[188] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 526; Laing's Knox, ii. 191.

[189] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 530; Laing's Knox, ii. 194.

[190] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 530; Laing's Knox, ii. 194.

[191] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 577; Laing's Knox, ii. 233.

[192] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 578; Laing's Knox, ii. 234, 235.

[193] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 581; Laing's Knox, ii. 236, 237.

[194] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 532; Laing's Knox, ii. 195, 196.

[Readers who were able to _exhort_ and explain the Scriptures were to have their stipends augmented until they attained the honour of a minister (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 536, 537; Laing's Knox, ii. 199, 200).]

[195] [The readers who had "any gift of interpretation" were to take part in these meetings (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 590; Laing's Knox, ii.

244).]

[196] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 539; Laing's Knox, ii. 202.

[197] ["It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient authors, that from the apostles' time there hath been these orders of ministers in Christ's church: bishops, priests, and deacons"

(Liturgies of Edward VI., Parker Society, p. 331).]

[198] The jest attributed to Queen Elizabeth that she had _made_ a bishop but _marred_ a good preacher shows this.

[199] In the chief towns, just as in Geneva, there seems from early times to have been a common or "general session," although there were several congregations in each, as in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Perth.

[200] Even the Second Book of Discipline does not sharply distinguish between the lesser and greater eldership or presbytery; and Gillespie admits they were not distinguished in the primitive church, though he holds that both were needed in Scotland to do the work which the one presbytery did in the primitive church (_infra_, pp. 230-233).

[201] [The Book of Common Order distinguishes between the weekly meeting of the ministers and elders in their a.s.sembly or consistory, and the weekly meeting of the congregation for the interpretation of the Scriptures (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 411-413; Laing's Knox, iv.

177-179). For the nature and object of the exercise see _infra_, pp.

170-173.]

[202] [The bull, which is printed in Concilia Scotiae, ii. 3, is dated "xiiij kalendas Junij pontificatus nostri anno nono," _i.e._, the 19th of May 1225.]

[203] See Schenkel's article, "Kirche," in Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie.

[204] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 68; Laing's Knox, ii. 110.

[205] See Calvin's Inst.i.tutes, book iv. chap. ii.--"As no city or village can exist without a magistrate and government, so the Church of G.o.d stands in need of a spiritual polity of its own. This is altogether distinct from the civil government, and is so far from hindering or impairing it, that it rather does much to aid and promote it."

[206] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 413; Laing's Knox, iv. 203.

[207] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 414-417; Laing's Knox, iv. 204-206. If this humanity is not observed in private as well as in public, there is danger lest instead of discipline we fall into a kind of Gehenna, and instead of correctors and educators become executioners of the brethren (Calvin).

[208] The form of absolution then appointed to be used was, with consent of Henderson, modified by the Westminster divines into the shape in which it appears in their Directory for Church Government and Excommunication, and as modified was afterwards inserted in our Form of Process of 1707.

[209] La France protestant, deuxieme edition, iii. 530.

[210] Book of Common Order, in Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 412; Laing's Knox, iv. 179.

[211] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 587-589; Laing's Knox, ii. 242, 243.

[212] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 590, 591; Laing's Knox, ii. 244, 245.

[213] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 547; Laing's Knox, ii. 209.

[214] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 548-550; Laing's Knox, ii. 209-211.

[215] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 561; Laing's Knox, ii. 220, 221.

[216] [Dr Mitch.e.l.l seems to have thought that _handlings_ should be read _haldings_.]

[217] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 562, 563. [The words which in this quotation are enclosed in parentheses are not in the copy of the Book of Discipline preserved by Knox (Laing's Knox, ii. 221, 222). Instead of the words, "if _we_ permit cruelty to be used," that copy reads, "if _you_ permit suche creualtie to be used"; and after the words, "comfort and relaxation," is the clause, "Concludit be the Lordis."]

[218] The pauper comes on the stage with the words--

"Of your almis, gude folks, for G.o.d's luife of heavin, For I have motherles bairns either sax or seavin;"

and proceeds in piteous strain--

"Gude man, will ye gif me of your charitie, And I sall declair yow the black veritie.

