the vacancy which Melville now undertook to supply. But we will allow Dr. Mc Crie, the biographer and eulogist of Melville, to inform us how he performed the pulpit duties of his new charge.-" As long as he continued to preach, it was impossible for him to refrain from condemning the conduct of those who had obstructed the settlement of the parish. The umbrage taken at this was increased by the plainness with which he rebuked the more flagrant vices which prevailed among the inhabitants, and were overlooked by those in authority. Galled by his reproofs, the provost one day rose from his seat in the middle of his sermon, and left the church, muttering his dissatisfaction with the preacher. Placards were affixed to the new college (St. Mary's), threatening to set fire to the principal's lodging, to bastinade him, and chase him out of the town. His friends became alarmed for his safety, but he remained unintimidated, and refused to give place to the violence of his adversaries. He summoned the provost before the presbytery for contempt of divine ordinances. persevered in his public censures of vice. One of the placards was known by the French and Italian phrases in it to be the production of James Learmont, younger, of Balcomy. This Melville produced to the congregation at the end of a sermon in which he had been uncommonly free and vehement, and described the author of it, who was sitting before him, as a Frenchified, Italianized, jolly gentleman, who had polluted many marriage beds, and now boasted that he would pollute the church of God by bastinading his servants!" It was one of the unhappy characteristics of this age, that the pulpit, instead of being devoted to religious instruction, was often made the vehicle of local controversies and defamatory personalities.

He

The "Raid of Ruthven," is an event well known in the history of this period. The earls of Marr, Gowrie, Glencairn, and the master of Glammis, had seized the person of the young king, and kept him in a sort of captivity for twelve months; being in this supported by the general assembly of the kirk, which declared that the above noblemen, for so acting, had done "good and acceptable service to their sovereign and the country." While the king was residing at his hunting seat of Falkland, in the summer of 1583, under the surveillance of his noble keepers, a convention was appointed to be held at St. Andrew's, for the settlement of some political affairs. The king conceived that he saw in this the means of obtaining his freedom. He therefore, with the help of Sir James Melville, secretly sent letters to the well affected part of his nobility, to meet him at the above city, on the day appointed, with as many of their followers as they could bring without subjecting themselves to suspicion. He himself determined to reach the city two or three days earlier, that he might consult with his friends the archbishop, and Colonel William Stewart the governor of the castle, as to the best means of effecting his design. Accordingly, he set out on his journey, as if he had been going to hawk, having none of the Ruthven faction with him, except the earl of Marr. The king came to St. Andrew's, says Sir J. Melville, "as blythe as a bird escaped from the cage." Archbishop Adamson, in the mean time, held the castle in readiness for his sovereign. A proposal of taking a view of this fine old fortress, was acted upon by the king, merely as if it had been an accidental suggestion of the moment, which had no deeper motive than

curiosity. But he and his retinue had no sooner entered the castle gates, than they were shut and barred by Colonel Stewart, the drawbridges raised, and the gentlemen of the guard placed on duty in defence of the walls. The next day, the nobles of both parties entered the town, the discontented barons in greater number and better supplied with arms than the opposite party, and with the intention, it seemed, again to seize upon his majesty's person. A day of strife and battle appeared to be impending; but, the exertions of James's friends, who brought a body of royalists into the castle from the town and neigh. bourhood, made the malcontent lords unwilling to come to violence. The result was, that the royalists prevailed. The earl of Gowrie was soon after beheaded; Glencairn and Marr were banished the kingdom, and others concerned in the conspiracy were imprisoned. The members of the general assembly, among whom was Melville, being called upon to account for the part they had taken in the business, pleaded the privilege of the pulpit as an ample apology for expressing their opinion upon state affairs; and contended that, though they might from thence utter treason, or what was liable to be construed as such, they were not amenable to the king's privy council, or any secular judge, but must always be tried and judged by the church judicatories, at least, in the first instance. Melville set a bad example on this occasion to his brethren, accusing the king of "perverting the laws both of God and man," and flying to England when he was commanded to enter into prison. Notwithstanding, after an absence of twenty months, he was permitted to return, and resume his duties at St. Andrew's, though his democratical principles remained unabated.

