The Parliament of 1560 having effectively destroyed the power of the Auld Kirk in Scotland, ratified and approved Knox’s Confession of Faith as “hailsome and sound doctrine groundit upoune the in-fallibill trewth of Godis word’’.

This decision marked a crisis in Scottish history, but revolutionary though it was it must not be thought that Presbyterianism as it now exists in Scotland, was born, like Athene, fully formed and armed. The infant Reformed Church of Scotland was, in 1560, indeed a babe and it was only in the following two centuries that she took shape and developed the persona she now presents to the world.

So difficult and so complex is the history of Scottish Presbyterianism, reflecting as it does the ebb and flow of logic and passion that make up the Scottish character, that a short account of it can only explain its dominant features by pointing to those elements and problems which have conditioned its growth. It would be quite simple to describe the ecclesiastical system of Calvin or the present organization of Church courts in Scotland, but such a description would not suffice to give any idea of historic Presbyterianism in Scotland.