Lives of Scotish Writers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 edition. Excerpt: ... were alarmed on ascertaining that his place of confinement was changed to Blackness castle, a dreary dungeon, kept by a dependant of the unscrupulous earl of Arran. Here his life would evidently have been exposed to danger; and finding it thus necessary to provide for his safety by flight, he secretly withdrew from Edinburgh, and next day proceeded to Berwick. This rigorous treatment of so learned and eminent a man excited no small degree of popular indignation. The ministers of Edinburgh had the courage to make mention of their exiled brother in their public prayers. With the view of removing the odium which had thus been incurred, the council issued a proclamation containing two assertions that must have gained very little credence; namely, that he had been exposed to no danger of severe treatment, and that his exile was to be considered as voluntary. All these proceedings exhibit a glaring picture of the mode in which justice was then administered. I am not entirely disposed to think, with Dr. Maccrie, that Melville urged a good and valid plea when he averred that, in the first instance, he was only amenable to the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court. He was charged with having uttered seditious and treasonable words in the pulpit, and for such conduct he was certainly liable to ecclesiastical censure; but was the civil judicatory to suspend its right of investigating so grave a charge as this, and to pause till the ecclesiastical judicatory had duly deliberated whether any, and what censure was to be pronounced? Sins, however glaring, if the law does not rank them among crimes, may safely be left to the discipline of the church; but if the ecclesiastical tribunal had been found competent to interpose in cases of sedition and treason, ...