The First Book of Discipline

The six ministers

Knox writes that “Commission and charge was given to Mr John Winram, Subprior of St Andrews, Master John Spottiswood, John Willock, Mr John Douglas, Rector of St Andrews, Master John Row, and John Knox, to draw in a volume the Policy and Discipline of the Kirk, as well as they had done the Doctrine; which they did and presented to the Nobility, who did peruse it many days” [spelling modernised].¹

Calderwood and MacPherson name the same six. MacPherson: “Six ministers were appointed to prepare a Book of Church Order — John Knox, John Wynram, John Spottiswoode, John Willock, John Douglas, and John Row.” Cunningham leaves out Douglas, and M’Crie’s Life of Knox leaves out Willock.²

When it was written

The Book’s own preface, addressed “To the Great Council of Scotland now admitted to the Regiment [government]” [spelling modernised], says that its authors “received a charge, dated at Edinburgh, 29 April, in the year of God 1560” [spelling modernised], to set down in a book their judgement “touching the Reformation of Religion” [spelling modernised]; and it closes, “From Edinburgh, the 20 of May 1560” [spelling modernised].³

Knox’s own narrative, however, places the commission after the Parliament of August 1560, as do Calderwood and Cunningham. M’Crie noticed the difference: the printed copies give 29 April and 20 May, “But, as the civil war was not then concluded, I have followed the account given by Knox, who says, that it was undertaken subsequently to the meeting of parliament in August that year.”⁴

What it set out

Its first head, “Of Doctrine”, begins: “Seeing that Christ Jesus is he whom God the Father has commanded only to be heard, and followed of his sheep, we urge it necessary that his Evangel [Gospel] be truly and openly preached in every Kirk and Assembly of this Realm” [spelling modernised].⁵

Of the sacraments it says “they be two, to wit, Baptism, and the Holy Supper of the Lord Jesus” [spelling modernised].⁶

Ministers were to be called by their people: “It appertains to the People, and to every several [separate] Congregation, to Elect their Minister” [spelling modernised]. If a congregation was negligent “the space of forty days” [spelling modernised], the church of the Superintendent with his Council might present a man to them.⁷

Where no minister could yet be had, “must be appointed the most apt men, that distinctly can read the Common Prayers and the Scriptures” [spelling modernised]: the readers. No one under twenty-one was to be admitted a reader.⁸

Every minister was to have at least “forty bolls [measures] meal, and twenty-six bolls malt, to find [provide] his house bread and drink” [spelling modernised].⁹

“Every several [separate] Kirk must provide for the poor within itself.” [spelling modernised] “We are not patrons for stubborn and idle beggars,” [spelling modernised] it says, but “for the widow and fatherless, the aged, impotent or lamed, who neither can nor may travail [labour] for their sustentation [support], we say that God commands his people to be careful” [spelling modernised].¹⁰

To plant and erect churches, ten or twelve superintendents were to be chosen, “for in so many Provinces have we divided the whole” [spelling modernised]. They “must be preachers themselves” [spelling modernised], must stay no more than twenty or thirty days in one place on their visitation, and must examine “the life, diligence, and behaviour of the Ministers” [spelling modernised], how the poor are provided for and how the youth are instructed. A superintendent was himself “subjected to the censure and correction of the Ministers and Elders” [spelling modernised] of his province. The Book names ten provinces, with the superintendent’s seat in each:¹¹

• Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and Strathnaver: Kirkwall
• Ross, Sutherland, Moray, Skye and Lewis: the Chanonry [cathedral town] of Ross
• Argyll, Kintyre, Lorne, the South Isles, Arran, Bute and Lochaber: Argyll
• Between Dee and Spey: Old Aberdeen
• The Mearns and Angus, and the Brae of Mar to Dee: Brechin
• Fife and Fotheringham to Stirling, and the shire of Perth: St Andrews
• Lothian, and Stirling south of the Forth, with the Merse, Lauderdale and Weddell: Edinburgh
• Teviotdale, Tweeddale, Liddesdale and Ettrick Forest: Jedburgh
• Clydesdale, Renfrew, Menteith, Lennox, Kyle and Cunningham: Glasgow
• Galloway, Carrick, Nithsdale and Annandale: Dumfries

