the
principle that the office-bearers of a given church
are, as such, invested with authority to decide ju-
dicially " any disputes that may arise about the
affiiirs of the church — to be the ordinary interpret-
ers and administrators of Christ's laws for the
government of his house.''

Some questions had arisen at Antioch respecting
the relations of the old dispensation to the new —
as to how far certain of its laws were binding on
converts, whether from Judaism or from among
the Gentiles. These questions were of general in-
terest to the Church, inasmuch as Jews were scat-
tered far and wide among the Gentiles, and their
synagogues interspersed all over the civilized
world among heathen temples. As the decision of
these questions was to bind the whole Church, the
apostles themselves judged it expedient that the
voice of the whole Church be heard in the decision.

Accordingly, it was determined that " Paul and

THE CHURCH, 97

Barnabas, and certain others of them, sliould go
up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about
this question."

This reference to Jerusalem is somewhat remark-
able ; for already judgment had been given upon
the question by an inspired apostle, and one of no
secondary rank, and his judgment had the concur-
rence of his missionary companion Barnabas. It
seems strange, therefore, that the Christians of
Antioch should for one moment have withheld
their acquiescence. But doubtless this thing was
of the Lord. The time was coming when the
ministry of the apostles would end, and they
would pass away, leaving no successors behind ;
and as, after their departure, questions of moment
would arise which only the Church in council
could decide, it was of the highest importance that
some precedent should be set under apostolic sanc-
tion that might serve as a guide in this branch of
church government. For this reason, therefore,
among others. Divine providence ordained the for-
mal reference of this matter to the Great Presby-
tery sitting within the bounds of the mother
Church at Jerusalem.

In due time we find the council assembled in
solemn convocation. It consisted of apostles and

98 JENNY GEDDES.

elders ; for, after the formal reception of the com-
missioners from Antioch, "the Church and the
apostles and elders'^ coming together to receive
them and hear the " things that God had done
with them'' (v. 4) — afteh this — "the apostles
the elders came together for to consider the mat-
ter" (v. 6). None others, then, than apostles and
elders were formal, legitimate members of this
body; for the decrees there issued are explicitly
said to have been " ordained of the apostles and
elders which were at Jerusalem."

In this council there was "much disputation;"
then Peter made an address ; then Paul and Bar-
nabas declared " what miracles and wonders God
had wrought among the Gentiles by them." Then
James, who may have acted as moderator of
the convocation, probably having been elected
thereto by his brethren, summed up the matter
and gave his judgment, introducing it with the
words, " Wherefore my sentence is." " My sen-
tence is" — literally, "I judge" (as in the Rhemish
version; Wicliif — I deem). A common formula, by
which the members of the Greek assemblies in-
troduced the expression of their individual opinion,
as appears from its repeated occurrence in Thu-
cydides, with which may be compared the corre-

THE CHUnCH. 99

spondiqg Latin phrase, sic ceiiseo, of frequent use
in Cicero's orations [Dr. Addison Alexander).

This view of the matter was so evidently just
and judicious that it was accepted by the council,
and embodied in a decree which was binding on
all the churches. The tone of authority in this
decree is very manifest : " It seemeth good to
the Holy Ghost and to us to lay no greater bur-
den than these necessary things.'' And in the
missionary tour that followed, Paul delivered to
the churches the decrees ordained of the apostles
and elders at Jerusalem, " for to keep ;" that is,
to observe with strict obedience. Thus we see
that, first, the question was referred by the Church
at Antioch to the '^apostles and elders^' at Jeru-
salem, Acts XV. 2. And then that the " apostles
and elders came together to consider the matter,''
V. 6. And, finally, that the decrees are explicitly
said to have been ordained of the ^^ apostles and
elders/^ xvi. 4. Thus this council was composed
exclusively of office-bearers.

But who were actually and formally represented
in this first presbytery? We answer, the ivhole
Church. The Church of Jerusalem was formally
represented by its elders, and the apostles, being
elders by virtue of their apostolic office, represented

100 JENNY GEDDES.

all the churches. Thus this was in reality a coun-
cil of the whole Church.

It is noticeable, also, that the people attended
and manifested great interest in the proceedings
of the body : " Then all the multitude kept silence
and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul," xv. 12.
And they expressed their satisfaction with the
result ; and this fact is mentioned in the wording
of the decree as an additional evidence that the
Spirit of God brooded over and led their delibe-
rations to the conclusion reached. The people
may have been invited to take active part in the
deliberations, though this is not affirmed.

But the narrative may suggest that this point
has been too much overlooked in later times.
Why might it not conduce to wisdom in ecclesi-
astical decisions to invite laymen of acknowledged
experience and piety, especially when difficult
questions arise, to be present in the presbyteries,
larger or smaller, and give their views and ad-
vice, without joining in the decision ? It is diffi-
cult to see how any harm could arise, and very
easy to see how, sometimes, great good might
accrue from such a course.

In 1641, the General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland sent a letter to their Presbyterian

THE CHURCH. 101

brethren in England, who had asked their opinion
in regard to the congregational scheme of church
government, which contained the following passage ;
^' Not only the solemn execution of ecclesiastical
i:>ower and authority, but the whole exercise and
acts thereof, do properly belong unto the officers of
the Kirk; yet so that in matters of chiefest im-
portance the tacit consent of the congregation be
had before their decrees and sentences receive final
execution/' Henderson says: "Nothing useth to
be done by the lesser or greater presbytery in
ordering the public worship, in censuring of de-
linquents, or bringing them to public repentance,
but according to the settled order of the Church,
and with express or tacit consent of the congre-
gation." Gillespie Avrites : " It is objected by the
Independents that w^hat concerneth all ought to
be done with the consent of all. We hold the
same ; but the consent of all is one thing and the
exercise of jurisdiction by all another thing."
And in commenting upon the council of Jerusa-
lem, he says : " The apostles and elders met, sat
and voiced apart from the whole Church, and they
alone judged and decreed. In the mean while, were
matters made known to the whole Church and done
with the consent of all. The brethren are men-

102 JENNY GEDDES.

tioned (along with the apostles and elders) because
it was done with their knowledge, consent and
applause. " These were the views/' writes Dr. Cun-
ningham, from whom we are quoting, "entertained
upon this subject by the men to whom we are
indebted for the standards of our Church, who
held that they were sanctioned by the inspired
narrative of the council of Jerusalem, wliile they
held also that neither this nor any other portion
of the New Testament warranted or required the
ascription to the people of any higher place or
standing than this in the ordinary administration
of ecclesiastical affairs."

Thus the presbyters in session, acting as the
rulers of the Church, -are for governing purposes
the Church they represent, whether that body be
smaller or larger, or the largest of all.

" The radical principles of Presbyterian Church
government and discipline are, that the several
different congregations of believers, taken collec-
tively; constitute one Church of Christ, called em-
phatically the Church; that a larger part of the
Church, or a representation of it, should govern a
smaller, or determine matters of controversy which
arise therein; that in like manner a representation
of the whole should govern and determine in

THE CHURCH. 103

regard to every 2)art and to all the parts united —
that is, a majority shall govern — and consequently
that appeals may be carried from lower to higher
judicatories, till they finally be decided by the
voice of the ichole ChurcN^ (Presbyterian Form of
Government, p. 425).

In this extract the Great Presbytery, including
the aggregate of its ruling eldership, or, what is
the same thing, their legitimate representativ^es, is
for purposes of government and discipline, the
Church. And the necessity for such a governing
body, such an ^^ angel of the Church," is involved
in the actual and necessary unity of the Church,
and in the inherent right of every member of the
Church to have, if occasion calls, the voice of his
Church, the voice of the Christian body to which
he belongs, upon questions that lie between him
and his opposers. It is his Christian birth-right
to be defended against wrong by the angel of his
Church. And this Church, this angel, is not this
or that congregation, this or that presbytery, this
or that synod, for these are but fragments of the
Church, not its whole. The Church therefore,
which is his ultimate protector from wrong or his
ultimate censurcr in wrong, is the Great Presby-
tery, the General Assembly.

104 JENNY GEBDES.

It was the right of the Christians of Antioch to
have a decision of the questions that agitated the
congregation from the lips of the Church in ses-
sion at Jerusalem. This Church thus assembled
shall "receive and issue all appeals and references
which may be regularly brought before them from
the inferior judicatories. They shall review the
records of every synod^' — which in its sphere has
already reviewed the records of every presbytery
within its bounds, and which presbyteries have
reviewed the records of every congregation seve-
rally within their bounds — " and approve or cen-
sure them; they shall give their advice and instruc-
tion in all cases submitted to them in conformity
with the constitution of the Church ; and they
shall constitute the bond of union, peace, corre-
spondence and mutual confidence among all our
churches."

To this Assembly also belongs — belongs by inhe-
rent right, as the Church — " the power of deciding
all controversies respecting doctrine and discipline ;
of reproving, warning, or bearing testimony against
error In doctrine or immorality in practice in amy
churchj presbytery or synod ; of erecting new synods
when it may be judged necessary ; of superintend-
ing the concerns of the whole Church; of correspond-

THE CHURCH. 105

ing with foreign churches on such terms as may be
agreed upon by the Assembly and the correspond-
ing body; of suppressing schismatical contentions
and disputations; and, in general, of recommend-
ing and attempting reformation of manners and
the promotion of charity, truth and holiness
through all the churches under their care!"^ {Form
of Government^ p. 426).

Such, according to the New Testament, is the
only legitimate form of church government — a
government by an eldership — of a single congrega-
tion by its eldership — a government of a cluster of
congregations with their several elderships by the
aggregate eldership of the cluster — and a supreme
government over all by the whole body of the
eldership assembled either in mass or by represen-
tation.

9, This apostolic form of church government
seems to have resisted both the encroachments of
corruption and the violence of bloody persecution
through the ages from the earliest times in the
valleys of Piedmont. There the faithful Wal-
denses clung, as they even yet cling, to all the
essential principles of Presbyterianism.

^^As early as the sixteenth century,'^ writes Dr.
Smytlie, ^^ the AValdensian polity was precisely

106 JEN]SiY GEDDES.

what it is now. Every church had its consistory;
every consistory and pastor was subject to the
synod, and it was composed of all the pastors with
elders. Over this synod one of the ministers was
chosen by his brethren, and without any second
ordination presided. This presiding minister was
called then, as he is called now, Moderator. He
was required, in accordance with the plan of the
early Scottish Church, to visit different parishes
and to ordain — only in conjunction tenth other
ministers. But he was in all things responsible
to the synod by which he had been appointed to
office.''

And Milner (chap. iii. vol. ii.) quotes the follow-
ing from a book concerning their pastors : " The
})astors meet together once every year to settle our
affairs in a general synod. The money given us
by the people is carried to the said general synod,
and is there received by the elders."

10. It is also peculiarly gratifying to Presbyte-
rians to note the fact that the Reformers, '^ when
they broke from the shackles of Romanism, almost
with one consent adopted the fundamental princi-
ples of presbyterian polity. To this the Church
of England constituted the sole exception ; for in
England, while sound evangelical principles were

THE CHURCH. 107

working like a mighty leaven among the masses
of the people^ the formal disseverance from Rome
was much more a political than a religious move-
ment. Henry VIII., hampered and tormented by
the duplicities and tergiversations of the Pope in
the matter of the divorce, was gradually led to see
that the prerogatives of his crown as then under-
stood, and also the rights of his subjects, were in-
vaded on all sides by the papacy ; and, advancing
from step to step, he ended by substituting himself
in the place of the pope as head of the English
Church.

Afterward, when the new system had taken
form, and the need was felt for some defender of
its validity, one was found in the learned, eloquent,
"judicious" Hooker, whose work on " Ecclesiasti-
cal Polity" very naturally received the commenda-
tion of Pope Clement YIII. as one in which there
were '^such seeds of eternity as will continue till
the last fire shall devour all learning."

In the famous fourth and fifth propositions of
that work he maintains that " the Church, like
all other societies, is invested with the power of
making laws for its well-being, and that where
Scripture is silent human axithority may interpose."
- Now, while these propositions are capable of

108 JENNY GEDDES.

being employed either in behalf of Papacy, Prelacy
or Presbyterianism, yet as used by their author
they imply certain very explicit and thoroughly
groundless assumptions.

It is therein assumed that the Scripture is silent
on those points of church government in dispute
between Prelacy and Presbyterianism. Nay it
embodies in explicit statements the whole process
of church organization under and government by
the eldership. It is also assumed that the Church
ordained the fundamental laws of the English
ecclesiastical establishment. The Church! Was
Henry YIII., with his ministers — was the imperi-
ous Elizabeth, with her courtiers and statesmen —
in any sense the Church f ^yas even the mass of
the clergy of England for many a long day even in
membership with the Church of Christ? At the
" Reformation" in England the old Romish clergy
were not even dispossessed of their places, but,
constrained by the rigours of authority, they hypo-
critically submitted in form while at heart they
were as thoroughly Romish as ever.

The truth is, as has been well stated, that the
forms of the English Establishment ^'originated
with royal pleasure; they have changed as the
will of our princes have changed ; they have been

THE CHURCH. 109

settled bv acts of Parliament ; formed Illeo^allv :
corrupted by pensions and overawed by preroga-
tive; and they constitute part of the statute law
of the land."

Leaving out, then, the English Establishment,
all the churches of the Reformation were essen-
tially Presbyterian in their principles and form.

As to *' the mother of the Reformed'^ churches
at Geneva, Mosheim writes : Calvin " introduced
into the republic of Geneva, and endeavoured to
introduce into all the Reformed churches throuo^h-
out Europe, that form of ecclesiastical government
which is called presbyterian, from its neither ad-
mitting the institution of bishops nor of any sub-
ordination among the clergy. He established at
Geneva a consistory composed of ruling elders,
partly pastors and partly laymen, and invested
this ecclesiastical body wath a high degree of au-
thority. He also convened synods, composed of
the ruling elders of different churches, and in
these had laws enacted for the regulation of all
matters of a religious nature."

How thoroughly Presbyterian w^as the Church
of Scotland, shaped under its great leader, Knox,
is known to all. And the Church of Scotland
was identical in principles and form with that of

no JEXNY GEDDES.

Protestant France; '^and no authority/' writes
Dr. Hodge, " is more frequently quoted by Scotch
writers than the Ratio DisciplincE of the French
churches/'

The French provincial synods were obliged to
furnish their deputies to the national synod with
a commission in these terms : " We promise, be-
fore God, to submit ourselves unto all that shall
be concluded and determined in your holy assem-
bly ; to obey and execute it to the utmost of our
power, being persuaded that God will preside
among you and lead you by his Holy Spirit into
all truth and equity by the rule of his word/'

Between the French churches and those of
Holland there was the fullest accord both in doc-
trine and discipline.

The bishops in Denmark and Sweden constitute
but ''a slight deviation from the general uni-
formity of the Reformed churches as a whole,"
for they derived their ordination from Luther
and his fellow-presbyters, and thus "resembled
very much the present bishops of the Methodist
Church, who derive their authority from John
Wesley and two other presbyters, through Dr.
Coke, whom Wesley and his associates appointed
a bishop. The superintendents of other Lutheran

THE CHURCH. Ill

churches are not regarded as holding a distinct,
liigher office, superior to that of presbyters, and
investing them simply as holding that office with
jurisdiction over ordinary pastors, but merely as
presbyters raised by the common consent of their
brethren to a certain very limited control for the
sake of order. The doctrine of Presbytery as op-
posed to Prelacy was not only held by Luther
and his associates, but was distinctly declared in
the articles of Smalcald, which is one of the sym-
bolical books of the Lutheran Church. There it
is set forth that all the functions of church gov-
ernment belong equally of right to all who pre-
side over churches, whether called pastors, pres-
byters or bishops'^ [Dr. Cunningham).

Thus, at the Reformation, the Church, by al-
most unanimous consent, flew back, as a child
from the wilderness, to Its mother's bosom — to
primitive New Testament Presbyterianlsm.

11. Let us now add that Presbyter ianism is
essentially a system of representative republicanism.
This is a matter of some considerable practical
importance, for sacred and secular governments
powerfully influence each other.

" Every religion,'' writes De Tocqueville, " is
to be found in juxtaposition to a political opinion

112 JEXyY GEDDES.

which is connected with it by affinity. If the
luiman mind be left to follow its bent, it will
regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions
of society upon one principle."

Dr. McCrie, as quoted by Dr. Smythe, also
writes : " Who that has duly reflected on the sub-
ject can be ignorant that forms of government
exert a mighty influence, both directly and indi-
rectly, upon the habits and sentiments of tlie
people — to preserve the spirit and perpetuate the
enjoyment of liberty, promote education, virtue
and religion V^

Hallam says that " it was imputed to the Puri-
tan faction, with more or less of truth, that not
content with the subversion of Episcopacy, and of
the whole ecclesiastical polity established in the
kingdom, they maintained principles that would
essentially affect civil institutions. They claimed
to their ecclesiastical assemblies the right of de-
terminino; 'all matters wherein breach of charity
may be, and all matters of doctrine and manners,
so far as appertaineth to the conscience.' They
took away the temporal right of patronage to
churches, leaving the clioice of ministers to general
suffrage^

Thus governments, sacred and secular, directly

THE CHURCH. 113

anrl powerfully influence each other, and, other
things being equal, that Church possesses at least
one decided advantage over all others whose prin-
ciples of government are most in harmony with
those of the nation.

A spiritual monarchy or aristocracy might exist
and flourish in a republic; and a spiritual republic
may hold its own and even reach high efficiency
in a monarchy. But it is evident at a glance —
and history abundantly proves that — in either case
collisions are often inevitable, and such harmony
as is needed for complete prosperity impossible.

Such, indeed, is the influence of governmental
principles and forms upon citizen or subject that
he cannot escape modifications of even his modes
of thought — modifications sure to find expression
in his actions. Under regal governments the com-
mon enterprises of industrial and commercial life
are apt to be conducted in a monarchical style,
and under a free republic these shape themselves
into republican forms. In Great Britain, aristoc-
racy forces itself into the whole being of social
life; while in the United States, not only the most
important but the most trivial matters are con-
ducted by means of republican machinery and
devices — elections, constitutions and by-laws. So

114 JENNY GEDDES.

powerful is this influence that in our country all
denominations of Christians, whetlier thoroughly
democratic or highly aristocratic in their essential
principles, are constrained to adopt devices to
bring themselves more or less into harmony with
representative republicanism. Independents have
their councils, which are in some degree repre-
sentative bodies, and in some instances these coun-
cils are becoming so large and unwieldy that
many of the wiser minds among them are sigh-
ing for a reduction of the size of these bodies by
the formal adoption of the principle of delegation.
The Episcopal Church, yielding to this influence,
has been constrained to admit the laity to a place
in their governing councils ; and for the adoption
of this principle among our Episcopal Methodist
brethren the cry has long been growing louder
and louder, and the pressure of public opinion in
that direction heavier and heavier. If, then, it
be found that Presbyterianism is by nature and
divine law in thorough harmony with the uni-
versally accepted principles of civil government
among us, it gains thereby a prestige of no little
practical value; and a way is opened for its high
enthronement in the thinking republican mind of
the nation. And that Presbyterianism is truly

THE CHURCH. 115

representative republican in its principles^ spirit
and form, few will venture to deny.

1. A fundamental doctrine of the republican
system declares that the body of the people a?-e,
under God, the source and fountain of all the powers
exercised in the government of the State. Man, by
nature invested with ^^ dominion over the crea-
tures," is, however, invested by nature with no
civil dominion over his brother sovereign. Gov-
ernment among men is replete with a high dignity
and majesty, its authority extending to the prop-
erty, the person, and even the life of the citizen,
and in exercising the functions of the magistracy
man is invested with a godlike sovereignty. As
such, he is a scrutinizing eye, overseeing the con-
duct, searching out even the motives of men ; and
as judge also he gives verdict for or against them,
and, in the latter case, as executioner, he inflicts
censure and penalty. Summoning men to his bar,
he separateth them one from another — setting the
sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left — •
and crowns the one class with benediction and
scourges the other with condemnation. He is
God's minister, sent for *' the punishment of
evil-doers and for the praise of them that do
well.''

116 JENNY GEDDES.

And the earthlj source of these high preroga-
tives is the mass of the citizenship.

That this is true of the Presbyterian system has
already been shown. It maintains that God has
given into the hands of the Church as a body the
whole magistracy that is to govern in his name,
and all ecclesiastical power is exercised under God
in the name of the Christian brotherhood, who are
kings as well as priests unto God. It utterly dis-
allows the doctrine that ecclesiastical authority is
given primarily to the clergy — that these constitute
a ruling order set between God and men, authori-
tatively to interpret for them the A7ord of God,
and for them to say what form of church govern-
ment shall prevail over them and what law shall
bind and guide them.

And while maintaining this doctrine with refer-
ence to the brotherhood within, it is even more
emphatic in its repudiation of all right to govern-
mental interference from the State without. If
the clergy may not lord it, of intrinsic right, over
one another or over the people, neither may any
external authorities lord it over either laity or
clergy. If there is one principle that stands out
in pre-eminent relief in the conduct of Presbyte-
rianism in Scotland, it is that of the inherent right

THE CHURCH. 117

of the Church to govern itself without let, hin-
drance or interference from the State. In the
long and bloody war with the State under the
Stuarts, while English Prelacy courted, Presbyte-
rianism denounced and repudiated all State dicta-
tion and control. It w^ould allow neither king nor
parliament either to give it laws or even to con-
voke the General Assembly, or even, when it could
help it, to determine the time, place or frequency
of its meetings, much less to have one word to say
as to the constituency of the assembly. Again and
again it repudiated assemblies which had been
controlled and corrupted by State agency and in-
fluence, and pronounced all their acts null and
void. It told the king to his face that he was
neither monarch over nor ruler in, but only a
member and subject of, the Church. It scouted
the fancy of James, as expressed in his *^ Basilicon
Doron" and " Free Law of Free Monarchy," that
one chief function of secular royalty was to govern
the Church.

In our own country it was Presbyterianism
chiefly that compelled the State to leave the
Church in its native independence. "Presbyte-
rianism first proclaimed this doctrine on American
shores. It was op])osed by Episcopacy in efforts to

118 JENNY GEDDES.

establish this doctrine in Virginia. And its uni-
versal establishment in our country and in the
Constitution was the result of the movement made
by Presbyterians" (Smythe),

The subject of Church and State alliance was
long under discussion before the Virginia Assem-
bly, and the measure was first long delayed, and
then finally defeated, by the persistent oi)position
of Presbyterians, in which the Baptists also lent
efficient aid, through memorials, protests and pro-
tracted and able discussions. And the happy
working of the free-church system in that then
powerful and influential commonwealth secured
its general adoption in the nation. Thus in the
Presbyterian Church the doctrine is fundamental
that the powers of government inhere in the body
of the people, to the exclusion alike of State dicta-
tion and interference, and of individual or class
prescription.

2. But if these rights belong to the people, it is
for them to say under what particular form they are
to he exercised.

For Presbyterianism necessarily involves govern-
mental machinery — a constitutional framework —
as the medium through which the prescribing
forces shall reach the subject masses. It knows

THE CHURCH. 119

nothing either of autocracy on tlie one hand or
democracy on the other — nothing of mere arbitrary
will. Presbj^terianism is neither a one-headed nor
a many-headed despot. It is in its very nature a
constitutional government, and it is for the native
posseasoi^ of all governmental authority, the body
of the people, to say what particular form the con-
stitution shall assume.

In the civil republic, God, speaking through
the people, their social nature and necessities, their
reason, judgment and sense of right and wrong,
ordains the constitutional medium — all the needful
framework and machinery of government. Like-
wise in Presbyterianism, God, through the apostles,
laid down a certain definite governmental system,
ordained certain offices to be filled, specified the
qualifications of official incumbents, gave these
incumbents their proper titles, prescribed the
modes of their designation for and induction into
office, and the powers to be exercised by them.
But while it recognizes the fact that all this lies
in the Word of God, in the inspired records of
early Church history, it disallows the right of
either the State or the clergy as such, or any
other persons or bodies of men, authoritatively to
interpret these oracles for the people. They alone

120 JEXXY GEDDES.

are they who, with such b'ght as may be given
them, are to settle this question under God, and
responsible alone to him for the wisdom and
righteousness of their decisions. If the people
tested the oral teachings of the apostles and re-
sorted daily to the Scriptures to see whether these
things were so, as we see In Acts xvli. 11, If even
the utterance of an angel from heaven were to be
subject to a similar test on the part of the people,
as we see in Gal. I. 8, so also are the records of
apostolic teachings upon this great subject of
church government to come to the same test, and
to be interpreted by the common Christian con-
science and reason under the illuminating influ-
ences of the indwelling Spirit of God. Thus in
all genuine reformations the believing people are
summoned forth to utter their voice. King Heze -
kiah ventured but a short way In his work as a
reformer without consultation with the princes and
the congregation ; and when it was proposed to
repeat the passover and hold it yet other seven
days, the approval of the whole assembly of the
people was sought and obtained (2 Chron. xxx.
2-23). And on the Continent and in Scotland_, in
later days. It was the voice and power of the re-
formed and reforming people that toppled over the

THE CHURCH. 121

bulwarks of the Papacy and brought deliverance
to the world; while in England alone the govern-
ment took the work into its own hands, and w^ith
w^hat result none are ignorant. There, as a zealous
advocate of Anglican ecclesiasticism writes, " The
people never were consulted in the matter; no
popular assembly w^as held; nothing was put to
vote. Their consent was never asked ; in all pro-
bability it would not have been given, for the great,
bulk of the people were too ignorant to understand
it and naturally disinclined to change their opin-
ions. So also in the catechism, the Church
teaches her children to obey their spiritual pastors
and masters'^ [F, W. Faher, quoted by Smythe).

But Presbyterianism asserts the right and duty
of the people to determine, among other things,
the constitutional system under and through which
the ecclesiastical jiowers shall go forth from their
appointed possessors upon the subjects of govern-
ment.

' True, as has been already said, the fundamental
principles of church government are laid down
in the word of God, and any deviation from these
involves error and entails evil. But no less are
the foundation-principles of civil government set
forth in the same inspired record, and only by

122 JENNY GEDDES.

adherence to these can civilization and social hap-
piness be fully realized. But in both the one case
and the other these principles are to be ascertained
by, and brought into action through, the sanction
of the aggregate civil or ecclesiastical citizenship —
responsible in this only to their God. If they err,
the sin and folly is theirs, and there is no au-
thority on earth to constrain them to amend their
conclusions and conduct.

In either case, also, this power to frame consti-
tutions is hedged about with limitations which
may not safely be passed. Human constitutions
for the government of men are merely the media
through which divinely-given principles go into
action, and whenever they obstruct the free opera-
tion of these principles they are abnormal and
illegitimate, and bring human wills into collision
with the divine. Presbyteries, larger or smaller,
possess certain inherent rights and powers, derived
neither from courts superior nor courts inferior,
but only through the people from the great Head ;
and no constitution of human devising may thwart
their action or set them aside. Within certain
limits man may ordain rules for the govern-
ment of the family — children may be coerced
to a course of education — parents may be pun-

THE CHURCH. 123

ishecl for cruelty to children — but an edict from
the legislature subjecting parents to the dominion
of their children would be in itself null and void,
as conflicting with fundamental laws of divine
ordination. And when any jirovision in the con-
stitution of any Church conflicts with the laws
laid down by the great King for the government
of the Church, with the essential rights and duties
of the presbytery, larger or smaller, such pro-
vision is a usurpation, a folly and a crime, and
no one is bound to its outcarrying. But within
the divinely-prescribed limits of legitimate human
enactment, the people alone as such, without leave
asked of the State without or Church dignitaries
and authorities within, are to say what particular
shape church government shall assume. And this
doctrine is an essential element in the presby-
terial system.

3. Since, then, the governing authority resides
with the people, and they, under God and guided
by his law, are to declare what particular offices
are to exist, it follows that only by their voice
can any incumbent find his ivay into official
position.

It is so in civil, it is so in ecclesiastical govern-
ments. In either, birth-right dominion over men

124 JENNY GEDBES.

is a solecism and an absurdity, excepting only in
case of clear, express appointment of God, which
appointment within the Church is claimed by
none, and witliin the State is now claimed only
to be scornfully disallowed by the enlightened
common sense of mankind. No man or woman
is born with the divine right to fill any office of
civil or ecclesiastical government without the con-
sent of the governed. Each Christian congrega-
tion is composed of "kings unto God," and no
human authority exists, out of its own bosom, to
assign to it an officer of any grade or character
without its own call and choice. If a man is to
fill the office of deacon, to "serve tables," to dis-
pense the charities of the Church to the needy
saints, the voice of the Spirit says to the people,
" Look ye out among you men of honest report,
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," to be ap-
pointed by the laying on of hands and with prayer,
"over this business." The people must choose
the candidate (Acts vi. 5). If one is to fill the
office of ruling-elder, he must, by his obvious fit-
ness for the position, attract the attention of his
coequal brethren, and be chosen thereto by their
suffrages in public assembly. And only after such
election can he be ordained and installed into

THE CHURCH. 125

office. And if one is to fill the pastorate of a
particular church, the laws of Presbyterianlsni
demand that he be first elected thereto by the free
choice of those whom he is to feed and help in
governing. The assignment of a pastor to a con-
gregation by any authority outside of its family
circle, either in opposition to their wishes or with-
out their formal consent, is an act of usurpation.
Loudly and often has the oppressed Church of
Scotland complained and protested against the
tyrannies of the patronage system, which is wont
to assert its right, and too frequently with success,
to intrude its creatures into the pulpit against
the will of the pews. And the assignment by a
conference or a bishop, or any other person or
body of men, of an incumbent to the pastoral
office — the people to whom he is to minister not
having fixed upon him as the pastor of its
free choice — is unscriptural, unrepublican and un-
presbyterian ; and a people that submits to such
a system is, in so far forth, an unrepublican com-
munity. In so doing they yield up one of the
fundamental and most sacred rights of God's heri-
tage, and giv^e over to others the discharge of one
of their most important and sacred duties. The
free choice by the people of those who are to

126 JEXXY GEDDES.

rule them is, then, another of the fundamental
principles of the Presbyterian republic.

4. Another principle of republicanism, ecclesias-
tical and secular, demands that citizens from the va-
rious ranks of society shall actually bear rule in the
government. Tlie citizenship in the State embraces
a vast variety of interests — industrial, commercial
and professional — and in the Church, with the pas-
torate and eldership, all classes and conditions of
people; and to secure impartiality in making and
executing laws, these various elements must have
place as far as possible in the governing bodies.
Only in a legislature thus constituted is there any
reasonable security against the iniquities and dis-
asters of class-legislation, security for a harmo-
nizing of, or at least a satisfactory compromise
between, the countless and often conflicting interests
of the civil or ecclesiastical family. In a free re-
publican legislature we find the farmer, the artist,
the mechanic, the merchant, the physician, the
banker, the lawyer, and members of whatever avo-
cation that forms a controlling interest in the
community.

This principle of republicanism is repudiated by
any system that allows an autocracy or aristocracy
to prevail in its scheme of church government. In

THE CHURCH. 127

whatever church the pastor rules the congregation,
or one body of clergy of itself rules either the con-
gregation or any other body of the clergy, other
principles prevail than those of republicanism And
as the people become enlightened, and come to see
on the one hand their own rights, and on the other
the evils which such a system is almost sure to
entail, they will challenge their right to a personal
share in the functions of government; and as
germs imbedded in the Christian heart are sure to
find way for ultimate development, so the people
are predestinated to attain in all Christian churches
an actual share in the governmental adminis-
tration.

The growth of a gaudy, pompous ritualism in
the Church of England is fast opening the eyes of
the wise to the evils of the unrepublican exclusion
of the laity from actual power. A vigorous writer
in a late number of the London Review says of
this ritualistic question : " We view it as a warfare
that must seriously affect the welfare of the land.
It is not a question between Geneva and Rome,
but whether the laity of the United Kingdom are
to submit to the tyranny of priest-craft, to surren-
der to the clergyman of each parish the power to
dictate to them what they are to believe, and to

128 JENNY GEDDES.

-svliat they are to conform in the ceremonial of their
public and private acts of devotion. In the claims
of this ritualistic party we recognize deliberate and
very powerful efforts to subject the thought of the
day, the free religious liberty of the laymen, to the
dictation of a body of men in whom there is to be
found none of the antecedents of a life which could
prove them trained for the use of such despotic
spiritual power, nor anything in the act of their
ordination, in their aj)pointment to their respective
spheres of duty, which for one moment would
justify their parishioners in becoming thus subject
to them."

Loud complaints are heard of that "autocracy of
incumbents of parishes which makes each to reign
with no rival near his throne — a total abnegation
of the laity of the Church of England, comprising
a large portion of the higher middle class, as well
as the great majority of the gentry and nobility,
and subjecting them to the will of rector or vicar.''

Even the Loyidon Times talks of the necessity
of taking a " leaf from Presbyterianism.'' Lord
Sandon, addressing a recent " High Church Con-
gress,'' speaking of the ^' priestly feeling" that is
nurtured by this autocracy in the rule over a con-
gregation, says that it leads to the establishment

THE CHURCH. 129

" of another master in every household, and ends
in raising up a human artificial barrier between
man and his God.''

Among our Methodist brethren, whose zeal,
piety and success are the admiration of all, this
question of lay participation in the government of
the Church lias been for a long time producing
profound agitation, and it is a question which
must ultimately be decided in favour of the laity,
and until then their form of government remains,
in this respect at least, unrepublican.

Presbyterianism, however, finds this among its
elementary principles. It disallows the right of
any one man or any one class to govern alone
any one body of the spiritual citizenship. No
one pastor may govern alone any one congrega-
tion. Each particular governing body, whether
it be the session or presbytery, or synod, or Gene-
ral Assembly, embosoms a body of the laity with
the clergy. In them, too, may be found the va-
rious elements of society represented. There you
shall see the mechanic side by side with the rever-
end professor in the theological seminary, the mer-
chant sitting with his pastor. In most of these
bodies the laity actually are, and in all of them
they may be, in considerable majority. The session

130 JENNY GEDDES.

should always comprise a plurality of ruling elders,
and in most cases includes three or six or even
twelve. In presbyteries and synods they are very
likely to be in majority. It is not unfrequently
the case that one pastor acts as "stated supply'' to
two, three, or even four several organized churches,
and while all those churches are represented in
presbytery by a single pastor, they each send a
ruling elder. The same is true of the General
Assembly. The first General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland, numbering forty members,
contained but six ministers. Thus presbyterial
governing bodies embrace all that variety of view
and interest that characterizes the subject society
for which it legislates. In Presbyterianism, there-
fore, there is no such thing as either an individual
or a body of Christians under exclusive clerical
control.

And as these ruling bodies are invested also
with a judicial character, having authority to re-
ceive accusations or appeals, and to try and dis-
cipline offenders, our judiciary is both elective and
popularly constituted, and a defendant before one
of these courts is sure to find among his judges
some of his brethren in social rank. If condemned
by the session, he may appeal to presbytery, and if

THE CHURCH. 131

dissatisfied with the decision here, he may appeal
to synod ; and if still dissatisfied his, appeal lies
once more to the General Assembly. Thus the
humblest member of the Presbyterian Church is
secured in the enjoyment of his rights and shielded
from injury and oppression by the guardianship of
the whole Church.

It thus appears that under our system the people
shape the constitution of their spiritual common-
wealth, elect their legislative and judicial officers,
and form a constituent element in their governing
assemblies. This surely is sufficiently republican.

5. The perfect equality in rank and authority
among the rulers in the spiritual commonwealth is
another feature of Presbyterian republicanism.

For the civil republic no inspired system of
government is laid down, and hence it remains
with the people to say what offices shall exist and
what powers shall inhere in these and those ; but
the records of the Church, to which the people are
bound to adhere in setting up the machinery of
spiritual government, allow but one single office —
namely, the eldership — and no authority exists on
earth for the creation of any other; and all the
incumbents in that office are as rulers on a level of
entire equality.

132 JENJ^Y GEDDES.

Parity among the clergy, as such, is a prime
article of the Presbyterian system. By whatever
name a minister of the gospel may be called, he is
simply and only an elder. His character may out-
shine that of many, his talents may exalt him to
princely dominion in the world of thought, in elo-
quence he may be an Apollos, in logic a Paul, and
in erudition he may surpass all his brethren, but
withal he is an elder, and nothing more. Exalted
service may be assigned to him, he may fill the
office of spiritual superintendent over a large terri-
torial district, or that of moderator in a larger or
smaller presbytery, or that of preceptor in a theo-
logical chair, yet his sole scriptural title is that of
presbyter or elder, and his only rank that of the
eldership, in which he is the equal of any other in
all the clerical brotherhood.

Besides this, as members of governing assem-
blies the ruling elders are the coequals of those
who preach and administer the sacraments as well
as rule. In discussing, in voting and in eligibility
to office in these bodies, each ruling elder is the full
equal of any other member.

Dr. Charles Hodge, in his tract upon the ques-
tion " What is Presbyterianism ?" writes : '^ As to
matters of doctrine and the great office of teaching,

THE CHURCH, 133

they" — the ruling elders — ^-have an equal voice
with the clergy in the formation and adoption of
all symbols of faith. It is not competent for the
clergy to frame and authoritatively to set forth a
creed to be embraced by the Church, and to be
made a condition of either ministerial or Christian
communion, without the consent of the people.
Such creeds profess to express the mind of the
Church. But the ministry are not the Church.
So, too, in the election of preachers of the Word,
in judging of their fitness for the sacred office, in
deciding whether they shall be ordained, in judging
them when arraigned for heresy, the people ' have
in fact an equal vote with the clergy.'

" The same is true as to the jus liturgieum, as it
is called, of the Church. The ministry cannot
frame a ritual, or liturgy, or directory for public
worship, and enjoin its use on the people to whom
they preach. And in the exercise of the power of
the keys, in opening and shutting the door of
communion with the Church, the people" — through
their elders — " have a decisive voice."

Indeed, in all the acts of each governing assem-
bly the ruling elders are in every sense the co-
equals of their brethren in the ministry.

And it merits consideration whether our common

134 JEXXY GEDDES.

practice, as frequently and fully as it ought, illus-
trates and verifies this poi'tion of our Presbyterian
theory. It too rarely occurs in our ecclesiastical
assemblies that a ruling elder is chosen to act even
in a clerkship, and almost never to occupy the
moderator's chair, although not unfrequently there
are sitting in the body elders endowed with pecu-
liar qualifications for such positions, and who, by
virtue of their rank, are as fully entitled to them
as their clerical brethren. A practical recognition
of the rank, dignities and rights of these rulers
would enlarge their sphere of usefulness, increase
their interest in the proceedings of these bodies,
secure a larger attendance on their part, and thus
considerably reinforce the active energy and talent
of the Church. Thus, according to the principles
of Presbyterian ism, our rulers all stand on the
same level of rank, dignity and power.

6. Again, in our ecclesiastical republic the voice
of the majo7'lfy is the voice of the government.

A representative body is, for the purposes to
which it is appointed, the body which it repre-
sents. The national government is the people,
and in and through that government the people
make and execute laws and form treaties with
foreign powers. But owing to the necessary di-

THE CHURCH. 135

verslty of knowledge, views and interests, entire
unanimity in most cases cannot be expected. Even
a jury of twelve men rarely come to such unan-
imity except by compromise ; the feebler must
yield to the stronger, and many of the convictions
in the jury-box are given up in the jury-room.
If, then, we are to wait for entire unanimity in a
governing assembly, \\q must, in many instances,
wait for ever; the wheels of government must
stop and anarchy ensue. Unless, then, republi-
canism is to give way to despotism, the principle
becomes a necessity that the majority of a body
is the body itself, and its voice is the law. The
majority of a session is the session — of a presby-
tery is the presbytery — and so on through the whole
series. And in our General Assembly, composed
of coequal ministers and ruling elders, the voice
of the majority is the law of the Church. A note,
already quoted, under the article in our Form of
Government entitled " The General Assembly,"
says: "The radical principles of Presbyterian
church government are, * that a larger part of the
Church, or a representation of it, should govern
a smaller; that, in like manner, a representation
of the whole should govern and determine in
regard to every part and to all the parts united;

136 JENNY GEDDES.

that is, a majority shall govern.' '' What is true
of the whole is true of each several part — the
majority is the body. No house of clergy either
governs by itself, or sits apart with a negative
upon the doings of the laity. All sit together
as equals, discuss on equal terms, any member
possessing the inherent right to offer any propo-
sition for the consideration of the body ; all vote
together, and the vote of the majority is the de-
cision of the question.

But while the majority rules, the rights of the
minority are carefully guarded. The sacred right
of private judgment is fully recognized, and each
one is allowed to appeal for defence directly to
the word of God. ^' The Supreme Judge,'^ saith
our Confession of Faith, " by whom all contro-
versies of religion are to be determined, and all
decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers,
doctrines of men and private spirits are to be
examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest,
can be no other but the Holy Ghost speaking in
the Scriptures."

In judicial processes, "Nothing ought to be
considered by any judicatory as an offence, or ad-
mitted as matter of accusation, which cannot be
proved to be such from Scrijjture, or from the

THE CHURCH. 137

regulations or practices of the Church founded on
Scripture, and which does not involve those evils
which discipline is intended to prevent."

Thus each private member of the common-
wealth, if aggrieved by any action of any judica-
tory, and any defendant in any court, may fall
back upon the Holy Word, and if he can there
make good his case, the very constitution of his
Church compels his rulers and judges to modify
their action accordingly. Hence the power of
ecclesiastical officers over the people is one of
reason and scriptural interpretation, and not of
mere official authority.

7. Under a republican form of government it
is obvious that the great body of the constituency
are first and last in the thoughts of the legislators.
Legislative enactments are framed for their sakes
and go forth in their name and by their au-
thority. The peo2:>le have only to call wath
united voice for the passage of some new law
or the abrogation of an old one, and their voice
is sure to be heard, or, if not, the obstinate ser-
vants will be dismissed and their places filled
by others. Under such a system, class-legisla-
tion, which, where it prevails, tramples upon the
rights of the people, destroys their prosperity, and

138 JENNY GEDDES.

fills whole provinces with poverty and misery, is
impossible.

So also in an ecclesiastical republic, the people
are the Church, and are the body for whom the
government is bound to legislate. The people
are the human source of power, the framers of
the government, the electors to office, the creators
of legislators ; and these creatures of the people
must act for the people. There can be, therefore,
no legislation for the clergy as against the laity,
for without the consent of the laity the clergy
can make no law; nor for the laity as against
the clergy, for without the clergy the laity can
pass no enactment. And as clergy and laity, com-
bined, are the people — the Church — of necessity
the people are first and last in the minds of the
government. And if a body, like the General
Assembly, composed of commissioners from the
presbyteries, offend in a given instance the gene-
rality of the Church, the latter will see to it that
other commissioners, whose views are in fuller
accord with its own, shall in a subsequent as-
sembly rectify the doings of its predecessor. And
if a presbytery err, its members, mingling with
the people, will be sure to hear their rebukes and
remonstrances, and at another meeting a new dele-

THE CHURCH. 139

gation of elders will help them to retrace their
steps and amend the offensive enactments. Thus,
in the very constitution of Presbyterianism, the
people possess all possible security against partial
and unjust legislation.

In looking now over the Presbyterian system
as a whole, we find it to be made up of an ascend-
ing series of lesser and larger republics, all, how-
ever, so interlocked together as to constitute one
comprehensive whole — a true ecclesiastical unum
€ plwribus. A single congregation, with its pastor
and ruling eldership, elected by and acting for
and in the name of the people, forms a distinct
republic — then the presbytery and synod and
General Assembly, each composed of like ma-
terials and constructed after the same pattern, an-
other republic — the whole blended into one by the
interpenetration of the same general membership
by the ascent of appeals from the low^er to the
higher, and on to the highest ; review and control
descending from the higher to the lower, and thus
from the highest to the low^est; many members,
warmed with the common life-blood propelled
through them by one heart, moved to action by
the common will acting through media called
into existence in accordance with New Testament

140 JENNY GEDDES.

law, by the united mind and combined wisdom of
the whole. In this scheme there is a realization
of the highest unity in combination with an ever-
varying diversity — of the fullest liberty in alliance
with the most efficient legal authority. If, there-
fore, there is republicanism in all its beauty any-
where, it is found in scriptural Presbyterianism.

8. It remains to add that the republicanism of
the Presbyterian system is recognized by writers
of every class, acknowledged by impartial his-
torians, claimed as a glory by its friends, imputed
as a crime by its foes.

Neander, in a note on the second chapter of his
" Planting and Training,'' etc., writes :

" It is most probable that although all presby-
ters were called rulers of the synagogue, yet one
who acted as president was distinguished by the
title of ruler of the synagogue, as primus inter
pares. In evidence of this, compare Luke viii.
41-49 with Mark v. 22. This is important in
reference to the later relation of bishops and pres-
byters. The analogy to the Jewish synagogue
allows us to conclude that at the head of the
first Church at Jerusalem a general deliberative
college was placed from the beginning — a notion
favoured by comparison with the college of apos-

THE CHURCH. 141

ties; and in the Acts a plurality of presbyters
always appears next in rank to the apostles, as
representatives of the Church at Jerusalem. If any
one is disposed to maintain that each of these
presbyters presided over a smaller part of the
Church at its special meetings, still it must there-
by be established that, notwithstanding these di-
vided meetings, the Church formed a whole, over
which this deliberative college of presbyters pre-
sided, and therefore the form of government was
still republican?^

" Each individual church," writes Mosheim,
^^ assumed to itself the form and rights of a little
distinct republic or commonwealth ; and with regard
to its internal concerns was wholly regulated by
a code of laws that, if they did not originate with,
had at least received the sanction of, the people
constituting such church.

"At length the churches of a province became
associated, much after the manner of ^'confederate
republics, held conventions in which the common
interest was provided for; so that the Christian
community may be said, thenceforward, to have
resembled one large commonwealth, made up, like
those of Holland and Switzerland, of many minor
republics.''

142 JENNY GEDDES.

Bancroft writes: "Calvinism is gradual repub-
licanism. In Geneva, a republic on the confines
of France, Italy and Germany, Calvin, appealing
to the people for support, continued the career
of enfranchisement by planting the institutions
which nursed the minds of Kousseau, Necker and
De Stael. The political character of Calvinism,
which, with one consent and with instinctive judg-
ment, the monarchs of that day feared as 7'epubli~
canismy and which Charles I. declared a religion
unfit for a gentleman, is expressed in a single
word — predestination.^^

What historians assert, Presbyterians claim.
" Our system of polity," writes Dr. Smythe, quot-
ing from Dr. Rice, "was drawn up at a time
when the general principles of government and
the great subject of human rights and privileges
were more thoroughly and anxiously discussed
than at any other period since the settlement of
this country. It was during the time when the
sages of America were employed in framing the
Federal Constitution. And the men who drew
up this form of government were, many of them
at least, men deeply versed in civil and ecclesias-
tical history. Perhaps this may, in some measure,
account for the striking similarity which occurs

THE CHURCH. 143

in the fundamental principles of our polity and
the form of government adopted by the United
States. Like that form of government, our polity
is neither monarchical nor democratical, but a
democratic republic.''

" Hence, the more decidedly a man is a Presby-
terian the more decidedly is he a republican. So
much is this the case, that some Christians of this
society, fully believing that Presbytery is de jure
divino, consider this as decisive evidence that re-
publicanism is of divine institution, and are per-
suaded that they should grievously sin against God
by acknowledging any other form of civil govern-
ment."

Alexander Henderson writes : " Here is a supe-
riority without tyranny, for no minister has a
papal or monarchical jurisdiction over his own
flock, far less over other pastors and over all the
congregations of a large diocese. Here is parity
without confusion and disorder, for the pastors are
in order before elders, and elders before deacons;
every particular church is subordinate to a presby-
tery, the presbytery to the synod, and the synod to
the National Assembly. Here is subjection with-
out slavery, for the people are subject to the pastors
and assemblies ; yet there is no assembly wherein

144 JENNY GEDDES.

every particular church hath not interest and
power, nor is there anything done but they are —
if not actually, yet virtually — called to consent
unto it.'^

And what Presbyterians claim is charged upon
them by their foes.

Dr. Peter Heylin, chaplain to those graceless
creatures, Charles I. and Charles II., Avrote a work
under the following imposing title: "^rius Re-
divivus ; or, the History of the Presbyterians, con-
taining the Beginnings, Progresse and Successes of
that Active Sect — their oppositions to Monarchical
and Episcopal Government,'' etc., etc. And the
volume that thus begins ends as follows: "Thus
have we seen the dangerous Doctrines and Po-
sitions, the Secret Plots and open Practices ; the
Sacrileges, Spoils and Rapines; the Tumults, Mur-
thers and Seditions ; the horrid Treasons and Re-
bellions which have been raised by the Presbyte-
rians in most parts of Christendom for one hundred
years and upward, which having been seen," etc.,
etc.

