J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border > Volume 2

4 MINSTRELSY OF
my came, by night, and sowed tares among the wheat ;
or rather, the foul and rank soil, upon which the seed
was thrown, pushed forth, together with the rising crop,
a plentiful proportion of pestilential weeds. The morals
of the reformed clergy were severe ; their learning was
usually respectable, sometimes profound ; and their elo-
quence, though often coarse, was vehement, animated,
and popular. But they never could forget, that their
rise had been achieved by the degradation, if not the
fall, of the Crown; and hence, a body of men, who, in
most countries, have been attached to monarchy, were
in Scotland, for nearly two centuries, sometimes the
avowed enemies, always the ambitious rivals, of their
prince. The disciples of Calvin could scarcely avoid a
tendency to democracy, and the republican form of
church government was sometimes hinted at, as no un-
fit model for the state ; at least, the kirkmen laboured
to impress upon their followers and hearers the fun-
damental principle, that the church should be solely go-
verned by those, unto whom God had given the spi-
ritual sceptre. The elder Melvine, in a conference with
James VI., seized the monarch by the sleeve, and, ad-
dressing him as God's sillie vassal, told him, " There
" are two kings, and two kingdomes. There is Christ,
"and his kingdome, the kirke; whose subject King
" James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdome he is not
" a king, nor a head, nor a lord, but a member ; and
" they whom Christ hath called and commanded to