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Primary source material The Second Book of Discipline: the pastoral office Pastors, bishops, or ministers, are they who are appointed to particular congregations, which they rule by the word of God, and over the which they watch: in respect whereof, sometimes they are called pastors, because they feed their congregation; sometimes episcopi or bishops, because they watch over their flock; sometimes ministers, by reason of their service and office; and sometimes also presbyters or seniors, for the gravity in manners which they ought to have in taking care of the spiritual government, which ought to be most dear unto them.
They that are called unto the ministry, or that offer themselves thereunto, ought not to be elected without [unless] one certain flock be assigned to them.
No one ought to ingyre [force] himself, or usurp this office, without lawful calling.
They who are once called by God, and duly elected by man, after that they have once accepted the charge of the ministry, may not leave their functions. The deserters should be admonished; and, in case of obstinacy, finally excommunicated.
No pastor may leave his flock without license of the provincial or national assembly; which, if he does, after admonition not obeyed, let the censures of the kirk strike upon him.
Unto the pastor appertains teaching of the word of God, in season and out of season, publicly and privately, always travailing to edify and discharge his conscience, as God's word prescribes to him.
Unto the pastor only appertains the administration of the sacraments, in like manner as the administration of the word; for both are appointed by God as means to teach us, the one by the ear, and the other by the eyes and other senses, that by both knowledge may be transferred to the mind.
It appertains, by the same reason, to the pastor to pray for the people, and namely for the flock committed to his charge; and to bless them in the name of the Lord, who will not suffer the blessings of His faithful servants to be frustrated.
He ought also to watch over the manners of his flock, that the better he may apply the doctrine to them, in reprehending the dissolute persons, and
exhorting the godly to continue in the fear of the Lord.
It appertains to the minister, after lawful proceeding by the eldership, to pronounce the sentence of binding or loosing upon any person, according to the power of the keys granted unto the kirk.
It belongs to him likewise, after lawful proceeding in the matter by the eldership, to solemnize marriage betwixt them that are to be joined therein; and to pronounce the blessing of the Lord upon them that enter in that holy bond in the fear of God.
And generally, all public denunciations [announcements] that are to be made in the kirk before the congregation, concerning the ecclesiastical affairs, belong to the office of a minister; for he is a messenger and herald betwixt God and the people in all these affairs.
Second Book of Discipline, Chapter 4 Christ's work, finished yet ongoing Now, I go to the next voice. When He hath drunk, He says, "It is finished," that is, "That wearisome work is now put to an end; now the ransom is paid; now the work of redemption is ended." Brethren, that ye may understand this; the Lord when He was in the garden [of Gethsemane] had two works; the first was, to buy heaven, to conquer life to us; the second, to put us in possession of it. The first work, He began it in the first moment of His conception, and continues still from that time to that moment He gave up the spirit to the Father. Now, that work being ended, He proclaims on the cross, cries out in the audience of them all, Consummatum est, "It is finished. Now that wearisome work is ended; the dear work is ended; heaven, and life, and righteousness, are conquered to the world for ever."
This is the sum of the Gospel: "The work of our redemption is ended." This is all our preaching; heaven, life, and glory, are conquered again to the lost world. Thou needest not to give one penny out of thy purse for heaven.
Cursed are they, from the high heaven to the low hell, that open their mouth to say, thou must pay some of that ransom out of thy purse. Woe to the Papists who will stand up and say, thou must pay some part of that ransom; woe to that foul mouth that dare be so bold to open it and say, "Pay thou a part of that ransom with thy money," seeing that Jesus Christ hath proclaimed that all is finished and bought by His blood; woe, vengeance, and everlasting damnation, shall light on the Pope, and all the Papists that dare open their mouths to speak such presumptuous words.
