Note 172 — Chapter VII · THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER.
Reading edition
In the Order of the General Fast it is stated: "The exhortation and prayers of everie several exercise we have remitted to be gathered by the discrete ministers, for time preased us so that we culd not frame them in such order as wes convenient, nether yit thought we it so expedient to pen prayers unto men, as to teach them with what hart and affection and for what causes we shuld pray, in this great calamitie" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 695; Laing's Knox, vi. 421). See also Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 698; Laing's Knox, vi. 470. Even the Order of Excommunication might be "enlarged or contracted as the wisedome of the discreit minister shall thinke expedient" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 746; Laing's Knox, vi. 470).