THE 'DINGING DOWN' OF THE BISHOPS--MELVILLE AND MORTON
'Who never looks on man
Fearful and wan,
But firmly trusts in God.'
HENRY VAUGHAN.
We must go back to the year of Melville's return home, 1574, in order
that we may review the supreme labours of his life. It was a time of
confusion: Knox was dead, and the Church needed a leader to shape its
discipline and policy in order to conserve the fruits of the Reformer's
work. Two years before Melville's return, viz. in 1572, the electroplate
Episcopacy--the Tulchan[4] Bishops--had been imposed on the Church by
the Regent Morton. Up to this time the constitution of the Church had
been purely Presbyterian. There was no office superior to that of the
minister of a congregation. The Superintendents were only ministers, or
elders appointed provisionally by the General Assembly, to whom such
presbyterial functions were delegated as the exigencies of the Church
required. They had no pretensions to the rank or functions of the
Anglican bishops; they had no peculiar ordination, and no authority save
such as they held at the pleasure of the Assembly.
[Footnote 4: A Tulchan was a calf's skin stuffed with straw placed near
the cow to induce her to give milk.]
Side by side, however, with the Presbyterian ministry there still
existed the old Roman Hierarchy, who had been allowed to retain their
titles, the greater part of their revenues, and their seats in
Parliament. The prelates had no place within the Church, their status
being only civil and legal; and when any of them joined the Church they
entered it on the same footing as the common ministry.
This was far from being a satisfactory or safe state of things. It had
elements, indeed, which obviously threatened the integrity of the
Presbyterian order; and it is little wonder that the Church was
impatient of its continuance and eager to end it, to clear the Roman
Hierarchy off the ground, and secure for its own economy a chance of
developing itself without the entanglements that were inevitable to the
existing compromise.
The financial arrangements that had been made at the first for carrying
on the Church's work were unjust and inadequate. A portion of the third
part of the benefices was all that had been assigned for the support of
the ministry, and even this had not been fully or regularly paid, so
that in many parishes the ministers' stipends had to be provided by
their own people. In these circumstances the Church very naturally
wished the ecclesiastical revenues of the country to be transferred to
her own use, and she made the claim accordingly. But for this claim no
party in the State would have resisted the sweeping away of the
Hierarchy. The nobles, however, had set greedy eyes on the Church's
patrimony, and so they became the determined opponents of this step.
They could well have spared the bishops, but they could not forego the
benefices, and to secure this plunder to the nobles was the main object
of the Tulchan device. By this notable plan the benefices were taken
from the old Hierarchy and bestowed on the nobles, who then conferred
the titles without the functions on any of the clergy who could be
bribed into compliance.
Morton, who was the chief supporter of the scheme, was notoriously
avaricious--'wounderfully giffen to gather gear.' He hoped to enrich
himself by it, and succeeded in doing so; but he had other motives. He
wished--and this was always the main Governmental reason for the
preference of Episcopacy--to keep the clergy under his control; and he
sought also to please Elizabeth, on whom he was dependent for the
stability of his own position, by bringing the Scottish Church into some
degree of conformity with the Anglican.
The Assembly, while accepting the compromise had done what it could to
safeguard its own constitution by putting it on record that it had
assented to the continuance of the bishops only in their civil capacity,
and in order to give a legal claim on the benefices to those who held
them, and that it allowed the bishops no superiority within the Church
over the ordinary ministers, or, at any rate, over the superintendents.
There is no doubt that it was only the hope, on the part of the Church,
that she would secure a portion at least of her patrimony by it that
reconciled her to this scheme. The ministers had little heart in the
business, and the best of them did not conceal their dislike of the
arrangement and their fear of the evils to which it would lead. It is
easier to blame the Church for what she did than to say what she ought
to have done. It would have been a more heroic, and probably a safer
course, to refuse the compromise and at once to bring on the struggle
with the Government which she had to face in the end. If Melville had
been on the ground at the time, there is little doubt that one man at
least would have had both the wisdom to recommend that course and the
courage to pursue it.
The Tulchan system had only been in operation for two years when he came
back from the Continent; but that was long enough to realise the
Church's fears and to make her restive. The ministers who accepted the
bishoprics became troublers of the Church, took advantage of their
titular superiority over their brethren to push for a position of
greater authority, and were more and more evidently the pliant tools of
the Court. The Church, moreover, gained nothing in the way of a better
provision for the ministry--the nobles seized the benefices and kept
them.
On encountering the growing dissatisfaction of the ministers with his
project, the Regent threatened the freedom of the Assembly, and put
forward a claim on behalf of the Crown to supreme authority within the
Church. There lay the crux of the situation, the great central issue in
the controversy that was being thrust upon the Scottish people, that was
to rend the nation for many a day, and that is not yet finally
settled--Was the Church to be free to shape her own course and do her
work in her own fashion, or was she to be subject to the civil
government? Was the Church to be essentially the Church of Christ in
Scotland, or was she to be the religious department, so to speak, of the
Civil Service?
