of his doctrine, that the provost, bailies, and inhabitants harmoniously agreed to set up the reformed worship in the town; the Church was stripped of images and pictures, and the monasteries were pulled down.

The demolition of the monasteries and other religious houses, which marked the commencement of our Reformation, has furnished a rich topic for declamation to many, who refer to it as a proof of the bigotry and barbarism of our reformers. We allow they may have gone too far, under the excitement of the moment; and "can any man think," says honest Row, "that in such a great alteration in a kingdom every man did everything rightly?" But let us do them justice. Had the queen-regent, instead of resorting to violent measures to suppress the Reformation, listened to the petitions of her noblemen for inquiry into the abuses of the Church, or even allowed her subjects liberty to profess the gospel, these excesses would never have occurred. It was only when this liberty was denied them, and they were required to submit unconditionally to the will of the Popish clergy, that the people had recourse to this method of redress. "After which answer," says Sir James Balfour, "the congregation goes to the staitly monastry of Scone, and pulls it doun, and solemnly burns all the Roman trashe, as images, altars, and the lyke. Then proceed they fordward to Stirling, Cambuskenneth, and Linlithgow, and there demolish and pull doun all whatsoever carried any symbol of the Roman harlot."1 The churches and cathedrals, be it observed, were generally spared; it was only the monasteries, and places identified with the reigning superstition, that fell a sacrifice to the popular fury. And when we consider that these formed the strongholds of Popery, against which the nation was now at war, and the receptacles of a lazy, corrupt, and tyrannical priesthood, who had so long fattened on the substance of a deluded people, there appears more good policy than some are willing to admit in the advice which John Knox is said to have inculcated: "Down with those crownests, else the crows will big in them again."2 Another view of the matter, equally capable of defence, is suggested by an anecdote which he relates of a woman, who, when the flames of the monasteries in Perth were ascending to heaven, 1 Annales of Scotland, i. 316. 2 Row's MS. Hist. p. 6.

1559.]

THE MONASTERIES

39

and some were lamenting their destruction, exclaimed, that if they knew the scenes of villany and debauchery that had passed within these walls they would "admire the judgments of Heaven, in bringing these haunts of pollution to such an end."1

Knox, Hist.

CHAPTER III.

1560-1572.

National establishment of the reformed religion-First meeting of the Generas Assembly-The First Book of Discipline-Constitution of the Church of Scotland-Anecdotes of John Knox and Queen Mary-The murder of the Good Regent-Death of John Knox.

There was a striking difference between the Scottish and the English Reformation. In England the reigning powers took the lead, and the people followed, as they best might, in the wake of royal authority. In Scotland the people were converted to the Protestant faith before the civil power had moved a step in the cause; and when the legislature became friendly to the Reformation nothing remained for it to do but to ratify the profession which the nation had adopted. The consequence has been, that the Church of England, with all her excellencies (and they are many), has never ventured to advance beyond the limits prescribed by Queen Elizabeth; while the Scottish Church, carrying the legislature along with her, has made various steps in reformation-has, on more than one occasion, improved her standards, pointed her testimony to the times, and discarded from her creed and constitution everything which seemed, even by implication, to symbolize with the apostasy of the Church of Rome.

In the month of August, 1560, when, through the friendly aid of England, the French troops had been expelled from Scotland, and when, after the queen-regent's death, a free parliament was assembled, Popery, as a matter of course, was abolished, and the Protestant religion substituted in its place. Considering the suddenness with which this change was effected the business was wisely and well conducted. A petition was presented to the parliament by the ministers

1560.] NATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT OF PROTESTANTISM.

41

and others, in the name of the people, requesting them to secure, by legal enactments, the profession of the true religion. The parliament then requested the ministers to lay before them a summary of Christian doctrine which they could prove to be agreeable to Scripture; and in the course of a few days the ministers presented a confession, consisting of twenty-five articles, which the parliament, after due examination, formally ratified and approved. This confession agrees in all points with those of the other reformed churches, and is not materially different from the Westminster Confession now in use, which was afterwards adopted by the Church of Scotland. It was remarked, that when it was read over, in the audience of the whole parliament, in which there were several lords and bishops known to be disaffected to the Reformation, only three of the noblemen voted against it, giving no other reason for their dissent than, "We will beleve as our forefatheris belevit;" "the bishops spak nathing." Upon which the Earl-marshal, after declaring his own approbation of the articles, protested, "that if any ecclesiastics should after this oppose themselves to this our Confession they should be entitled to no credit, seeing that, having long advisement and full knowledge of it, none of them is found, in lawful, free, and quiet parliament, to vote against it."

This amounted, it will be observed, to a national establishment of the Protestant religion. The nation, by its rulers and representatives, passed from Popery to Protestantism; and in its civil capacity ratified (not the gospel, indeed, which no acts of parliament can ratify, but) the profession of the gospel which the people, in their religious capacities, had already embraced. And thus it appears that there was a civil establishment of the true religion in Scotland before there was even an established Church, for the reformed Church of Scotland was not as yet regularly organized, much less endowed. The legal recognition of the Presbyterian Church as an organized society was a subsequent step, and indeed not fully obtained till several years after this; the settlement of regular stipends on the ministers was still later. And yet, by the act of the state to which we have referred, the Protestant religion became the national religion of Scotland. These are the plain facts; and we leave every one to form his own judgment on them. But if the principle of civil

establishments of religion is to be debated at all, at this point must the battle begin; and the question to be decided is, whether it was right or wrong for the nation of Scotland to declare, by an act of its parliament, that Popery was abolished, and that Protestantism was thenceforth the national religion.

By the same parliament which established the Protestant religion another act was passed, which has been severely blamed, even by friends of the Reformation, prohibiting the celebration of mass, under severe penalties, which amounted in extreme cases even to death. The only apology which some can find for this dubious act of policy is that the principles of religious liberty were not then so fully understood, and that it is no wonder our ancestors carried with them a portion of the intolerance of the Romish Church, from which they had so lately escaped. Our reformers, however, had no idea of converting their creed into a penal code, or of punishing all who departed from it as heretics. They regarded Papists as enemies to the state, and the leading principles of Popery as subversive of all good order in society. The proscription of the mass, the characteristic symbol of Popery, was certainly the most effectual way of putting down the civil nuisance. The truth is, they would not allow the mass to be a point of religion at all; they regarded it as manifest idolatry-an opinion in which every sound Protestant will coincide; but having, erroneously we think, conceived that the Mosaic law against idolaters was still binding on Christian nations, they applied the statute to it as a civil crime. Whatever may be thought of this interpretation of the civil law it was obviously a very different thing from the spirit of Popery, which, stamping the whole of its creed with the attribute of infallibility, and denying all hope of salvation to those beyond its pale, enforces all its dogmas with civil pains on those whom it accounts heretics. And that the object of our reformers was not to punish the persons of heretics, or religious opinions as such, but to stay the plague of idolatry and profaneness in the land, appears from two facts which we shall now state. The first is, that the penalties actually inflicted on "mass-mongers," as they were termed, were entirely of the ignominious kind usually allotted to persons convicted of infamous crimes, and