Lectures on the Philosophy of Modern History

1150, when it was given up to the canons regular, has been preserved; and this library, comprehending but seventeen volumes, was exclusively ecclesiastical. Jamieson, p. 135, 376, 377. The monks of Iona appear to have yielded to the supremacy of Rome in the year 716, and the island was ruined by the Danes in the year 801. Ibid. p. 290-297.

(1) Dr. M'Crie has claimed for Knox the credit of having in this visit assisted in revising the English liturgy and articles, and particularly of having by his influence excluded from the former the notion of the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament, and guarded against the adoration of the elements. M'Crie, vol. 1. p. 87, 88. But for this statement he has quoted only the authority of the prolocutor in a disputation with Latimer after the accession of Mary. Knox himself, though he has spoken of these changes with much satisfaction, has not intimated that he had contributed to effect them. Burnet, on the other hand, has represented as the sole reason of the slowness with which the service of the church was freed from these corruptions, that some of the bishops and the laity generally adhered to the old superstitions; and he has mentioned Bucer alone as consulted in regard to the proposed corrections. Hist. of the Reform. vol. 2. p. 147. In regard to the articles it appears only that after they

had been prepared by Cranmer and Ridley, and submitted to the king and council, they were referred to six licensed preachers, the last of whom was Knox, and that these proposed some alterations, which have not been specified. Strype's Cranmer, p. 273.

Knox, though employed as a preacher in the English church, declined a benefice, assigning these reasons for his refusal, that no minister had power to exclude the unworthy from the sacrament, and that this was administered to the people kneeling. M'Crie, vol. 1. p. 98, 99. He afterwards declined a bishopric offered to him by Edward, but appears to have been not very steady in his objections; he is said to have alleged at the time that the episcopal office was destitute of divine authority, and that in the English church it was exercised in a manner not consistent with the ecclesiastical canons ; but he afterwards declared that the motive of his refusal was "assuredly the foresight of trouble to come." Ibid. p. 101, 112. The truth seems to be that even then his opinions and temper were predisposed to the system, which he afterwards embraced when he saw it realised at Geneva.

(m) "In the same ship in which he (Knox) sailed, there was sent by the French court to the queen-regent a staff of state, with a great seal, on which were engraved the arms of

France, Scotland, and England. This was shown to him in great secrecy." Ibid. p. 244.

(n) As the sanction of the king and queen had not been given to this act of legislation, the condition of the Reformation remained unsettled until the year 1592, when James was induced by circumstances to assent to the establishment of the presbyterian system.

(0) That Mary was guilty of the murder of her husband, seems to be sufficiently established by the testimony of Morton, that "the quene was the doare thereof." M'Crie, vol. 2. p. 225. The The principal writers, says doctor M'Crie, who in modern times have undertaken the defence of Mary, are Goodall, Tytler, Stuart, and Whitaker. To these we may now add Mr. Chalmers, who has assumed the same chivalrous office in the present century.

(p) It is declared that "all our salvatioun springs fra the eternall and immutabill decre of God, quha of meir grace electit us in Christ Jesus, his sone, before the foundatione of the warld was laid:" and that, "as God the Father creatit us quhan we wer not, as his sone our Lord Jesus redemit us quhan we war enemies to him, sa alswa the Haly Gaist dois sanctifie and regenerat us, without all respect of ony merite proceeding fra us, be it befoor or be it efter our regeneratioun." Ibid. vol. 1. p. 331.

(9) This defection appears to have commenced in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. The professor of divinity in Glasgow, whose name was Simson, began it, being accustomed to say that the Westminster Confession, which had been adopted by the church of Scotland, should be taken cum grano salis. For this he was in the year 1720 expelled by the general assembly; but his opinions seem to have notwithstanding spread rapidly through that church, for in the year 1736 a secession was made from it on account of its alleged departure from its original and genuine principles.

(r) It was determined in the year 1572, that the names and offices of archbishop and bishop should be continued during the king's minority, but that their spiritual jurisdictions should be subjected to the general assembly of the church. Robertson, vol. 2. p. 39.

(s) The word is derived from whiggam, a sound used by the waggoners of the western counties of Scotland in driving their horses, whence they were themselves named whiggamors, and more briefly whigs. Johnson's Dict. According to others it originally signified whey, the customary food of the peasants of the same districts. Laing's Hist. of Scotland, vol. 1. p. 366. Lond. 1800.

LECTURE LV.

Of the history of Ireland, from the commencement of the invasions of the Danes in the year 797 to that of the reign of James I. in the year 1603.