Scotland (though they were but two) that they protested against the said acts, and fled to England, leaving behind them reasons that moved them to do so. And Mr. James Melvin wrote against the subscribers at that time very pertinently; proving first, 'That they had not only set up a new pope, and so become traitors to Christ; and condescended to that chief error of papistry, whereupon all the rest depend; but further, in so doing, they had granted more to the King, than ever the popes of Rome peaceably obtained,' &c. And in the end, as for those that lamented their own weakness and feebleness, he adviseth them, to remove the public slander, 'by going boldly to the King and Lords, and shew them how they had fallen through weakness, but by God's power are risen again; and there by public note and witness taken, free themselves from that subscription, and to will the same to be delete, renouncing and detesting it plainly, and thereafter publicly in their sermons; and by their declaration and retractation in writ, presented to the faithful, manifest the same, let them do with stipend, benefice, and life itself, what they list.' This I inferr, because this counsel is now condemned; and when poor people, offended with ministers subscriptions of bonds and other compliances, desire acknowledgments of the offence, they reject it as an impertinent imposition, and plead they are not obliged to manifest any retractation but to an ecclesiastical judicatory. To which I shall say nothing here, but this is no novelty. After this, it is known what bickerings the faithful witnesses of Christ had, in their conflicts with this supremacy upon the account of Mr. David Black's declinature, which they both advised him to, and approved when he gave it in, against the King and Council, as judges of his doctrine. And the Commissioners of the General Assembly ordained all, to deal mightily with the power of the word, against the Council's encroachments; for which they were charged to depart forth of Edinburgh. After which he added a second declinature: 'Declaring, there are two jurisdictions in this realm; the one spiritual, the other civil; the one respecting the conscience, the other externals, &c.--Therefore, in so far as he was one of the spiritual office-bearers, and had discharged his spiritual calling in some measure of grace and sincerity, should not, nor could not be lawfully judged for preaching and applying the word, by any civil power; he being an ambassador and messenger of the Lord Jesus, having his commission from the King of kings, and all his instructions set down and limited in the book of God, that cannot be extended, abridged, or altered by any mortal wight, king or emperor; and seeing he was sent to all sorts, his commission and discharge of it should not, nor cannot be lawfully judged by them to whom he was sent; they being sheep, and not pastors, to be judged by the word, and not to be judges thereof in a