from their contemporaries the
Jesuits, who considered the monarchy to be an institution set up by
the national will, in ascribing to it a divine right, but they urged
that a king existed for the sake of the people, and that as he was
bound by the laws agreed on by common consent, resistance to him was
not only allowed, but under certain circumstances might even be a
duty. We must also remark the opposite view, which was developed in
contradiction to this, but yet rested on the same foundation. It was
admitted that the king, if the people were considered as a whole,
existed for their sake, and not the people for his; but the king, it
was said, was at the same time the head of the people; he possessed
superiority over all individuals: there was no one who could say in
any case that the contract between king and people had been broken: no
such general contract existed at all; there could be no question at
all of resistance, much less of deposition, for how could the members
rebel against the head? King James maintained that the legislative
power belonged to the king by divine and human right, that he
exercised it with the participation of his subjects, and always
remained superior to the laws. His position rests on these views, in
the development of which he himself had certainly a great share; he,
like his opponents, had his political and ecclesiastical adherents. In
the Scottish literature of the time both tendencies are embodied in
important historical works; the latter principally in Spottiswood's
Church History, which represents the royalist views and is not without
merit in point of form, so that even at the present day it can be read
with pleasure; the former in contemporary notices of passing events
which were composed in the language and even in the dialect of the
country, and which in many places are the foundation even of
Buchanan's history. They are the most direct expression of national
and religious views, as they found vent in the assemblies of preachers
and elders; in them we feel the life-breath of Presbyterianism.
Calderwood and the younger Melville, who collected everything which
came to hand, espoused the popular ideas; for information on facts and
their causes they are invaluable, although in respect of form they do
not rival Spottiswood, who, like them, employs the language of the
country.

It might perhaps be said that it was in Scotland that the two systems
arose which since that time, although in