Yet there is another work remaining, which is to put us in possession of heaven, and He began this at His resurrection, and He holds it on yet, and shall continue it unto His coming again; and at that day of His coming, ye shall hear Him crying, "All is ended," not on His cross, but in glory; and all the angels and all the saints shall cry, "All is ended, glory to Him who hath ended all!" and no more shall be. Look down to His heart, and to the sense, from whence this voice arose, when He says this, ye shall find that Jesus felt the wrath of His Father assuaged. Before, He was in agony, now He feels the agony to cease; where before He found no joy, now joy returns; on the sense of all these things falls out this voice, "All is ended." When I look to this, I think I see the image of a godly saint dying; for the godly are like to Him in death and life. Before the last moment they are in a battle, and suddenly they will say, "I have gotten the victory in Jesus"; and then last they will yield up the spirit.
Robert Rollock 21st Lecture on the Passion of Christ The real reception of the whole Christ in the Lord's Supper
The reason why I call them [the bread and wine] signs is this: I call them not signs for the reason that men commonly call them signs, because they signify only; as the bread signifies the body of Christ, and the wine signifies the blood of Christ: I call them not signs because they represent only; but I call them signs, because they have the body and blood of Christ conjoined with them. Yea so truly is the body of Christ conjoined with that Bread, and the blood of Christ conjoined with that Wine, that as soon as thou receivest that Bread in thy mouth (if thou be a faithful man or woman) so soon receivest thou the body of Christ in thy soul, and that by faith: and as soon as thou receivest that Wine in thy mouth, so soon receivest thou the blood of Christ in thy soul, and that by faith: In respect of this exhibition chiefly, that they are instruments to deliver and exhibit the things that they signify, and not in respect only of their representation, are they called signs. For if they did nothing but represent or signify a thing absent, then any picture or dead image should be a sacrament; for there is no picture, as the picture of the King, but at the sight of the picture, the King will come in your mind, and it will signify unto you that that is the King's picture. So if the sign of the sacrament did no more, all pictures should be sacraments: but in respect that the sacrament exhibits and delivers the thing that it signifies, to the soul
and heart, so soon as the sign is delivered to the mouth, for this cause, especially, it is called a sign. There is no picture of the King that will deliver the King unto you; there is no other image that will exhibit the thing whereof it is the image; therefore there is no image can be a sacrament.
Thus, in respect the Lord has appointed the sacraments, as hands to deliver and exhibit the thing signified, for this delivery and exhibition chiefly they are called signs. As the word of the Gospel is a mighty and potent instrument to our everlasting salvation: so the Sacrament is a potent instrument appointed by God to deliver to us Christ Jesus, for our everlasting salvation. For this spiritual meat is dressed and served up to us in spiritual dishes: that is, in the ministry of the word, and in the ministry of the sacraments. And though this ministry be external, yet the Lord is said to deliver spiritual and heavenly things by these external things. Why?
Because He has appointed them as instruments whereby He will deliver his own Son to us. For this is certain, that none has power to deliver Christ
Jesus to us, except God and His Holy Spirit: and therefore, to speak properly, there is none can deliver Christ but God by His own Spirit. He is delivered by the ministry of the Holy Spirit; it is the Holy Spirit that seals
Him up in our hearts, and confirms us more and more in Him: as the Apostle gives Him this style, 2 Cor. 1:22…
Now I come to the thing signified, and I call the thing signified by the signs in the sacrament, that which that old writer, Irenaeus, calls the heavenly and spiritual thing: to wit, whole Christ with His whole gifts, benefits and graces, applied and given to my soul. Thus I call not the thing signified by the signs of Bread and Wine, the benefits of Christ, the graces of Christ, or, the virtue that flows out of Christ only: but I call the thing signified, together with the benefits and virtues flowing from Him, the very substance of Christ Himself, from which this virtue doth flow. The substance with the virtues, gifts and graces that flow from the substance, are the thing signified here. As for the virtue and graces that flow from Christ, it is not possible that thou canst be partaker of the virtue that flows from His substance, except thou be first partaker of the substance itself. For how is it possible that I can be partaker of the juice that flows out of any substance, except I be partaker of the substance itself first? Is it possible that my stomach can be refreshed with that meat, the substance whereof never came into my mouth? Is it possible my thirst can be slaked with that drink, which never passed down my throat? Is it possible that I can suck any virtue out of
anything except I get the substance first? So it is impossible that I can get the juice and virtue that flow out of Christ except I get the substance, that is
Himself first. So I call not the thing signified, the grace and virtue that flow from Christ only; nor Christ Himself and His substance, without his virtue and graces; but jointly the substance with the graces, whole Christ, God and man, without separation of His natures, without distinction of His substance from His graces.
