shame to all religion to have the
Majestie of God so barbarously spoken unto, sometimes so seditiously
that their prayers were plaine libels, girding at soveraigntie and
authoritie; or lyes, being stuffed with all the false reports in the
kingdome" (Large Declaration, 1639, p. 16).]

[179] [The committee appointed by the General Assembly to examine the
Large Declaration describe it as dishonourable to God, to the king, and
to the kirk; and as "stuffed full of lies and calumnies." Concerning
this part in particular they say: "To the great dishonour of this kirk
[it] is affirmed in this Declaration that there is a great deformitie in
our service--no forme of publict prayer, but preachers, readers, and
ignorant schoollemasters, praying in the church, sometymes so
ignorantlie," &c. (Peterkin's Records of the Kirk, pp. 265, 266).]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE; OR, THE BOOKE OF THE POLICIE OF THE
CHURCH.

[Sidenote: Knox's part in its preparation.]

I regard the First Book of Discipline as, in several respects, the most
thoughtful, judicious, practical, and comprehensive of the documents
connected with the organisation of the Reformed Church of Scotland. It
was drawn up by the same six men[180] who were subsequently entrusted
with the preparation of the Confession of Faith; and it has been said
that they first settled the titles of the several chapters, and then
apportioned the preparation of so many of them to each. But this is
matter of pure conjecture. The portion on the universities, from the
multitude of its practical details, we cannot but assign mainly to
Douglas, the Principal of St Mary's College, and Wynram, the sub-prior
of the Augustinian Monastery at St Andrews. One can hardly doubt that
the rest, if not actually drafted by Knox, was carefully remoulded by
him; and it bears evidence of acquaintance with books which were far
more likely to have been known to him than to any of the others--as
Herman of Cologne's Book of the Reformation, Latin versions of some of
the earlier Kirchenbuecher or Kirchenordnungen of the German Protestants,
and probably of the famous Ordonnances of Calvin, as drafted at Geneva
after his return from exile.

I. _The Government of the Church._

[Sidenote: Permanent Office-bearers.]

The opinions of our reformer and his associates respecting the
government and discipline of the church are gathered partly from the
opening chapters of the Book of Common Orde