to curtail, though not to destroy, its nationality by giving an undue ascendency to the clerical element. And, in so far, the second “Book of Discipline” stood in opposition to the intentions of our first Reformers, and in violation of the principles of the Reformation. In the marginal comments of the Privy Council on this document, as given in Spottiswood,[1] we find it stipulated that, in the meetings of assembly, his Majesty's authority shall be “interponed.” The Privy Council agrees, moreover, that only fifteen noblemen, with his Majesty's commissioner, “shall have voice therein.” This change (if indeed it was ever carried into effect, of which there is no evidence) was certainly, to some extent, an innovation on the character of the assembly, and a departure from its principles, though not by any means to such a degree as to alter its constitution fundamentally. These fifteen nobles were to sit in the Assembly, not as elders, be it observed, but as the representatives of the highest estate in the realm. Thus the General Assembly remained essentially a lay or popular institution, in spite of the corruptions by which Andrew Melville sought to distort its fair proportions, and impair its liberal organisation. Dead John Knox kept his ground against living Andrew Melville.
Having made these remarks on the idea of the Reformation, and having touched upon the original constitution of our General Assembly, we are now prepared to probe the latter institution more profoundly, and to handle, with greater hardihood, the proposition that we laid down at the outset, and which forms, as we have said, the burden of the Duke of Argyll's Essay. Our statement was, that the General Assembly was a national, and not an ecclesiastical council. This conclusion is sufficiently established, we conceive, both by the principles of the Reformation, which we have endeavoured to expound, and more particularly by the extracts from Calderwood and Spottiswood, which we have adduced. But what was that national council? This is a new question where the Duke does not help us.
To get at the solution of this question, we must attend closely to the establishment of our General Assembly, viewed both by
- ↑ Spottiswood. History of the Church of Scotland, p. 294.
