ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

SCHOOL of DIVINITY The University of Edinburgh

Complete the information below and use this form as the first page of your essay.

Course Code: ECHS11009

Course Name: Dissertation (MTh-MSc in Theology in History)

Exam Number: B037616

Essay Title: ‘The feeling of his mercie’: Evaluating Emotion in Robert Bruce of Kinnaird’s Preaching on the Lord’s Supper

Date: 02/08/17

Word count: 14337

Course Manager: Professor S. Brown

______

Start your essay on the next page

‘The feeling of his mercie’: Evaluating Emotion in Robert Bruce of Kinnaird’s Preaching on the Lord’s Supper

B037616 Word Count: 14337 MTh Theology in History The University of Edinburgh 2017

2

Contents

Acknowledgements 3

Introduction 4

Chapter 1: ‘The feeling of his mercie’ 11

Chapter 2: Preparing for the Sacrament: Identifying Authentic Faith 19

Chapter 3: Ecstasy in the Lord’s Supper 28

Conclusion 36

Appendix 38

Bibliography 47

3

Acknowledgements

Writing a dissertation is a team effort. Whilst I have had the exciting opportunity to research the sacramental theology of Robert Bruce of Kinnaird, it is thanks to the advice, support and insights of others that I have been able to produce this dissertation. I would like to thank Professor Susan Hardman Moore for her supervision and her constant support, which proved invaluable. My gratitude is also for Professor Jane Dawson, who generously invited me onto her course Creation of a Protestant Scotland, 1558-1638. She brought Early Modern Scotland alive, and she showed me how exciting a world it is to inhabit. My thanks also to Dr Jamie Reid Baxter, who kindly supplied me with his notes and transcript on MSS Bru 2. In helping me find Bruce’s grave and house coat of arms, I am indebted to the congregation of Larbert Old Church. In particular, my thanks to Ms Sallie Allan for her enthusiastic and generous efforts to supply me with photos, resources and contacts regarding Bruce’s time in Larbert. Thanks also to Ms Gayle Wilson for opening up the church so I could see Bruce’s grave and house coat of arms, as well as sharing more information about Larbert Old Church.

Thanks to all those who worked in the Blackie-Mackinnon Room. You all made it such an encouraging and friendly place to work. I am indebted to your perceptions about my project, your encouragement when things were tough, and ultimately the friendships that we share.

Finally, I would like to thank especially my father, Rev Dr Adam Hood. Throughout my studies, he has always been ready to discuss my ideas. The same is true of this dissertation. He has raised insightful points about my argument, helped to locate and see artefacts pertaining to Bruce’s history, and has been a rock of support. It is for this reason that I dedicate this dissertation to him.

4

Introduction

The early Reformed Kirk of Scotland embraced an emotionally charged faith. Yeoman has observed this, arguing that, for Early Modern Scots, religious experience ‘was built on what was known as ‘heart-work’: inner-feeling, spiritual experience of great intensity, which was reached by turning the awareness inwards, stirring up the self in emotional repentance and meditation, and thus making way for this deeper level of experience to come through’.1 Similarly, Mullan argues that ‘Scottish religion in the period under discussion was much more that emotional piety which flows from Augustine’s Confessions’ than scholastic Calvinism, ‘and expressed in treatises directed towards the laity’.2 He goes onto claim that ‘Authentic Christian experience brought together the objective work of grace and an indispensable subjective experience of divine grace’.3 Both authors have recognised that the emotional aspect of their religious worldview was central to the lives of Early Modern Scots. This is consistent with a growing awareness of the role of emotion in historiography, reflected in the founding of institutions such as The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, the Max-Planck Research Centre for the History of Emotions and the Centre for the History of Emotions. The focus on emotion has influenced recent scholarship on the 16th and 17th Century, with two anthologies on the emotions in Reformed piety published in 2016.4 However, though in recent years this approach is gaining traction in the study of Early Modern England, North American and Continental Europe, little has been done with regards to the Scottish context. Yeoman’s PhD Thesis “Heart-Work: Emotion, Empowerment and Authority in Covenanting Time”, 1994, and Mullan’s Scottish Puritanism, 2000, offer the last significant developments in this area. There is, then, scope for more work to be done and the present dissertation aspires to make a contribution to this.

The focus here is on the sacramental theology of Robert Bruce of Kinnaird (1554-1631). Yeoman claims Bruce’s ‘inner spirituality... is a hallmark of covenanting devotion’.5 In light of this, the study of Bruce’s work may well illumine the place of emotion in the piety of the period. One of Bruce’s key thoughts is that, what he calls, ‘the feeling of his [God’s] mercie’,

1 Louise Yeoman, "Heart-Work: Emotion, Empowerment and Authority in Covenanting Times" (PhD, The University of St Andrews, 1991), p.ix 2 David George Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, 1590-1638 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.10 3 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p.52 4 John Coffey, Heart Religion: Evangelical Piety in England and Ireland, 1690-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Alec; Schwanda Ryrie, Tom, Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 5 Yeoman, "Heart-Work", p.viii 5 is a crucial dimension in Christian piety.6 This feeling is an emotional experience of union with Christ, involving the effects of joy, peace, hope and assurance. What this shows is that the subjective dimension is central to Bruce’s theology and this is exemplified in his influential discussion of the Lord’s Supper contained in sermons preached in 1590.7 Yeoman describes Bruce as ‘the great early presbyterian theologian of the sacrament’.8 Mullan agrees with Yeoman’s assessment, arguing that Bruce ‘elevated the Lord’s Supper to a position of real prominence’.9 This being the case, the following pages will aim to analyse Bruce’s sermons on the Lord’s Supper and draw out, what in his words, the feeling of his mercie subjectively involves, the doctrinal and liturgical context in which this emotion arises and is nurtured, and its necessary expression in practical living. In the course of the discussion it will become evident that Bruce emphasises and explores the interconnectedness of the emotional aspect of faith with belief, worship and moral action.

Bruce’s way of conceiving of the relationships between the different dimensions of faith suggest the value of taking an approach such as that pioneered by Ninian Smart. Smart stresses the importance of examining both the inner and outer aspects of a religious tradition, seeing how they ‘are fused together’.10 Smart contended that scholars must understand that religions are organic systems, at the level of ideas and of practice.11 He argued that to understand the different aspects of religion they, the researcher, must examine them within the context of the whole. Thus, he claimed that analysing religion requires each aspect of religion to be examined through the ‘lens’ of another characteristic.12 Smart identified nine ‘dimensions’ which make up the nexus of religion.13 These are: ‘The Ritual or Practical Dimension’;14 ‘The Doctrinal or Philosophical Dimension’;15 ‘The Mythic or Narrative Dimension’;16 ‘The Experiential or Emotional Dimension’;17 ‘The Ethical or Legal

6 Robert Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament of the Lords Supper: Preached in the Kirk of Edinburgh (At Edinburgh: Printed be Robert Walde-graue, printer to the Kings Maiestie, 1591), 5, 10r. Recto and verso are used in the customary way here, with the first number indicating which sermon the citation refers too. 7 Robert Bruce, "The Mystery of the Lord's Supper: Sermons on the Sacrament Preached in the Kirk of Edinburgh by Robert Bruce in A.D. 1589," ed. Thomas F. Torrance (Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005), p.7 8 Yeoman, "Heart-Work", p.180 9 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p.63 10 Ninian Smart, The Religious Experience of Mankind (London: Collins, 1971), p.11 11 Ninian Smart, Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilization, Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh (London: Harper & Row, 1981), p.49 12 Smart, Beyond Ideology, p.50 13 Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs (London: HarperCollins, 1996), p.10-14 14 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, p.93 15 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.19 16 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.18 17 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.22 6

Dimension’;18 ‘The Organisational or Social Component’, the institutions of religious communities;19 ‘The Material or Artistic Dimension’;20 ‘The Political Dimension’; and ‘The Economic Dimension’. Smart argued that by exploring the relationships, connections and conflicts between these dimensions, historical study of religion is more fruitful. This approach applies well to Bruce’s sacramental theology insofar as Bruce recognised that the doctrinal, affective, liturgical and practical dimensions of faith interweave with one another. His preaching on the feeling of his mercie takes place within his discussion of Christian belief, godly living, kirk discipline, giving to the poor, Presbyterian politics and the material, ceremonial and spiritual aspects of the Lord’s Supper. Thus, given Bruce situates the feeling of his mercie within the rich nexus of his religious worldview, Smart’s approach to the study of religion is appropriate for evaluating Bruce’s sacramental theology.

The first chapter will examine what the feeling of his mercie is. It shall explore how, for Bruce, the feeling is evoked. Moreover, the chapter will investigate the phenomenology and ontology of the feeling of his mercie. It shall also evaluate why the feeling of his mercie has the phenomenology and ontology it does. One significant finding is that, for Bruce, the feeling of his mercie is one of the two component parts of justifying faith; the other is the knowledge of God’s mercy.

The next two chapters will attempt to situate the feeling of his mercie in his theology of the Lord’s Supper. The second chapter will discuss the feeling of his mercie in Bruce’s understanding of the role of preparation for the Lord’s Supper. For Bruce, preparation culminated in passing the pre-communion examination, which tested whether a congregant appeared to have faith. The criteria of this test were doctrinal knowledge and godly living and these were important since they indicated the presence of faith and membership of the covenant community. An important insight here is that the disciplinary process aimed at identifying the authenticity of faith, including whether a person had the feeling of his mercie.

The third chapter will focus upon the relationship between the feeling of his mercie and the ritual of the Lord’s Supper. It will show why, for Bruce, the Lord’s Supper, through the performance of rites and liturgical interpretation and the consumption of bread and wine, is capable of generating an intensified experience of the feeling of his mercie, which can significantly strengthen one’s day to day faith.

18 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.19-20 19 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.20-1 20 Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred, p.11 7

The dissertation will finish with a conclusion that will bring together the results of the investigation. The study raises the possibility that, if Yeoman’s view of Bruce’s representative status is correct, then Bruce’s emphasis on the subjective dimension of faith points to the emotionally charged piety of Early Modern Scots.

Before proceeding further, it will be helpful to summarise the meaning of ‘emotion’ or ‘emotional experience’. We can divide an emotion up into its phenomenology and its ontology. An emotion’s phenomenological content has four features. First, emotions are affective states: they are the evocation of feelings such as fear, joy or sadness. Second, they lead to physiological changes, such as raising the temperature of the body. Third, emotions can vary in duration, some lasting a few seconds, others hours. Fourth, they are passively experienced: a person does not ‘do’ an emotion. Rather, they are something that happens to a subject. The ontological ground of an emotion is the situation that arouses feelings. The situation is able to evoke emotions because a person imbues it with meaning: they judge the value of a situation. In doing so, a person perceives the situation as either positive or negative. Consequently, the ontological ground, a situation imbued with meaning, arouses emotional responses. This determines which emotion is experienced: a situation judged negatively will evoke negative emotions and vice versa. Thus, when this dissertation identifies the feeling of his mercie as an emotion, it is arguing that it has these phenomenological and ontological features.