Every church was to have a schoolmaster, “able, at least, to teach Grammar and the Latin tongue, if the Town be of any reputation” [spelling modernised]. In the country the reader or minister was to “take care over the children and youth of the parish, to instruct them in their first rudiments, and especially in the Catechism” [spelling modernised]. The universities were to be three: “The first in St Andrews, the second in Glasgow, and the third in Aberdeen” [spelling modernised].¹²

Of church discipline it says: “To Discipline must all Estates within this Realm be subject, if they offend, as well the Rulers as they that are ruled; yea and the Preachers themselves” [spelling modernised].¹³

Elders were to be chosen yearly from “Men of best knowledge in God’s word, of cleanest life, men faithful, and of most honest conversation that can be found in the Church” [spelling modernised], “to assist the Minister in all public affairs of the Church” [spelling modernised]. Deacons were “to receive the rents, and gather the alms of the Church, to keep and distribute the same” [spelling modernised]. Neither was to have a stipend, “because their travail [labour] continues but for one year” [spelling modernised].¹⁴

Subscribed

Not all the nobles welcomed it. Knox writes: “Some approved it, and willed the same to have been set forth by a law. Others, perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity [advantage] somewhat to be impaired thereby, grudged” [spelling modernised], and mocked it as “devout imaginations” [spelling modernised]. The chief of those who refused to subscribe was Lord Erskine.¹⁵

A convention of the nobility was appointed to meet at Edinburgh on 15 January 1561, and Calderwood writes that “At the same convention, the Book of Discipline was subscribed” [spelling modernised].¹⁶

Knox writes that the Book “was subscribed by a great part of the Nobility” [spelling modernised], who “subscribed and approved the said Book of Discipline, in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, the twenty-seventh day of January, the year of God 1560” [spelling modernised]. The year then began on 25 March, so this is January 1561 by the modern reckoning, as Calderwood says: “the 27th day of Januarie, in the yeere of our Lord 1561, according to the new accompt [reckoning]”. The Book’s own form of approbation is headed “Act of Secret Council, 27 January” [spelling modernised]. Cunningham and Hetherington give 17 January, and M’Crie reports a copy dated 25 January.¹⁷

Among those Knox names as subscribing (identifications from Laing’s notes):¹⁸

• “the Duke’s Grace” [spelling modernised] (the Duke of Châtelherault) and the Earl of Arran
• the Earls of Argyll, Glencairn, Marischal, Menteith, Morton and Rothes
• Lord James Stewart, later Earl of Moray
• the Lords Yester, Boyd and Ochiltree; the Master of Maxwell; Lord Lindsay the elder and the Master of Lindsay
• the lairds of Drumlanrig, Lochinvar, Garlies and Bargany
• Alexander Gordon, Bishop of Galloway, and Alexander Campbell, Dean of Moray
• “with a great number more” [spelling modernised]

They declared it “good, and conform to God’s Word in all points” [spelling modernised], and promised to “set the same forward at the uttermost of our powers” [spelling modernised], provided that the bishops, abbots, priors and other prelates who had joined them should keep “the revenues of their benefices during their lifetimes, they sustaining and upholding the Ministry and Ministers … for preaching of the Word, and ministering of the Sacraments of God” [spelling modernised].¹⁹

Later in 1561 Knox records that “The Preachers vehemently exhorted us to establish The Book of Discipline, by an Act and public Law; affirming that if they suffered things to hang in suspense, when God had given unto them sufficient power in their hands, they should after sob for it, but should not get it” [spelling modernised].²⁰

The General Assembly’s register first names the Book at Edinburgh on 26 May 1561, when it asked that the stipends “contained in the Book of Discipline for sustentation of the ministers” [spelling modernised] be secured.²¹