n for the godlie and elect onlie, and sumtymes for
them that exercise spiritual function amongis the congregation of them
that professe the truth."[273] These last, ministers, doctors, elders,
and deacons, are taken to represent the church in its wider sense, and
must have a lawful calling from it. This lawful calling is said to
consist of two parts--viz., election and ordination. Election is defined
to be the choosing out of a person or persons most able for the office
that is vacant, by the judgment of the eldership and consent of the
congregation to which the person or persons are appointed. Ordination is
defined as the separation and sanctifying of the person appointed of God
and His kirk after he be well tried and found qualified. The ceremonies
of ordination are declared to be fasting, earnest prayer, and imposition
of the hands of the eldership. Then follow two of the most important
paragraphs in the Book, which come nearest to supplying that which I
deem defective in it, a clear and distinct admission that human rulers
in the church as well as in the state have but limited powers. "All thir
[_i.e._, those various kinds of office-bearers], as they must be raisit
up be God and be Him made able for the wark quhairto they ar callit, so
aught they [to] knaw their message to be limitit within God's Word,
without the quhilk bounds they aught not to passe. All thir sould tak
these titils and names onlie ... quhilk the Scriptures gevis unto them,
as these quhilks import labour, travell and wark; and ar names of
offices and service, and not of idlenes, dignitie, warldlie honour or
preheminence, quhilk be Christ our Maister is expresslie reprovit and
forbidden.... And generallie thir twa things aught they all to respect,
the glorie of God, and edifieing of His kirk, in discharging their
dewties in their callings."[274]

[Sidenote: Institution of the Presbytery.]

[Sidenote: Eldership or Presbytery.]

It is generally supposed that it is in this Second Book of Discipline
that we have the first clear institution of that church court which we
now call the presbytery, and it admits of no dispute that it was in the
year 1581, after the final adoption of the Book by the Assembly, that an
attempt was made, with consent of the crown, regularly to divide the
country into presbyteries. These, however, though marked out on paper in
that year, were in point of fact only gradually set up, and in general
they arose out of, and absorbed