INDEX, 465 {1} THE LIFE OF JOHN KNOX. PERIOD VII. FROM AUGUST 1560, WHEN HE WAS SETTLED AS MINISTER OF EDINBURGH, AT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMATION, TO DECEMBER 1563, WHEN HE WAS ACQUITTED FROM A CHARGE OF TREASON. IN appointing the protestant ministers to particular stations, a measure which engaged the attention of the privy council immediately after the conclusion of the civil war, the temporary arrangements that had been formerly made were in general confirmed, and our Reformer resumed his charge as minister of Edinburgh.[1] For several months he had officiated as minister of St Andrews;[2] but in the end of April 1560, {2} he left that place, and returned to the capital,[3] where he preached during the siege of Leith, and the negotiations which issued in a peace. Although the parliament had abolished the papal jurisdiction and worship, and ratified the protestant doctrine, as laid down in the Confession of Faith, the reformed church was not yet completely organized in Scotland. Hitherto the Book of Common Order, used by the English church at Geneva, had been generally followed as the rule of public worship and discipline. But this having been compiled for a single congregation, and for one that consisted chiefly of men of education, was found inadequate for the use of an extensive church, composed of a multitude of confederated congregations. Our reformers were anxious to provide the means of religious instruction to the whole people in the kingdom; but they were very far from approving of the promiscuous admission of persons of all descriptions to the peculiar privileges of the church of Christ. From the beginning, they were sensible of the great importance of ecclesiastical discipline, to the prosperity of religion, the maintenance of order, and the preservation of sound doctrine and morals. In the petition presented to parliament in August, the establishment of this was specially requested.[4] And Knox, who had observed the great advantages which attended the observance of a strict discipline at Geneva, {3} and the manifold evils which resulted from the want of it in England, insisted very particularly on this topic, in the discourses which he delivered from the book of Haggai during the sitting of parliament.[5] The difficulties which the reformed ministers had to surmount, before they could accomplish this important object, began to present themselves at this early stage of their progress. When it is considered, that Calvin was subjected to a sentence of banishment from the senate of Geneva, and exposed to a popular tumult, before he could prevail on the citizens to submit to ecclesiastical discipline,[6] we need not be surprised at the opposition which our reformers met with in their