[271] Aaron's Rod Blossoming, p. 183.
[272] Peterkin's Booke of the Universall Kirk, 1839, p. 549 n. [The late Bishop Russell, after examining the four MS. copies of Spottiswoode's History, came to the conclusion that the one in the Advocates' Library is only the first and incompleted draft of the work, and that the one in Trinity College, Dublin, is the one which Spottiswoode himself prepared for the press. Bishop Russell accordingly followed the Dublin MS. in his edition of the History printed for the Spottiswoode Society, and that edition (as well as the old folio edition) contains the notes of agreement and disagreement. Peterkin has printed the Second Book of Discipline, from an attested copy publicly read on the 29th of September 1591 "in the elderschip of Haddingtoun," and "subscryvit be the brethren thairof." Of the ten subscribers, nine write minister after their names; the other simply signs, "Mr L. Hay, Bass.">[
[273] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 759, 760.
[274] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 769.
[276] ["Some reproachfully and others ignorantly call them lay elders. But the distinction of the clergie and laity is popish and anti-christian; and they who have narrowly considered the records of ancient times have noted this distinction as one of the grounds whence the mystery of iniquity had the beginning of it. The name of clergie appropriate to ministers 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.