Robert Bruce Sermons on the Sacrament, Sermon 1 Samuel Rutherford: selections from his letters
My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and will make glory out of your sufferings; and would you wish better work? This water was in your way to heaven, and written in your Lord's book; ye behoved to cross it, and, therefore, kiss His wise and unerring providence. Let not the censures of men, who see but the outside of things, and scarce well that, abate your courage and rejoicing in the Lord.
Let not the Lord's dealings seem harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. Howbeit your faith seeth but the black side of Providence, yet it hath a better side, and God shall let you see it. Learn to believe Christ better than His strokes, Himself and His promises better than His glooms. Dashes and disappointments are not canonical Scripture…Hence I infer that losses, disappointments, ill tongues, loss of friends, houses or country, are God's workmen, set on work to work out good to you, out of everything that befalleth you. When the Lord's blessed will bloweth cross your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to Him and to be willing to be laid any way the Lord pleaseth: it is a point of denial to yourself, to be as if ye had not a will, but had made free disposition of it to God, and had sold it over to Him; and to make use of His will for your own is both true holiness, and your ease and peace. Ye know not what the Lord is working out of this, but ye shall know it hereafter.
For there be many Christians most like unto young sailors, who think the shore and the whole land doth move, when the ship and they themselves are moved; just so, not a few do imagine that God moveth and saileth and changeth places, because their giddy souls are under sail, and subject to alteration, to ebbing and flowing. But "the foundation of the Lord abideth sure." God knoweth that ye are His own. Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch,
fear, believe, pray; and then ye shall have the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.
For your afflictions are not eternal; time will end them, and so shall you at length see the Lord's salvation. His love sleepeth not, but is still working for you. His salvation will not tarry or linger; and suffering for Him is the noblest cross that is out of Heaven… and this is the fruit, the flower and bloom growing out of your cross, that ye be a dead man to time, to clay, to gold, to country, to friends, wife, children, and all pieces of created nothings; for in them there is not a seat nor bottom for soul's love. Oh, what room is for your love (if it were as broad as the sea) up in heaven, and in God!
We may indeed think, Cannot God bring us to heaven with ease and prosperity? Who doubteth but He can? But His infinite wisdom thinketh and decreeth the contrary; and we cannot see a reason of it, yet He hath a most just reason. We never with our eyes saw our own soul; yet we have a soul. We see many rivers, but we know not their first spring and original fountain; yet they have a beginning. Madam, when ye are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see, in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory."
It is your part now to believe, and suffer, and hope, and wait on; for I protest, in the presence of that all-discerning eye, who knoweth what I write and what I think, that I would not want [lack] the sweet experience of the consolations of God for all the bitterness of affliction. Nay, whether God come to His children with a rod or a crown, if He come Himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome, Jesus, what way soever Thou come, if we can get a sight of Thee! And sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw by the curtains, and say, "Courage, I am Thy salvation", than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.
Keep God's covenant in your trials; hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging, envying, fretting; forgive a hundred pence to your fellow-servant, because your Lord hath forgiven you ten thousand talents: for, I assure you by the Lord, your adversaries shall get no
advantage against you, except you sin, and offend your Lord, in your sufferings.
Christ is worth more blood and lives than either ye or I have to give Him.
When we shall come home, and enter to the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings, then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time-suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall every one of Christ's love-smiles be!
