Spottiswoode on the Articles of Perth and "the reformed Churches"
Contrary to the populist polemics found in Presbyterian histories, these Articles were not 'imposed' on the Scottish Church. No, the Church of Scotland acceded to the direction of the magistrate who had a concern for the good order of the ecclesiastical estate. As the preacher at the Perth Assembly noted, such a synodical process was right and proper, "for what Christian king did euer determine in ecclesiasticall matters any thing without aduice of his clergie?".
The preacher was John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of Saint Andrews. His sermon in defence of the Articles was a masterly exposition of the need for conformity in matters of rites and ceremonies, of ecclesiastical order, and of the nature of the Reformed Churches. Echoing Cranmer and Hooker, and invoking Calvin, Spottiswoode declared that sober ceremonies were a means of maintaining a godly order in the church:
The Ceremonies of the Church must be decent and comely, without vanitie, without all meretricious brauerie, not superfluous, but seruing to edification. They must also be done to God's honour, and not be idolatrous or superstitious. Generally in the Church all things must be done in order, and no confusion be either of persons or proceedings, for order hath proceeded from the throne of the Almightie. This fabricke of the World that wee see is vpholden by it, States and kingdomes are maintayned by it, and without it nothing can flourish or prosper. And if Order should haue place in all things, sure the Church of God should not be without Order; for God whom we serue is the God of order, and not of confusion, as the Apostle speakes.
As such, conformity in matters of duly authorised rites and ceremonies was a Christian duty for the Church's peace:
And certainly there is no other way to keepe away differences for matters of Rites and Ceremonies but this, that euery man keepe the custome of the Church wherein he liues, and obserue that which is determined by the gouernours thereof. For in things indifferent wee must alwayes esteeme that to bee best, and most seemely, which seemes so in the eye of publike autho ritie. Neither is it for priuate men to controll publike iudge ment. As they cannot make publike Constitutions, so they may not controll nor disobey them being once made. In deed authoritie ought to looke carefully vnto this, that it prescribe nothing but rightly : appoint no Rites nor Orders in the Church, but such as may set forward godlinesse and pietie; yet put the case, that some be otherwise established, they must be obeyed by such as are members of that Church, as long as they haue the force of a Constitution, and are not corrected by the authoritie that made them. Except this be, there can bee no order, and all must be filled with strife and contention.
Spottiswoode took care to show how each of the Five Articles could be defended from the writings of the Reformers: Calvin, Bucer, and Bullinger, are quoted in defence of administering the holy Communion to the sick in the home; Bucer in support of private Baptism; Calvin on Confirmation; Peter Martyr on kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament. On the article concerning the observance of festivals, Spottiswoode points to practice in other Churches of the Reformation:
The Festivities, which are the next, are impugned by this argument amongst others, That hereby weew conforme our selues to Papists in the keeping of holy dayes. But had this argument beene of any force, would the reformed Churches haue agreed so vniformely in the obseruation of them? All of them, so farre as I know, keepe holy the dayes of Christ's Natiuitie, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, with the Descent of the Holy Ghost. The Churches of Bohemie, Vngarie, Polonia, Denmarke, Saxonie, and High Germany: The Heluetian Churches, the Belgique, and those of the Low Countreyes; The French, English , and Geneua itselfe, in the beginning of reformation obserued them all .
This invocation of Lutheran practice echoed a crucial component of English Conformist defence of the Prayer Book's rites and ceremonies in England, continued by the Laudians. Laud himself challenged his accusers at his trial, when they proposed that episcopacy was rejected by the Reformed churches: "unless these Men be so strait Laced, as not to admit the Churches of Sweden, and Denmark, and indeed, all, or most of the Lutherans, to be Reformed Churches". We might also think of Diarmaid MacCulloch's portrayal of a diverse, cosmopolitan Reformed tradition (too rich to be labelled merely 'Calvinist' or regarded as 'Genevan'), including churches in eastern Europe with the episcopal office and similar liturgical traditions. MacCulloch describes these churches as embodying "an older style of Reformed Protestantism, with more varied and cosmopolitan origins" than western European Calvinism.
When Spottiswoode points to Hussite Bohemia, Lutheran Denmark, and Reformed Hungary, he is portraying a much richer vision of the Churches of the Reformation than the opponents of the Articles of Perth, with their narrow focus on Geneva. As he went on to say in the sermon, regarding the accusation that the Five Articles were 'popish':
Are the Churches of England, Germany, and Bohemie, in better termes with Papists than wee? Yee know not how things goe in the world if yee thinke so.
Spottiswoode's sermon in defence of the Articles of Perth exemplifies a theologically confident Episcopalian Conformity, in which - to use a term later employed by the Laudian Bramhall - "the Brittanick Churches" with their episcopal order, rites and ceremonies, and relationship with the civil magistrate belonged to a family of national Churches of the Reformation: often with episcopacy or superintendency (which Laud himself described as episcopacy in all but name) or having been required by unfortunate circumstance to abandon episcopacy; adhering to broadly similar Reformed Catholic confessions, wisely avoiding too precise definitions of the mystery of predestination; and sharing many liturgical practices. The Five Articles deepened this relationship for the Church of Scotland, both within these Islands and across Europe, making it less dependent on divisive, exalted claims for the Genevan order.
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