Hallam writes : " The discontented party set up
their own platform of government by synods and
classes agreeably to the Presbyterian model estab-
lished in Scotland. Though Elizabeth, from

THE CHURCH. 145

policy, abetted the Scottish clergy in their attacks
upon the civil administration, this connection itself
had probably given her such insight into their
temper, as well as their influence, that she must
have shuddered at the thought of seeing a republic
can assembly substituted for those faithful satraps,
her bishops, so ready to do her bidding/'

Macaulay speaks of the Scottish preachers as
those " who had inherited the republican opinions
and the unconquerable spirit of Knox."

" Calvin," says Bishop Horsley, quoted by
Smythe, " was unquestionably in theory a republi-
can. So wedded was he to this notion that he en-
deavoured to fashion the government of all the
Protestant churches upon republican principles ;
and his persevering zeal in that attempt was fol-
lowed, upon the whole, with wide and mischievous
success."

Bishop Hughes writes : "Though it is my privi-
lege to regard the authority exercised by the Gene-
ral Assembly as usurpation, still I must say, with
exevy man acquainted with the mode in which it
is organized, that for the purposes of popular and
political government, its structure is little inferior to
that of Congress itself. In any emergency that
may arise the General Assembly can proaiice a

10

146 JENNY GEDDES.

uniformity among its adherents to the farthest
boundaries of the land. It acts on the principle
of a radiating centre, and is without an equal
OR A RIVAL among the other denominations of the
country."

King James, with characteristic coarseness, ex-
claimed at the Hampton Court Conference; "You
are aiming at a Scot's Presbytery, which agrees
with monarchy as well as God with the devil.*'

Charles I. no less cordially detested it. " Show
me," he demanded, "any precedent wherever
presbyterial government and regal were together
without perpetual rebellions. And it cannot be
otherwise, for the ground of their doctrine is
anti-monarchical. I will say, without hyperbole,
that there was not a wiser man since Solomon than
he who said, Xo bishop no king." He said he
looked upon Episcopacy as a stronger support of
monarchical power than even the army.

Dean Swift, that ornament of the English
Church, has added his testimony. Speaking of
those who took refuge in Geneva from persecution
in England, he says : " When they returned, they
were grown so fond of the government and re-
ligion of the place they had left that they used all
possible endeavours to introduce both into our

THE CHURCH. 147

country. From hence they proceeded to quarrel
with the kingly government, because the city of
Geneva, to which their fathers had flown for re-
fuge, was a commonwealth, or government of the
people."

The poet Dryden, too, more famed for poetry
than for piety, wrote :

" So Presbytery and its pestilential zeal
Can flourish only in a commonweal^

And how thoroughly Presbyterianism has main-
tained its republican character in America let his-
tory show. On this point we are still indebted to
Dr. Smythe's able work, " Ecclesiastical Republic-
anism.'^

In 1767, an appeal was issued in New York on
behalf of the Church of England in America, in
which we read : " Episcopacy and monarchy are in
their frame and constitution best suited to each
other. Episcopacy can never thrive in a republic,
nor republican principles in an Episcopal Church.
He that prefers monarchy in the State is more
likely to approve. Episcopacy in the Church. It
may reasonably be expected that those in authority
will support and assist the Church in America, if
from no other motives, yet from a regard to the
State, Avith which it has so friendly an alliance."

148 JENNY GEDDES.

A year before the Declaration of Independence,
the Synod of New York declared themselves in
favour of the struggle for liberty, and during the
war their zeal exposed .them to special cruelty on
the part of the British soldiery. " They were the
first to recognize the Declaration when made, and
materially aided in the passage of that noble act."

Bancroft writes, in his seventh volume :

"A similar spirit of independence prevailed in
the highlands which hold the head springs of the
Yadkin and the Catawba. The region was peopled
chiefly by the Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish de-
scent, who brought to the New World the creed, the
spirit of resistance and the courage of the Cove-
nanters.

" The people of the county of Mecklenburg had
carefully observed the progress of the controversy
with Britain, and during the winter political meet-
ings had been repeatedly held in Charlotte. That
town had been chosen for the seat of the Presbyte-
rian college, which the legislature of North Caro-
lina had chartered, but which the king hud dis-
allowed, and it was the centre of the culture of
that part of the province."

When the crisis came, a representative committee
was appointed and met in Charlotte. '^ No minutes

THE CHURCH. 149

of the committee are known to exist, but the result
of their deliberations, framed with superior skill
and precision of language and calm comprehensive-
ness, remains as the monument of their wisdom
and courage. Of the delegates to that memorable
assembly, the name of Ephraim Brevard should
be remembered with honour by his countrymen.
Trained in the college at Princeton, ripened
among the brave Presbyterians of Middle Caro-
lina, he digested the system which was then adopt-
ed, and which formed in effect a declaration of
independence, as well as a complete system of gov-
ernment. *A11 laws and commissions confirmed
by or derived from the king or parliament are an-
nulled and vacated; the provincial congress of each
province, under direction of the great continental
congress, is invested with all legislative and execu-
tive powers.' "

A wise and judicious system of government was
then prepared. The resolves were made binding
on all, and the militia companies ordered to provide
themselves with arms to maintain them.

"Before the month of May, 1775, had come to an
end, the resolutions were signed by Ephraim Bre-
vard, as clerk of the committee, and were adopted
by the people with the determined enthusiasm

150 JENNY GEDDES.

which springs from the combined influence of the
love of liberty and of religion. Thus was Meck-
lenburg county in North Carolina separated from
the British empire/^

And through the whole momentous struggle
Presbyterianism displayed the same ardent, deter-
mined, patriotic spirit. To quote the eloquent
words of the writer's late beloved friend and for-
mer pastor, Br. John M. Krebs — words that it was
our lot to hear when uttered from the pulpit —
" When the Declaration of Independence was under
debate in the Continental Congress, doubts and fore-
bodings were whispered through the hall. The
houses hesitated, wavered, and for a while the
liberty and slavery of the nation appeared to hang
in an even scale. It was then an aged patriarch
arose, a venerable and stately form, his head white
with the frost of years. Every eye went to him
with the quickness of thought, and remained with
the fixedness of the polar star. He cast on the
assembly a look of inexpressible interest and un-
conquerable determination, while on his visage the
hue of age was lost in the flush of a burning pa-
triotism that fired his cheek. ^ There is,' said he,
' a tide in the aifairs of men, a nick of time. We
perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to con-

THE CHURCH. 151

sent to our own slavery. That noble instrument
upon your table, which ensures immortality to its
author, should be subscribed this very morning by
every pen in the house. He that will not respond
to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into
eifect its provisions, is unworthy of the name of
freeman. For my own part, of property I have
some, of reputation more. That reputation is
staked, that property is pledged on the issue of this
contest. And although these gray hairs must soon
descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather
they should descend there by the hands of the exe-
cutioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause
of my country.'

" Who w^as it that uttered this memorable
speech — potent in turning the scales of the na-
tion's destiny, and worthy to be preserved in the
same imperishable record in which is registered
the not more eloquent speech ascribed to John
Adams on the same sublime occasion? It was
John AVitherspoon, at that day the most distin-
guished Presbyterian minister west of the Atlantic
ocean, the father of the Presbyterian Church in
the United States."

Dr. Smythe writes : '' We have collected from
high authority the following facts : The battles

152 JENNY GEDDES.

of the Cowpens, of King's Mountain, and also the
severe skirmish known as Hack's Defeat, are
among the most celebrated in this State, as giving
a turning-point to the contest of the Revolution.
General Morgan, who commanded at the Cowpens,
was a Presbyterian elder. General Pickens, who
made all the arrangements for the battle, was also
a Presbyterian elder. And nearly all under their
command were Presbyterians. In the battle of
King's Mountain, Colonel Campbell, Colonel
James Williams, Colonel Cleaveland, Colonel
Shelby, and Colonel Servier were all Presbyterian
elders, and the body of their troops were collected
from Presbyterian settlements. At Huck's Defeat,
in York, Colonel Bratton and Major Dickson were
both elders in the Presbyterian Church. Major
Samuel Morrow, who was with Colonel Sumpter
in four engagements, and at King's Mountain,
Blackstock's and other battles, was for about
fifty years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian
Church."

"A Presbyterian loyalist," says Mr. William
B. Reed, himself an Episcopalian, " was a thing
unheard of. Patriotic clergymen of the Estab-
lished Church were exceptions to the general con-
duct. The debt of gratitude which independent

THE CHURCH. 153

America owes to the dissenting clergy and laity
can never be paid."

Our Church, then, in form and spirit is thor-
oughly republican, and the whole tendency of our
system is to imbue its clergy and members with
republican feeling and sympathy; and in this it
is more thoroughly in harmony with the civil
republicanism of our government and nation than
any other ecclesiastical system that exists under
the shadow of our national banner.

CHURCH AND STATE.

156

III.

CHURCH AND STATE.

IjHATEVER society has the right to exist
has therein the right to institute and carry
out such system of government over its
membership as is essential to its continued
existence. But if anything on earth has such
right, the Church of Christ has ; this right based
on the will of God. It is by his express com-
mand, through his own agency, that it comes into
being. It asks no leave of human governments
to be. It springs up as the flowers do in the
meadows, in lands where civil governments are,
and whatever their form, and w^iere they are
not, in America and Britain, among the Indians
in the forest, in China and Hindostan. It not
only asks no leave of civil governments to be,
but grows up under their eyes and despite their
opposition. No poor sapling on the cold, thin-
soiled mountain-side ever struggled more toil-
somely and persistently for life than has the

157

158 JEN^Y GEDDES.

Church, in many a land under the frown, wrath
and merciless persecution of secular governments.
When its infant King entered the world, Herod
trembled, and all Jerusalem with him. But
Herod's trembling soon gave place to energetic
malice, and he sent his soldiers to kill the royal
babe in his mother's arms. From that hour, for
many a weary, bloody century, the Church grew,
in spite of governmental frowns and violence,
until it became a mighty power. The blood of
its martyrs proved a prolific seed, and the ashes
of martyr-fires, as they were blown upon the peo-
ple, made them Christians. The Neros and Do-
raitians lent all their imperial power in vain to
overcome the power of the gospel and stay the
march of faith and repentance.

And this Church possesses, direct from God,
the right to institute and carry out its own sys-
tem of government. This right lies in its own
bosom. No secular government may say what
form that government shall assume — may modify
any one of its laws — may interpose between it
and the execution of any one of its sentences
against offenders — may make any law that shall,
by its operation, interfere with the operation of
the legitimate laws of the Church. If it do, the

CHURCH AND STATE. 169^

Church is bound to protest against and disregard
such enactments.

But the question as to the legitimate relations
subsisting between these two styles of govern-
ment— the secular and the ecclesiastical — as to
how they can coexist among the same people, and
just where their boundaries meet and limit each
other, is one that has evoked boundless, and some-
times passionate, discussion — has employed the
ablest pens, and is even yet far from having found
final and generally-accepted solution. How can
tw^o several governments within the same terri-
tories, operating upon the same persons, yet each
entirely independent of the other, coexist without
collision ? And, in fact, in very few countries
have they ever so existed for any considerable
length of time. Each has at one time or another
encroached upon and attained melancholy ascend-
ency over its neighbour. The conflict between
them began very early, and the history of the
Church of Scotland is hardly more than a con-
tinued succession of such conflicts.

But wlienever they do occur, the difficulty has
arisen, not from essential antagonism between
them, but from some abnormal action on the
part of the one or the other. How, indeed, is it

160 JENNY GEDDES.

possible for them, "when acting each within its
own legitimate sphere, to come in any way or
degree into conflict. God is the Author of both.
He has ordained them. And how could he who
is infinite in wisdom and who has so wonderfully
adjusted the wheels of all nature in their un-
jarring harmonies ; the planetary and stellar sys-
tems working with such undeviating accuracy;
the oxygen and carbon in our atmosphere, the
great predominance of one destroying human, and
of the other vegetable life, yet, though ever chang-
ing conditions, after six thousand years retaining
just their originally-appointed proportions; the
light, too, just adapted to the eye and the eye to
the light, — how could the Master of all these har-
monies make a mistake in the simpler matter of
adjusting these powers of Church and State?

Yet the history of the antagonisms between,
and alternate encroachments of, civil and ecclesi-
astical governments fills many a sadly instructive
page in the annals of the world.

Nero was the first Roman emperor who enacted
laws against the Christians, and these laws were
directed against them not as an obnoxious gov-
ernmental power, but as the professors of a faith
that scorned all acknowledgment of the heathen-

CHURCH AND STATE. 161

ism of the empire. In this he was followed by
Diocletian aud other emperors down to Con-
stantine.

By this time, however, the primitive govern-
ment of the Church had undergone an entire
transformation, and church authority, in the hands
of bishops invested with almost regal dignities,
liad become a power to be either courted or
brought under subjection. The first encroach-
ments of the one upon the authority of the other
came from the State, and from the time of Con-
stantine "the supreme civil powers, professing to
feel an obligation to exert their civil authority
for the welfare of the Church and the good of
religion,'^ frequently interfered " to a large extent
in religious, theological and ecclesiastical matters,
professedly in discharge of this obligation."

Constantine himself, though he made no great
alterations in the government of the Church, and
allowed it to remain, as it had hitherto been, a
distinct body politic separate from the State, yet
assumed supremacy over it, and exercised to some
extent a right to give its government such shape
as seemed to him conducive to the general good.

Successive emperors assumed the right to con-
voke ecclesiastical councils, to preside over them,
11

162 JENNY GEDDES.

to appoint judges to decide religious controversies
and to settle difficulties arising between bishops
and the people. They often determined matters
of a purely ecclesiastical nature.

In the mean time, however, without knowing it,
they were fostering a power that should one day
set its foot upon the necks of kings and claim
supreme jurisdiction in matters civil as well as
sacred. .

The bishop of Rome, through a course of
gradual aggrandizement, came at length into pos-
session of vast powders, and began to arrogate to
himself the spiritual sovereignty of the whole
Church. To make Constantinople another Rome,
Aer bishop must claim and receive dignity and
authority at least not inferior to that of the latter.
Accordingly, the Council of Constantinople, at the
end of the fourth century, by formal canon, ele-
vated the bishop of that city into supremacy over
those of Alexandria and Antioch — a supremacy
soon extended over all Asia, Thrace and Pontus.
With these new dignities came ncAv emoluments.
Thus for secular ends the civil power played off
bishop against bishop, until, by the middle of the
fifth century, these dignitaries were " monarchs
without disguise.'^

CHURCH AND STATE. 163

At length the Eoman Empire fell. The barba-
rian deluge swept all civil power to ruin. All the
bonds of society were broken, and a dismal anarchy
set in. But the Church did not fall. After the
fashion of the times, slie converted these barbarians
and subdued them to her spiritual sway. And
now all eyes turned toward Church dignitaries as
the only tower in the sea of confusion. In nume-
rous instances they were appealed to to settle con-
troversies in civil matters, and the idea of supreme
dominion in State affairs soon sprang into mind
and grew to an early and vigorous maturity.

The man to realize this idea soon appeared in
the person of Hildebrand. Of obscure parentage,
in 1073 he was elected to the Papal chair and as-
sumed the name of Gregory Yll.

Hildebrand was a man of uncommon genius,
whose ambition in forming the most arduous pro-
jects was equalled by his dexterity in bringing
them into execution. Sagacious, crafty and intre-
pid, nothing could escape his penetration, defeat
his stratagems or daunt his courage; haughty and
arrogant beyond all measure, obstinate, impetuous
and intractable. He looked up to the summit of
universal empire with a wishful eye, and laboured
up the steep ascent with uninterrupted ardour and

164 JENNY GEDDES.

invincible perseverance. Void of all principle,
and destitute of every pious and virtuous feeling,
he suftered little restraint in his audacious pursuits
from the dictates of religion or the remonstrances
of conscience.

His first aim was to make the see of Rome ab-
solute mistress of the universal Church. This
accomplished, he secured the independence of the
affairs of the Church from all secular control ; and
this accomplished, he conceived, and to a large ex-
tent effected, the subjection of civil government to
the control of the Church — that is, to the Komish
pope. In the execution of this last scheme he
encountered opposition — formidable, indeed, but
only in the end to come off conqueror. Henry
IV., Emperor of Germany, a child of licentious-
ness and ambition, whose approbation Gregory had
sought and obtained, by a special and flattering
embassage, as the seal of his election to the pa-
pacy, afterward indignantly resisted the efforts of
the latter to withdraw the officials of the Church
from secular sway, and, assembling a diet of the
empire at Worms, deposed his antagonist from the
papal throne. Gregory, however, neither dis-
mayed by danger nor to be deterred from executing
his purpose by whatever opposition, rather rejoiced

CHURCH AND STATE. 165

at the opportunity thus offered of realizuig before
all the world by a splendid example his grand
scheme of universal sovereignty. He accordingly
convoked a council at the Lateran palace, solemnly
excommunicated Henry, and in the name of St.
Peter declared him deposed from the thrones of
Germany and Italy, and all his subjects released
from their allegiance. Thus the vassal changed
place with his master. Henry 's subjects, ripe for
revolution, willingly accepted their new condition,
and a diet was convoked to elect a new emperor.
This brought the proud monarch to his knees in
sackcloth and ashes. Crossing the Alps with his
wife and child, Henry arrived at the pope's resi-
dence and begged for an interview. The proud
priest would not condescend to look upon his
victim till the latter laid aside the insignia of
royalty, clad himself in a coarse woollen garment
as a penitent, and in this guise had stood barefoot
for three days from morning till night in the open
court and in the depth of winter. Then, humbly
confessing, the wretched monarch was absolved of
excommunication, but his restoration to the throne
was referred to the diet of the empire.

Thus we are introduced to the Romish view of
the legitimate relations subsisting between ecclesias^

166 Ji:XXY GEDDES.

deal and civil government. Romanism maintains
that the civil authorities are as such subordinate to
ecclesiastical domination. This view is based upon
the lofty character of the objects to which ecclesi-
astical government is directed. On this ground
civil rulers are bound to adjust all those acts
which bear upon religious persons and institutions
to the laws of the Church. ^' The popish doc-
trine/' writes Principal Cunningham, '^ makes the
civil ruler a mere tool or servant of the Church,
and represents him as implicitly bound to carry
out the Church's objects, to execute her sentences,
and to make everything subservient to the accom-
plishment of her designs."

Thus the pope is represented by some Romish
writers as " lord paramount of the world," and
'^ invested with supreme power in temporal
things ;" while others ^^ ascribe to him but an in-
direct authority in these matters, to be exercised in
ordine ad sj^lrUuaUa, which, as he is the judge of
when and how far the interests of religion may
require him to interfere in secular matters, is just
giving him as much of temporal power as hd may
find it convenient to claim or may be able to en-
force."

Further, according to this system, church officers,

CHURCH AND STATE. 167

in all matters aifecting their personal and secular
interests, are and onght to be exempt from civil
jurisdiction. In whatever land they live, and
under whatever form of government, they are
subjects first and completely of the Church as re-
presented by its head, the Papal monarch. Whe-
ther worthy of pains and penalties for any alleged
offence, it is for the ecclesiastical not for the secular
courts to decide. Thus the pope in his assumed
jurisdiction is omnipotent among his widely-scat-
tered subjects, and every act of the civil govern-
ment that interferes with this jurisdiction is an
offence against God.

In the opposite extreme from this view is that
commonly called Erastian. Erastus, whose name
has. become associated with the governmental the-
ory elaborated from views first distinctly pro-
nounced by, though not wholly originating with
him, was a native of Switzerland, a physician and
a man of erudition. Joining the Reformers, and
indignant alike at the exorbitant claims of Roman-
ism and at some of the principles admitted by the
Protestants of his time, he went to the opposite
extreme, and resolved all the disciplinary powers
of the Church into the will of the State. The
system which grew out of the principles he advo-

168 JENNY GEDDES.

cated seems to be based in part upon exaggerated
views of unity in the State, and in part upon a
misapprehension of the proper functions of the
body politic. This latter is apprehended as an
organization so compact and of such close inter-
dependence of organs as to necessitate a single su-
preme head over all — an ultimate authority to
which all questions in controversy might be refer-
red for decision. Without a head the body politic
is a monster; and with two heads, the one spiritual
and the other secular, it is hardly less monstrous.
A separate jurisdiction allowed in the State, but
uncontrolled by the State, results in the much-
dreaded hnperium in imperlo, j^lacing the subject at
once under two several and possibly at times op-
posing jurisdictions, obedience to one subjecting
him to penalties from the other.

When, therefore, the question comes up for de-
cision as to which of the great interests of society,
the sacred or the secular, shall hold the sceptre,
while Romanism gives it to the former as in every
sense the higher and more solemn, Erastianism
prefers the latter, under the impression that civil
government is legitimately entrusted with control
over all that concerns the well-being of the State.

Mr. Mill, indeed, has affirmed that the well-

CHURCH AND STATE. 169

being of the governed, collectively and individu-
ally, is the object of government. But from his
extremely low views of spiritual affairs he un-
doubtedly ignores them altogether, and by the
"well-being of society'' refers to it in its purely
secular aspects. But if he would intimate that all
things that conduce to man's well-being are mat-
ters for direct control by the State, religion must
come first and foremost in the list, and complete
Erastianism results.

Lord Macaulay has more explicitly declared that
government is designed to protect persons and
property ; to compel the citizen to satisfy his wants
by industr}^ rather than by rapine ; to compel him
to settle his differences with his neighbour by arbi-
tration rather than by the strong arm ; and to di-
rect the whole force of the nation as that of one
man against any other society that may threaten
with injury.

But while asserting, with all earnestness, the
Iduty of every man in or out of authority to be a
religious man, and as such to use all his influence
to favour religion as bearing more weightily upon
the weal of the citizen for time and eternity than
all others combined, yet it can never be conceded
that religion, either in its doctrine or government,

170 JENNY GEDDES.

is at all under the control of the secular power.
But according to Erastianisra the object of civil
government is the citizen, and all that concerns
man as such. But religion seriously concerns
him, and hence religion must be under its con-
trol. Religion shapes the whole course of hu-
man conduct, and human conduct is one of the
direct objects of governmental control, and hence
religion must come under its sway. Church cen-
sures and discipline directly, and sometimes pow-
erfully, invade the happiness of the citizen, and
hence they must be under the efficient oversight
and control of the magistrate. While, therefore,
church officers may teach and exhort, they may not
inflict censure, or, if they do, it may only be as
agents and instruments of the civil government.

Erastianism need not deny that the Church is a
society within a society ; it may admit that this
society possesses authority of a certain degree or
kind not derived directly from the State ; but yet,
as the State is supreme, such authority is to be
exercised under its eye and within the limits it
prescribes, and from all decisions of the church
judicatories appeal must lie to the secular power.

The State may, if it please, and when its consti-
tution allows, em])loy the ecclesiastical power for

CHURCH AND STATE. 171

the benefit of the citizen and the good of society ;
and it may see fit, as is the case in England.
There, among the matters submitted to the juris-
diction of the bishops are the questions respecting
wills, marriage and divorce, though they commonly
reassign these questions to the State by appointing
secular men to examine and decide upon them ac-
cording to certain established rules. And even
over these courts and officers, the civil government
maintains a careful superintendence, explaining
the laws which concern the extent of their juris-
diction, keeping them within the limits of that
jurisdiction, and, if they exceed those limits, issu-
ing prohibitions to restrain them, or summoning to
answer for their conduct before the civil courts.

Thus the English Church from the beginning
has been thoroughly Erastian. It is the creature
and slave of the State. Baptist W. Noel, long
under its dominion, in his powerful work on the
" Union of Church and State," has drawn a vivid
and terrible picture of the rigours and corrupting
influence of the State in that Establishment.
" Ever since the union of the Church of England
with its imperious and profligate head, Henry
YIIL, who burned alive the friends of the pope
and the followers of Zwingli, the State in Eng-

172 JENNY GEDDES,

land, with scarcely the exception of one brief in-
terval, has been steadily opposed to evangelical
religion. Queen Mary, though a bigoted Catholic,
continued to be the legal head of the Church of
England/'

The main links that connect the Anglican
Church with the State, the Acts of Supremacy
and Uniformity, "establish the subordination"
of the Church, " abrogating all jurisdiction and
legislative power of ecclesiastical rulers except under
authority of the Croivn, and prohibiting all changes
of rites and discipline without the approbation of the
Parliament^'

Over the clergy Queen Elizabeth ruled with
despotic sway. On a question between the bishop
of Ely and Cox, this pious queen wrote to the
latter : " Proud prelate, you know what you were
before I made you what you are. If you do not

immediately comply with my request, by ,

I will unfrock you ! Elizabeth.''

" She suspended Fletcher, bishop of London, for
marrying; and Aylmer having preached against
female vanity in dress, she said if he held more
discourse on such matters she would fit him for
heaven."

Noel shows, by ample quotation from the laws

CHURCH AND STATE. 173

of the realm, that the State "claims and exercises
the right of superintendence over the churches —
that bishops and pastors have no manner of spirit-
ual jurisdiction within the churches but from the
Crown, which may delegate its authority to eccle-
siastical lawyers — that no minister may impeach
the royal supremacy in spiritual things under pain
of excommunication — that the State determines the
settlement of pastors within the establishment, its
doctrines and worship, its discipline and govern-
ment."

And what is this State that thus lords it over
God's heritage ? It embraces the Crown, the House
of Lords and the Commons, the great majority of
whom are men not even Christians, and they may
all be infidels, and still retain their legal jurisdic-
tion over the Established Church ! And that
Church has become what it now is by "acts of
Parliament formed illegally, corrupted by pensions
and overawed by prerogative."

The disastrous effects of Church alliance with
the State are powerfully exhibited.

The bishop walks into a palace with a salary of
five thousand pounds per annum. He becomes a
peer of the realm. He becomes invested with a
vast amount of patronage. The archbishops and

174 JENNY GEDDES.

bishops of England and Wales have together 1248
benefices in their gift, besides other church pre-
ferment. And while this wealth and association
with worldly rulers tends powerfully to corrupt and
secularize, this patronage depresses the clergy into
a degrading servility of temper, and works in the
prelate a haughty, overbearing spirit. And while
the lower clergy cringe before him, he cringes in
turn to the ministers of the Crown.

Upon the pastor the effects of this union are
no less deleterious. It makes him entirely inde-
pendent of support by the people, and thus en-
courages him in indolence. '^And, indeed,'^ asks
Noel, "is there more than one rector out of ten
who preaches, catechises, visits the sick or instructs
from house to house?" It makes him secure of
his office, though his character may be ever so
subversive of piety among his people — though he
be "ignorant, idle, a sportsman, a card-player,
gluttonous, proud and quarrelsome. Bound under
solemn and repeated oaths to maintain the ivhole
system of the Establishment, and bribed thereto by
a prospective palace and five thousand pounds a
year, he must refrain from attacking such notori-
ous and enormous evils as the introduction of
irreligious youths into the ministry, the com-

CHURCH AND STATE. 175

plete fusion of the Church and the world at the
Lord's table, the almost total neglect of church
discipline, the errors of the articles of the Prayer
Book, and many, many others/^

If the bishop refuses to induct a candidate pre-
sented by the patron, which patron may be and
often is an utterly irreligious man, the law lays
its hand upon him, and scarcely any presentee is
rejected, and the pulpits are full of unconverted
men.

Under this system the Church has become " a
confused mass of believers and unbelievers, allow-
ing strangers to impose upon them multitudes of
ungodly pastors, who bring a spiritual blight upon
them. Upon the masses of the working class,
the myriads of fashion and the whole army of
scientific and literary men, Anglican Christians
make scarcely any impression, Avhile a latent and
widespread infidelity is making unchecked ravages
among them."

He thus concludes his review of this system :
^^ The union of the churches with the State is
doomed. Condemned by reason and religion, by
Scripture and experience, how can it be allowed to
injure the nation much longer? Its State salaries,
its supremacy, its patronage, its compulsion of pay-

176 JENJ^Y GEDDES.

meats for the suj)port of religion are condemned
by both the precedents and precepts of the word
of God. It excludes the gospel from thousands
of parishes, perpetuates corruptions of doctrine,
hinders all spiritual discipline, desecrates the ordi-
nances of Christ, confounds the Church and the
world, foments schism, tempts ministers to become
politicians, embarrasses successive governments,
maintains one chief element of revolution in the
country, renders the reformation of the Anglican
churches almost hopeless, hinders the progress of
the Gospel throughout the kingdom, and strength-
ens all the corrupt Papal establishments of Eu-
rope.''

Such, then, is genuine Erastianism in its cha-
racter and results. AVhile Romanism subjects the
State to the Church, Erastianism subjects the
Church to the State, making the former a compo-
nent and subordinate part of the latter. And these
evils seem to be necessarily involved in a formal
governmental alliance of the Church with the State.
This, indeed, many of our Scotch brethren most
earnestly deny ; and while they plead with all zeal
for such an alliance, they with equal zeal and warm
indignation repudiate and denounce Erastianism.
Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Cunningham, and other noble

CHURCH AND STATE. 177

champions of tlie truth, contend for the utter inde-
pendence of the Church of all State control, and
for the kingship of Christ as sole monarch of the
Church ; and, while formally admitting that the
Church for centuries, not only without State pa-
tronage, but in opposition to its persecuting intole-
rance, fully and nobly accomplished the great ends
of its existence — while constantly conceding that,
with very few if any exceptions, such alliances
have resulted in more evil than good, that in many
noted instances the Church in such condition has
been induced to consent to civil interference in
ecclesiastical affairs fearfully damaging to the cause
of truth and righteousness, Dr. Cunningham dis-
tinctly declaring, " I am not sure that any Pro-
testant established Church has ever wholly escaped
sin and degradation by such alliance, except the
Scottish Church at the second Reformation'' — ac-
knowledging that even in Scotland, under the
Revolution settlement, the fundamental principles
of the Church were overturned by secular influ-
ence, ^' so that it became impossible for a man who
had scriptural views of what a Church of Christ
is, and what are the principles by which its affairs
ousrht to be regjulated to remain in connection with
it" — yet, with all this, they are fully persuaded

12

178 JENNY GEDDES.

that the State, as such, not only lawfully may, but
is under solemn obligation to, use its power directly
in behalf of the Church, and employ its resources
to maintain her ministers and promote her inte-
rests. That magistrates, like all other men, should
in all their conduct be governed by Christian prin-
ciples, and seek to further the cause of religion, is
admitted by all ; but when the State consents, out
of the national purse, to support, in whole or in
part, the ministers and institutions of religion, it
is very difficult to convince her of the impropriety
of a share in the shaping of the institutions and in
the appointment and control of the ministers she
thus supports ; and on this the State has in fact
always insisted, and, as the bitter experience of the
Church of Scotland shows, insisted not in vain.
If the State pays the salaries of the ministers, she
will claim, and not Avithout reason, to share largely
in determining who shall receive of her munifi-
cence ; and she will also claim a large share in de-
termining controversies arising among them. And
this results in practical Erastianism of a higher
or lower grade. And while the example of the
Church in her best, purest and most efficient days,
for centuries in succession, stands on record, and
with the extended experience of the Church in the

CHURCH AND STATE. 179

United States In view, It will be very difficult to
convince American Christians that '^ a condition of
entire separation from the State and entire depend-
ence upon the contributions of the people'' is not
only a perfectly lawful and honourable condition
for the Church to occupy, but also, in view espe-
cially of the fact that governmental union ' of
Church and State has invariably resulted in serious
damage to the former, that it is not the only system
consistent with the will of God and the welfare of
religion. Only thus can the Church keep the ark of
God from contamination by men who have neither
love for her doctrines nor regard for her purity.

The third theory as to the proper relations be-
tween the Church and State is that prevalent in
our republic.

This involves their coexistence side by side, yet
each in complete independence of the other. They
are twin sisters of the same parent, neither pos-
sessing any dominion over the other.

That civil government exists by ordinance of
God, and Is by him clothed with authority to reach
the end designed in Its ordination, few W'lU deny.

No less true is it that the Church exists by
virtue of the forthputting of divine power upon
human hearts, and it also is invested directly from

180 JEN^'Y GEDDES.

heaven with authority of a certain kind over its
membership.

Equally manifest is it that from the necessity of
the case relations of a very intimate character sub-
sist between them. They are children of the same
Father. Their subjects are the same persons.
These persons, also, are directly affected in their
spiritual interests by the character and conduct of
the secular government, and in their secular inter-
ests by the control and decisions of the spiritual
government.

Thus over the two grand departments of human
interest, the sacred and the secular, God has or-
dered two several agencies — the Church, the custo-
dian of religious truth, and the instructor of men
therein ; and the State, for the protection of men in
their rights, and for the restraint and punishment
of those who invade the rights of others. The
specific duties allotted to the one are entirely dis-
tinct from those allotted to the other, though both
contribute to the common weal. Like sunshine
and shower, the one is not the other, yet both con-
cur in bringing on the harvest.

The Church is not the State, and the State is not
the Church, yet they may, and one day will, both
comprehend precisely the same elementary con-

CHURCH AND STATE. 181

stituents. Every member of the Church may be
a citizen, and every citizen may be a member of
the Church.

Yet they may not invade each other's given
spheres of service. The Church cannot annul
even an iniquitous enactment of the State, though
she may and must protest against it, and through
the steady operation of her hallowed instrumental-
ities strive so to reach the public mind and heart
as to bring about the much-needed reform. The
State may not formally annul any decree of the
Church, even one consigning heretics and atheists
to the flames, but she may and ought to see to it
that such a law remain a dead letter on the eccle-
siastical statute-book.

The Rev. Dr. E. P. Humphrey thus concisely
and clearly expounds the practical relations sub-
sisting between the two styles of government,
spiritual and civil :

"1. The Church and State are, both of them,
ordinances of God.

*^2. The province of each is separate and dis-
tinct. The Church exists for the salvation of sin-
ners ; the State, for the temporal welfare of its
citizens. The Church ought not to be predomi-
nant over the State, which is pure Papacy ; nor

182 JENNY GEJDDES.

subordinate to the State, which is Erastiaiiism ;
nor simply tolerated by the State, which is semi-
Erastianisni ; but wholly independent of the State,
which is the American theory.

'^ 3. Subjects which are purely secular in their
nature belong exclusively to the State. Questions
of the tariff, of banks, income taxes, suffrage,
the army and navy, and the like, fall under the
sole jurisdiction of the State, and any attempt on
the part of the Church to determine them ought
to be resisted. So, also, subjects which are purely
spiritual belong exclusively to the Church. Ques-
tions of revealed religion, such as the doctrine of
the Trinity and the Atonement, the mode of wor-
ship, the sacraments, and the way of Church gov-
ernment, and the like, fall under the jurisdiction
of the Church, and any attempt of the State to
meddle with them ought to be rebuked. But there
are subjects which may be called mixed, being in
some of their aspects secular and in other aspects
reliofious. Here the rule is obvious. In mixed
cases all those aspects which are secular belong to
the State, and must be determined by the civil tri-
bunal ; all those aspects which are spiritual belong
to the Church, and must be turned over to the
ecclesiastical courts."

CHURCH AND STATE. 183

When^ therefore, the several spheres of action
and specific duties of Church and State are under-
stood, there is neither need of nor room for colli-
sion ; and that this theoretic harmony is practi-
cable also, is evident from the happy working of
the voluntary system in our republic.

Such, then, being the proper relations respect-
ively of Church and State, each independent of
the other's control, yet, as twin ordinances of God,
closely bound together, each contributing in its
own way and measure to the common weal, it is
obvious that they should, in every practicable way,
lend each other a hel2)ing hand in their several
spheres. And sucli is, indeed, largely the case in
the United States.

The State not only carefully withholds her hands
from imposing unnecessary burdens upon the
Church, but in many ways recognizes Christianity
as a fundamental principle in the nation. Her
magistrates enter office with their hand upon the
Bible and by solemn appeal to its God. She ap-
points chaplains for the legislature and for the
army and navy. The Continental Congress, by
formal resolution, encouraged the circulation of the
Holy Scriptures. These Scriptures are largely read
in her public schools. Her laws largely protect

184 JENNY GEDDES.

the holy Sabbath from desecrations. She throws
open her hospitals and asylums to the ministers of
religion, and often in negotiation with heathen
powers she has secured access for the gospel to
heathen millions.

But whatever is done by the State in behalf
of the Church is, many times over, repaid in ser-
vices rendered by the Church in return.

If the State protects the Church, the latter prays
for the State. The God of nations, who dashes
them in pieces like a potter's vessel or assigns
to them a long career of honour and glory, is a
prayer-hearing God, and many a time in the his-
tory of the nation have her prayers been worth
more to the State than an army of fifty thousand
men.

In the republic, reverence for law is her very
life, and a general spirit of lawlessness her ruin.
But to the prevalence of such a spirit she is pe-
culiarly exposed. In lands where the laws come
down from a sovereignty acknowledged as of
divine right and armed with despotic power, the
masses are easily schooled to the spirit of sub-
mission. But wdien law alone is sovereign, and
this law the w^ork of legislators created by the
people; when laws are made and unmade at the

CHURCH AND STATE. 185

will of the people and by men whose conduct
they constantly scrutinize, and whose character
they feel themselves possessed, as it were, of a
divine right to abuse and malign, law and gov-
ernment are likely to share in the contempt which
is so often — and often so wickedly — visited upon
the magistracy. But here the Church steps in,
and in millions of ears proclaims her doctrine,
that government is an ordinance of God — that its
ministers are God's ministers as truly as was Moses
or Joshua — and thus she reclothes the government
with that mantle of majesty torn from her shoul-
ders by tlie hands of an irreverent democracy.
And at all times when popular passions have
overflowed in actual or threatened violence, her
voice has been on the side of law and order.
Always has she proclaimed the duty of rendering
unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's. And in
times of peculiar peril, when the State is threat-
ened with disintegration and utter overthrow;
when doctrines are uttered and maintained at the
bayonet's point and the cannon's mouth which
are as unscriptural as they are ruinous, and whose
general prevalence would operate like the sus-
pension of the law of gravitation in nature, dis-
persing all things in wildest confusion ; and when,

186 JENNY GEDDES.

further, the Church sees in this threatened dis-
solution the crippling if not the destruction of
all her great agencies for benevolent operations in
domestic and foreign fields, every holy instinct
of her nature impels her, and every solemn obli-
gation binds her, to lift up her voice like a trum-
pet and ply all her energies in rebuke of the
ominous error, and in encouragement and support
of the imperilled government ordained of God for
the nation's good and for his own glory.

Besides, as population increases and wealth be-
comes extreme on the one hand and poverty on
the other, in spite of whatever opposition it may
be in the power of the State to offer, vice will
increase; and just as surely as unchecked disease
brings death to the patient, so surely will vice,
when it reaches a certain point, bring death to
the republic, plunging into anarchy or locking
up in the prison-house of despotism. And the
balm for this chronic tendency, the medicament
for this festering sore, is in the Church, and in
her alone — in her divine laws, with their awful
sanctions, in her great ideas of God, the judg-
ment, eternity and retribution. Tliese ideas are
brought into contact with the public mind through
the pulpit, the city and other missionaries, mission

CHURCH AND STATE. 187

and otlier Sabbath-scliools ; and the service the
Church thus renders to the cause of virtue no
arithmetic can possibly compute.

Complaint is sometimes made at the exemption
of church property from taxation, on the ground
that what is lost to the revenues in this way
must be made up by the citizens in another, and
this involves, to a certain extent, the support of
the Church by the State. But there is another
side to this question. The Church, through her
influence over men, is constantly bestowing upon
the State those who most truly and purely fill
her various offices. Besides this, she turns from
the ways of vice multitudes who else would be-
come murderers, robbers and house-burners, and
thus relieves the State of many of her worst ene-
mies, and from the taxation needed for their arrest,
trial and support in prison. In a word, let the
State seriously burden the Church in her work
of purifying the very fountains of society, and she
will have to quadruple her taxation even to exist
at all.

Coarse complaint is also made by foreign brawl-
ers of the protection afforded to preserve the Sab-
bath from overthrow. But, if the State wishes
to tie a millstone about her own neck, let her seri-

188 JENNY GEDDES.

ously cripple the energies of the Church, and if
she wishes seriously to cripple her energies, let
her lend her aid to the overthrow of the holy
Sabbath day.

Thus, at all times and under all circumstances,
while carefully refraining from interference with
each other's functions — the Church never tampering
with the duties of the State and never pandering
to the passions of a political partisanship, the State
never laying unholy hands upon the ark of God —
they should still sympathize with and lend their
influence in furthering the prosperity of each other,
and tlius work harmoniously together for the pub-
lic w^eal.

THE CONFLICT.

189

^p AYING at th
jjl to the revoluti
^J first erreat exi

ly.

THE CONFLICT.

the outset introduced the reader

lutionary outburst at St. Giles, that
explosion of the pent-up antago-
nisms between Presbyterian ism on the one hand
and despotism on the other, and having sketched
an outline of legitimate ecclesiastical government,
and the proper relations between it and the State,
we -will now trace the rise and progress of that
fierce conflict in which Presbyterianism fought
with despotism and conquered, and then point out
some of the fruits of the victory. But let us in-
troduce the war by an inspection of the battle-field,

TH£] JBATTJ.E-FIET.D.

Immediately after the close of the apostolic age
corruptions in doctrine and practice, which had
long before shown a vicious impatience with the
constraints of primitive zeal and piety, set in with
a tide that soon buried almost the whole Church

191

192 JENNY GEDDES.

in a deluge that arose higher than fifteen cubits
above the tops of the mountains.

The great awakening in the sixteenth century
found Scotland a field where the beast shook his
many heads, brandished his horns and stamped
his iron feet without let or hindrance. Remote
from the great centres and highways of civilization,
the public mind and manners were hardly reached
by those forces that played in more favoured lands
to soften and subdue and prepare for the coming
of the white horse and his rider (Rev. vi. 2). The
public character wore, therefore, a peculiar stern-
ness of feature, and retained not a few traces of a
hardly-waning barbarism. This condition of
things was prolonged by the anarchical confusion
of civil affairs. In other countries the system of
feudal anarchy, which forbade anything like na-
tional unity, leaving the king little more than a
powerful baron among scores of others, some of
them at times more powerful than himself, impa-
tient of control, following the monarch when they
pleased, and deserting his armies upon any freak
and at every pique, had yielded to an ever-growing
centralization of power, and anarchy had passed
reluctantly but surely into the fixed forms of rigid
despotism, with its standing armies at the bidding

THE CONFLICT. 193

of one vigorous will. But in Scotland the only-
law was that of confusion, the only unity that of
fragmentary disunion. The kings were a " feeble
folk" in the midst of their haughty nobles, who
each avenged his own wrongs in his own way, and
in so doing perpeti'ated other wrongs sure to bring
down sooner or later like wild vengeance from the
strong arms and towering passions of the injured.
In all the fields and mountains the dove of peace
found no resting-place for the sole of her foot,
AVars in the deep interior, w^ars in her mountain
gorges, and, more than all, wars almost incessant
on the southern border, fierce forays, slaughtering
and burning and rapine — these w^re the scenes
that nourished barbarism and frighted civilization
away.

And yet all this was anything but a low animal
savageism. In the bosom of this rugged mine lay
the most precious jewels of valour, endurance, he-
roism and genius, that, once brought into the
forms and under the holy restraints and constraints
of evangelical faith, would issue in Knoxes, Mel-
villes, Hendersons, Chalmers, Duffs, Guthries and
Cunninghams.

Macaulay has drawn this picture of that people :
*' They were singularly turbulent and ungovernable.

13

194 JENNY GEDDES.

They had butchered their First James in his bed-
chamber; had repeatedly arrayed themselves in
arms against the Second ; had slain James the
Third on the field of battle ; their dissensions had
broken the heart of James the Fifth, etc. He
adds, that they deposed and imprisoned Mary and
led her son captive, and " their temper was rude
and intractable as ever."

But now the question arises, What had Roman-
ism done, during the long centuries, and what was
it now doing, to infuse the mild, heavenly charities
of the gospel into the hearts and minds of this
rude, martial, heroic, half civilized nation ?

The answer is found in the following words of
Dr. McCrie, in his able Life of John Knox :

'' The corruptions by which the Christian relig-
ion was universally disfigured had grown to a
greater height in Scotland than in any other nation
within the pale of the Western Church. Supersti-
tion and religious imposture, in their grossest
forms, gained an easy admission among a rude and
ignorant people. By means of these the clergy
attained to an exorbitant degree of opulence aiid
power; which were accompanied, as they always
have been, with the corruption of their order and
of the whole system of religion.

THE COXFLICT. 195

''The full half of the wealth of the nation belonged
to the clergy, and the greater part of this was in
the hands of a few individuals, who had the com-
mand of the whole body. Avarice, ambition and
the love of secular pomp reigned among the supe-
rior orders. Bishops and abbots rivalled the first
nobility in magnificence and preceded them in
honours ; they were privy councillors and lords
of session, as well as of Parliament, and had long
engrossed the principal offices of State. A vacant
bishopric or abbey called forth powerful competi-
tors, who contended for it as for a principality or
petty kingdom ; it was obtained by similar arts,
and not unfrequently taken possession of by the
same weapons. Inferior benefices were often put
up for sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and un-
worthy minions of courtiers — on dice-players,
strolling bards and the bastards of bishops. Plu-
ralities were multiplied without bounds, and beni-
fices, given in commendam, were kept vacant dur-
inor the life of the commendator — nav, sometimes
during several lives, so that extensive parishes
were frequently deprived for a long course of years
of all religious service. The bishops never, on
any occasion, condescended to preach ; indeed, I
scarcely recollect an instance of it mentibned in

196 JENNY GEDDES.

history from the erection of the regular Scottish
Episcopacy down to the era of the Reformation.

"The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular
jurisdiction and corrupted by wealth and idleness,
were become a scandal to religion and an outrage
on decency ; while they professed chastity and pro-
hibited, under the severest penalties, any of the
ecclesiastical order from contracting lawful w^ed-
lock, the bishops set an example of the most
shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy;
avowedly kept their harlots, provided their natural
sons with benefices, and gave their daughters in
marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal
gentry, many of whom were so mean as to contam-
inate the blood of their families by such base al-
liances for the sake of the rich dowries which they
brought.

'' Through the blind devotion and munificence of
princes and nobles, monasteries, those nurseries of
superstition and idleness, had greatly multiplied in
the nation ; and though they had universally de-
generated, and were notoriously become the haunts
of lewdness and debauchery, it was deemed im-
pious and sacrilegious to reduce their number,
abridge their privileges or alienate their funds.
The kingdom swarmed with ignorant, idle, luxu-

THE CONFLTCT. 197

rious monks, who, like locusts, devoured the fruits
of the earth and filled the air with pestilential
infection.

" The ignorance of the clergy respecting religion
was as gross as the dissoluteness of their morals.
Even bishops were not ashamed to confess that
they were unacquainted with the canon of their
faith, and had never read any part of the sacred
Scriptures, except what they met with in their mis-
sals. The religious service was mumbled over in
a dead language, which many of the priests did
not understand and some of them could scarcely
read ; and the greatest care was taken to prevent
even catechisms, composed and approved by the
clergy, from coming into the hands of the laity.

''Scotland, from her local situation, had been less
exposed to disturbance from the encroaching am-
bition, the vexatious exactions and fulminating
anathemas of the Vatican court than the countries
in the immediate vicinity of Rome. But from the
same cause it was more easy for the domestic clergy
to keep upon the minds of the people that exces-
sive veneration for the Holy See which could not
be long felt by those who had an opportunity of
witnessing its vices and worldly politics. The
burdens which attended a state of dependence upon

198 JENNY GEDDES.

a remote foreign jurisdiction were severely felt.
The most important causes of a civil nature, which
the ecclesiastical courts had contrived to bring
within their jurisdiction, Avere frequently carried
to Rome. Large sums of money were annually
exported out of the kingdom for the confirmation
of benefices, the conducting of appeals and many
other purposes, in exchange for Avhich were re-
ceived leaden bulls, woollen palls, wooden images,
old bones and similar articles of precious conse-
crated mummery.

" Of the doctrines of Christianity almost nothing
remained but the name. Instead of being directed
to offer up their adorations to one God, the people
were taught to divide them among an innumerable
company of inferior deities. A plurality of medi-
ators shared the honour of procuring the divine
favour with Hhe one Mediator between God and
man;' and more petitions were presented to the
Virgin Mary and otlier saints than to ' Him whom
the Father heareth always/ The sacrifice of the
mass was represented as procuring forgiveness of
sins to the living and the dead ; and the consciences
of men Avere withdrawn from faith in the merits
of their Saviour to a dehisiv-e reliance upon priestly
absolutions, papal pardons and voluntary penances.

