Comparatively few of the authorities were entered in the MS. when it was placed in my hands. I have filled in many, and have taken care, in almost every instance where volume and page are given, to check the quotations with the originals. My notes, and my additions to Dr Mitchell's notes, are enclosed within square brackets; but when I have merely supplied authorities, they are not so distinguished. The list which he had drawn up of the works of Alesius was partly in an obsolete form of shorthand, which to me was quite undecipherable. Having been privileged to examine a good many of these rare treatises in various public libraries, I have been able, though only to an inconsiderable degree, to supplement the list; these additions being marked like those in the notes and other appendices. In revising the Lectures themselves, I have corrected a number of trifling slips, but have made no alteration of which Dr Mitchell would not have cordially approved had his attention been drawn to it. In preparing the Lectures, Dr Mitchell availed himself of elaborate articles he had written at various times for periodicals and other publications. The present volume is valuable in several ways, not the least of these being that it embodies, on many obscure and important points, the matured views of one of the most competent and cautious of historical students--of one who grudged no time and spared no labour in eliciting and elucidating the truth. D. H. F. _December 1899._ [Illustration: (signed) yrs always cordially Alex. F. Mitchell] THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION CONTENTS. PAGE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR MITCHELL xiii CHAPTER I. THE NATURE AND NEED OF THE REFORMATION 1 CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON 19 CHAPTER III. THE OPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSORS 34 CHAPTER IV. GEORGE WISHART 56 CHAPTER V. KNOX AS LEADER OF OUR REFORMATION 79 CHAPTER VI. THE OLD SCOTTISH CONFESSION OF 1560 99 CHAPTER VII. THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 123 CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE 144 SECT. I. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH 145 II. THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH 162 III. THE PREROGATIVES AND DUTIES OF CHURCH MEMBERS 169 IV. EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG AND UNIVERSITY REFORM 174 V. CARE OF THE POOR 179 CHAPTER IX. THE LAST DAYS OF JOHN KNOX 184 CHAPTER X. THE SECOND BOOK OF DISCIPLINE 214