=37. Abolition of Episcopacy.=--For some time the government and the church had been at variance about the bishops. The General Assembly of 1581 had declared the episcopal order to be contrary to the Word of God, and had adopted the _Second Book of Discipline_ as the rule of the government of the Church. This book was drawn up by _Andrew Melville_, who had succeeded Knox as the spiritual leader of the reformed Church. He was a zealous presbyterian, and it was mainly owing to him that the Scottish Church adopted that form of church government. The Ruthven lords had been the champions of the presbyterian or no-bishop party, and, while they were in power, the ministers upheld by them had taken more and more authority upon themselves. In theory they placed the church far above the civil power, and they taught that the chief magistrate, the King, ought to be subject to them in all matters of conscience and religion. They also claimed the right of the old Church in interfering with people's private affairs. Each _minister_ looked on himself as _bishop_ over his own flock, and would not submit to having any overseer set over him again. But, as the removal of the bishops as spiritual peers would have been the removal of one of the three Estates--that one too that had always been on the side of the crown--and as their existence served as a pretext to the nobles for drawing their revenues, it was clearly the interest both of the crown and of the nobles to maintain them. In 1588 _Philip of Spain_ fitted out a great fleet for the invasion of England. This caused a great panic throughout Scotland. The people feared that Philip might conquer England and bring it again under the dominion of the Pope, in which case the subjection of Scotland must soon follow. The _Covenant_ for the maintenance of the _Protestant religion_, which had been signed in 1581, was renewed and signed all over the land. So great was the dread of the bishop of Rome that the people looked on all bishops with suspicion, and in 1592 an act was passed by which the whole order was swept away and the presbyterian polity established. Thenceforth the church was to be governed by a series of courts, the members of which were presbyters. The ministers of several parishes formed a presbytery, these again were grouped together into synods, while supreme over all was the _General Assembly_, composed of ministers and lay elders from the several presbyteries, which was to meet once a year at Edinburgh, and at which the King or his commissioner was to be present.