About this time, the king sent Archbishop Adamson as his ambassador to Queen Elizabeth, to inform her of the proceedings in Scotland, and to assure her as to his settled purpose of adhering to the Protestant faith; yet, this did not deter that jealous princess from hastening on the death of his unfortunate mother, whom she had already detained eighteen years in close imprisonment. As soon as James learnt that this sanguinary measure was resolved on, he appointed a fast day in Scotland, and commanded Adamson to officiate in St. Giles', Edinburgh, and to pray for the unfortunate queen. But the presbyterian ministers put up a violent and conceited young man into the pulpit, of the name of John Couper, upon seeing whom, the king, who was present, exclaimed, “Master John, that place was designed for another; yet, since you are there do your duty, and obey the charge to pray for my mother." Couper replied that he would speak no otherwise than as the Spirit should direct him: and beginning to pray in his own manner with a shower of scriptural nicknames upon the poor queen, the king commanded him to stop; whereupon he gave a knock upon the pulpit, and exclaimed, "this day shall bear witness against you in the day of the Lord. Woe be to thee, O Edinburgh! for the last of thy plagues shall be the worst." After uttering these words he passed down from the pulpit, and, accompanied by all the women who were present, left the church. Immediately the archbishop of St. Andrew's took his place, and preached a sermon concerning praying for princes, in which he

1 Sir W. Scott's History of Scotland, vol. ii., chap. 32.

convinced his hearers that the desire of the king to pray for his mother, was most praiseworthy and reasonable.1

In 1586, Andrew Melville, and his nephew James, who was one of the ministers of Fife, entered into a conspiracy to excommunicate Adamson for having intruded himself into the primacy without the sanction of the Kirk. J. Melville preached at the opening of the provincial synod which met at St. Andrew's in the month of April. In the course of his sermon, the preacher suddenly turned to the archbishop, who was sitting with great dignity in the assembly, and charged him with overthrowing the scriptural government and discipline of the church; and then, turning to the synod, he exhorted them to act the part of bold chirurgeons, by cutting off such a corrupt member. Of this synod, Mr. James Wilkie, principal of St. Leonard's college, was moderator. Adamson at first refused to answer, alleging that it was rather his prerogative to judge them than theirs to judge him. But, after being repeatedly summoned, he gave in objections to their procedure, and at the same time answers to the charges brought against him. He objected, among other things, that the two Melvilles, and the master of Lindsay, who was their coadjutor, were his personal enemies, and ought not to be permitted to sit as his judges; but the synod allowed them to retain their seats, after they had cleared themselves of malice in the usual way. This brought on an altercation between Andrew Melville and the archbishop, in the course of which the former called the latter an unclean beast, a liar, and a blasphemer, and, among other opprobrious epithets," an asserter of liberty of conscience"! 2 A majority of only two voted for the archbishop's excommunication, which made the moderator ashamed to pronounce it; "whereupon," says Spottiswood, 66 a young fellow of the name of Hunter, after a number of members had begun to leave the house, willed them to stay, professing that he was warned by the Spirit to pronounce the sentence; and so, ascending the chair, he read the same out of the book, a few only remaining as witnesses." This meeting was held in the hall of St. Leonard's college, and its disorderly conduct was imitated the next day by the opposite party; for then, says Spottiswood," a person of the name of Cunningham came to church during divine service, accompanied by two of the archbishop's servants, and, ascending the reader's desk, pronounced sentence of excomunication against Mr. Melville himself, and others of the ministers of Fife, who had been most violent in the cause." Such were the disgraceful proceedings which arose out of the false position in which the church had placed herself, by the novel and uncanonical nature of its constitution.

Meantime, the Melvillian party was gradually curtailing the power of the prelates, preparing the way for a pure democracy in the church,

1

Sharpe's edition of Kirkton, p. 12. Dr. Cook's History of the Church of Scotland, I., p. 415. Sir W. Scott remarks on this anecdote, that, if we are to believe current tradition, such contests between the pulpit and the throne occurred frequently at this time. It is said a young preacher, dilating before James's face on some matter highly offensive to him, the monarch lost all patience, and said aloud, "I tell thee, man, either speak sense or come down;" to which reasonable request the preacher scornfully replied, "I will neither speak sense nor come down."

2 Calderwood's History, p. 204.

VOL. II.

3 G

and setting the civil government at defiance in the prosecution of their favourite schemes. A fresh instance of this soon occurred in relation to Adamson. He was summoned before the general assembly for marrying the Roman Catholic earl of Huntley to his countess, without first obliging him to sign the Protestant confession of faith, though he had the royal warrant for what he had done. For this, and other misdemeanors of a like nature, he was not only excommunicated, but deposed from his office, and his sentence of deposition proclaimed, by order of the Kirk, throughout the kingdom!

