Calderwood informs us he read with great applause in the university of St Andrews. “Buchanan and Mr Melvill were doctors of divinity,” says Rutherford, in his Lex Rex, pref. p. 5. Lond. 1644. _Of Readers._――Those employed as readers appear to have often transgressed the bounds prescribed to them, and to have both solemnized marriage, and administered the sacraments. Different acts of Assembly were made to restrain these excesses. The General Assembly, in October 1576, prohibited all readers from ministering “the holie sacrament of the Lord, except such as hes the word of exhortation.” The Assembly which met in July 1579 inhibited them from celebrating marriage, unless they were found meet by “the commission, or synodal assembly.” At length, in April 1581, the order was suppressed. “Anent readers: Forsamekle as in assemblies preceding, the office thereof was concludit to be no ordinar office in the kirk of God, and the admission of them suspendit to the present assemblie, the kirk in ane voyce hes votit and concludit farder, that in na tymes coming any reider be admitted to the office of reider, be any having power within the kirk.” Buik of the Universall Kirk, in loc. {283} _Of Superintendents.――The church of Scotland did not consider superintendents as ordinary or permanent office‑bearers in the church. They are not mentioned in the Book of Common Order. The first Book of Discipline explicitly declares, that their appointment was a matter of temporary expedience, for the plantation of the church, and on account of the paucity of ministers. Its words are, “Because we have appointed a larger stipend to them that shall be superintendents than to the rest of the ministers, we have thought good to signifie to your honours such reasons as moved us to make difference betwixt teachers at this time.” And again: “We consider that if the ministers whom God hath endowed with his singular graces amongst us should be appointed to several places, there to make their continual residence, that then the greatest part of the realme should be destitute of all doctrine; which should not onely be the occasion of great murmur, but also be dangerous to the salvation of many. And therefore we have thought it a thing most expedient at this time, that from the whole number of godly and learned men, now presently in this realm, be selected ten or twelve, (for in so many provinces we have divided the whole,) to whom charge and commandment should be given, to plant and erect kirkes, to set, order, and appoint ministers, as the former order prescribes, to the countries that shall be appointed to their care where none are now.” First and second Books of Discipline, p. 35, printed anno 1621. Dunlop’s Confessions, ii. 538, 539. Archbishop Spotswood has not acted faithfully, if his History has been printed, in this place, exactly according to his manuscript. He has omitted the passages above quoted, and has comprehended the whole of the two paragraphs from which they