Having now completed the Register of another epoch in the history
of the Reformed Church of Scotland, which embraces the first
thirty-two years of its existence,--exhibiting in its internal
movements the equivocal and conflicting elements of a new
establishment, and blending in its structure the incongruous
peculiarities both of Episcopacy and Presbytery; we have now
reached that period in its progress when it assumed a more
precise and clearly defined position, as a purely Presbyterian
Church. On the 5th of June 1592, immediately after the close of
the General Assembly, of which the proceedings have just been
given, the MAGNA CHARTA of the Church of Scotland was
obtained in an act of Parliament “for abolisching of the actis
contrair the trew Religion.” It is therefore deemed suitable
to pause in the transcript of the Ecclesiastical proceedings,
and to subjoin, in an Appendix, the several statutes of the
Civil Legislature applicable to the period intervening betwixt
1567, when the Church was first fully established, and 1592,
when the distinct character of Presbyterianism was stamped
upon it by the Law of the Land. These statutes, accordingly,
are now subjoined in chronological order--reserving for a
future occasion any less important and authoritative documents
connected with our subject.