nisters is full of pride and vaine-glory, and hath made
the holy people of God to be despised, as if they were prophane and
uncleane in comparison of their ministers" (Gillespie's Assertion of the
Government, 1641, p. 3).]

[277] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 779, 780.

[278] Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, iii. 542.

[279] [In some editions of the Genevan version the word "eldership" is
thus explained in the margin: "Under this name he containeth the whole
ministerie of the church which was at Ephesus."]

[280] Assertion of the Government of the Church of Scotland, 1641, pp.
128-130, 136-147.

[281] [It is not quite clear which conference Dr Mitchell is here
referring to. In the conference held at Stirling in December 1578, the
Second Book of Discipline was discussed section by section. The results
are preserved not only by Spottiswoode, as mentioned above (p. 227 n.),
but also by Calderwood (iii. 433-442), neither of whom, however, says
that these results were then noted as having been expressly approved by
the king. The heads agreed upon at the Holyrood conference on 17th
February 1585-86 do not include anything which can be regarded as the
draft of the clause of the Act of 1592 concerning the power and
jurisdiction of "particulare kirkis" (Calderwood's History, iv.
491-494). The articles defining the jurisdiction of provincial
assemblies, presbyteries, and particular kirks, agreed on by the king in
conference with some of the brethren sent to him by the General Assembly
in May 1586, are transferred almost _verbatim_ to the Act of Parliament
of 1592 (Booke of the Universall Kirk, Bannatyne Club edit., ii. 665,
666; Calderwood's History, iv. 567, 568; Acts of Parliament, iii. 541,
542).]

[282] The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, 1641, pp. 60,
64, 65.

CHAPTER XI.

ALESIUS.

We owe it to the Rev. Christopher Anderson, the author of the 'Annals of
the English Bible,' that attention has been once more turned to the
deeply interesting story of Alexander Alane, or Alesius. Principal
Lorimer, in his 'Scottish Reformation,' has thrown further light on him.
And Dr Merle D'Aubigne, who appears to have minutely examined most of
his tracts and commentaries, has wrought into his graphic but
imaginative narrative much of the information which they have been the
chief means of handing down to us. It was after his expatriation that he
received from Melanchthon the name of Alesius, or the wandere