A Short History of the British Commonwealth Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ...save four who had recanted. The General Assembly of Glasgow deserves to rank among the great assemblies of the world; for it began a revolution which only ended with the establishment of the doctrine of popular sovereignty in the islands, and consequently in the whole British Commonwealth, and ultimately throughout the world. It was the most democratic and the most representative national body which had ever yet met. In every Scottish parish the minister and one lay elder were elected to the Presbytery; and from every Presbytery three ministers and a lay elder were sent to sit in the Assembly. The ministers were the intellectual and spiritual leaders of the nation; the lay elders included the ablest and best men of all the educated classes. To defy the decisions of such a body was dangerous indeed. They were bold and unflinching decisions. First of all, the bishops were indicted. By the king's orders they refused to appear or to recognise the jurisdiction of an Assembly in which they did not sit as members; and on this ground, when the Assembly asserted that as a legally constituted body it had a right to judge the bishops, the king's commissioner, Hamilton, declared it dissolved. But no attention was paid to the dissolution: the Assembly went on with its task. It abolished episcopacy. It abolished the Court of High Commission. It abolished the canons and the liturgy; jand then, in one comprehensive act, it re-established the whole Presbyterian system, its kirk sessions in each parish, its presbyteries, its synods, its General Assembly; and ordained that schools should be set up in every parish at the public expense. 'We have cast down the walls of Jericho, ' said the Moderator in his closing words; 'Let him that rebuildeth beware of the curse of Kiel the Be...