THE CONFLICT. 199

Instead of being instructed to demonstrate the sin-
cerity of their faith and repentance by forsaking
their sins, and testifying their love to God and
man by practising the duties of morality and ob-
serving the ordinances of worship authorized by
Scripture, they were taught that if they regularly
said their aves and their credos, confessed them-
selves to a priest, punctually paid their tithes and
church-oiFerings, purchased a mass, went in pil-
grimage to the shrine of some celebrated saint,
refrained from flesh on Fridays, or performed some
other prescribed act of bodily mortification, their
salvation was infallibly secured in due time; while
those who were so rich or so pious as to build a
cliapel or an altar, and to endow it for the support
of a priest, to perform masses, obits and dirges,
procured a relaxation of the pains of purgatory for
themselves or their relations in proportion to the
extent of their liberality. It is difficult for us to
conceive how empty and ridiculous those harangues
were which the monks delivered for sermons.
Legendary tales concerning the founder of some
religious order, his wonderful sanctity, the mira-
cles which he performed, his combats with the
devil, his watchings, fastings, flagellations, the
virtues of holy water, chrism, crossing and exor-

200 JENNY GEDDES.

cism, the horrors of purgatory and tlie numbers
released from it by the intercession of some power-
ful saint, — these, with low jests, table-talk and
fireside scandal, formed the favourite topics of the
preachers, and were served up to the people instead
of the pure, salutary and sublime doctrines of the
Bible.

"The beds of the dying were besieged and their
last moments distracted by avaricious priests, who
laboured to extort bequests to themselves or to
the Church. Not satisfied with exacting tithes
from the living, a demand was made upon the
dead. No sooner had the poor husbandman
breathed his last than the rapacious vicar came
and carried off his corpse-present, which he re^
peated as often as death visited the family. Ec-
clesiastical censures were fulminated against those
who were reluctant in making these payments,
or who should themselves be disobedient to the
clergy; and for a little money they were prosti-
tuted on the most trifling occasions. Divine ser-
vice was neglected; and, except on festival-days,
the churches in many parts of the country were
no longer employed for sacred purposes, but served
as sanctuaries for malefactors, places of traffic or
resorts for pastime.

THE CONFLICT. 201

" Persecution and the suppression of free inquiry
were the only weapons by which its interested
supporters were able to defend this system of cor-
ruption and imposture. Every avenue by which
truth might enter was carefully guarded. Learn-
ing was branded as the parent of heresy. The
most frightful pictures were drawn of those who
had separated from the Romish Church, and held
up before the eyes of the people to deter them
from imitating their example. If any person who
had attained a degree of illumination amid the
general darkness began to hint dissatisfaction with
the conduct of the churchmen and to propose the
correction of abuses, he was immediately stigma-
tized as a heretic, and, if he did not secure his
safety by flight, was immured in a dungeon or
committed to the flames. And when at last, in
spite of all precautions, the light which was shin-
ing around did break in and spread through the
nation, the clergy prepared the most desperate and
bloody measures for its extinction."

Thus much had Romanism done, and this was
the style of its present doing to civilize and Chris-
tianize the genius, the manners of Scotland. And
into such a scene was Presbyterian Protestantism
about to enter, to scourge out the desecrators that

202 JENNY GEDDES.

made merchandise of souls, overturn the tables of
the money-changers and the seats of them that
sold doves, and transform the whole den of thieves
into a house of prayer.

THE INVASION.

Had Scotland been shut up from invading in-
fluence from abroad, and shut in under the sole
tuition of the Spirit, there can be little doubt
either that the Reformation would sooner or later
have raised its banner within her bounds, or that
in reconstructing religious doctrine and worship
on the ruins of rejected Popery she would, as
did nearly the w^hole reforming Church, have
spontaneously reverted to a true scriptural Pres-
byterianism. As it w^as, however, most of the
influences that crossed the border and survived
the crossing were Presbyterian. In the middle
of the fourteenth century, Wickliffe, wdio, as we
have seen, was very positive "as to the identity
of the order of priests and bishops in the apostolic
age," was shining as the morning star of the Re-
formation, and the penetrative power of the truth
was remarkably illustrated in the reach and force
of his beams. " The more this subject is investi-
gated," writes Dr. INIcCrie in his Life of Melville,

THE CONFLICT. 203

'Uhe more clearly am I persuaded that the opinions
of Wickliife had a powerful and extensive influ-
ence upon the Reformation. Even in Scotland
they contributed greatly to predispose the minds
of men to the Protestant doctrine." And here, as
elsewhere within the realm of Popery, Protest-
antism was compelled to track its early way in
fire and blood.

About the beginning of the fifteenth century,
John Resby, a disciple of Wickliffe, crossed from
England to Scotland, repeating the teachings of his
master, and soon found his Avay into the flames.
Twenty-five years later, Paul Craw, a Bohemian
and a disciple of Huss, w^hose views had been
largely shaped by perusal of the writings of Wick-
liife, entered the Scottish arena, and, for the crime
of preaching Christ, was sent after Resby to a
martyr's grave. And lest winged words from his
dying lips should reach the ears of spectators and
evoke forbidden thoughts and emotions, he was
burned with a brass ball thrust into his mouth.
In these desultory but bloody conflicts between the
infant Reformation and the giant Papacy a cen-
tury rolled away.

By this time the contest had become warmer,
and had begun to assume more formidable propor-

204 JENNY GEDDES.

tions. Inroads were more frequent, and neither
attack nor resistance less resolute. The leaven of
God working in other nations was feeling its way
throne:!! Scottish minds and hearts. Protestant
writings crept into the kingdom, and stole from
hand to hand. Men read and thought, and longed
and prayed, and those who found a way taught in
secret and trained up a numerous soldiery for the
war. Argus-eyed Rome could not fail at length
to discern the approach of danger, and in 1525 it
induced the Parliament to enact a prohibition
against the importation of religious books, and
against all public " disputations about the heresies
of Luther, except it be to the confusion thereof,
and that by clerks in the schools alone."

Ere long the kingdom was startled by the dis-
covery that the new heresy was penetrating even
into royal blood. In 1528, Patrick Hamilton, a
" youth of royal lineage, and not less distinguished
by high mental endowments," came back from his
communings with Luther and Melancthon on the
Continent, and began to preach the things that he
had seen and heard. His high social position, his
elegance of manners, his eloquence and holy zeal
gave him easy and powerful access to the popular
heart, and filled liis foes with indignation. Among

THE CONFLICT. 205

the eyes fixed upon him were those of James Bea-
ton, archbishop of St. Andrews, who, during the
minority of James Y., ruled the State, while he,
largely also, ruled the Church. A little fearful of
both the young king's sympathy and the popularity
of Hamilton, he managed first to despatch the
former on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Dothess,
and then to decoy the latter, under certain pretences,
to St. Andrew's. There he brought him before a
council that condemned him to death. To give
force and validity to the sentence, he induced every
person of note within reach to sign it, and on the
last day of February, 1628, Hamilton was bound
to the stake. Removing his outer garments, he
gave them to his faithful servant, saying, " This
stuff will not help me in the fire, and will profit
thee. After this you will receive no more good
from me, but the example of my death, which I
pray thee keep in mind ; for albeit it be bitter to
the flesh and fearful in man's judgment, yet it is
the entrance into eternal life, which none shall pos-
sess that denies Christ Jesus before this wicked
generation." An explosion of gunpowder, though
scorching the victim, refused to light the pile ; but
fire was procured, and the victory was won ! Ro-
manism remained master of the field.

206 JENNY GEDDES.

But from every drop of that doubly-ennobled
blood there arose a voice of thunder, preaching
the blessed '^ evangel," and every sj^ark of that
consuming fire set another heart on fire with
truth. The report of that martyrdom spread
through the kingdom and put into a multitude
of mouths the questions: ^^ For what was Hamil-
ton burned ? What is that secret power that can
make men welcome so awful a death and turn
even horrid martyrdom into singing joy?" The
blood of the martyrs proved the seed of the Church.
Even some of the friars began to question and
speak words that savoured of the new heresy.
The archbishop, alarmed and irritated at the dis-
covery that his silencing flames proved only a
rousing trumpet, threatened to repeat the so far
worse than futile experiment upon others; when
one who heard him remarked, ^' If your reverence
will burn any more, you had better do it in a
cellar, for the smoke of Hamilton hath infected
as many as it blew upon."

But the holy man preferred the open canopy
of heaven for his pious work, and here and there
the smoke was soon seen curling up to heaven,
telling that other '^ god-souls" preferred a martyr's
death to an apostate life. In August, 1534, two

THE CONFLICT. 207

more were sent to heaven in the martyr's fiery
chariot.

And in February, 1538, five more were burned
" in one huge pile/^ on Castle Hill, Edinburgh.
A little later, two more wrote their testimony in
fire and blood at Glasgow. One of them, a young
man, at first shrunk from the flames, but recover-
ing spirit, he fell on his knees, gave thanks to
God, and, rising, exclaimed : " Now I defy death !
Do what you please — I praise God I am ready !'^
Even the archbisliop quailed before this scene,
but was driven through to the bloody end by
his murderous attendants.

The next year the archbishop went to the bar
of God to give account of these murders to Him
who said, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me.'' He was succeeded by his
nephew. Cardinal David Beaton. Able, cunning,
shamelessly licentious, implacable, unmerciful, ut-
terly unscrupulous, hesitating at no measures to
reach his ends, he was a legitimate son of the
2)apacy and the pope's right arm, and the truth's
and the nation's scourge for many a dreary year.
He took an early opportunity to certify the world
as to what the Reformation might expect at his

208 JENNY GEDDES.

hands, by burning in effigy Sir John Borthwick,
who had fled to England.

THE VICTIM AND HIS VICTOM.

In December, 1542, James Y. passed to his
grave from a life filled with struggles with his
turbulent nobility, leaving a kingdom distracted
with disorder, and a daughter, the wretched Mary,
queen of Scots, then seven days old ; and, in spite
of a document forged by the cardinal appointing
himself with others to govern the realm, James
Hamilton, earl of Arran, in a meeting of nobles
was appointed regent.

The cardinal's popularity was not increased by
the discovery, soon after the king's death, of a
list of some hundreds of persons who were to have
been denounced as heretics and their property con-
fiscated.

For a time, Arran favoured the Reformation,
and in 1542 an act of Parliament declared it law-
ful that the Scriptures be read by all the people
in their native tongue, and the holy, mighty Book
was soon found in almost every person's hands,
to the indignation and chagrin of the pious car-
dinal. But Arran, being a weak and fickle man,
soon fell under the power of Beaton, who was

THE CONFLICT. 209

thus enabled to rule the realm almost as effect-
ually as if he had been regent in name. And
now, with the reins of government well in hand,
he began to crack his merciless whip over the
bleeding back of the Reformation.

At Perth five men and one woman were brought
before him ; the men were hanged and the woman
drowned. The poor creature had refused to in-
voke the Virgin during the pains of child-birth.
Slie first looked on while her husband was slain,
exhorting him to constancy, and was then dragged
to a pool, and removing her babe from her breast,
passed into the cold waters, and thence to the banks
of the river that flows out from the throne of God
and the Lamb. Departing thence, the cardinal
made a wide circuit of blood through the realm,
taking with him the submissive Arran to witness
and sanction his zeal for the Lord.

Tired at length in the chase after meaner game,
he fixed his eye upon George Wishart, brother of
the laird of Pittarow. Having been banished for
teaching the Greek language, he had returned to
do even a worse thing — to preach Jesus. Crowds
hung on his eloquent words and melted under his
fervent appeals. Mild, gentle, patient as the be-
loved disciple, he displayed a character of surpass-

14

210 JENNY GEDDES.

ing loveliness. Driven from point to point, he
preached now on the hillside, now by the wayside,
now in the open fields. Beaton first sent a pions
priest to stab him, but Wishart caught the assas-
sin^s arm and the dagger fell to the ground. Again,
a cunning message came, begging him to visit a
dying man, and armed men waylaid him to take
him dead or alive. Then the Earl of Bothwell
was sent to capture him, and the martyr was se-
cured and lodged in the fatal sea-tower at St.
Andrew's, an ancient seaport forty miles north-
east from Edinburgh. The victim was at last in
hand. The ceremonies of trial were soon, des-
patched, and the regent was requested to finish up
the work. He being induced to hesitate, Beaton
attended to it himself. A "pile and a gallows
were prepared under the windows of the castle,"
"svhere the cardinal might feast his eyes on the wel-
come spectacle. Wishart was then led to the stake,
his hands bound behind his back, a rope about his
neck, a chain about his waist and bags of gunpow-
der fastened to various parts of his body. Lest a
rescue should be attempted, the cannon of the castle
were loaded and trained upon the spot of execution.
At the stake, Wishart kneeled down and prayed,
saying, three times, "O thou Saviour of the world,

THE CONFLICT. 211

have mercy on me! Father of heaven, I commend
my spirit into thy holy hands." Plis executioner
asking his pardon, he kissed him, saying, " Lo,
here is a token that I forgive thee : my heart, do
thine office." The trumpet sounded, the match
was applied, the gunpowder exploded, and yet the
victim lived. ^' This fire," said he, " torments my
body, but no way abates my spirit." Then looking
up to the cardinal, the spirit of prophecy came
upon him, and he said, " He who in such state
feeds upon my torments within a few days shall be
hanged out at the same window, to be seen with as
much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride;"
and soon after he joined the general assembly on
high.

But while one may succeed in damming up a
stream for a time, the ever-gathering waters will
at length assert their mastery over man and sweep
obstructors and obstructions together away. And
the stream that Beaton was hindering flowed out
from the eternal decrees of God. Hence his every
victory was a defeat, his every victim a victor.
A profound indignation was stirred by the murder
of Wishart, and the chill of its shadows set Bea-
ton at work upon the fortifications of his castle.
But what cares destiny for mortared piles !

212 JENNY GEDDES.

The night of the 28th of May, Beaton spent
with his mistress, and as she left one gate in the
morning the workmen entered at another, and with
them five or six men, who, sauntering to the por-
ter's lodge, inquired for Beaton. One of these was
William Kirkaldy, of Grange, and with him Peter
Carmichael, James Melville, John Lesley, brother
to the Earl of Bothes, and Norman Lesley, son of
the same. Making their way to the cardinal's
apartment they found the doors closed and barri-
caded within.

'' Open the door !" rang through the halls.

"Who calls f asked the cardinal. "Will you
spare my life, if I open the door ?"

" Perhaps."

"Nay, swear that you will — swear by God's
wounds."

"That which was said is unsaid."

Fire was now procured, and at the crackling
of the flames and intrusion of the smoke a boy
within opened the door, and in stalked the aveng-
ers. The wretch sank back in his chair, ex-
claiming:

"I am a priest — I am a priest: ye will not
slay me?"

Lesley and Carmichael then each stabbed him.

THE CONFLICT. 213

But Melville, now coming forward, and pushing
the others aside, said :

" This work and judgment of God, although it
be secret, yet ought to be done with greater
gravity."

Then, putting his sword to Beaton's throat, he
said:

^•' Kepent thee of thy wicked life, but especially
of the shedding of the blood of that instrument
of God, Mr. George Wishart, which, albeit the
flames of fire consumed before men, yet cries it
with a vengeance upon thee, and we from God
are sent to revenge it. I protest that neither
hatred of thy person, nor love of thy riches, nor
fear of any trouble thou couldst have done me
in particular, moved or move me to strike thee,
but only because thou hast been and remainest
an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus and his Holy
Evangel." He then thrust him through, the
wretched man exclaiming, "I am a priest — I am
a priest ! Fie, fie ! — all is gone I"

They then carried his body to the same window
whence he had gazed upon the burning Wishart,
and hung it out before the gaze of the crowd below.

Thus was the earth rid of one of the multitude
of treacherous, malicious, grossly licentious and

214 JENNY GEDDES.

mercilessly cruel ecclesiastics with which Roman-
ism has cursed it.

Soon after, a party of gentlemen who favoured
the Reformation took possession of the castle and
resisted a siege conducted by the regent, and com-
pelled the besiegers to make terms with them.
About the beginning of April JoPiN Knox en-
tered the castle.

fTOHN KXOX,

Carlyle, in his own way, speaks much truth
respecting great men, in his discourse of their
'^ manner of appearance in our world's business —
how they have shaped themselves in the w^orld's
history, what ideas men formed of them, what
work they did. For, as I take it, universal his-
tory— the history of what man has accomplished
in this world — is, at the bottom, the history of
great men who have worked here. They were
the leaders of men, these great ones ; the model-
lers, patterns, and, in a wide sense, creators, of
whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to
do or attain." Machlavelli has said that the
world is made up of three orders of men — those
who perceive with their own powers, those who
perceive when matters are explained to them, and
those who do not perceive at all. The first of

THE CONFLICT. 215

these are the truly great men. They are, as it
were, the concentration of the times in which they
live. Certain great principles are at work in the
general mind, waiting to be embodied in a creed,
or in a maxim, or in a trumpet-call to action.
That something is at work, that something needs
to be done, all know, but just what, none can say.
But here or there is a man endowed with certain
gifts and with certain susceptibilities, on whom,
as on a delicately-strung harp, these principles
play and strike out the tune of the hour; and,
when once the key-note is given, the multitudes
recognize it as just what they have been waiting
for, and at once join in responsive chorus. Thus
great men are the heart and become the mouth
of the age. And the natural and intense admira-
tion of men for genius and bravery greatly in-
crease at once the power and responsibility of
these great leaders of their kind. The Creator
endows these men with their gifts, and, when he
will, he leaves them largely to the counsel of their
own will to determine the side they will take in
the great war between right and wrong ; and here
we have Beatons, Loyolas and Alvas, and there a
Cromwell, a AVilliam the Silent, a Washington.
And, when he will, he at once creutes, endows

216 JENNY GEDDES.

and appoints these leaders to office among men;
and then we have here a Moses or a David, and
there a Luther and a Knox. Knox was at once
a child and father of the Reformation in Scotland.
Richly endowed with mental power and with keen
insight both of men and of the nature of the ser-
vice to which God was then calling him and his
country, he was a true son of Issachar, with un-
derstanding of the times to know what Israel
ought to do. His also was that bravery that
could dare whatever duty bade.

It was, we suppose, a happy circumstance for
mankind, though the source of many temporary
woes to Scotland, that the throne took the lead in
the opposition to the Reformation. Had it been
otherwise, had the crisis found the crown solicited
by inducements to rid itself of subjection to Rome
and to take the whole of reform into its own hands,
the result might have been a reproduction in Scot-
land of another Church of England — a strange
conglomerate of popery and protestations, error
and truth, with a " Calvinistic creed, a Romish
liturgy and an Arminian clergy;" and Scottish
Church history might have told the tale of other
Henries and Elizabeths.

But God had ordained otherwise; and as the

THE CONFLICT. 217

KeforDiation found its chief enemies on and near
the throne, its clear-headed, resolute-hearted Chris-
tian leaders were compelled to subject the prerog-
atives of royalty to a searching investigation, a
rigid, manly scrutiny. If the monarch was abso-
lute by divine right, it would be very diiSicult to
find any other place for Christ within the realm
than such as might be assigned him by the will of
the reigning king — ^that king not unfrequently a
chief favourite of Satan. But if the kingly pre-
rogative was indeed hedged about by natural and
easily defined limitations, it behooved those who
contested this point with royalty to find out and
exhibit those limitations, that all parties, seeing
the truth, might fight in its light, and having
learned, might with good conscience and hearty
will assert and maintain their respective rights and
discharge their several duties.

These limits of jurisdiction soon showed them-
selves to the eagle eye of Knox. If there ever was
a true man among men Knox w^as he. Hume, of
course, abuses him. Hallam speaks of his " san-
guinary spirit." Nor can any one claim for him
a courtly delicacy and refinement of manners with-
out making him an exception to the whole charac-
ter of the age in which he lived. Modes of con-

218 JENNY GEDDES.

duct and styles of utterance had not yet parted
with barbaric rust, not yet learned the elegances
of the modern courtier. Luther and Henry YIII.
spoke of each other in the coarsest terms, and the
latter dignified one woman whom he made his wife
and the nation's queen Avith the elegant title of
" great Flemish mare." The indecent speech of
George Buchanan to the Countess of Mar, who
caressed young King James after a severe flogging
by the former, is probably a fair specimen of the
colloquial refinement of those times. Queen Eliza-
beth, as is well known, could upon occasion give
vent to her anger in true sailor-like profanity. It
is hardly, therefore, to be wondered at if Knox, a
son of yet unpolished Scotland, should have been
somewhat less courtly in speech and manners than
a modern princess — should have used at times very
plain and emphatic language, and have called a
wicked and adulterous queen a " Jezebel," and
have said to her that " Samuel feared not to slay
Agag, the fat and delicate king of Amalek — nei-
ther spared Elias Jezebel's false prophets and
Baal's priests, though King Aliab was present.
Phincas was no magistrate, yet feared not to strike
Cozbi and Zimri in the very act of fornication.
And so, madam, your grace may see that others

THE CONFLICT. 219

than chief magistrates may lawfully inflict punish-
ment on such crimes as are condemned by the law
of God."

Yet, if he told the truth in plain terms, he did
it in a good cause; and for the whole drift of his
influence and character of his service among men
he merits the admiration and gratitude of mankind.
Carlyle writes : " This that Knox did for this na-
tion we may really call a resurrection as from
death. T\\e i^eople hegdiU to live ; they needed first
of all to do that at what cost and costs soever.
Scotch literature and thought, Scotch industry,
James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert
Burns — I find Knox and the Reformation acting
in the heart's core of every one of these persons
and phenomena.

" It seems hard measure that this Scottish man
now, after three hundred years, should have to
plead like a culprit before the world ; intrinsically,
for having been in such a way as it was then pos-
sible to be the bravest of all Scotchmen. Had
he been a poor half-and-half, he could have
crouched into a corner like so many others ; Scot-
land had not been delivered, and Knox had been
without blame. He is the one Scotchman to
whom of all others his country and the w^orld owe

220 JENNY GEDDES.

a debt. He has to plead that Scotland would
forgive him for having been worth to it any mil-
lion * unblameable' Scotchmen that need no for-
giveness. He bared his breast to battle, had to
row in French galleys, wander forlorn in exile,
in clouds and storms, w^as censured, shot at through
his windows, had a right sore fighting life; if
this world were his recompense he had made but
a bad venture of it. I cannot apologize for Knox.
To him it is very indifferent, these two hundred
and fifty years or more, what men say of him.
But we, having got above all those details of his
battle and living now in clearness on the fruits
of his victory — we, for our own sakes, ought to
look through the rumours and controversies en-
veloping the man into the man himself, and un-
derstand and honour his real character.

*' This post of prophet to his nation was not of
his seeking. Knox had lived forty years quietly
obscure. He was the son of poor parents — had
lived as tutor in gentlemen's families, preaching
when any one wished to hear his doctrine — not
fancying himself capable of more — when one day
a small body of Reformers, besieged in St. An-
drew's Castle, the preacher said suddenly, ' There
ought to be other preachers ; all men who had

THE CONFLICT. 221

a priest's heart and gift ought now to speak, which
gifts and heart one of their own number — John
Knox the name of him — had/ Poor Knox was
obliged to stand up ; he attempted to reply, burst
into tears and ran out."

" The school of Knox," writes Hallam, " if so
we may call the early Presbyterian ministers of
Scotland, was full of men breathing their master's
spirit, acute in disputation, eloquent in discourse,
learned beyond what their successors have been
and intensely zealous in the cause of Reformation.
Their system of local and general assemblies in-
fused, together with the forms of a republic, its
energy and impatience of external control, com-
bined with the concentration and unity of purpose
that belongs to the most vigorous government."

Of this man Froude writes, in his impartial,
learned and elegant volumes :

" John Knox became the representative of all
that was best in Scotland. He was no narrow
fanatic, who, in a world in which God's grace w^as
equally visible in a thousand creeds, could see
truth and goodness nowhere but in his own for-
mula. He was a large, noble, generous man, with
a shrewd perception of actual fact, who found him-
self face to face with a system of hideous iniquity.

222 JENNY GEDDES.

He believed himself a prophet with a direct com-
mission from heaven to overthrow it.''

Again he writes : " Such was Knox, the great-
est of living Scotchmen. The full measure of
Knox's greatness no man in his day could estimate.
It is as we look back over that stormy time and
weigh the actors in it one against the other that
he stands out in his full proportions. No grander
figure can be found in the entire history of the
Keformation in this island. Cromwell and Burgh-
ley rank beside him for the work which they
effected, but as politicians and statesmen they had
to labour with instruments which they soiled their
hands in touching. In priority, in uprightness,
in courage, truth and stainless honour, the Regent
Murray and our English Latimer were perhaps
his equals ; but Murray was intellectually far be-
low him, and the sphere of Latimer's influence
was on a smaller scale. The time has come when
English history may do justice to one but for
whom the Reformation would have been over-
thrown among ourselves; for the spirit which
Knox created saved Scotland ; and if Scotland had
been Catholic again, neither the wisdom of Eliza-
beth's ministers, nor the teaching of her bishops,
nor her own chicaneries w^ould have preserved

THE CONFLICT. 223

England from revolution. His was the voice thai
taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a
free man, the equal in the sight of God with the
proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his
forefathers. He was the one antagonist whom
Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland de-
ceive. He it was that raised the poor commons
of his country into a stern, rugged people, who
might be hard, narrow, superstitious and fanatical,
but who, nevertheless, Avere men whom neither
king, noble nor priest could force to submit again
to tyranny. And his reward has been the ingrati-
tude of those who should most have done honour
to his memory."

We have seen that after the slaying of Beaton,
Knox entered the castle of St. Andrew. His
preaching there adding fuel to the fires of the Re-
formation, his foes secured a French army, took
the town, and in flagrant violation of treaty stipu-
lations, but in strict conformity with Romish mo-
rality, made Knox a galley-slave. England now
resenting the union between France and Scotland,
and the treachery of the regent, invaded the coun-
try, conquered a peace and procured the liberation
of Knox. Thus delivered from the hands of his
persecutors, he went first to England and then to

224 JENNY GEDDES.

the Continent, and remained mostly at Geneva until
the year 1555.

In 1554 Arran was succeeded in the regency by
a French woman, Mary of Lorraine, daughter of
the Duke of Guise, widow of Henry V. of Scot-
land, and mother of Mary, Queen of Scots. This
woman was "at once fearless and cunning," and
the " fatal link that bound Scotland to France and
the i^apacy.''

In 1555 Knox returned to Scotland and set out
on a preaching tour through the reahn, everywhere
throwing firebrands into the stubble-heaps of with-
ering Romanism. Bent on staying the conflagra-
tion, the priesthood summoned Knox to appear
before them at Blackfriar's Church, Edinburgh.
He obeyed the summons, accompanied by several
gentlemen, and at his appearance the court dis-
solved. Knox then preached openly and power-
fully in the city, and soon after yielded to the
solicitations of his former flock at Geneva and
returned to them for a season. As soon as he was
known to be beyond reach, the summons was re-
peated, and Knox not appearing was burnt in
effigy by his heroic persecutors.

Mary of Guise, the queen-regent, now tried her
hand in quelling the Keformation, and summoned

THE CONFLICT. 225

the Protestant preachers before the council on the
old charge of stirring up sedition — for Avith despot-
ism, civil and ecclesiastical, it is always seditious to
speak and act as a freeman. But such crowds ac-
companied the ministers to the place of trial that,
like the witch of Endor, the queen-regent found
that she had evoked an apparition in whose pres-
ence her cheek turned pale and her nerves were
paralyzed. To allay this apparition a proclama-
tion was issued remanding the crowds to the bor-
ders ; but instead of obeying the proclamation the
people pushed their way boldly, perhaps rudely,
into the very council-chamber where the queen sat
surrounded by her bishops ; and Chalmers of Gad-
girth, speaking for the rest, said, " Madam, we
know that this proclamation is a device of the
bishops and of that bastard (the primate of St.
Andrew's) that stands beside you. We avow to
God that ere we yield we will make a day of it.
These idle drones oppress us and our tenants ; they
trouble our preachers and would murder them and
us. Shall we suffer this any longer ? jS^o, madam,
it shall not be !'' And at once every man put on
his steel bonnet, when i)ersecution apologized with
a falsehood, and the heroic men went home in
triumph.

15

226 JENNY GEDBES.

ORGANIZATIOJV.

Principles can act with their legitimate concen-
trated force only through organized forms ; and as
royalty and Romanism were organized and armed,
it behooved the Reformation no longer to trust to
desultory impulse and individual action, but to
consolidate its forces and construct an organism
through which it might speak and act with efficien-
cy and power.

The first formal step in this direction was taken
December 3, 1557. The country seething with ex-
citement, Knox in exile, the foe burning with the
spirit of persecution and revenge, it became evident
to the dullest apprehension that unless something
was done, and that promptly, nothing would re-
main but submission and annihilation. Accord-
ingly, the Protestant lords and gentry assembled at
Edinburgh. The spirit that animated these men
may be gathered from the speech cited above of
Chalmers of Gadgirth and the conduct of his steel-
bonneted companions. And, being assembled, re-
solved to defend their principles at ^'what cost
or costs soever,'^ they formed and subscribed this
bond :

" We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the
anti-Christs of our time, cruelly doth rage, seeking

THE CONFLICT. 227

to downthrow and destroy the evangel of Christ
and his congregation, ought, according to our boun-
den duty, to strive in our Master's cause even unto
death, being certain of victory in him — the which,
our duty being well considered, we do promise be-
fore the majesty of God and his congregation that
we, by his grace, shall with all diligence continu-
ally apply our whole power, substance and our
very lives, to maintain, set forward and establish
the most blessed word of God and his congrega-
tion, and shall labour at our possibility to have
faithful ministers purely and truly to minister
Christ's evangel and sacraments to his people.
We shall maintain them, nourish them and defend
them, the whole congregation of Christ and every
member thereof, at our w^hole power, and wairing
(expending) of our lives against Satan and all
wicked power that does intend tyranny and trou-
ble against the aforesaid congregation. Unto the
which holy word and congregation w^e do join uS;
and also do renounce and forsake the congregation
of Satan, with all the superstitious abominations
and idolatry thereof; and moreover shall declare
ourselves manifestly enemies thereto by this our
faithful promise before God, testified to his congre-
gation by our subscription at these presents. At

228 JENNY GEDDES.

Edinburgh, the third day of December, 1557 years.
God called to witness/^

In reading this document we find that the princi-
ples, thoughts, and even forms of expression, in our
celebrated Declaration of Independence are not so
thoroughly original as we have fancied. Scotch
Presbyterianism anticipated Jefferson more than
two hundred years.

This declaration and bond was signed by the
earls of Argyle, Glencairn and Morton, Archibald
lord of Lorn, John Erskine of Dern, and a great
number of other distinguished men, who thence-
forth were called lokds of the con^geegation.

This step toward organization was known as
'^The First CovEjsrANT.'^

The Romish protest against the covenant took
the usual form — martyrdom. The victim was an
aged priest named Walter Mill, on whom Beaton
the cardinal had in former days sought to lay his
bloody hands. Discovered now by a spy, he was
brought to St. Andrew's; and though he defended
his course with marked ability, he was condemned
to the stake. But no one could be found to act as
executioner of the old man, and the archbishop
was compelled to emj)loy one of liis own domestics.
From the midst of the flames the aged martyr said,

THE CONFLICT. 229

"As for me, I am fourscore and two years old,
and cannot live long by course of nature; but a
hundred better shall arise out of the ashes of my
bones. I trust in God I shall be the last that shall
suifer death in Scotland for this cause."

It was now the turn of the Covenanters to speak,
and while the people of St. Andrew's raised a great
pile of stones upon the spot hallowed by the death
of Mill, the lords of the congregation complained
to the queen-regent of the conduct of the bishops,
and the preachers blew the gospel trumpet till its
sounds reverberated from all the hills over all the
plains.

THE ArrARITIOX.

Mary of Guise was now deep in a scheme for
the overthrow of the Reformation ; and her pro-
gramme, to the writing of which she was helped by
the skill and cunning of all papal Europe, em-
braced the following items : a league between Scot-
land, France and Spain; the settling of the Scottish
crown upon a child of the papacy, Francis, the
dauphin of France and husband of Mary, " Queen
of Scots ;" the invasion of England ; the dethrone-
ment of Elizabeth and the transfer of her crown
to some popish head. By consummate skill and
duplicity, concealing on the one hand and reveal-

230 JEXNY GEDDES.

ing on the other what would further her scheme,
she succeeded in inducing the too unwary lords of
the congregation to consent to the union of the
crowns of Scotland and France.

But an essential part of the plan was full pos-
session of Scotland, and to the completion of this
work she now addressed her energies. By procla-
mation she had forbidden any person to preach or
administer the sacraments without authority from
her bishops, and a secret treaty existed between her
and her clergy, by which they had engaged to raise
a large sum of money to enable her to raise and
maintain the military forces needed for her pur-
poses. With an army now in hand she entered
upon her work. Paul Matthew, John Christison,
William Harlow and John Willock were cited to
stand trial before the Justiciary Court at Stir-
ling on the 10th of May, 1559, for disregarding
her proclamation, teaching heresy and exciting
sedition.

To a deputation of Protestants, remonstrating
against such violence, she answered :

"Maugre their hearts and all that would take
part with them, these ministers shall be banished
Scotland, though they preached as soundly as ever
St. Paul did."

THE CONFLICT. 231

They reminded her of her pledge, to which she
answered :

'* It becomes not subjects to burden their princes
"with their promises farther than they pleased to
keep them."

But the time had gone by when Scotchmen
could brook, even in princes, a morality so shame-
less or despotism so insolent; and they replied
that if she violated her engagements they should
consider themselves absolved from their oath of
allegiance.

The Protestant nobility now resolved to stand
by their ministers at the approaching trial, and
assembled in large numbers at Perth, thence to
proceed in a body to Stirling. But as wise as
they were resolute, they first sent a deputation to
Stirling, declaring that their aims were peaceful,
their only purpose being to attend with their
preachers, to join with them in a confession of
their faith. Upon this the wily woman succeeded
in persuading them to remain at Perth, promising
them that the trial should not go on. It seemed
hard to distrust a pledge so fairly given, and some,
confiding in the word of a woman who never kept
it when treachery was more convenient, withdrew
to their homes.

232 JENNY GEDDES.

Smiling in lier sleeve at their credulity, she
hastened on the preparations for the trial and
further adjusted her schemes of oppression. But,
just when all was ready, a huge, terrible shadow
fell upon the Stirling conclave. Knox had re-
turned from exile — had landed at Leith — had en-
tered Edinburgh — had hurried to Dundee — had
gone to Perth, and was now waiting there with
those who had remained to attend the trial at
Stirling! Elijah had shown himself to Ahab in
the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. And Mary,
the Jezebel of the hour, exclaimed, ^^ God do so
to me, and more also, if I make him not food for
the flames !'' She proclaimed him an outlaw and
a rebel. The trial went on and the ministers
were outlawed for non-appearance. Erskine of
Dun stole away from Stirling and hastened to
Perth with word of the woman's perfidy. Knox
was there preaching with marvellous power.

A riot at Perth furnished what little excuse
the regent cared for to advance on Perth with
fire and sword. The Reformers, however, sent
messengers abroad announcing their peril, and
such hosts responded — the Earl of Glencairn alone
bringing twenty-five hundred men — that Mary
was constrained to ply her valuable promises

THE CONFLICT. 233

rather than force. An agreement was concluded
by which the town was to be left open to her,
the people left unquestioned as to the past, the
French army forbidden to enter, and on her with-
drawal no garrison to be left behind — nearly every
point of which agreement the miserable woman
of course violated.

Before withdrawing from Perth, however, the
LORDS OF THE coxGEEGATioN formed another
bond, pledging themselves to mutual support and
defence in the cause of religion, or any cause de-
pendent thereupon by whatsoever pretext it might
be coloured and concealed. This bond was sub-
scribed, in the name of the whole Church, by the
chiefs of the Protestant nobility. This was " The
Second Covenant."

REPUBLICANISM.

Once certify man, from the pages of God's
word, that he, together wath all his human breth-
ren, is created in the image of his God, and if
occasion arise he will shrewdly question the claim
of any other man to absolute dominion over him.
Show him that king and peasant stand on the same
level before God as sinners, but one set of terms
of peace with the gi-eat King and one heaven

234 JENNY GEDDES.

open before all; and, especially if he be a Chris-
tian, he will rigorously question the fancied birth-
right prerogatives of a bad monarch to lord it
absolutely over him and his. If an Oriental rabble
may submissively fill the place of "dumb-driven
cattle/^ a people whose minds have been enlight-
ened and whose intellects have been enlarged and
quickened by the mighty truths of revelation will
not be long in finding their way to the foundation
laws of human freedom, civil and religious. And,
especially if driven by tyranny to probe this mat-
ter to the bottom, they will ascertain that if legiti-
mate civil government is an ordinance of God the
legitimacy of the government in a given case is
to be determined by the people. And this is re-
publicanism.

At this time, in Scotland, Mary of Guise occu-
pied the throne, and stood before the people as
the embodiment of legitimate governmental pre-
rogative ; and had she designed to put the people
to school and indoctrinate them in their rights and
in the true limits of the royal prerogative, she
could have taken no more promising course than
that which she actually pursued.

No sooner did she obtain possession of Perth
than she considered her engagements with the

THE CONFLICT. 235

coiigTegation null and void, and at once proceeded
to punish those who favoured the Reforma-
tion. Argyle and Lord James Stewart, having
remonstrated against her perfidy, and having
been rudely repelled with this characteristic re-
ply : " I am not bound to keep promises made to
heretics, and I will make little conscience to take
from all that sect their lives and inheritances, if I
may do it with so honest an excuse," they for-
sook her and joined the Lords of the Congregation.

These lords now took matters into their own
hands and formally invited Knox to come and
preach in the Abbey Church of St. Andrew's.
Knox, of course, did not hesitate, and the arch-
bishop hurried thither with an armed force and
threatened to answer the arguments of Knox with
powder and ball, while the queen-regent followed
him with her French army. The lords, appreci-
ating the magnitude of the danger and unwilling
to lose another Wishart and a much greater than
he, put the question to Knox:

^^ Will you abide with us and take the risk?"

He answered like himself:

" In this town I was first called to preach the
gospel ; do not hinder me from preaching here
again. As for the fear of danger that may come

236 JENNY GEDDES.

unto me let no man be solicitous, for my life is in
the custody of Him whose glory I seek. I desire
the hand and weapon of no man to defend me. I
only crave audience, which if it be denied here
unto me at this time, I must seek further where I
may have it."

Heroism like cowardice is contagious, and the
lords caught the spirit of the prophet ; and the next
day, with the armies of the regent thundering on
in the distance, Knox preached to a great company
of his friends and to " Agrippa, Bernice, chief cap-
tains and principal men in the city," to the arch-
bishop himself and many with him, who murdered
the preacher in their hearts while they listened
with their ears — preached to them of Jesus over-
turning the tables of the money-changers w^ho had
made God's temple a den of thieves. And for
three days he thus preached, until the people, being
"mightily convinced," tumbled pictures and images
out of the church windows and tore down the mon-
asteries. Popery had resorted to violence to crush
the reformers, and now popery was forced to taste
its own medicine. But the dose w^as not pleasant
to the taste. The archbishop flew to the regent,
and she with her troops prepared to fly upon the
reformers. But they were soon ready, and this

THE CONFLICT. 237

Jezebel was compelled to make " I dare not'^ wait
upon "I would." Terms were made between the
parties, but knowing the perfidy of this woman,
the Protestant army took Perth and expelled the
regent's garrison, and then Stirling and then Ed-
inburgh. The reforming spirit spread, and in a
few days large portions of the realm turned popery
out of doors and set up a pure worship.

Matters thus wore on until the perfidies of the
regent having exhausted the patience of the Pro-
testant lords, the latter resolved on measures more
firmly decisive. On the 21st of October, 1559,
they assembled at Edinburgh in such numbers as
to constitute a convention of the estates of the
realm, and with ungloved hands laid hold of the
Gordian knot either to untie or cut it. While mat-
ters were under discussion, Knox and Willock were
invited to state their views upon the duty of sub-
jects to oppressive rulers. Willock said that the
2:)0wer of rulers ivas limitedj both by reason and
Scripture, and that they might be deprived of it upon
valid grounds. Knox assented to these views, and
added that the assembly might with safe con-
sciences act upon it if they attended to these three
points : first, that they did not suffer the miscon-
duct of the queen-regent to alienate their affections

238 JENNY GEDDES.

from their due allegiance to their sovereigns, Fran-
cis and Mary; second, that they were not actuated
in the measure by private hatred or envy of the
queen-dowager, but by regard to the safety of the
commonwealth ; and third, that any sentence they
might now pronounce should not preclude her re-
admission to office if she discovered sorrow for her
conduct and a disposition to submit to the advice of
the estates of the realm.

After this the whole assembly, having severally
delivered their opinions, did by a solemn deed sus-
pend the queen-dowager from her authority as regent
of the kingdom until the meeting of a free parlia-
ment, and at the same time elected a council for
the management of public affairs during the in-
terval.

Thus Carlyle was not speaking at random when
he said that under the influence of Knox and his
coadjutors i\\Q people began to live. Already, under
the influence of the Reformation, it was rapidly
making its way into the consciousness of the world
that Christ had been given as "leader and com-
mander to the peopleJ^ In England the national
authorities patched up a sort of Reformation for
the people — in every other land the people took the
work legitimately into their own hands. In more

THE CONFLICT. 239

ancient times, when the question came up as to a
temporary alteration of the law which required the
passover to be celebrated on the fourteenth day of
tlie first month, King Hezekiah submitted it to
the "princes and all the congregation in Jerusa-
lem/' and they decided to hold the feast on the
fourteenth day of the second month (2 Chron. xxx.
1-3, 22, 23). So in this case the people, by their
rei^resentatives, took counsel and suspended the
reigning monarch from her functions until she
should be willing to take counsel with them on
matters affecting the weal of the nation.

In these principles and acts of 1559 those of
American republicanism were anticipated. Our
forefatliers, after long and patient endurance and
weary and vain petitioning, solemnly suspended
King George from his dominion, and themselves
constructed a government according to the council
of their own will.

These were the principles working like a mighty
leaven in the hearts of the people, and, in the words
of Hetherington, "let it ever be most gratefully
remembered that to the Keformation" — and he
might have added to the essential principles of
Presbyterian ism — " we owe that true civilization
which not only strikes off the fetters from the body

240 JENNY GEDDES.

but cLiltivates also the mind, which not only libe-
rates men from civil, mental and moral thraldom,
but also, elevating them in the scale of existence,
renders them worthy to be free. The mind of
Knox was too deeply imbued with these great
principles and his heart too fearless for him to
hesitate in giving a frank avowal of his sentiments,
be the danger and the obloquy thereby to be en-
countered what they might.'^

THE GEXERAIj assembly.

Organizing forces had long been at work and
were now rajndly maturing the fruit. The Church
of Christ is one body, a living body, and the in-
dwelling life in that body tends with unbending
aim towards visible ecclesiastical union. These
forces had already embodied the Church in par-
ticular congregations, with their several colleges of
ruling elders. The first covenant and the second
had rallied these Presbyterian forces, which were
now pressing forth toward more complete unifica-
tion in one General Assembly.

Tlie high republican act of suspending the
queen-regent had brought the congregation and
the government into armed collision, and the latter
had appealed to Elizabeth for aid. Well knowing

THE CONFLICT. 241

that lier own cause was bound up with that of the
Soottlsli reformers, she reluctantly relaxed her par-
simonious purse-strings a little, and at first sent
money and afterward an army. The French
troops retired before the English to Leith; and at
length a treaty of peace was made between France
and England, in accordance with Avhich the troops
of both nations were to be withdrawn from Scot-
land.

While these events were taking place in the
distracted realm other matters were enfrrossins:
the thoughts of the queen-regent. The summons
had come bidding her to the bar of her God. It
is melancholy to see how swiftly the actors in life's
drama move across the stage, and how soon they
disappear; melancholy to know how many make
a record as they pass, the perusal of which tor-
ments them on the bed of death. But if the good
must die, let us be thankful that the wicked do
not live for ever.

On the central hill, in many-hilled Edinburgh,
stands the castle, covering some six acres of ground
with its spacious esplanade. From its ramparts
a magnificent prospect greets the eye. "Westward
stretches the level country out from the bottom
of the crag. Eastward is Salisbury Crag and Ar-

16

242 JENNY GEDDES.

tliur's Seat, and on the lower ground, between
them, the old quadrangular palace of Holyrood.
A splendid place to live in, but the queen- regent
was now there to die.

" Shut up in Edinburgh Castle," writes Froude,
" cut off from her friends and half a prisoner under
the cold neutrality of Erskine, the mother of Mary
Queen of Scots had sunk from day to day, her
body swollen with dropsy, the visible shadow of
death fast closing over her, yet, to the last, going
through her daily work with the same cheerful
resolution, cool, clear and dauntless, as became a
daughter of the house of Guise.

" Her position was forlorn and even tragic — re-
ligion had not many attractions for her — her con-
fessor was an abandoned debauchee, whose minis-
trations must have been a mockery, and it was
overlate to learn a new creed."

Finding her end approaching, she " sent for" —
Hetherington says, " allowed to be sent to her" —
Avrites Froude, "John Willock, Knox's colleague
at Edinburgh, and conversed with him upon the
subject of religion. After this, she sent for her
priest, confessed, received extreme unction and
passed away.

" So ended Mary of Lorraine, once Mary Duch-

THE CONFLTCT. 243

ess of Longueville, the wittiest, brightest, fairest
ornament of the court of Francis I., now closing
the nineteenth year of widowhood and exile in a
land of strangers." Her death removed the great-
est obstacle to the peace which was now soon con-
cluded.

On the first day of August, Parliament as-
sembled under the anxious eye of gazing Europe.
Crowds of people flocked to Edinburgh on the
great occasion. The demands of the Protestants
were singularly moderate. They asked no san-
guinary vengeance upon their adversaries, as Rome
would have done in like circumstances, no com-
pulsory laws, enforcing an acceptance of the true
religion, no banishments from the kingdom, nor
even that the displaced ecclesiastics should be
summarily deprived of the means of livelihood,
but only that the popish doctrines be discarded,
purity of worship and primitive discipline be re-
stored, and that the ecclesiastical revenues be ap-
plied to the support of a pious, active ministry, the
promotion of learning and the relief of the poor.
To these demands the Parliament responded by
abolishing Romanism, prohibiting the mass under
certain penalties, leaving, by their silence, the ques-
tion of discipline to the clergy, and by adopting,

244 JENNY GEDDES.

almost without a dissenting voice, the Confession
of Faith. But what of the cliurch revenues ? For
long years they had been employed for the support
of graceless ecclesiastics, who not only left, but
strenuously kept, the people in ignorance, while
by example and precept they corrupted their mo-
rality. Why, then, should not these revenues be
now put into the hands of pure, godly, patriotic
men, to be employed in undoing the deadly work
of popery among the people ?

These funds would have been amply sufficient
for the ends proposed. The papistical system was
abolished, and the Protestants, though not unwill-
ing that the Romish ecclesiastics, while they lived,
should have adequate support, were quite unwill-
ing that these men, now relieved of all their
duties, should still enjoy the whole of their usual
income; and, as they passed away by death, the
Protestants proposed that the rents of benefices,
bishoprics, cathedral and collegiate churches, and
those arising from the endowments of monasteries,
should be appropriated for the support of min-
isters, schools and of the poor. But lordly avarice
forbade.

Among the so-called Protestant leaders, at this
time, was William Maitland, of Lethington — a

THE CONFLICT. 245

name that often recurs in this history. Able, am-
bitious and unscrupulous, he cared little for re-
ligion in any form and looked at all questions
through purely secular eyes. His own spirit and
that of many who acted with him appeared in a
sarcasm he uttered on hearing a sermon of Knox :
^' We may now forget ourselves and bear the bar-
row to build the house of God.^^ And the readi-
ness of many of the lords to abolish the papacy
was due to their desire to appropriate its revenues
to their own uses. Accordingly, the revenue
question was left at this time untouched, but with
too sure a presage that when the hour for action
came the interests of education and religion would
weigh very lightly in the scales.