The first Assembly in which Melville sat met in Edinburgh in March 1575.
Parliament had just appointed a committee to frame a more satisfactory
polity for the Church, and the Assembly nominated some of its members as
assessors to confer with it and report the proposals that might be made.
At the same time it appointed a committee of its own, composed of its
most competent and trusted men, to draft a constitution for its
approval. This committee was reappointed from year to year; the result
of its labours being the 'Second Book of Discipline,' which was laid
before the Assembly and adopted by it at its meeting in the Magdalene
Chapel, Edinburgh, in April 1578.
It was in the next Assembly, held in August of the same year, that the
first blow was struck at the Tulchan Episcopate. This was done by a
resolution brought forward by John Durie, one of the ministers of
Edinburgh; but there is little doubt that it originated with Melville,
who, although he had been home scarcely a year, had taken his place as
the leader of his brethren, and by his teaching and personal influence
had 'wakened up their spreits' to oppose the designs of the Court
against the constitution of the Church. Durie's resolution raised the
question of the scripturalness and lawfulness of the office of a bishop.
In supporting it Melville made a powerful speech, in which he urged the
abolition of the bishoprics and the restoration of the original
Presbyterian order of the Church as the only satisfactory settlement of
her affairs. The House resolved there and then to appoint an advisory
committee to consider and report on the question, which committee
reported against the office. No further step was taken at this time, the
bishops being left as they were. At the next Assembly, however, held in
April 1576, the committee's finding was adopted, and so far applied that
all bishops who held their office 'at large' were required to allocate
themselves to particular congregations.
The Assembly's decision was practically unanimous; its members were at
one in wishing an end to the Tulchan scheme, and the people were of the
same mind as the ministers. Against the ministers and people stood the
Regent, the nobility, and all the clergy whose interests were
threatened. Morton would fain have arrested the Assembly's action, but
dared not; he could not afford at the time to drive the ministers into
opposition, a powerful party of the nobles being hostile to his regency,
and the combination would have shattered his government. His policy,
therefore, was to manage the ministers for the accomplishment of his
ends, and to attach as many of them as possible, and especially as many
of the leaders as possible, to the Court. From the moment when he first
met Melville he had the sagacity to perceive that this was the strongest
man he would have to deal with: he accordingly did his utmost to secure
Melville's support for the Government scheme. He offered him, as we have
said, a Court Chaplaincy, and he would have made him Archbishop of St.
Andrews on the death of Douglas. When he found him incorruptible by his
favours, he tried to intimidate him. Calling him one day into his
presence, he broke out in violent denunciation of those ministers who
were disturbing the peace of the realm by their 'owersie'[5] dreams and
setting up of the Genevan discipline; and on Melville turning the attack
against himself and his government Morton flew into a rage--'Ther will
never be quyetnes in this countrey till halff á dissone of yow be hangit
or banished the countrey!' 'Tushe! sir,' retorted Melville, 'threaten
your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in
the air or in the ground. The earth is the Lord's: my fatherland is
wherever well-doing is. I haiff bein ready to giff my lyff whar it was
nocht halff sa weill wared, at the pleasour of my God. I leived out of
your countrey ten yeirs as weill as in it. Yet God be glorified, it
will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His treuthe!' Sometimes,
as here, words show a valour as great as doughtiest deeds of battle:
they give the man who has uttered them a place for ever in the book of
honour; they pass into the storehouse of our most cherished legends; and
as often as crises occur in our history which make a severe demand upon
our virtue, they are recalled to stir the moral pulse of the nation and
brace it to its duty. No man in Scottish history has left his country a
richer legacy of this kind than Melville.
[Footnote 5: Over the sea.]
Having failed with Melville, Morton found a ready tool to his hand in
another minister of the Church, Patrick Adamson of Paisley. He was a man
of some learning and eloquence and of great personal ambition, bent on
climbing to a high place in the Church, and unscrupulous in his choice
of means. At first he was a pronounced opponent of the new Church
scheme, and often denounced it from the pulpit. His clever satire on the
Tulchan bishops has never been forgotten--'There are three sorts of
bishops: my Lord Bishop--he is in the Roman Church; my Lord's Bishop
(the Tulchan), who while my Lord gets the benefice, serves for nothing
but to make his title good; and the Lord's Bishop, who is the true
minister of the Gospel.'
For some time Adamson cultivated an intimacy with Melville, who,
however, never trusted him. Melville, ever shrewd in discerning
character--'he had a wounderfull sagacitie in smelling out of men's
naturalls and dispositions'--early saw that Adamson would prove a better
servant of the Court than of the Church.
