'The Communion of the Reformed Churches': the Articles of Perth, the Jacobean Church of Scotland, and Protestant Christendom

The Lutheran Churches do acknowledge reall presence by way of Consubstantiation: it is no wonder therefore, that they approue kneeling. The Reformed Churches, as they damned bodily presence, so haue they reiected the gesture of kneeling in the act of receiuing.

For the critics of the Articles of Perth, as the above words indicate, the matter was very straightforward. Of course the Lutherans knelt to receive the Sacrament, for they are Ubiquists. By contrast, the Reformed, who reject "bodily presence", denounce kneeling. 

In his 1621 account of the 1618 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Perth, David Lindsay, Bishop of Brechin (1619-34 and Bishop of Edinburgh 1634-38), pointed to a much richer, diverse Protestant landscape. To begin, he invoked a broader understanding of 'Reformed' to include the Lutherans. While obvoiusly rejecting Consubstantation, he emphasises that Lutheran sacramental teaching does share important characteristics with the Reformed tradition: 

To proue that kneeling is not practised in the Reformed Churches, yee cut off in the beginning from their number the Lutherans, because they acknowledge the Reall presence by way of Consubstantiation. This I grant is an error, yet is it not directly fundamentall. They abhorre, as we doe, the Bread-worship, and they worship Christ in the Sacrament, as we should do; their errour is onely in the manner of his presence, which errour should not debarre them from the Communion of the Reformed Churches ...

But if by the reformed Churches, yee vnderstand those, who distinguish betweene the signes and the things signified, giuing to the signes the reuerence due to them, and adoring onely the thing signified, to wit, the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of these, some, I confesse, do erre in esteeming Christs bodie to bee really and locally present: and yet, seeing they agree with vs in the chiefe and principall grounds of Religion, wee must not excommunicate them from the number of the reformed. 

In addition to this, Lindsay's opponent had also excluded the Bohemians - who knelt to receive the Sacrament - from the category 'Reformed' because the Bohemian Confession directed "The ministers, repeating in truth the words of the Lord's Supper, [to] urge the people to believe in the presence of the Body of Christ". As Lindsay notes, this declaration of the Lord's presence in the Sacrament entirely cohered with Reformed affirmations:

with them yee reckon the Church of Bohemia, because in their Confession exhibited to King Ferdinand, anno 1535. they say, Ministri verò coenae Dominicae, &c.  Let the Ministers when they rehearse the words of the Lords Supper, exhort the people to this faith, that they may beleeue the body of Christ to be present there. By this yee conclude, that some of them held the errour of Reall presence in the Sacrament; and yet their Confession mentioneth neither reall, nor corporall, nor locall presence. And it is no errour to beleeue the presence of Christs body in the Sacrament after some manner; as to beleeue that it is there obiectiue, that is, as the reall obiect, whereupon we must fixe and fasten our Faith: and to beleeue that it is there virtute, & efficacia, in vertue, and efficacie, to nourish and strengthen vs in newnesse of life heere, and raise vs vp vnto eternall life hereafter.

Lindsay then invokes this wider understanding of the Reformed churches, demonstrating that kneeling to receive the Sacrament was widely practised amongst the Churches of the Reformation:::

If yee hold the rest for Reformed Churches, that are in Germanie, Polonia, Bohemia, Hungaria, Denmark, Norway, and great Britaine, with the Church of Ireland; for one that sitteth at the receiuing of the Sacrament in all these Churches, they are an hundred that kneele.

And then is the Reformed Church in France. Critics of the Articles of Perth had insisted that sitting at the Lord's Table was required by institution of the Supper. The Reformed in France, however, stood to receive the Sacrament - and as they did so, the minister administered the Bread and Cup to them, rather than communicants passing it amongst themselves, as the critics of the Articles of Perth urged:

I mention not the Church of France, where they stand, and sit not; whom yee condemne by your doctrine of breaking the Institution, and transgressing the Precept, and precedent of our Sauiour; and with them, the ancient Church for the space of a thousand yeeres, that stood and receiued, as also others of the Reformed, who follow their example: for when yee maintaine sitting as necessarie by institution, example, and precept; yee condemne all that do otherwise. Yet, yee could presse heere to excuse them, or rather to mitigate your censure of them, saying first, that by standing, men accommodate themselues to a table, to participate of the dainties set thereon. Next, that standing hath neuer beene abused to idolatry, as kneeling hath bin: but these abuses are friuolous, and nothing worth; for in the Church of France, where they receiue standing, they doe no more accommodate themselues to a table, then they who kneele; for neither doe they reach their hand to the table, to take any thing to themselues therefrom, receiuing all from the hand of the Minister.

Lindsay, in other words, sees in kneeling to receive the Sacrament, as it is distributed by the minister, a sign of the Jacobean Church of Scotland in the mainstream of the Churches of the Reformation, in which kneeling to receive was the practice in many, with standing to receive also known - and in both cases, the Bread and Cup delivered by the minister to the communicant. This sets the context for an understanding of the Articles of Perth: they were bringing the Church of Scotland into the mainstream of the Churches of the Reformation. 

We might also make two further points. Firstly, with his critique of the Lutheran 'local presence' in the Supper, Lindsay was clearly maintaining the Church of Scotland's place in the Reformed tradition. At the same time, refusing to 'debarr them from the Communion of the Reformed Churches' reflected the thinking of eirenic Reformed figures who sought common ground with the Lutherans. This also, of course, was also the view promoted by James VI/I in his plans for a reunion of Protestant Christendom.

Secondly, as previously seen, Lindsay identified the significance of the minister administering the Bread and Cup to communicants, a key aspect of Continental Reformed sacrament practice and thought. Kneeling to receive the Sacrament facilitated this in Scotland. A good case could be made that, for Lindsay, the minister distributing the Bread and Cup to the communicants was more important than kneeling to receive - the latter was the means of enabling the former. Hence Lindsay's positive account of the French Reformed practice of standing to receive, following 'the ancient Church for the space of a thousand years'. 

To summarise, therefore, is entirely inaccurate to portray acceptance of the Articles of Perth as a case of subservient Scottish bishops and their supporters in the ministry acquiescing to the commands of James, bravely opposed by those with a theological coherent and consistent vision. The Articles of Perth themselves were part of a coherent and consistent theological and ecclesial vision, a vision considerably more attractive than that urged by opponents - a vision of the Jacobean Church of Scotland taking its place amidst the broad swathe of the Churches of the Reformation and standing fully in the mainstream of the Continental Reformed tradition.