Note 202 — Chapter II

‘The form of polity recommended in the First Book of Discipline never obtained the proper sanction of the State, chiefly in consequence of the avarice of the nobility and gentry, who were desirous of securing to themselves the revenues of the Church.’ Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, p. 324. See also Argyll's Presbytery Examined, p. 26. Many of the nobles, however, did sign it (Knox's History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 129); but, says Spottiswoode (History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 373), ‘Most of those that subscribed, getting into their hands the possessions of the Church, could never be induced to part therewith, and turned greater enemies in that point of church patrimony than were the papists, or any other whatsoever.’