given my answer, my Lord; I have my calling to attend upon." The clerk having read the places from which the articles were drawn, it was clearly seen that his words were wrested. The chief persons in the council spoke in his defence at some length. Archbishop Gladstanes, in a passion, told them that the supplication which he had given in was in fact a declinature. But, instead of being listened to, he was rallied upon his logic. "Albeit ye be Lord of St Andrews," said the chancellor, "yet it seemeth ye have never been in St Andrews." Mr Murray was, in the end, called in, and favourably dismissed to his charge. The bishops, mortified with their own disappointment, and irritated by the manner in which they had been treated, sent up an information to the King, complaining heavily of the procedure of the council. Upon this, his Majesty, displeased that the council had showed so little deference to his own critical powers, and those of his bishops, sent them a sharp rebuke, and peremptorily ordered the captain of the guard immediately to apprehend Mr Murray, and to commit him to confinement in the castle of Edinburgh.*

The bishops, having got this faithful man removed out of their way, preached whatever they pleased in Leith without opposition, and held their principal consultations in that town. But they were not satisfied with his confinement in the castle of Edinburgh, which was too near to his parish, and the place of their consultations. They therefore sent up one of their number to London, with instructions drawn by the hand of Spottiswood, among which this was one, that he should obtain of his Majesty, that Mr John Murray be charged by the council to enter into confinement in the town of New Abbey, on the borders of England, near Dumfries. Accordingly, by the King's direction, he was brought out of the castle (where he had been confined about a year), and presented before the council. Large promises were made to him by the Earl of Dunbar, provided he would comply with Episcopacy; but he declared that he never would. The King's letter, stating the parCald. 575-578. Row of Carnock's Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland, MS. p. 185.

ticulars of his confinement, being read to him, he, with some temper, expressed before the council the feelings of a generous mind at the unworthy conduct of his persecutors. "It may be," said he, "it is his Majesty's will; but I know well that it is not his Majesty's invention, whom I never offended. It is the device of men maliciously set against me, without a just cause, for their. own particular ends, before whom I may prefer myself in all loyal obedience to his Majesty, both as a minister and as a subject." The bishops felt, and were abashed. Chancellor Seaton, gathering some courage, said, "that it was a most barbarous and unworthy dealing in the bishops to put one of their brethren in the ministry from the place where he exercised his calling, and cast him out to a remote part, where he had no provision allowed him. His calling, his quality, and the quality of the gentlewoman his wife, did crave another kind of respect, and greater discretion." The bishops were silent; the Lords of Council were almost ashamed of their own passiveness. But the former trusted to the efficacy of the King's missive; the latter were afraid of incurring his Majesty's displeasure a second time.

Mr Murray went to the place of his confinement, where his family suffered greatly both for want of fuel and provisions. His wife and children, who had been delicately brought up (for Mr and Mrs Murray were descended from, and connected with, some of the best families of the kingdom), unaccustomed to such hard treatment, became sickly, and at last two of the children died.* He had removed to Dumfries, where he preached for some time; but finding his situation little improved, and that there was no appearance of the malice of the bishops relenting, he resolved, without license either of King or council, to transport himself and family to Dysart. After having remained there privately for about half a year, he removed to Prestonpans, where he preached. Some years after this, he received a call from the town and parish of Dunfermline (with consent of the presbytery), to be their minister. His settleRow's History, ut supra.

