chapter xxi. on the true uses of the sacraments, the papists are charged

with having "perniciouslie taucht and damnablie beleeved" the transubstantiation of the bread into Christ's natural body and of wine into his natural blood,[144] and that in the last chapter the language of Rev. xiv. 11 ("the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image") is adduced in proof of the ultimate fate of those who delight in superstition or idolatry.[145]

The same unrestrained spirit is shown in some contemporary Confessions, notably in the earliest Danish one, the framers of which seem to have kept closer to Luther than to the more gentle Melanchthon: but however excusable it may have been in the fierce battle then forced on them, there can be no doubt that the calmer and more measured language of the later Confession is a decided improvement on the statements of the earlier one; and I do not hesitate to say that, with the simpler formula of 1693-94 recently restored, and the explanatory act which accompanies it--emphasising the distinction between matters of minor importance and the great doctrines of the faith--the position of the ministers of our church in these respects is as nearly what it should be as is that of the ministers in any of the allied Presbyterian churches.

FOOTNOTES:

[102] Laing's Knox, ii. 128.

[103] Ibid., ii. 183, 257.

[104] [For this band, see Laing's Knox, ii. 61-64.]

[105] ["Quhilk thay willinglie acceptit and within foure dayis presentit this Confessioun as it followis, without alteratioun of any ane sentence." (Laing's Knox, ii. 92).]

[106] [These statements are based on the information which Randolph sent to Cecil on 7th September 1560 (Laing's Knox, vi. 120, 121).]

[107] "At vero in praefectorum obedientia unum semper excipiendum ne ab ejus obedientia nos deducat, cujus decretis regum omnium jussa cedere par est.... Adversus ipsum si quid imperent nullo sit nec loco nec numero, sed illa potius sententia locum habeat, obediendum Deo magis quam hominibus."

[108] This seems to be the opinion of Dr Laing (Knox's Works, vi. 121, n.) Indeed one can hardly read chapter xviii. without having a suspicion induced that Knox may have proved too strong for them in regard to some of what they termed the more harsh expressions in the treatise, as well as in regard to the particular chapter in question.

[109] [The Scotch and Latin versions are printed in parallel columns in Dunlop's 'Collection of Confessions' ii. 13-98.]

[110] "Libros, qui ab infantia usque ecclesiae semper habiti sunt canonici" (Latin version, Dunlop, ii. 70).

[111] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 17, 18; Laing's Knox, ii. 96. A similar protestation is made in the Preface to the First Book of Discipline (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 518; Laing's Knox, ii. 184).

[112] The sources from which this chapter was taken can still be pretty clearly traced. I place in parallel columns its statements and those of the two Confessions from which it was probably taken:--

"We confesse and acknawledge "Je confesse qu'il y a un seul ane only God, to whom only we Dieu auquel il nous faut tenir, must cleave, whom onelie we must pour le servir, adorer, et y avoir serve, whom onelie we must worship, notre fiance et refuge."--Confession and in whom onelie we must subscribed by students put our trust. in Academy in Geneva.

"Who is eternall, infinit, "I beleve and confesse my unmeasurable, incomprehensible, Lorde God eternal, infinite, omnipotent, invisible: ane in unmeasurable, incomprehensible, substance, and zit distinct in and invisible, one in substance, thre personnis, the Father, the and three in persone, Father, Sone, and the Holie Gost."--Old Sonne, and Holy Ghoste."--Confession Scottish Confession, in Dunlop's of English Congregation Confessions, ii. 21, 22. at Geneva, in Laing's Knox, iv. 169; Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 3.

[113] This also comes from a Genevan source:--

"We condemne the damnable "Ideirco detestor omnes haereses and pestilent heresies of Arius, huic principio contrarias Marcion, Eutyches, Nestorius, puta Marcionis, Manetis, Nestorii, and sik uthers."--Old Scottish Eutychetis, et similium."--Genevan Confession, as above, ii. 31. Confession.

[114] Extraneum ab omni benedictione Dei, Satanae mancipium, sub peccati jugo captivum, horribili denique exitio destinatum et jam implicitum.--Calvin.

[115] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 24, 25; Laing's Knox, ii. 98. It has been questioned if this description of faith is one which Calvin and his stricter followers would have used. But nothing is more common, even in the earliest edition of his Institutes, than to find him describing faith as the apprehension of Christ with His gifts, or graces, as well as with His righteousness: "Apprehendimus ac obtinemus et ... Christi _dona_ amplectimur, quod ipsum est habere veram, ut decet fidem." "Haec omnia nobis a Deo offeruntur ac dantur in Christo Domino nostro nempe remissio peccatorum gratuita, ... _dona et gratiae_ Spiritus Sancti si certâ fide ea amplectimur." In one of these chapters [of the Scottish Confession] relating to the incarnation of Christ Jesus, He is spoken of not only, as in most of the Protestant Confessions, as the promised Messiah, the just seed of David, the Immanuel, or God in our nature--God and man in one person--but also as the _Angel of the great counsel of God_ [Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 31; Laing's Knox, ii. 99]. This expression is no doubt a translation of the μεγαλης βουλης αγγελος of the Septuagint, and is the more remarkable, not only as showing familiarity on the part of some of the framers of the Confession with a somewhat unusual rendering of one of the most explicit Messianic prophecies of Isaiah, but also as showing that they had perceived the true significance of an expression which last century gave rise to no little discussion and misconception. So far as I can remember, this remarkable expression does not appear in any other of the Protestant Confessions of that age.