In evaluating the feeling of his mercie in Bruce’s sermons, the dissertation will use two primary sources. First, Bruce’s Sermons upon the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. These are a compilation of five sermons preached during a communion season at the Kirk of Edinburgh, St Giles. The first three concentrate on the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, the last two on preparation for participation in the Sacrament. Using old style dating, the five sermons can be date to 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd February and 2nd March 1589.21 Moreover, the Town Council proclaimed a fast on the 23rd January to be carried out on future Sundays in preparation of the Lord’s Supper, indicating that these sermons took place in a period of fasting.22

21 In New Style dating, the year Bruce delivered these sermons was 1590. The difference lies in the fact in Early Modern Scotland the beginning of a new year was the 25th March. 22 Marguerite Wood, ed. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh. 1589-1603 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Amp, 1927), p.13 8

The king’s printer Waldegrave published these sermons in 1591.23 Waldegrave’s chosen title for the sermons describes the text as being ‘from his [Bruce’s] mouth’, which indicates there was a manuscript copy of notes taken as Bruce preached. Indeed, the Scots language of the printed sermons, which is the same as Bruce’s tongue, gives credence to this hypothesis. Unfortunately, no one has found this manuscript, so it is difficult to determine how much of the original sermons have been standardised and edited through the printing process. However, writing on the 9th December 1590, Bruce states that the ‘kirk and session’ persuaded him to have the sermons published, and that it was for the instruction of ‘the poor and simple ones’. Bruce’s claim that the kirk and session persuaded him to have the sermons published indicates that he was involved with the publication of the texts, and thus the message is likely to be close to the message he sought to convey in his preaching.

The initial print-run of Bruce’s sermons circulated widely within Scotland, England and mainland Europe. William Rainolds, a Roman Catholic theologian based in Antwerp, responded to these sermons in his work A treatise conteyning the true catholike and apostolike faith of the holy sacrifice and sacrament ordeyned by Christ at his last Supper: vvith a declaration of the Berengarian heresie renewed in our age: and an answere to certain sermons made by M. Robert Bruce minister of Edinburgh concerning this matter (1593). This suggests that Bruce’s sermons had reached Antwerp quickly. Moreover, the author of the preface to the 1614 edition of Bruce’s sermons, entitled The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, identifies the 1591 publication as having been accessible to an English audience by noting that the Scots dialect of the text had been a cause of confusion for English readers.24 Thus, building upon an initial anglicisation of Bruce’s communion sermons by A.S. Mitchell (who has not been identified), Humphrey Lownes (also not identified) published an English edition of the sermons for Thomas Man (similarly not identified). In 1617, Thomas Man had these sermons augmented by anglicised versions of eleven other printed sermons by Bruce, which Waldegrave had originally published in 1591. Richard Field printed this edition under the title The Way to Trve Peace and Rest. 25 Field had published in 1593 William Shakespeare's first printed work, Venus and Adonis. Field joined the livery of the Stationers' Company in 1598, and he was a member of its governance in 1604. This indicates he was regarded as one of the finest printers by his contemporaries. Thus, Bruce’s texts were not

23 See Appendix, Figures 1-6. 24 See Appendix, Figures 7-10. 25 See Appendix, Figures 11-14 9 only widely circulated; the material was so highly valued by its patrons that they desired it to be printed by Waldegrave and Field, two of the best printers within their respective contexts.

The second source for this dissertation is a collection of sermons delivered in 1590 at the Kirk of Edinburgh. These are the first five sermons of twenty-nine exhortations delivered by Bruce on Hebrews 11. J. R. Baxter has suggested that Bruce probably delivered them on the morning of Sunday 25th September, Sunday Evening, Monday morning 26th of September, Monday Evening and Tuesday 27th of September.26 He argues that Bruce preached them around the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, given the close temporal proximity of the sermons and by the fact that the first and third sermons make extended references to the Sacrament. Bruce’s preaching on Hebrews eleven is currently preserved in a near- contemporary manuscript held at the University of Edinburgh, New College Library.27 Baxter has also identified that it contains the poems of Elizabeth Melville. The same hand penned the sermons and the poems, with the ‘consistency of the Scots orthography used by the scribe’ suggesting it dates before 1603.28 Given that the writer had access to the poetry of Elizabeth Melville, if not Elizabeth Melville herself, it is plausible the scribe belonged to a group that contained Andrew Melville, James Melville, John Welsh and William Scott, who were sharing with each other written poetry and sermons. Indeed, the author’s fine calligraphy suggests they designed the manuscript in a way so that those who were not the author could read it. Baxter has produced an unpublished transcript of the manuscript sermons, the only significant engagement with these sermons. As a result, the use of these sermons to inform this dissertation will offer fresh insight into Bruce’s theology.

When Bruce delivered both sets of sermons, he had only been a minister at St Giles in Edinburgh for three years. Nevertheless, he had become a significant national figure. In 1589, James VI was in Norway collecting his wife to be, Anne of Denmark, and unofficially appointed Bruce to run the country. James and his Chancellor Sir John Maitland expressed their deep gratitude for Bruce’s management in a series of letters.29 Bruce was also a leading figure in the town of Edinburgh itself, his preaching influencing the Burgh’s creation of new statutes, dictating ‘that thair be na kynd of merkett haldin or kepit on the hie gait on the

26 These findings are presented in an as yet unpublished paper on Bruce’s Sermons on Hebrews XI by Baxter 27 Robert Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis," in MSS Bru 2 (New College Library, The University of Edinburgh, Circa 1594-1603) See Appendix, Figures 15-18. 28 Elizabeth Melville, Poems of Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross: Unpublished Work from Manuscript and 'Ane Godlie Dreame', ed. Jamie Reid Baxter (Edinburgh: Solsequium, 2010), p.107 29 William Cunningham, ed. Wodrow Society's Life and Sermons of Rev. Robert Bruce, Wodrow Society (Edinburgh: Printed for the Wodrow Society, 1843), p.18-23 10

Sabboth day’.30 Bruce was quickly becoming an important and capable figure within the Church of Scotland; he was elected moderator of the General Assembly in 1588 to handle the Kirk’s response to the Spanish Armada. He also married Martha Douglas, second daughter of Sir George Douglas of Pittendreich, in 1590. Consequently, Sir Alexander Bruce of Airth, his father, restored Robert’s Kinnaird estate to him.31 Thus, Bruce preached these sermons when he was experiencing national, local, ecclesiastical and personal ascendency.

30 Wood, ed. Extracts, p.378 31 Sir Alexander forced Robert to give up the estate when he chose to enter the ministry in 1581. See Appendix, Figure 19. 11

Chapter 1: ‘The feeling of his mercie’

Bruce’s preaching on the Lord’s Supper continually returns to a powerful emotional experience which he calls ‘the feeling of his mercie’.32 His sermons teach that experiencing this is a necessary constituent of faith. This emotion is important for him. He declared that ‘without faith, there can bee na coupling, nor conjoining betwixt vs and Christ’.33 Similarly, Bruce held that ‘There is not a waye, nor ane instrument in the Scriptures of God, quhereby ony man or woman, may apply Christ to thair saulls, but only the instrument of faith.’34 Bruce’s claim is strikingly similar to what Luther identifies as the third effect of faith: ‘it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united to her husband… Lo! Here we have a pleasant vision not only of communion, but of a blessed strife and victory and salvation and redemption.’35 Thus, Bruce believed that faith is crucial because he thought ‘Thair is nothing in this warld, nor out of this warld, of euery ane of zou, mair to be craued & fought of euerie ane of zou; nor to be conjoined with Christ Iesus, nor anis to be maid ane with the God of glory, Christ Iesus.’36 Bruce’s account of union with Christ, which evokes the feeling of his mercie, is similar to Calvin’s, who expresses a similar sentiment within his Institutes: ‘to that union of the head and members, the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union, we assign the highest rank’.37 Recent scholarship suggests that ‘mystical union’ is a central theme of Calvin’s theology. Indeed, Partee has argued that in Calvin ‘the exposition of his theology finds the preserve of the union with Christ in so many places and in such a significant way that “union with Christ” may be usefully taken as the central affirmation’.38 As for Bruce union with Christ is the thing that is to be most craved for, it follows that faith is of great importance to him. Given, in Bruce’s view, that experiencing the feeling of his mercie is an essential aspect of faith, it follows that this emotional experience also has an elevated place in his theological framework. Hence, this chapter will evaluate Bruce’s treatment of the feeling of his mercie within his conception of faith.

Bruce held that faith is not a natural thing. He argued it has as its object ‘a supernatural thing, a spirituall hevinlie and invisibill thing’, and as such cannot be ‘ingenderit in the hairt, by the

32 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 10r 33 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 4r 34 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 19r 35 Martin Luther, Works of Martin Luther: With Introductions and Notes, ed. Henry Eyster Jacobs and Adolph Spaeth (Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Co., 1915), Vol.2, p.320-1 36 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 1r 37 Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. Ford Lewis Battles, 1536 edition / ed., Collins Flame Classics (London: Collins, 1986), 3.11.10.2 38 Charles Partee, "Calvin's Central Dogma Again," The Sixteenth Century Journal 18, no. 2 (1987), p.194 12 word of man or be the word of angellis’.39 He claimed that it cannot be formed by natural, created things, because ‘man vniuersallie, and euery ane particularlie being corrupted, being lost, and that be his first forebears faulte’.40 Bruce held that this corruption of humanity has meant that their natural attitude is one of idolatry. He rebuked his congregation, reprimanding them for their rebellion against God. ‘Na doubt, an warldly or fleshly affectió, ane or vther: this is set vp in the throne of thy hart: And on this idol, thou bestows the seruice of thy hail hart, of thy hail minde, of thy hail saull & bodie’.41 For Early Modern Scots, ‘affection’ was a term that denoted a feeling of fondness or attachment.42 These attachments are the objects of human craving. Bruce is decrying the human propensity to desire ‘warldly or fleshly’ realities as ends, as opposed to God. Bruce indicates that the relationship a person has to what they crave is one of fealty by using the image of the throne of the heart. Whatever a person craves as an end in itself is their King, their master. As a result, whatever a person craves most, will direct the service of the heart, the emotions, the mind, the thoughts, the actions; the whole person. For Bruce, as God is the true King, God should be on the throne of the heart. However, in Bruce’s view the problem humans have is that they naturally crave created things, and as such make idols out of them.

