[252] [For the substance of Archibald Hamilton's account, see M'Crie's Knox, 1855, p. 405. Bannatyne's account is in both editions of his work (Journal of Transactions, 1806, and Memoriales of Transactions, 1836). It is likewise in Laing's Knox, vi. 634-645; and there (pp. 649-660) is also given a translation of Smeton's (or Lawson's) account. The accounts of Bannatyne and Smeton do not always agree as to the exact day on which certain events happened.]
[253] [Morton was elected regent on the 24th of November 1572, the day on which Knox died (Acts of Parliament, iii. 78; Bannatyne's Memoriales, p. 280). Bannatyne places Morton's visit on the 19th; Smeton leaves the day uncertain.]
[254] For a defence of Kirkaldy see Barbé's Kirkaldy of Grange, Famous Scots Series, pp. 108-124.
[255] For a different interpretation see Taylor Innes's John Knox, Famous Scots Series, pp. 30, 31.
[256] [Morton's testimony to Knox, as recorded by Melville, was: "That he nather fearit nor flatterit anie fleche" (Diary, p. 60). As recorded by Calderwood: "Here lyeth a man who in his life never feared the face of man; who hath beene often threatned with dag and dager, but yitt hath ended his dayes in peace and honour. For he had God's providence watching over him in a speciall maner, when his verie life was sought" (History, iii. 242).]
In a previous lecture I have endeavoured to give a pretty full account of the First Book of Discipline. It remains yet to say a few words about the Second Book of Discipline.
Principal John Cunningham has said: "The First Book exhibited a system of polity sagaciously suited to the circumstances of the country and the church: it seemed to grow out of the times."[257] I will add that it was not only suited to the times, but to many of the practical needs of the church of all times. I therefore hold that even yet it is worthy of a higher place than to be deemed merely a "collection of parchments and coins deposited beneath it [_i.e._, the Second Book] by which future generations may read the story of the times in which the building was begun."[258] The Second Book is more a book of constitutional law; and aims, as the Principal says, at elaborating a system from the New Testament without reference to circumstances, and bears far more resemblance to the Ordonnances of Calvin than to the less ambitious and more comprehensive Church Order Books of Germany. But the Second Book of Discipline has even fewer practical details than the ordinances of Geneva. Of course, so far as it actually abolished or modified the regulations of the First Book, these fell to be disused; but in so far as it did not actually do so, they still had a certain validity: and even in the Covenanting times it is generally the Books, not the Book of Discipline, to which reference is made in Acts of Assembly.