SCOTLAND, CHURCH OF. The purpose of this article is to trace the growth of the Scottish "Kirk" as a whole, defining the views on which it was based and the organization in which they took form. The controversies within the Church of Scot land have not arisen out of matters of faith but out of practical questions of church government and of the relation of church and state. Holding a church theory to which the rulers of the country were for a century strongly opposed, Scotland became the leading exponent of Presbyterianism (q.v.) ; and this note has been the dominant one in her religious history even in recent times.
Scottish Reformation.—The Scottish Reformation came out of a covenant in which the barons, inspired by John Knox, then abroad, bound themselves in 1557 to oppose the Roman Catholic religion and to promote the cause of the Reformation. When parliament, on the 24th of August 156o, passed the acts abolish ing the papal jurisdiction and the mass in Scotland, it was able, as Knox had been preparing for this crisis, to sanction a new confession of faith for the Reformed church. Other documents of the new system were quickly forthcoming. The First Book of Discipline set forth the whole of the proposed religious and edu cational constitution, and this book speaks of "the order of Geneva which is now in use in some of our churches." This order, afterwards with some modifications known as John Knox's Lit urgy, and used in the church down to the reign of Charles I., is a complete directory of worship, with forms of all the services to be held in the church. The type of religion found in these documents is that of Geneva, the unit being the self-governing congregation, and the great aim of the system the pure preaching of the Word; but the First Book of Discipline does not set forth any complete scheme of church government. Its arrangements are in part provisional. In addition to the minister, who is its most definite figure and proved to be the most permanent, it recognizes the superintendent, the lay elder and the reader. The superintendent was a parish minister whose added function was to plant churches, and place ministers, elders and deacons where required. Whether the superintendents were meant to be per manent in the church is not clear. The lay elder was very much what he is still. The reader was to conduct service when no minister was available, reading the Scriptures and the Common Prayer. A noble scheme of education was sketched for the whole country, but neither this nor the provision made for Ministers' stipends was carried out, the revenues of the old church, from which the expenses of both were to be paid, being in the hands of the barons.
The system naturally took time to get into working order. The old clergy, bishops, abbots and priests were still on the ground, and were slow to take service in the new church. In 1574 there were 289 ministers and 715 readers. As the ranks of the clergy slowly filled, questions arose which the Reformation had not settled, and it was natural that the old system with which the country was familiar should creep in again. Presbytery was never much in favour with the crown; and when the crown, so weak at the Reformation, gained strength, encroachments were made on the popular character of the kirk, while the barons also had obvious reasons for not wishing the kirk to be too strong The first parliament of the Regent Moray (1567), while con firming the establishment of the Reformed church as the only true church of Christ, settling the Protestant succession, and doing something to secure the right of stipend to ministers, re introduced lay patronage, the superintendent being charged to induct the patron's nominee—an infringement of the reformed system against which the church never ceased to protest. Andrew Melville (q.v.) came to Scotland at this time, and became the leader of the church in place of Knox, who died in 1572. He brought with him from Geneva, where he had been the colleague of Beza, a fervent hatred of ecclesiastical tyranny and a clear grasp of the Presbyterian church system. The Scottish church, hitherto without a definite constitution, soon espoused under his able leadership a logical and thorough Presbyterianism, which was expressed in the Second Book of Discipline, adopted by the assembly in 1577, and was never afterwards set aside by the church when acting freely. It recognizes four kinds of office in the church, and no one can lawfully be placed in any of them except by being called to it by the members. Pastor, bishop and minister are all titles of the same office, that of those who preach the word and administer the sacraments, each to a particular congregation. The doctor is a teacher in school or university; he is an elder and assists in the work of government. Elders are rulers; their function also is spiritual, though practical and dis ciplinary. The fourth office is that of the deacons, who have to do with matters of property and are not members of church courts. Kirk-sessions and presbyteries are not named, but the principles are clearly laid down on which these institutions are to rest.