'Conformitie with the greater part of the reformed Churches': eirenic Reformed Conformity in the Jacobean Church of Scotland
In today's extract, Lindsay moves on to consider the various Articles of Perth, demonstrating how it was fitting that they, in changed circumstances, altered the ceremonial order of the 1560 Book of Discipline. He began by again emphasising that changing circumstances justify a change to mere ceremonies:
For if by occasion of any of these circumstances, the obseruation, which was profitable at one time, become hurtfull at another, and that which serued for reformation, breedes and fosters corruption, profanenesse, or superstition; it is the constant and generall iudgement of the Church, that it should bee changed, and altered, which formerly was obserued.
Lindsay here accepts - or at least recognises as legitimate - the case for the ceremonial order of the Book of Discipline in the circumstances of 1560. Against those making maximalist claims for that order, therefore, he is seen as an eirenicist - prepared to accept that it was no less legitimate and fitting than was now the case with the Articles of Perth.
He then addresses the first Article, kneeling to receive the Sacrament:
And to apply this to the purpose in hand: It is notoriously knowne, That sitting at the Communion, which at the reformation was iudged most conuenient to abolish the opinion of transubstantiation, & bread-worship, makes the Sacrament now to be contemned, and profaned by the common sort of Professours ...
Sitting to receive the Sacrament was appropriate in the immediate context of the Reformation. Now, after decades of this order, it was appropriate to kneel, because - to quote the relevant Article - "all memory of bypast superstition is past".
On the observance of the festival days of the Lord's "birth, passion, resurrection, ascension, and sending down of the Holy Ghost", Lindsay is rather more critical of the 1560 order, which had abolished these observances:
That the want of diuine exercise on the fiue holy-dayes, hath almost buried in obliuion the inestimable benefits of our redemption; the superstitious obseruation of these times not the lesse continuing still in our Church ...
It was also the case that this provision of the Articles of Perth reflected the Second Helvetic Confession's approval of these observances:
if in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly.
The provision of Private Baptism and Private Communion in the Articles of Perth - when "great need shall compel" such administration of Baptism, and when "any good Christian [is]visited with long sickness" and thus "unable to resort to the church for receiving of the holy communion" - is defended by Lindsay on grounds of pastoral comfort:
That the withholding of Baptisme from infants in times of necessitie, and the holy Supper from others at the houre of their dying, hath beene the griefe of many good Christians.
Finally, he points to the restoration of Confirmation - what the Articles of Perth described as "prayer for increase of their knowledge, and the continuance of God's heavenly graces with every one of them" - as a means of ensuring the adequate catechesis of children:
Lastly, that great ignorance is crept into the Church, by the neglect of the catechising of young children, and for lacke of a particular triall of their profiting in knowledge, at the Visitations of Churches.
As he concludes this brief defence of the changes to the ceremonial order of 1560, Lindsay makes three key points. Firstly, such changes were pragmatic, addressing changed circumstances:
And vpon these, and the like considerations, who sees not, that alteration in these poynts was expedient?
Secondly, these changes reflected much of the practice of the Reformed Churches:
Adde to this, our conformitie with the greater part of the reformed Churches, which is to be prefered much, to the singularitie of any priuat opinion, or custome of persons, and Churches.
It was not only a case, as we have seen, that the observance of the great festivals of Our Lord reflected much Continental Reformed practice. Confirmation by bishop or superintendent could be found in Reformed Churches. In addition to this, the Churches of England and Ireland, and the Lutheran Churches, were also regarded as "the reformed Churches". The Articles of Perth, therefore, placed the Church of Scotland in the Reformation mainstream.
Finally, there was the good order of the Church of Scotland under the Crown:
Then the shewing of an vnnecessarie, vndutifull, and vnchristian opposition, and contradiction to the most religious Prince on earth, who for the glorie of God, and the edification of his Church, did vrge this alteration.
A faithful Protestant prince had called on the Kirk to accept the Articles of Perth: to reject this was to agree with those papal apologists who claimed that the Churches of the Reformation was inherently incapable of maintaining good order, peace, and unity.
Reading Lindsay's defence of the Articles of Perth again reminds us that, in the context of Jacobean Scotland, 'Reformed' was not defined by what was to become the Covenanter tradition. Another Scottish Reformed tradition was present in the Church of Scotland - episcopal, eirenic, and, through the Articles of Perth, closer to the rites and ceremonies of many of the Churches of the Reformation than would eventually be the case with the Church of Scotland that emerged from the Revolution of 1688.
(The picture is of a late 17th century drawing of Brechin, Lindsay's See.)
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