Our Father in heaven He is indeed our Father (Acts 17:28), as the author of our being, beyond all the visible creatures. He breathed upon man the breath of life. But the privilege of this our natural relation, the sin of our nature hath made fruitless and comfortless to us, till we be restored by grace, and made partakers of a new sonship. We are indeed the workmanship of God, but, being defaced by sin, and considered in that estate, our true name is, children of wrath. But the sonship that emboldens us to draw near unto God as our Father, is derived from His only-begotten Son. He became the Son of Man, to make us anew the sons of God. Being thus restored, we may indeed look back upon our creation, and draw out of it, to use in prayer with God, that we are His creatures, the workmanship of His hands, and He in that sense our Father. But, by reason of our rebellion, this argument is not strong enough alone, but must be supported with this other, as the main ground of our comfort, that wherein the strength of our confidence lies, that He is our
Father in His Son Christ; that by faith we are invested into a new sonship, and by virtue of that may call Him Father, and move Him by that name to help and answer us. John 1:12, "To as many as received Him, He gave power to become the sons of God." Our adoption holds in Jesus Christ as the Head of this fraternity… But this adoption is accompanied (that we think it not a naked, external name) with a real change, and so great a change that it bears the name of that which is the real ground of sonship; it is called regeneration. And these are inseparable. There be no sons of God by adoption, but such as are withal
His sons by regeneration and new birth. There is a new life breathed into
them from God… He gives them a supernatural life by this Spirit sent into their hearts: and the Spirit, by that regeneration which He works, ascertains
[assures] them of that adoption which is in Christ Jesus; and in the persuasion of both, they call upon God as their Father.
So then, you who would have this confidence in approaching to God, to call Him Father, lay hold on Jesus Christ, as the fountain of sonship. Offer not to come unto God but through Him, and rest not satisfied with yourselves, nor your prayers, till you find some evidence that you are in Him. And know, that there is no evidence of your portion in the Son, but by the Spirit, therefore called the Spirit of the Son, by which we call God
Father. Gal. 4:6. See whether the Spirit of God dwells and rules in your hearts… If you then call on the name of God, and particularly by this name, our Father, depart from iniquity. Be ashamed to pretend to be His sons, and yet be so unlike Him, wallowing in sin: it cannot be, that the sons of so holy a God can be altogether unholy, and delight to be so: no, though they cannot be perfectly free from impurity, yet, they who are indeed His children, do certainly hate impurity, because He hates it.
Do you draw near unto God in His Son Christ? Do you give yourselves up to be led by His Spirit? Then you may account and call Him your Father.
And if you may use this word, there is abundance of sweetness in it: it is a spring of comfort that cannot run dry. And it hath influence into all the petitions; as likewise the other word, which art in heaven; Thou who art so great and so good. Whose name and whose kingdom should we desire to be advanced so much as our own Father's, our heavenly Father? And whose will to be obeyed on earth as it is in heaven? Of whom should we seek our daily bread, but of our Father? And especially, so rich a Father, possessor of heaven and earth! And forgiveness we may ask of our gracious Father, and conduct, and protection. In the hardest condition that can befall you, ye may come to your Father: all the world cannot bar your access. And there is no child may go to his father with any suit, with more confidence than you may to your Father; and if there be mercy and power enough in God, thou canst not miss of help.
Archbishop Robert Leighton Exposition of the Lord's Prayer The true nature of religion
I cannot speak of religion, but I must lament, that among so many pretenders to it, so few understand what it means: some placing it in the understanding, in orthodox notions and opinions; and all the account they can give of their religion is, that they are of this and the other persuasion, and have joined themselves to one of those many sects whereinto
Christendom is most unhappily divided.
Others place it in the outward man, in a constant course of external duties, and a model of performances. If they live peaceably with their neighbours, keep a temperate diet, observe the returns of worship, frequenting the church, or their closet, and sometimes extend their hands to the relief of the poor, they think they have sufficiently acquitted themselves.