The Confession of Faith was prepared by six
Johns — Winram, Spotswood, Willock, Douglas,
How and Knox — and, with the Book of Disci-
pline, *^took abiding residence in the mind and
heart of Scotland, in the deliberate judgment and
conviction of its intellect and the fervent regard
of its affection.'^

Already a temporary arrangement had been
made for the effective preaching of the gospel
among the people. The great chiefs were ap-
pointed to preach in the cities, and superintendents

246 JENNY GEDDES.

appointed to secure as large attention as possible
to the wants of the inland and remoter districts.

Thus, at last, after all these years of confusion,
woe and blood, Presbyterianism had conquered
the obdurate papacy and hung its banners on the
topmost towers of the realm.

And now, on the 20th of December, 1560, the
leading ministers and laymen, without leave asked
of human governments, met together in Edinburgh
*' To consult upon those things which are to for-
ward God's glory and the weal of his Kirk in this
realme." And this was the First General As-
sembly of the Church of Scotland. The truly
popular character of this assembly is seen in the
fact that while it numbered forty members, thirty-
four of the whole were laymen. Parliament had
rid the land of Romanism, the Assembly was now
to organize, on its sole responsibility to the great
Head of the Church, an ecclesiasticjal system for
the nation. To the same men who had drawn up
the Confession of Faith was now assigned the task
of preparing a system of ecclesiastical government.
In this work they betook themselves directly to
the Holy Scriptures.

The result of their labours was the First Book
OF Discipline. This book recognized four kinds

THE CONFLICT. 247

of ordinary and permanent office-bearers in the
Church — the pastor, the teacher, the ruling elder
and the deacon. The teacher's task was not un-
like that of our theological professors. To meet
the pressing necessities of the hour, two other
officers of a temporary character Avere added —
superintendents y who should itinerate and preach,
and inspect the conduct of the more uneducated
country ministers, and exJiorters or Bible-readers —
humble, pious persons, who might instruct their
still humbler and less enlightened brethren.

Pastors were to be regularly called by election,
examination and admission. To the people be-
longed the right to elect their own pastor. The
minister, elders and deacons constituted the kirk-
session. Presbyteries were soon organized, and
the General Assembly, composed of ministers and
ruling elders, commissioned from different parts of
the kingdom, combined in itself the governing
powers of the whole Church. Judicious rules for
public worship on the Sabbath were embraced in
the system — a sermon on Sabbath morning and
catechizing in the afternoon, and in the towns a
sermon on a week day besides. It was also held
imperatively necessary that there be a school in
every parish for the instruction of youth in the

248 JENNY GEDDES.

principles of religion, in grammar and in the Latin
language; and it was proposed that a college be
established in every notable town.

Such was the Presbyterian protest against the
Romish adage, that ignorance is the mother of de-
votion. Such was the scheme for elevating the
degraded Scottish masses into the dignity and cha-
racter of a people; and to carry out this noble
plan the revenues of the church were needed ; and
but for the ignoble covetousness of the nobles these
revenues would have been obtained, and an early
and glorious salvation wrought out for Scotland.
But some of these nobles had already seized upon
portions of the Church lands and were filling their
pockets with the revenues, and others were casting
longing eyes toward a share in the golden spoils.
From this fountain flowed many a stream of bit-
terness in after years.

MABY QUJEEN OF SCOTS.

A new chapter now opens before us of this story
of conflict. Mary, daughter of James V. and
Mary of Guise, was born seven days before her
father's death. At the age of eight she was sent
to France, educated in a convent, and in 1558
married to the dauphin Francis, who died in 1560,

THE CONFLICT. 249

and the following year she returned to Scotland as
its queen. Beautiful as ever woman could desire,
richly endowed with mental gifts, finely accom-
plished, her residence of thirteen years abroad, part
of the time in a Romish convent, but most of it as
a fascinating creature in one of the most flagitiously
corrupt and licentious courts in the world, had
very poorly fitted her to rule over Presbyterian
Scotland. Foreseeing the bearing on the interests
of France of her character and course in the tur-
bulent scenes before her, her relations in that coun-
try had spared no pains to mould her spirit in
accordance with the most rigorous bigotry, and to
thorough detestation of the Reformation and its
champions. They strove to fill her vision with
the glories to be gained in the work of re-shackling
the now liberated limbs of Scotland with the fet-
ters of Romanism. ^N'or did they find their pupil
either incompetent or unwilling. Right greedily
did she swallow all their teachings. And to all
other motives for stifling the Reformation was
added the hope of putting the English crown upon
her saintly brow and bringing erring England back
from her wanderings to the true fold. For this
she would need French gold and French armies,
all which were promised in lavish abundance.

250 JENNY GEDJDES.

Scarcely, therefore, had she set foot on Scottish
soil when she flung out her colours before the eyes
of the nation. On her first Sabbath in Scotland
she set her foot upon the act of parliament, and had
mass celebrated in Holyrood house. Against this
the privy council protested, and Knox, with a
voice louder than theirs, in a thundering sermon at
St. Giles, declared that "one mass was more fearful
to him than ten thousand armed foes." It is not
so difficult to conquer men, especially in a good
cause — to conquer God in a sinful one, who can
hope?

Well for Mary that Romish measure was not
dealt out to her. Well has it been said that had
Scotland now been in the hands of Rome, and
Mary a Huguenot queen, persisting in the exercise
of her religion, she would speedily have followed
Hamilton, Wishart and Mill to the stake, or have
been hurried out of the realm.

The Protestants, however, contented themselves
with rigorously protesting, and when Mary heard
of Knox's sermon she sent for him that she might
set her eyes upon that subject that dared to rebuke
his sovereign. She was soon satisfied if not grati-
fied with the sight. Wonderful scene, that inter-
view between the stern prophet and the beautiful

THE CONFLICT. 251

Jezebel! Curious contrast, between the emotions
in those two hearts, as they stood gazing into each
other's eyes. Two mighty conflicting systems were
there face to face — Presbyterian republicanism and
despotic Popery.

" Think you/* asked the queen, " that subjects
having the power may resist their princes ?'*

"If princes exceed their bounds, madam,'' he
replied, " no doubt they may be resisted, even by
power. For no greater honour or greater obedi-
ence is to be given to kings or princes than God
has ordained to be given to father or mother.
But the father may be struck with a frenzy in
which he would slay his children. Now, madam,
if the children arise, join together, apprehend the
father, take the sword from him, bind his hands
and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over,
think you, madam, that the children do any
wrong? Even so, madam, is it with princes that
would murder the children of God that are subject
unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a mad
frenzy; therefore, to take the sword from them,
to hind their hands and to cast them into prison
till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no
disobedience against princes, but just obedience,
because it agreeth with the will of God."

252 JENNY GEDDES.

" Thus spoke Calvinism," writes Froude — " the
creed of republies in its first hard form."

And, indeed, this was pretty strong meat for
those days and for that queen who had as yet
tasted nothing stronger than courtly flatteries and
adulations ; but strong as it was it is now acknow-
ledged, wherever manly liberty is known, to be as
wholesome for the citizen as unpalatable to the
despot.

*' My subjects, then, are to obey you, not me ?"

" Nay," he answered, " let prince and subject
both obey God. Kings should be foster-fathers
of the Kirk and queens its nursing mothers."

"You are not the Kirk that I will nurse. I
will defend the Kirk of Rome, for that, I think,
is the Kirk of God."

"Your will, madam," said Knox, "is no reason,
neither does your thought make the Roman harlot
the spouse of Jesus Christ."

When once the queen contemptuously demanded,
"What are you in this commonwealth?" he an-
swered, "A subject, born within the same, madam ;
and, albeit I be neither god, lord nor baron in it,
yet has God made me, how abject that ever I be
in your eyes, a profitable member within the

THE CONFLICT. 253

"On reading the actual narrative of the busi-
ness," writes Carlyle — " what Knox said and what
Knox meant — I must say one^s tragic feeling is a
little disappointed. They are not coarse, these
speeches ; they seem to me about as fine as the
circumstances would permit. Knox was not there
to do the courtier; he came on another errand.
Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with the
queen, thinks they are vulgar insolence of a ple-
beian priest to a delicate, high lady mistakes the
purport and -essence of them altogether. It was
unfortunately not possible to be polite with the
Queen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue to
the nation and cause of Scotland, A man who did
not wish to see the land of his birth made a hunt-
ing-field for intriguing, ambitious Guises, and the
cause of God trampled under foot of falsehood's
formulas and the devil's cau^e, had no method of
making himself agreeable. 'Better that women
weep,' said Morton, 'than bearded men be forced
to weep.' Knox was the constitutional opposition
party of Scotland — the nobles of the country,
called by their station to take that post, were not
found in it; Knox had to go, or no one. The
hapless queen, but the still more hapless country,
if she were made happy !

254 JENNY GEDDES.

" I am not prepared to say Knox had a soft
temper, nor do I know he had what we call an ill
temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not —
kind, honest affections dwelt in the much-enduring,
hard-worn, ever-battling man. That he could re-
buke queens, and had such weight among those
proud, turbulent nobles — proud enough, whatever
else tliey were — and could maintain to the end a
kind of virtual presidency and sovereignty in that
wild realm — he who was only a subject born within
the same — this of itself will prove to us that he
was found close at hand to be no mean, acrid man,
but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man.''

After the close of his first interview with the
queen, Knox said, " If there be not in her a proud
mind and a crafty wit, and an indurate heart
against God and his truth, my judgment faileth
me."

" He made her weep," said Randolph to Cecil,
" as well you know there be of that sex that will
do that for anger as well as grief. You exhort us
to stoutness. The voice of that one man is able to
put more life in us in one hour than five hundred
trumpets blustering in our ears."

When advised to more gentleness of manner,
Knox answered : " Men deliting to swym betwixt

THE CONFLICT. 255

two waters have often compleaned of my severitie,
I do fear that that which men term levitie and
dulceness do bring upon themselves and others
more fearful destruction than yit hath enseued the
vehemency of any preacher wdthin this realme."

XXOX O.V TBIAL.

In December, 1561, the General Assembly met,
at which some of the secular members, who, will-
ing to see popery in its grave could they but be
the heirs of its revenues, and not umvilling to be
free from its penances could they but enjoy instead
the liberty to live in profligacy, and who dreaded
the resti'aints of church discipline, which the assem-
bly was aiming to enforce, questioned the propriety
of such meetings without the queen^s consent.
King Jesus must kneel down and wipe the dust
from the sandals of King Caesar. To this sugges-
tion Knox exclaimed : " Take from us the liberty
of assemblies and take from us the gospel ! If the
liberty of the Church must depend upon her allow-
ance or disallowance, we shall want not only as-
semblies but the preaching of the gospel." And
when the proposition was made to ask the queen
to ratify the Book of Discipline, a courtier answer-
ed: "Stand content — that book will not be ob-

256 JENNY GEDDES.

tained/^ "Then," said Knox, "let God require
the injury which the commonwealth shall sustain
at the hands of those who hinder it."

Upon the question of those Church revenues
that had so long fattened the Romish beast, the
privy council at length came to the sage determi-
nation to give two-thirds to the ejected priests du-
ring their lives, and to divide the remaining third
between the court and the Protestant ministry.
"Two parts," exclaimed Knox, "given to the
devil, and the third divided between God and the
devil. To those dumb dogs, the bishops, ten
thousand was not enough, but to the servants of
Christ, who principally preach the gospel, an hun-
dred marks must suffice. How can that be sus-
tained ?" But the covetous lords cared little for
either Popery or Protestantism ; but they cared
much for gold, and they looked to see their purses
replenished with a rich portion of that two-thirds,
as one by one the displaced ecclesiastics disappear-
ed beneath the sod. Poor human nature !

The General Assembly met twice in 1562, once
in June and again in December. The decrees of
the Assembly now went forth as the act of the
whole Church. " The haill Kirk appoints and de-
cerns." And they provided by solemn act that

THE COyFLICT. 257

Church discipline should reach to all alike. The
" magistrate subject to the rule of Christ" was not
to be "exeemed from the same puuishment'^ as the
rest, " being found guilty aud inobedient."

The work of Church construction went on at a
steady pace, and as many priests and persons
" called bishops" were still acting as ministers, it
was determined that they be subject to examination
under the eye of the superintendents. Synods
were also elected to meet twice a year, with power
to appoint and translate ministers, and a committee
was nominated to adjust questions of jurisdiction
with the privy council.

Encouraged by the papacy on the throne, the
papacy in the land, in spite of the act of parliament
to the contrary, ventured here and there to cele-
brate the mass ; but such was the storm of public
indignation that the cunning queen bent before it
and put certain of the oifenders in not very uncom-
fortable ward. She then convoked the parliament,
and so eflPectually did she ply the lords with her
wiles that not only was nothing done in favour of,
but much to the prejudice of, the Reformation.
Knox, of course, thundered out his reprehensions
of their conduct, and from his pulpit, in the pres-
ence of many of them, he said, " I have been with

17

258 JENNY GEDDES.

you in your most desperate temptations, in your
most extreme clanger. There is not one of you
against whom death and destruction was threaten-
ed perished, and how many of your enemies has
God plagued before your eyes? Shall this be the
thankfulness that ye shall render unto your God?"
And then he warned them against the proposed
marriage of the queen with a papist and the woes
that must ensue thereon. For his audacity, the
queen summoned him before the council, where
she gave him a right queenly scolding, in the
midst of which she burst into tears.

The celebration of the mass at Holyrood, while
the queen was absent at Stirling, occasioned a
slight popular outbreak, for which, wanting re-
venge, she cited two ministers to trial. Knowing
her malignity, Knox, in execution of a commission
he held from the Church, sent word to a number
of Protestant gentlemen, asking their presence at
the trial. For this act the queen sprang upon him
like an eagle upon her prey, thinking that the
happy hour had arrived to send him after Wishart.
A grand assemblage of counselors and lords formed
the court that was to try the giant heretic. With
intense anxiety the public awaited the result, as a
matter involving the life or death of the Reforma-

THE CONFLICT. 259

tion, and the palace yard and avenues were
thronged with people.

Previous to the trial great efforts had been made
to induce Knox to acknowledge that he had com-
mitted a fault and to throw himself upon the
queen's mercy, but, of course, in vain, as he knew
himself innocent of any fault in the matter.

The queen, having been assured by Lethington,
her able and astute secretary, that her trouble with
the stern Elijah was now virtually at an end, she
burst into a fit of laughter as he appeared before
the court, exclaiming, with revengeful glee :

'^That man made me weep and never shed a
tear himself. I will now see if I can make him
weep.''

Ah ! for her soul Knox could weep tears of
blood, but for himself he could lose his own blood
without weeping.

One of his letters, inviting the attendance of his
friends at the trial of the two ministers, was handed
him, and the question asked,

" Is this of your writing ?"

'' Yes, it is.''

" You have done more than I would have
done," said Maitland.

** Charity is not suspicious," said Knox.

260 JENNY GEDDES.

" Well, well," exclaimed the queen, '^ read your
own letter." He did so.

" Heard you ever, my lords, a more despiteful
and treasonable letter?" she asked.

*^ Mr. Knox, are you not sorry, from your heart,
and do you not repent that such a letter has passed
your pen?" asked Maitland.

^' My lord Secretary, before I repent I must be
taught my offence."

'^ Offence ! If there be no more l^ut the convo-
cation of the queen's lieges the offence cannot be
denied."

^^ Remember yourself, my lord ; there is a dif-
ference between a lawful convocation and an un-
lawful. If I have been guilty in this, I offended
oft since I came last into Scotland."

" That was then and now is now."

" The time that hath been is even now before
my eyes, though then the devil had a visor on
his face and now he comes under the cloak of
justice."

At this, her majesty's passions boiled over, and
she exclaimed :

"What is this? Methinks you trifle with him.
Who gave him authority to convoke my lieges?
Is not that treason ?"

THE CONFLICT. 261

O good queen, your appetite for heretical blood
cannot be gratified !

"No, madam/' said Lord Ruthven, "for he
makes convocation to hear prayers and sermon
almost daily/'

" Hold your peace and let him answer for him-
self/^ said the queen.

After further reply by Knox, she answered,
" You shall not escape so. Is it not treason, my
lords, to accuse a prince of cruelty ?'' A portion
of his letter was then read, in which he had said
tliat the proposed trial of the two Protestants was
to open the door to further cruelty.

"So what say you to that?'^ asked the queen.

All ears were intent to hear his reply,

" I ask your grace, madam, whether obstinate
papists are not deadly enemies to the professors
of the gospel of Christ?"

Mary was silent but the lords were not. With
one voice they exclaimed :

" God forbid that the lives of the faithful stood
in the power of the papists ! Experience has
taught us the cruelty of their hearts !''

Knox went on until interrupted by the chan-
cellor, who said :

" You forget you are not now in the pulpit."

262 JEXSY GEDDES.

^'1 am here to speak the truth/" said he, "and
tlierefore the truth I speak, impugu it whoso list/*

Knox and Mary withdrew and the vote was
taken acquitting the defendant. Lethington, en-
raged, brought back the queen and proceeded to
take the vote again in her presence. This was too
much for Scotch blood.

" What !" said they, '' shall the Laird of Leth-
ington control us, or the presence of a woman
cause us to condemn an innocent man ?"

A woman ! This is too republican ! But the
vote of acquittal was passed again. When the
bishop of Ross, who had been the informer in the
case, voted with the rest, this " woman'^ exclaimed :

" Trouble not the child, I pray you trouble him
not, for he is newly awakened out of his sleep.
Why should not the old fool follow the footsteps
of those that have passed before him ?'^

So it seems that a queen from courtly France
could be uncourtly upon occasion as well as stern
reformers.

JPRESB TTER I A NIS M KA TIONA LIZ ED.

To revolutionize the wrong; rebVious convictions
and worship of a nation is a more than herculean
task. Often, almost always, this requires not only

THE CONFLICT. 263

the highest heroism, great firmness of purpose,
vast intellectual power, souls on fire with the truth,
but also rivei-s of blood. The seeds of truth must
be moistened with streams from many a martyr's
veins, and our present jx^aceful enjoyment of re-
ligious light and liberty was bought for us with
blood — the best blood that ever coursed through
human veins.

True to the genius of our holy religion, that
knows no distinction between sinners of whatever
civil rank or social grade, the Scottish Reformers
lashed with impartial scourge the sins alike of
nobles and peasants. This, of course, was not a
little distasteful to the proud and profligate. As
the Duchess of Buckingham, in after years, wrote
to Lady Huntington : " The doctrines of these
preachers are most repulsive and strongly tinctured
with impertinence and disrespect toward their su-
periors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all
ranks and do away w^ith all distinctions. It is
monstrous to be told that you have a heart as
sinful as the common wretches that crawl upon
the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting,
and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should
relish any sentiments so much at variance with
high rank and good-breeding." And the proud

S64 JENXY GEDDES,

sinners of the sixteenth centnry relished tliem no
better than those of kiter times.

In 1564 a conference was hekl between the prin-
cipal statesmen and the ministers of the Church
respecting the freedom of the latter in animadv^ert-
ing in the pulpit upon the morals of the people,
small and great — the conference being assented to
by the ministers on the express condition that no
formal decision was to be made upon the topics
discussed. Knox and Lethington were the two
champions of the hour — the latter learned, subtle
and acute ; the former " superior to all fear."

The statesmen urged upon Knox the wishes of
the council that he would study greater caution
and mildness in his language. To this the pro-
phet replied by drawing a vivid picture of the
prevalent vices of the day, and added that none
ought to be surprised at the faithful freedom of
God's ministers, of sins committed so openly and
persisted in so recklessly.

The former disapproved of the manner in which
Knox prayed for the queen.

^' Ye pray for the queen's majesty with a con-
dition, ^ illuminate her heart if thy good pleasure
be.' Where have ye an example for such a
prayer ?"

TBE CONFLICT. 266

" Wherever the examples are, I am assured of
the rule, * If ye shall ask anything according to his
will, he will hear us.' "

^' But in so doing ye put a doubt in the people's
heads of her conversion."

" Not I, my lord ; but her own obstinate rebel-
lion causes more than me to doubt of her conver-
sion."

" AYlierein rebels she against God ?"

" In all the actions of her life. She will not
hear the preaching of the blessed evangel of Jesus,
and she maintains that idol, the mass."

"She thinks not that rebellion, but good relig-
ion."

" So thought they who offered their children to
Moloch."

"But yet ye can produce the example of none
who have prayed so before you."

" Peter said these words to Simon Magus, ' Re-
pent of this thy wickedness.' "

" But where find ye that the Scriptures call any
the bond- slaves of Satan, or that the prophets
spoke so irreverently of princes ?"

" Paul said, ' Behold I send you unto the Gen-
tiles that they may turn them from the power of
Satan unto God.' "

266 JENXY GEDDKS.

No wonder the noble secretary said lie was tired,
and begged some other one to take his place in
the lists. Chancellor Morton cunningly ordered
George Hay to answer Knox, but Hay replied that
he agreed fully with Knox.

" Marry !" exclaimed the discomfited secretary,
"ye are the well worst of the two."

The debate w^as long protracted, and at last
Maitland proposed that a vote should be taken.
Against this Knox protested, reminding their lord-
ships that the General Assembly had agreed to
this conference on the express condition that no-
thing should be decided on ; and at length the
meeting broke up, leaving Knox triumphant and
his opponents in deep chagrin at the result.

Toward the end of 1564 Matthew Stewart, earl
of Lennox, returned to Scotland after an exile of
twenty years. He was of royal blood, and his
wife, the Lady Margaret Douglas, was niece of
Henry VIII. and uterine sister of James V. of
Scotland. Soon after the return of Lennox, he
was followed by his son Henry Stewart, Lord
Darnley, wdio was thus the nearest heir to both the
English and Scottish crowns, should both Eliza-
beth and Mary die without issue. As he was a
Catholic, the Protestant lords dreaded his union

THE CONFLICT. 267

by marriage with Queen Maiy. But allowing
tliemselves to be cajoled by her with a promise —
the promise of one who made little account of
even oaths to heretics — to grant a royal sanction to
the legal establishment of the Protestant religion,
most of them gave their consent — the earl of Mur-
ray, however, half-brother to the queen, resolutely
withholding his own. Upon this his good sister
the queen resolved upon his ruin.

Early in the morning, '^ while the drowsy citi-
zens of Edinburgh were in their morning sleep,"
Mary and Darnley were married in the royal
chapel by a Romish priest. To the surprise of
those who w^ere permitted to witness the ceremo-
nies, Mary wore a mourning dress of black velvet,
" such as she wore the doleful day of the burial of
her husband.''

" Whether it was an accident,'' writes Froude,
" whether the doom of the house of Stuart haunt-
ed her at that hour with its fatal foreshadowings,
or whether simply for a great political purpose she
was doing an act which in itself she loathed, it is
impossible to tell ; but that black drapery struck
the spectators with a cold, uneasy awe."

Darnley was now proclaimed king witliout wait-
ing for the consent or dissent of the estates, and

268 JENNY GEDDES.

naturally favoured his wife in her schemes for the
ruin of Murray. The latter had objected to the
marriage, and the Scottish Herodias would now
have the dissenter's head in a charger. Murray
was ordered to court, but not silly enough to enter
the lion's den, he was proclaimed an outlaw. He
now raised an army of defence, which was attacked
and scattered by the forces of the queen, and he,
driven from pillar to post, at last took refuge in
England. Elizabeth, with accustomed irresolution
and meanness, refused aid to those who were fight-
ing her battles in fighting their own.

A month before the queen's marriage the Gene-
ral Assembly had met in Edinburgli. To concili-
ate the Protestants while her marriage scheme was
maturing, she had proposed a conference at Perth.
Accepting the proposition, the assembly drew up
six articles for ratification by the parliament she
promised to call. The marriage having now taken
place, she gave her answer to the articles, accom-
panying it with the declaration that she " neither
will nor may leave the religion wherein she has
been nourished and brought up." The second of
the articles asked for permanent provision for the
ministers, that vacant charges be given to qualified
persons, and that " no bishopric, abbacy, etc., hay-

THE CONFLICT. 269

ing many kirks annexed thereto may be disposed
to any one man."

To this she answered in effect that she wanted
the greater part of the church revenues for her
own use.

The assembly met again in December and took
the queen's reply into consideration, and trans-
mitted to lier their views of the matter, to the
effect that they would not that she or any other
patron be defrauded of their legal patronages, but
that the presentee should always be tried and ex-
amined by the learned men of the Kirk; that if
the presentation remain in the hands of the pa-
trons, the admission of the presentee should be
in the hands of the Kirk ; otherw ise the patrons
could present absolutely whom they pleased, whe-
ther the Kirk pleased or not, and '^ what then
would abide in the Kirk of God but ignorance
without all order?"

This matter of patronage has ever been, as it
must of necessity always be, a thorn in the side
of the body of Christ. It was one of the many
curses bequeathed by Rome to Protestantism. It
was long the policy of the clergy to induce wealthy
sinners to ease their consciences by giving or be-
queathing at their death large sums of money for

270 JENXr GEDBES.

the endowment of cluirches, monasteries and the
like. By this act, the donors secured a legal right
for themselves and their heirs to nominate, or
present, as they called it, the candidate, who was
to fill the offices so established and enjoy the reve-
nues accruing from these endowments. When
these patronages had largely multiplied, the cun-
nint>: clero;y enabled tlie holders of this rio;ht to
buy new spiritual favours by resigning it to them,
and thus these patronages became distributed
among priests and nobles, courtiers and kings.
And often when, say, a bishopric with ample reve-
nues, became vacant, some utterly ungodly man
held the legal right to name the new incumbent;
and thus the ecclesiastical offices became filled with
creatures who were as ignorant of religion as they
were destitute of all moral decency. And now the
Reformed Church, tied up to the system of patron-
age, yet strove to secure itself against its obviously
corrupting influence by asserting the right to judge
of the character of the presentee and exclude the
unworthy.

The queen's proposed retention of so large a
part of the income of the Church in her own
hands they pronounced " both ungodly and also
contrary to all public order, bringing no small

THE COyFLICT. 271

confusion to the poor souls, the common people,
who by these means should be instructed of their
salvation/^ Two-thirds of the patrimony of the
Church had already been allowed to the rejected
papists during their lives, and now her majesty
would retain for her own disposal the fruits of the
benefices !

And now, in 1566, thick darkness began to
brood over the land. Bloody-minded Romanism,
at Trent, had decreed the extirpation of Protest-
antism, and the League formed for this purpose
was sent to Mary, w^ho promptly set her signature
to the bond, and measures were taken by her to
restore popery in Scotland to all its power and
glory. But wickedness is contagious, and in its
blindness is very apt to commend its own chalice
to its own lips. If Mary longed for blood, she
should see it flowing, but from other veins than
she desired and designed.

The dark, cunning Italian, Rizzio, this woman's
private secretary, had excited the jealousy of Darn-
ley, the queen's weak and despised husband, and
he resolved on revenge. He drew certain lords —
who hated Rizzio as heartily as he — or they drew
him into a conspiracy to rid the world of his rival.
The other conspirators required of him, and he

272 JJJNNY GEDDES.

gave, a bond declaring that all tliat was done was
^' his own device and intention.'' The deed was
to have been done on a certain day, and when it
was postponed Darnley declared with an oath that
*' if the slaughter was not hastened" he would stab
Rizzio in the queen's presence with his own hand.
At the next ap])ointcd time — Saturday night, the
9th of March, 1566 — the conspirators surrounded
Holy rood Palace, secured the doors, and Darnley
entered the queen's boudoir — Rizzio sitting on a
chair and the queen opposite him on the sofa.
Darnley kissed the queen. She shrank from him,
and her eyes fell on the corsletted form of Ruth-
ven entering through the opening in the tapestries.
Glaring on Darnley, Mary answered his kiss
with the one word, "Judas!" and then demanded
of Ruthven the cause of his presence there.

" Let yon man come forth," said he, pointing to
Rizzio ; ^' he has been here over long."

"What has he done?"

" He has offended your honour, and your hus-
band's honour, and caused your majesty to banish
a great part of the nobility."

Rizzio was dragged out into the darkness to
the bottom of the stairs, and stabbed with sixty
wounds. From this hour the queen's dislike for

THE CONFLICT. 273

her husband deepened into hatred the most intense,
and she never rested till she had seen him mur-
dered.

Two or three nights after, at midnight, Marv,
accompanied by her husband — whom she tolerated
till his time should come — and one servant, left the
palace by a subterranean passage, mounted the
horses shivering in the cold, and in two hours she
was safe at Dunbar, twenty miles away. Thus
were her bloody designs against Protestantism
frustrated, the blood of her secretary shed, the
papal lords scattered, the Protestant lords brought
back from England, and the Parliament which was
to have done her. w^ork prorogued. But as her
power of persecuting the Church sank, her fury
against the slayers of Rizzio rose, and she now set
herself to study revenge. Having gathered an
army, she returned to Edinburgh to glut her re-
venge. While agitated by these fierce passions,
she gave birth, on the 19th of June, at Edinburgh
Castle, to a son, afterward the noted James VI.
of Scotland and I. of England.

During this month the Assembly met, and in
view of recent horrors and apparently impending
dangers, ap])ointed the first national fast since the
beginning of the Reformation. ^* The haill As-

18

274 JENNY GEDDES.

sembly, In respect to the perils and dangers where-
with the Kirk of God is assaulted, and that by
mighty enemies, considered a general fast to be
published throughout this realm in all kirks re-
formed.''

But other horrors were in store for that suffer-
ing nation. As soon as the queen recovered her
health — in conjunction with the execrable James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, wicked as he was
weak — she began to mature schemes for the mur-
der of her husband. He lay sick at Glasgow, of
a sudden illness, probably the effect of poison, to
which the queen seems to allude in a shameless
letter to Bothwell from this place, whither she
had gone to visit him, in which she asks, '^ Con-
sider whether you can contrive anything more
secret by medicine. He is to take medicine and
baths at Craigmiller." In this letter this woman
tells Bothwell that her husband's breath '^almost
killed her," and she " sat as far from him as the
bed would allow." She tells Bothwell that she
had left her heart with him ; calls him her ^' dear
love," and says she can sleep nowhere as she
wishes but in his arms. Alluding to Bothwell's
young and faithful wife, she says, '' we are coupled
with two bad companions. The devil sunder us

THE CONFLICT. 275

and God knit us together to be the most faithful
couple that ever he united.'^ Then she promises
to bring " the man" with her, and begs Both well
to *' provide for all things."

And she did bring '^ the man," her husband,
to Edinburgh, and Bothwell met her at the gatel,
took the man off her hands, and, in spite of his
remonstrances, lodged him in " Kirk-a-Field," a
roofless, ruined church, with a building adjoining,
in which a room had been prepared for the victim.
"While he lay there Mary frequently visited him.
At midnight — Sunday night, February 9 — Mary
sat with Darnley, while dancing was going on at the
palace and while Bothwell, with his servants, was
piling up powder-bags in the room below. When
all was ready, Bothwell came into the room and
gave the signal for Mary to retire. As she rose
to go, she said : ^' It was just this time last year
that E,izzio was slain." ^Yretched Darnley shud-
dered at her words, and said, " She was very kind,
but why did she speak of Davie's slaughter?"
Some time after an explosion was heard, and "Ed-
ward Seymour was blown to pieces, and the bodies
of Darnley and his page were found forty yards
beyond the town wall, under a tree,"

Not lono^ after Bothwell was divorced from his

276 JENNY GEDDES.

wife, and Mary, the murderess of her former hus-
band, was married to Both well the murderer.

The nobles flew to arms to protect the infant
king, whom Bothwell would soon have hurried out
of the world to make way for his own heirs, and
whom the mother loved too little to care to protect.
To meet these the queen gathered a small army,
and the parties met near Preston. But finding her
troops little disposed to shed blood in such a cause,
she sent to the confederates to treat with them,
while Bothwell fled with all precipitation toward
Dunbar, and at length to the Shetland Islands,
where he turned pirate. From thence he went to
the Continent, where he was cast into a prison, and
at length died, detested by all who had not forgot-
ten him.

The queen gave herself up to the confederates,
and as she entered their ranks, dressed, as Buchan-
an says, " in a short shabby robe that scarcely
reached below^ the knee," the cry arose, " Burn the
harlot ! burn the murderer V^

The soldiers also held up to her view a standard
on which Darnley's dead body was painted, and
near the body the infant king praying to God to
avenge the death of his father. She was conducted
to Edinburgh, and thence, after two days, by a de-

THE CONFLICT. 277

cree of the nobles, she was sent j)risoner to Loch-
levin castle. From Lochlevin she escaped to Eng-
land, where she fell into the hands of the merciless
Elizabeth.

The bitterest and most powerful foe of the
Church being now disabled and banished by her
own crimes, the lords, at the meeting of the assem-
bly in July, specified certain articles in favour of
the Reformation, the adoption of which they prom-
ised to secure at the next lawful parliament. The
earl of Murray, who had now returned from exile,
was appointed to the regency. In December,
Parliament met; at the opening of which Knox
preached, urging the legislators to begin their
labours with the affairs of religion, that God
might prosper them the more in the arduous
work of restoring order in the confused and shat-
tered realm. Heeding the admonition, the Par-
liament solemnly re-ratified the acts of 1560, abol-
ishing the papacy and establishing true religion
in the land. It was further provided that no
prince should ever be admitted to the exercise of
authority in the realm without first taking an oath
to support the Protestant religion, and that none
but Protestants should be admitted to any office
excepting such as were hereditary or held for life.

278 JENNY GEDDES.

To the Church alone was assigned the duty to ex-
amine and admit candidates to the ministry, though
the ancient lay patrons might yet present their
favourites. Parliament also ratified the ecclesias-
tical jurisdiction claimed and exercised by the As-
semblies of the Church. The thirds of incomes
from the benefices were appointed to be paid into
the hands of collectors nominated by the Church,
who, after paying the sahu'ies of the ministers,
were to account for any surplus to the exchequer,

A few days after this meeting of Parliament
the Assembly met and ai)pointed commissioners
to co-operate with the six members of Parliament,
or secret council nominated by the regent, for such
affairs as concerned the Kirk and its jurisdiction.
It also degraded from the ministry " Adam, called
bishop of Orkney," for marrying the queen to
Bothwell, and called John Craig to account for
publishing the banns of marriage between them, and
in view of all the circumstances of the case ap-
proved his course; and it subjected the countess
of Argyle to censure for having given assistance
and countenance to the baptizing of the infant
king after the popish fashion.

Thus man proposeth and God disposeth. Mary
had laid her cunning schemes to sweep Protestant-

THE CONFLICT. 279

ism with a bloody besom from the land, and the
breath of God had swept popery away instead.
Mary slew her husband to marry Both well, and
Bothwell, her instrument in the bloody deed, had
also divorced his lawful, faithful wife to marry
Mary, and the two thus united were soon to lord
it over Scotland, Church and State, from Holy-
rood Palace; and now Protestantism held all the
reins of power, and Bothwell was gone in one
direction, an execrated fugitive, to a foreign prison
and a dishonoured grave, and Mary was gone, an
execrated fugitive, in another direction, to Eng-
land— to execution !

Presbyterianism was now become the acknow-
ledged religion of the realm — sanctioned, not cre-
ated by the authorities of the kingdom. Man pro-
poseth — God disposeth ! And let all the people
say, Amen !

THE TUT.CHANS.

If the darkest hour is just before the day, the
brightest dawn is often darkened by quick-gather-
ing clouds, to be followed by a day of wrathful,
desolating storm.

For the hour, in Scotland, the skies were very
bright, and sj)ring promised abundant bloom and

280 JENNY GEDDES.

bountiful harvest. The Church, victor over all
her foes, was mistress of the field. Neither papal
monarch, state council nor Parliament under the
manipulation of ungodly Lethingtons, threatened
invasion of her rights. Her assemblies possessed
unchallenged spiritual jurisdiction, and her un-
trammelled ministers were free to proclaim, where
they would and as often as they pleased, the " holy
evangel" of Christ.

Even during the troublous times now passed the
Church had enjoyed a not discouraging growth.
In the first General Assembly, in 1560, there were
but six ministers, and this was one-half of the
whole number of Protestant ministers then in Scot-
land ; while now, seven years after, the Church
could number two hundred and fifty-two ministers,
four hundred and sixty-seven readers and an hun-
dred and fifty-four exhorters.

In the mean time, improvement in doctrine and
discipline, as Hetherington writes, " was not less
rapid, steady and decided. Offenders of every
kind and degree were compelled to yield obedience
to sacred authority ; noblemen and ladies of high-
est rank submitted to disciplinary censures ; lordly
prelates were constrained to bow their unmitred
heads before the Church's rebuke ; over the refrac-

THE CONFLICT. 281

tory members of its own body — over one even of
its early champions, Paul Methven — its power
was extended in the impartial administration of
even-handed spiritual justice. That there must
have been a marvellous amount of the divine in-
fluence accompanying all the exertions of the
Church, when the walls of her temples were thus
built in troublous times, we cannot doubt.''

But the seeds of evil were rapidly germinating
under the calm sky — bloody civil wars impending
betw^een the queen's party and that of the king —
the friends of the Church to fall, the good regent
to be assassinated, and Knox to die — and malad-
ministration under other regents, strong or weak,
and wicked whether weak or strong.

But, worst of all, foes to the Church were to
spring up within her own household. As there
was one traitor among the twelve apostles, so in
all ages there are tares among the wheat, in pulpit
and in pews. The ancient, and in many countries
still prevalent, system of admitting to the com-
munion on external rather than internal grounds,
upon a recital of the catechism and the creed,
.rather than upon probable evidence of heartfelt
piety, has always resulted in disaster — disaster to
the persons thus admitted, and, through such of

282 JENNY GEDDES.

them as passed into the offices of the Church, sad
disaster to the whole Church.

In the exciting times of the early Reformation
little inquiry was made of applicants for church-
membership and office, beyond merely external
qualifications ; and many of the so-called Protestant
lords — even those who legislated as ruling elders
in church courts — were the merest ecclesiastical
politicians, willing enough to be rid of the papacy,
but more willing still to serve themselves, even at
the expense of sound Protestantism. The divisions
and commotions and corruptions embosomed in
such seed were not long in making themselves
manifest.

In the mean time, while the partisans of Mary
on the one hand, and those of the regent on the
other, were engaged in keeping the realm in ebul-
lition, the General Assembly were active and
vigilant.

In July, 1568, they passed an ordinance pre-
scribing the qualifications of membership in their
body and the methods of election; and another
suppressing a book entitled the '^ Fall of the
Roman Kirk," in which the king was named as
the " Supreme Head of the Primitive Kirk ;" for
from first to last Christ's sole headship in his

THE CONFLICT. 283

Church has been the favourite watchword with
Scotch Presbyterians. They also demanded more
ample provisions for the support of the ministry —
a demand to which " The Good Regext" would
have listened if he could.

But this magnanimous man, beset with snares
and schemes for his assassination, had more than
enough to do to maintain a position becoming
more and more precarious, and to discharge the
secular duties of an office becoming more and
more arduous. Lethington, the faithless, joined
the queen's party and became a chief scliemer in
all her unscrupulous intrigues. But the regent
held on his way, reforming abuses, maintaining
public order, administering justice and defending
everybody but himself. The queen's agents, how-
ever, were as remorseless as he was kind and con-
scientious; and, finding it impossible to compass
his death by open assault, they at length took a
lesson from the conduct of the queen and resolved
upon assassination. Hamilton of Both well hough,
a nephew of the archbishop of St. Andrews, whose
life Murray had once spared, undertook the task
of murdering his benefactor. Like a bloodhound
he followed his victim from place to place. He
hunted him from Dumbarton to Glasgow, and from

284 JENNY GEDDES.

Glasgow to Stirling, and from Stirling to Linlith-
gow, where the archbishop had a house not far
from the house in which Murray was accustomed
to lodge. In this house the assassin concealed
himself to watch his opportunity. The regent was
warned of this on the very day of the murder, but
he despised danger and trusted his life with his
God. As he rode along on his horse, the mur-
derer, from behind a curtain on the balcony, took
aim and shot him, and then, escaping by a back
door through the garden, fled to his accomplices
and was received with warm congratulations.

Thus died James Stuart, earl of Murray, son of
James Y. and half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots
— a high-minded, enlightened Christian statesman,
who well earned the title affectionately bestowed
upon him, ^' The Good Kegent'^ — and with him
fell a bright star from the banner of Presbyterian-
ism in Scotland. He was succeeded in the regency
by Matthew Stuart, the earl of Lennox and grand-
father of the young king. The realm, now divided
under two factions — the one supporting the claims
of the exiled queen, and the other those of the king
and the regent — was devastated by civil wars ; the
two parties being so equally matched that neither
could gain decided advantage over the other. Of

THE CONFLICT. 285

course tlie Cliiirch lent all her influence to the
king's party, but could do little more than preach
and pray amidst the ceaseless din of clashing arms.
Knox was a special object of hatred to the mur-
derers of Murray. AVhen news of the regent's
death reached Edinburgh, Knox was overwhelmed
with distress, for it had been through his inter-
cession that the life of the murderer had been
spared by the earl, and in a sermon on the day
following he thus poured out his heart:

" Thy image, O Lord, did so clearly shine in that
personage that the devil and the people to whom
he is prince could not abide it, and so to punish
our sins and our ingratitude thou hast permitted
him to fall, to our great grief, in the hand of cruel
and traitorous murderers. He is at rest, O Lord —
w^e are left in extreme misery.'^

As Knox was preaching at the weekly confer-
ence, he found in the pulpit a paper containing
these words : " Take up now the man whom you
accounted another God, and consider the end to
which his ambition hath brought him." During
the sermon, Knox said :

" There is one present who has thrown into the
pulpit a paper exulting over the regent's death.
That wicked man, whosoever he be, shall not go

286 JENNY QEDDES.

unpunished, and shall die where there shall be
none to lament him."

Maitland of Lethington, on his return from
church, said to his sister,

" That man is raving, to speak thus of one he
knows not."

Slie, suspecting her brother, replied with tears:
"None of that man's denunciations are wont to
prove idle/'

Maitland died in Italy, having " no known per-
son to attend him."

At the funeral of the regent, Knox preached to
a weejiing audience of three thousand persons, on
the text, '^Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord." And the General Assembly, at its meet-
ing, the month following, ordered that the assassin
be publicly excommunicated in all the chief towns
in the kingdom.

Such were now the number, power and malice
of the enemies of Knox in Edinburo^h that he was
persuaded to retire for a while to St. Andrew's;
and on his disappearance they circulated reports,
some that he would never preach again, some that
" his face was turned into his neck," and some that
he was dead.

But the fall of the Good Regent was neither the

THE CONFLICT. 287

only nor the worst calamity that befel the Church.
Foes without can be met and vanquished, but what
shall be done with covert foes within the citadel?
Greedy nobles were hungering for the income of
the Church. Several of the popish incumbents
had died, and the question now arose as to the
disposal of the funds thus freed from papal grasp.
The Church claimed that, as they had been con-
secrated to religion, they should now be employed
in supporting pastors and teachers. To this the
ignoble nobility would not listen, though as yet
they dared not openly attempt their secularization.
But where there is a will there is a way. When-
ever did avarice fail of cunning to help itself to
forbidden gold ? The credit of solving the arduous
problem belongs to James Douglas, earl of Morton,
and afterward regent. Able, ambitious, avaricious
and rapacious, he was well capable of conceiving
and executing any scheme that promised either
power or profit. Accordingly, on the death of the
popish archbishop of St. Andrew's, Morton ob-
tained a grant empowering him to dispose of the
archbishopric and its revenues. Not daring to
formally hold the benefice himself and feed his
purse with the income, he induced John Douglas,
rector of the University of St. Andrew's, to take

288 JENXY GEDDES.

the office of archbishop, with the understanding
that he, Morton, should have the lion's share of
the revenues.

Thus the way was open for the infliction upon
the Church of a set of nngodly officers, whose titles
and duties were alike disallowed by Presbyterian-
ism, and for the diversion of the ecclesiastical
revenues into secular and avaricious hands.

Through this transparent scheme Knox saw at
a single glance, and, being unable to attend the
meeting of the Assembly at Stirling, in August,
1571, he wrote to them :

"And now, brethren, because the daily decay of
natural strength threateneth my certain and sud-
den departing from the misery of this life, of love
and conscience I exhort you; in the fear of God
I charge and command you that ye take heed unto
yourselves and to the flock over which God hath
placed you overseers. Unfaithful and traitorous
to the flock shall ye be before the Lord Jesus
Christ if, with your consent directly, ye suffer un-
worthy men to be thrust into the ministry. This
battle will be hard, but in the second point it will
be harder; that is, tliat, with the like uprightness
and strength in God, ye gainstand the merciless
devourers of tlie patrimony of the Church. If

THE COy^FLICT. 289

men will spoil, let them do it to their own peril
and condemnation, but communicate ye not with
their sins by consent nor by silence; but with
})ublic proclamation make this known to the world,
that ye are innocent of the robbery whereof ye will
seek redress of God and man. God give you wis-
dom and stout courage in so just a cause!''

The Assembly sent a remonstrance to Parlia-
ment against this scheme of Morton, and loudly
protested against Douglas taking a seat in that
body as lord-bishop, on pain of excommunication.
Morton, however, whose wdll was not easily re-
sisted, secured his admission and commanded him
to vote as archbishop on pain of treason. Thus
Parliament took the first step toward the displace-
ment of Presbyterianism, which had been, under
God, the regenerator of Scotland, and the substitu-
tion of Episcopacy, which never entered the realm
but as a curse.

While thus spiritual war raged within the
Church, civil war was making havoc in the realm
without. While Parliament sat at Stirling, the
Cjueen's party, in a body about five hundred strong,
entered the town without resistance, attacked the
house where Morton was lodging, and, setting it
on fire, killed several of his servants, and at length

19

290 JENNY GEDDES.

took him prisoner, together with the regent, whom
they slew. But the governor of the castle, rallying
a few men, drove them out of the town ; and the
nobles elected John Erskine, earl of Mar, as regent.
Mar was little disposed to hostility to the Church,
but, as he had himself seized a portion of her
patrimony, and as he was also greatly under the
influence of Morton, little aid could be looked for
from him in the great struggle in which she was
now engaged.

Powerful, how^ever, as Morton was, he some-
times found himself something else than victor in
his conflicts with the Church. The tithe-collectors
of St. Andrew's having refused to pay them into
the hand of his creature Douglas, Morton secured
from the regent an injunction forbidding their col-
lecting them. But Erskine of Dun procured the
annulment of this prohibition by an earnest re-
monstrance to the regent, in which he says :

"There is a spiritual jurisdiction and power
which God has given to his Ivirk and to them
that bear office therein ; and there is a temporal
jurisdiction and power given of God to kings and
civil magistrates. Both the powers are of God,
and most agreeing to the fortifying one of the
other if they be right used. But when the cor-

THE CONFLICT. 291

ruption of man enters in, confounding the offices,
usurping to himself what he pleases, nothing re-
garding the good order appointed of God, then
confusion follows in all estates. The Kirk of
God should fortify all power and authority that
pertains to the civil magistrate, because it is the
ordinance of God. But if he pass the bounds of
his office and enter within the sanctuary of the
Lord, meddling with such things as appertain to
the ministers of God's Kirk, then the servants of
God should withstand his unjust enterprise, for so
they are commanded of God.''

The distinction here drawn between State and
Church is clear and fundamental, but it was a long
day before the precise boundaries of and relations
between these two jurisdictions was well under-
stood ; and wherever Church and State are in any
way formally united, they are of necessity, to a
most harmful degree, confounded.

Erskine, in the same letter, deplores " the great
disorder used in Stirling, in the last Parliament,
in creating bishops, placing them and giving them
a vote in Parliament, in despite of the Kirk and
high contempt of God, the Kirk opposing herself
to that disorder."

On the 12th of January, 1572, a convention of

292 JENNY GEDDES.

the superintendents and certain ministers was con-
voked by the regent at Leith to consult together
about the affairs of the Church. This convention,
mistaking its own powers, appointed a committee
to confer with the privy council, and agreed to
ratify the conchisions they might come to in ac-
cordance Avith their instructions. So difficult is it
to be always wise — so hard to see a clear way
through cloudy complications — so rarely are the
children of the kingdom true children of Issachar
that have understanding of the times, to know
what Israel ought to do ! A joint committee of
six ministers and six of the council — a self-consti-
tuted body without all authority from the Church —
undertook to settle matters of national importance
between Church and State. And they agreed upon
a subtle scheme for setting j^ip Mortonism in the
Church, by which, under unlawful ecclesiastical
forms, the patrimony of the Church might gratify
the greed of avaricious lords. The titles of arch-
bishop and bishop were to be retained, and the
bounds of dioceses to remain as in old popish
times, until the king^s majority or until Parlia-
ment should determine upon the matter ; the arch-
bishops and bishops, to be chosen by an assembly
of learned ministers, to have like jurisdiction with

THE CONFLICT. 293

the superintendents, and be subject to the General
Assembly in spiritual and to the king in secular
matters. Like arrangements were made respecting
abbacies, priories and the rest, and the holders of
the larger benefices to have place in Parliament.
This arrangement was at once confirmed by the
regent, and the Church turned into a conglomerate
of Presbytery, Prelacy and Popery.