Consequently, in Bruce’s view it is impossible to come to faith naturally. Yet he believed there is hope for human beings. He argued that ‘All depends vpon the working of this haly Spirit: the hail regeneration of mankinde, the renewing of the hart and of the conscience, depends on the power of the haly Spirit: and therefore it becomes vs caifully, to imploy our trauails, in incalling for his haly Spirit.’43 ‘The halie Spirite begets this faith,’ Bruce said, it ‘works this faith, creates this faith, nurishes and intertaines this faith in our saules’. He argued this is ‘be hearing of the preached word, be participation of the sacraments’.44 For Bruce, it is through these instruments that God reconstitutes the human being, and in so doing establishes faith within them.

Bruce argued that God’s formation of faith in the believer had a twofold nature. ‘The Spirit of God reformes the minde, hee reformes also the heart, and makes zou to be pertakers of that good quhilke zee see, and to eschewe that ill quhilk zee see’.45 Bruce held the initial stage of

39 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 5v and 5r 40 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 17r 41 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 24v 42 "Affectioun ", Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/affectioun 43 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 4v 44 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 27r 45 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 22v 13 this transformation is the reforming of the mind. He claimed that the Spirit achieves this in the following way: ‘He bannishis darcknes, he chaisses out vanitie and blindnes, that naturally lurkes in the minde: and in stead of this darcknes, he places in the mynde, a light, a coelestiall and a heauenlie light, a light quhilk is resident in Christ Iesus onlie.’46 Bruce identified the darkness, vanity and blindness which naturally dwells in the mind with the affections, desires and cravings for fleshly and worldly things. It is clear that, for Bruce, the Spirit reforms the mind by enabling the believer to see things as they really are, just as light illuminates. They begin to understand that ‘all things in the warld, beside the liuing God, are vanities, deceaubale allurements, vncostant shaddowes, fleetand and flowand without ony byding: and then wee see that our hartes and minds was set on ill continuallie’.47 Bruce called this ‘mortification’.48 A person begins to direct their affections towards God, recognising that craving created things as ends in themselves is sinful. Bruce imaginatively paints the picture of ‘the mind being illuminat & seasoned with this light’, as if it is food whose taste is preserved and enhanced through salting. 49 He argued that by having an ‘eie to ken God, and quhom hes sent Christ Iesus’, this ‘will mak zow to crave god’.50 Thus, Bruce believed the Scriptures call faith a ‘demonstratioun’ because it ‘makis my hairt, my mind and my saull to sie these thingis cleirlie’.51

Bruce acknowledged that knowing who God is does not unite the believer to Christ: even papists have this ‘historical and dead faith’.52 He explained that this knowledge is not enough because even though he ‘may be sure in general, that all my sinnes are remisable, and that I may come be mercie, or I feel it: but to apply this mercie in particular to my selfe, quhill I feele a raist of it first, I dar not’.53 For Bruce ‘head knowledge’ of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ is insufficient for salvation, because without ‘feeling’ mercy it is impossible to believe this mercy applies to the soul. Bruce argued this general knowledge leaves a person ‘exceedingly terrified’, seeing in God nothing ‘but fire and wraith’.54 Bruce’s advocacy of this view locates him within a group Mullan calls ‘Scottish Puritans’, who rejected ‘what they

46 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 24r 47 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 25r 48 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.360 49 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 21v 50 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 21v; Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 4v 51 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 3v 52 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 2v 53 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 10v 54 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 10r 14 called historical faith, an intellectual affirmation of the truth of bare historical statement without any application of Christ’.55

Accordingly, it follows from Bruce’s teaching that the Holy Spirit must also reform the heart. Moreover, this is exactly what, in Bruce’s estimation, the Spirit does. He claimed that the Spirit,

enters in the heart, he dantons the hart, & wonderfully cháges it, & makes the will of it obediét; he mollifies the affection, quhilk was hard of before, in sic sort, that it is made to poure out thy affection in some measure o the liuing GOD, quhere it was powerd out on ane idol or vther of thine awin before.56

Bruce illustrates the Spirit’s redirection of the emotions by using the imagery of the heart thawing.57 The softening of the heart redirects a person’s desires. They no longer respond to the worldly and fleshly cravings the believer used to have. Rather, for Bruce, the ‘wonderful change’ in the heart caused by the Spirit is depicted as a ‘pouring’ of these positive emotions onto God, like water being decanted into a vessel. Bruce’s luscious use of language is expressed more plainly by Calvin: ‘He [Christ] is, however, obtained, I affirm, not only when we believe that he was made an offering for us, but when he dwells in us.’58 Robert Rollock, a contemporary of Bruce’s, summarises this position succinctly: ‘True Christianity stands in the reformation of the heart.’59

For Bruce, the Spirit’s reformation of the heart evokes an emotional response, what he calls the feeling of his mercie. Given that the transformation of the heart is necessary for having justifying faith, it follows that the feeling of his mercie is also an integral part of faith. Bruce describes the ontology and phenomenology of the feeling of his mercie in the following passage.

The feeling of his mercie in the bowels of my heart, in the bottome of my conscience, works a certain assurance and perswasion, that he is my God, that he will saue me for Christs cause; that the promise of mercy, quhilk I durst not for my life applye to my

55 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p.52 56 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 26v-27r 57 See Ps 22:14 58 Jean Calvin, Commentaries, ed. Joseph Haroutunian and Louise Pettibone Smith (London: S.C.M. Press, 1958), Vol. 1, p.379 59 Robert Rollock, Select Works of Robert Rollock, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, ed. William M. Gunn (Edinburgh: Printed for the Wodrow Society, 1844), p.97 15

conscience off before, now bee the feeling of mercie, I dare baldy apply, and say: mercie appertains to mee, life and saluation apperteins to mee.60

For Bruce, the feeling of his mercie is a ‘certain assurance and perswasion’ that God’s mercy applies to the person experiencing the emotion. Early Modern Scots primarily used ‘assurance’ in a legal setting. They used it to denote a guarantee of safety or immunity.61 Less commonly, they used it to describe confidence. Bruce would have been aware of this dual meaning given his career as a lawyer in the Court of Session up until 1581.62 Indeed, he demonstrates his knowledge of its judicial precedent by using a legal metaphor to define assurance. He argued that ‘Faith bringis sic ane assureance to the hairt of man, that is makis ws compt the promeis of god payment, and makis ws to lay vp in our hairtis his promisis as if the debt were alreadie payit and laid vp beside ws’.63 Bruce knew that a ‘compt’ was a monetary account, and so ‘to compt’ was to reckon an account.64 Bruce’s language expressed what Mullan has identified with ‘puritan spirituality’; that the feeling of his mercie or authentic Christian experience ‘brought together the objective work of grace and an indisputable subjective experience of divine grace, power, [and] mercy’.65 Bruce exemplifies this by making faith both a feeling, confidence, and a guarantee of security, a reckoning of accounts with God. In this way, Bruce understands the feeling of his mercie to have an objective and subjective dimension.

The feeling of his mercie involves another affective state: hope. For Early Modern Scots, ‘hope’ referred to an expectation of a desired object.66 Hence, Bruce describes faith as hope, ‘a waiter vpone thingis to cum, and so soone as these thingis cum, hope ceasis’.67 He draws out the subtle distinction between the guaranteed promise and its consummation by claiming that:

I beleive that the lord will grant me mercie at that great day, I beleive presentlie that my sinis are forgivin. Zit [that] I hope and luik also that the lord will grant me mercie

60 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 10r 61 "Assurance ", Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/assurance 62 Duncan Clark Macnicol, Master Robert Bruce: Minister in the Kirk of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1907), p.23 63 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 3v 64 "Compt," Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/compt_v 65 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p.52 66 "Hope," Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/hope_n_1 67 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 5v 16

at that great day, and schaw to the world that he hes forgivin me, as dois to my awin conscience in sum measour now. So I beleive yt ye lord for chrystis saik will grant me that crous of evirlesting glorie. I beleive this presentlie, and zit I hope and luik that he will do so.68

Thus, for Bruce the feeling of his mercie is a confidence and participation in God’s confirmed but as of yet unrealised promises.

Assurance, confidence and hope are not the confines of the feeling of his mercie. Bruce claimed that ‘This feilling of peace and quyitnes makis ane assureance of mercie’.69 Bruce described this feeling in another passage as ‘the conscience is pacified, the heart is rejoiced, and …it workes a wonderfull assurance and perswasioun that God loues mee’.70 Bruce’s description of the emotion as one of peace is an innovative use of language, insofar as it was a word primarily used by Early Modern Scots to describe a cessation of hostilities.71 So, Bruce characterises the feeling of God’s mercie as an emotional experience where there is no emotional conflict or inner struggle. Similarly, Bruce labels the feeling of his mercie as ‘quyitnes’, an absence of noise, also implying an absence of emotional turmoil. It is notable that in Bruce’s estimation it is this feeling of peace and quietness that causes the emotion of assurance. Confidence in God’s promises and mercy grows within the believer through the absence of emotional turmoil. Thus, Bruce’s claim that assurance proceeds from peace in the feeling of his mercie reveals a subtle ordering of the emotions.

Bruce also described the experience of the feeling of his mercie as one of joy, and in another sermon ‘a gladness of mercy’.72 Early Modern Scots used the term, joy, as an expression for rejoicing or delighting in something.73 Interestingly, prior to Bruce solace (peace) and joy were paired.74 Bruce’s account of the feeling of his mercie as involving joy is similar to Luther’s description of union with Christ: it leads the believer to ‘rejoice… and in receiving such comfort grow tender so as to love Christ’.75 Bruce’s thought is that the believer desires union with Christ, so that the satisfaction of their craving will evoke joy. Thus, Bruce’s

68 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 5v 69 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 1, Fol. 6r 70 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament Sermon, 5, 9v-10r 71 "Pese," Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/pese_n_1 72 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.361 73 "Joye," Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/joye 74 "Joye", Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004 75 Luther, The Works of Martin Luther, Vol. 2, p.327 17 identification of joy as an aspect of the feeling of his mercie implies that this emotion is an experience of Christ.

Bruce’s use of a physiological metaphor illustrates the intensity of the feeling of his mercie. He describes the feeling of his mercie as dwelling in ‘the bowels of my heart’.76 A person’s bowels are their intestines and waste disposal system, and as such are located deep within their torso. Cohen has observed that the identification of the bowels with the emotions takes place in the Bible, with Paul’s use of splagchna intending ‘both inward parts (or intestines) and sympathy or caring’.77 Bruce evokes this Biblical idea to suggest experiencing this emotion can only be done in an in an intense way. The feelings of joy, peace, assurance and hope permeate a person’s experience in a permanent and radical way. Perhaps also the use of physiological metaphors alludes to the bodily impact of deep emotions; Bruce’s depiction of the feeling of his mercie as a significant and momentous emotional experience is similar to how the movement of the bowels is an important and powerful physiological event in the human body.