My father was ane auld man, and a hoir, And was of age four scoir of yeirs and moir.

And Mald, my mother, was four scoir and fyfteine, And with my labour I did thame baith susteine.

Wee had are meir, that caryit salt and coill, And everie ilk yeir scho brocht us hame ane foill.

Wee had thrie ky, that was baith fat and fair, Nane tydier into the toun of Air.

My father was sa waik of blude, and bane, That he deit, quhairfoir my mother maid gret maine: Then scho deit, within ane day or two; And thair began my povertie and wo.

Our gude gray meir was baittand on the feild, And our Land's laird tuik hir for his hyreild, The vickar tuik the best cow be the heid, Incontinent, quhen my father was deid.

And quhen the vickar hard tel how that my mother Was deid, fra hand he tuke to him ane uther: Then Meg, my wife, did murne baith evin and morow, Till at the last scho deit for verie sorow: And quhen the vickar hard tell my wyfe was dead, The thrid cow he cleikit be the heid.

Thair umest clayis, that was of rapploch gray, The vickar gart his clark bear them away.

Quhen all was gane, I micht mak na debeat, Bot with my bairns past for till beg my meat.

Now, haif I tald yow the blak veritie, How I am brocht into this miserie."

--Laing's Lindsay's Poetical Works, 1879, ii. 99, 102, 103.

[219] [In the Articles addressed by some of the temporal lords and barons to the queen regent, and sent by her to the Provincial Council convened in Edinburgh a few weeks before the Reformation burst like a tempest upon the country, it was requested that "the corps presentes, kow, and [um]est claith, and the silvir commonlie callit the kirk richts, and Pasch offrands quhilk is takin at Pasch fra men and women for distribution of the sacrament of the blessit body and blood of Jesus Christ," should no longer be extorted under pain of excommunication or debarring from the sacraments, but left to the free will of the givers (Concilia Scotiae, ii. 148, 149). The Council met this demand for reformation by enacting that in future the poor should be freed from mortuary dues, while those not quite so poor were only to pay them in a modified form; and the small t.i.thes and oblations were to be taken up before Lent so as to avoid the appearance of selling the sacrament (Ibid., ii. 167, 168, 174). When, on the 27th of May 1560, the reforming vicar of Lintrathin raised a summons against his parishioners for payment of his teinds, "the cors present and umest clayth of all yeris and termes bigane restand unpayit" were specially excepted from his claim (Spalding Miscellany, iv. 121).]

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN KNOX.

[Sidenote: a.s.sa.s.sination of the Good Regent.]

The eighth decade of the sixteenth century was memorable in the history of Protestantism in its Presbyterian or Calvinistic form, and the year 1572 has been termed its _annus mirabilis_. It marked a crisis in the long and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle of the Protestants in the Netherlands with their Spanish oppressors,--a struggle which issued in securing the independence of the Dutch people, and settling on a Calvinistic basis the Reformed Church of Holland. It formed the turning-point in the tragic fortunes of the Reformed Church of France, at which, from being able to claim as adherents a majority of the landed gentry and a large minority of the more intelligent and wealthy _bourgeois_ in the provincial towns, and being only weak among the citizens of the capital and the peasantry of northern and central France, she was, by an act of base treachery and fiendish cruelty, hurled from her promising position, sadly crippled in numbers and influence, permanently weakened and cast down, though not crushed or driven to despair.[220] This decade was especially memorable in the history of the Reformed Church of Scotland as having witnessed the removal of the ablest and best of the lay defenders of the Reformation, the death of our great reformer himself, and the return to Scotland of the intrepid and devoted man who was to take up and complete the work, from which failing health and a grieved spirit had obliged Knox to withdraw. The a.s.sa.s.sination of the Good Regent (as the Earl of Moray was deservedly surnamed) was unquestionably the most disgraceful of all the murders perpetrated in Scotland in the interests of faction during those years of confusion and strife.[221] It brought no permanent advantage to the party of reaction.

It wrought much woe to the country, which under his firm yet kindly rule had begun to settle into order and to recover its prosperity.