Now the scheme of Morton was realized. Am-
bitious ecclesiastics would fill the offices, draw the
revenues and pay over the chief share to the
patrons through whose influence they came into
place.

This scheme soon received from the wits of the
day a designation which covered it with merited
ridicule, and showed how well its ends and aims
were comprehended by the popular mind. In the
Highlands it was then not uncommon to deceive
refractory cows into yielding their milk, by stuffing
the skin of a departed calf with straw and placing
it besicfe the cow as her own offspring ; and now
Janet had little difficulty in safely filling her pail.
The name given to this surreptitious calf was
Tulchan. And no sooner did the popular mind
comprehend this new procedure than it saw that
the diocese was the cow, and the bishop the stuffed

294 JENNY GEDDES.

calf, that meekly stood by while the patron filled
his pail with the revenues. Hence these ecclesias-
tical tools came to be called Tulchans.

Morton's Tulchan, Douglas, was first ordained
and installed in the archbishopric of St. Andrew's.
Knox was invited by Morton to inaugurate Doug-
las, and he replied to the invitation by anathema-
tizing both Douglas and Morton ; and in the As-
sembly which met at St. Andrew's the following
month he entered his protest against the election
of Douglas, and " opposed himself directly to the
making of bishops."

Patrick Adamson said that there were three
sorts of bishops — "my lord bishop, my lord's
bishop and the Lord's bishop. My lord bishop
was in the papistrie, my lord's bishop is now when
my lord gets the benefice, and the bishop serves
for nothing but to make his title sure, and the
Lord's bishop is the true minister of the gospel."

In August, the Assembly met at Perth and
passed the Leith aiTangement under consideration,
and protested that the heads of articles therein
should be received only as an interim, till farther
order be obtained from the king, regent and no-
bility, for which they would press as occasion
served. This, however, was rather a bowing be-

THE CONFLICT. 295

fore the storm than a manly, indignant opposition,
and the poor Church reaped the harvest of their
cowardice.

To this Assembly, Knox — now near the end of
his career — addressed a farewell letter, replete with
solemn counsel and wholesome advice, thouo^h he
abstained from advising them to a course of oppo-
sition to the articles of Leith, for which he knew
their courage and ability inadequate.

And now another calamity befel the Church, in
the elevation of Morton, the originator of Tulchan-
ism, to the regency on the death of Mar, who was
worn out with the anxieties and toils of guiding
the ship of state during the dark, stormy period
of disorder and civil war.

But the greatest sorrow of all — as it at the same
time deprived the Church of her Elijah and left a
timid, time-serving ministry in the hands of Ahab,
in the person of the regent — was the death of
Knox. ^lorton was scarcely seated in the regency
when Knox was laid in his grave. For long he
had been sighing, " Call for me, dear brethren,
that God in his mercy will please to put an end
to my long and painful battle. For now, being
unable to fight, I thirst an end before I be more
troublesome to the faithful ; and yet, Lord, let my

296 JENNY GEDDES.

desire be moderated by thy Holy Spirit. The day
approaches, and is now before the door, for which I
have frequently and vehemently thirsted, when I
shall be released from my great labours and innu-
merable sorrows, and shall be with Christ. And
now, God is my witness, whom I have served in
the spirit in the gospel of his Son, that I have
taught nothing but the true and solid doctrine of
the gospel of the Son of God, and have had it for
my only object to instruct the ignorant, to confirm
the faithful, to comfort the weak, the fearful and
the distressed by the promises of his grace, and to
fight against the proud and rebellious by the divine
threaten ings." Go tell Grange, once courageous
and constant, that " John Knox remains the same
man now that he is about to die that ever he knew
him when able in body, and wills him to consider
what he was and the estate in which he now
stands, which is a great part of his trouble."

To Morton, he said :

^' Well, God has beautified you with many bene-
fits which he has not given to every man. And
therefore, in the name of God, I charge you to use
all these benefits aright, and better in time to come
than ye have done in times bypast. If ye shall do
so, God shall bless you and honour you ; but if ye

THE CONFLICT. 297

do it not, God shaH spoil you of these benefits, and
your end shall be ignominy and shame."

On the 21st of November, three days before his
death, he spoke at intervals such words as these :

"Come, Lord Jesus. Sweet Jesus, into thy
hands I commend my spirit. Be merciful, Lord,
to thy Church which thou hast redeemed. Give
peace to this afflicted commonwealth. Raise up
faithful pastors. Grant us, Lord, the perfect hatred
of sin. Oh serve the Lord in fear, and death shall
not be terrible to you. Nay, blessed shall death
be to those who have felt the power of the death
of the only begotten Son of God."

On Sabbath, the 23d, he said:

" If any be present, let them come and see the
work of God. I have fought against spiritual
wickedness in heavenly things and have prevailed.
I have been in heaven and have possession. I
have tasted the heavenly joys where presently
I am."

Monday, November 24, 1572, was his last day
on earth. When asked if he felt pain, he replied :

" It is no painful pain, but such a pain as shall
soon, I trust, put end to the battle." He asked
his wife to read the fifteenth chapter of first Cor-
inthians ; on hearing which, he said ;

298 JENNY GEDDES.

"Is not that a comfortable chapter? Oh what
sweet and salutary consolation the Lord hath af-
forded me from that chapter !'^ About five o'clock
he said to his wife :

" Go, read where I cast my first anchor ;" when
she read the seventeenth chapter of John's gospel.
At ten o'clock prayer was offered, and he was
asked if he heard it. He answered :

" Would to God that you and all men heard as
I heard. I praise God for the heavenly sound."
About eleven he gave a deep sigh, and said, " Now
it is come." Being now speechless, he was re-
quested to give a sign that he was supported by
the promises, and he lifted one of his hands and
died without a struo-crle.

A vast concourse of the people and all the no-
bility in the city attended his funeral ; and, at the
grave, the regent Morton said, " There lies he who
never feared the face of man."

The departure of Knox was a blow to the
Church, under which "it reeled and staggered like
a storm-tossed vessel when the pilot's hand has
ceased to guide the rudder," while the same event
gave new life to Morton, who fancied that there
was no one left for him to fear. Taking the im-
perious, selfish Elizabeth of England for his ex-

THE CONFLICT. 299

ample, lie proceeded to deal with the Scotch eccle-
siastics as she dealt with her bishops. Finding
that Presbyterian elders are much less easily man-
ageable than prelatic bishops, he set himself to
change the whole ecclesiastical system into a pliant,
serviceable prelacy. The road to this lay through
the multiplication of tulchan bishops, and filling
church offices with unprincipled sycophants ; and
along this road he steadily walked. And at the
same time, to reduce the power of the Church and
increase his own, and also — a matter of chief aim
with him — to enrich himself, he drew into his
own hands the thirds of the benefices, promising
to pay the pastors hiuiself. And then he joined
two, sometimes three, and sometimes four parishes
together, and through his pliant tools, the tulchans,
he appointed one minister to preach in each by
turns, paying one salary and pocketing the rest.

Against this wickedness the Assembly remon-
strated more or less energetically, and did what
it could to exercise control over the tulchaus. In
this struggle the Scotch spirit rose somewhat, and
the Assembly remonstrated earnestly with the re-
gent, and placed the tulchan bishop of Dunkeld
under censure for improper conduct. The rigour
of these measures was largely due to one on whom

300 JEKNY GEDDES.

the mantle of the departing Knox had fallen —
Andrew Melville.

TI1£: lUELVILLES,

The truest test of doctrines and principles is
their influence on men, their character, and thence
on their conduct. By their fruits shall ye know
them. For man is very largely what the contents
of his mind make him. Physically, he is some-
what the creature of climate; mentally, he is some-
what as his physical nature provides for and allows.
But this is true only as to the intrinsic character
of his powers. And whatever these be, they are
at first mere capabilities, without either skill to
act or tools to work with. Tools and skill must
come by exercise upon things without. The cater-
pillar will weave of itself and out of itself a mar-
vellous cocoon, but not until it has fed liberally
upon the leaves that form its appropriate food.
And the human mind, however naturally endowed,
can put forth nothing worthy either of itself or its
Creator until it has gone forth in the exercise of
its powers and fed upon the truths that offer them-
selves for its action. These truths, gathered up
and stored away in the mind and there digested by
meditation, develop the powers and put into their

THE CONFLICT. 301

hands the materials with wliich it may erect its
structures, and form the enginery with which to
subdue other minds to its own way of thinking,
and thus mould and shape the actings of society.
The larger this store of truths acquired and mas-
tered, and the greater their intrinsic magnitude,^
the more truly is the possessor a man.

Nature is a vast volume of truths, well worthy
our study, for they all come from God. But if
light from created objects is bright and life-giving,
how much more that which rays into the mind
from God, the luminous centre of all ! If it en-
larges and elevates the mind to study the creature,
how much more to study God I Thus religion is
one of the most efficient of educators. " But if the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness !" To substitute for God something that
is not God, whether a creature of God or of the
perverted imagination — a dream, a nonentity — and
with it eno-ross the hiij^hest faculties of the soul, is
at once to cheat the spirit with delusions and to
dwarf instead of develop and enlarge its powers.

One of the many charges that reason and re-
ligion lay at the door of Romanism is, that it keeps
the people out of the fruitful fields of truth, and
Bends them forth to starve in the dry, herbless

302 JENNY GEDDES.

deserts of error and human dreams. Visit any
province where it works its unhindered will, and
■what grovelling worms they become ! But Pro-
testantism withdrew Luthers, Zwinglis and Cal-
vins from mumbling masses, counting beads and
kneeling before pictures and images, and confront-
ing their minds with the grand verities of revela-
tion, converted them into kings unto God.

And for the people of no country did the Refor-
mation a greater work than for those of Scotland.
From the beginning there was not wanting in that
land of cloud and storm, wild glen, rock and
mountain, a natural intellectual energy second to
that of no other country ; but not only had Roman-
ism taken no step for its development — not only
had it suffered the masses to lie enveloped in igno-
rance— but in its grovelling mummeries had en-
feebled, degraded and dwarfed their powers. But
the era of the Reformation there was the era of
men. The play of its vast and mighty truths upon
the mind of her commons advanced them into the
condition of a j^^ople, endowing them with intelli-
gence, developing their acuteness and harnessing
their energies to the car of truth. And the hitherto
despotic nobles soon learned that a power was
growing into existence which must in future be

THE CONFLICT. 303

consulted in matters in which it was expected to
bear a part, and which not unfrequently laid a re-
sistless prohibition upon aristocratic turbulence
and crime. And not unfrequently, when the sa-
gacity of king and nobles, and even of some of the
time-serving ministers, was at fault, that of the new
Protestant people discerned a plain path of pro-
gress. And here and there noble forms arose
above the common mass, and became the Elijahs
and Elishas of their day ; and among many other
such were the Melvilles, Andrew and James, uncle
and nephew.

Andrew was born in 1545, the youngest of nine
sons. When only two years of age his father fell
in battle, and his mother dying soon after, he was
left to the care of his oldest brother, Richard, who,
with his wife, acted the parent to the parentless
child. Of weakly habit of body, he displayed un-
common energy of mind, and was enabled through
his brother's aid to pursue a course of liberal edu-
cation. At the age of fourteen he entered St.
Mary's College of the University of St. Andrew's,
and, at the close of his course there was pro-
nounced the ^^ best philosopher, poet and Grecian
of any young master in the land." Having ac-
quired what learning he could at home, at the age

304 JENNY QEDDES.

of nineteen he went to France, and spent two years
at the University of Paris, wlien that institution
was at the height of its prosperity. Thence he
went to Poictiers, where he was at once made re-
gent of the College of St. Marceon. Three years
after we find him at Geneva, in the chair of Hu-
manity at the Academy. Here he rose to distinc-
tion as an Oriental scholar; studied law under
some of the most famous teachers of the time ;
thoroughly discussed the great questions of civil
government, and there drank in those doctrines
of republicanism, civil and religious, which in after
years in Scotland he so ably and faithfully illus-
trated. Here, also, he formed the acquaintance of
many of the master spirits of the day, and a life-
long attachment to his noble friend, Theodore
Beza. In 1574, at the urgent request of his
friends, he returned to Scotland — when King
James was eight years old and INIorton was re-
gent— bearing a letter from Beza to the General
Assembly, in which his friend wrote tliat Melville
was equally distinguished for piety and erudition,
and that the Church of Geneva could give no
stronger proof of its affection for her sister Church
in Scotland than by suffering herself to be bereaved
of him, that his native country might be enriched

THE CONFLICT. 305

with Ills gifts. Here he was soon appointed by
the General Assembly principal of Glasgow Col-
lege, where, by his talents, energy and success, he
made himself felt and admired throughout the
kingdom. Distinguished as he was for scholar-
ship, he became even more distinguished for his
knowledge of theological and ecclesiastical prin-
ciples, as taught in the Word of God and illus-
trated in the Genevan Church. Master also of a
strong voice, a fluent elocution, a cogent, incisive
diction, and great dialectic skill, and of great ar-
dour of mind, what he knew he could so utter as
not only to leave his hearers in no doubt as to his
meaning, but also to work conviction in even un-
willing and prejudiced minds. Though low of
stature and slender in person, he possessed great
physical energy, and, as will be seen, was able,
when aroused, by his amazing intrepidity, to over-
awe even the bad, imperious Morton, the inflated
king and any number of noble sycophants who
clung about the court. And withal he was, next
to Knox, the great champion of Presbyterianism,
and of such zeal and ability in this cause that he
was wont to be called the episcopomastix — the
bishop-scourger.

James Melville was about ten years the junior

20

306 JENXY GEDDES.

of his uncle ; the son of Richard, that brother of
Andrew to wliom the latter was indebted for a
home and an education. Living in the same house,
uncle and nephew came to love each other with a
true fraternal affection, and James clung to his
uncle Andrew Avith unswerving fidelity through
all the hardships of a most eventful career, and
left on record many of the facts we know respect-
ing him. Entering college, the youth was so over-
come to find that he could not understand the lec-
tures delivered in Latin that he burst into tears,
seeing which the regent took him in charge and
put him in the way of soon mastering the diffi-
culty. Hearing Knox preach at Aberdeen, he re-
solved to enter the pulj)it. This being contrary to
the wishes of his father, he wrote a sermon and
placed it Avhcre he knew his father would find it,
and by this stratagem succeeded in his desires. In
physical stature and cast of countenance he strik-
ingly resembled his uncle, though in talents and
learning he was inferior, and in temper of spirit
the two differed as Luther and Melancthon.
James was mild in disposition and courtly in
demeanour. Guilelessly' upright and conscien-
tious, he was true as steel in his fidelity to his
friends and to the cause of his Master. These

THE COyFLICT. 307

two men we shall often encounter in the stirring
scenes of subsequent history.

The Assembly which met in March, 1575, found
again its courage, and with its courage its strength
reviving : it passed an act requiring the knowledge
of Latin in every person appointed to a benefice,
for the tulchan bishops had already sanctioned the
introduction of even servants and children as hold-
ers of benefices. The convention of estates, tired
of the unsettled condition of ecclesiastical affairs,
urged that some definite scheme be fixed upon to
remove the perplexing uncertainties constantly re-
sulting in controversy and collision ; and the regent
sent to the Assembly a demand that they ratify the
Leith system or draw up a jilan upon which
they would unite and by which they were will-
ing to abide. They accordingly appointed a com-
mittee to frame an outline of policy and discipline,
and report the result to them, for even the bold
Morton did not venture to impose a system upon
the Church.

In the Assembly in August the question as to
bishops was taken up and discussed; and Melville
asked:

" Have bishops, as they are now in Scotland,
their functions from the Word of God or not?

308 jEyyY geddes.

and ought the chapters appointed for electing them
to be tolerated in a Reformed Church?

" He was satisfied/' he said, '^ that jirelacy had
no foundation in Scripture, and that its tendency
was extremely doubtful, if not necessarily hurtful.
The words bishop and presbyter are interchange-
ably used in the New Testament, and the popular
arguments for episcopacy are founded on ignorance
of the original language of Scripture. It was the
opinion of Jerome and other Fathers that all min-
isters of the gospel were at first equal, and that the
superiority of bishops originated in custom and not
in divine appointment.

" The same principles which justify, and the
same measures which led to the extension of the
bishop's power over all the pastors of a diocese,
will justify and lead to the establishment of an
archbishop, metropolitan or patriarch over a pro-
vince or kingdom, and of a universal bishop or
pope over the whole Christian world.

'^ The maintenance of the hierarchy in England
he could not but consider as one cause of the rarity
of preaching, the poverty of the lower orders of
the clergy, pluralities, want of discipline and other
abuses, which had produced dissensions and heart-
burnings in that flourishing kingdom. And he

THE CONFLICT. 309

was convinced that the best and only way of re-
dressing grievances in Scotllind was to strike at
the root of the evil by abolishing prelacy and re-
storing that parity of work and authority which
existed at the beginning among all the pastors of
the Church.'^

Thus spoke the episcopomastix, and his words
Avent deep into many minds. Knox was still
alive ! But on this subject the yet too timid As-
sembly dared no very decided reply. Morton now
used his utmost endeavours to shut the mouth of
Melville. It was little to be rid of Knox if his
successor was to stand in his place. Accordingly,
he plied Melville with courtesies and bribes. He
oifered him the living of Govan, and then, on the
death of Douglas, Archbishop of St. Andrew^s, he
offered him that tulchanship. He would have
given him anything but the regency and the Church
revenues, both of which he wanttxl for himself.
But he found that he could no more easily cajole
than he could daunt the honest, intrepid Melville.

In the next Assembly the question of Melville
respecting the title of bishop was partially answered
as follows : ^' The name of bishop is common to all
who are appointed to take charge of a particular
flock in preaching the Word, administering sacra-

310 JENNY GEDDES.

ments and exercising discipline with the consent
of their elders, and ' this is their chief function
according to the Word of God." To the discus-
sions on this subject six tulchan bishops listened,
and had no word to say in defence of the titles
they bore, themselves well knowing, and knowing
that all others knew, that the prelatic feathers they
wore were the gaudy decorations of sycophants,
who, while disloyal to their Church, fawned on
wicked worldly lords, and were the mere channels
through which the money of the Church flowed
into the coffers of their masters.

The Church and the regent soon came again
into collision. Adamson, who had spoken so sar-
castically about " my lord's bishop," when the oppor-
tunity presented itself to him of becoming a lord's
bishop, could not resist the temptation, and, on
Morton's presentation, accepted the archbishop-
ric of St. Andrew's. The Assembly required him
to submit to their examination. He refused because
his master forbade. The Assembly then forbade
the chapter to proceed in the matter, and the chap-
ter proceeded in spite of the Assembly's prohibit
tion. Then, at the meeting in April, 1577, it in-
terdicted his lordship from the exercise of his tul-
ehanshlp until regularly admitted by the Church,

THE COSFLICT. 311

and a commission was appointed to summon him
before it and adjudicate upon his case.

The regent, having failed to bribe, now attempted
to intimidate Melville. The former complained
that the Church was kept in confusion by certain
persons bent on introducing their own fancies and
foreign laws. The latter replied that he and his
brethren took Scripture, and not fancy, for their
guide. Morton said that the Assembly was a body
of the king's subjects, and that it was treasonable
for them to meet without his permission. Melville
replied that if this were so, then Christ and his
apostles were guilty of treason, for they called to-
gether great crowds and taught them without per-
mission of the magistrates. Morton, biting the
head of his staff, growled, in that deep undertone
which marked his occasional fits of cold, black,
ruthless anger, "There will never be quietness in
this country till half a dozen of you be hanged or
banished.''

"Tush, sir!" answered Melville; "threaten your
courtiers after that manner ! It is the same to me
whether I rot in the air or in the ground. The
earth is the Lord's. My country is wherever good-
ness is. I have been ready to give my life where
it would not Ije half so Avell expended. Let God

312 JEXSY GEDDES.

be glorified ; it will not be in your power to liang
or exile his truth." Knox was dead, but Morton
mio;ht sav ao^ain, "Here is one that does not fear the
face of man !''

Knowing that others would catch this spirit, the
regent dissembled with the Assembly in regard to
their new book of policy, but he got his tulchan
Adamson to frame a series of captious questions, to
which he demanded their rei)ly. But by this time
he had made himself so odious by his avarice and
tyranny to the mass of the people and of the no-
bility that the earls of Argyle and Athol induced
the young king to call a council of the nobility at
Stirling to consider the condition of affairs, to which
council only the enemies of Morton were invited.
Paralyzed by the knowledge of his crimes and the
consequent strength of his foes, he wrote to the
king, begging to be alloAved to resign the regency.
Delighted at this turn of affairs, tlic council deter-
mined that his resignation should be accepted, and
that the king, now twelve years old, should assume
the reins of government. Hardly, however, had
Morton sent his resignation than he regretted it ;
but it was now too late to mend the matter, for the
young king, flattered with the suggestion of the
council, accepted it, because he said he saw no other

THE CONFLICT. 313

way througli tlie complicated disorders of the realm.
The king, however, gave him a full pardon, and
declared him incapable of being accused and brought
to trial for anything he had done, the nobility
pledging themselves, under a bond of five hundred
thousand pounds, to procure a ratification of this
pardon and assurance at the first meeting of Par-
liament. Thus fell this bold, unscrupulous, tyran-
nical regent, and the State and the Church passed,
on the sixth of March, 1578, under the sway of
King James VI.

JAMES VI.

King James was a man whom Presbyterianism
can never forget, and never remember but with
mingled contempt and indignation. His father
was the wicked, silly, wretched Darnley. His
mother was the beautiful, accomplished, licentious
Mary Queen of Scots. Pie was born during that
fearful period of her life between the murder of
'Rizzio and the murder by her and Both well of her
husband. He was baptized according to Romish
forms. He was reared amidst the smoke and bat-
tle of ever-blazing civil war. That he should be-
come something very good, very bad or very great,
there was no little reason to expect. And during

314 JKNNY GEDDES.

his early years there were some signs of promise
and liope. Before his mother's marriage with
Bothwell, he was committed to the custody of the
earl of Mar in Stirling castle, where he was kept
durino: successive retj^encies to the time of his sue-
cession to the throne at the age of tAvelve; his edu-
cation conducted, under the direction of Alex-
ander Erskine, by George Buchanan, a man of won-
derful versatility of talent, of varied and profound
learning, aided by three others of the most distin-
guished scholars in Scotlajid. Such advantages
probably made of the royal youth all that the ma-
terial was capable of. ^^He discovered an aptitude
for tlie languages,*' and outstripped most youths of
his age in general knowledge. But his manhood
soon dissipated all hope of good. Excessively vain,
he was ahvavs boastino^ of his kino;craft. He was un-
gainly in person and a boor in manners, and deficient
in personal courage, '^stammering, slabbering, shed-
ding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword,
and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and
a pedagogue. Of dignity and elevation of mind
he had no conception. His tastes, opinions and
habits were alike low and vulgar.'' Without vigour
of mind or any attribute of statesmanship, he had
not sense enough to refrain from pretentious claims

THE COXFLICT. 315

to authority wliioh lie had no power to enforce.
Utterly perfidious, he was a low despot. In his
books, "The Free Law of Free Monarchies'^ and
"Basilicon Doron," he claimed that a free mon-
archy is the government of a free and absolute
monarch, in which the will of the sovereign is above
all law, and that a principal part of his function
consisted in ruling the Church.

Such was the character now under course of de-
velopment with which the Church was destined to
deal.

The commission appointed to prepare a complete
system of discipline reported to the Assembly, in
April, 1578, and the report having been carefully
considered and discussed was adopted by the As-
sembly, and became the well-known "Second
Book of Discipline/' and from that time it has
been the authorized standard of the Church of
Scotland. The Assembly also ordered that "the
bishops'' be henceforth addressed in the same style
as other ministers, and that, in case of vacancy, the
chapters should elect no other till their next meet-
ing. It was also ordered that the book be laid
before the king and council ; and commissioners
were appointed to conduct any conference that
might be desired. Perhaps, in their circumstances,

316 JENNY GEDDES.

it was necessary to seek the royal signature to their
book as a defence against worldly, Avicked nobles.
But in our day we cannot help feeling that a more
bold and decided course, asserting what they would
adhere to without reference to the secular power,
would have been wiser and safer.

In the following June the Assembly did what
they should, as we think, have done long before —
in forbidding from thenceforth all election of
men to the unscriptural, and in Scotland illegal,
office of bishop. It further ordained that those in
office should submit to the Assembly in matters
relating to " the corruption of that estate of bishops
in their own persons under pain of being excom-
municated." To this the so-called bishop of Dun-
blane at once submitted.

The result of the conference between the Church
commissioners and those of the Parliament re-
specting the Book of Discipline was, on the whole,
satisfactory, and the Parliament then sitting at
Stirling ratified and approved all the acts and
statutes previously made, agreeably to God's Word,
for the maintenance of the " true Kirk of God.''

But now a dark shadow fell upon the Church.
Morton reappeared upon the scene and was taken
into favour by the king, who was always a mere

THE CONFLICT. 317

chameleon, taking on the hues of tlie persons and
circnimstances immediately around him. Through
his influence, the changeful monarch arrested the
Assembly in its exercise of discipline upon the
tulchan bishops, and fl)rbade them to proceed to
excommunication for disorder and disobedience.
But the next Assembly took its rightful stand, and,
while remonstrating with his majesty against his
interference with their inherent rights, proceeded
with its work. Thus Presbyterian republicanism
stood face to face with wilful monarchy. The next
Parliament sustained the Assembly.

But tlie veteran sinner, Morton, acquired a dis-
astrous influence over the weak and fickle king,
and by flattery made himself potent among the
intriguing, wire-pulling courtiers. With Morton,
Esme Stewart, duke of Lennox — brought up ia
France a Romanist, but now a nominal Protest-
ant— and Captain James Stewart, afterward earl
of Arran, a bold, licentious, crafty, criminal, am-
bitious politician, shared in the control of the
royal puppet.

Seeing how things stood, the Assembly passed
an act declaring the pseudo-prelacy illegal and des-
titute of all warrant in the Word of God, a mere
human invention, introduced by folly and corrup-

318 JENNY OEDDES.

tion, and tending to injury; and ordered all holders
of such pretended office to resign their positions,
and appointed the places and times at which they
should appear before the provincial synods and
signify their submission to this act. This act was
passed, after full discussion, without one dissenting
voice. The mantle of Knox had now fallen on the
Assembly. And such is the majesty and miglit
of courage, when on the side of right, before the
year closed the whole tribe of tulchans, with the
exception of five, had submitted.

In 1581, the Assembly, without waiting longer
on king, council and Parliament, ordained that
the Secoxd Book of Disciplixe be formally
registered among the permanent laws of the
Church, and copies thereof to be taken by each
of the presbyteries. Feeling the influence of the
Assembly, as James always felt every wind that
blew, he requested it, through his commissioner,
to bring the ecclesiastical discipline into more
effective exercise over the realm, and the Assembly
at once erected thirteen presbyteries, and recom-
mended the early extension of the system over the
kingdom. Thus unwittingly did James help to
build the walls he afterward sought in vain to
overthrow.

THE COSFLICT. 319

The Assembly also ratified ^' Cralg^s Confession
of Faith'^ — known also as " The First National
Covenant of ScoflancV^ — as an open protest against
the more or less open hostility of the duke of Len-
nox and other nobles to Presbyterian ism. This
covenant was signed by the king, his household,
and by the greater part of the nobility and gentry
of tlie realm.

In that great standard, the Second Book of
Discipline, it is asserted that Christ has ap-
pointed a government in his Church distinct from
that of the State — to be exercised not by civil,
but bv ecclesiastical officers ; that civil ijovernment
exists for the promotion of external peace, ecclesias-
tical for the direction of men in matters of re-
ligion; that both should co operate with and for-
tify each other; that in external matters, ministers
are subject to the State, in religious matters magis-
trates are subject, like other men, to the Church.
It divides the management of church affairs iwto
three branches — doctrine, discipline and distribu-
tion: for the first, preachers are ordained; for the
second, ruling elders with the preachers; and, for
the third, deacons to manage the benevolent and
other funds of the Church. The name bishop
is equally applicable to all pastors. These office-

320 JEN2sY GEDDES.

bearers are to be admitted by election and ordina-
lion, and none to be obtruded upon the people
contrary to their will. The ruling officers are to
be grouped first into presbyteries, for inspection
and discipline of the churches within their bounds;
second, into synods, which include more or fewer
presbyteries, and are larger presbyteries ; and, ovei
all, the General Assembly, composed of commis-
sioners, ministers and elders, to represent and act
for the Church as a whole. Appeals may lie from
the loAvest through all above to the highest court,
the General Assembly, from which there is no ap-
peal. The Assembly may meet at its own option
as to time and ])]ace. The patrimony of the
Church includes what has l)een appropriated to
her use, to divert whicli to secular purposes is a
crime. Besides these matters various abuses are
specified as needing removal.

Such is the thoroughly scriptural and presby-
terial form of government and discipline adopted
by the mind and into the heart of Scotland, and
Avhich, when wrested from the people by violence,
has always been regrasped when better days came
and circumstances allowed. It has been hated by
men in proportion to the worldliness and wicked-
ness of their heart and character, and loved in

THE CONFLICT. 321

proportion as they have loved Christ and his
cause.

It was therefore, of course, hated and dreaded
by King James and his unscrupulous courtiers,
and by those ^^ cringing sycophants, the tulchan
bishops." For under it the bishops lost their
lordly titles, the avaricious nobles the rich gains
of tulchanism, and the king his despotic mastery
over the Church. Hence they resolved to measure
strength with tlie Assembly when opportunity
should offer, and it soon offered ; for, in June,
of this very year, Boyd, archbishoj) (so called) of
Glasgow, died, and the duke of Lennox secured
from the council a grant of the revenues. But for
this he must have a tulchan; and after some
searching Lenox found a creature '^reckless and
knavish" enough to serve the turn, in the person
of one Robert Montgomery, minister of Stirling —
a 'Wain, feeble, presumptuous" man — who stooped
to become the " base instrument of a licentious
courtier's sacrilegious avarice."

The Assembly interposed, called Montgomery to
its bar, forbade him to accept the office and ordered
him not to leave his charge at Stirling, and remit-
ted the case to the Presbytery of Stirling to be
dealt with according to its merits.

21

322 JENXY GEDDES.

But the lords were not to be so easily beaten at
their game, and tlie Synod of Lothian was cited
before the privy council for interfering with Mont-
gomery in obedience to the Assembly. They ap-
peared and protested their readiness to yield all
lawful obedience to the government, but declined
the judgment of the council as incompetent to act
in a case purely ecclesiastical.

In April, 1582, the Assembly met and were en-
countered by a mandate from his majesty forbid-
ding them to proceed against Montgomery. They
answered, like men, that they must do their duty.
Then came the king's messenger-at-arms, com-
manding them to desist on pain of rebellion. They
responded to the despotic mandate by ratifying the
sentence of the presbytery snspcnding Montgomery
from the ministry, and by finding eight (charges
against him proved, and declaring him liable to
deposition and excommunication. Upon this the
wretched culprit hastened to the Assembly, and,
acknowledging that he had offended against God
and the Church, begged that the sentence might
not be pronounced, and promised to play the tul-
chan no more. The sentence was accordingly sus-
pended, and the Presbytery of Glasgow was charged
to watch the conduct of Montgomery, and, if he

THE COyFLICT. 323

violated his promise^ to appoint one of their num-
ber to proceed with the excommunication. How-
refreshing to see Presbyterianism truly itself in the
presence of civil despotism !

But the contest was not yet over; for on the ad-
journment of the Assembly, Montgomery, not able
to withstand the temptation to the dignity within his
reach, broke his promise; and when the Presl)ytery
of Glasgow met to pronounce the penalty, he, w^ith
an order from the king to stay their proceedings,
entered the house at the head of an armed force,
and, when the presbytery refused to obey the order,
dragged the moderator from his seat, beat him and
cast him into prison. But the presbytery Avent on
notwithstanding, found him guilty and transmitted
the result to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, which
pronounced the sentence and published it in all
surrounding churches.

A proclamation from the council pronounced the
excommunication null and void. The ministers of
Edinburgh were insulted, and John Dury banished
from the capital and forbidden to preach.

But these tyrannical measures, instead of break-
ing the spirit of the Church, only increased their
courage and resolution. An extraordinary meeting
of the Assembly convened and transmitted to the

324 JEXNY GEDDES.

youthful tyrant on the throne a manly remonstrance,
in which they said :

" Your majesty, by device of some councillors, is
caused to take upon you a spiritual power and au-
thority which properly belongeth unto Christ, as
only King and Head of the Church, the ministry
and execution whereof is only given unto such as
bear office in the ecclesiastical government in the
same. So that in your highness' person some men
press to erect a new popedom, as though your high-
ness could not be full king and head of this com-
monwealth unless as well the spiritual as temporal
sword be put into your highness' hands — unless
Christ be bereft of his authority, and the two juris-
dictions confounded which God hath divided, which
directly tendeth to the wreck of all true religion."

With such bold and honest plainness could Pres-
byterianism speak to the king upon his throne !
This remonstrance was put into the hands of Mel-
ville and others to present to the king. Such was
the indignation of the courtiers when informed of
these proceedings that many people feared for the
lives of the deputation, and some begged them not
to venture into the lion's den. But Melville an-
swered :

^' I am not afraid, thank God, nor feeble-spirited

THE CONFLICT. 325

in the cause and message of Christ; come what
God pleases to send, our commission shall be exe-
cuted."

When they had read their remonstrance to the
king in council, Arran, with a fierce frown upon his
wicked brow, looked over the assembly and ex-
claimed :

" Who dares subscribe these treasonable articles?"

^' AVe dare !" said Melville, and walking up to
the table, put down his name, and in this was at
once followed by the other commissioners.

The scowl on Arran's face sunk at once from that
of ^^domineering sternness" to that of awed and
" baffled malice." The commission was dismissed,
and certain Englishmen present were amazed at
the bold front of the men of God, and could hardly
believe that armed men were not at hand to defend
them.

When they were gone, a warrant was given to
Lennox to hold a chamberlain's court at Edin-
burgh, to ^' inquire into the late sedition and have
its authors duly punished.''

Darkness seemed now gathering over the Church.
The king, in the hands of the ungodly Arran and
Lennox, seemed ready to follow their counsels even
to blood.

S^B JEXXY GEDDES.

But while man proposetL, God disposeth. Again,
as so often in the history of the Church of Scotland,
the wickedness of its foes spent itself upon them-
selves. While Presbyterianism was battling it for
God and his cause, the nobles were maliciously in-
triguing against one another. The wicked Mor-
ton, after regaining his power, at last fell into the
hands of the merciless Arran and was brought to
execution, saying, in almost the very words of Wol-
sey, " Had I been as careful to serve my God as I
was to serve the king's weal, I had not been brought
to the point I am to-day." But Arran and Len-
nox had made themselves as odious to the great
body of the nobles as Morton was to them ; and
their turn was now to come. Stimulated by the
heroic boldness of the ministers, the Protestant no-
bles shook off their cowardly supineness, and re-
solved to rescue the king from the grasp of these
two corrupt favourites. Accordingly, they came
upon his majesty as he was engaged in hunting,
and invited him to Ruthven Castle. The king un-
suspectingly complied. But when, the next morn-
ing, he prepared to betake himself again to the field,
the nobles met him and presented a memorial
against the tyrannical conduct of the favourites.
The king answered graciously, and was about still

THE CONFLICT. 327

to go forth to his sport when he was informed that
he must remain where he was. Upon this he
threatened, expostulated and burst into tears. To
his tears the Master of Glammis answered :

*' It is no matter of your tears ; better bairns
weep than bearded men."

Hearing of the " Raid of Ruthven," Lennox set
out full of arrogance, and, narrowly escaping an
ambush on the way, reached Ruthven Castle, at-
tended by a single servant. Here he would have
been slain upon the spot but for the intercession
of the earl of Gowrie, and he was permitted to re-
tire, and soon went to France and died of fatigue or
chagrin, or both together. Arran was sent to con-
finement in Stirling Castle. The king, as usual,
submitted to circumstances, and issued a declaration
that he was under no restrictions — that the lords
had done good service to himself and the common-
wealth. A proclamation was also issued annulling
all the late despotic measures and staying all hos-
tile proceedings against the Church. Thus the
chamberlain's court was not held, and the heroism
of Melville and his compeers was abundantly re-
warded.

When the Assembly next met, the lords connected
with the Raid of Ruthven sent to them a deputa-

328 JENNY GEDDES.

tioii to explain tlie grounds of their conduct, assert-
ing, one and all, that they were moved thereto by
the evident dangers gathering around both Church
and State, and asked their approval. Before reply-
ing, the Assembly sent to the king to know his
judgment in the matter. The king having an-
swered that in his opinion religion and his owji
person had been in peril, and that it was the duty
of all to unite in their rescue and in reforming the
commonwealth, they passed an act declaring their
approbation of the enterprise.

The Assembly then entered upon the trial and
deposition of the corrupt prelates, and the wretched
Montgomery again submitted, begging pardon and
reinstalment in the Church and ministry. The
convention of the estates soon met, and in the fullest
manner sanctioned the Raid of E-uthven and relieved
its participants from all actions, civil or criminal,
against them in the matter.

For the present all was quiet, and the Church
was encouraged by the king to go forward in the
work of reformation. It seemed as if the Court
and the Church were henceforth to be as one, and
the morning star of hope shone brightly out upon
the sky.

THE CONFLICT. 329

CX O VDS—STOJRM—S TTNSHINE.

True to his constitutional fickleness and hypoc-
risy, James continued for a while to smile on the
Church, while at the same time he chafed under
the restraints of her pure doctrine and scriptural
discipline, and longed for the companionship of
those who, while they corrupted his morals, fed his
vain soul with honeyed flatteries. In our day a
royal smile goes for what it is worth, but then
even Scotchmen had not yet shaken off the tradi-
tional semi-superstitious regards for the purple.
Hence the Protestants allowed themselves to be
so beguiled by the king's apparent friendliness as
to relax their vigilance and leave an open door for
the execution of his subtle designs.

Having secretly invited such lords as he thought
he could trust to meet him at St. Andrew's, he
slipped quietly away thither, took possession of
the castle, and then, contrary to the advice of his
best friends, he invited the return of the infamous
Arran and threw himself into his arms. The
worst enemy of both Church and nation was now
once more in power. So suddenly did the bright
skies gather blackness ! An insidious pardon was
offered to the actors in the ^^ Raid of Ruthven,"

830 JENNY GEDDES.

whose conduct had been formally approved by the
king, nobles and the General Assembly, on con-
dition that they submit with repentance and con-
fession ! Then they were required, by a new pro-
clamation, to surrender themselves prisoners, and
all who refused were denounced as rebels. Arran
soon got himself appointed governor of Stirling
Castle, and induced the poor silly king to take up
his residence there, and thus put himself under the
full personal control of this wicked earl. Hos-
tilities were commenced also against the Church.
Andrew Melville was cited before the privy council
for certain alleged treasonable expressions. He
appeared and proved his innocence. But they,
proceeding to a formal trial, Melville protested
that, as a minister, he should be first tried by his
brethren. This reply angered the king and made
Arran furious. But Melville was not a man to
quail in the presence of despots. Unclasping his
Hebrew Bible from his girdle, he threw it upon
the table, saying:

'' These are my instructions ; see if any of you
can judge of them or show that I have passed
my injunctions."

Seeing that he could not be frightened into tho
withdrawal of his protest, they found him guilty

THE CONFLICT. 331

of declining the judgment of the council and of
behaving Irreverently before them, and condemned
him to Imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle, and to
be punished In person and goods at his majesty's
pleasure. Learning that Arran was preparing to
send him to Blackness Castle, kept by one of his
creatures, where Melville easily divined what fate
would await him, he fled to Berwick.

The kingdom was startled by these measures as
by a thunderpeal ! The ministers prayed In the
pulpits for Melville, and the lament was loud and
universal among the godly that the misled king
had driven from the realm its most learned man
and the ablest defender of its religion. The As-
sembly, which met in April, was imperiously com-
manded to rescind Its act approving of the Kaid
of Ruthven, and to pass another condemning it as
treasonable. They had barely courage enough to
decline obedience to these mandates, and broke up
and withdrew cast down and dispirited. Knox
was in his grave, Melville in exile, and heroism
had departed with them.

The council raged with fury. They ordained
that the accused preachers should be arrested with-
out legal formalities, and it was declared treason-
able to hold correspondence with those who had

332 JENNY GEDDES.

fled. The earl of Gowrie, for his part in the Raid
of Ruthven — though he had been expressly par-
doned by the king — was seized and executed, and
his estates divided among the friends of Arran.
A parliament was called at Edinburgh to sit with
closed doors, and the Lords of the Articles sworn
to secresy. Knowing the malignity of James and
Arran, the ministers awaited with dread the doings
of this body. To mitigate the wrath of their per-
secutors, they sent the temperate David Lindsay to
entreat the king that no laAV affecting the Church
should be passed without consultation with the
Assembly, and Arran arrested him in the palace
courtyard and sent him prisoner to Blackness
Castle. Others sent to Parliament were denied
admission. The dark council, including Adamson
and Montgomery as bishops, went on in their
works of darkness, and enacted the " Black Acts
of 1584," which asserted that to decline the judg-
ment of king or council in any matter was treason
— that to impugn or seek diminution of the power
and authority of the three estates was treason —
prohibiting any assembly, except the ordinary
courts, to consult or determine any matter, civil
or ecclesiastical, without special commandment and
license from the king — declaring that bishops, and

THE CONFLICT. 333

others whom the king might appohit, should have
control in ecclesiastical matters — that to censure the
conduct of the king or council was gross treason.

When these acts were proclaimed, Pont and
Balcanquhall entered a public protest at the mar-
ket-cross, Edinburgh, and fled the kingdom, while
Arran raged and issued orders for their arrest.
Nicol Dagleish, a distinguished scholar, was ar-
rested and tried, as for a capital offence, for pray-
ing for his persecuted brethren. This charge
failing, he was arrested on another, tried and con-
demned to death, and, though not executed, was
shut up in a cell, from whose window he could see
the scaffold on which he was sentenced to die.
Professors in the colleges were banished or thrown
into jail.

The exiled pastors wrote to their congregations.
The cowardly magistrates of Edinburgh sent the
letter to the king, and his majesty had a letter
drawn up casting reproach and contempt upon the
ministers, and thanking God that the people were
now relieved from wolves, and begging the king
to give them good pastors in their stead, and then
endeavoured to get the chief inhabitants in Edin-
burgh to sign it ! Sixteen craven-spirited persons
put their names to this letter.

334 JEXyY GEDDES.

The reign of terror wrought a double work —
driving the best men out of the kingdom, and
stirring up a spirit within the realm of mighty,
though for a while smothered, indignation. The
recreant Adamson drew up a bond binding all
ministers who subscribed it to submit to the kinp-'s

o

power over all estates, spiritual and temporal, and
ordering all to sign it within forty days. Even
this bond a few subscribed. But the vengeance
of James was not yet sated, and he begged of
Elizabeth to drive the poor refugees out of her
kingdom, which he well knew she was wicked
enough to do if a sufficient reason offered. Civil
war now broke out between Arran and the op-
pressed nobles, and the plague added its horrors
to the darkness of the times.

At length the exiled lords returned, joining
with the insurgents in Scotland, and, advancing
upon Stirling, published a proclamation enumer-
ating the crimes of Arran, and declaring that they
had taken up arms to deliver Church and State
from their oppressors. They took the town by
surprise, and came to terms with the king in the
castle. Arran fled, and was deprived of his title
and estates, and the fickle king took his deliverers
to his bosom!

THE CONFLICT. 335

This revolution delivered the Cliurch from per-
secution, but the lords, having attained all they
cared for, did little to free her from the yoke of
the black acts of Arran's infamous Parliament.
During these hours of gloom some of the min-
isters displayed even a rashness of courage, which
damaged rather than helped the good cause.
James Gibson, minister of Pencaitland, in a ser-
mon at Edinburgh, declared :

"I thought that Arran and Lady Jezebel, his
wife, were the persecutors of the Church, but now
I find that it was King James himself. As Jero-
boam and his posterity were rooted out for staying
the worship of the true God, so I fear that if our
king continue in his present course, he shall die
childless and be the last of his race." For this
lie was sent to prison. During a sermon against
bishops, in the High Church, Edinburgh, the king
rose and offered to bet his kingdom that he could
disprove what the preacher had said !

In April, 1586, the Synod of Fife excommuni-
cated Adamson, tulchan archbishop of St. An-
drew's. Adamson was a man of parts and culture,
but of doubtful private character and immoderately
ambitious, and, from being an orthodox Presby-
terian, for the sake of a bishopric had become a

336 JENNY GEDDES.

zealous prelatlst. This tulchan, finding himself
excommunicated by the ever-faithful Synod of
Fife, proceeded to excommunicate Melville and
several others. The matter came before the As-
sembly in May, and, after a long struggle with the
kingcraft of James, it reversed the sentence of the
synod ; and while denying all scriptural ground
for Prelacy, declared that it must be tolerated if
forced upon them by civil authority. They, how-
ever, persisted in compelling Adamson to beg par-
don for his imperious conduct, to promise submis-
sion to the Assembly, and to conduct himself as
a pastor ought, suitably to the character of a
bishop as described by Paul — that is to say, as a
Presbyterian preaching elder.

As Queen Mary was now in the cruel grasp of
Elizabeth, James insisted that the ministers should
pray for her. A solemn fast was proclaimed for
her, and the so-called bishop of St. Andrew's was
directed to officiate at St. Giles' on the occasion.
But the ministers prevailed upon John Cowper to
take possession of the pulpit and forestall the bishop.
The king, coming in in the middle of the prayer,
stopped Cowper and told him to withdraw or else
])ray for the queen. He replied that he would do
as the S])irit of God direc^ted. The captain of the

THE COSFLTCT. 337

guard then put him out, and, as he withdrew, he
exclaimed:

"This day sliall be a witness against the king in
the great day of the Lord."

In July, 1587, Parliament met, on which the
venerable Erskine of Dun, the last of the original
Reformers of the Church, attended as commissioner
to favour the interests of religion. This Parliament
ratified all the laws passed in favour of the Reform-
ation during the minority of the king, and annexed
all the unappropriated lands of the Church to the
Crown. This act was a sword with two edges, one
of which James did not see. It at once — and this
he saw with delight — robbed the Church of her
rightful revenues, but at the same time — which he
did not see — gave a fatal blow to bishoprics, as it
took away their support, and rendered vain all his
subsequent efforts to restore the work of Prelacy, to
which James was becoming more and more inclined.
For already he saw that Presbyterianism and roy-
alty could hardly be harnessed to the same chariot;
and, furthermore, he now scented the rich game
across the borders in the crown of England, to which
he was heir, and which the declining years of Eliza-
beth was bringino; hourly toward his hand. But the
same Parliament also transferred, w^th these Church

22

338 JENNY GEDDES.

lands, the patronage attached to them, thus giving
into godless hands the power to present candidates
for great numbers of pulpits, and opening the way fo-
corruption in the ministry, and for many a hard
struggle between the patrons and the State behind
them and the vigilant and resolute Church au-
thorities.

Stirring times in the whole civil and religious
w^orld were now drawing on. The persistent though
semi-popish Protestantism of England, and espe-
cially the judicial murder of Mary Queen of Scots,
had at length concentrated the bigoted energies of
popery into ripe conspiracy, and the Great Armada
w^as getting ready to sail for the overthrow of Pro-
testant power. James, though tampered with by
Philip of Spain, had sense enough to see that his
own interests were bound up with those of England.

But while King James, with characteristic indo-
lence and love of ease, was trifling away his time,
the Assembly held an extraordinary meeting, and
sent a deputation to him to oifer their services and
to rouse him to action. The childish monarcli,
jifended at this seeming reproach, refused to receive
the deputation, and petulantly asked if they meant
to dictate to him and threaten him with their power?
But, listening to wiser councils, he named a com-

THE CONFLICT. 339

mittee of the privy council to co-operate with the
Church commissioners in making provision for the
public safety. Thus Presbyterianism as such, identi-
fied as it was with the people's liberties, and finding
its own interests deeply involved with the general
good in this hour of great national peril, did not wait
to respond to the call of the government for aid, but
took the initiative, and, pledging all its powers to
the work, called with a trumpet voice upon the
government and nation to bestir itself for the na-
tional salvation.