Bruce’s description of the feeling of his mercie shows that for him it is a dominant, involuntary, non-verbal passive experience of joy, peace, hope and assurance, which he calls ‘vivification’.78 This is the phenomenological content of the emotion. What, in Bruce’s view, is the ontology of this emotion? Is it a human response to something perceived, namely God’s mercy or is it part itself of God’s gift? For Bruce, it is the second, for the feeling of his mercie is the application of God’s mercy to the self as the self becomes aware of it through the Spirit’s working. Early Modern Scots used ‘apply’ as a term for attaching to oneself.79 Thus, in Bruce’s preaching the feeling of his mercie is an objective application of God’s mercy, of Christ, to the soul. A person receives this through apprehending God’s mercy by experiencing the stimulation of joy, peace, hope and assurance. Hence, for Bruce an emotional experience embodies the recognition that God’s mercy applies to the soul. Put another way, in Bruce’s view union with Christ and the feeling of his mercie are two aspects of the same reality. You cannot have one without the other. For a person to be united to Christ they must also experience union with him. Therefore, in Bruce’s sermons, the ontology

76 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 10r. 77 Charles Lloyd Cohen, God's Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p.33 See the use of the figure of ‘bowels’ in the Geneva Bible and Authorised Version as a metaphor for deep emotion: AV Jer 4:19; AV and GB Ps 22:14; GB Ez 11:19 78 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.361 79 "Apply," Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/apply_v 18 of the feeling of his mercie is union with Christ, and so the feeling of his mercie is, in his view, the experience of union with Christ.

Why is it that the feeling of his mercie has the ontology and phenomenological content that it does? Bruce believed the greatest desire a person could have is for union with God, not a positive emotional experience. Rist argues that Augustine similarly believed that ‘man’s goal is not to secure delight, but to be able to know God – which is experientially delightful’.80 Bruce also held that union with Christ results in a delightful phenomenological state. In Bruce’s view, the Spirit creates faith by reforming the mind and the heart. In reforming the mind, the Spirit imbues the believer with a craving for God and a clear knowledge of God’s mercy. He held that the Spirit engenders the feeling of his mercie in a person by reforming the heart. This emotion arises from the union with Christ. Thus, for Bruce, when a person experiences what they take to be union with Christ it includes a set of positive emotions since their most profound desire has been satisfied. Hence, Bruce argued that apprehending union with Christ results in an emotional response of an intense joy, peace, hope and assurance; the feeling of his mercie. The ontology of the emotion, union with Christ, explains the phenomenology it possesses.

80 John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.158 19

Chapter 2: Preparing for the Sacrament: Identifying Authentic Faith

Bruce’s teaching upon the feeling of his mercie does not exist within a vacuum. An important context for addressing the subject were his sermons on the Lord’s Supper. These divide thematically: those that address preparation for the Lord’s Supper, and those that focus on participation in the Lord’s Supper. Accordingly, the following two chapters will examine emotion in Bruce’s preaching upon each theme. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to explore the feeling of his mercie in Bruce’s sermons on preparation for the Lord’s Supper.

Bruce’s preaching on the feeling of his mercie took place within church services. Thus, it is useful to investigate the context in which Bruce preached. On the 22nd of February 1590, Bruce was presiding over the fourth Sunday of the communion season. Prior to the service, he had been praying; perhaps the same prayer he had spoken years later, ‘that he would not – he could not go – unless He [God] came with him’.81 Bruce, arising to take the service (which commenced early in the morning) began by leading the congregation in the reading of the Bible, prayers and psalm singing. He climbed up the stairs to the pulpit at the time to give the exhortation. Looking out, he saw his congregation, a colourful variety of ages, social standings and attentiveness. He gazed upon the whitewashed walls of the ‘Little’, ‘New’ or ‘High’ Kirk of St Giles, partitioned off from nave.82 He could see no images, although soon workers undertook ‘graithing the hye Kirk, in weshing, paynting spargenyng and in tymber and warkmanschip’ for the visitation of the new queen, Anne of Denmark.83 Bruce, pausing in silence as he always did, may have only heard the sound of drip, drip, drip, the rain coming through the leaking roof. 84 The congregation waited in anticipation for Bruce to speak. He stirred from his silence and began preaching on the ‘doctrine of preparation & dew examination’.85

81 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.151 82 Richard H.; Wood Blum, Marguerite; Mears, Frank Charles; Robertson, David, ed. Edinburgh, 1329-1929 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1929), p.79; A. Ian Dunlop, The Kirks of Edinburgh: The Congregations, Churches and Ministers of the Presbytery of Edinburgh Church of Scotland 1560-1984 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1988), p.16 83 J. Cameron Lees, St Giles, Edinburgh: Church, College, and Cathedral : From the Earliest Times to the Present Day (Edinburgh: Chambers, 1889), p.399. The Queen’s visitation to St Giles took place on Tuesday the 19th of May 1590. 84 In 1599, the whole roof of St Giles was condemned. See David Laing, ed. Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles Edinburgh: Prefixed to the Registrum Cartarum Ecclesie Sancti Egidii De Edinburgh (Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1858), p.cxiv 85 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 1v 20

For Bruce and his congregation, the preaching of the Word, the first mark of the church, was a central aspect of Sunday worship. They emphasised this by their use of space: the congregation would sit on seats directed towards the minister, preaching from an elevated pulpit.86 Todd has identified that Scots believed the Bible contained within it all the information one needs for a knowledge of God’s mercy, and as a result they identified ignorance as the root of sin.87 In most parishes they would hold a morning and afternoon sermon, although in Edinburgh, Rollock had introduced a third sermon in 1587 at the High Kirk. Todd believes this ‘indicates a broad-based cult of the sermon in Edinburgh’ during this period.88 Congregations expected sermons to be over an hour long, delivered ex tempore and to work through a book of the Bible. Todd notes that the general structure of sermons was threefold: a point-by-point summary of the text, exegesis of the passage and suggested applications or uses of them. In these regards, the congregation of St Giles Little Kirk would not have been disappointed with Bruce’s preaching. Fleming said of Bruce that ‘the power and efficacy of the Spirit most sensibly accompanying the word he preached as a great light through the whole land’.89 Thus, Bruce had an ability to move his congregation through powerful preaching.

Bruce’s parishioners would have at once recognised the seriousness of his subject when he turned to preaching on the preparation for the Lord’s Supper. It is unclear whether the published sermons on preparation were delivered before or after the administration of the sacrament, not least because the practice often was that preparatory sermons were preached after a diet of communion. If we assume this was the case on this occasion, then his listeners would have undergone a recent pre-communion examination carried out by either Bruce or an elder. This tested whether congregants appeared to have faith and thus were worthy to participate at the Lord’s Table. The Scots Confession (1560) instructed this practice in its 23rd article. ‘Bot the Supper of the Lord, we confesse to appertaine to sik onely as be of the houshald of Faith, and can trie and examine themselves, asweil in theif faith, as in their dewtie towards their Nichtbouris’.90 Bruce’s pre-communion examination tested the authenticity of his parishioners’ faith, by assessing their understanding of doctrine and the moral adequacy of their behaviour. By these means the ecclesiastical leaders could establish whether a person had a knowledge and feeling of God’s mercy. Members would pass the test

86 See Appendix, Figure 24. 87 Margo Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (London: Yale University Press, 2002), p.28 88 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p.30 89 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.143 90 G. D.; Bulloch Henderson, James, ed. The Scots Confession, 1560 (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1960), p.45 21 by reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Catechism and by having displayed good moral behaviour since the last communion. If deemed worthy, parishioners would receive a communion token. This was a small, lead disc, stamped with the name of the parish, the date and the minister’s initials.91 Successful communicants would hand over their tokens either at the door of the church or at the invitation to the Table. This material object signalled that they were worthy to participate in the Lord’s Supper.

Parishioners who failed the test faced exclusion from the Lord’s Supper. Bruce and his elders withheld the tokens from four types of people. Bruce would not admit the excommunicated, individuals who were barred from the community of faith. This treatment was usually due to a person confessing ‘heretical’ views, such as Roman Catholicism. Bruce, following the teaching of the Kirk, would also not admit unreconciled penitents, who needed to perform the ritual of repentance for inclusion. Then there were those who failed the pre-communion examination, due to their inadequate knowledge of doctrine or ‘moral turpitude’.92 Finally, Bruce would enact the ritual of ‘fencing the table’, where he challenged all those who had received tokens to examine their own consciences and determine whether they were worthy to participate in the Supper.

Wodrow reports an unusual encounter during Bruce’s own fencing of the table in the Kirk of Larbert.93 Bruce and the communicants had taken their seats at the table. However, Bruce remained silent. He exclaimed with great concern, ‘Certainly there is some person at this Holy Table guilty of some dreadful sin unrepented of; for my Master has shut my mouth and I can say nothing till he remove. In the Lord’s Name I charge him to remove from this Holy Table.’94 With that, Bruce and the communicants waited in excruciating silence. A man eventually left the table. At once Bruce proceeded with the Supper ‘with very much freedom’.95 The man later ‘confessed he was habitually guilty of a most horrid sin’, showing, in Wodrow’s view, the effectiveness of Bruce’s rigorous enforcement of the purity of the table.96

Bruce’s fencing of the Table and examining parishioners belonged to the Church’s ‘discipline’, described by Dawson as both the ‘process of ecclesiastical censure and the entire

91 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p.92; See Appendix, Figure 26. 92 Ian Borthwick Cowan, The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), p.149 93 Bruce was buried under the pulpit at Larbert. See Appendix, Figures 20-23. 94 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.148 95 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.148 96 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.148 22 polity and governance of the Scottish Kirk’.97 The Scottish Kirk identified this as the third mark of the visible church. Kirk Sessions administered ecclesiastical censure, which Todd has identified as having a central role in the life of church and community.98 Macdonald has observed that Scots embraced this system because they believed they were a covenant nation.99 She claims that discipline was motivated by the desire to ensure that the covenant relationship between God and God’s people was maintained.100 As a result, she concludes that discipline was central to the worship of the Scottish Kirk. Macdonald writes that ‘the story being enacted through the performance of discipline on at least a weekly basis was one of reconciliation to God and neighbour’.101 Consequently, she argues that a desire to enforce social control was not the motivation, even if it was the effect of excluding people due to their doctrinal ignorance or moral turpitude. Rather, she contends that for Scots it preserved the purity of the covenant community by expunging sin. Moreover, Macdonald claims that many in the Kirk believed it also gave space for the offender to examine himself or herself, in the hope that they would repent and be reconciled with God and neighbour.102

Dawson, Todd and Macdonald’s analysis of church discipline explains why passing the pre- communion examination was an important event for Bruce’s congregation. For Bruce, it was part of the narrative of reconciliation within the covenant community. In his view, it marked out who had faith and thus had been reconciled with God and neighbour, and those who had not. Dawson has claimed that the reception of communion tokens, along with admittance beyond the fence guarding the table, were ‘a new indicator of social and moral respectability’ in a culture where men and women ‘were adept at reading non-verbal signals’.103 Todd argues in support of this claim that ‘unlike the separation of all the laity by a rail before the altar, the only barrier now to entering the holy space… was the doctrinal and behavioural standard imposed by Reformed discipline’.104 Thus, for Bruce and his congregation passing the pre-communion test was a crucial part of the covenant community’s performance of reconciliation with God and neighbour and demarcated the identity and margins of the community of the godly.