[116] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 32; Laing's Knox, ii. 100.

[117] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 60, 61; Laing's Knox, ii. 108.

[118] The following are a few specimens of close verbal coincidence between the Scottish Confession and the first edition of Calvin's Institutes:--

1. "It behooved that the Filii Dei sumus quod naturalis Sonne of God suld descend unto Dei Filius sibi corpus ex corpore us, and tak himself a bodie of nostro, carnem ex carne nostra our bodie, flesh of our flesh, and ossa ex ossibus nostris composuit bone of our bones, and so become ut idem nobiscum esset. the Mediator betwixt God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve in Him to be the sonnes of God."--Dunlop, ii. 33, 34.

2. "Quhatsaever wee have Ut quod in Adamo perdidimus tynt in Adam is restored unto us Christus restitueret. agayne."--Dunlop, ii. 34.

3. "It behooved farther the Praeterea sic nostra referebat, Messias and Redemer to be very verum esse Deum et hominem God and very man, because He qui Redemptor noster futurus was to underlie the punischment esset.... Prodiit ergo verus due for our transgressiouns, and homo, Dominus noster, Adae to present himselfe in the presence personam induit ... ut Patri of His Father's judgment se obedientem pro eo exhiberet as in our persone to suffer for our ut carnem nostram in satisfactionem transgression and inobedience, justo Dei judicio statueret be death to overcome him that ac sisteret, ut in eâdem carne was author of death. Bot because peccati poenam persolveret. the onely Godhead culd Quum denique mortem nec solus not suffer death, neither zit culd Deus sentire, nec solus homo the onlie manhead overcome the superare posset, humanitatem samin, He joyned both togither cum divinitate sociavit ut alterius in one persone that the imbecillitie imbecillitatem morti in poenam of the ane suld suffer and persolveret, alterius virtute be subject to death quhilk we adversus mortem in victoriam had deserved: and the infinit luctaretur. and invincible power of the uther, to wit, of the God-head, suld triumph and purchesse to us life, libertie, and perpetuall victory."--Dunlop, ii. 35, 36.

4. "That Hee being the Judicis scilicet sententia damnatus cleane, innocent Lambe of God, pro nocente et malefico ut was damned in the presence of apud summi judicis _tribunal_ ejus an earthlie judge, that we suld damnatione absolveremur. be absolved befoir the _tribunal_ seat of our God."--Dunlop, ii. 37, 38.

5. "Suffered ... the cruell Crucifixus in cruce quae Dei death of the Crosse, quhilk was lege maledicta fuerat. accursed be the sentence of God."--Dunlop, ii. 38.

6. "Suffered for a season the Divini judicii horrorem et wrath of His Father quhilk sinners severitatem sensisse ... luens had deserved. Bot zit we poenas non suae ... sed nostrae avow that He remained the only iniquitati. Neque tamen wel-beloved and blessed Sonne intelligendum est patrem illi of His Father, even in the middest unquam iratum fuisse. Quomodo of His anguish and enim dilecto filio, in quo illi torment."--Dunlop, ii. 38. complacitum est, irasceretur.

[119] Alasco's Works, ii. 296, 298.

[120] Chapters xii.-xv.

[121] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 46. "Sunt autem dona Spiritus Sancti, per quem regeneramur, e diaboli potestate et vinculis explicamur, in filios Dei gratuito adoptamur, ad omne opus bonum sanctificamur."--Calvin.

[122] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 47.

[123] Westminster Confession, chap. x.

[124] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 58. There is hardly one of these expressions that may not be found in Calvin's Institutes:--

It behoves us to apprehend Confiteor nos justificari per Christ Jesus with His justice and fidem quâtenus per eam apprehendimus satisfaction. Jesum Christum.

We are set at this liberty Omni execratione quae nobis that the curse and malediction incumbebat eximeremur dum in of the law fall not upon us. eum traduceret. Fides, in Christi damnatione absolutionem, benedictionem in maledictione, apprehendit.

God the Father, beholding Ubi nos in filii sui communionem us in the body of His Son Christ semel recepit, opera Jesus, accepts our imperfect nostra grata acceptaque habet, obedience as it were perfect. non quod ita promereantur sed quia condonatâ eorum imperfectione, nil in illis intuetur, nisi quod a Spiritu suo profectum, purum ac sanctum est.