A bond was drawn up and signed by the minis-
ters, and by all ranks of nobles and subjects for
co-operation, recognizing religion and the State as
involved in the same peril, and pledging themselves
to maintain both against all foes at home and abroad.
A popish insurrection in Scotland was promptly
suppressed. And now news came that the Armada
had sailed ! A meeting of the estates was imme-
diately summoned; a general enrolment of the
whole population fit for arms was ordered ; officers
appointed and watchers for the seaports, and a sys-
tem of beacons and signals adjusted to give timely
notice of the appearance of any hostile ships — the
whole Protestant population warmly seconding
every measure of the government. This activity,

340 JENNY GEDBES.

however, was due much more to Maitland, the
chancellor, than to the fickle, half-imbecile mon-
arch.

At length the Armada arrived in the Channel.
Sir Francis Drake, with his lighter vessels, hung
on their flanks and cut off several vessels. While
anchored before Calais, fireships were sent in
among them, which threw them into confusion,
during which the English attacked them, and, aided
by a storm, sent devastation through the whole
fleet. In their consternation the Spaniards swept
northward, where a violent tempest scattered and
wrecked them among the Hebrides and on the coasts
of Scotland and Ireland. A very few of the relics
of this proud Armada found their way back to
Spain, leaving behind in the ocean's angry bosom
some representative of almost every considerable
family in the kingdom, and thus it was that popery
swept Protestantism from Britain ! Great were the
rejoicings both in England and Scotland, and in
the fervour of their gratitude the people of Scot-
land treated the wretches who were wrecked on
their coasts with great humanity, and sent them
home to their friends.

The zeal of the Church in this great crisis pro-
duced a transitory effect on the impressible James,

THE CONFLICT. 341

An insurrection of papists, with the design of seiz-
ing the king and gaining control of his person, was
put down. The Assembly excommunicated Adam-
son for solemnizing marriage between the popish
earl of Huntly and a lady of the Lennox family.

The danger of invasion past, the king bent his
tlioughts on marriage with the Princess Anne,
second daughter of Frederick II. of Denmark.
Married by proxy, the princess set sail for Scotland,
but a violent storm, attributed by James to the
witches of Norway and Scotland, drove the fleet
into a part of Norway, near Upsal, where it was
determined that the bride should spend the winter.
But the king, though in great dread of the witches,
resolved to venture his sacred person within their
power, and, setting forth with a fine retinue, reached
the princess after a stormy voyage of five days. On
Sunday, the 24th of November, he was married,
and early in May following he arrived at Leith
with his bride.

Before leaving Scotland, the king appointed a
provisional government to act during his absence,
3t the head of which he placed the duke of Lennox,
and, as an extraordinary member of the council, he
named Robert Bruce, one of the ministers of Edin-
burgh, declaring that he reposed greater confidence

29*

342 JENNY GEDDES.

in him and his brethren than in all the other mem-
bers of tlie conncil. During the six months of his
absence the country was more tranquil than it had
been for many years, much of which James himself
attributed to the influence of the clergy, and in his
letters to Bruce he told him that he considered him
worth a quarter of his kingdom, and that he should
reckon himself beholden to him while he lived for
his services, and would never forget the same.
Subsequent events showed how^ much the words of
a king are sometimes worth.

The return of the king was celebrated with all
manner of festive rejoicings. At the coronation of
the queen three sermons were preached — one in
Latin, one in French, one in English. The Tues-
day following the queen made a public entry into
Edinburgh amid the enthusiasm of a rejoicing peo-
ple. The following Sunday, after sermon in the
High Church, the king rose and thanked the min-
isters for their fidelity, confessed the indiscretion of
his youth, and promised truer fidelity to Kirk and
State as a married man.

In the Assembly, which met in August, he pro-
nounced his famous eulogium upon the Church of
Scotland. AVith hands uplifted and in a temporary
rapture, he said :

THE CONFLICT. 343

" I praise God that I was born in such a time as
in the light of the gospel, and in such a place as to
be king in such a Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in all the
world. The Kirk of Geneva keepeth Pasch and
Yule, and what have they for them? — they have no
institutions. As for our neighbour Kirk in Eng-
land, their service is an ill-said mass in English.
They want nothing of the mass but the liftings.
I charge you, my good people — ministers, doctors,
elders, nobles, gentlemen and barons — to stand to
your purity ; and I, forsooth, so long as I brook
my life and crown, sliall maintain the same against
all deadly.'^

The Assembly were in transports, and for a
quarter of an hour nothing was heard but praising
God and praying for the king. It was honeymoon
with the king and honeymoon with the Kirk ; but,
alas ! the poor Kirk afterward found occasion to
sigh with the afflicted husband : " For six months
after my marriage I thought I should have de-
voured my darling wife, and ever since I have
been very sorry that I did not.''

For the present, however, all was bright, Zion
had shaken herself from the clutches of her foes,
and her face was radiant with peace and hoi)e.
And now old ^' Bishop'^ Adamson, the able and

344 JENNY GEDDES.

virulent enemy of his Church, deprived of support
by the transfer of the revenues of his bishopric to
the Crown, reduced to poverty and neglected by
the king, of whose worst measures he had always
been a warm advocate, tortured by remorse and
wasted by immoralities, recanted his episcopal sen-
timents, confessed sorrow for his sins, and drew
out the rest of his miserable life in dependence
upon the charities of Andrew Melville, whom he
had often and bitterly persecuted.

*< GOD'S SILLY VASSAL.'^

When the Church becomes entangled in unholy
alliance Avith the State — unless, as in England, it
sinks to passive vassalage — its history is sure to be
chequered by harrassing conflicts of jurisdiction
which mislead her judgment, embitter her temper,
waste her time and impair her energies.

Graham, of Hallyards, was accused of certain
fraudulent transactions which exposed him to cen-
sure as a minister of the gospel and to trial and
punishment as a citizen. Under the former phase
of the case, the Assembly arraigned him, as it was
their right and duty to do. Under the latter, the
State arraigned him, as was its right and duty. It
would seem as if there were here no room for col-

THE CONFLICT. 345

lision ; but each asserted priority of jurisdiction in
the case — the Church, that as a minister Graham
must first come before them ; and the Court that,
as a subject he must first appear at their tribunal.
In this, undoubtedly, both were in the wrong.
Both Church and State had the right to act at
their own convenience; nor need the judgment of
the one, whatever it might be or whenever given,
prevent the other from either passing the accused
through an impartial trial or from inflicting a
penalty according to the verdict. The Assembly,
however, maintained its own claims and passed
upon the matter, and then the Court of Sessions
tried the cause in their own way.

During the absence of the king the Church and
nation had peace; on his return the latter was rent
with civil broils, giving reason for a wish that
James might have frequent occasion to go abroad,
and that his return might not be hastened. A
fierce quarrel arose between the wicked Huntly
and ^^ the bonnie earl of Murray," the handsomest
man of his ao-e and son of the " Good Reo^ent."
Blood flowed freely, and the silly king, instead of
(juelling the disorder, spent his time in the dis-
covery, arrest and examination of witches, and
burning them. One of the witches accused Both-

346 JENNY GEDDES.

well, and the king had him arrested. Bothwell
escaped, and, raising a party, attacked the palace,
but was driven off. Huntly told James that
^lurray was among the assailants, and, setting off
with a troop to arrest Murray, killed him. The
next morning James set out a-hunting as if noth-
ing had happened, but such Avas the general in-
dignation that he sent for some of the ministers
and protested to them his innocence in the matter.
They replied that he might clear himself by
promptly punishing the real offenders. But his
indolence in the matter only increased the general
indignation. And now in his perils the cowardly
king threw himself into the arms of the Church,
which saw that the time had come to insist on re-
formation and formal release from some of their
burdens. The Assembly accordingly drew up ar-
ticles embodying their requests, and presented them
to the king, at the same time begging him to enter
upon a path of righteous dealing, that thus he
might avert the wrath of God.

When the Parliament met it ratified the General
Assemblies, synods, presbyteries and sessions of
the Church, declaring them, with the jurisdiction
and discipline belonging to them, to be thenceforth
just, good and godly — all statutes, acts and laws,

THE CONFLICT. 347

canon, civil or municipal, to the contrary notwith-
standing. It ratified and embodied also some of
the leading propositions of the Second Book of
Discipline. It ordained that General Assemblies
be held once a year, or oftener as occasion might
call ; the time and place of meeting to be named
by the king or his commissioner, or, in case of
their absence, by the Assembly itself. It gave
into the hands of the Church all matters of doc-
trine and discipline according to the Word of God.
It declared the act of Parliament, granting com-
missions to men as bishops, and other judges in
ecclesiastical causes, appointed by the king, to be
null and void; and ordained that patrons should
present their candidates to presbyteries, who were
not to reject those they deemed fitted for the office ;
and should the presbytery refuse to induct a quali-
fied minister the presentee, might retain the income
of the benefice in his own hands. And this act
Hetherington pronounces the great charter of the
Church of Scotland.

We, in our land and day, while taking into ac-
count the peculiarly difficult position of our vene-
rable fathers of the Scottish Church, yet cannot
look ^vithout impatience and vexation on the scene
"where the Church accepts with thankfulness, at the

348 JJENNY GEDDES.

hands of a Parliament the rights which God had
given before Parliaments came into existence.

This act of Parliament was, no doubt, a great
blessing to the Church, but the power that gives
may recall, and in accepting the boon at such
hands the Church virtually acknowledged the right
of Parliament in the case, and put itself largely at
its mercy. And in the clause allowing the patron
to retain the income of a benefice when a qualified
minister was rejected by the presbytery, who was
to be the judge as to the rejected man's fitness?
The patron, or some secular court, or the king,
or, at all events, some other power than the pres-
bytery, and thus in any case, the liberty of the
Church was gone and her purity put in jeopardy.
May the great Head of the Church hasten the hour
when the Church everywhere shall free herself
from all formal alliance with the State, and act
freely in all matters in the independence that be-
longs to her !

But vexatious and disastrous complications mul-
tiplied. The king's word was a breath from a vain
and treacherous heart, and of no more binding
force with him than his dreams ; and, knowing this,
the Church took little comfort from the existence
of the " Great Charter" on the records of the realm.

THE CONFLICT. 349

lu 1592 a general alarm spread tlirough the
kingdom from the known presence of plotting
priests and Jesuits. An extraordinary meeting of
ministers was convened at Edinburgh to take
measures for defence. Andrew Knox, minister
of Paisley, having secret intelligence of a con-
spiracy, hastened to the island of Cumray and
seized George Kerr, as he was just embarking for
Spain. Letters from priests in Scotland were
found upon him revealing an extended conspirary
of the most perilous character. Spain was to land
thirty thousand men on the western coast of tlie
kingdom — part to invade England and part to act
with Huntly, Errol and Angus for the suppression
of Protestantism and the establishment of popery
in Scotland.

With this information, the privy council united
with the ministers in issuing letters calling upon
all patriots to hasten to Edinburgh. The king
also was earnestly besought to hasten thither.
Angus was arrested. Upon the king's arrival he
fretted like a spoiled child at the zeal of his sub-
jects, and resented their conduct as an invasion of
his prerogative. They replied like men : and when
the king saw the extent of the danger his vexation
turned against the conspirators, and he called An-

350 JENNY GEDDES.

gus a " traitor of traitors." A proclamation was
issued specifying the general nature of the con-
spiracy, and commanding all to abstain from inter-
course with popish priests on pain of treason, and
the array of the country was ordered to meet the
king by the 20th of February at Aberdeen. And
as the king lay under suspicion of lack of zeal —
and there can be no doubt that the wretched man
would have been easily content to have popery
restored, or anything else that would at once make
him a thorough despot in fact as he was in spirit,
and leave him to enjoy his childish pleasures — he
thought it necessary to j^urge himself, as far as
words would do it, by a formal j^rohibition of any
attempt to procure pardon for the conspirators.
Graham of Fintry was brought to trial and exe-
cuted, but Angus escaped and joined the conspira-
tors in arms. The king now marched northward,
and on his arrival at Aberdeen the conspirators
retired to the mountains and sent their ladies to
intercede for them ; and, notwithstanding his
solemn bond to the contrary, James received them
with kindly courtesy, telling them that if their
husbands would submit to trial they should suf-
fer no wrong. In favour of the enemies of his
country, and its religion, James generally made

THE CONFLICT. 351

an exception to his general rule, and kept his
word.

In April the Assembly met at Dundee, without
the king's order. The king, by his commissioner,
complained of this as an infringement of the act
of 1592, requiring its meetings to be held only by
his majesty's appointment. The Assembly as-
sented, but stirred up his royal mind by way of
remembrance with the hint that by the act in ques-
tion they were at liberty to meet on their own mo-
tion if he were not present in person or by his
commissioner. Other points of disagreement be-
tween them demonstrated an ntter lack of har-
mony, and made it evident that open rupture
could not be very long delayed.

In July, Parliament met for the trial of the
popish lords, but Angus and Kerr had been al-
lowed to escape ; and after playing with the subject
for a while, the king allowed tlie traitors to return
to their castles in the full enjoyment of their
liberty, excepting a prohibition to appear in cer-
tain towns in the realm ; and the whole proceeding
deepened the conviction in the public mind — the
king was much more popish than Protestant in
his principles and sympathies.

The Synod of Fife, at its meeting in September,

352 JEXXY GEDDES.

with true Presbyterian independence and fidelity,
resolved that if the king sheltered the traitors from
civil censure, they would visit them with that of
the Church. And as Angus and Errol had sub-
scribed the Confession of Faith within its bounds,
and were thus within its jurisdiction, and within
its bounds Iluntly had murdered Murray, the sy-
nod excommunicated them, and sent notice of what
they had done throughout the country ; they fur-
ther made arrangements to hold a general meeting
of commissioners from the different counties — of
noblemen, gentlemen, burgesses and ministers — at
Edinburgh, in October. Poor James was sorely
tried by the resolute fidelity of these Fife presby-
ters, and, on a visit to Lord Hamilton, poured out
his piteous complaints : " You see, my lord, how
I am used. I have no man in whom I can trust
more than in Huntly. If I receive him, the min-
isters will cry out that I am an apostate ; if not,
I am desolate."

" If he and his associates are not enemies to the
religion, ye may receive them," said Hamilton.

'^ I cannot tell what to make of that, but the
ministers hold them for enemies. Always I would
think it good that they enjoyed liberty of con-

THE COXFLICT. 353

Aroused at hearing tlie royal liypocrite thus prate
of liberty of conscience, Hamilton exclaimed:

"Sir, then we are all gone! then we are all gone!
If there is not another to withstand them, I will !"

Alarmed at his earnestness, the king forced a
ghastly smile and meekly replied :

" My lord, I did this to try your mind."

After such dissimulation the most credulous
could put no trust in the king. However, on his
setting out to quell some disturbances on the bor-
ders, he lavished upon the faithful those treasures
which with him were exhaustless — fair and false
promises, assuring them that he would show no
favour to the conspirators.

On the very day Avhen this promise was given
the king admitted the conspirators to his presence
at Jala, and made arrangements with them for their
trial. The convention, now in session at Edin-
burgh, sent commissioners after the king to Jedburgh
to tell him manfully of their displeasure at his con-
ference with the traitors; to demand that his pledges
to them, in so far as they were calculated to defeat
the ends of justice, be annulled; and to say that his
faithful subjects would sooner lay down their lives
than allow the land to be overrun with popish con-
spirators.

23

354 JENNY GEDLES.

At this the king turned like a wolf at bay and
denounced the convention as an unlawful assembly,
inveighed against the Synod of Fife for their decrees
of excommunication, and threatened to call a Par-
liament and overthrow Presbytery and establish
Prelacy. James well knew that while elders ruled
in the Church his despotic instincts could never be
gratified.

To this furious philippic, James Melville replied
in manly spirit, and the heat passing off, the king
dismissed the commissioners with another batch of
royal promises.

The convention of estates, meeting at Linlithgow
in October, appointed commissioners to try the con-
spirators at Holyrood, where these traitors were
ordered to give satisfaction to the Church, and to
embrace Protestantism within a certain time or
leave the realm, and all further process in the case
was dropped. Six commissioners from the Church
were present at this mock trial, and among them
Melville, who took advantage of the occasion to
read the king one of his sharp, incisive lectures,
reproving him for his harsh words respecting the
chief actors in the Reformation and his own best
friends, and for his partiality to the enemies of
both; and pledging himself to prove that the king's

THE CONFLICT. 355

advisers in these matters were traitors to the Crown
and realm, and engaging, if he failed, to go himself
to the gibbet.

As usual, in the issue of this trial the king dis-
pleased all but the foes of the nation and its religion.
All knew that the criminals could easily enough
comply with the terms of their release, and the next
day obtain absolution from the papal authorities
both for their seeming offence and from all obliga-
tion to submission after it became convenient to
throw off the mask. The motives of James for
this course Avere many. In the first place, courage
was not one of the few virtues of the king, and
he feared to deal out justice to the conspirators.
Then Huntly, as the head of the popish party in
Scotland, wielded considerable influence, and as
James was looking to the crow^n of England, where
the popish party was strong, he was anxious not to
offend either. Besides, the despotic principles of
the Romanists Avere much more in harmony Avith
his OAvn than the free, indomitable spirit of Presby-
terian Protestantism, and with all he Avas inflated
with a childish pride in crafl and cunning, and was
thoughtful for any opportunity for its display. All
these reasons combined to induce that "line of
policy which he pursued all his life, and left as a

356 JENNY GEDDES.

dire heritage to his successors, which they followed
till the ill-omened race reaped the baneful fruits of
generations of falsehood and oppression, and be-
came extinct after years of exiled, discrowned, un-
honoured, unpitied w^'etchedness/'

In the Assembly that met in May, 1594, on the
question of appointing commissioners to the king,
the nomination of James Melville as one of them
was objected to on the ground that the king sus-
pected him of giving money to the infamous earl
of Bothwell, an illegitimate scion of the royal race,
the successor in title and character to the murderer
of Darnley, to enable him to raise troops against
the king. Melville told the Assembly that in the
general he sought no such appointments, but now
he insisted on being appointed that he might clear
himself of the slander. He was appointed, and
when the commissioners were about to retire from
the presence of the king, Melville rose and asked
his majesty if he had anything to lay to his
charge. The king said he had not. Melville ex-
pressed his gratification, and added that if there
were any present that traduced him to his majesty,
he desired they would now speak their minds
while he was present to defend himself. No one
made reply, and then the king took him into his

THE CONFLICT. 357

cabinet, conversed with him with great famih'arity,
and then, dismissing him with warm commenda-
tions, doubtless sat down to chuckle over this ad-
ditional demonstration that he was indeed the very
emperor of kingcraft.

As the twofold effect of James' weakness and
tergiversation, the popish rebels were soon again
in arms, and found abettors in Parliament, and
even in the council-chamber of the king. Ap-
pearing for the Church before the Lords of Arti-
cles, Melville urged to manly and decisive mea-
sures. Addressing the king, he said :

*^ Sir, many think it a great matter to overthrow
the estate of three so great men, but it is a weight-
ier matter to expel out of the country three far
greater — to wit, true religion, the quietness of the
commonwealth and the prosperous estate of the
kino^. If ve lords can 2:et us a better common-
wealth and a better king, we are content that the
traitorous lords be spared; otherwise \ve desire ye
to do your duty.''

Thus spoke the Church in the hour of national
peril, as a Church worthy of the name will always
speak when the immeasurable interests of society
and religion are at once threatened by the incur-
sion of foreign or the ujiri.-ing of domestic foes.

358 JENXY GEDDES.

Melville then objected to the presence among
those counsellors of some who lay under suspicion
of sympathy with the rebels.

" Whom do you mean ?" asked the king.

'^ One who laughs across the table."

'^ Do you mean me ?'' asked Kinloss.

^^ If you confess yourself guilty, I will not clear
you ; but I meant Inchaffray."

^' Now, Edward," said James to Kinloss, " that
is Judas' question — Is it I, master f^

Argyle, having been sent against the rebels, was
defeated, and James, w^th a great show of zeal, set
out toward Aberdeen, taking with him both An-
drew and James Melville to see his zeal for the
Lord. But his money soon gave out, and none
had confidence enough in his sincerity to entrust
him with either men or money, and now, as so
often, the Church sprang into the breach. James
Melville hastened southward to raise contributions,
and with such speed and success that the king was
enabled to keep the field. But scarcely had Mel-
ville gone on this errand when his privy counsel-
lors almost persuaded the royal weathercock to
change his purpose and spare his enemies. But
Andrew Melville, by his cogent reasonings and
earnest remonstrances, made such an impression

THE CONFLICT. 359

upon the army officers present that the king gave
orders for the dismantling of Huntly's castle of
Strathbogie, and the rebels soon after quitted the
kingdom. Thus, as usual, any little manliness
shown by this king can be traced directly to the
counsels and energy of the Kirk he so disliked ;
and had his majesty been blessed with but a rea-
sonable share of common sense, he would have
seen that her principles w^ere those of honour,
energy and pros]_>erity. But so little harmony
existed, or could exist, between such a man as
James and a true Presbyterian eldership, that the
latter was always compelled to stand at the senti-
neFs post to watch against royal encroachments,
and the former was always as keenly on the w^atch
for opportunities to chain the Church to the steps
of his throne.

From the time of the regent Morton it had been
the constant aim of men in power to unite several
parishes under one incumbent, and then appropri-
ate the extra salaries to their own use ; and, not
satisfied with this, they would even so reduce the
income of the one j^astor as almost to starve him,
while they consumed the spoil thus wrested from
him.

To remedy these ills, the Assembly of 1595 ap-

360 JENNY GEDDES.

pointed certain ministers to inspect the condition
of things in the parishes, and report, at a conven-
tion to be hehl at Edinburgh, some phin by whicli
the iniquity might be prevented. The result was
a scheme called the " constant plat," which, had
the king been faithful to his oaths, might have
saved both him and the Church no little evil.
The king, indeed, promised to ratify the scheme,
but made his promise the occasion of a further dis-
play of his boasted kingcraft.

In March of the following year a scene was
enjoyed in the Assembly of touching and memor-
able interest. John Davidson, a devoted minister
of Prestonpans, whose mind had been deeply af-
fected by the prevalent disorder and corruption in
the Church, induced the Presbytery of Haddington
to overture the Assembly upon the matter. The
overture touched the heart of every member of the
Assembly, and a paper was drawn enumerating
the evils to be reformed in the persons and lives
of the ministers, the offences in the court of the
realm, the corruptions in the estates and in courts
of justice. On motion of Melville, the means of
reaching the desired reformation were agreed upon.
As all true reformation should begin at home, the
Assembly agreed to hold a meeting by themselves

THE CONFLICT, 361

in the Little Church at Edinburgh on Tuesday, the
30th of March, John Davidson to preside, for the
purpose of personal confession and humiliation.
And so searching were the words of Davidson in
his opening discourse that tears were wrung from
every eye. At length he called upon them all in
their seats to bow the head and each make secret
confession before God. For a quarter of an hour
a profound and solemn stillness pervaded the As-
sembly, broken only by sighs and sobs. The ser-
vice lasted for three hours, when, at the call of
Davidson, the whole Assembly arose to their feet,
and, lifting up the right hand to God, pledged
themselves to walk more warily and be more dili-
gent in their several charges. ^' There have been
many days of humiliation for present judgments
or imminent dangers, but the like for sin and de-
fection was never seen since the Reformation."

At the order of the Assembly the service was
repeated throughout the Church — in synods, pres-
byteries and congregations — "until all Scotland,
like Judah, of old, rejoiced at the oath."

At the meeting of the Synod of Fife, David Fer-
guson addressed the meeting. He was one of the
first six ministers engaged in the Reformation, and
now the sole survivor. He told them that he had

362 JENNY GEDDES.

engaged in tlie work wlien the name of stipend was
unknown, and when tliey had to encounter the
united opposition of the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, without all support from rank and
powder, yet they persevered, and God had crowned
their efforts with success. Davidson and Melville
also addressed the synod, and all felt that God was
with them of a truth.

Thus does God newly anoint his chosen with
grace preparatory to trial. This outburst of sun-
shine was the prelude of storm and disaster, and
was granted that his saints might remember when
the dark days were upon them that the sun unex-
tinguished still sat enthroned in glory behind the
clouds, and that, in God's own time, the storm
would pass and the rainbow of peace once more
span the skies.

After this scene of devout humiliation, the As-
sembly adopted the " constant-plat" scheme, which
provided that the whole of the tithes should be
regarded as the patrimony of the Church, to be
expended in the support of the ministry, of the
poor and of a national system of education. But
King James cared more for pleasures unresisted
by church censures, and power unlimited by
church liberty, and his wicked ministers more

THE CONFLICT. 363

for the gratification of their avarice than for edu-
cation, the poor or Christ's ministry, and hence,
as usual, they took one side of this question and
the Church the other. And now rumours of an-
other Spanish invasion filled the air, and the king
ordered military musters; and the preachers, as
usual in the front rank of patriotism, exhorted the
people to arms. In the midst of these commotions
news came that the popish lords had re-entered the
kingdom, and the people's hearts sank within them
as the conviction forced itself upon the mind that
the false-hearted king was privy to their return.
Most of the king's counsellors were known papists.
The king, as was easy with him, protested his in-
nocence. If any believed him, they soon saw their
folly, for at an early day a meeting of the privy
council was called at Falkland, to consider terms
for the submission of the traitors. Certain minis-
ters, whom the court thought it could trust, were
invited to the meeting; but among them, of his
own accord, came Andrew Melville ! When the
king saw him, he felt as Ahab did when he saw
Elijah : " Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ?"
" Sir," said Melville, '' I have a call from Christ
and his Church, who have special interest in this
convention, and I charge you and your estates, in

364 JENNY GEDDES.

their name, that you favour not their enemies, nor
make citizens of those traitortj who have sought to
betray their country !''

But the council agreed that the traitors might
be restored on certain conditions. But afterward,
finding how unpopular this advice of the council
was, the king declared he did not mean to act upon
it. And yet, shortly after, he did act upon it, and
the terms of restoration were solemnly ratified. Such
was the creature with which godly men had to deal !

The Church was not irresolute, and commis-
sioners of the Assembly and certain gentlemen
met at Cupar in Fife, and sent a deputation to
remonstrate with the king. James Melville, on
account of the courteousness of his manners and
the respect the king had shown him, was appointed
their spokesman. But scarcely had he begun to
speak when the king broke out in denunciation of
the Cupar meeting as seditious, and of the com-
missioners as agitators. James Melville was about
to' reply, when his uncle, Andrew Melville, seeing
that the crisis demanded not a Melancthon hut a
Luther, stepped forward and addressed the king.
The latter bade him be silent. But the lion was
aroused. Catching the king by his robes, he said :

"Thou God's silly vassal! we always humbly

THE CONFLICT. 365

reverence your majesty in public, but now in pri-
vate, seeing you in clanger of your life and crown,
and the country and the Church going to wreck,
we must discharge our duty or be traitors to Christ
and you. There are two kings and two kingdoms
in Scotland — King James, the head of the Com-
monwealth, and Christ Jesus, King of the Church,
whose sul)ject James YI. is, and of whose kingdom
he is not king, lord nor head, but a member. Sir,
those wdiom Christ has commanded to watch over
his Church have power and authority to govern
his spiritual kingdom. AVe will yield to you your
place and give you all due obedience, but you are
not the head of the Church; you cannot give us
that eternal life which we seek for even in this
world, and you cannot deprive us of it. Sir, when
you were in your swaddling-clothes, Christ Jesus
reigned freely in this land in spite of all his enemies.
His officers and ministers convened for the ruling
and welfare of his Church, which was ever for your
welfare, defence and preservation, when these same
enemies were resolving your destruction. And now,
when there is more than extreme necessity for the
discharge of that duty, will you hinder and dis-
hearten Christ's servants and your most faithful
subjects? The wisdom of your council, which I

366 JEXXY GEDDES.

call devilish, is this : that you must be served by-
all sorts of men — Jew, Gentile, Papist and Protest-
ant ; and because the Protestants and ministers of
Scotland are over-strong and control the king, they
must be weakened and brought low by stirring up
a party against them. But, sir, if God's wisdom
be the only true wisdom, this will prove mere mad
follv. His curse cannot but light on it; in seek-
ing both you shall lose both ; whereas, in cleaving
uprightly to God, his true servants would be your
sure friends, and he would compel the rest counter-
feitingly and lyingly to give over themselves and

THE KIIiK rXDER THE HEEL OF THE KIXG.

James was now thirty years old. A despot by
constitution, he could not brook the bold, manly
freedom of Presbyterian ism. Licentious and frivo-
lous, he could not endure a Church that in her cen-
sures spared not even the vices of a king. The
facile dispensations of Rome were much more to
his taste. But, by nature a coward, he was often
compelled to make ^^ I dare not wait upon I woiddy
But now strengthening passions and larger experi-
ence made him more bold, and he set his heart upon
humbling the Church at his feet.

THE COSFLICT. 367

However, awed by the manly addi-ess of ^lelville,
the king lapsed again into a more favourable mood,
and gave his royal word that he had no previous
knowledge of the return of the popish conspirators;
that he would hear no proposals from them till
they had left the kingdom, and that even then he
would show them no favours till they had satisfied
the Church. "But the Church got only words and
jiromises — her enemies got the deeds and effect."

Seeing measures taken to restore the popish lords,
the commissioners of the Assembly met in Edin-
burgh, warned the presbyteries of the impending
perils, specified the means of arresting them, and
summoned an extraordinary council to sit in Edin-
burgh during the crisis, and, if need arose, to con-
voke the Assembly. On the ninth of November
the commissioners had an interview with his ma-
jesty, at which he plainly told them that there
could be no agreement between them and him until
"the marches of their jurisdiction were rid," and
they concede to him that the preachers should not
introduce matters of State into their sermons — that
the Assembly should not convene without his com-
mand— that no act of it should be valid till ratified
by him, and that no Church court should take cog-
nizance of any act punishable by the criminal law

368 JENNY GEDDES.

of the land. His first step toward his proposed
dominion in the Kirk was upon the neck of

David Black,
This faithful minister of St. Andrew's had said
something in a sermon disparaging to the religious
character of Queen Elizabeth, and the English
ambassador was induced to lay in a complaint
against him. Accordingly, he was summoned be-
fore the privy council upon a vague charge of
^' uncomely speeches in divers sermons." To this
he objected, as illegal and inquisitorial. He was
then told that the charge related only to what he
had said about the English queen. The English
ambassador ex])ressed himself satisfied with Black's
explanation, and withdrew from the matter ; but
the court, determined on its plans, laid in new
charges against him, covering a space of two or
three preceding years. Discerning well the whole
scheme, the conmiissioners resolved on resistance
lo measures evidently aimed at the enslavement of
the whole Church, and drew up a declinature of
the council's original jurisdiction in the case,
which declinature, accepted by Black, was also
signed by above three hundred ministers. The
court, of course, refused to recognize the declina-

THE COyFLTCT. 369

lure, and, having found Black guilty, banished
him beyond the Tay until his majesty should de-
cide upon further punishment.

On the morning of the trial the commissioners
presented a solemn address to the king and coun-
cil, calling on God to witness between them and
their malicious opposers, protesting their loyalty
and their purpose to serve him as faithful subjects,
appealing to the king's own knowledge of their
conduct in other trying times, accusing the king's
enemies of urging on this matter far beyond his
original intent, beseeching him to remit the case to
the decision of the Assembly, and warning him
that if he proceeded to abridge the liberty of the
Church, the wrath of God would be kindled
against him.

As the trial proceeded. Interview followed inter-
view between the king and the commissioners, but
James would accept of nothing but complete sub-
mission on the part of Black and his friends. The
ministers replied that if the matter "concerned only
the life of Black, or of a dozen others, they would
consider it of comparatively trifling importance;
but, as it was the liberty of Christ's gospel that
was concerned, they could not submit, but must
oppose even to the hazard of their lives." As

24

370 JENNY GEDDES.

Bruce thus spoke the wretched king was moved
to tears, but his remorse soon passed away under
the goadings of his courtiers, who assured him that
he had gone too far to retrace his steps.

The kino; ordered the commissioners to leave
Edinburgh, and an act of council ordained that
ministers before receiving their stipend should
subscribe a bond to submit to the king and council
as often as they were accused of seditious or trea-
sonable doctrine, and commanding all magistrates
to imprison any ministers whom they should hear
uttering such language from the pulpit. A con-
vention of the estates and a General Assembly
was ordered to meet in Edinburgh on the 1 5th of
February following, to take into consideration the
" whole order and policy of the Kirk."

In December the alarming rumour was spread
that Huntly had arrived and had been admitted to
the royal presence. The alarm was increased by
the fact that twenty-four of the most zealous citi-
zens had just been ordered to leave Edinburgh.
A meeting of barons, burgesses and ministers sent
a deputation to the king, then in the Tolbooth, with
the lords of session. Bruce, their spokesman, said:

" We are sent to lay before you the dangers that
threaten religion."

THE CONFLICT. 371

" What dangers see you ?"

"That Huntly has beeu admitted to your ma-
jesty."

" What have you to do with that ? and how
durst you convene against my proclamation ?''

" We dare do more than that,'^ said Lord Lind-
say, "and will not suffer religion to be over-
thrown."

Upon this the king withdrew, and the deputa-
tion returned to the meeting to make their report.
While considering what should be done some one
entered the church and exclaimed :

" Fly, fly, save yourselves ! the papists are com-
ing to massacre you !"

Just then the cry was heard in the streets, " To
arms ! to arms !" and some one in the Assembly
oalled out, " The sword of the Lord and of Gid-
eon !'^ The Assembly rushed in a panic into the
streets, and for a time all was wild confusion; but
by aid of the ministers and magistrates the dis-
turbance was soon quelled without injury to any
one.

The incensed king posted the next morning to
Linlithgow, discharging first a Parthian quiver-
full of proclamations, ordering all in public office
to repair to him, strangers to leave the city, the

372 JENNY GEDDES,

ministers of Edinburgh to enter into confinement
in the castle, the magistrates to apprehend them,
and declaring the tumult to be a cruel and barbar-
ous attempt against king, nobility and council at the
instigation of certain seditious ministers and barons.

To carry out this stroke of kingcraft his majesty
came back in January to Edinburgh at the head
of an army breathing out threatenings and slaugh-
ter : he would raze their city to the ground and
sow it with salt, and erect a monument there to
perpetuate the memory of such treason. The ter-
rified citizens trembled before the king in his well-
feigned wrath, and surrendered all their liberties
into his hands, and were then graciously forgiven.
The ministers also bowed before the storm and
withdrew from the capital.

From the neck of David Black the king^ now
stepped upon the neck of the Assembly, and inau-
gurated a system of Church corruption in the

Perth Assembly.
To open the way Secretary Lindsay published in
the king's name fifty-five captious questions for
discussion, and a convention of the estates and a
meeting of the Assembly was summoned to meet
at Perth in the following February.

THE COXFLFCT. 373

In the mean time the Church displayed her old
heroic spirit. The Presbytery of Haddington sus-
pended a minister for agreeing Avithout their con-
sent to an arrangement with the privy council for
supplying the pulpits of Edinburgh. The Synod
of Lothian testified their dissatisfaction with the
king. Though denied their stipends till they had
subscribed the king's bond, scarce one could be in-
duced to subscribe. The Synod of Fife answered
his majesty's propositions, remonstrated with the
king against holding the extraordinary meeting of
the Assembly, but, if the meeting should be held,
instructing the presbyteries under their charge to
send commissioners, but forbidding them to acknow-
ledge the lawfulness of the Assembly, or to consent
to its handling the matter of Church polity.

His majesty, running his eye along this bold
front of Scotch Presbyterianism, and conscious of
his lack of boldness to confront it W'ith force, easily
fell back upon his constitutional cunning and fa-
vourite kingcraft. Sir Patrick Murray w^as sent out
among the distant presbyteries, whose members,
remote from the great centres, and poor withal,
had rarely attended the Assembly, and by playing
upon their ignorance and little jealousies, and by
promises and flatteries, succeeded in gaining for his

374 JENNY GEDDES.

master an Assembly tlie majority of which could
be easily manipulated by the king into his measures.

Andrew Melville could not be present, but James
was there and ready to do his duty. After three
days' debate, the court intriguers succeeding in car-
rying an affirmation that the Assembly w^as a lawful
one. James Melville, disgusted wdth the weak-
ness of some of his brethren and w^ith the corrupt-
ing arts with wdiich the Assembly was controlled,
withdrew from the body. The Fife commissioners
remained, but under protest against the lawfulness
of the meeting. Answers were now obtained to
the king's questions, such as satisfied his majesty
for the present, and paved the way for such other
and more decided innovations as the king had in
view.

This Perth Assembly was remarkable as the first
in which kingcraft wrought its will by corrupting
the membership. " Coming to Perth," writes James
Melville, '^ we found the ministers of the north in
such numbers as Avas not common in Assemblies,
and each one a greater courtier than another ; so
that my ears heard new notes and my eyes saw a
new sight, to wit: flocks of ministers going in and
out at the king's palace late at night and betimes
in the morning. Sir Patrick Murray, the diligent

THE CONFLICT. 375

Apostle of the Xorth, made all the northland minis-
ters acquainted with the king. They began to
look big in the matter, and find fault with the min-
isters of the south and the popes of Edinburgh,
who had not handled matters well, and had almost
lost the king." Thus the silly flies were entangled,
leg and wing, in the royal spider's web.

Grieved, but not surprised, Andrew Melville,
with certain of his brethren, held a meeting at the
time and j^lace for the regular meeting of the Gen-
eral Assembly, and then adjourned.

The Dundee Assemblies.
James called the General Assembly together at
Dundee in May, and, though with the utmost diffi-
culty he succeeded in carrying through his measures,
the Assembly was induced to declare the Perth
Assembly lawful and regular, and, with certain
explanations, to approve of its acts and to give
guarded replies to some of the king's questions.
They even consented to receive back again the
popish lords on certain conditions, and api)ointed a
committee of fourteen ministers, any seven of whom
might convene with his majesty to make arrange-
ments respecting the ministers of St. Andrew's and
Edinburgh, the providing of stipends for the min-

376 JENNY GEDDES.

isters throughout the khigdom, and to give the
king advice concerning the weal of the Church
throughout the reahn. Thus a feather was plucked
from the eagle's breast wherewith to wing an arrow
to its heart, and this was ^'a needle formed to draw
in the episcopal thread." Nearly all the commis-
sion were the devoted tools of the king. Through
them his majesty called presbyteries before him,
reversed their decisions and restored a suspended
minister to office. And now the king expressed
the desire that the Kirk should have a share in the
government of the nation — that is, that by its com-
missioners in Parliament it should assent to his
measures of absolutism. To this end he induced
the commissioners to request, and the Parliament
to grant, that the Church might have a voice in
the supreme council of the nation, and Prelacy was
declared to be the third estate in the kingdom —
that such ministers as his majesty should raise to
the Prelacy might sit and vote in Parliament —
and that bishoprics, as they became vacant, might
be given to those Avho would act as preachers and
ministers, the spiritual powers of the bishops to be
adjusted by his majesty and his majesty's General
Assembly. Thus the royal rogue succeeded in
handing Presbytery over, bound hand and foot, to

THE CONFLICT. 377

Prelacy, and the whole scheme was a deadly blow
to liberty, civil and religious.

Over these proceedings the Synod of Fife held
long and earnest conference, disapproving of the
Avhole matter — the Melvillcs, the patriarchs Fer-
guson and Davidson denouncing it, and the latter
exclaiming :

" Busk, busk him as bonullie as ye can, and
fetch him in as fairlie as ye will, we see him well
enough ; we see the horns of the mitre."

At another meeting of the Assembly, at Dundee,
in May, 1598, well packed by the king with his
northern legion, this act of Parliament came under
consideration. Before the Assembly proceeded to
business every practicable member was personally
manipulated by the king. But armed as the king
w^as by an act of Parliament and the assent of his
commissioners, and the subserviency of the mem-
bers of the Assembly, there was one man whose
presence and influence he sorely dreaded, and that
man w\as Andrew Melville. When his name was
called on the roll of the Assembly, his majesty
denied his right to sit. Melville made his defence.
He had a commission from his presbytery, and
would not betray his right. Davidson reminded
the king that he was not president of that body.

378 JENNY GEDDES.

But with James might was instead of right, and
he ordered Melville to his lodgings and then from
the city. Knox, of Melrose, boldly said that this
interdiction proceeded from fear of Melville's
learning.

" I will not hear one word on that head," said
the king.

^^ Then," said Davidson, " we must crave help
of Him that will hear us."

A week having been spent in efforts to mould
the Assembly to the king's wishes, his majesty in-
troduced the business of the hour in a speech, in
which he applauded his own services to the
Church, protested his anxiety for her welfare, and
disclaimed all intention of intruding popish or
Anglican bishops into the Church. He only de-
sired that certain of the best and wisest ministers,
appointed by the Assembly, should have an hon-
ourable and influential place in the council and
Parliament of the realm.

The question was, " Is it necessary and ex-
pedient, for the welfare of the Church, that the
ministry as the third estate should, in the name
of the Church, have a vote in Parliament ?" A
warm and protracted debate ensued, in which all
the best and ablest ministers united in rejecting

THE CONFLICT. 379

the wealth, rank and power thus offered them.
Gladstanes pleaded the power of heathen priests
in ancient Rome. Davidson answered :

*^The priests were consulted, but they were
allowed no vote."

"Where have you that?'* asked the king.

"In Titus Livius."

" Oh ! You are going from the Scriptures to
Titus Livius !" sneered the king, as if the Scrip-
tures detailed the duties of Koman priests.

The question, being put to vote, was carried by
a majority of ten ; many of the elders in the ma-
jority, as was asserted, being without any com-
mission. Davidson, who had refused to vote, laid
in a protest against the proceedings of this and the
two preceding Assemblies, on the ground that they
Avere not free, but overawed by the king, and re-
stricted in their privileges. This protest was
signed by forty and more ministers.

The Assembly then chose fifty-one ministers —
according to the number of the ancient bishops,
abbots and priors — to represent the Church, to be
elected partly by the king and partly by the
Church. But, before they had gone far in adjust-
ing the matter of the elections, the ministers began
to see whither things were tending and drew back

380 JENNY GEDDES.

a little, and the king, fearing to press them too
hard, referred the subject to the next Assembly.

In the numerous meetings for conference among
the ministers that ensued, such opposition to the
scheme was developed that tlie king postponed the
proposed meeting of the Assembly to give further
time for kingcraft.

In November, 1599, he called a conference of
ministers at Holyrood, that he miglit learn in ad-
vance what arguments were likely to be urged
against his plan when the Assembly shoukl meet.
At the opening of the conference the king signified
that the largest liberty of discussion woukl be
allowed. A chief question discussed was, '^ Is it
consistent with the nature of their office, and the
provisions of Scripture that gospel ministers un-
dertake a civil function?"

On this question Melville deduced the history
of the blending of civil and ecclesiastical functions
under the Papacy, and warned the king to take
heed lest he set up a power that would yet cast
him and his successors down.

Then came the question as to the duration of
this office ; one party pleading for annual elections,
the other for official position during good be-
haviour.

THE CONFLICT. 381

The orthodox party held that permanent civil
office and emolument would corrupt the incum-
bent— make him the tool of the king and the enemy
of the Church.

''There is no fear but you will all prove true
enough to your craft," said the king.

" God make us all true enough to Christ,"
answered Melville.

'' There is nothing so good but it may be sus-
pected of evil."

" We doubt the goodness of the thing, and have
but too much reason to suspect its evil."

"We will not admit ministers but for life. If
you refuse this you lose the benefit."

"The loss will be small."

" Ministers will then be in poverty and con-
tempt."

" It was their Master's case before them. Bet-
ter poverty with sincerity than promotion with
corruption."

"Then others will be promoted to their place
who will ruin the Church."

"Then let Christ, the King of the Church,
avenge her wrongs."

At the next morning the moderator summed up
the points in the debate, and intimated that the

382 JENNY GEDDES.

mind of the conference was in harmony with the
wishes of the court. A murmur of dissent ran
around the hall, and Melville asked if any one
could imagine that a matter of such weight could
be settled in such a conference^ where the Scrip-
tures had been rather profaned than solemnly
handled ? At this the king politely told Melville
that he lied, and adjourned the conference w^ith the
threat that he would leave the refractory ministers
to poverty, and of his own act fill the vacant bish-
oprics with men who would serve him and the
realm.

The Melrose Assembly.

At Melrose the Assembly met, in March, 1600.
It was very full, and all felt that king or Kirk was
now to win a victory of decided results. Andrew
Melville was on the spot. The king sent for him
and reproached him as a troubler of the Church.
Melville pleaded his commission. The king threat-
ened. Melville withdrew, putting his hand to his
neck and saying :

^' Sir, it is this you would have, and you shall
have it before I betray the cause of Christ."

Forbidden to sit in the Assembly, he remained
near by to assist by his counsels. The great ques-
tion was, "Shall ministers sit in Parliament?"

THE CONFLICT. 383

Seeing that the vote would go against him, James
interfered and said that the question had been
already settled, and withdrew it from farther con-
sideration.

The vote on the duration of the office went for
annual elections, yet kingcraft secured a modifi-
cation of the minute that gave James all he
wanted', and at the close of the Assembly he got
the minute approved by the house. The voters,
however, were to have the name simply of com-
missioners. The Church was to nominate six in
each province, of whom the king was to choose
one, and the commissioner was to propose nothing
in Parliament, convention or council without the
express sanction of the Church, nor vote for any
measure prejudicial to her interests. He must re-
port his action to the xlssembly, and submit to its
censure without appeal. He should have no power
in presbytery but what belonged to other minis-
ters ; with various other restricting provisions, cal-
culated, if faithfully observed, to make the measure
as harmless as possible.

But, as one of the king's sycophants wrote, ^' It
was neither the king's intention nor that of the
loiser sort to observe these cautions." To demon-
strate this, the king called a meeting of the com-

384 JEXNY GEBDES.

missioners of the Assembly, in October, to advise
with him about filling the Edinburgh pulpits, and
"such other things as he thought to be for the
weal of Church and king, at the next Parliament/'
To open the way for the outcarrying of his plans,
the royal trickster rid himself of the presence of
James Melville by securing his appointment on a
committee to transact some business without the
body, and during their absence he obtained the
nomination of David Lindsay, Peter Blackburn
and George Gladstanes to the bishoprics severally
of Ross, Aberdeen and Caithness ; and this pro-
ceeding was carefully concealed from those absent
members until the meeting was dissolved, and
these bishops, so appointed, sat and voted in the
next Parliament! James dreamed that nio-ht that
he was crowned the Solomon of kinojcraft.

Thus, whatever else the king neglected, he was
shrewd enough to watch the Church, being always
present at the sittings of both commission and As-
sembly, and ever ready to "regale his friends"
with delicate specimens of royal wit — calling one
member a "seditious Knox,'' another "a liar" —
saying to one, " that's witchlike," and to another
" that's anabaptistical."

All this while James was looking wistfully to-

THE CONFLICT. 385

ward the English throne, and was striving in every-
way to conciliate the powerful Romish party iii
both kingdoms. He even sent a secret embassy to
the pope; and, restoring to Archbisho2) Beaton the
temporalities of the see of St. Andrew's, sent him
ambassador to the court of France.

It was at this time that he issued his master-
pieces, " The Free Law of Free Monarchies" and
*' Basilicon Doron,'' in which he affirmed that a
chief duty of the monarch consists in ruling the
Church — to judge when a preacher wanders from
his text — to forbid ecclesiastical councils except by
his consent — that no man is to be more hated by
a king than a proud Puritan — that parity in the
ministry is irreconcilable with monarchy, and the
mother of confusion — that Puritans were demo-
cratic in their principles — that Parity should be
banished and Episcopacy set up, and that all who
preached against bishops should be punished.
How could Romanists and Prelatists longer doubt
that the author of such doctrines was just the man
to be king of England ?

The " Gowrie conspiracy'^ put a new scourge into
the hand of the royal persecutor. Alexander Ruth-
ven and John, earl of Gowrie, men of great popu-
larity and acknowledged piety, seem to have formed

25

386 JENNY QEDDES.

some sort of a conspiracy with reference to the king.
Its aim is yet a mystery, though papers subse-
quently discovered prove that it was no part of
that aim to shed the king's blood.