Others again put all religion in the affections, in rapturous hearts, and ecstatic devotion; and all they aim at is, to pray with passion, and think of heaven with pleasure, and to be affected with those kind and melting expressions wherewith they court their Saviour, till they persuade themselves they are mightily in love with Him, and from thence assume a great confidence of their salvation, which they esteem the chief of Christian graces. Thus are these things which have any resemblance of piety, and at the best are but means of obtaining it, or particular exercises of it, frequently mistaken for the whole of religion: nay, sometimes wickedness and vice pretend to that name. I speak not now of those gross impieties wherewith the Heathens were wont to worship their gods. There are but too many Christians who would consecrate their vices, and follow their corrupt affections, whose ragged humour and sullen pride must pass for Christian severity; whose fierce wrath, and bitter rage against their enemies, must be called holy zeal; whose petulancy towards their superiors, or rebellion against their governors, must have the name of Christian courage and resolution.
But certainly religion is quite another thing, and they who are acquainted with it will entertain far different thoughts, and disdain all those shadows and false imitations of it. They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, it is
Christ formed within us. Briefly, I know not how the nature of religion can be more fully expressed, than by calling it a Divine Life: and under these terms I shall discourse of it, showing first, how it is called a life; and then, how it is termed divine…
By this time I hope it doth appear, that religion is with a great deal of reason termed a life, or vital principle, and that it is very necessary to distinguish betwixt it and that obedience which is constrained, and depends upon external causes. I come next to give an account why I designed it by the name of Divine Life: and so it may be called, not only in regard of its fountain and original, having God for its author, and being wrought in the souls of men by the power of His Holy Spirit; but also in regard of its nature, religion being a resemblance of the divine perfections, the image of the Almighty shining in the soul of man: nay, it is a real participation of His nature, it is a beam of the eternal light, a drop of that infinite ocean of goodness; and they who are endowed with it may be said to have God dwelling in their souls, and Christ formed within them.
Henry Scougal The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Part 1 1 See Chapter 2, section 1.1, for Ramism and its place in Reformed thinking in our period.
2 See Chapter 2, section 1.2, for Beza's life and work.
3 The First Book of Discipline was the blueprint for Kirk and society drawn up by John Knox in 1560. See VolumeThree: Renaissance and Reformation, Chapter 7, section 8.
4 The Privy Council was the king's council, made up of men of his choosing; it had almost unlimited powers, and its decrees carried the force of law.
5 See below for his further life.
6 For these people and events, see Volume Three: Renaissance and Reformation, Chapter 7, sections 6-9.
7 Skelping is Scots for smacking.
8 Or it was one of the things that made Buchanan abhorrent to James. The skelping of his majesty's backside was doubtless another.
9 See Chapter 2, section 1.7.
10 See Chapter 3, section 5.6.
11 For a more detailed account from the English point of view, see Chapter 3, section 4.1.
12 The event is customarily called the union of crowns, but the Scottish and English crowns remained technically distinct. It was merely that the same person now wore both.
13 For more about Bancroft and Andrewes, see Chapter 3, sections 3.4 and 4.4.
14 See Chapter 3, section 5.
15 See Volume Three: Renaissance and Reformation, Chapter 7, section 7.
16 See Chapter 3, section 6, for religious toleration in the English Civil War.
17 See Chapter 3, section 5.5.
18 See Chapter 3, section 5.6.
19 See Chapter 3, section 6.1.
20 A whiggamore was a cattle thief.
21 For a more detailed account of these events, see Chapter 3, section 6.
22 Not to be confused with William Guthrie (1620–65), author of The Christian's Great Interest, a popular Covenanting work of practical divinity.
23 See Chapter 4, section 1.1-2, for a more detailed account of the Restoration in England.
24 Curate = assistant to an Episcopal minister.
25 For the Jansenists, see Chapter 6, section 4.
26 For more about Monmouth, see Chapter 4, section 2.2.
27 See Chapter 4, section 1.5.
28 See Chapter 4, section 2.3.
29 See Chapter 4, section 2.4.