_Covers_ our works, which are Nullae nostrae sordes aut defiled with many spots, with immunditiae imperfectionis the justice of His Son. imputantur, sed illa puritate Christi ac perfectione velut sepultae _conteguntur_. Cujus perfectione tegatur nostra imperfectio. See also Calvin's Catechism in Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 175.

[125] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 95; Laing's Knox, ii. 119.

[126] [Of the six, all save Willock sign the letter to Beza on 4th September 1566 (Laing's Knox, vi. 548-550).]

[127] Laing's Knox, vi. 546-548.

[128] Considerable ingenuity has been expended in the attempt to show that the words "who is the end and accomplishment of the law" are to be understood in some other than their most obvious and commonly received meaning. Without questioning the competency of such ingenious rather than ingenuous exposition, were a case raised before the judicial committee of a modern privy council to have the expounder tried and condemned as a heretic, I venture to think that when the matter to be determined is rather what, in point of fact, did Knox and his associates hold and teach, the following brief quotation from the "godly and perfect" treatise of Balnaves on Justification must go pretty near to settle it: "Christ is the end of the law (unto righteousnes) to all that beleeve--that is, Christ is the consummation and fulfilling of the lawe, and that justice whiche the lawe requireth; and all they which beleeve in Him are just by imputation through faith, and for His sake are repute and accepted as just" (Laing's Knox, iii. 492). If more than this has been taught in recent times, I should be greatly inclined with Principal Lee to trace it to Jonathan Edwards, or perhaps even to the great Independent, Dr Owen, rather than to the Westminster divines, or the earlier Scottish.

[129] Stähelin's Johannes Calvin, ii. 88.

[130] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 66-68; Laing's Knox, ii. 110.

[131] Lee's Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, i. 124, 125.

[132] Laing's Knox, ii. 113. [In the Confession, as printed in the Acts of the Parliaments of 1560 and 1567 ratifying it, the word _chief_ is retained (Acts of Parliament, ii. 532; iii. 20). The Confession of 1616 bears that: "We believe that there be only two sacraments appointed by Christ under the New Testament, Baptisme and the Lord's Supper" ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' iii. 1137). Concerning the sacraments the First Book of Discipline says: "They be two, to wit, Baptism and the Holy Supper of the Lord Jesus" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 520; Laing's Knox, ii. 186).]

[133] Hujus generis _duo praecipua_ in vetere ecclesiâ fuerunt circumcisio et agnus paschalis. Nos illorum loco _duo_ etiam habemus baptismum et caenam domini.

[134] "The Confession of Faith made by Mr Knox, and ratified in Parliament by King James VI., together with the Westminster Confession (both agreed on by the General Assembly of Presbyters), are owned next to the Word of God, by both parties, as the Standard of the doctrine of our Church" (Case of Suffering Church of Scotland).

[135] It is printed at length in Calderwood's History, vii. 233-242; and also in the 'Booke of the Universall Kirk,' iii. 1132-1139; and is supposed to have been mainly the work of Howie, Melville's successor at St Andrews.

[136] [In speaking of this Confession of 1616, Dr Grub says that it "agrees with the old one in all important points, the chief difference being in its more marked enunciation of the doctrine of Calvin in regard to election and predestination" (Grub's History, ii. 306).]

[137] Printed in Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, pp. 155-160.

[138] Generally so designated, but really as old as the days of Paul and Augustine.

[139] [After 1564-65, the Book of Common Order was usually printed with a complete metrical version of the Psalms (Laing's Knox, vi. 279, 280, 284); and was comprehended under the name 'Psalm Book' (_infra_, p. 128). Mr Cowan, of 47 Braid Avenue, Edinburgh, informs me that the Confession, drawn up for the English congregation at Geneva, appears in every edition of the Book of Common Order which he has examined, from the Geneva edition of 1556 down to the edition printed by Evan Tyler in 1644.]

[140] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 8; Laing's Knox, iv. 171, 172.

[141] [These forms of recantation may be seen in the Maitland Miscellany, iii. 215-221; and in the Register of St Andrews Kirk-session, Scot. Hist. Soc., i. 11-18.]

[142] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 65, 66; Laing's Knox, ii. 109, 110.

[143] The designation is undoubtedly Knoxian, as it occurs in his dispute with Friar Arbuckill in 1547. To the reformer's assertion "that the spous of Christ had nether power nor authoritie against the Word of God," the Friar replied, "Yf so be, ye will leave us na kirk;" and to that the reformer rejoined, "In David I read that thare is a church of the malignantis, for he sayis, _Odi ecclesiam malignantium_. That church ye may have without the Word, ... of that church yf ye wilbe, I can not impead yow" (Laing's Knox, i. 200).

[144] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 80; Laing's Knox, ii. 114.

[145] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 96, 97.