Discipline, BOOKS OF, the First and Second, embody the constitution and order of procedure of the Church of Scotland from the period of the Reformation. The First Book of Discipline, or the 'Police and Discipline of the Church,' was drawn up under a commission from the Privy-council of Scotland, in 1560, by John Knox and other four ministers—John Row, John Spottiswoode, John Winram, and John Douglas. These ministers, the same year, had prepared the doctrinal Confession of Faith of the church, which was inscribed among the acts of parliament as a statute of the realm; but for the practical government and discipline of the church, a form of order more elaborate than that imported from Geneva was required, and this was provided in the First Book of Discipline. It was approved by the General Assembly, but on being presented to the Privy-council several members manifested opposition to some things in the book, and it was not ratified by the council as such. Most of the members, however, subscribed it, and pledged themselves to set forward its regulations. These had reference principally to (1) the providing of ministers for the numerous congregations all over the country, but as ministers were then few in number, the temporary expedient was resorted to of appointing readers, exhorters, and superintendents; (2) the order of public worship and dispensation of the sacraments; (3) the establishment of schools in every parish, and of colleges in every 'notable' town; (4) the provision to be made for the support of ministers, schoolmasters, and the poor; and (5) the mode of dealing with offenders against the laws of the church. Subscription of the First Book of Discipline was required of all ministers of the church before admission to office.
On account of the urgent need which was felt for such a book, it was prepared with haste, and several important matters were soon found to have been omitted. So early as 1563 a revised book of discipline was desiderated, but in consequence of the harassments of civil dissensions the revision was postponed. In 1575 a committee was appointed to take charge of the matter. Of this committee Andrew Melville was a prominent member, and the result of its labours was—
The Second Book of Discipline, or 'Heidis and Conclusiones of the Police of the Kirk.' This was received and adopted by the General Assembly in 1578, and in 1581 that venerable body ordered that it should be engrossed at length in their register, and that copies should be taken by all the presbyteries of the church. Efforts were made to have it ratified by parliament at the time, but without success. It was, however, on the basis of the Second Book of Discipline that the constitution of the Church of Scotland was settled by the Scots parliament in 1592, and again in 1690. It is sworn to in the National Covenant, and was ratified by the General Assembly in 1638 as well as in 1645, when the Assembly received and adopted the 'Form of Church Government' prepared by the Westminster Assembly of
Divines. It was not intended that the Second Book of Discipline should annul or supersede the first, but rather that it might amplify and qualify its regulations. Profiting by the experience gained under the operation of the first book, the church by the second abolished the temporary expedients to which the exigencies of the case had obliged them formerly to resort; and in the new book the Presbyterian system was established on the broad and solid platform on which it stands to the present day. Both Books of Discipline are still standards in the Church of Scotland, and also in some of the other Presbyterian bodies which have seceded from it.