{ 250} In the mean time, the protestants, having assembled at Edinburgh, appointed commissioners to lay their representations before the convention of the nobility, and the council of the clergy.[370] The commissioners gave in to the latter certain preliminary articles of reformation, in which they craved, that the religious service should be performed in the vulgar tongue; that such as were unfit for the pastoral office should be removed from their benefices; that, in time coming, bishops should be admitted with the assent of the barons of the diocese, and parish‑priests with the assent of the parishioners; and that measures should be adopted for preventing immoral and ignorant persons from being employed in ecclesiastical functions.[371] But there was another paper laid before the council, which, it is probable, gave them more uneasiness than the representation of the protestants. This was a remonstrance by certain persons attached to the Roman catholic faith, “craving redress of several grievances complained of in the ecclesiastical administration of Scotland.” It consisted of thirteen articles, in which, among other points of reformation, they required that the exacting of corpse‑presents and Easter offerings should be abolished; that, for the more effectual instruction of those who partake of the sacraments, “there should be an { 251} godlie and faithful declaration set forth in Inglis toung, to be first shewin to the pepil at all times,” when any of the sacraments are administered; and that the common prayers and litanies should also be read in the vulgar language. At the same time, they desired that none should be permitted to speak irreverently of the mass, make innovations upon the ceremonies of the church, or administer divine ordinances without authority from the bishops.[372]
The council were not disposed to agree to the proposals either of the protestant or the popish reformers. After making certain partial regulations relating to some of the grievances complained of by the latter,[373] and renewing the canons of former councils respecting the lives of the clergy and public instruction,[374] they refused to allow any part of the public service to be performed in the vulgar language;[375] they ratified in the strongest terms all the popish doctrines which were controverted by the protestants;[376] and they ordained, that strict inquisition should be made after such as absented themselves from the celebration { 252} of mass,[377] and that excommunications should be fulminated against those who administered or received the sacraments after the protestant forms, and against parents and sponsors who had presented children for baptism to the reformed preachers, and did not bring them to the priests to be re‑baptized.[378]