At this time James was persuaded by the noblemen and presbyterian ministers who were about his person to annex to the crown all the cathedral and abbey lands which had not been previously vested in private families. The ministers thought that by this means they could the more easily get rid of episcopacy, when the lands from which the bishops drew their incomes were withdrawn; and the nobles conceived that they were more likely to obtain permanent grants of them from the crown direct than to profit by them as matters then stood. Both parties succeeded in their object, however religion might suffer. James, who was then only twenty-one years old, consented to this measure the more readily, because it promised to yield an ample supply to his pecuniary wants: but he deeply repented of it afterwards, when he found it expedient to establish a canonical episcopacy, as the only religious system which, in his opinion, could harmonize with a monarchical government; because he had then to buy back, at great expense, the very lands which he had thoughtlessly and thanklessly lavished among his favourites. Even the Church was unexpectedly a loser by the measure; for, though it thus paved the way for the total abolition of the episcopacy which then existed, it was found that the barons who had obtained grants of the Church lands either wholly neglected to provide ministers to the churches belonging to them, or reduced their salaries to so miserable a pittance that they could not live upon them in any tolerable comfort or respectability.

The duke of Lennox, who was a favourite of the king's, obtained the archiepiscopal lands of St. Andrew's, out of which he agreed to allow Adamson a small salary during his life, an agreement which he did not latterly perform. The same nobleman obtained a gift of the archiepiscopal lands of Glasgow! This was a more crying abuse than any that had existed before the Reformation; yet, it was committed not only without a remonstance from the reformed kirk, but with its full concurrence. But they who had sown the wind were now beginning, and only beginning, to reap the whirlwind. Already three important changes had occurred during the few years that had elapsed since the Reformation, namely, the system of superintendency, that of tulchan episcopacy, and now that of presbyterianism, which last was in its turn destined to give way to still more decisive changes.

(To be continued.)

L.

A LIFE OF CHRIST.

At the time of our blessed Lord's incarnation there was a very general expectation throughout the world that a great king should be born who should govern the universe. This expectation continued to increase till the birth of our Saviour, about the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Herod the Ascalonite; and which was derived traditionally from the ancient prophecies, but especially from the promise that was made to Adam of a Redeemer who should crush the head of the serpent.' This prophecy had floated down the stream of time in connection with the custom of propitiating their false gods by animal sacrifice, as well as the knowledge and practice of all the other positive institutions of God's appointment. The Jews had Moses and the prophets to guide them; and all the prophecies that went before of the Messiah, by all the holy prophets since the world began, were extant in their scriptures, and it was the confident opinion of the Jewish rabbis that the Messiah would appear within the compass of fifty years from the period that Herod made inquiries in consequence of the visit of the magi.

2

Towards the end of the second two thousand years of the world's creation, "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' The fulness of time was then come, for all the prophecies had been fulfilled, the sceptre had departed from Judah,3 the seventy weeks of Daniel were accomplished "to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. The angel Gabriel was, therefore, despatched on a message to the Virgin Mary, who was a lineal descendant of the prophet David, and who was himself an eminent type of Christ; for, from a shepherd, David became a mighty king, whose temporal kingdom was a type or representation of Christ's spiritual kingdom; hence He is said to sit on David's throne, whose kingdom shall have no end. Mary was espoused to an aged descendant of the same family, and whom the angel in his vision called the "Son of David." In her espousal to Joseph, the wisdom and mercy of God were conspicuous in preserving her from the imputation of unchaste conduct, and in giving her and her offspring a natural protector of grave and mature years.

"It is necessary to everlasting salvation that we also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ." "Without controversy

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great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh," was made of a woman and under the law. He was sent forth by God the Father, to be a new and perfect lawgiver. He was the master in the house in which Moses, his type, was only a servant- the great and the last prophet, the Alpha and the Omega, to whom Moses referred the world. the Apostle and High Priest of a new profession to make reconciliation for the sins of the people—the great shepherd, pastor, and bishop - the master and Lord the teacher come from God and out

8

1 Gen. iii. 15.

4 Dan. ix. 24-27.

Deut. xviii. 15. 7 Heb. ii. 17; iii. 1; iv. 14; v. 5; vi. 20; viii. 1; ix. 11; x. 21.

8 Heb. xiii. 20; 1 Pet. ii. 25.