97 Jane E. A. Dawson, "Discipline and the Making of Protestant Scotland," in Worship and Liturgy in Context : Studies and Case Studies in Theology and Practice, ed. Duncan B. Forrester and Doug Gay (London: SCM, 2009), p.123 98 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p.10 99 Nikki Macdonald, "Reconciling Performance: The Drama of Discipline in Early Modern Scotland, 1560-1610," (PhD, University of Edinburgh, 2013), p.2 100 Macdonald, "Reconciling Performance", p.2 101 Macdonald, "Reconciling Performance", p.236 102 Macdonald, "Reconciling Performance", p.236 103 Dawson, "Discipline", p.127 104 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p.106-7 23

When Bruce began to preach on the 22nd February 1590 about what his congregation required to pass the pre-communion examination, and consequently for being admitted to the Lord’s Table, he argued that those who participate in the Lord’s Supper need faith. Hence, for Bruce a knowledge of God’s mercy and a consistent experience of the feeling of his mercie was what is required for passing the pre-communion examination. He taught his congregation that they could determine whether they had justifying faith, and as such the feeling of his mercie, by examining their actions. For Bruce, love ‘flows all fra the root of faith’, and as a result ‘the mair wee growe in loue, the mair God be his spirit dwels in vs; for God is loue’.105 He claimed that ‘this loue is neuer idleit, but it is euer vttering the selfe’.106 Hence, in Bruce’s view faith always manifests itself in good conduct. He argued that if ‘the heart, bee inwardly coupled with God’, then all that it motivates should conform to the ethical standards upheld by the Scottish Kirk.107 Consequently, a person’s ‘conuersatioun’, which in this context means their ‘conduct’, will be upright and good if they have union with Christ. Hence, Bruce claimed that the person who experiences union with God would manifest their knowledge and feeling of God’s mercy through their behaviour.

Thus, Bruce believed the feeling of his mercie expressed itself in a particular set of behaviours. Hence, he went onto tell his congregation what those behaviours are. He urged that acts of charity reveal genuine faith. Bruce implored his congregation to pursue such love, for in doing so ‘we are in God, & partaker of the life of God’, and thus nearer a happier life.108 He taught that ‘thou mann bowe thy heart, and extend thy pitie, vpon the pure members of Chrissts bodie, and suffer thame not to lacke gif thou haue: for except zee haue this compassioun, zee haue na faith’.109 Kirk Sessions achieved this by collecting donations from the congregation at the church door before the service. Thus, Bruce implicitly identifies the feeling of his mercie with giving to poor relief by preaching to his congregation that having the emotion of compassion, a deep awareness of and sympathy for another’s suffering, is central to having union with Christ.

Bruce’s advocacy of giving to the poor as being integral to faith may have influenced Edinburgh Town Council’s support of the poor in the years 1589 – 1595, a period when Bruce was a minister in Edinburgh.110 They supported a poor Italian in 1589, taken captive

105 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 14r 106 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4 ,14v 107 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 13r 108 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 25v 109 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 15v 110 Blum, ed. Edinburgh, 1329-1929, p.327-8 24 after the Spanish Armada, with clothing. Pierre de Berry, a French boy from Dieppe, received £5 to ‘transport him hamewart’ the following year. The Town Council also gave 20s to a leper in that year. The council provided four shipwrecked Englishmen £8 between 1590-91, and five Dutchmen stranded in Shetland £10. They compensated a worker in 1594 who was hurt in the town’s service with 10 merks for living costs and £10 towards his surgeon’s bill. The Council provided two victims of robbery from France £6, and £10 to George Hay and his wife due to mental disturbance the following year. This sort of giving is suggestive of the importance of poor relief in Edinburgh whilst Bruce was a minister in the town.

Moreover, for Bruce love expresses itself through forgiveness and reconciliation with neighbour. Early Modern Scots cited ‘deadly feud, rancour, or malice’ between fellow worshippers as the primary excuse for absence at the Lord’s Table.111 They had reason, given that these feuds could often be fatal. That Bruce faced such troubles within his own congregation is shown by the fact that the Town Council prohibited in 1589 ‘the waving of swords and shooting of pistolets in the High Kirk’.112 The Scots Confession, demanding that parties in conflict could not partake of the Lord’s Supper until they were reconciled with one another, declares that ‘sik as eite and drink at that haly Table without faith, or being at dissension and division with their brethren, do eat unworthelie’.113 Todd has argued that in the church’s role in arbitrating disputes, intervening in cases of flyting or slander reflects the Scottish Kirk’s focus upon reconciliation within its disciplinary activities.114 Moreover, she contends that the public performance of reconciliation between foes reinforced the peace and stability it brought to the entire covenant community. Thus, for Bruce, the willingness to forgive and be reconciled with a foe was an outworking of faith and covenant membership, and, as such, a behavioural manifestation of the feeling of his mercie.

Furthermore, in Bruce’s preaching, union with Christ had political consequences. Bruce rebuked the noble classes of Scotland for their ‘oppressions of the poore, thir deadlie feids, with their awin companions’.115 He also attacked them, and by implication James VI, for not purging Scotland of Roman Catholics.116 Preaching in 1592 on Psalm 34, Bruce complained that James’ company ‘has ever been wicked and godless: yea, papists and idolaters’, and that

111 George Burnett, The Holy Communion in the Reformed Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1960), p.53 112 Lees, St Giles, Edinburgh, p.179. 113 Henderson, ed. The Scots Confession, p.45 114 Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, p.250 115 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 12r 116 James often attended Bruce’s services when he resided at Holyrood Palace. 25 this was ‘the spring of our calamity’.117 Mullan argues that for ministers such as Bruce, this behaviour was a betrayal of the responsibilities the nobles had as citizens of Scotland, a community in covenant with God.118 Bruce’s attitude was enshrined in the forced assent all Scots had to give to preserving God’s holy church and defending the monarch within the King’s or Negative Confession of 1581. In signing the document, all Scots affirmed a commitment to purging Roman Catholic remnants in Scotland, hence the confession’s ‘negative’ nature. Bruce interpreted the nobles’ failure to ostracise Catholics as a sign that they did not have genuine faith, as genuine faith manifests itself in a desire for Christian purity. Hence, Bruce rebukes these ‘great men’, and by claiming they do not have faith, he implies that they do not experience the feeling of his mercie.

What this shows is that for Bruce a person only genuinely experiences the feeling of his mercie if they are motivated to have praiseworthy conduct. He held that the actions of charity and purity are the outward expression of the belief and emotion that make up faith. For Bruce, a genuine craving for God, knowledge of his mercy and experience of union with Christ must erupt in charitable and godly deeds. The flip side of this is that, in preparing for communion, a person could, in Bruce’s view, test the authenticity of their feeling of his mercy by examining the pattern of their life.

Cohen’s argument that the Covenant of Grace inspired Puritans to perform good works may help to explain why Bruce thought the feeling of his mercie congeals into godly living. Cohen argues belief in God’s mercy has this effect because it leads to the ‘realisation that grace removes the pressure from the necessity to perform’, and a ‘confidence fuelled by God’s love produces good works more effectively than does reliance on one’s own abilities’.119 If applied to Bruce’s preaching, it may explain why he believed experiencing the feeling of his mercie resulted in godly living.

The significance of these findings is that it reveals how Bruce’s theology is both in continuity and tension with previous accounts of how union with Christ affects the believer. For Augustine love, or charity, ‘is any urge of the spirit to find joy in God for his own sake, and in oneself and one’s neighbour for God’s sake’.120 This is imbued in the believer by the indwelling of the Spirit, for in Augustine’s view ‘if a man is full of love, what is he full of but

117 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.30-1 118 Mullan, Scottish Puritanism, p.170-207 119 Cohen, God's Caress, p.71-2 120 Augustine, Augustine De Doctrina Christiana, ed. R. P. H. Green (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), 3:10:16 26

God?’121 Thus, it is the ‘binding of the believer to Christ’, which ‘is simultaneously a new ontological presence of the Trinity within the soul’, that Meconi identifies with the transformation of the desires and emotions.122 Bruce seems to follow Augustine’s line of thought when he claims that by being charitable ‘we are in God’.123

However, Bruce diverged from Aquinas in his understanding of how faith relates to action. For Aquinas, faith is only meritorious if it is ‘formed’ out of an attitude to do good works for the sake of God. There needs to be a joy in God for God’s own sake, which is created by the ‘form of faith… charity’.124 Thus, a disposition to charity forms faith. By contrast, Bruce argued that love is not the precondition of faith. Rather, he held that love ‘flows all fra the root of faith’, working itself out in acts of charity.125 Thus, for Bruce the knowledge of God and the feeling of his mercie are prior to good works.

Within Bruce’s preaching, the interplay of the feeling of his mercie and kirk discipline entails that for him it had a significant role in shaping the identity of the community. By making the possession of faith, which includes experiencing the feeling of his mercie, the condition for passing the pre-communion examination, Bruce indicates that this emotional experience is a condition for admittance to the Lord’s Supper. In doing so, he makes the emotional experience of union with Christ, as he describes it, central to the identity of the covenant community. That is, he expects that those who have been reconciled with God and with each other will experience the feeling of his mercie. As such, by only allowing people who experience this emotion to participate in the Lord’s Supper, Bruce and his elders imply that those who are worthy will have one kind of response to union with Christ: the feeling of his mercie. Hence, Bruce’s preaching suggests that for him the feeling of his mercie characterised the subjective experience of covenant membership.

Furthermore, Bruce’s sermons reveal how the feeling of his mercie also defined the margins of the ecclesial community. Given that Bruce identifies an apprehension of union with Christ with the doctrinal, experiential and ethical aspects of the feeling of his mercie, he considers everything out with those bounds as sinful. Thus, if a person fails to adhere to the beliefs, emotions or behaviour tied to the feeling of his mercie they will be excluded from the

121 Augustine, "St. Augustine: De Trinitate: Ms. Laud. Misc. 126: Fol. 2: Incipit," (8th Century A.D.), 88.12 122 David Vincent Meconi, The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification, St. Augustine's Theology of Deification (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), p.151 123 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 5, 25v 124 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, ed. Timothy S. McDermott (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode in asssociation with Methuen, 1989) 2a 2ae, 5:2 125 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 14r 27 covenant community. This shows that Bruce exercised discipline to separate those who experienced the feeling of his mercie and those who did not. In doing so, he kept the covenant community pure in its apprehension of union with Christ, whilst he encouraged the offender to repent, and to return to a state where they may be able to experience this emotion. Therefore, Bruce’s preaching shows that for him the feeling of his mercie, with its ecosystem of doctrinal, emotional and ethical dimensions, was an essential part of the identity and limits of the covenant community.