The king's story was this : " On his way a-hunt-
ing, Alexander met and induced him to accompany
him to his house, where his majesty was set upon
by the brothers, both of whom were slain in the
struggle. The earl was run through the body, but
no blood was seen, because, said the king, the vic-
tim had in his pocket a bundle of magical parch-
ments ; when these were removed, the blood gushed
out!'' As the absence of these popular men was
very convenient to the king, and as no imaginable
motive could be suggested for any attempt on their
part at his life, many believed that the king himself
was the only guilty one. And the known want of
veracity of the monarch, and his furious resolve
that all should believe his story, increased the sus-
picion against him. At Edinburgh he vowed ven-
geance on all who would not express belief in his
tale. A form of j^ublic thanksgiving for his mar-
vellous deliverance was dictated by the king and
enjoined upon all ministers. The ministers of Ed-
inburgh were not unwilling to give thanks that the
king's life was preserved, but, as they did not fully

THE CONFLICT. 387

believe what he wished them to express, they modi-
fied his form of thanksgiving. Five of them were
promptly banished and forbidden to preach in Scot-
land. Four soon submitted, but Bruce would not
submit, and was banished the kingdom, and though
allowed afterward to return, he was never for-
given.

In 1601, two months before the appointed time,
James, having failed in his embassy to the Pope,
and feeling the odium increased by the slaughter of
the earl of Gowrie, called a meeting of the General
Assembly at Burntisland. At this Assembly a
faithful, forcible letter was read from John David-
son. The spiritual confusions and disorders of the
land came under consideration, during which James
was attacked with one of his temporary paroxysms
of piety. He rose in the Assembly, and, with tears
in his eyes, confessed his offences, and lifting his
hand, vowed that he would live and die in the re-
ligion of his country and defend it against all ad-
versaries. At his request, the Assembly followed
his royal example, and this vow was ordered to be
mentioned from the pulpits on the following Sab-
bath for the edification of the realm. But sore ex-
perience kept the Assembly this time from going
into any ecstasies over the matter. It soon ad-

388 JENNY GEDBES.

jounied, and James laid off his piety and took up
the sword of persecution.

In 1602, the king, on his own authority chang-
ing the time and place of meeting, summoned the
Assembly at Holyrood House in November.
James Melville gave in a protest against this arbi-
trary procedure. The Assembly, however, by its
acts showed that the spirit of true Presbyterianism
yet survived. With this year ended James' residence
in Scotland, and this Assembly was the last Assem-
bly recognized by the Church of Scotland as free
and lawful for a dismal period of thirty-six years.
The Church now lay prostrate under the heel of
the king.

"THB BZACK SATUItJyAT."

Toward the close of April, 1603, Queen Eliza-
beth closed her eventful life and reign together,
and James VI. of Scotland became James I. of
England, and was proclaimed " king of Scotland,
England, France and Ireland." The ministers
waited on him with their congratulations, though
too well assured that in the hands of the English
Prelacy his disposition toward the Church of his
country could be no way improved. They listened,
however, to his farewell speech, in which he as-
sured them of his approbation of the Church of

THE CONFLICT. 389

Scotland, and his purpose to maintain it in its
present form.

The honesty and sincerity of James, and the
contrast between Presbyterian ism and Prelacy, re-
ceived a noted illustration at the Hampton Court
Conference, held soon after the king reached Lon-
don. It lasted three days. On the first day
bishops and deans only Avere admitted, and the
king felicitated himself before them that he was
now come into the promised land, that he sat
among grave and reverend men, and was a king,
not as formerly without state, nor in a place where
beardless boys could brave him to his face; and
said that he had called this conference not with
any thought of innovation, but to take some tri-
fling notice of alleged irregularities. On the sec-
ond day five ministers were admitted and two
bishops and six or eight deans. AVhile Dr. Ray-
nolds was speaking like a man, Bancroft, bishop
of London, fell on his knees, begging the king to
stop the schismatic's mouth. As Raynolds pro-
ceeded the king interrupted him, saying that he
found them "aiming at a Scots' Presbytery, which
agrees as well with monarchy as God and the
devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick
shall meet, and at their pleasure censure both me

390 JENNY GEDDES.

and my council. Therefore pray stay one seven
years, and if then you find me pursy and fat and
my windpipe stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to
you."

Then turning to the bishops, he said : " My
lords, I may thank you that these Puritans plead
for my supremacy, for if you were out and they in
place, I know what would become of my suprem-
acy, for — No bishop, no king." Then rising from
his seat, he added to Dr. Raynolds : " If this be all
your party have to say, I will make them conform
or I will harry them out of this land, or else
worse."

The Prelatists were in ecstasies. Bancroft fell
on his knees and j^rotested that " his heart melted
for joy that Almighty God, of his singular mercy,
had given them such a king as since Christ's time
had not been."

Tidings of these events, and of the king's decla-
ration in Parliament that he detested the Puritans,
that their ^' confused form of policy and parity
made them a sect insufferable in any well-governed
commonwealth," did not serve to reassure the Scot-
tish mind and heart.

Ere long the Scottish Parliament met to con-
sider the basis of union between the two kingdoms.

THE CONFLICT. 391

The Synod of Fife asked liberty to hold a General
Assembly, and when this was refused they address-
ed the Church commissioners in Parliament, and
adjured them to defend the government of the
Church, and vowed " before God and the elect
angels" that they would rather die than allow
Presbytery to be overthrown. Xor was their ap-
peal in vain. Parliament passed an act prohibit-
ing the commissioners for union from treating of
anything that concerned the religion of the realm.
Resolved on keeping the Kirk under his royal
heel, James forbade the Assembly to meet accord-
ing to appointment at Aberdeen in July, but the
Presbytery of St. Andrew's sent their commission-
ers, who met and protested that they had done
their duty, and that any dangers arising from the
coward 1}^ neglect of others should not be imputed
to them. When the Synod of Fife met, so many
commissioners were present from all parts of the
kingdom that it was almost a General Assembly.
At this meeting and at the one held afterward at
Perth, the parliamentary bishops were cliarged
with hindering the meeting of the Assembly, to
prolong their own powers and avoid its censures
for their misconduct. The sycophant Gladstanes
hastened to convey information of these matters to

392 JENNY OEDDES.

the king, and secured from him an order for the
imprisonment of the Melvilles for their fidelity in
the matter — an order, however, which the privy
council dared not execute.

All haters of liberty detest popular assemblies,
and to the Stuarts nothing was more odious than
parliaments and presbyterial courts. Accordingly,
when the time drew near for the meeting of the
General Assembly in 1605, James prorogued it
without naming any day for its gathering. This
violation of repeated parliamentary enactment in
the case, looking evidently to the abolition of the
Assembly, the overthrow of Presbytery and the
perpetuation of the bishops' term of office, pricked
the matter to the core, and challenged the Kirk to
action or death. They preferred the former ; and
when the day arrived for the meeting of the As-
sembly nine presbyteries were present by their
commissioners at Aberdeen. To this meeting the
king's commissioner presented a letter from the
privy council, addressed to " the brethren of the
ministry convened at their Assembly in Aberdeen."
Before hearing the letter read they constituted the
Assembly, and during the reading of the letter a
messenger-at-arms entei'ed and bade them dismiss
on pain of rebellion. The Assembly declared their

THE CONFLICT. 393

readiness to obey if the commissioner would name
the time and place for a future meeting. He re-
fusing, the moderator named Aberdeen as the place,
and the last Tuesday of September as the time, for
the next meeting, and the Assembly adjourned.
Thus nobly did the Assembly war against princi-
palities and powers and spirits of wickedness in
high places.

Of course James was not overpleased. Indeed,
his wrath knew no bounds. By this time he Avas
Avarm in his English nest, made soft by prelatic
feathers. At first he had seemed to waver a little.
Even James did not like to change his coat in an
liour. And during the very brief period of his
seeming vacillation it is said that a stern old Puri-
tan chaplain treated his majesty to a sermon on the
text, James i. 6: "He that wavereth is like a wave
of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed." But
he was now happily beyond the reach of torment-
ing Puritan sermons, and when he heard of the
bravery of the ministers and ruling elders at Aber-
deen, he ordered the arrest and imprisonment of
fourteen of the most loyal ministers, and John
Forbes, the moderator, and John Welsh, the son-in-
law of Knox, were confined in separate* cells in the
Castle of Blackness. Declining the jurisdiction of

394 JENNY GEDDES.

the privy council/ they were indicted for high trea-
son. Six were found guilty and thrown into prison
to await his majesty's will, and orders soon came
from the despot to proceed with the remaining
eight.

The heroic conduct of the ministers sent a thrill
through the heroic heart of Scotland, and the des-
potic conduct of the king filled that heart with in-
dignation. Proclamations forbade the people, on
pain of death, either to pray for the imprisoned
ministers or to call in question the justice of their
sentence, but the people only prayed the more and
the more loudly denounced the sentence. The
clouds were gathering, and James, hearing the dis-
tant thunders, gave orders for the release of the
eight, and sent the six, after fourteen months' im-
prisonment, into exile.

Such a taste of Episcopacy did not intoxicate the
people with its sweets. If such were its begin-
nings, Avhat would be its ending? While thus
John Welsh, through whose zealous preaching of
the gospel hundreds had been converted, was incar-
cerated in a prison cell, a wretched Romish abbot
was set free. " Not this man, but Barabbas !"
Strangely supposing that the Kirk was now hum-
bled, James, urged on by his bishops, convoked the

THE CONFLICT. 395

synods on the same day in different parts of the
kingdom, and tried to seduce them into the adop-
tion of five articles whose object was to shiekl the
bishops from Church censures for their illegal con-
duct. But, the Synod of Angus excepted, they all
referred the matter to the General Assembly.

The Parliament held in August, 1606, took another
step up the prelatic ladder, and an act was passed
opening with a preamble declaring the king to be
*' absolute prince, judge and governor of all estates,
persons and causes, spiritual and temporal;" de-
claring that the wealth and lands formerly pos-<t
sessed by abbots, priors, etc., in virtue of which
those persons had acted as members of Parliament,
should be alienated from the Church and erected
into temporal lordships ; erecting seventeen prela-
cies and restoring the bishops to their ancient hon-
ours. This act pleased all but the Church and its
friends. It pleased the king, for it acknowledged
him as despot. It pleased the mercenary lords, as
it enriched tliem; and the bishops, as it clothed
them with the glories of lords over God's heritage.
Against these proceedings Melville and forty-one
other ministers laid in a solemn, earnest protest, in
which they reminded the Parliament that they were
not lords over the Church, and conjured them not

396 JENNY GKDDES.

to overthrow the religic?ii of the hind by erecting a
hierarchy which '' had nniformly proved the source
of idlenesss, ignorance, insuiferal)le pride, pitiless
tyranny and shameless ambition."

The Melvilles also drew up a paper containing
the reasons for the protest, in which they say: "Set
up these bishops once (called long since the Prince's
led horse), things however unlawful and pernicious,
if favoured by the king, shall be carried through
by his bishops without regard to the other estates.
And the reason is, that the ])ishops have their lord-
.^ship and living from the king. Deprave me once
the ecclesiastical estate, which has the gift of
knowledge and learning beyond others, and the rest
will be easily miscarried. If any succeeding prince
please to play the tyrant, these bishops shall never
admonish him as faithful pastors, but, as they are
made by man, they must and will flatter and please
man. The pitiful experience of this in times past
makes us bold to give warning for tlie time to
come."

How well grounded these anticipations were is
seen in, among other things, a letter of Gladstanes',
one of the king's archbishops, in which he writes :
" I find myself so overwhelmed with your majesty's
princely benignity that I could not but repair to

THE CONFLICT. 397

your majesty's most gracious face, tliat so uuworthy
a Gveature might both see, bless and thank my
ecuihly creator /''

Though James had accompb'shed much, much yet
remained to be done in the work of transmuting
Presbytery into Prelacy. The Parliament had
wrought well to his will, but as yet Episcopacy stood
condemned by the Church, and the king's bishops
enjoyed legally little more than the name. Their
rank was, as in the Scripture, simply that of pas-
tors, and no superior spiritual power was lodged in
their hands ; and the desired revolution on this point
could be wrought only by the General Assembly.
But of this tliere could be no sure prospect while
the veteran leaders of tlie Kirk were within speak-
ing distance of their brethren. Hence two prob-
lems invited solution at the hands of kingcraft :
first, the removal of these leaders from the realm,
and, second, the corruption or intimidation of the
Assembly. Neither of these problems was arduous
to the royal manipulator. Accordingly, a peremp-
tory and insidious mandate from the king ordered
the Melvilles, and others who had been already im-
prisoned or banished, to repair to him at London
to consult with him upon ecclesiastical affairs. The
king's two archbishops, Gladstanes and Spotswood,

398 JENNY GEDDES.

followed them. On the 20tli of September they
were allowed to kiss the monarch's hand, and the
kino: rallied Balfour on the leno;th of his beard,
which, he said, had grown prodigiously since he
had had the pleasure of seeing it in Scotland.

'' The cat doth play and after slay."

Two days after, they met his majesty again,
when they were asked for an account of the " pre-
tended Assembly at Aberdeen,'' and of the means
of obtaining a peaceable meeting of the General
Assembly/' On these points they were to give
answer the next day. The next day they met in
the presence of earls and nobles, with English pre-
lates behind the tapestry. First, James bade his
creatures Gladstanes and Spotswood give their
views, which, of course, were all his majesty de-
sired. Andrew Melville was then called upon to
speak, which he did for one hour, and, as he spoke
the honest truth, of course he disagreed with the
kino;. The others followed in the same strain.
The lord advocate then spoke of the trial of the
ministers for treason in such terms that Andrew
Melville took fire and on his knees begged to
speak again. This being granted, he poured his
spirit forth in one of those bursts of honest, elo-

THE CONFLICT. 399

quent indignation and jDower for which he was so
famous. Of the lord advocate he said that the
arch-enemy himself could not have done more
against the saints of God than he had done ; and
now, said he,

*' You must needs show yourself, 0 Karrjopo^
Tcov AdeAipcovJ^

"What's that he said?" asked the king. "I
think he calls him antl-Chrlst. Nay, by God, it
is the devil's name In the Revelation of the well-
beloved John."

Then rising hastily, he said, " God be with you,
sirs."

Recollecting himself, he turned and asked the
ministers what was needed to pacify the dissensions
of the Church. With one voice they answered :

"A FREE General Assembly."

The predetermined result was that Andrew
Melville was shut up for four years in the Tower,
James was forbidden to return to Scotland and
the others to return to their parishes, and thus the
" crafty tyrant cut down the tallest."

Surely now the road was clear for the panting
steed of the king to the crowning heights of com-
plete despotism. But even yet much remained to
be done. Nothing must be left to Sootcli piety

400 JENNY GEDDES.

and pertinacity. The king's bishops were sent
post-haste to gather an Assembly at LinlithgoWj
but carrying a mandate with them naming those
who should be commissioners. Tlie ministers in
London asked a free Assembly, and as a free mon-
archy was one in which the king was free to do as
he pleased, so a free Assembly was one in which
the king's will should have free play. Some of
the presbyteries refused to grant commissions to
the king's nominees; others elected them, but
charged them to take no part in the decision of
any ecclesiastical question. The king ordered, and
against much opposition the Assembly ordained,
the appointment of constant moderators in presby-
teries, and that his bishops should be moderators
of the presbyteries within wdiose bounds they re-
sided— these " constant moderators beino^ the little
thieves within to open the doors to the great
thieves without." The poor Synod of Angus was
the only synod that obeyed. The king raged and
stormed, and his bishops did all the king bade;
ministers were thrown into prison, but the presby-
teries would not appoint the constant moderators.

In 1609 a Parliament at Edinburgh empowered
the bishops to fix the salaries of ministers, and
made Spotswood a lord of session, and thus the

THE CONFLICT. 401

prelates climbed the throne, being now holders of
the ministers' purses, constant moderators in spite
of the Kirk, visitors of presbyteries, and soon
royal high commissioners; for in 1610 a commis-
sion was issued to the king's two archbishops to
hold two courts of high commission, the instru-
ment and embodiment of sheer tyranny. No fixed
forms of law or justice guided their proceedings.
They had the power of receiving appeals from all
ecclesiastical courts, of citing before them any ac-
cused of immorality, heresy, sedition or any other
offence, and of inflicting any punishment, civil or
ecclesiastical ; and thus did the king put himself
in possession of the liberties, goods and persons of
his subjects. The "free monarchy" was realized.

One of the king's packed Assemblies was held
in June at Glasgow. In obedience to the dictation
of James, the Aberdeen Assembly of 1605 was con-
demned, the right of calling and dismissing As-
semblies given to his majesty, the bishops were de-
clared moderators of diocesan synods, and other
acts were passed completing the overthrow of the
Kirk. These acts, though kept secret till the time
came to enforce them, stirred up no little ferment
in the realm, and this gave pretext for further per-
secution.

26

402 JENNY GEDDES.

Thus, after ten years, by the exercise of arbitrary
power, by bribery, by dissimulation, treachery and
persecution, was Episcopacy establislied in Scotland.

In 1617, after an absence of fourteen years, the
king favoured his native country with a visit, and
with instinctive Stuart fatuity gave a preliminary
thrust at the prejudices of those who were expected
to welcome him, by sending on in advance some
cartloads of wooden statues of the apostles, to be
set up in Holyrood. On his arrival he found that
all his kingcraft had not fully replaced the Presby-
terian thistle of Scotland with the lawn of Prelacy.
True, the deputy town-clerk of Edinburgh greeted
him at the West Port with salutations, as the
" bright star of our northern firmament, the orna-
ment of our age ;'' but the ministers met him with
a protest, adopted at a meeting held for the pur-
pose, against a proposal to the effect that the king,
aided by the prelates and ministers, should have
power to enact ecclesiastical laws and thus abolish
the General Assembly. For this, David Calder-
wood was cited before the High Commission. But
he declined its jurisdiction.

The king demanded :

" How dared you to take part in that mutinous
meeting ?"

THE CONFLICT. 403

^' When that meeting is pronounced mutinous,
it will be time enough to answer that ques-
tion."

" What moved you to protest ?"

"A proposition of the Lords of Articles to de-
stroy our General Assembly/'

" But this is disobedience !

"We will yield passive obedience to your ma-
jesty, but not active obedience to unlawful regu-
lations."

"Active and passive disobedience — what is
that?"

" That is, we will rather suffer than act."

" I'll tell thee, man, what is obedience. When
the centurion said to one, Go and come, and he
obeyed. That is obedience. I am informed you
are refractory, and attend neither synod nor pres-
bytery, nor in any way conform."

" I have been in confinement these nine years ; so
my conformity or non-conformity in that point
could not very well be known."

" Good faith ! Thou art a very knave ! See
these false Puritans — they are ever playing with
equivocations !"

The result was, that Calderwood was banished,
and that in the winter, the king gently remarking

404 JEXXY GEDDES.

that "should he be drowned on the voyage, it
might save him from a worse end."

During his stay in Scotland the king showed
the effect of his residence among English prelates
in a proclamation commanding that his subjects
should not be prevented from " dancing, leaping,
vaulting, exercising archery, having May games,
Whitson ales or morris dances after divine service
on Sundays." And now followed

The Five Articles of Pnih:
Kamely, hieeling at the communion, the observance
of holidays, episcopal confirmation, private baptism,
and the private dispensation of the Lord^s Supper,

To prepare the way for the adoption of these,
the whole force of kingcraft and bishopcraft, of
despotism spiritual and temporal, was brought to
bear upon the prospective membership of the Gen-
eral Assembly, a meeting of which was ordered at
Perth on the 25th of August, 1618. They met in
the Little Kirk, in which a long table was placed
in the centre, on each side of which benches were
placed, with another for the moderator and the
king's commissioner at the head. The seats were
filled with the nobility and prelates, and the poor
ministers stood up behind them ! Spotswood took

THE CONFLICT. 405

the moderator's seat without election. The com-
missioDS of the ministers were handed in, but not
examined in public — a prudent procedure, for many
of them were illegal. The moderator ordered that
the nobles, and others who were present without
other commissions than the mandate of the king,
should be considered as members of the body.
The dean of Winchester read a letter from the
king, in which his majesty assured them that he
would be satisfied with no " mitigations, delays or
shifts, nor indeed with anything short of a direct
acceptation of the articles in the form he had sent.''

When these articles were laid before the bod}-,
there were not wanting, even there, some who faith-
fully stood up for the right. At this the modera-
tor poured forth a furious tirade, sneering at the
suggestion that any of the ministers would submit
to expulsion from their charges rather than submit
to the will of the king in this matter ; " and if any
do,'' he said, " I wish the king would make him a
captain, and never one of these braggers would
come to the field." So apt scholars were the king's
prelates in the school of coarse abuse and overbear-
ing tyranny.

When the faithful ministers attempted to speak,
their voices were drowned by the clamors and jeers

406 JENNY GEDDES.

of courtly barons and gentry. The question was
at length put in this form :

" Will you consent to these articles, or will you
disobey the king?" and the moderator added that
the name of every man who voted against them
should be sent to the king ! The articles were
passed — forty-five ministers, one doctor and one no-
bleman voting in the negative. These articles, thus
forced upon the Church, the Court of High Com-
mission at once began to enforce at the point of the

bayonet.

The Black Saturday.

August 4th, 1621, saw these articles ratified by
Parliament. For three years now had the Church
been *' harried" by the High Commission, and plied
with every instrumentality cunning could devise
and cruelty wield, and now Parliament met at Ed-
inburgh to do the bidding of its imperious master
in riveting the chains upon its limbs. The faithful
ministers assembled at Edinburgh and petitioned
against the act. The petition was cast into the fire
and the petitioners into prison. Others met in
private and expressed their views, and they were
ordered instantly to leave the city. At length the
day arrived when the deed was to be consummated.
As the parliamentary procession moved from the

THE CONFLICT. 407

palace to the Tol booth a few spectators in the
streets looked on in silence, while the inhabitants
generally remained at home shut up in their houses.
At last the vote was taken and the infamous meas-
ure passed — fifteen loixls, fifty-four commissioners
of shires and burghs voting in the negative. The
morning had been cloudy, and as the day advanced
the gloom deepened and clouds gathered in dense
masvses over the city. The king's commissioner
rose from his throne, and, in the usual method,
stretched out the sceptre to touch the acts and thus
seal their ratification. Just then a keen flash of
forked lightning darted through the gloom, fol-
lowed by a second and a third, and three terrific
peals of thunder made the old building shake and
the guilty legislators tremble ! Rain followed in
deluging sheets, and hailstones of enormous size
rattled upon the roof and against the walls, im-
prisoning for an hour and a half the wretched con-
clave in its hall of sin. The prelates likened it to
the thundering of Sinai at the giving of the law,
but the people remembered the day for a long time
as The Black Saturday.

Had James been there, he would have ordered a
series of counter-incantations to exorcise the city of
Presbyterian witches, but his majesty's head that

408 JENNY GEDDES.

day was pillowed on the soft bosom of English
Prelacy.

THE DEA TU OF JAMES.

The kiuo^ survived this consummation of his
crime against the Kirk — which he had eulogized as
the sincerest Kirk of all the world, and over and
over again pledged his word to God and man to
defend — a little less than four years, a period of un-
relenting tyranny. The people had long been
growing restive under the despotism of the High
Commission, as depending solely upon the will of
the king, but now James elegantly wrote to Spots-
wood :

" The greatest matter the Puritans had to object
against the Church government was that your pro-
ceedings were warranted by no law, which now by
this last Parliament is cutted short, so that here-
after that rebellious, disobedient and seditious crew
must either obey or resist God, their natural king
and the law of the country. Lose no time to pro-
cure a settled obedience to God and to us. The
sword is put into your hands ; use it, and let it
rust no longer.^^ But Spotswood needed no such
injunction to keep the sword from rusting. He
loved to make and see it bright.

A similar epistle was sent to the privy council,

THE CONFLICT. 409

enjoining all officers of the state, on pain of dismis-
sion, to aid in turning the grindstone while the
archbishop sharpened and furbished his sword.
Very many of the burgesses, however, refused to
act, and their places were filled with those who
were more pliant.

While this storm of persecution was beating
down upon the Church, incessant rains kept the
grain from growing, and succeeding winter floods
swept away farm-houses, bridges, cattle and men.
Perth was surrounded with water. Famine fol-
lowed and reduced many of the opulent to beggary.
John Welsh, now fourteen years in exile, his health
fast failing, his wife begged of James permission
to breathe once more his native air. James asked :

'^ Whose daughter are you ?'^

" The daughter of John Knox !"

" Knox and Welsh ! The devil never made a
match like that !''

^' It's right like, sir; we never asked his advice.'^

" What children did your father leave?''

" Three, and they were all lasses."

'^ God be thanked ! Had they been lads, I had
never possessed my kingdom in peace."

" But give him, sir, his native air !"

<^ Give him the devil !"

410 JENNY QEDDES.

" Give that, sir, to your hungry courtiers !''

*' Well, he may return if he will submit to the
bishops."

Lifting up her apron, she said, ^^ I would rather
keep his head here !''

So poor Welsh died in exile.

In the mean time the bishops hunted up every
minister their keen scent could discover, and sought
to constrain his subscription to the Perth articles,
aiming thus to bend the adverse will of the people
by the example of the venerated pastors; and, judg-
ing others by themselves, they doubted not tliat
their opponents would quail before the newly-fur-
bished sword. Met in High Commission, they
summoned five godly notables before their bar.
To the summons George Johnson, of Ancrum, sent
this reply :

'^ If my age of seventy-three years, and my in-
firmities, a swelling in both my legs, a constant
fever after travelling in the open air, with other
miseries attendant on old age, may not hold me
excused from coming to Edinburgh, I take me to
God's mercy." This old man the kind bishops
deprived and banished to Annandale. David
Dickson, of Irvine, eminent for parts and piety,
protected by an earl and pleaded for by his people,

THE CONFLICT. 411

was banished to Turriff, and all the rest were
made to feel the keen edge of the prelatic sword.
Finding the pastors too bold and true to bow, they
tried their power upon the people, insisting espe-
cially on the kneeling at the communion, as the
most visible acknowledgment of the authority of
royal and prelatic tyranny; and many a scene of
confusion and disgrace occurred in the house of
God, and in the presence of the bread and wine,
as the persecutors enforced and the people resisted
what they regarded as a popish ceremony. A few
yielded to gratify the dignitaries, but the greater
part either abstained from the communion-table, or
resorted to altars where they could particijiate with
New Testament simplicity.

But true Presbyterianism is not wont either to
submit to ecclesiastical or secular tyranny, or long
to smother its indignant protests. The dullest
apprehensions could not choose but see that the
assumed power of the prelates meant the death of
all freedom. The nobility found that their consti-
tutional rights were dreams in the eyes of those
who now lorded it over God's heritage, and the
muttering of coming thunder was heard among
the cloudy masses of the people, and the sea began
to swell under the force of a gathering storm. Nor

412 JENNY GEDDES.

was any oil poured on the troubled waters by the
king's proposal to marry the prince to a Spanish
Romanist, nor by the royal favour to Papists to
smooth the way for this abominable alliance.

Further force was added to the national discon-
tent by the conduct of the king and his prelatic
minions in the case of William Forbes, who, having
been recently placed over one of the churches of
Edinburgh on account of his anti-Presbyterian
principles, was accused of uttering sentiments in
favour of the papacy. The bishops, of course,
sided with Forbes, who was proudly indignant
that the people should venture to question his
official acts or utterances. At the solicitation of
the bishops a thundering mandate from the king
bade a select number of the privy council to put
the murmuring citizens on trial for their audacity,
and one magistrate was imprisoned in the Castle
of Blackness till he could pay a ruinous fine ; and
five other eminent citizens were imprisoned or
banished to remote parts of the country.

The prelates, finding that they were only sowing
dragons' teeth, begged now of the king relief from
the " conventicles" to which the faithful ministers
of the surrounding country resorted for purposes
of prayer and consultation ; and in answer to their

THE CONFLICT. 413

petitions there came a royal proclamation repre-
hending in severe terms those citizens who listened
to the " turbulent persuasions of restless minis-
ters/^ and strictly prohibiting all private conven-
ticles. Soon after, a letter of censure came from
the royal hand, threatening the town of Edinburgh
with the removal of the courts of session and
justiciary, if the magistrates did not give better
obedience to the articles of Perth themselves and
better enforce their observance upon others.

But the cup of James was now full. If the
saints die, the grave will not yield its claim on
sinners ;

''Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and crown must tumble down,
And, in the dust, be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade."

The 27th day of March, 1625, found King Death
darkening with his huge shadow the palace-door
of King James, nearly fifty-nine years after his
birth in Edinburgh Castle, while his mother was
meditating the murder of his father in love for her
seducer and in revenge for the death of Rizzio.
His reign, in a political point of view, had been
one succession of humiliations to his people. In
Scotland all was turbulence and strife, and " on the

414 JENNY GEDDES.

day of his accession to the English throne/' writes
Macaulay, " our country descended from the rank
she had hitherto held, and began to be regarded as
a power hardly of the second order. From the
time of his accession he shunned hostilities with a
caution that was proof against the insults of his
neighbours and the clamours of his subjects. Not
till the last year of his reign could the influence of
his son, his favourite, his Parliament and his
people combined induce him to strike one feeble
blow in defence of his family and religion."

The portraits left of his person are not flattering.
"He was of middling stature, more corpulent
through his clothes than in his body, though
fat enough ; his clothes ever being made too
large, and his doublets quilted for stiletto- proof;
his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed. His
eyes were large, ever rolling after any stranger
who came into his presence" — fearing he might
prove a king-killer — "insomuch as many for
shame have left the room. His tongue was too
large for his mouth, which ever made him speak
full in the mouth and made him drink very
uncomely. He never washed his hands — only
rubbed his finger ends Avith the wet end of a
napkin slightly. His legs were very weak, mak-

THE CONFLICT. 415

iiig him ever lean on other men's shoulders. His
walk was ever circular.''

But physical defects are soon forgotten if mind
and character challenge admiration. Unhappily,
James' body was the best part of him. His dis-
regard for truth was unblushing. He was osten-
tatious in his profanity and lascivious conversation
and conduct, driving, by his own example, all de-
cency from his court. In spirit he was crafty,
mean, selfish and vindictive. Indeed, few kings
have lived whose characters would not gain by
comparison with his. Such was the idol of Eng-
lish Prelacy — the one whom the fawning Glad-
stanes called his earthly creator — to whom Ban-
croft, bishop of London, said " that he was such a
king as since Christ's time hath not been." At
last, however, the time came for his removal. An
intermittent fever seized him, and as he sank the
wretches who had flattered him so profusely while
fawning sycophancy was sure of its reward, miser-
ably deserted him; and it is said that even medical
attention was lacking, and that some " empirical
prescriptions, which in his impatience he caused to
be administered," hastened the end he was so anx-
ious to defer. ^* Thus," in the language of Hether-
ington, "he departed, leaving a kingdom sunk from

416 JENNY GEDDES.

glory to disgrace; filled with the elements of private
strife and social discord ; a son the heritor of his
despotic principles and of all the evils they had
engendered, and a name lauded by a few prelatic
flatterers who could term him their ^ earthly cre-
ator/ the ' Solomon of the age/ but scorned by the
haughty, mocked by the witty, despised by men of
learning and genius, and not hated only because
pitied and deplored by the persecuted yet loyal
Church of Scotland." Nor can charity concede to
his memory even the poor privilege of oblivion.

en abt.es I.

" The king is dead — long live the king !" On
the arrival in Scotland of the news of the death of
James a general mourning was ordered, the chapel
and palace of Holyrood were hung with black, the
new king proclaimed w^ith the usual ceremonies,
and the chief ministers of state set off for London,
less to assist in burying the old monarch than in
crowning and soliciting favours from the new one.

Charles I. was a man of medium size, his aspect
grave and pale, with a painful weakness of eyes.
In intellect he w'as far superior to his father, and
he displayed considerable taste for literature and
the arts; and his domestic life was without a stain.

THE CONFLICT. 417

Bat, affecting the gravity of the court of Spain in
his behaviour, he not only despised the civilities
and affabilities which endear a prince to his people,
but sullen, if not morose, in his temper, his man-
ner in bestowing a favour was so ungracious that
^' it was almost as mortifying as the favour was
obliging." Inheriting his father's despotic temper,
he was fond of high, rough measures, though lack-
ing '^ the skill to conduct them and the genius to
manage them." He hated all that offered counsels
of prudence and moderation, even when necessity
compelled him to listen to such counsels. Thus he
was extremely wilful and looked upon all contra-
diction as rebellion. " Faithlessness was the chief
cause of his disasters and is the chief stain on his
memory. He was in truth impelled by an in-
curable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It.
may seem strange that his conscience, which, on
occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensi-
tive, should never have reproached him with this
orreat vice. Bat there is reason to believe that he
was perfidious not only from constitution and habit,
but also on principle. He seems to have learned
from the theologians," his prelatic counsellors,
^' whom he most esteemed, that between him and
his subjects there could be nothing of the nature

27

418 JENNY GEDDES.

of a mutual contract ; that he could not, even if
he would, divest himself of his despotic authority,
and that in every promise he made there was an
implied reservation that such promise might be
broken in case of necessity, and that of the neces-
sity he was the sole judge."

Such was the character of the monarch with
whom high-spirited Presbyterianism was now to
deal, and who had inherited from his father a
realm that now rested on a volcano.

For a time, the death of their beloved master, in
whose favour they found their life, paralyzed the
energies of the prelates and afforded a brief breath-
ing-time to the persecuted Church. The banished
ministers came back to their homes, full of zeal and
love and cordially welcomed by the people. When
James breathed his last, the Court of High Com-
mission, which his will had created, also died, and
the relief the godly thus experienced only increased
their detestation of despotism and its ministers.

But relief soon returned to the bishops and ap-
prehension to the Church. Charles had sought a
wife in Eomish Spain, and had found one — lovely,
accomplished and strong-willed — in papal France.
Nor was it long before a breathless courier rushed
in at the gates of Edinburgh, bringing mandates

THE COSFLICT. 419

from Charles that made the heart of Archbishop
Spotswood leap for joy : ^' Go right oa in the old
path, and carry into execution all the ecclesiastical
laws of the old reign !" At this the prelatic bells
pealed out their exulting clang, and those of right
and religion tolled an appalling knell. Then came
a royal proclamation commanding conformity to
the Articles of Perth and menacing the disobedient
with rigorous penalties ; and then a royal mandate
to the town council of Edinburgh, commanding
them to allow as magistrates none but the sub-
servient.

During the preceding reign, liberty, civil and
ecclesiastical, found some small security in the
mental weakness and cowardly timidity of the
king. He was a great blusterer, but his spirit not
unfrequently evaporated in the blustering. But
Charles, stronger of mind and the incarnation of
obstinacy, acted instead of blustering, and that with
a quiet tenacity of purpose that only yielded to the
axe that took ofP his head. He early resolved that
the sham Prelacy of Scotland should emerge into
the solid and real Prelacy of England, and to do
this he saw that the bishops, with their titles,
must have the handling of the tithes. The apos-
tles were not overburdened with incomes, but their

420 JENNY GEDDES.

successors in a prelatical establish aient had almost
as well be without mitres as without money. In
the first year of his reign, therefore, he startled
both the Church and the nobility by a proclama-
tion revoking "all the acts of his father in preju-
dice of the crown ;'' the nobles, as they read therein
a significant hint that many lands in their posses-
sion were likely to slide from under their grasp,
and the Church as seeing the hammer lifted that
was to rivet the fetters of Prelacy upon the free
limbs of the nation.

After this startling intimation had had time to
work, he proceeded to measures calculated, in his
view, to curb the intractable, turbulent temper of
the Scotch nobility. He remodelled the courts,
the privy council and the constitution of the ex-
chequer, introducing certain of his pliant prelates
into the two latter; created a commission of
grievances or Scottish Star-Chamber, and raised
from the dead the Court of Hio^h Commission.
Thus the machinery was erected, put in order and
committed to willing, relentless hands, which was
to torture Scotland, Church and State, into con-
formity with the ideal in the royal mind. A gleam
also of the old kingcraft appeared in the order,
allowing all the ministers admitted before the As-

THE CONFLICT. 421

sembly of 1618 to withhold consent to the Perth
Articles, on condition that they would refrain from
publicly assailing the king's authority and his form
of church government. What might have been the
eflFect of this bribe in undermining opposition, the
zeal of the younger prelates, whose palates were
whetted for the spoils, prevents us from knowing.
It was found impossible to restrain hounds keen
of scent and game in view.

These younger prelates, seeing that advancement
quickly followed the display of zeal, caught the
ritualistic fever, and soon nothing was heard among
them but plans for the introduction of prelatio
novelties. Success turned their heads and filled
their hearts with pride. Many of them, destitute
alike of piety and learning, put on offensive airs,
disdaining association with their flocks, and aping
the manners of, and courting association with, the
court class, and thus deepening the general disgust.

In 1628 a deputation was sent to the king by
the Synod of Edinburgh, begging relief from com-
pulsory submission to the Articles of Perth, and
especially from the necessity of kneeling at the sa-
crament, to which the mass of Presbyterian knees
would not bend. As might have been expected,
however, his majesty regarded the petition as little

422 JEN^Y GEDDES.

short of downright rebellion, and ordered condign
punishment upon the petitioners. The result was
that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not
administered in Edinburgh that year.

Things being now ripe, in the judgment of
Charles, to set his machine in action, he sent the
earl of Nithesdale to hold a convention of the
estates and gain their consent to the resumption by
the Crown of all the tithes and Church property
which came to it at the Reformation, or which had
been shared among the leading nobles during the
last two reigns. Thus the king would acquire the
metal needed to gild his bishops up to the point of
orthodox, prelatic splendour, and root the order in
the constitution of the government. But this was
a tender point. Many of those nobles could say in
all sincerity, " He who takes my religion takes
trash, hut he who takes my purse had as well also
take my life.'' AVith some of them, however,
higher motives prevailed. Presbyterianism had
taught them freedom, and this measure was another
step toward absolutism; and they resolved to resist
even unto death. The convention met, filled with
scowling lords. Nithesdale proposed his measure,
pledging all who would consent with the special
favouF-of his majesty, and threatening the refrac-

THE CONFLICT. 423

tory with the most vigorous measures. But at a
private meeting of the enraged nobles it had been
agreed that should the earl press this measure, he
and his adherents should be slain on the spot.
Lord Belhaven, blind by age, asked to be placed
by the side of one of Xithesdale's men, and, being
set beside the earl of Dumfries, he held him fast by
one hand as if needing support in his weakness,
while with the other he clutched a dagger concealed
in his bosom, resolved, when the signal should be
given, to bury the dagger in the heart of his victim.
Nithesdale, however, quailed under the frowns of
the barons, and gave up the attempt. But with a
wisdom peculiar to the Stuart race, the act, upon
consent to which the king's agent dared not insist,
was published in spite of their dissent, and thus
became an additional wedge between the crown and
the realm, and an additional bond among the
people.

The experience of Spots wood compelled him to
see what the king was too wilful and haughty to
acknowledge — that the Scottish spirit might be
goaded farther than would be safe for him who
used the goad, and the visible scowls and audible
murmurs of discontent constrained him within cer-
tain bounds of moderation. But the more sanguine

424 JENNY GEDDES.

prelates, blinded by covetousness and zeal, whis-
pered— through Laud, who was now the king's con-
science ecclesiastical — into the monarch's ear coun-
sels that better suited his imperious temper, and
thus Spots wood began to feel the shadows of a royal
cloud. John Maxwell, minister in Edinburgh, able
and unscrupulous, led the advanced wing and se-
cured the confidence of Laud, and the violent
measures of this party greatly deepened the grow-
ing discontent. In 1636, this Maxwell, after con-
sultation with Laud and Charles, brought with him
to Edinburgh a royal letter to Spots wood, direct-
ing him to convene the prelates and those ministers
most under their power, and inform them that the
time was drawing near w^hen Scotland must put on
the prelatic yoke of England and remodel the whole
Church order after the English pattern. This
bearding the lion in his den, however, was a task
the prelates dare not yet undertake, and the matter
was postponed. In July of this year, at a conven-
tion of the estates, the faithful ministers presented
a paper of grievances of which they asked redress,
which, although supported by several of the nobil-
ity, was contemptuously left unread. In the mean
time, efforts sufficiently futile were made to intro-
duce organs, choristers, surplices and other such

THE CONFLICT. 425

novelties. And as death vacated one and another
of the ecclesiastical offices, new and more zealous
incumbents took the places of the departed. I^aw
was transferred from the see of Ross to the arch-
bishopric of Glasgow, and Maxwell made bishop
of Ross, and then a lord of session, and then a lord
of exchequer, and then a member of privy council ;
and who could now doubt that he was a true suc-
cessor of the apostles ?

While the king and his prelates were thus get-
ting their machine in working order preparatory to
the final act of exterminating Presbyterianism and
saddling the nation with English Prelacy, God, by
his providence and Spirit, was rooting the former
more and more deeply in the minds and affections
of the people, and making the latter more and more
odious. Under persecution true piety has ever
shown a tendency to deepen and brighten, and
rarely have God's ministers shown a zeal so un-
quenchable and a fervour more seraphic than when
hunted like the partridge upon the mountains.
Among the noblest of Christian spirits of those
days was Robert Bruce. Driven from point to
point by Royalty and Prelacy, he had kindled new
fires of devotion among the people, and many a
young preacher had been imbued with a heavenly

426 JEXNY GEDDES.

heroism by the fervent breathings of his soul. An-
otlier, of kindred spirit, was David Dickson, pastor
in the town of Irvine, who, allowed to return from
exile to the bosom of his half-idolizing flock, pro-
claimed with such unction and power the unsearch-
able riches of Christ that a mighty revival sealed
and crowned his labours. " Persons under deep
exercise and soul-concern came from all the parishes
round about Irvine to enjoy the benefit of his min-
istry." He began a series of services on Mondays,
market-days in Irvine, so timing them that the
crowds who came to town on that day could attend
upon them before market-hour. To these services
others also came from distant parts of the country,
and not a few removed their families to Irvine and
settled there to enjoy the ministrations of this able
and favoured pastor. This looked little like an
acceptance of Prelacy. After his sermon on Sab-
bath evenings crowds waited to converse with him
about their souls. The work of grace spread into
the adjoining parish of Stewarton, and thence from
spot to spot along the valley through which the
Stewarton water runs; and under its power ^' many
most abandoned characters, mockers of everything
bearing the semblance of religion, were completely
changed." This remarkable work of grace began

THE COXFLICT. 427

the very year Charles put on his crown, and lasted
for about five years. Profane ribaldry called it
" the Stewai-ton sicknessj^ Scarce a Sabbath passed
without evident conversions or some convincino^
proof of the mighty power of the Word. " And
truly this great spring-tide, as I may call it,
of the gospel, was not of a short time, but of
some years' continuance ; yea, thus like a spread-
ing moonbeam, the power of godliness did advance
from one place to another, which put a marvellous
lustre on those parts of the country, the savour
whereof brought many from other parts of the land
to see the truth.''

" In the upper ward of Lanarkshire," in the
parish of Schotts, two hundred and thirty years
ago, there stood a Presbyterian manse, occupied by
Mr. Hance, the pastor. One day, about the year
1630, the year in -which King Charles made his
first motion toward the actual imposition of the
English liturgy upon Scotland, a carriage, contain-
ing certain ladies of rank, driving past this manse,
broke down, and the pastor, coming to the aid of
the disabled travellers, took them into his house
and attended to the repairing of their carriage.
"While there the ladies remarked the comfortless
condition of the manse, and soon after had a new

428 JENNY GEDDES.

manse built for the minister on a more eligible site.
The grateful pastor then waited on the ladies, ex-
pressed his grateful sense of their kindness, and
asked,

*' Is there any way in my power by which 1 can
do you service?"

" Yes," was the reply ; ^' send out invitations to
an administration of the Lord's Supper at your
church, and request such and such ministers to
assist on the occasion, and we shall be amply re-
paid."

He gladly consented, and the ministers came,
the venerable and persecuted Robert Bruce among
them ; and the people came from far and near, an
immense number of the choicest Christians in the
land, with crowds of curious spectators. Richly-
blessed preparatory services were followed on the
Sabbath, June 20, 1630, by a precious commu-
nion season — so precious that at its close the people
could not separate and resolved upon services the
following day. But who should preach ? Why
not Bruce ? Why not some other notably scarred
veteran confessor? In the vast assembly was a
young minister not yet ordained, only licensed by
the Presbytery, and on him, in the providence of
God, the lot fell. He received the intimation with

THE CONFLICT. 429

coDsternation. How could he preach to all that
mass of piety, ability and learning. He thought
over it during the night, and in the morning re-
solved on flight. He stole away into the woods,
and was now where, on turning his head, he could
just see the church in whose yard the crowds were
assemblino^ to hear him. Just then a voice darted
into the ears of his soul : " Was I ever a barren
wilderness or a land of darkness ?" It was the
voice of God. Cost what it might, to that voice
he must give heed. Taking his stand before the
crowd, he preached one hour and a half upon the
text in Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26, ^' Then will I sprinkle
clear water upon you," etc. As he w^as about to
close, God from the clouds sprinkled the congrega-
tion with a dash of rain, and the people began to
flutter. Glancing at the agitated crowd, he ex-
claimed :

"What! a few drops of rain discompose you!
What if they were, as we all deserve, drops of fire
and brimstone?'^ and for another hour he poured
forth his soul in fervid torrents of exhortation and
warning, and the result was the conversion of about
five hundred souls. Sunday night had been spent
in prayer, and here was the answer; and this work
of grace overflowed through all the surrounding

430 JENNY GEDDES.

country. One said, " Was it not a great sermon
we heard ?'^ another said, " I never heard tlie like
of it !" This was not the way to prepare the peo-
ple for Prelacy.

Livingston, whose services were so blessed upon
this occasion, was, of course, an especial mark for
the shafts of prelatic enmity. Called by the people
of Torpichen to be their pastor, he was hunted
thence by Spotswood, because he would not sub-
scribe the Articles of Perth. But, as in earlier
days, when these holy men were scattered abroad
by persecution, they went everywhere preaching
the Word, and so the holy fii'e was spread by the
very efforts made to extinguish it. Livingston and
Blair, and Rutherford and Douglass, and Gillespie
and Dunbar, and Hogg and Dickson, and many
other like holy clouds, driven to and fro by the
winds of persecution, dropped gracious showers on
many a thirsty field, and the wilderness was made
glad for them and the desert blossomed as the rose.

Thus it is that when the enemy comes in like a
flood the Lord lifts up his standard against them.
Charles and his minions were adjusting the laws,
creating and filling offices and girding their loins
for victory, but God, through his ministers, was at
the same time deepening the faith of the people,

THE CONFLICT. 431

feeding tlieir hunger for the bread of life, and, by
this very feeding, increasing that hunger and deep
ening their resolves to turn the anticipated victory
of their foes into overwhelming discomfiture !

THE MIXE l*REPAIiIJVG.

Before the keystone of the prelatic arch was laid,
Charles determined to pay a visit to the scene of
his future triumph. And taking with him his evil
genius, Laud, on the 17th of May, 1633, he set out
from London, his train consisting of " thirteen no-
blemen— the vice chamberlain, secretary of state,
master of the prince's purse, two bishops, a clerk
of the closet, two gentlemen ushers of the prince's
chamber, six chaplains, two physicians, two sur-
geons, one apothecary, sixty-one yeomen of the
guard, eight cooks, seventeen musicians,^' and
others, in all about five hundred — and swept
northward throu";!! Eno-land with the state of an
emperor. At length, on Saturday, the 15th of
June, he entered Edinburgh by the West Port, and
was ^velcomed with that enthusiasm so easy to
worshippers of royalty and so hard for simple re-
publicanism to understand. On Tuesday he was
inaugurated in the midst of ceremonies that too
ominously reminded the Scottish masses of the

432 JENNY QEDDE8.

meretricious gewgawry of Rome — bishops arrayed
ill long, silken, embroidered robes, with white
rochets, lawn sleeves and loops of gold — an altar
on which were placed two chandeliers and two un-
lighted wax tapers and an empty silver basin, and
behind it a rich tapestry on which a crucifix was
embroidered, the bishops as they passed bowing the
knee. Spotswood set the crown on the king's
head, while the poor archbishop of Glasgow, who
had not decked himself with becoming tinsel, was
violently pulled from his seat by order of the lamb-
like Laud.

Charles had no reason to be dissatisfied with his
welcome, and the apparent enthusiasm went far to
deceive him as to the real feelings of the people,
multitudes of whom wept or scowled in their hearts
while smiles covered their faces.

