vol.ii.p.

772.
*** King's Decl.p.188, 189.Rush.voL ii.p.

761.
It had been usual, before the establishment of prelacy, for each presbytery to send to the assembly, besides two or three ministers, one lay commissioner;[*] and, as all the boroughs and universities sent likewise commissioners, the lay members in that ecclesiastical court nearly equalled the ecclesiastics.

Not only this institution, which James, apprehensive of zeal in the laity, had abolished, was now revived by the Covenanters; they also introduced an innovation, which served still further to reduce the clergy to subjection.

By an edict of the tables, whose authority was supreme, an elder from each parish was ordered to attend the presbytery, and to give his vote in the choice both of the commissioners and ministers who should be deputed to the assembly.