When the Assembly met in the autumn of 1576 it was reported that Adamson
had been presented by Morton to the See of St. Andrews, and the question
was put to him in open court whether he meant to accept it, when he
declared he was in the hands of his brethren, and would act in the
matter as they desired. The Assembly vetoed the appointment. Adamson,
however, in violation alike of the Assembly's Act and of his own
promise, entered on the See. The contempt his conduct awakened was
universal, and was freely expressed even within the Regent's Court. One
of the officers of the household, who had frequently heard Adamson come
over the phrase, 'The prophet would mean this,' in his expositions of
Scripture, remarked, on hearing that he had assumed the bishopric, 'For
als aft as it was repeated by Mr. Patrick, "the prophet would mean
this," I understood never what the profit means until now.' But to
Adamson, who 'had his reward,' the titular primacy of Scotland was of
more consequence than the respect of his countrymen: he retained his
place in defiance of the Church, and was for many a day a troubler of
its peace.
At the Assembly held in April 1578 a second blow was struck at the
bishops: it was enacted that they should cease to be styled by lordly
names, and that no more bishops should be elected. Two years later, at
the Dundee Assembly of 1580, the Church took the final step against the
Tulchan system by abolishing the Episcopate and requiring all bishops to
demit their office and give in their submission to the provincial
synods. The resolutions of the Assembly were carried without a single
dissenting voice, and within a year the bishops with only five
exceptions had surrendered their sees.
During the six years Melville had been the leader of the Assembly great
results had been reached. The Church had gradually withdrawn from the
Tulchan compromise, and had at the same time elaborated a constitution
for itself on the basis of pure Presbytery. Mention has already been
made of the adoption of this constitution--the Second Book of
Discipline--in 1578. It is not necessary to describe it, as it is seen
in its living embodiment in all the Presbyterian churches of Scotland
to-day; though there is one important part of it which was never carried
out, namely, the allocation of the patrimony of the Church to the
purposes of religion, education, the maintenance of the poor, and the
undertaking of public works for the common good. It enunciates the
principle of the two jurisdictions--'the two swords'--which has played
so important a part in Scottish history, and it protects the rights of
the people in the election of their ministers. One significant
difference between the Second Book of Discipline and the First may be
mentioned--the abolition of the office of Superintendent. This office
had been used as a handle by those who wished to introduce an order in
the Church above the ministry; it thus lent itself as an inlet to
Episcopacy, and so it was resolved to put an end to it.
The unanimity of the Assembly in the adoption of the 'Discipline,' and
in all the steps towards the deposition of the bishops, was remarkable.
The House never once divided. In all its counsels and labours Melville
had the principal share, and it was mainly by his learning, by his
energy, by his mastery in debate, by his unyielding attitude to the
Court, that they issued as they did in the re-establishment of the
Church on its original Presbyterian and popular basis.
James Melville has left us some charming pictures of the Assemblies of
that period and of the private intercourse of its members. 'It was a
maist pleasand and comfortable thing to be present at these Assemblies,
thair was sic frequencie[6] and reverence; with halines in zeall at the
doctrine quhilk soundit mightelie, and the Sessiones at everie meiting,
whar, efter ernest prayer, maters war gravlie and cleirlie proponit;
overtures maid be the wysest; douttes reasonit and discussit be the
lernedest and maist quik; and, finalie, all withe a voice concluding
upon maters resolved and cleirit, and referring things intricat and
uncleired to farder advysment.'
[Footnote 6: Large attendance.]
In the inmost circle of Melville's friends were such men as Arbuthnot,
Principal of Aberdeen, and Smeton, his own successor as Principal of
Glasgow--both, like himself, eminent in learning; David Ferguson,
minister of Dunfermline, the patriarch of the Assembly, and one of the
six original members of the Reformed Church; and the four ministers of
Edinburgh--all notable men--John Durie, James Lawson, James Balfour, and
Walter Balcanquhal. At Assembly times he and his nephew met these
brethren daily, for the most part, at John Durie's table. The group
contained the very flower and chivalry of the Church. At their meals
they discussed the incidents of the day's sittings, and their
conversation was enlivened with many a pleasantry--it was always
Melville's 'form' at table to 'interlase' discourse on serious subjects
with 'merry interludes.' When the company rose from table they held
lengthened devotional exercises: in the reading of Scripture each in his
turn made his observations on the passage; and we can well believe the
estimate of some of those who were present, that had everything been
taken down they could not have wished a fuller and better commentary
than fell at these times from this company of ripe and ready
interpreters of the Word. When the exercises were over, the brethren
entered into deliberation on the causes to be brought before the
Assembly, and came to an understanding as to the course they would
pursue in dealing with them. Those who would come to the secret of the
noble part so often played by the ministers of the Scottish Church in
crucial periods of its history, will fail to find it where they leave
out of account the inward correspondence which these men, by such
fellowship, sought to maintain with one another and with the Master of
Assemblies.