28

Chapter 3: Ecstasy in the Lord’s Supper

Bruce’s sermons on the Lord’s Supper have formed a lasting legacy in Scottish theology. T. F. Torrance has written of them that they are the ‘very marrow of our sacramental tradition in the Church of Scotland’, and that they have ‘passed into the soul of the Kirk, building up its faith and informing its worship at the Table of the Lord’.126 With Bruce’s sacramental theology seen as his most valuable contribution, it is appropriate for this chapter to evaluate how and why the feeling of his mercie featured in Bruce’s preaching on the Lord’s Supper. In the course of the discussion the intimate relationships the feeling of his mercie has to the material, ritual and doctrinal dimensions of the Sacrament will be brought out.

In Bruce’s view, the Lord’s Supper generated a powerful emotional experience. He writes that the purpose of the Sacrament is to apply ‘Christ to my saul’ which ‘is the fountaine of all my ioy and felicitie’.127 In this way, he is following the teaching of the Scots Confession: ‘thir Sacraments… exerce the faith of his Children, and, be participation of the same Sacramentes, to seill… that most blessed conjunction, union and societie, quhilk the elect have with their head Christ Jesus’.128 For Bruce, the ontology and phenomenology of the emotions evoked through participating in the Lord’s Supper, are revealed in these comments. The ontology of the experience is the application of Christ to the soul. Bruce understands the feeling of his mercie to be an application of God’s mercy, Christ, to the self. Thus, for Bruce faith and the Lord’s Supper have the same ontological basis: union with Christ. Hence, in Bruce’s view the feelings evoked in the Lord’s Supper belong to the same family of emotions as the feeling of his mercie.

Bruce taught that the emotional response aroused by applying Christ to the soul in the ritual of the Lord’s Supper were joy and felicity. He argued that joy was a great happiness. The satisfaction of the desire for union with Christ evokes this feeling. ‘Felicite’ was a common term in the 16th Century, which the Dictionary of Scots Language has identified as possessing a similar meaning to the modern usage of ‘felicity’.129 The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as ‘great happiness’.130 Hence, for Bruce participation in the Lord’s Supper did not merely lead to a general sense of joy and peace. Rather, it aroused an intensified joy, a

126 Bruce, "The Mystery of the Lord's Supper", p.7 127 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 2, 21v-22r 128 Henderson, ed. The Scots Confession, p.41 129 "Felicité," Dictionary of Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., 2004, http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/felicite 130 "Felicity," Merriam-Webster; Merriam-Webster.com, 2017, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/felicity 29 powerful happiness which dominated the participant’s consciousness. This is a state of ‘ecstasy’, an overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement. Thus, Bruce’s identification of the emotional experience of the Lord’s Supper with felicity suggests that in his theology, participation in the Sacrament aroused an intensified experience of union with Christ.

Bruce’s description of the emotions within the Lord’s Supper corresponds to accounts of the experiences had by Early Modern Scots participating in the Sacrament. John Livingston, a minister who was ‘mentored’ by Bruce, reported that when Bruce first administered the Lord’s Supper in St Giles, he did so ‘with such singular assistance and elevated affections among the people, as had not been seen in that place before’.131 Similarly, the Kirk of Shotts communion in 1630, which Bruce was attending, evoked intense feelings that resulted in the conversions of hundreds of people and began a revival in Scotland and Ireland. Schmidt has shown that Bruce’s preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments directly influenced many of the ministers who led this revival, such as Dickson, Blair, Livingston and Cunningham.132 Yeoman has observed that events like these show that ‘the intent of Presbyterian worship was to work the believer up to a pitch at which emotion was discharged’, and the Lord’s Supper was the pinnacle of this exercise.133 Westerkamp has noted that this enhanced experience was utilised by Scots-Irish revivals in the 1630s, with ’piety increasingly revolved around the sacraments’.134 She argues this was because ‘the communion service became the primary vehicle for spreading excitement’ and so ‘the Lord’s Supper consistently surfaced as a central event in the lives of ministers and people’.135 Yeoman has noted that though ‘one communion might produce more pronounced results than another’, the ‘extraordinary level of feeling which could not be turned on or off to order was characterised as the experience of free grace and the working of the Holy Spirit’.136 Thus, Bruce’s sacramental theology, with its emphasis upon the ecstatic feeling of his mercie, was both consistent with and a significant influence upon the experiences that Scots had through participating in the Lord’s Supper.

131 Cunningham, ed. Life and Sermons, p.15 132 Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs : Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001), p.23 133 Yeoman, "Heart-Work", p.207 134 Marilyn J. Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p.29 135 Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity, p.30 136 Yeoman, "Heart-Work", p.184 30

Hence, for Bruce the second mark of the church, the right administration of the Sacraments, was able to generate a powerful experience of union with Christ. In this way, Bruce believed ‘the halie Spirite begets this faith, works this faith, creates this faith, nurishes and intertaines this faith in our saules’.137This leads onto the following question: why did Bruce think the Lord’s Supper was able to evoke an intensified feeling of his mercie? The answer lies in the material, ritual and doctrinal nature of the Sacrament. He argued that the ontological ground of the Lord’s Supper, Christ, is a spiritual thing. But he believed this needed to be mediated by tangible, natural objects. Thus, he preached that ‘the thing signified is spirituall, and wee are corporall, therefore to bring vs to the sight of thir spiritual things,’ hence the Spirit ‘vses a corporal mean and an outward signe’.138 Bruce claimed that given the corporeality of human beings, their reception of spiritual realities can only take place through the mediation of corporeal realities. For Bruce, these corporeal dimensions of the Lord’s Supper ‘walkens al the outward senses, sick as the eie, the hand, and all the rest: And the outward senses being mooued, na question, the spirit of God concurring therewith, mooues the heart the mair.’139 Thus, in Bruce’s view, the corporeal aspects of the Lord’s Supper stimulate the outward senses, and in doing so move the inner senses. This evokes the emotions of joy and felicity.

In Bruce’s preaching, the corporeal aspects of the Lord’s Supper, the ‘signs’ in the Sacrament, can be divided into two: what he calls the ‘material’ and ‘ceremonial’ elements.140 First, the material elements, ‘the eleméts of bread and wine’.141 Bruce’s congregation consumed a large quantity of bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper. In 1590 the Dean of Guild Accounts record that in St Giles they bought for the spring communion ‘Ane puncheon of claret wine, 36L 10s, 9 gallons mair 16L. 16s. 2d.’ and for the autumn season ‘1 puncheon of claret wine cost 35L.; 6 and a half gallons mair, 14L 6s.’142 As, for Early Modern Scots, a puncheon was approximately sixteen gallons, Bruce’s congregation consumed approximately 25 gallons in the spring celebration of the Lord’s Supper and 22.5 gallons of claret in the autumn celebration. However, it is unknown how many people participated in the consumption of this wine.

Bruce may have believed it was the consumption of bread and wine that evoked the emotions in the Lord’s Supper, for Hampton has shown that in the Early Modern period people

137 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 4, 27r 138 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 2, 5r 139 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 22v 140 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 5r 141 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 5r 142 Lees, St Giles, Edinburgh, p.380 31 believed emotional ‘alteration’, a change in the soul, was caused by and led to an alteration in the body. He writes that ‘for Renaissance medical thinkers the alteration of the soul and the alteration of the body are mutually interactive and shape each other’.143 Bruce may have believed that the alteration in physiology, caused by the consumption of bread and wine, led to the alteration in the psychology of the communicant in the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, with the apparent abundance of alcohol consumed, it may be that Bruce recognised that wine amplified the emotions. This is consistent with the earlier reflection that emotion embraces both affect and physiology.

Second, ‘the rites and ceremonies quhereby thir elements are distributed, broken and giuen, are subject to myne eie also’.144 Bruce held that the ceremonies, which are indispensable from the right administration of the Sacrament, were those outlined in the Book of Common Order, which he held to reflect the imperatives of Scripture. The order of service was as follows. The minister would begin by reciting the narrative of the last supper from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. An exhortation followed this, to which Bruce’s communion series belongs. The preacher would highlight the danger of receiving the Sacrament without a penitent heart and lively faith, and so would invite the congregation to examine their own emotions before proceeding. The minister would exit the pulpit at the end of the sermon, and the communicants would join him to take their seats at the Lord’s Table.

Successful communicants, processing up to the front, would see the white washed walls, with no images to distract them. Those who had failed to pass the pre-communion examination would have looked on in shame and doubt. Perhaps their inner sense of desolation would have been heightened by the dilapidated state of St Giles, with dust, cobwebs and dirt on the pillars; the Kirk was ‘filthy and ill-kept’.145 The participants, passing the fence, would have sat at an ordinary table, folded away when not in use for the Supper. This resembled the tables used for family meals.146 Taking their seats, the minister would give thanks for the Supper and then distribute the elements in ordinary vessels like those used for regular meals.147 Following the distribution of the material elements, the minister would lead the communicants in a prayer of thanksgiving.

143 Timothy Hampton, "Strange Alteration: Physiology and Psychology from Galen to Rabelais," in Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion, ed. Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p.274 144 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament ,1, 5r 145 Lees, St Giles, Edinburgh, p.187-8 146 Dawson, "Patterns of Worship", p.141 147 Dawson, "Patterns of Worship", p.146. See Appendix, Figure 25. 32

Dawson has identified that in the ceremonies within the Lord’s Supper there was a concerted effort ‘to undermine the association of sacred or magical power adhering to the elements themselves’, dissembling the structure and crescendos of the Mass.148 The service was conducted in Scots, not Latin. Rather than an altar, there was a table. Communicants were to sit, not kneel. The congregation received bread, not a wafer, and all received wine in a simple cup, in contrast to receiving it either in an ornate chalice or not at all. The minister and the congregation participated in the Sacrament together, as opposed to the priest performing it alone. For Westerkamp, this transformation of worship into a communal practice encouraged lay participation, and this was central to the success of Presbyterianism within Scotland.149

Bruce may have believed the performative aspect of these ceremonies evoked the ecstatic feeling of his mercie. Filipczak, writing on the importance of posture in the Mona Lisa, argues that ‘even bodily positions and actions that seem natural, such as walking or sitting, were shaped by cultural conventions’.150 For example, sixteenth century manuals of civility stated that a neck leaning sideways indicated ‘hypocrisy’, and a neck bent backwards as a ‘sign of conceit’.151 Filipzcak concludes that ‘prescribing body language thus served as a way of regulating the passions’.152 Dawson’s claim that the performative dimension of the Lord’s Supper could ‘generate an intense emotional atmosphere and produced ecstatic experiences among some communicants as they participated in the meal’ supports this hypothesis.153 As such, Bruce may have believed that the performances of participants, the ritual dimension of the Lord’s Supper, aroused the emotions of joy and felicity.

