This Week in Scottish Reformation History….

On the 8th December 1638, the Glasgow Assembly voted to make Episcopacy unlawful and abolished it from the Scottish Church.

Following the signing of the National Covenant earlier in the year, the first free General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 36 years was held in Glasgow in November, with the Rev Alexander Henderson as moderator and Archibald Johnston of Wariston as clerk. Both were joint authors of the National Covenant.

The Assembly began a complete reformation of the church. As well as declaring Episcopacy unlawful, it also declared the following unlawful too:
– The Five Articles of Perth (five episcopal and Roman Catholic worship practices that were forced on the church by king James VI in 1618).
– The Book of Canons (A book of church laws that were also forced on the Church in 1636. These laws were based on the Five Articles of Perth).
– And the Book of Common Prayer (Or Laud’s Liturgy, which the Scottish people believed contained Roman Catholic errors, with its section on communion seeming more like the Catholic mass. It also instructed readings from the Apocrypha and celebration of saints’ days).

The assembly continued to meet despite attempts by the king’s commissioner to dissolve it, and as a result the king tried to use force.

These events led to the Bishop’s Wars which in turn led to the outbreak of the English Civil War.