20 December 1560 A.D. First General Assembly of Scotland
December 20: First General Assembly of Scotland (1560)
Beginnings can be Interesting
Beginnings
of anything can be interesting. This author once planted a mission church
in a sizeable Midwest city. He had done all the preliminary preparation
for the mission. Several families committed themselves to the
endeavor. The first worship service was planned in a spacious worship
center of an evangelical church, rented for the occasion. We all went with
expectations of a good beginning, but only one family showed up for the
beginning worship time. It is true that God did some extraordinary
things in the first six years of our ministry there. I rejoice that this
established church is progressing ahead by means of being a mother church to
several congregations.
In
1560, a Scottish Reformation Parliament abrogated and annulled the papal
jurisdiction for Scottish churches, ending all the authority flowing from Rome.
This
set the grounds for the establishment of the Church of Scotland that same
year. Let W. M. Hetherington in his book “History of the Church of
Scotland” pick up the account. He writes on page 53,
“They
(the Reformation Parliament) enacted no ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever in
its stead. This it left the reformed Church to determine upon and effect
by its own intrinsic powers. And this is a fact of the utmost it cannot be
too well known and kept in remembrance. It is, indeed, one of the distinctive
characteristics of the Church of Scotland, that it owes its origin, its form,
its jurisdiction, and its discipline, to no earthly power. And when the
ministers and elders of the church of Scotland resolved to meet in a General
Assembly, to deliberate on matters, which might tend to the promotion of God’s
glory and the welfare of the Church, they did so in virtue of the authority
which they believed the Lord Jesus Christ had given to the Church. The
parliament which abolished the papal jurisdiction made not the slightest
mention of General Assembly. In that time of comparatively simple and
honest faith, even statesmen seem instinctively to have perceived, that to
interfere in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so as to appoint
ecclesiastical tribunals, specify their nature, and assign their limits, was
not within their province. It had been well for the kingdom if statesmen
of succeeding times, certainly not their superiors in talent and in judgment,
had been wise enough to follow their example.”
The
first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was held on
this day, December 20,
1560. Forty delegates were in attendance. For that
number, only six were ministers. They were John Knox (Edinburgh),
Christophere Gudman (St. Andrews), John Row (Perth), David Lindesay (Leith),
William Harlaw (St. Cuthberts), and William Christesone (Dundee). While
their names, with the exception of Knox and possibly Row, are unknown to many
of our readers, Hetherington remarks that “they were men of great abilities, of
deep piety, fitted and qualified by their Creator for the work which He had
given them to do.” (p. 53)
Words to Live By:
Not only had the Creator fitted and qualified them, but so had their Great
Redeemer fitted and acquired them to raise up a Church faithful and true to the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It may have been small in man’s
estimation at the beginning, but the Spirit of God judged it otherwise. He
would bring the increase in His time. So be faithful, dear reader, in the
place where God has planted you. Keep looking to Him, for He will accomplish
His will through you, in the work and place where you have been planted to
serve our Lord and Savior.
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