sources as yet exist, the broken and disjointed fragments of the original Registers. Imperfect though they certainly are, two of these sources are here deserving of particular notice.

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1. From an early period it became an object of importance to select from the general registers of the Acts and Proceedings of the Church, such parts as were calculated to illustrate and explain the principles of its constitution, and to regulate its ordinary admi(P. 325.) nistration. As early as 1574, a Committee of Members was appointed "to take travell in visiting and perusing of the Acts of the Assembly; to mark and note sick as are general, that thereafter they may be drawn and extracted out of the Books, that all (P. 566.)" pretext of ignorance may be tane away." Again in 1582, the Assembly "ordaines Mr [John] Craig to lay an order for collecting the "Acts of the Kirk betuixt and the nixt Assemblie." In 1583, "Anent "the travels taken be Mr Craige in collecting and disposing the Acts "of the Assemblie," certain brethren are ordained "to consider and oversee the samine, and to returne their opinion back to the "Assemblie:" and in the same Assembly, "anent the labours taken "be Mr John Craige in collecting of the Acts of the Assemblie, seing the great travels tane be him for the weale of the same, not "without the singular fruit and profite of the whole brethren, to "the effect the same may be absolved and brought to perfection, it "is thought good that" the Commissioners" travel in perusing the "whole work," and assist in the full completing thereof,-" that "the judgment of the next General Assemblie may be had there(P. 624, 628.)" upon." And in the following Assembly, held in the same year, the Commissioners report that they "had considered the travels of "Mr Craig in the Acts of the Kirk, and that in his labours God

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was to be praised: yet some things they had noted, wherewith

they desired he sould conferr, and thereafter proceed with him in "farther reasoning."

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Of the praiseworthy labours of Mr John Craig, nothing more appears till the year 1593, when the following entry occurs: "Anent "the Actis of the Kirk: That everie Presbyterie may be the better "instructit therin, the Kirk hes ordinit Mr James Carmichaell, quha “has alreddie tane sum paneis in correcting therof, to perfyte the work, and to present the same to the next General Assemblie of "the Kirk." And again, in the Assembly of 1595, "Anent the "Actis of the Assemblie: The brether has ordainit that the samein “be sichtit, and speciall Acts for practise of the Kirk be extractit "and joinit with the Booke of Discipline, to be publischit either " in wryte or print, that none pretend ignorance therof, and to this "effect to concurre with the Clerk, Mrs Robert Pont, Thomas “Buchannan, James Melvill, Johnstoun, and James Carmichael." Here we find no distinct allusion to the previous labours of Mr John Craig; but having evidently had the same object, it may be presumed that those of Mr James Carmichael and his coadjutors consisted of a revisal, perhaps enlargement, and continuation of the former. †

That these careful compilations should have been afterwards entirely lost sight of, is highly improbable; and as there still exist various copies of such an abridgment, to which has been usually given the title of "the Book of the Universal Kirk of Scotland,” it seems no very hazardous conjecture, that these may be transcripts of the work of Carmichael, continued to the termination of

* Some curious notices relative to the progress of Mr Carmichael's labours occur in the Register of the Provincial Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, and will be found in the Appendix, p. xxx.

+ This Manuscript appears to have belonged to William Earl of Crawford-Lindsay, who flourished in the reigns of Charles I. and II., and was distinguished for his attachment to the Presbyterian Church: it has his autograph signature in different parts of the volume.

(P. 815.)

(P. 856.)

Presbyterian government in 1606. The copy preserved in the Advocates Library appears to be a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century, and contains proceedings of Assemblies down to the year 1616, including most of those that were condemned as unlawful by the General Assembly of 1638. It has been adopted as the main ground-work of the present collection, and has been found on collation to admit of little correction or improvement from any other copy. When the larger volume from which it must have been compiled, was examined by Dr Lee (App. p. XXIV.) in 1834, he found, on a random calculation, that it contained more than thrice the quantity of matter preserved in "the Book of the Kirk;" but of what that larger quantity chiefly consisted, he had not an opportunity of ascertaining, further than that the Record "contained a great mass of information in a more complete "and certainly in a more correct form than any thing that has been "exhibited in any of the publications which he had ever seen.”

2. In aid of the "Book of the Kirk," and for the enlargement of its contents, the Ecclesiastical History of David Calderwood has proved of most important use. It would be here out of place to enter into any detailed account of that valuable work. It was undertaken, if not originally under the express authority, yet with the entire approbation of the Church; and as the Records, recovered in 1638, were completely accessible to the author, it is evident that he had made a diligent use of his opportunities, and had not confined his researches to any of the abridgments which were then extant. His quotations from the Registers of the Assembly are very copious, and in the present work have been interwoven with the contents of the Book of the Kirk, but never without indicating the source from which they have been derived, by including them within brackets, with the initial letter of the author's name. The great value of Calderwood's work has been long known,

and its complete publication from the original manuscript, now in the British Museum, has been one of the meritorious labours of the Wodrow Society. The extracts introduced into the present collection have been taken from a transcript of the original, made for the use, and under the inspection of Mr Robert Wodrow, now in the possession of the Church of Scotland.

It has been the object and anxious wish of those to whom the conduct of this work was entrusted, to preserve every fragment of genuine record that could be discovered. For that purpose the historical works of Knox, of Melville, of Spottiswood, of Petrie, of Row, and others, have been carefully examined, and various corrections and additions have been obtained, which, like those from Calderwood, have been invariably indicated by the initial letters of their respective names. In further illustration of the proceedings of the Church, several public documents, taken from the Registers of the Secret Council and other authentic sources, have been introduced at their proper places in the order of time, and will be found to add to the historical interest of these volumes.

In the selection and transcription of nearly the whole of its materials, and in the various researches essential to the successful completion of the work, the Club has to acknowledge its deep obligations to the Reverend William Beattie Smith, A. M., Chaplain to the Garrison of Edinburgh Castle, whose zealous and long sustained exertions could have been prompted only by a deep feeling of interest in the object to which they were directed. That, after all, some things may have escaped his researches, is far from impossible; that some few notices have been introduced which were not strictly within the proper scope of the work, will not escape the observation of a critical reader; but on the whole, it is scarcely to be hoped that a more extensive view of the actual proceedings of

the Presbyterian Church, during the period which it embraces, can now be attained.

It only remains to be stated, that the proper contents of what has been usually entitled the Book of the Universal Kirk of Scotland, may be said to terminate with the General Assembly appointed to be held at Aberdeen in the year 1604; and that the Assemblies which follow, from 1606 to 1618, whose proceedings have been here retained as necessary to complete the historical series, were, on the (App. p. XLIX.) restoration of Presbytery in 1638, "condemned, and declared every "one of them to have been from the beginning, unfree, unlawful, “and null,” for reasons which are recorded at length in the Acts of that Assembly.

EDINBURGH, March 1845.