'After the manner of the Reformed churches in Germany': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and the Churches of the Northern Kingdoms
I come to consider the ordinances made, as ye alledge, against kneeling: where first yee alledge an Act made in the Assembly 1591, that an Article should bee formed, and presented vnto his Maiesty, and the Estates, for order to be taken with them, who giue or receiue the Sacraments after the Papistical manner; but by Papistical maner is meante, the giuing of the Sacrament by a Masse Priest, and the receiuing the same after the order of the Romane Church ...
Lindsay, however, points out that the purpose of such laws was to prevent conversion to the Roman obedience:
The tenor wherof is those Persons reuolting from the profession of the Gospell, by offering their children to be baptized after the Papisticall maner, or by themselues receiuing the Sacrament of the Altar, after admonition, shall bee excommunicate, if repentance interuene not.
The laws, therefore, were not in any way a condemnation of practices found in other "Reformed Churches", such as kneeling to receive:
This sheweth what is meant by giuing, or receiuing the Sacrament in a Papisticall manner; for it was neuer our Churches meaning, to censure these that receiued the Sacraments after the manner of the Reformed Churches in France, England, or Germany, where many of our people haue receiued the Sacrament of Christs bodie kneeling: Nor did our Predecessors euer condemne their customes, and esteeme sitting necessary, albeit for the estate of our Church, they held it in the beginning to be most conuenient.
Kneeling could not be a 'popish' practice because it was found amongst "the Reformed Churches". The reference to France, admittedly, is perhaps not immediately easy to understand: French Reformed congregations stood to receive the Sacrament. This, however, may be Lindsay's point, in that members of the Church of Scotland, while in France, conformed to the French practice, rather than insisting on the Scottish custom of sitting to receive. For "the Reformed Churches ... in England, or Germany", of course, it was their shared practice to kneel to receive the Sacrament. Again Lindsay states that Scottish travellers conformed to the English and German custom.
This brings us to what I think is the key point of today's extract from Lindsay: the term "the Reformed Churches" is taken to include Germany, that is, the Lutherans. Lindsay, in other words, was giving voice to the more eirenic view of the Churches of the Reformation held both by James VI/I and Conformist opinion in the Church of England. James - married to the Lutheran Anne of Denmark - had been the key mover in a plan, through his relationship with Pierre Du Moulin, for Reformed-Lutheran unity discussed by the French Synod of Tonneins in 1614. It has been described as "the most ambitious reunion plan of his career".
In his instructions to the Church of England divines attending the Synod of Dort, James had also emphasised the need not to deepen Reformed-Lutheran divisions. This was reflected in the interventions of the Church of England delegates at Dort. They declared, "That we ought not without grave cause to give offence to the Lutheran churches, who in this matter, it is clear, think differently". What is more, they also called for the terminology in Dort's draft resolutions to be changed from 'all Reformed churches' to 'our Reformed churches', so as not to offend the Lutherans. The delegates also explicitly stated that for the Church of England the Lutherans were part of the Reformed churches.
James' eirenic concerns reflected well-established Conformist opinion in the Church of England. Jewel's Apology, after all, had, without hesitation, pointed to the churches in the lands of "the kings of Denmark, the kings of Sweden, the dukes of Saxony", alongside those of the Reformed cities and republics, as churches which "have received the Gospel". Richard Bancroft, in his great apologia for conformity in his 1588 Saint Paul's Cross sermon, defended subscription in the Church of England on the basis that "there is not a reformed church in Christendom which doth not in this case require subscription (at the least) of their ministers". To provide an example of this, he noted to "In Germanie likewise subscription is required verie streightlie unto the confession of Augusta".
Another significant expression of this eirenic view of the Churches of the Reformation was found in the Conformist apologist Thomas Rogers. His exposition of Article XXXIV emphasised how it agreed with Lutheran insistence on conformity in ceremonial matters. In a 1608 defence of kneeling to receive the Sacrament, Rogers stated, "Denmark, and many in Germany, by the orders of their several Churches at the Communion, as well as we in England, do kneel". This, of course, was precisely Lindsay's point regarding the relevant provision in the Articles of Perth: the Lutheran churches of the Reformation in Germany, like the Church of England, knelt to partake of the Sacrament.
Related to this, we can also see how the Articles of Perth - not least kneeling to receive the Sacrament - confirmed the place of the Jacobean Church of Scotland within an arc of episcopal national Churches of the Northern Kingdoms, stretching from Ireland to Sweden. This is another reason to admire the Jacobean vision for the Church of Scotland and to regret that a narrower, impoverished alternative would determine the identity of that church.
((The first picture is of a late 17th century drawing of Brechin, Lindsay's See.)
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