'When the Church was governed by Superintendents': episcopacy as the renewal of superintendency in Jacobean Scotland

In his 1621 account of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth in 1618, David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38) reminded his opponent - "the Libeller" - that presbyterian government had not been the fixed order in the Church of Scotland since the Reformation. 

Particularly addressing the charge that the Perth Assembly was not "free and lawfull" because the ministers in the Assembly had not been chosen by presbyteries, Lindsay points to how episcopacy followed the system of superintendency by which the Church of Scotland had been governed until 1592:

The Libeller .... thinks, that because it was the custome while the Presbyteriall gouernment stood in force, that all Commissioners, at least of the Ministrie, should bee chosen by the seuerall Presbyteries, it should now bee so: But he must remember that sort of gouernment is changed, and now they must haue place in Assemblies, that are authorized by their callings to sit there: as well as by their Commissions. When the Church was gouerned by Superintendents, these Commissions were not knowne; onely the Superintendents themselues, because of their place and preheminence, and such of the Ministers as they esteemed worthy to haue voyce in Assemblies, came thither: Now the Bishops on whom lyes the burthen of the Church affaires, haue place by vertue of their callings to sit, and giue voyce in Assemblies; and Ministers by comission from their Countries and Diocesses, because all cannot bee present, nor may the Parishes in the Country bee left destitute of their Preachers at once. This was the forme of the old Synods and Councells in the primitiue Church; and that first Synode of the Apostles was not otherwise held. If in that, or in any Councell or Synode of the purest times, yee shall find Commissioners appointed to be brought, yee might seeme to say somewhat: But your late orders we regard not, and tell you now againe, that your Presbyteriall and confused gouernement is ceassed.

By placing episcopacy alongside superintendency, and both in contrast to government by presbytery, Lindsay was portraying the Jacobean Church of Scotland's episcopal order as sharing fundamental features with superintendency. This is implied when he notes that superintendents sat in Assemblies "because of their place and preeminence", a description which evokes the position of bishops, who now sat in Assemblies "by virtue of their callings". The episcopal order, therefore, was no foreign innovation, no rejection of the Scottish Reformation, but, rather, a native renewal and organic development of that Reformation's order of superintendency. 

Government by presbytery, by contrast, was an explicit rejection of superintendency, imposing a very different ecclesiastical regiment upon the Church of Scotland, "your presbyterial and confused government". It was episcopacy which restored the features of superintendency to that Church, after the example of "the purest times". 

As a footnote, we might also consider Lindsay's reference to care being taken that gatherings of the Assembly should not result in "the Parishes in the Country be[ing] left destitute of their Preachers at once". The use of the phrase "their Preachers" is, of course, definitively Reformed, placing Lindsay and the parishes of his diocese within the broad sweep of the Reformed churches of Europe, in which the minister's central duty was the preaching of the Word. It is another indication of how the episcopal order of the Jacobean Church of Scotland served rather than undermined a Reformed vision.

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