language, they feared "that their yielding on this occasion would be held as an acknowledgment of his majesty's jurisdiction in matters that are mere spiritual, which might move his majesty to attempt further in the spiritual government of the house of God, and end in either a plain subverting of the spiritual judicature, or at least a confounding thereof with civil, if at any time profane and ambitious magistrates might by such dangerous beginnings, find the hedge broken down, to make a violent irruption upon the Lord's inheritance; which the Lord forbid." (Declinature of the King and Council's Judicature in Matters Spiritual, &c., by Mr. David Black, 18 November 1596.) This struggle for the liberties of the church issued, as might have been expected, in the defeat of the weaker party, and Black was banished from St. Andrews. The king was afterwards so far reconciled to Mr. Black, as to allow his admission into the vacant parish of Arbirlot. It was the delight of James, however, to gain his object by policy rather than violence; and at length, by a series of stealthy, manoeuvres, which he dignified with the name of kingcrafty he succeeded in overturning the presbyterian polity. His first attempt of this nature was made shortly after this, when he requested the assembly to appoint some of their number, with whom he might advise respecting affairs in which the church might be interested; and the assembly rashly complied, appointing fourteen ministers to act as commissioners for the church. "This," says James Melville, " was the very needle which drew in the episcopal thread." Next year, the king stole another step towards his purpose, by prevailing upon the parliament to declare that prelacy was the third estate of the kingdom, and that such pastors as he pleased to raise to the dignity of bishops should have a right to vote in parliament. The next step was to prevail on the church courts to allow their commissioners to enjoy this enviable privilege. The commissioners themselves do not seem to have been unwilling to comply; and they endeavoured to persuade their brethren that his majesty's, object was merely to maintain the dignity of the ministerial office, and in nowise to bring in the popish or Anglican bishops. But the more clear-sighted saw through the strategem and protested against it. Character He is characterised as a man of singular fidelity and diligence,