Church of Scotland

“ The Church of Scotland's mission is, of course, an undying one, unless she is to settle down, as was at one time, and not so very long ago, but too likely, into a few fashionable Chapels for the accommodation of the rich; where the poor were not expected, and were not made welcome. ”

“ The Established Church Of Scotland differed only in unimportant details of constitution and government from the other Churches. No social privileges were claimed or enjoyed by its members, and there was no national demand for the abolition of its formal privileges. An aristocratic Church with a form of service alien to the natural disposition of the people was {308}an institution which the Welsh could reasonably denounce. A Church which was as plain and sober in its habit as the humblest chapel in the land was accepted by the Scotch because it never claimed to be more than it was worth. ”

“ Now here in Scotland, is a feud past all arbitration: here is a schism no longer theoretic, neither beginning nor ending in mere speculation: here is a change of doctrine, on one side or the other, which throws a sad umbrage of doubt and perplexity over the pastoral relation of the church to every parish in Scotland. Less confidence there must always be henceforward in great religious incorporations. Was there any such incorporation reputed to be more internally harmonious than the Scottish church? None has been so tempestuously agitated. ”

“ The church of Scotland, which, as a whole, had exhibited, with much unobtrusive piety, the same outward torpor as the church of England during the eighteenth century, betrayed a corresponding resuscitation about the same time. At the opening of this present century, both of these national churches began to show a marked rekindling of religious fervour. In what extent this change in the Scottish church had been due, mediately or immediately, to Methodism, we do not pretend to calculate; that is, we do not pretend to settle the proportions. ”

“ At this time the church of Scotland reached her greatest pitch of splendour. “For though,” says a contemporary historian, “alwayes since the assembly at Glasgow the work of the gospel hade prospered, judicatories being reformed, godly ministers entered, and holy constitutions and rules daily brought into the church; yet now, after Duke Hamilton’s defeat, and in the interval betwixt the two kings, religion advanced the greatest step it had made for many years: now the ministrie was notably purified, the magistracy altered, and the people strangly refined. ”

“ Dundee was dead; the king was in exile; the Dutch conqueror was on the throne, and the Revolution was an accomplished fact. The Bishops and half the Clergy said non possumus; and the Church of Scotland was in the wilderness. There are many Churchmen of the present day, both lay and clerical, who dispute the policy of sacrificing the Church's status as an Establishment for what they are pleased to call a bit of political sentiment. ”

“ They are fast drifting from their old moorings. Increasing numbers of them are beginning to realize something of the beauty of liturgical worship. Many are deploring our unhappy divisions, which give such occasion to infidels to blaspheme, and are longing for the blessedness of a corporate re-union, which would present an Established Church of Scotland, with peer and peasant worshipping side by side ”

“ The constant wars with England, and the confusion and bloodshed they entailed, had a very unfavourable effect on the prosperity and spiritual activity of the Church of Scotland, so that from Scotland, no less than from England and Ireland, there arose that cry for a return to older and purer ways, which ended in the Reformation. ”

“ On the eventful Sunday when the new order of service was to be formally introduced, the chief church of the capital of Scotland, the old Cathedral of St. Giles, was filled by an unusually large congregation. Among those present were two archbishops, several bishops, the lords chancellor and treasurer, privy council, judges, and magistrates. A large number of the humble [Pg 256] people, composed chiefly of the wives of citizens and their maids, filled the body of the church. In those days no pews were in the church, and the poor-folk brought clasp-stools. ”

“ In less than ten years afterwards the Covenanters, having increased in numbers and power, assumed the entire direction of their own ecclesiastical affairs and styled themselves Presbyterians, a term derived from the Greek presbuteros, an elder, because they contended that the government of the Church as set forth in the New Testament was by presbyters, equal in office, power, and order. The national Church of Scotland, therefore, when at length it was recognized by the English Parliament, bore the title of the Scottish Presbyterian Church. ”

“ But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. ”

“ There is indeed in the Scotch Church a considerable class of most respectable preachers who read their sermons, and who, both for matter and manner, might be transplanted without remark into the pulpit of any cathedral in England. There is a school, also, of high standing and no small popularity, whose manner and style are calm and beautiful; but who, through deficiency of that vehemence which is at such a premium in Scotland at present, will never draw crowds such as hang upon the lips of more excited orators. ”

“ For what hope can there be of Unity in Religion, of one Confession of Faith, one Form of Worship, and one Catechisme, till there be first one Forme of Ecclesiasticall Government? Yea, what hope can the Kingdome and Kirk of Scotland have of a firme and durable Peace, till Prelacie, which hath been the main cause of their miseries and troubles, first and last, be plucked up, root and branch, as a plant which God hath not planted, and from which, no better fruits can be expected then such sower grapes, as this day set on edge the Kingdome of England? ”

