Church, and therefore before we enter upon this section of the history, we deem it right to indicate once for all the views which we ourselves hold upon the subject. It is the province of the biographer to narrate, and he must not be held as endorsing everything which he records. [1] "History of Scotland," vol. iii. p. 354. [2] "An Essay on the Portraits of John Knox," pp. 139-140. "Works," vol. xii. [3] "Works," vol. vi. p. 90. [4] Froude's "History of England," vol. vi. p. 273. [5] McCrie's "Works," vol. i. p. 149. [6] "De Historia Gentis Scotorum," book iv. chap. 22. I am indebted for these citations to my late friend, Dr. J. M. Ross, whose researches into the literature of Scotland have been recently published, and whose early death is mourned by all who knew his worth. His work on the Pre-reformation Literature of Scotland is a perfect thesaurus of precious things, and has attracted the widest attention. {136} CHAPTER X. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH, 1560. The meeting of Parliament, provided for in the Treaty of Leith, was opened with great ceremony on the 1st of August, 1560, and was attended by an unusually large number of members. Knox "improved" the occasion by preaching from the cathedral pulpit a series of expository sermons on the prophecies of Haggai, with special application to the circumstances of the country at the time. On his own showing he was "vehement," and as he inveighed strongly against those who had been enriched with the revenues of the Church, his words gave great offence to many. Maitland sneeringly said, "What! we must now forget ourselves and bear the barrow to build the house of God,"--words which already showed that spirit of insincerity which afterwards took him into the opposite camp. The great matter before this Parliament, after it had approved the articles of the treaty, was the settlement of religion, and as a preliminary to that the ministers were requested to draw up a summary statement of "that doctrine which they would maintain as wholesome and true, and only {137} necessary to be believed." This work was done by them in four days, at the end of which they produced the Confession which Knox has given at full length in his history. It is all but certain that he had a considerable hand in its preparation, and it has been described by the younger McCrie as "remarkably free from metaphysical distinctions and minutiae," and as "running in an easy style, and in fact reading like a good sermon in old Scotch." It is, of course, Calvinistic, but in the article on election, there is nothing of either reprobation or preterition. In that on the Lord's Supper it repudiates alike the doctrine of transubstantiation, and that of those who believe it to be "nothing else but a naked and bare sign," insisting on some mystical influence as connected with it, but yet confessing that such influence is given "neither at that only time, nor