ment among them was obtained with great difficulty, after much interest being used. But he was not suffered to remain there long, for Spottiswood, his arch-enemy, being made Bishop of St Andrews in 1615, almost the first thing which he did, was to visit the kirk of Dunfermline, when he silenced Mr Murray, and devolved the whole charge of that extensive parish upon Mr Andrew Forster, a person destitute both of gifts and grace. This person, having been visited by Providence with sickness, was seized after his recovery with great distress of mind. He confessed that at the Assembly of Glasgow 1610, he had sold Christ for a paltry sum of money; and that, having a numerous family, and being very poor, he had, by means of a false key, at different times abstracted money from the kirk-box. One Sabbath, the subject in his ordinary course of lecture being John xii. 6, he was seized with such horror when about to begin, that he ran out of the pulpit, expressing, among other things, an apprehension that the magistrates were coming to take him out to execution. Being in this situation, he silenced himself, and requested Mr Murray, for Christ's sake, to take the charge of the congregation. And yet, some time after this, having been reduced to beggary, Archbishop Spottiswood intruded him, in spite of the people, into a country parish in Perthshire, where he died covered with debt and infamy.

Mr Murray, thus providentially restored to his ministry, continued to exercise it in Dunfermline from the year 1616 to 1622. No sooner, however, was a new occasion given for prosecuting him, by his nonconformity to the Articles of Perth, at that time ratified by Parliament, than he was summoned before the High Commission, removed from Dunfermline, and confined within the parish of Fowlis in Strathern. * Here he resided in Gorthie, which belonged to his brother, Sir David Murray, a courtier. Upon the

It is probable that the cause of his prosecution was a small treatise published about this time (of which he was the author), entitled, " A Dialogue between Cosmophilus and Theophilus, against the Innovations on the Worship and Government of the Kirk of Scotland."

Γ

death of his brother in 1629, he removed again to Prestonpans, where he died in the year 1632.

On his death-bed he enjoyed much comfort. To those who visited him during his sickness, he delivered many excellent exhortations. In particular, he entreated them never to consent to the corruptions which had been introduced into the Church. He was not one of those who represent the external government of the Church as of trivial concern, comparing it to anise, mint, and cummin; he considered it as nearly connected with the rights of the Redeemer, and the promotion of practical godliness. He professed that “it was to him matter of much praise and joy, that the Lord had thought him worthy of the honour of suffering for the glorious cause of God, and of giving a testimony to his truth, before a corrupt generation; that it was his comfort on his death-bed, that he had never disfigured the well-favoured face of the Kirk of Scotland. As Christian experience and practical godliness have been so often pressed to the disparagement of all contendings about the external form and discipline of the Church, it may be observed, that in this eminent person they were closely united, as they have been in a great cloud of witnesses, with which we are compassed about." He said, "his keeping of himself clean from the corruptions brought into this kirk," albeit in weakness, “was' a great comfort to him now in the time of his extremity. And any that have consented to them, if they were in my condition," continued he, "exchanging time with eternity, they would repent of their wicked courses, or else they would not find such comfort in death as I do this day. Blessed be the name of my gracious Lord therefor, in Christ Jesus my only Saviour." *

* Row's History, ut supra.

THE TABORITES;

OR, THE FOLLOWERS OF HUSS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

ABOUT the commencement of the fifteenth century, some of the writings of the English proto-reformer, Wickliffe, were carried into Bohemia, by a gentleman of that country, who had studied at Oxford. These writings recommended themselves to many learned Bohemians, particularly in the University of Prague, who were struck with the force of truth, and the knowledge of Scripture, which they contained. Among these was JOHN HUSS, an eminent pastor in one of the churches of Prague, and rector of the university there. He did not adopt all the opinions of Wickliffe, and remained under the influence of several of the errors of the age, which that great man had been enabled to throw off; but he adopted the leading sentiment which was the polar star that directed Wickliffe in all his inquiries after truth, viz., the supreme authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures as the rule of faith. + His doctrine, and his recommendation of the writings of Wickliffe, tended to open the eyes of * From the Christian Magazine, Vol. VIII., 1804.

+"The authority of the holy Scriptures, which are the law of Christ, infinitely surpasses any other writing, how authentic soever it may appear, because the authority of Jesus Christ is infinitely above the authority of all mankind."— Wickliffe's Trialous, apud L'Enfant's Council of Constance, vol. i. b. ii. § 60.