“ The successful invasion of Scotland by the English troops had turned the scales in favour of the lords of the Congregation. They were now masters in Scotland, but, had the bishops and clergy been zealous men worthy of their sacred office, the cause of the old Church in Scotland would not have been even then hopeless. ”

“ The Kirk, with its powerful local ministry, connected with each other by numerous links, attempted to revive in Scotland the pretensions of the old dominant Church, and it succeeded in creating a vast spiritual power, often in conflict with the authority of the State. The principal fact in Scottish history, during the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth, was the opposition given, by the Presbyterian clergy, to the acts and even the rights of the Crown ”

“ The religious Establishment of Scotland is at present selected, from its supposed weakness compared with the Church of England, as the object of the combined attack of the dissenting bodies which at various times have forsaken its communion. Episcopalians, as we are called, let us say in passing, never having belonged to the Presbyterian Establishment, cannot properly be termed dissenters from it; and they never make common cause with dissenters against the present Establishment. ”

“ The reader was usually also precentor, and it will be a natural transition, therefore, to pass on now to an account of that part of the Sunday service which the precentor conducted. In the Reformed Church of Scotland a very limited space was originally allotted to the service of praise in public worship. “There is perhaps no country in Christendom,” says Dr Cunningham, [Pg 89] “in which psalmody has been as little cultivated as in Scotland. Wherever the Church of Rome reared her altars, music grew up under her shadow, and gave a new charm to her sensuous services. ”

“ And I am sure these that have not seen Assemblies before will understand how profitable this Assembly is unto our Church, when every man is heard178 patiently till he speak his mind; and then is a contribution of every gift in a nation joining together and making up a composition of an Assembly. Let it be judged by any man whether the Episcopal power be likest God’s own order in his house; and I put no question but the Kirk of Scotland will be found to be the Church of Christ, and the Antichristian Church shall be found to acknowledge it. 4. As it is a beautiful, a powerful, a profitable order ”

“ Here and there I heard sermons that were enough to send one to sleep on one's feet; you can imagine the effect upon an audience who had to hear them in a sitting posture. But Scotland has not the monopoly of this kind of eloquence; from time immemorial it has been the custom of a certain proportion of church-goers to shut their eyes to listen to the sermon. [Pg 54]
Religion is still sterner in Scotland than in England. It is arid, like the soil of the country; angular, like the bodies of the inhabitants; thorny, like the national emblem of Scotland.
One Sunday I went to a church in Glasgow. ”

“ Nay, dear as the distinctive principles of the Free Church are to the people of Scotland, with superior pulpit talent in the Establishment on the one hand, and in the ranks of the disendowed body, on the other, a goodly supply of those youthful ministers who boast that they either never write their sermons, or write them at a short sitting, we would by no means guarantee to our Church a ten years’ vigorous existence. ”

“ Extempore prayers were always popular with the general public, but when young and raw readers, however sparely gifted and not more than half-educated, took on themselves, as they often did, to treat congregations to extempore prayers, the guardians of public manners were shocked. It was a shame to all religion, said King Charles I., to have the majesty of God so barbarously spoken to; and, as a remedy for this deformity, as he termed it, in the public worship of the Church of Scotland, Charles issued a new service book to be used as a liturgy by all preachers and readers. ”

“ On May 8th, 1568, Grindal, then bishop of London, writes to Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh: “Evans, who is thought a man of more simplicity than the rest, hath reported (as I am credibly informed) that at Dunbar, on Good Friday, they saw certain persons go bare-foot and bare-legged to the church, to creep to the cross; if it be so the Church of Scotland will not be pure enough for our men.” ”

“ I was sure, that in all Scotland there was not a man who would not be for the King; and for one Independent, there would be found three Presbyterians; and the rest, being either hierachical men, or Papists, if they would not assist the King, they would far less assist the traiterous sectaries.” “I perceive,” says his Highness, “what ye mean; but how many Presbyterians soever there be, if ye live at a distance, as I hear ye do now in Scotland, ye will be able to do nothing at all. It is a work fitting your calling to unite the hearts of all the great men whom you know to be Protestants.” ”

“ Likewayes, as the bands of the Scottish church were strong, so her beauty was bright: no error was so much as named, the people were not only sound in the faith, but innocently ignorant of unsound doctrine; no scandalous person could live, no scandal could be concealed in all Scotland, so strict a correspondence there was betwixt ministers and congregations. The General Assembly seemed to be the priest with Urim and Thumim, and there were not ane 100 persons in all Scotland to oppose their conclusions ”

“ Scotland being so closely united in its history and destinies, and having so much in common with the sister countries, the history of the Scottish Church must necessarily have a close affinity and throw much light upon the ecclesiastical annals of England and Ireland ”