For Bruce, the ontological ground of these feelings is the reception of Christ into the soul. Whilst he held that the material and ritual dimensions stimulate a participant’s emotions, yet he also believed that without the spiritual meaning the Sacrament would be powerless to evoke spiritual ecstasy. Rather, it is because the material and ritual aspects of the Lord’s Supper have a spiritual parallel that the corporeal elements arouse joy and felicity. Bruce explains that:

148 Dawson, "Patterns of Worship", p.147 149 Westerkamp, Triumph of the Laity, p.42 150 Zirka Z Filipczak, "Poses and Passions: Mona Lisa's "Closely Folded" Hands," in Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion, ed. Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p.71 151 Filipczak, "Poses and Passions", p.71 152 Filipczak, "Poses and Passions", p.71 153 Dawson, "Patterns of Worship", p.147 33

their ar two actiounis, ane outward actioun, and ane inward actioun of the saull. The outward actioun of the bodie is accomplisched be the minister that givis the man that receavis, the inward actioun of the saull is accomplisched be two, be god quho is the minister of spirituall thingis, and the faithfull saull that receavis the same thingis. And quhen thou luikis to the minister, quho is giving thee the bread, tak head to the living god, quho is giving thee his sone: ffor as trewlie as the minister givis thee that bread, as trewlie he is giving the his sone gif thou have faith to receave.154

Bruce argued in this passage that the bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ are in a ‘mystecall, secrete and spirituall conjunctioun’ brought about by the Holy Spirit.155 Bruce believed the Sacrament needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be effective. For him, the Spirit gives Christ in parallel to the elements: one in the sphere of the outer and corporeal, the other within the spiritual, inner dimension. Holmes has called this approach to the Lord’s Supper a form of ‘liturgical interpretation.156 In his view, Bruce, following Augustine, interpreted corporeal and performative practices as having a symbolic nature, mediating a spiritual reality to material beings. Consequently, Holmes argues that Bruce believed ‘the outward signs were important because they were conjoined to an inward reality’ within the Lord’s Supper.157 As a result, for Bruce having the correct doctrinal understanding of the Lord’s Supper is imperative, for it is in understanding why and how the elements conjoined to Christ that a participant receives Christ. If a participant does not have this desire or belief that the Lord’s Supper communicates Christ to the soul, they will not experience union with Christ. As a result, they will not believe they are experiencing union with Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and, as such, will not experience the ecstatic feeling of his mercie. Thus, Holmes argues that the importance of Bruce’s sermons for his congregation is that they offer an interpretation of the material and ritual dimensions of the Lord’s Supper and so ensure ‘fruitful participation’ in the Sacrament.158

Bruce’s reasoning as to why bread and wine were selected for representing Christ is an example of his liturgical approach. He argued that the bread and wine are a sign for the body and blood of Jesus Christ, as they have a similar function. The consumption of the substance of bread and wine has the consequence of nourishing the temporal human body. Likewise, the

154 Bruce, "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis", 3, Fol. 13v 155 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 13r 156 Stephen Mark Holmes, Sacred Signs in Reformation Scotland: Interpreting Worship, 1488-1590 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p.200 157 Holmes, Sacred Signs, p.202 158 Holmes, Sacred Signs, p.14 34 consuming of the body and blood of Christ by faith leads to the nourishing of the soul through the evocation of the ecstatic feeling of his mercie.159 Put more concretely, for Bruce the sating of hunger through the consumption of bread and wine reflects something of the satisfaction of a participant’s desire for union with Christ, the ecstatic feeling of his mercie. Hence, for Bruce the bread and wine are like images of Christ, insofar as their nourishing properties represent the spiritual nourishment Christ supplies.

Calvin may have influenced this line of thought. He rejected the use of images in worship, apart from ‘those living and symbolic ones which the Lord has consecrated by his Word ... I mean Baptism and the Lord's Supper together with other rites by which our eyes must be too intensely gripped and too sharply affected to seek other images forged by human ingenuity’.160 Calvin argued in this passage that the corporeal dimensions of the Lord’s Supper are valid because Christ ordains them. Due to this, they are the proper images or ‘symbols’ of Christ. Hence, he argued that this means they focus the participant’s mind and emotions upon Christ. This is similar to Bruce’s identification of the bread and wine as signs of the application of Christ to the soul. Like Calvin, Bruce believed the material and ceremonial elements direct the participant towards Christ. In doing so, they stimulate the ecstatic feeling of his mercie. Thus, it is possible Calvin’s identification of the elements as images of Christ influenced Bruce’s liturgical interpretation of the Lords’ Supper.

In Bruce’s sacramental theology, the key reason why the Lord’s Supper arouses an intensified feeling of his mercie lies in the interplay between the doctrinal, material and ritual dimensions. Bruce interpreted the Lord’s Supper as the application of Christ to the soul, and as such an experience of that union. Yet for Bruce this is what the Word achieves: the deliverance of Christ to the soul.161 In Bruce’s view, the main difference between the Word and the Sacraments is the latter enable the believer to ‘get Christ better’.162 In his view, they achieve this by evoking the emotions in a more powerful way than the Word does. Thus, for Bruce the material and ritual dimensions, which the Word lacks, make the experience of feelings more likely. He also held that the doctrinal dimension establishes the ontology of these feelings. In doing so, the doctrinal dimension directs the phenomenological content of the emotion, the positive nature of the experience, and level of intensity, joy and felicity it contains. Thus, for Bruce the evocation of the ecstatic feeling of his mercie by the doctrinal,

159 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 2, 5v 160 Calvin, Institutes, 1.11.13 161 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 21v 162 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 1, 21v 35 material and ritual dimensions of the Lord’s Supper allows the believer to experience Christ in a more powerful way than the preaching of the Word achieves by itself.

This leaves open another question: why did Bruce believe there was a need for a ritual that united the believer to Christ in a more powerful way than the preaching of the Word? The following passage provides the answer. ‘For be the Sacrament, my faith is nurished, the bounds of my saull is enlarged… My faith is augmented: I vndertstand better, I grow in knawledge, I grow in apprehensioun, I grow in feeling; and getting the grouth of all thir, als oft as I come’.163 In this passage, Bruce echoes the teaching of the Scots Confession: ‘in the Supper richtlie used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us, that hee becummis very nourishment and fude of our saules’.164 Bruce argued here that the Lord’s Supper cultivates faith. For him it does so by uniting the believer and Christ, and therefore it evokes an ecstatic feeling of his mercie. He held this arousal nourishes the soul by strengthening the believer’s craving for union with Christ, belief in God’s mercy and the feeling of his mercie. He does not explain how the ecstatic feeling of his mercie achieves this, only that it makes faith more robust.

Bruce may have believed a more powerful experience of union with Christ, an intensified feeling of his mercie, makes union with Christ clearer to the mind, and as a result enriches the assurance and hope which spring from the reformed heart. Bruce possibly believed that the more a person apprehends their union with Christ, the greater participation they have in the life of God, in God’s love. Either way, for Bruce there was something about an intensified apprehension of one’s union with Christ that strengthened a participant’s everyday belief and perception of God’s mercy. Consequently, in Bruce’s view the Lord’s Supper played a central role in the creation and nourishment of the feeling of his mercie.

163 Bruce, Sermons Vpon the Sacrament, 2, 16r-16v 164 Henderson, ed. The Scots Confession, p.42 36

Conclusion

This dissertation has evaluated the feeling of his mercie in Bruce’s sermons on the Lord’s Supper. This was done in three phases. First, there was an examination of what the feeling of his mercie is for Bruce. It argued that, for Bruce, the Spirit’s regeneration of the heart evokes the feeling of his mercie in the believer. For Bruce, the feeling of his mercie is a feeling of joy, peace, assurance and hope, its phenomenology, and is understood as an experience of union with Christ, its ontology. The dissertation addressed why Bruce believed experiencing union with Christ aroused this emotional response. It was argued that, in Bruce’s view, union with Christ fulfils the greatest desire a person could have and this is why it evokes a positive emotional response.

Second, an evaluation of the feeling of his mercie in relation to Bruce’s preaching on preparing for the Lord’s Supper was attempted. This situated the emotion within Early Modern Scots’ experience of the pre-communion examination, which was part of kirk discipline, the processes of church censure. Drawing on the work of Todd, Dawson and Macdonald, it was argued that discipline was central to the Scottish Kirk’s worship, as it aimed to evaluate and establish authentic faith and covenant membership. The process of pre- communion testing was significant for Bruce, because the authenticity of faith – including one’s experience of the feeling of his mercie – and covenant membership could be assessed with reference to the markers of doctrinal understanding and virtuous behaviour. This showed that the feeling of his mercie had an influential role in characterising the self-identity and margins of the covenant community, because it is a component of faith.

Third, the role of emotion within Bruce’s preaching on the Lord’s Supper was discussed. This showed that, for Bruce, the Lord’s Supper generates an intensified feeling of his mercie. It is able to do this because of its material, ritual and doctrinal dimensions. The dissertation argued that, for Bruce, the corporeal nature of the Lord’s Supper, the elements of bread and wine and the performed ceremonies, evoke emotion because they stimulate the senses. For Bruce, they arouse joy and felicity because the ontological ground of the Lord’s Supper is the application of Christ to the soul by the Holy Spirit. The ecstatic feeling of his mercie nourishes and sustains ordinary faith, strengthening a participant’s desire for union with Christ, a knowledge of God’s mercy and further experiences of the feeling of his mercie. 37

As outlined in the Introduction to this dissertation, Ninian Smart has argued for understanding religious belief and practice from a range of interconnected perspectives. He argued that the historian of religion needs to explore both the inner and outer aspects, seeing how they ‘are fused together’.165 What this investigation has shown is that, for Bruce, in his discussion of faith, the inner and the outer are indeed fused together. Faith itself draws together the doctrinal and the experiential dimensions in the knowledge and feeling of God’s mercy. It is expressed in the ethical dimension – godly conduct – which affects: the economic dimension, giving to the poor; the political dimension, ostracising Catholics; and shapes the sociological dimension, determining who passes the pre-communion examination. Also, it is nourished and sustained, in part, by the Lord’s Supper: through its ritual dimension, the performance of ceremonies; in its narrative dimension, the recounting of the institution; the material dimension, the consumption of bread and wine; and in its theological dimension, the reception of Christ to the soul.

