In 1574, Melville, having completed his education abroad, arrived in Scotland.222 He quickly rallied round him the choicest spirits in the Church; and, under his auspices, a struggle began with the civil power, which continued, with many fluctuations, until it culminated, sixty years later, in open rebellion against Charles I. To narrate all the details of the contest, would be inconsistent with the plan of this Introduction; and, notwithstanding the extreme interest of the events which now ensued, the greater part of them must be omitted; but I will endeavour to indicate the general march, and to put the reader in possession of such facts as are most characteristic of the age in which they occurred.
Melville had not been in Scotland many months, before he began his opposition, at first by secret intrigues, afterwards with open and avowed hostility.223 In the time of Knox, episcopacy had been recognized as part of the Protestant Church, and had received the sanction of the leading Reformers.224 But that institution did not harmonize with the democratic spirit which was now growing up. The difference of ranks between the bishops and the inferior clergy was unpleasant, and the ministers determined to put an end to it.225 In 1575, one of them, named John Dury, was instigated, by Melville, to bring the subject before the General Assembly at Edinburgh.226 After he had spoken, Melville also expressed himself against episcopacy; but, not being yet sure of the temper of the audience, his first proceedings were somewhat cautious. Such hesitation was, however, hardly necessary; for, owing to the schism between the Church and the upper classes, the ministers were becoming the eager enemies of those maxims of obedience, and of subordination, which they would have upheld, had the higher ranks been on their side. As it was, the clergy were only favoured by the people; they, therefore, sought to organize a system of equality, and were ripe for the bold measures proposed by Melville and his followers. This was clearly shown, by the rapidity of the subsequent movement. In 1575, the first attack was made in the General Assembly at Edinburgh. In April 1578, another General Assembly resolved, that, for the future, bishops should be called by their own names, and not by their titles.227 The same body also declared, that no see should be filled up, until the next Assembly.228 Two months afterwards, it was announced that this arrangement was to be perpetual, and that no new bishop should ever be made.229 And, in 1580, the Assembly of the Church at Dundee, pulling the whole fabric to the ground, unanimously resolved that the office of bishop was a mere human invention; that it was unlawful; that it must be immediately done away with; and that every bishop should at once resign his office, or be excommunicated if he refuse to do so.230
The minister and the people had now done their work, and, so far as they were concerned, had done it well.231 But the same circumstances which made them desire equality, made the upper classes desire inequality.232 A collision, therefore, was inevitable, and was hastened by this bold proceeding of the Church. Indeed, the preachers, supported by the people, rather courted a contest, than avoided it. They used the most inflammatory language against episcopacy; and, shortly before abolishing it, they completed, and presented to Parliament, the Second Book of Discipline, in which they flatly contradicted what they had asserted in their First Book of Discipline.233 For this, they are often taunted with inconsistency.234 But the charge is unjust. They were perfectly consistent; and they merely changed their maxims, that they might preserve their principles. Like every corporation, which has ever existed, whether spiritual or temporal, their supreme and paramount principle was to maintain their own power. Whether or not this is a good principle, is another matter; but all history proves that it is an universal one. And when the leaders of the Scotch Church found that it was at stake, and that the question at issue was, who should possess authority, they, with perfect consistency, abandoned opinions that they had formerly held, because they now perceived that those opinions were unfavourable to their existence as an independent body.
When the First Book of Discipline appeared, in 1560, the government was in the hands of the nobles, who had just fought on the side of the Protestant preachers, and were ready to fight again on their side. When the Second Book of Discipline appeared, in 1578, the government was still held by the nobles; but those ambitious men had now thrown off the mask, and, having effected their purpose in destroying the old hierarchy, had actually turned round, and attacked the new one. The circumstances having changed, the Church changed with them; but in the change there was nothing inconsistent. On the contrary, it would have been the height of inconsistency for the ministers to have retained their former notions of obedience and of subordination; and it was perfectly natural that, at this crisis, they should advocate the democratic idea of equality, just as before they had advanced the aristocratic idea of inequality.
Hence it was, that, in their First Book of Discipline, they established a regularly ascending hierarchy, according to which the general clergy owed obedience to their ecclesiastical superiors, to whom the name of superintendents was given.235 But, in the Second Book of Discipline, every vestige of this was swept away; and it was laid down in the broadest terms, that all the preachers being fellow-labourers, all were equal in power; that none had authority over others; and that, to claim such authority, or to assert preëminence, was a contrivance of man, not to be permitted in a divinely constituted Church.236
The government, as may be supposed, took a very different view. Such doctrines were deemed, by the upper classes, to be anti-social, and to be subversive of all order.237 So far from sanctioning them, they resolved, if possible, to overthrow them; and, the year after the General Assembly had abolished episcopacy, it was determined that, upon that very point, a trial of strength should be made between the two parties.
In 1581, Robert Montgomery was appointed archbishop of Glasgow. The ministers who composed the chapter of Glasgow refused to elect him; whereupon the Privy Council declared that the King, by virtue of his prerogative, had the right of nomination.238 All was now confusion and uproar. The General Assembly forbad the archbishop to enter Glasgow.239 He refused to obey their order, and threw himself upon the support of the Duke of Lennox, who had obtained the appointment for him, and to whom he, in return, had surrendered nearly all the revenues of the see, reserving for himself only a small stipend.240 This was a custom which had grown up within the last few years, and was one of many contrivances by which the nobles plundered the Church of her property.241
This, however, was not the question now at issue.242 The point to be decided was one, not of revenue, but of power. For the clergy knew full well, that if they established their power, the revenue would quickly follow. They, therefore, adopted the most energetic proceedings. In April 1582, the General Assembly met at St. Andrews, and appointed Melville as Moderator.243 The government, fearing the worst, ordered the members, on pain of rebellion, to take no steps respecting the archbishopric.244 But the representatives of the Church were undaunted. They summoned Montgomery before them; they ratified the sentence by which he had been suspended from the ministry; and they declared that he had incurred the penalties of despotism and of excommunication.245
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