'Our neighbour Church': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and the Church of England

As for the reformed churches, except our neighbor Church, they haue abandoned daies dedicated to Saints.

For those who passionately opposed the Articles of Perth, the Church of England loomed large. The Articles were, it was asserted, a means of conforming the Church of Scotland to the 'but half-reformed' national Church south of the border. This explains why, although the Articles of Perth restored to the Church of Scotland the observance of the five principal festivals of our Lord but not the saints' days commemorated by the Church of England, the Articles' opponents raised the spectre of 'popish' saints' days.

In the defence of the Articles of Perth given by David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) - in his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth - the attack on the Church of England's saints' days is directly address, Firstly, Lindsay challenges the allegation on Hookerian grounds:

the exception ye make of our neighbour Church, is calumnious, and false. It is a calumnie, that they obserue any day dedicated to Saints. All the dayes which they obserue, are dedicated to the honour of God, either for the inestimable benefits that by our Sauiour he hath bestowed vpon the World, or in regard of the blessings that haue come to man, by the Ministrie of his seruants, and Saints. 

As Hooker stated, these days are an expression of "that publique honor which wee owe to God for admirable benefits" manifested in the witness of the saints. For example, of the feasts of the apostles, Hooker says that Christ is "glorified in everie of those Apostles whom it pleased him to use as founders of his kingdome here" (LEP V.70.1 & 9).

Lindsay, however, also emphasises that such saints' days were not unique to the Church of England. 

And it is false, that all the reformed Churches, except they, haue refused the obseruation of these dayes: For Bullinger in his Commentary vpon the 14. to the Romans, affirmes, that the Church of Tigurie [Zurich] obserues the Feasts of the blessed Virgin, of S. Iohn the Baptist, of Magdalene, of Stephen, and of the Apostles.

Just as the observance of the major festivals of our Lord were to be found in many of the continental Reformed churches, so was it also the case that commemoration of the saints could be found. Alongside Zurich, Basel also observed such days. Oecolampadius' reforms of the city's liturgy included provision for the commemoration of saints:

But the good works, great piety and blessedness of the holy and ever blessed Virgin Mary, the holy Apostles, St. John the Baptist and the martyrs of Christ ... should be earnestly remembered in those churches where daily morning prayer and sermon are held ... and their feast days should remain the calendar.

Having established that the Church of England's observance of saints' days reflected practice that could be found amongst the continental Reformed, Lindsay then turned to a robust defence of "our neighbour Church". The opponent whom he addressed had quoted a Roman Catholic source which, for polemical purposes, supported the 'but half-reformed' view. For Lindsay, this only confirmed that the radical opponents of the Articles of Perth shared a Papalist hostility to the Church of England as an exemplar of the settled churches of the Reformation:

Now ye beginne vnchristianly to inueigh against the renowned Church of England, and are not ashamed to bring the impure words of a Puritan Papist, wherein, as hee vtters his miscontentment on the one side, so doe yee on the other; both standing for extremities, while as hee will haue all, and ye will haue none: The Church of England keeping the middle course is condemned of both, for her moderation; but she regardeth little to be iudged of you, or of mans day. What are yee that iudge another mans Seruant, who stands or fals to his owne Master?

We might note, of course, that Lindsay's understanding of "the middle course" is not the ahistorical via media concept beloved of some later Anglicans. For Lindsay, "the middle course" steered by the Church of England was between Puritanism and Papalism. It was a "moderation" which avoided the errors of both these forms of radicalism.

What is more, for James VI/I to wish for the Church of Scotland to conform to the Church of England in the observance of the major festivals of our Lord was to draw the Scottish Church closer to the Churches of the Reformation on the continent:

his [i.e. the critic of the Articles of Perth] is an inuidous Prophesie, contrarie to the experience we haue had of his Maiestie, who for conformitie with our Neighbour Church, hath neuer pressed vs with any thing vnprofitable for vs to receiue. The obseruation of the fiue dayes restored in our Church, makes vs no more conforme with the Church of England, then with the greatest number of the best reformed Churches in Europe ...

And like "our neighbour Church", the Church of Scotland was under the government of a wise King who secured the peace of his Churches and Kingdoms: 

And as long as it shall please almighty God to blesse vs with the continuance of his Maiesties most happy Gouernment, wee are assured to be preserued from Heresie, Superstition, Idolatry, and such like corruptions. I beseech God, that our ingratitude, murmuring, grudging, suspitions, and misconstructions, doe not prouoke God to stop the breath of our nostrils, and remooue the Lords Annointed, vnder whose shaddow wee haue enioyed peace and quietnesse aboue all the Nations that are about vs.

This vision of the Jacobean Church of Scotland, set before us by Lindsay, reminds us of the prudence and wisdom of James VI/I in his government of the Church of his Scottish Kingdom. As such, it stands in contrast to two radical alternatives - that of the Covenanting tradition and Charles I's government of the Church of Scotland. James, through both wisdom and political cunning, had brought the Church of Scotland to accept episcopacy and the provisions of the Articles of Perth. He had, as Lindsay stated, "never pressed us" beyond this. 

Under James, the Churches of the Three Kingdoms shared an ecclesiastical order and a broad discipline (festivals, kneeling to receive the Communion, episcopal Confirmation, private administration of Baptism and Communion when necessary). In the face of the radicalism of what would become the Covenanting tradition, it was a tragedy for the national Churches of the Three Kingdoms and for wider Protestant Christendom that Charles failed to maintain the Jacobean Church of Scotland. In the words of David Hume: 

The liturgy, which the king, from his own authority, imposed on Scotland, was copied from that of England ... Yet was Charles inflexible. In his whole conduct of this affair, there appear no marks of the good sense, with which he was endowed: A lively instance of that species of character, so frequently to be met with; where there are sound parts and judgment in every discourse and opinion; in many actions, indiscretion and imprudence.

(The first picture is of a late 17th century drawing of Brechin, Lindsay's See.)