The person who stept forward as their champion was Quintin Kennedy, uncle to the earl of Cassilis, and abbot of Crossraguel. Though his talents were not of a superior order, the abbot was certainly one of the most respectable of the popish clergy in Scotland, not only in birth, but also in regularity and decorum of conduct. He seems to have spent the greater part of his life in the same neglect of professional duty which characterised his brethren; but he was roused from his inactivity by the zeal and success of the protestant preachers, who, in the years 1556 and 1557, attacked the popish faith, and inveighed against the idleness and corruption of the clergy.[84] At an age when others retire from the field, {61} he began to rub up his long‑neglected armour, and descended into the theological arena. His first appearance as a polemical writer was in 1558, when he published a short system of catholic tactics, under the title of _Ane Compendius Tractive_, showing “the nerrest and onlie way to establish the conscience of a Christian man,” in all matters which were in debate concerning faith and religion. This way was no other than implicit faith in the decisions of the church or clergy. When any point of religion was controverted, the scripture might be cited as a witness, but the church was the judge, whose determinations, in general councils canonically assembled, were to be humbly received and submitted to by all the faithful.[85] It was but “a barbour saying,” which the protestants had commonly in their mouths, that every man ought to examine the scriptures for himself. It was sufficient for those who did not occupy the place of teachers, that they had a general knowledge of the creed, the ten commandments, and the Lord’s prayer, according to the sense in which these were explained by the church. And “as to the sacramentis, and all other secretis of the scripture,” every Christian man ought to “stand to the judgement of his pastor, who did bear his burden in all matters doubtsome above his knowledge.”[86]