Preface

It having been resolved by the Committee of Management of the Maitland Club, to circulate immediately that portion of the Book of the Universal Kirk of Scotland already printed, and which has been calculated to amount to about one-third of the entire Work, reserving to the conclusion of the whole, an account of the Manuscripts that have been employed in its compilation; it may at present be enough to state, that its object has been to preserve whatever may yet be recovered of the recorded proceedings of the Assemblies of the Church, from the era of the Reformation, to the period from which its original Registers are still extant. Besides that abridgment of the earlier volumes of the Register, usually known under the title of "The Book of the Universal Kirk," the principal source from which the contents of this compilation have been derived, is the unprinted History of the Church by Calderwood, which embraces much larger and more authentic selections from the Registers than any other existing manuscript. All these additions to the Book of the Universal Kirk are inclosed in brackets, and distinguished by the letter C.; a few taken from Knox's History are denoted by the letter K.; and those passages where it has been occasionally found necessary to combine the contents of the leading Manuscript with those of Calderwood's History, are marked with the letters C. & B.

Edinburgh, April 22. 1839.