Alongside his subtle, holistic approach to faith, Bruce, it has been seen, placed a great deal of stress on the experiential dimension of religious faith, expressed in his idea of the feeling of his mercie. This is interesting in itself, not least because of Bruce’s prominence, but if Yeoman is correct that Bruce’s ‘inner spirituality... is a hallmark of covenanting devotion’, then it leaves open the possibility that Bruce is articulating the character of Early Modern Scots’ piety more generally.166 This is a teasing suggestion and might be the basis for further research. It would be interesting to evaluate evidentially Yeoman’s claim by looking at the works of other ministers, sources produced by lay people and Kirk Session records. If indeed Yeoman’s assertion is validated, then Bruce’s emotionally charged sacramental theology does indeed enrich our understanding of the experience of religion in Early Modern Scotland.

165 Smart, The Religious Experience, p.11 166 Yeoman, "Heart-Work", p.viii 38

Appendix

Figure 1: Sermons on the Sacrament, 1591, Front Cover. University of Edinburgh, Main Library, Centre for Research Collections (Dd.10.68/1).

Figure 2: This edition of Sermons on the Sacrament was owned by Jacobi Nairn in 1678. 39

Figure 4: Sermons on the Sacrament, Title Page. Figure 3: Sermons on the Sacrament bears James VI’s Coat of Arms.

Figures 5 and 6: Sermons on the Sacrament, 3, 1v-2r and 1, 1r.

40

Figure 7: The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, 1614, Front Cover. University of Edinburgh, New College Library (TR.705 ).

Figure 8: The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, Spine. Figure 9: The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper, Title Page.

Figure 10: The Mystery of the Lord's Supper, 2, 34v-35r. 41

Figure 11: The Way to Trve Peace and Rest, 1617, Front Cover. University of Edinburgh, New College Library (MH.122).

Figure 12: The Way to Trve Peace and Rest, Title Page.

Figure 14: The Way to Trve Peace and Rest, Figure 13: The Way to Trve Peace and Rest, p.89. Contents Page.

42

Figure 15: "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis" in MSS Bru 2, Circa 1594-1603, Front Cover. University of Edinburgh, New College Library (MSS Bru 2).

Figure 16: "The Elevint Cap to the Hebrewis" MSS Bru 2. Fol. 47v-48r.

Figure 17: The Poetry of Elizabeth Melville, MSS Bru 2. Fol. 160r.

43

Figure 18: “The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis”, MSS Bru 2. Fol. 12r.

Figure 19: This Coat of Arms was in the garden of Bruce's estate in Kinnaird. Having restored Bruce to the barony in 1590, he built Kinnaird House sometime around 1602. This Coat of Arms marks that date, containing the initials R.B. on either side of the Bruce family crest. The stars are distinctive to the Bruce of Kinnaird’s, of which Robert was the first. At the bottom right, a heart stands atop the initials M.D., signifying Bruce’s marriage to Martha Douglas. This is now stored in Larbert Old Church.

44

Figure 20: Bruce's Original Gravestone. It marks his death, 1631, and bears his Coat of Arms, the Bruce flag, his initials and four stars. It bears the Latin caption ‘Cristvs in vita et in morte lucrum’, which is from Beza’s version of Philippians 1:21. The English version of this Geneva Bible renders it ‘For Christ is to me both in life and in death advantage’. It is now stored within Larbert Old Church.

Figure 21: Bruce's Original Gravestone. Larbert Old Figure 22: The site where Bruce is buried, under Church. the pulpit of the original church in Larbert. In 1628, Bruce paid for the church to be repaired, and offered to be the minister free of charge. In the Graveyard of Larbert Old Church. 45

Figure 23: Bruce's Testament, CC21/5/4 Stirling Commissary Court, National Records of Scotland.

46

Figure 24: A two-tier pulpit and reader’s desk, th Figure 25: Rosneath Communion Cup approximately 17 Century, now in St Salvator’s 1585-6, earliest surviving communion cup chapel, St Andrews. There is an hourglass post-reformation. This is similar to the sort attached to reader’s desk to note the length of of cup Bruce would have used. sermons. It gives an indication of the appearance of Bruce’s own pulpit.

Figure 26: Communion Token from Crossmichael, Fife, Bz1606, lot MB67-750. Bruce’s congregation would have needed a token like this to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper.

Figures 1-20 and 22 are my own photographs. Ms Sallie Allan gave figure 21 to me for this project. Figure 23 is a digital copy of Bruce’s Testament held by National Records of Scotland. Figures 24 and 25 were found in Professor Jane Dawson’s class The Creation of Protestant Scotland, 1558-1638. Figure 26 was taken from Simmons Gallery Blog, http://www.blog-simmonsgallery.co.uk/scottish-communion-tokens/.

47

Bibliography

Primary Sources Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Edited by Timothy S. McDermott London: Eyre and Spottiswoode in asssociation with Methuen, 1989. Augustine. Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. Edited by R. P. H. Green Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001. ———. "St. Augustine: De Trinitate: Ms. Laud. Misc. 126: Fol. 2: Incipit." 8th Century A.D. Bruce, Robert. "The Ellevint Cap to the Hebrewis." In MSS Bru 2: New College Library, The University of Edinburgh, Circa 1594-1603. ———. "The Mystery of the Lord's Supper: Sermons on the Sacrament Preached in the Kirk of Edinburgh by Robert Bruce in A.D. 1589." edited by Thomas F. Torrance. Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005. ———. Sermons Vpon the Sacrament of the Lords Supper: Preached in the Kirk of Edinburgh. At Edinburgh: Printed be Robert Walde-graue, printer to the Kings Maiestie, 1591. Calvin, Jean. Commentaries. Edited by Joseph Haroutunian and Louise Pettibone Smith: London: S.C.M. Press, 1958. ———. Institutes of the Christian Religion [in Translation of: Institutio Christianae religionis.]. Collins Flame Classics. Edited by Ford Lewis Battles. 1536 edition / ed. London: Collins, 1986. Cunningham, William, ed. Wodrow Society's Life and Sermons of Rev. Robert Bruce, Wodrow Society, vol. [4]. Edinburgh: Printed for the Wodrow Society, 1843. Henderson, G. D., ed. Scots Confession, 1560 (Confessio Scoticana).: And, Negative Confession, 1581 (Confessio Negativa). Edinburgh: Church of Scotland, Committee on Publications, 1937. Henderson, G. D.; Bulloch, James, ed. The Scots Confession, 1560. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1960. Luther, Martin. Works of Martin Luther: With Introductions and Notes. Edited by Henry Eyster Jacobs and Adolph Spaeth: Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Co., 1915. Rollock, Robert. Select Works of Robert Rollock, Principal of the University of Edinburgh. Edited by William M. Gunn Edinburgh: Printed for the Wodrow Society, 1844. 48

Secondary Sources "Affectioun ". Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/affectioun. "Apply." Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/apply_v. "Assurance ". Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/assurance. Baxter, Jamie Reid. "Presbytery, Politics and Poetry: Maister Robert Bruce, John Burel and Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross." Records of the Scottish Church History Society xxxiv (2004): 6-27. Blum, Richard H.; Wood, Marguerite; Mears, Frank Charles; Robertson, David, ed. Edinburgh, 1329-1929. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1929. Burnett, George. The Holy Communion in the Reformed Church of Scotland. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1960. Coffey, John. Heart Religion: Evangelical Piety in England and Ireland, 1690-1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Cohen, Charles Lloyd. God's Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. "Compt." Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/compt_v. Cowan, Ian Borthwick. The Scottish Reformation: Church and Society in Sixteenth Century Scotland. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982. Dawson, Jane E. A. "Discipline and the Making of Protestant Scotland." In Worship and Liturgy in Context : Studies and Case Studies in Theology and Practice, edited by Duncan B. Forrester and Doug Gay: London: SCM, 2009. ———. "Patterns of Worship in Reformation Scotland." In Worship and Liturgy in Context : Studies and Case Studies in Theology and Practice, edited by Duncan B. Forrester and Doug Gay: London: SCM, 2009. Dunlop, A. Ian. The Kirks of Edinburgh: The Congregations, Churches and Ministers of the Presbytery of Edinburgh Church of Scotland 1560-1984. Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 1988. "Felicité." Dictionary of Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/felicite. 49

"Felicity." Merriam-Webster; Merriam-Webster.com, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/felicity. Filipczak, Zirka Z. "Poses and Passions: Mona Lisa's "Closely Folded" Hands." In Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion, edited by Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe and Mary Floyd-Wilson: Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Hampton, Timothy. "Strange Alteration: Physiology and Psychology from Galen to Rabelais." In Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion, edited by Gail Kern Paster, Katherine Rowe and Mary Floyd-Wilson: Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Holmes, Stephen Mark. Sacred Signs in Reformation Scotland: Interpreting Worship, 1488- 1590. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. "Hope." Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/hope_n_1. "Joye." Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/joye. Laing, David, ed. Historical Notices of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles Edinburgh: Prefixed to the Registrum Cartarum Ecclesie Sancti Egidii De Edinburgh. Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1858. Lees, J. Cameron. St Giles, Edinburgh: Church, College, and Cathedral : From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Edinburgh: Chambers, 1889. Macdonald, Nikki. "Reconciling Performance: The Drama of Discipline in Early Modern Scotland, 1560-1610." PhD, University of Edinburgh, 2013. Macnicol, Duncan Clark. Master Robert Bruce: Minister in the Kirk of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1907. Meconi, David Vincent. The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification. St. Augustine's Theology of Deification. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2013. Melville, Elizabeth. Poems of Elizabeth Melville, Lady Culross: Unpublished Work from Manuscript and 'Ane Godlie Dreame' [in Scots with commentary in English.]. Edited by Jamie Reid Baxter Edinburgh: Solsequium, 2010. Mullan, David George. Scottish Puritanism, 1590-1638. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 50

Partee, Charles. "Calvin's Central Dogma Again." The Sixteenth Century Journal 18, no. 2 (1987): 191-200. "Pese." Dictionary of the Scots Language; Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd., http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/pese_n_1. Rist, John M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Ryrie, Alec; Schwanda, Tom. Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Holy Fairs : Scotland and the Making of American Revivalism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. Smart, Ninian. Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilization. Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh. London: Harper & Row, 1981. ———. Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World's Beliefs. London: HarperCollins, 1996. ———. The Religious Experience of Mankind. London: Collins, 1971. Todd, Margo. The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. London: Yale University Press, 2002. Westerkamp, Marilyn J. Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Wood, Marguerite, ed. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh. 1589-1603. Edinburgh: Oliver & Amp, 1927. Yeoman, Louise. "Heart-Work: Emotion, Empowerment and Authority in Covenanting Times." PhD, The University of St Andrews, 1991.