Chapter XXV: The Service Book
All business was paralysed by the controversy, and the Town Council ceased to meet on account of the disturbed state of the country. [6] But if the bailies on the one side of the Cart were afraid to convene, the Presbytery on the other were less timid. They met, not so frequently as before, but always to express their sympathy with the popular side. They ordered the moderator to lay down his office as the representative of the Archbishop. [7] He answered “that he had his office of the Archbishop of Glasgow, with consent of the brethren of the Assemblie, and therefore could not, unless his office was discharged by them of whom he had received the same.” His brethren paid little attention to this, and concluded that the moderator should be changed every six months. They had now become thorough-going Presbyterians, and in their records the Archbishop disappears from view. The minister of the Abbey, Mr. Crighton, in whose church they met, was not, however, in accord with his brethren. He protested against their supplication regarding “that most corrupt liturgy” the service-book, and he introduced into the Abbey those innovations against which they were fasting and praying. He accordingly drew down upon himself their wrath and condemnation, and when some of his parishioners presented a complaint [8] against him, they were not slow to take it up. The probability is that it was inspired by themselves. Only one part of the complaint refers to a matter of character. It seems to have been recklessly made, and there was little evidence adduced in support of it. It was afterwards added to by the Presbytery themselves taking up, in a very unfair way, the gossip of the town. The charges are very singular, and as they illustrate the state of matters at that critical time, we give them as they were made:—
“He taught that Christ descended locally into hell.
“That Christ in his own person was the first that entered into heaven, and none before him, and that none of the fathers went to heaven, but were in atrio coeli.
“That Christ is really in the sacrament, but all the world cannot tell after what manner.
“That the ???? is the very and only Anti-Christ, and no other.
“Speaking anent the number of the sacraments, he affirmed that, if men were peaceably set, the Protestants and the Romish doctors might be easily reconciled, for the Romish doctors teach (saith he) that there are only two principal sacraments, and the Protestants say that there be only two properly sacraments, and so no difference if men were peaceably set.
“He taught that it was possible for us to fulfil the law, otherwise that sentence might be rased out of Scripture, ‘By the grace of Christ which strengtheneth me I am able to do all things.’ The same point he delivered again at greater length, preaching upon the words, Luc xviii, 22, ‘All these have I kept from my youth up.’ He sayeth, here we may see that the commandments are keepable, for if it had not been true that the young man had kept them, as he professed he had done, Christ would have checked him for it. Again, saith he, if the commandments were not keepable, God having commanded us to keep them, God were the cause of our sins, and not ourselves, for we are not guilty of the thing which we are not able to do ; as for example, saith he, if God commanded me to leap up into the moon, not being able to do it, God would be in fault, and not I.
“Whosoever dare say (said he) that God ever elected or rejected any man without respect to works, I say that it is a fable, not worthy to be heard in the chair of veritie.
“Several times he hath mentioned universal grace and universal redemption, and affirmed that Christ died alike for all—for Judas and Peter.
“He taught that the difference betwixt Papists and Protestants, Calvinists and Lutherans, Arminians and Gonnarians, Conformists and Nonconformists, is but a mouthful of moonshine, and if churchmen were peaceably set, they might be easily reconciled.
“He hath several times affirmed that justifying faith might be absolutely lost.
“That there is no way for a sinner to go to heaven unless he make confession of his sins to the minister, alledging that he hath as great power to forgive sins as the apostles had.
[6] There are no minutes of Council between 1631 and 1645 for this reason.
[7] 22d June, 1638.
[8] The complainers were Alexr. Cochrane of that Ilk, the Laird of Elderslie, Crawford of Cartsburn, and James Alexander, Bailie of Paisley. Those whom the Presbytery are fond of calling the “noblemen and gentlemen of the parish” took nothing to do with it.