The next day the Parliament assembled, the
members marching in grand procession in company
with his majesty up High street, through the outer
door of the high Tol booth, the king entering first
and sitting down upon his tribunal, and lords and
bishops following. The king had already laid his
plans to secure if possible unopposed assent to his
measures. Ten Englishmen, Laud among them,
were introduced into the privy council. The Lords

THE CONFLICT. 433

of the Articles embraced those most subservient to
the king. The Parliament, by its first act, granted
Charles the largest subsidy ever yet given to a
Scottish king. And then was introduced "An act
aneiit his majesty's royal prerogative and apparel
of churchmen" — a bit of kingcraft combining the
two, so as to compel assent to or rejection of both.
The Assembly was only too willing to allow any-
thing in the way of prerogative, but to swallow the
whole wardrobe of prelatic millinery was a little
too much. The earl of Rothes called for a division
of the act, and expressed his readiness to vote for
the prerogative clause. The aged Lord Melville
exclaimed, " I have sworn with your father and
the whole kingdom to the Confession of Faith, in
which the innovations intended in these articles
were abjured.'' Charles, taken by surprise, retired
for a while, and, retuiiiing, ordered the members
to vote without debate. Rothes attempting, how-
ever, to show that the second clause was opposed
to the liberties of the Church, the king silenced
him, and drawing forth a list he exclaimed :

" I have your names all here, and I shall know
to-day who will not do me service."

The question was then put, and Rothes voted
*^ not content." His manly example was followed

28

434 JENNY GEDDES.

by fifteen earls and lords, several barons and forty-
four commissioners of counties and burghs, consti-
tuting a decided majority. This the king must
have known, for he held the list in his hand and
marked the votes himself. But the sycophantic
clerk, seeing an opportunity of buying royal favour
at the cheap price of a falsehood, affirmed that the
motion was carried, and the king, with the regard
for veracity and honesty that characterized the
Stuart race, confirmed the report of the clerk.
Eothes affirmed the contrary, but the king de-
clared that the vote must stand unless Rothes
would accuse the clerk of falsifying the record,
which was a capital offence, and subjected the ac-
cuser to the penalty of death if he fiiiled to make
good the charge. Rothes declined the perilous
duty. Thus, through falsehood, in league with
despotism, the act became a law.

The enthusiasm with which the Scotch had
hailed the king's arrival now gave place to scowls
and murmurs. Even the king did not fail to per-
ceive the change, which drew from Bishop Leslie
the comforting remark :

, " The Scots are like the Jews — they cry ' Ho-
sanna !' one day and ' Crucify him !' the next.

The lords, disgusted at the treatment they had

THE COSFLICT. 435

undergone, drew up a supplication to the king, ex-
plaining their conduct and remonstrating against
the way in which their deliberations had been over-
awed. But the king refused to look at it, but
proved afterward that he neither forgot nor for-
gave their manliness.

The oppressed ministers also came together at
Edinburgh to consult upon a proposition to pe-
tition the king and Parliament for a redress of
grievances. A petition was accordingly drawn,
entitled " Grievances and petition concerning the
disordered state of the Reformed Church within
the realm of Scotland." This petition the clerk-
register, a fierce prelatist, with quiet insolence put
in his pocket. Another was then drawn, in which
the former was alluded to, and Mr. Thomas Hogg
presented it in person to the king. He looked
over it, and let it pass without farther notice.
Deeply wounded by such treatment, the ministers
waited on the members of Parliament, and found
many of the influential members quite ready to
listen to them. The king's conduct now became
the subject of general and angry discussion, and
the public mind began to heave with half-stifled
indignation. Hounded on by the prelates, his
majesty not only took no pains to conceal his dis-

436 JENNY GEDDES.

like of the lords who had voted against his mea-
sure in Parliament, but, by his disdainful treat-
ment, made them for ever his enemies. Among
other bits of royal courtliness, when Rothes and
others had gathered two thousand horsemen splen-
didly equipped to greet the king along his pro-
posed line of advance through the country, Charles
kept them waiting for hours, and then contemptu-
ously avoided them by taking a byway.

At length, having succeeded during his stay in
Scotland in filling the great body of the nobles and
people with aversion, he went back to England to
encounter the scowls with which his arbitrary
temper and tyrannical schemes had clothed the
brows of his English subjects.

As if to make sure that his Scottish subjects
should not forget his insulting conduct, he deter-
mined to set up a monument to keep it in theii
remembrance. Accordingly, he erected Edinburgh
into a separate bishopric; and William Forbes,
full of prelatic hauteur, was honoured with the
mitre. A new broom sweeps clean, and this broom,
new or old, would leave no Presbyterian dust with-
in sight of his palace. The king had honoured
him, and he would gratify the king, and at once he
laid every minister within reach of his power, who

THE CONFLICT. 437

could be cowed to submission, on the Procrustean
bed of the Perth articles, and elongated or ampu-
tated him to suit its dimensions. And, in the
weakness of poor human nature, many submitted,
but in the strength of Christ many resisted ; and
not only resisted, but boldly, in the name of God,
M-arned the proud prelate of the divine wrath for
thus crushing the conscience of the saints. Nor
was the warning groundless, for, ere he had time
by persecution to rebuke his rebukers, after flaunt-
ing his robes about ten weeks in the face of the
people, he was called to exchange them for his
shroud.

And now, as if the fire of indignation kindled
in Scotland during his inauspicious visit was in
danger of dying out Charles managed to heap
fresh fuel on the flame by one of those acts in
which the Stuarts were so skilled. Lord Balma-
rino had procured a copy of the petition and re-
monstrance presented to the king on the matter of
his treatment of Parliament in the passage of the
"Prerogative and Apparel Act," and retained it in
possession, hoping by softening some of its expres-
sions yet to make it productive of relief. For this
purpose he entrusted it to a legal friend to exam-
ine it and suggest modifications, under pledge to

438 JEXXY GEDDES.

allow no eye but his own to see it. This friend
showed it to Hay of Naughton under like promise
of secresy. Hay stole a copy and hastened with it
to Spotswood ; and Spotswood, full of unholy zeal,
mounted his horse on Sunday morning and flew
post-haste with it to London, announcing the fear-
ful tidings that the lords were yet bent on the
crime of petitioning; and the king, to Spotswood's
joy, at once resolved on wreaking vengeance upon
Balmarino. The zeal of Spotswood in this matter
is explained by the fact that Balmarino's estates
consisted largely of lauds once the property of the
Church, and could the latter be condemned for se-
ditious practices, the archbishop's purse might be
replenished. There was a law in Scotland making
it a capital offence to sow dissension between the
king and the government, or even to know, without
disclosing the fact, the author of any such seditious
matter. Under this law Spotswood and Charles
determined that Balmarino should lose his head.
To the earl of Traquair, lord treasurer, an able
man and an eloquent speaker, and unhindered by
any excessive tenderness of conscience, the manage-
ment of the trial was entrusted. To make the
matter sure, this unscrupulous contriver managed
to secure such a jury as he thought he could trust,

THE CONFLICT. 439

and besides this got appointed as assessors to the
justice-general several ^f the personal foes of the
accused. Balmarino pleaded his own cause, tell-
ing the whole story about the petition. While
the verdict was under consideration, Gordon of
Buckie, a very aged man, who in earlier days had
displayed daring ferocity of character, rose and
said:

" This is a matter of blood, and would lie heavy
on them as long as they lived. * I in my youth was
drawn in to shed blood, for which I obtained the
king's pardon, but it cost me much more to obtain
that of God. It has gi ven me many sorrowful hours,
both by night and day.'

" The tears, as he spoke, rolled down his fur-
rowed cheeks, and for a time the chill of sympa-
thetic horror held the guilty conclave silent.'' At
length, after much discussion, seven of the jury
voted for acquittal and seven for condemnation.
Traquair gave the casting vote of guilty, and the
sentence of death immediately followed, its execu-
tion being delayed till the pleasure of the king
could be known.

An intense interest was excited in the public
mind by this iniquitous trial, and when the result
was known a storm of indignation burst from the

440 JENNY QEDDES.

lips of men. Secret meetings were held, at which
it was resolved either to force the prison and set tlie
condemned man at liberty, or, if this failed, to re-
venge his death by taking the lives of the judges
and jurors who condemned him, and to set fire to
their houses. The wretch Traquair, perceiving the
danger, hastened like a coward to the king and de-
clared that though Balmarino deserved death, yet
his execution, in the present state of Scotland,
would be replete with danger, and begged for his
pardon; and the king, having in England as much
on his hands as he could well manage, reluctantly
withdrew his hand from the throat of his victim,
and granted him a pardon.

But the mischief had already been wrought. The
people had been certified beyond all room for doubt
of the tyrannical arbitrariness of the king, who
could brook not even the opposition that took the
form of humble supplication; and they had been
compelled to see that his majesty could be satisfied
with nothing but the subjection of the realm to
English Prelacy. Even the lords who abominated
the rigid moralities of Presbyterian rule were com-
pelled to acknowledge to themselves that even this
was infinitely preferable to the dominion of those
who, while they easily tolerated all moral iniquities

THE CONFLICT. 441

in others, were themselves the malignant foes of all
freedom, civil and religious.

To the ever-growing indignation of nobles and
people, however, the prelates were judicially blind-
ed. Reluctantly releasing Balmarino, they now
set themselves to procure a book of canons for the
government of the Church, and a liturgy for its
form of worship. From such a step Spotswood
and the more cautious prelates shrunk with well-
grounded fear. But, encouraged by Laud, the more
reckless carried the day. Some wished to transfer
the English system bodily to Scotland, but yield-
ing to the suggestion that the simple fact that the
scheme came from England would increase the
probabilities of resistance, they agreed that a frame-
work should be shaped in Scotland and transmitted
to England for revision under the eye of Laud and
his coadjutors. In the mean time, Spotswood,
on the death of the former chancellor, secured
his own appointment to that office, while Max-
well, bishop of Ross, was made lord treasurer, and
nine prelates were made members of the privy
council.

Mistaking the sullen gloom of calm, deep-lying
discontent and indignation for brokenness of spirit
and hopeless submission, the prelates carried mat-

442 JENNY G ED DBS.

ters with a liigh haiul and an oiitstretclieJ arm.
Inquisitorial courts, subordinate to the High Com-
mission, were erected. By one of these courts
Alexander Gordon, of Earlston, was fined and ban-
islied because he opposed the settlement of a minis-
ter repudiated by the parish ; and because Kobert
Glendinning, seventy-nine years old, would neither
conform to the wishes of the persecuting party nor
admit an innovator into his pulpit, and because
the magistrates would hear and would not incarce-
rate their beloved pastor, both magistrates and pas-
tor were sent to prison. And feeling themselves
firm in the saddle, with haughty superciliousness
the prelates rode sneeringly over " dissenters," lay
and clerical.

In April of 1635 a convocation of prelates met
in Edinburgh to give shape to that important en-
gine of oppression, the Book of Canons. It was
high time that Presbyterianism be removed, root
and branch, for, till this was done, Charles could
not sleep with a quiet conscience, the prelates could
not exult in a complete triumph, nor co*ild either
king or prelate be quite easy from the fear of evil.
Bishops Ross, Galloway, Dunblane and Aberdeen
having done their best upon the book, Maxwell
posted with it to London, that it might receive

THE CONFLICT. 443

what finishing touches it needed at the hands of
Laud and two other English 2)relates ; and then
brought back the treasure, accompanied with an
order from the prerogative royal issued under the
great seal, bearing date 23d of May, 1635, enjoin-
ing its strict observance on all the dignitaries and
presbyteries of the Church of Scotland. This book
subverted the whole constitution of the Church.
It excommunicated all who denied the king's su-
premacy in matters ecclesiastical, and who should
say that the Book of Common Prayer, which some-
body was going some day to write, was contrary to
Scripture, and all who should assert that Prelacy
was unscriptural. It enjoined all ministers to ad-
here to the liturgy yet to be written^ on pain of de-
position. It decreed that no General Assembly
should meet but by order of the king; no ecclesi-
astical matter discussed but in the prelatic courts ;
no private meetings, conventicles, presbyteries or
sessions held for expounding Scripture, and that
on no public occasion should a minister pray but
from the book! Minute arrangements were also
decreed respecting forms and ceremonies, fonts and
altars and ornaments, and whatever "other fool-
eries Laud's busy brain could devise or fantastic
Rome suggest f and, to cap the climax, all this was

444 JENNY GEDDES.

said to be compiled from former acts of the General
Assembly !

Verily, now Scotchmen and Scotch Presbyteri-
anism must have become something other than
what they had been in the days of Knox and the
Melvilles, or this book will make a stir among
them ! And indeed it was indignantly condemned
in terms the most unsparing, while many of the
nobles secretly exulted at its glaring offensiveness,
knowing as they did that the Scottish neck could
never be made to bow to such a yoke. The mass
of the people looked upon it as popish in its nature
and as the entering wedge of Popery itself. But
the general hostility, instead of at once breaking
forth in popular tumult, only fed itself upon the
fuel and stored up force for the hour of need.

The year following the publication of the Book
of Canons was spent by the prelates in possessing
themselves of every possible instrument of civil
and ecclesiastical power, and by their persecuted
victims in pleading at the throne of grace, and
teaching the people the condition of things and the
nature of the present and impending conflict. In
the scramble for official position and emolument
the prelatists began to snarl at and bite each other.
Traquair, who, by his casting vote, in heart had

THE CONFLICT. 445

murdered Balmarino, and Maxwell, the new-fledged
prelatic zealot, quarrelled over the office of lord high
treasurer, and thenceforward became bitter and
irreconcilable foes. While these contests went on
the Book of Canons was in a measure lost sight
of, but anti-presbyterian zeal soon revived, and ere
long the liturgy which Charles had, in advance, en-
joined upon the Church was framed by Ross and
Dunblane, on the model of the English Prayer-
book, and of course transmitted to Laud for re-
vision. Having made it as nearly j)opish as he
thought Scotland would bear, he remitted it to
his faithful imitators across the border. A royal
proclamation also followed, commanding all faith-
ful subjects to receive with reverence and conform
themselves to the public form of religious service
therein contained.

The keystone was now let into the arch. The
various arbitrary acts of the king, warmly carried
out by the prelates, crowned by the Book of Canons,
had remodelled the government of the Church, and
the liturgy had done the same for its form of wor-
ship; and now, at last, the labour of two reigns
was completed, and the Scottish Church was lying
submissive under the heels of Charles and Laud!
Not yet !

446 JENNY GEDDES.

THE IMJPJUKDIKG ClilSlS.

If a strange seed is put into the hand, the re-
cipient must possess a strange power of insight, or
be master of a marvellous process of analysis, if he
can determine what contents lie close-folded in its
little bosom. And the crisis now impending in
Scotland was a seed destined to evolve a marvellous
vegetation — a tree from whose prolific houghs the
whole world was to gather a delicious and healthful
fruitage. To comprehend the contents of this
seed we must take into view the political situation
into which Charles I., helped on by wily, unscru-
pulous coadjutors, had thrust himself.

Charles had inherited to the full the despotic
spirit and principles of James. This spirit had
been inflamed and these principles urged to high
development both by the character of contempo-
raneous governments and the mad zeal of syco-
phantic advisers, and, above all, by the inflated
notions of divine royal right instilled into his mind
by his prelatic adulators.

At this time the government of France was in
the hands of Cardinal Richelieu. On his accession
to power, this able and unscrupulous ecclesiastic
had formed the purpose to make the crown thor-

THE CONFLICT. 447

oughly, absolutely despotic. In pursuance of this
scheme, he seized, tortured, threw into prison or
put to death all who ventured in any way to with-
stand him, and at length climbed to complete suc-
cess, and delivered the nation, bound hand and foot,
into the hands of the king.

Upon this millennial condition of affairs in
France Charles looked with envious eye, and
longed for the hour when the Anglican spirit
should be constrained to bow to the despotic rig-
ours of Gallic rule. It vexed his royal soul be-
yond endurance that he should be hampered and
hindered in the execution of his own august will,
while his brother in France was revellino^ in a
power worthy of the name. Impertinent Parlia-
ments and a stubborn people were always in his
way. The English people unfortunately had been
born and bred in the air of constitutional freedom,
and what was bred in the bone it was hard to get
out of the flesh. But a consummation so desirable
surely could not be impossible. But to reach it he
must have money, and little or no money could he
lay hands on, except as it was voted to him by a
free Parliament, and tliis Parliament was too
shrewd to volunteer, and too bold to be overawed,
and too powerful to be coerced into a vote for

448 JENNY GEDDES.

fetters to bind its own limbs. Thus, finding
tliat E-ichelieuism was impossible in England, ex-
cept in spite of Parliament, he resolved to dispense
with that awkward institution. He accordingly
dissolved it, and proceeded to levy taxes by his own
royal authority. But the cow proving very restive,
and yielding milk very reluctantly and in very
small quantities, he was constrained to try another
Parliament, and finding it more intractable than
the former, he dissolved it, and by violence and
arbitrary imprisonment proceeded to levy new
taxes. He billeted soldiers on the people, and
substituted here and there martial law for regular
legal jurisprudence. Again, under stress of neces-
sity, he convoked Parliament, and finding it proof
alike against threats and bribes, he put his con-
stitutional dissimulation into exercise and made
liberal promises, and bound himself, even by law,
under his own signature, to raise no more money
without the consent of the houses, to imprison no
more but under process of law and to refrain from
coercion by courts-martial. Parliament was filled
with joy; but in three weeks, his duplicity becom-
ing manifest, Parliament remonstrated and was
again angrily dissolved; and now, for the first time
in English history, and so far also in the worst

THE CONFLICT. 449

time for the monarch, Charles set himself system-
atically to make himself a thorough despot, and
from 1629 to 1640 no Parliament was called. The
king had covenanted with himself to become lord
and master in Church and State.

Louis of France had one Richelieu ; Charles of
England had two — Laud and AVentworth.

Thomas Wentworth afterward earl of StraflPord,
was now about forty years of age. Of infirm
health, he was petulant and irascible. Unscrupu-
lous and merciless, of great abilities, commanding
eloquence and of undaunted courage, he was pecu-
liarly fitted to do well the work the king desired
at his hands. Having been also a distinguished
leader of the opposition, " he perfectly understood
the feelings, the resources and the policy of the
party to which he had lately belonged, and he had
formed a vast and deeply meditated scheme which
very nearly confounded even the able tactics of the
statesmen by whom the House of Commons had
been directed. To this scheme, in his confidential
correspondence, he gave the expressive name of
Thorough. His object was to do in England all
and more than all that Richelieu was doing in
France — to make Charles a monarch as absolute as
any on the continent ; to put the estates and per-

29

450 JENNY GEDDES.

sonal liberty of the whole people at the disposal of
the Crown; to deprive the courts of law of all in-
dependent authority, even in ordinary questions of
civil rights between man and man, and to punish
with merciless rigour all who murmured at the
acts of the government, or who applied, even in the
most decent manner, to any tribunal for relief
against those acts. This was his aim ; and in Ire-
land, where he was viceroy, he actually succeeded
in establishing a military despotism, and was able
to boast that in that island the king was as abso-
lute as any prince in the whole world could be."

The other member of the English triumvirate
was William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, a
little, choleric, unscrupulous man, who hesitated at
no measures, however unjust and cruel, that prom-
ised realization of his schemes. When, in Scotland
with the king, the magistrates of Perth presented
him with the freedom of the burgh, and, as usual
on such occasions, tendered him the oath of ad-
herence to the Protestant religion, with character-
istic superciliousness he replied :

"It is my part to exact an oath for religion from
you, rather than yours to exact one from me."
And when once the Reformation was mentioned,
he replied :

THE CONFLICT. 451

" Reformation ! Better say Deformation !"

He was a great dreamer. In his diary be wrote :
'^ Sunday night I did dream that the lord keeper
was dead ; that I passed one of his men that was
about a monument for him ; that I heard him say
tliat his lower lip was infinitely swelled and fallen.
This dream did not trouble me." Again he
dreamed that he Avas reconciled to the Church of
Rome.

He was a most zealous persecutor, and under
him Dr. Alexander Leighton, father of Archbishop
Leighton, was condemned in the Star Chamber to
have his nose slit, his ears cut off, and to be whip-
ped from Newgate to Aldgate and thence to Ty-
burn, and kept eleven years in prison. Respecting
him, Macaulay writes :

" Of all the prelates of the Anglican Church,
Laud had departed farthest from the principles of
the Reformation and drawn nearest to Rome. His
passion for ceremonies, his reverence for holidays,
vigils and sacred places, his ill-concealed dislike of
the marriage of ecclesiastics, the ardent and not
altogether disinterested zeal with which he asserted
the claims of the clergy to the reverence of the
laity, would have made him an object of aversion
to the Puritans, even if he had used only legal and

452 JENJ^Y GEDDES.

gentle means for the attainment of his ends. But
his understanding was narrow and his commerce
with the world had been small. He mistook his
own peevish and malignant moods for emotions of
pious zeal. Under his direction every corner of
the realm was subjected to a constant and minute
inspection. Every little congregation of separatists
w^as tracked out and broken up. Even the devo-
tion of private families could not escape the vigi-
lance of his spies. Such fear did his rigour inspire
that the deadly hatred of the Church, which fes-
tered in innumerable bosoms, was disguised under
an outward show of conformity. The bishops of
several extensive dioceses were able to report to
him that not a single dissenter was to be found
w^ithin their jurisdiction."

Thus in Ireland and England the system of
"thorough" was pretty thoroughly realized.
Church and State lay handcuffed before the throne.
" The judges of the common law, holding their
situations during the pleasure of the king, were
scandalously obsequious."

The two great additional instruments of oppres-
sion were the Star Chamber for political and the
High Commission for religious inquisition. Through
them the government was able " to fine, imprison,

THE CONFLICT. 453

pillory and mutilate without restraint/' A council
at York under Wentworth '^ was armed, in defiance
of law by a pure act of prerogative, with almost
boundless power over the northern counties. All
these tribunals insulted and defied the authority
of Westminster Hall. There was hardly a man
of note in the realm who had not personal experi-
ence of the harshness and greediness of the Star
Chamber, and the tyranny of the council of York
had made the Great Charter a dead letter to the
north of the Trent."

With so firm and terrible a grasp did Charles
now hold his subjects down. They were, indeed,
sufficiently restive under the yoke. Irritation in-
flamed the public mind, but "men had become
accustomed to the pursuits of peaceful industry,
and, exasperated as they were, they hesitated long
before they drew the sword."

"This was the conjuncture at which the liberties
of our country were in the greatest peril. The op-
ponents of the government began to despair of the
destinies of their country, and many looked to the
American wilderness as the only asylum in which
they could enjoy civil and religious freedom."

All that was now wanted to seal the destiny of
freedom in Europe for many (and who can say

454 JFXXY GEDDES

how many?) a long day, was simply time — time to
consolidate the despotism — time to familiarize the
minds of the people with its sway, with the new
methods in which Charles was becoming rapidly
skilled of securing revenue — time, above all, to es-
tablish a standing army, which careful economy and
avoidance of foreign wars would soon enable the
king to support. Every passing day was hurrying
the English Richelieu toward his goal. Indeed,
even now the king could look almost without envy
toward his brother despots on the Continent.

There was, however, one — insignificant to be sure,
but still one — Mordecai sitting in the king's gate,
who must be humbled, and that was Scotch Pres-
byterian ism, or the little that was left of it. It
was not to be tolerated that, wdth England and
Ireland crouching at the foot of the throne, this
northern bull of Bashan should toss his head defi-
antly and refuse to submit to the yoke. But the
Book of Canons and the Liturgy, now to be made
the lawof Scotland, would supply all that was lack-
ing to complete success ; then farewell, freedom —
then all hail, despotism !

But wdll this Presbyterian ism submit? More
than once during the reign of Elizabeth, when con-
tinental alliances in league with deep-laid conspi-

THE COXFLICT. 455

racy among tlie English Papists had prepared the
way for the overthrow of the Reformation, the
whole scheme had been thwarted by this same
Scotch Presbyterian ism. ]\Iore than once naught
had been wanting for the return of the Papacy to
her old dominion in England but a highway for
invasion through Scotland ; but Presbyterianism
forbade, and the billows recoiled to break them-
selves in impotant wrath upon the shores whence
they were first precipitated. And now the time
has come for another trial of her strength and spirit.
It was now to be seen whether, weakened and
broken as she seemed to be by protracted and cruel
persecution, she would meekly submit, or whether
she would rise in her might and fling Prayer-book
and Canons, king and prelate into the sea, and, as
she had in other times saved the Reformation, now
save the liberties of the world ! AYith Charles
and Laud the suggestion of serious resistance was
preposterous. Of course Scotland will submit !
" Where,'' exclaimed the English Rabshakeh,
^^ where are the gods of those who have opposed
us? I have removed the bounds of the people,
and have robbed their treasures and put down their
inhabitants, and there was none that moved the
wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. As my

456 JENNY GEDDES.

hand hath found England and Ireland, so shall my
hand find Scotland also."

And so indeed it seemed. The two books had
been proclaimed and published as the law of
church government and worship, and what oppo-
sition was shown had expended itself in impotent
murmurs and frowns. Instead of violent outbreak,
there was naught but apparent meek-spirited sub-
mission.

THE EXPZOSION.

The advance of the king toward "Thorough" in
the Church of Scotland had been continuous and
sufficiently rapid. Taking up the work Avhere his
father had left it, he had pressed, in every possible
way, subscription to the Perth Articles — had laid
his plans for the revocation of the Church lands to
secure thereby a revenue with which to reward and
support his faithful creatures, the prelates — had
largely remodelled the government, displacing from
public office all who loved liberty and the national
religion, and filling their places with men eager to
carry his plans into execution — had established a
Scottish Star Chamber and High Commission — had
visited Scotland and ridden roughshod over all
who had shown any symptoms of opposition — had
issued the Book of Canons, and had now proceeded

THE CONFLICT. 457

to the final act of the drama in the proclamation
of the Liturgy.

The mere proclamation, however, of this offen-
sive instrument of tyranny had been followed by
no outburst of popular indignation, for the Liturgy
had not yet been printed off for distribution. And
the apparent apathy of the people served to deepen
the conviction in the minds of Laud and Charles
that opposition was over and submission complete.
Some of the more wary prelates, however, being
nearer the scene of action and more familiar with
the temper of the Scottish mind, w^ere unable to
blind themselves to the signs of a gathering tem-
pest. They knew too well that among that people
apparent hesitancy might indicate, instead of sub-
mission, a quiet, resolute gathering up of the pow-
ers for a tiger-leap into the midst of the prelatic
camp. Among a people largely imbued with
Anglo-Saxon spirit great national upheavings do
not begin in a day. Such a people is neither un-
thinking nor impulsive. Of all styles of human
character it is patient and enduring. It scans great
measures long and well ere it issues the decree for
change. With amazing patience it weighs great
principles in the balance of meditation, and endures
the lack or lopping off of minutes if only fundamen-

458 JENyY GEDDES.

tal principles are left to germinate and bear fruit in
coming better clays. But though an ox to l)ear,
once aroused it is like a lion coming up from the
swellings of Jordan. And when once, the cause
manifestly adequate and the necessity resistlessly
urgent, it has girded on the harness, it will rarely
put off that harness again until satisfied that an
end has been reached worthy of the sacrifice wrung
from it in the execution of its purpose. A Greek
or Gallic community will burst into revolution one
day, and then undo all their work the next ; but a
people such as that of which we speak, like the
mills of the gods, if it grinds slowly is pretty sure
to grind fine.

And the grindings of this mill were already
heard by the Scottish Prelacy. In May a few
copies of the Liturgy quietly stole out to the light,
and found way into hands that set its provisions
between the New Testament on the one hand and
the ancient system of Scottish worship on the other,
and the result was anything but favorable to the
Liturgy. And now, to forestall opposition by intim-
idating possible opposers, an order of privy council
appeared empowering the prelates to '' raise letters'^
of outlawry against ministers who should show re-
luctance to receive this Liturgy, and commanding

THE CONFLICT. 459

them to procure two copies for use in each parish
within fifteen days after the order came to hand, on
pain of being held and treated as rebels against the
king and the law. Over this order even the coun-
cil quarrelled, the only two lay members present
against eight bishops refusing to vote, on the suffi-
cient ground that they had not even seen the book.
The book, in the mean time, was keenly scrutinized
and ably criticised both in and out of the pulpit,
and the people saw that it was the popish mass
under a so-called Protestant imprimatur.

But now, for some reason, a strange delay in the
action of the persecutors intervened. The day on
which the new book was to have been introduced
into the pulpits was allowed to pass by. Where is
" Thorough ?" What is the matter with the zeal-
ots? The truth was that there was division in the
camp, not unaccompanied by fear in the bosoms of
the captains. This delay was diligently employed
by the Presbyterians for the further enlightenment
of the public mind on the nature and significance
of the crisis. Some of the leaders met at Edin-
burgh to arrange plans of procedure in the exig-
ency.

But what courajre could not do covetousness
could, and lust of gold precipitated the explosion.

460 JENNY GEDDES.

Spotswood was sclieming to pocket the whole of the
tithes of the abbey of St. Andrew's, and thus greatly
augment his own income by diminishing that of
others, and especially that of the duke of Lennox and
the earl of Traquair, the treasurer. Traquair, who
had not forgotten the efforts of the proud prelates to
drive him from office, now saw with fresh indigna-
tion their scheme to afflict his purse, and by ex-
erting all his influence at court he secured an order
from the king to stay, at least for a time, this pro-
cedure of the archbishop. Accordingly, Spotswood,
accompanied by his brother in chagrin, Lindsay,
the archbishop of Glasgow, resolved to hasten to
London for redress at the hands of the king. But
w^hat plea would be most likely to win the royal
ear ? They must not fail, else Traquair would tri-
umph, and, what was not to be endured, they would
lose the purse at which they grasped. If then,
they said, we can only tell the king that the Liturgy
is enthroned in Scotland, that " Thorough" is in-
augurated, that the Scottish masses are meekly say-
ing Amen in the house of God to prayers read to
them by prelates and prelatic ministers. Laud Avill
be on our side and the king cannot resist. Thus
while wisdom hesitated and courage hesitated, cov-
etousness drew up and issued the decree that on the

THE CONFLICT. 461

following Sabbath notice should be given that one
week from that day — viz., July 23, 1637 — the Lit-
urgy would be introduced into all the churches.

During the intervening week the long-continued
silence was broken. The city was agitated by a
swelling commotion that reached to every hearth-
stone and to every faithful heart. Pam2)hlets were
passed from hand to hand, discussions were heard,
condemning the Liturgy as a piece of papistry, and
the prelates for foisting it ujoon the people without
sanction from either Parliament or Assembly. Nu-
merous meetings for consultation and prayer were
held throughout the realm. Cries of ardent sup-
plication went up to heaven in many a closet, in
many a family circle, for help in this solemn and
trying hour, " and the low murmur of indignant
Scotland's voice began to be heard like the awaken-
ing thunder on far distant hills or the deep sound
of the advancing tide."

The day came — big with the flite of Scotch Pres-
byterianism. Submission now would fix the yoke
securely upon its neck for many a long day to
come. Li Edinburgh the public eye was chiefly
fixed upon the cathedral church of St. Giles.
Thither swarmed the crowds on that memorable
Sabbath, packing the church in every part. A

462 JENNY GEDDES.

profound, melancholy solemnity brooded over the
assembly. The dean of Edinburgh entered the
pulpit book in hand and surplice on his person.
The book was opened, the dean began and Jenny
Geddes responded. Her stool flew through the
air. The tempest broke — the long-gathering,
long-smothered tempest — and it stormed and hail-
ed outcries and missiles, and St. Giles became a
bedlam. The prelates fled, pursued by the long-
insulted, shamefully-oppressed people.

Through the next day the commotions continued,
drawing from the privy council a proclamation
prohibiting all tumultuous assemblages under pain
of death, and enjoining magistrates to use their
utmost diligence to apprehend those engaged in tlie
riot of the preceding day. Edinburgh was laid
under episcopal interdict. Neither preaching nor
public praying Avas allowed upon week-days, and
all public worship was suspended on the Sabbath.

Scottish Presbyterian writers, with a solicitous
loyalty, strive to make out that this riot was a mere
unpremeditated outburst of popular wrath, con-
fined to the populace. And no doubt this was not
just the way which grave divines would have
chosen for the utterance of their dissent. No
doubt they withheld their hands from flinging

THE CONFLICT. 463

church-stools and their h*ps from coarse and vulgar
vociferations. But just as little is it to be doubted
that all of them rejoiced in the evidence thus af-
forded of the stern, unbending opposition of the
masses to the Liturgy, and also that the wisest and
gravest of them were sworn in their own souls to
resist its imposition unto death. While the prel-
ates were either cowerini^r in fear or eno:a2:ed in
mutual recriminations, tidings of the Edinburgh
outburst flew like wildfire through the realm,
giving the welcome signal for universal revolt.
The people saw in it '' the cloud like a man's hand
rising out of the sea, soon to cover all the skies
and descend in showers of new life and energy.
The thrilling fervour of the people told their long-
oppressed ministers that the day of deliverance
was drawing near, and that they had now but to '
guide that strong national feeling which was rising
in its might to burst through every barrier. Nor
were they w^anting in their duty to the people, to
themselves and to the Church of their fathers in
this momentous cj"isis.''

Everywhere the imposition of the Liturgy was
resisted. Alexander Henderson — a name ever
thence venerated among Presbyterians — hastened to
Edinburgh to petition for release from the odious

464 jj!:nny geddes.

mandate, and there met commissioners from va-
rious interior presbyteries sent up upon the same
errand. On the 22d of August their petitions
Avere presented, accompanied with letters from no-
blemen and gentlemen from all parts of the coun-
try, urging attention to the petitions. The council,
now aware of the actual feeling of the people, an-
swered them respectfully, though falsely, that the
charges respecting the book extended no*farther
than to the buying of it — as if the king. Laud and
other prelates had only meant to become a great
publishing firm and had taken this mode of vend-
ing the stock on hand. The council then wrote to
the king, informing him of the unwelcome fact that
the attemjot to enforce the Liturgy scheme was too
full of peril to be further pressed, and leaving it
to his royal wisdom to determine how the present
storm might be allayed. But the king was not
one of the temporizing kind. He bade his hire-
lings onward. The Presbyterians flocked from all
parts of the country to Edinburgh, and in three
days twenty-four noblemen, many barons, a hun-
dred ministers, commissioners from sixty-six par-
ishes and from many of the chief burghs, and
many gentry, were there, girded with true Scottish
resolution to defend the national religion. The

THE CONFLICT. 465

whole kingdom was aroused, and the gathered hosts
united in one formidable petition for redress.
This petition was presented to the council and sent
to the king.

Other papers were drawn up expressing the
opinions and sentiments of united Scotland. Op-
position on the part of the city provost provoked
further popular commotions in Edinburgh, in
which all classes joined. While awaiting the
king's response various meetings were held, and,
as the numbers were now too great to meet in one
place, they separated into four divisions — noble-
men, gentry, burgesses and ministers. Each meet-
ing was opened with prayer, and then each member
answered in the affirmative to the question, ^^Do
you disapprove of the Service-book ?'' But instead
of favourable answer from the king, there came
thunders of condemnation. The Presbyterians now
assumed the offensive, and laid two complaints be-
fore the privy council, accusing the prelates of
being the cause of all the troubles that disturbed
the nation, and denouncing the Canon and Prayer-
books as superstitious, idolatrous and heretical ;
demanding redress of grievances and the right to
worship according to the principles and doctrines
of the Reformation. These papers were signed by

30

466 JENNY GEDDES.

great numbers of the nobility and gentry, and by
nearly all the ministers in the realm. Opposition
provoked other popular outbursts. The Presby-
terians now proceeded to more thorough organiza-
tion for the conflict, by forming a general commis-
sion to represent the whole Church and concentrate
its revived energies. This commission consisted of
all nobles willing to act, two gentlemen from each
county, one minister from each presbytery and one
buro:ess from each buro^h. The commission was to
assemble on extraordinary occasions, and it ap-
pointed a sub-commission to reside in Edinburgh,
keep careful watch of events and communicate with
the general body ; the sub-commission consisting of
four noblemen, four gentlemen, four ministers and
four burgesses, and being styled The Four Tables.
Besides this, one from each of the tables formed a
Chief Table of Last Resort. Thus was organized
an instrument of incomparable vigilance, prompt-
ness and efficiency. And now, at every turn, the
persecutors found a sternly-determined Presby-
terianism standing athwart its path. Traquair,
with all his zeal, could not find a horse fleet enough
to bear him to the place where he might issue his
proclamation consigning the Four Tables to the
dishonour and penalties of treason, without finding

THE CONFLICT. 467

the Church in advance of him with its solemn pro-
test. Then came the solemn renewal of the CovE-
JSANT. The 25th of February, 1638, found Gray-
Friars' Church, Edinburgh, packed within and en-
compassed without by dense masses of the faithful,
listening wdth aw^e while the Covenant w-as read.
A deep silence followed, which was broken by the
stepping forward of the venerable earl of Suther-
land, who, reverently bowing his head, put his
name to the bond. When all wdthin the church
had signed, it was taken out and laid on a grave-
stone, and there, above the ashes of dead saints,
multitudes put down their names amid sobs and
tears ; some adding the words, " till death !'' and
others opening a vein in the arm and signing the
deed in their own w^arm blood ! The Scottish lion
had waked from his slumbers !

And at last, wrung from his cruel, despotic heart,
came a decree from the \Aug forhidding ihQ enforce-
ment of the Book of Canons, the Book of the Lit-
urgy and the Five Articles of Perth ; and then, on
the 21st of iXovember, 1638, after a dark parenthe-
sis of thirty-six years, a Free General Assembly!
It met at Glasgow, made Alexander Henderson
moderator, and at once j)roceeded to the cleansing
of the Augean stable. The corrupt Assemblies

468 JENNY GEDDES.

which had introduced Prelacy, were an milled— the
Perth Articles, the Canons, Liturgy and Book of
Ordination were abjured, and with them all Epis-
copacy excepting that of a pastor over a particular
congregation. Eight of the prelates were deposed
and excommunicated; four more were deposed —
kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and General As-
semblies restored according to the Book of Disci-
pline; and then, having completed the Second
Eeformation, and having appointed another to
meet the next year in Edinburgh, the moderator
dissolved the Assembly, adding these words : *^ We
have now cast down the walls of Jericho ; let him that
rebuildeth them beware of the curse of Hiel the Beth-
elite r

Thus the insignificant — almost ludicrous — mis-
sile from the hand of Jenny Geddes dealt a blow
at the head of Prelacy in Scotland from which
it never recovered, nor did it leave the head of
civil despotism unscarred !

Tidinp-s of the outbreak at St. Giles and the
events immediately subsequent filled AYentworth
with chagrin. Could Laud, the proud priest, and
Charles, the — if possible — prouder king, but have
kept their souls a while in patience, until ^^Thorough''
had been well consolidated in England and Ireland

THE CONFLICT. 469

and quietly stolen in upon Scotland, all had been
well. But instead of driving the steed with mod-
eration and reason, they had goaded the poor horse
to death. They had killed the bird that was laying
for them the golden egg. All was now thrown
into confusion, and what had been already gained
was now in jeopardy. Still, AYent worth was not
the man to put his hand to the plough and then
look back. The Scotch must and shall submit !
But for this the king must have an army, and for
tills he must have money, and for this he must have
a Parliament. Accordingly, a Parliament was called,
and, beginning to talk of grievances, was dissolved.
But the king must have an army. Hence soldiers
were enlisted and money exacted by force, and even
by torture. His troops set out. The Scots in-
vaded England. Murmurs broke out on all sides
in the king's army, and the king was compelled to
call another Parliament ; and before it adjourned
Wentworth and Laud were impeached and executed,
and the headless trunk of Charles cast into a dis-
honoured grave. Thus fared it with this proud,
imperious triumvirate! But the liberty of the
world was saved. It fared with despotism as with
the usurper Abimelech. As it was warring against
Presbyterianism and went hard unto the door of

470 JEXNY GEDDES,

the tower to burn it, a certain woman cast not a
piece of a millstone, but a church-stool, upon its
head, and all to brake its skull. (Judges ix. 50-54.)

As to the actual political results of that outbreak
at St. Giles there is no disagreement among intelli-
gent historians. Macaulay writes : ^' To this step"
— that is, the effort to impose the Liturgy upon Scot-
land— " taken in the mere wantonness of tyranny''
--a wantonness, however, which he acknowledges
to have been part and parcel of the ^'Thorough''
scheme — taken ^4n criminal ignorance or more crim-
inal contempt of public freedom, our country
OWES ITS FREEDOM ! The first performance of the
foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rap-
idly became a revolution. Ambition" — for this let
us read solemn purpose to forbid King Caesar to
supplant King Jesus in his own blood-bought
Church — "patriotism, fanaticism" — for this read
Presbyterian loyalty — " were mingled in one head-
long torrent."

Hallam writes : " What were the consequences of
this unhappy innovation, attempted with that igno-
rance of mankind which kings and priests, when
left to their own guidance, usually display, it is
here needless to mention. In its ultimate re-
sults IT preserved the liberties and oyer-

THE CONFLICT, 471

THREW THE MONARCHY OF ExGLAND. Ill its

more immediate effects it gave rise to the National
Covenant of Scotland, a solemn pledge of unity and
perseverance in a great public cause, long since de-
vised when the Spanish Armada threatened tlie
liberties and religion of all Britain, and now direct-
ed against the domestic enemies of both/'

The able but eccentric Carlyle, in his Lectures
on Heroes, writes : " A tumult in the High Church
at Edinburgh spread into a universal battle and
struggle over all these realms ; there came out, after
fifty years' struggling, what we call the glorious
revolution, a habeas corpus act, free parliaments and
much else/'

We have now sketched an outline of church
government as indicated in the sacred records, and
shown its proper relation to that of the State. We
liave followed Presbyterianism in Scotland through
a portion of its history in conflict with despotism,
during which it won a great victory for, and earn-
ed, what it never has received, the admiration and
gratitude of mankind. We have seen it moulding
the Romish masses of Scotland, moving in their
degradation and ignorance at the priest's beck
" like dumb driven cattle," into a people — a peo-
ple instructed in their religious nature and privi-

472 JENNY GEDDES.

leges, and thus incapacitated from fawning subser-
viency to despotic men. We have seen how
Presbyterianism could burn at the martyr's stake
in the persons of its Patrick Hamiltons, George
Wisharts and others, and how, in its Knoxes and
Melvilles and their compeers, it could rebuke
tyranny to its face, whether it came in the guise
of a beautiful Queen of Scots or a wretched pe-
dantic despot James YI., or a proud, obstinate
Charles I., telling them that Jesus was King of
Scotland's Kirk, and calling them " God's silly
vassals/' We have seen it shaping " Confessions
of Faith" and " Books of Discipline," that, speak-
ing from God's word, to-day, find loving echo in
millions of hearts. We have seen it forming cove-
nants amid prayers and tears, and signing them
with warm blood from freshly-opened veins ; and
we have seen it, as full of patriotism as of piety,
always ready to sound the alarm trumpet whenever
the national liberties were threatened, goading to
action the indolent if not treacherous king, and
flying to arms to shed its own blood in the cause.
And last, but not least, we have seen it, when the
chains of despotism were forged by the English
triumvirate, Charles, Laud and Wentworth, and
fastened upon the limbs of prostrate England and

THE CONFLICT. 478

Ireland, bursting those bonds asunder, flinging
them into the sea, and sending the world on to-
ward enlightened freedom — "the habeas corpus
act, free parliaments and much else." And now
we say, God be praised for our venerable, noble
New Testament Presbyterianism, and let all the
people say A men!

APPENDIX.

"Canons of Discipline," ptr^e 84.

No less than their brethren on the Continent,
the Scotch Reformers adopted the same principle,
and in the ^' First Book of Discipline/' drawn up
by John Knox, Spottswood, Douglass and others,
in the year 1560, and then "subscribed by the
Kirk and the lords," we find these words : " It
appertaineth to the people and to every several
congregation to elect their minister. Altogether
this is to be avoided, that any man be violently
intruded or thrust in on any congregation ; but
this liberty with all care must be reserved to every
several church, to have their votes and suffrages
in the election of their ministers."

The "Second Book of Discipline," which was
agreed upon in the General Assemblies of 1577 and
of 1578, which contains the present discipline of
the Scotch Establishment, has the following max-

475

476 APPENDIX.

ims : ^' Election is the choosing out of a person or
persons most liabile — suited — to the office, which
vaikes — is vacant — by the judgment of the eldership
and consent of the congregation to whom the per-
son or persons is to be appointed. The liberty of
election of persons called to ecclesiastical functions,
and observed without interruption so long as the
Kirk was not corrupted by Antichrist, we desire
to be restored and to be retained within this
realm." — Baptist Noel, Church and State, Har-
pers' ed., p. 145.

John Knox, pa^e 223.
"The change of times has brought with it the
toleration which Knox denounced, and has estab-
lished the compromises which Knox most feared
and abhorred ; and he has been described as a
raving demagogue, an eneuiy of authority, a de-
stroyer of holy things, a wild and furious bigot.
But the Papists whom Knox grapj^led with and
overthrew — the Papists of Philip II., and Mary
Tudor, and Pius Y. — were not the mild, forbearing
innocents into which the success of the Reforma-
tion has transformed the modern Catholics. When
their power to kill was taken from them — when
they learnt to disclaim the Inquisition — to apolo-

APPENDIX. 477

gize, to evade, to fling the responsibility of their
past atrocities on the temper of other times, on
the intrigues of kings and statesmen, or on the
errors of their own leaders — then, indeed, their
creed could be allowed to subside into a place
among the religiones licitce of the world. But
the men who took from Popery its power to op-
press alone made its presence again endurable,
and only a sentimental ignorance or deliberate
misrepresentation of the history of the sixteenth
century can sustain the pretence that there was
no true need of a harder and firmer hand.

"The reaction, Avhen the work was done — a
romantic sympathy with the Stuarts and the shal-
low liberalism which calls itself historical philos-
ophy— has painted over the true Knox with the
figure of a maniac. Even his very bones have
been flung out of their resting-place, or none can
tell where they are laid ; and yet, but for him,
Mary Stuart would have bent Scotland to her
purpose, and Scotland would have been the lever
with which France and Spain Avould have worked
in England. But for Knox and Burghley — those
two, but not one without the other — Eliza])eth
would have been flung from off her throne, or
have gone back into the Egypt to which she was

478 APPENDIX.

too often casting wistful eyes." — Froude, vol. x.
p. 458.

Demolition of Sacred Edifices, page 237.

"Scarcely anything in the Scottish Reformation
has been more frequently or more loudly condemned
than the demolition of those edifices upon which
superstition had lavished all the ornaments of the
chisel and the pencil. To the Roman Catholics,
who anathematized all who were engaged in this
work of inexpiable sacrilege, and represented it as
involving the complete overthrow of religion, have
succeeded another race of writers, who, although
they do not in general make high pretensions to
devotion, have not scrupled at times to borrow the
language of their predecessors, and have bewailed
the wreck of these precious monuments in as bitter
strains as ever idolater did the loss of his gods.
These are the warm admirers of Gothic architec-
ture and other relics of ancient art. Writers of this
stamp depict the ravages and devastations which
marked the progress of the Reformation in colours
as dark as were ever employed by the historian in
describing the overthrow of ancient learning by the
irruption of the barbarous Huns and Vandals.

" But I am satisfied that the charges usually brought

APPENDIX. 470

against our Reformers on this head are highly ex-
aggerated, and, in some instances, altogether ground-
less. The demolition of the monasteries is, in fact,
the only thing of which they can be fairly accused.
Cathedral and parochial churches, and in several
places the chapels attached to monasteries, were
appropriated to Protestant worship, and in the or-
ders issued for stripping them of images, idolatrous
pictures and superstitious furniture, particular di-
rections were given to avoid whatever might injure
the buildings or deface any of their ordinary deco-
rations. It is true that some churches suffered
from popular violence during the ferment of the
Reformation, and that others were dilapidated in
consequence of their most valuable materials being
sold to defray the expenses of the war in which the
Protestants were involved ; but the former will not
be a matter of surprise to those who have attended
to the conduct of other nations in similar circum-
stances, and the latter will be censured by such
persons only as are incapable of entering into the
feelings of a people who were engaged in a struggle
for their lives, their liberties and their religion.
Of all the charges thrown out against our Reformers,
the most ridiculous is that, in their zeal against
popery, they waged war against literature by de-

480 APPENDIX.

stroying the valuable books and records which had
been deposited in the monasteries. The state of
learning among the monks at the era of the Re-
formation was wretched and their libraries poor;
the only persons who patronized and cultivated lit-
erature in Scotland were Protestants ; and, so far
from sweeping away any literary monuments which
remained, the Reformers were disposed to search for
them among the rubbish and to preserve them with
the utmost care. In this respect we have no reason
to deprecate a comparison between our Reformation
and that of England." — McCrie's Life of Knox.

DATE DUE

Nrv 30 7

)

1

CAYLORO

PRINTED INU.S. A.

DATE DUE

^^:^.-— .

'

GAYLORD

PRINTED IN U.S.A.