From what we have seen, "it is plain," as Sir James Dalrymple has observed, "that the Culdees continued till about the beginning of the fourteenth century." In this century, he adds, "Renatus Lolardus appeared in France, and Wicklif in England.--The Lolards appeared in this kingdom under the government of R.D. of Albany; and shortly thereafter James Resby and Paul Craw were burnt for maintaining these doctrines. In the reigns of James the Third and Fourth, great numbers of them appeared in Kyle and Cunningham; and the first beginning of the Reformation of religion was embraced in these districts.
Here we have a singular proof of the providence of God in preserving the truth in our native country, even during the time that the Man of Sin was reigning with absolute authority over the other nations of Europe; and in transmitting some of its most important articles at least, nearly to the time of its breaking forth with renewed lustre at the Reformation. It would be inconsistent with the design of this inquiry, to enter into any discussion with respect to the scriptural warrant for the presbyterian form of government. But it cannot reasonably be supposed that the memory of the Culdees had, even in the sixteenth century, completely perished in a country, in which, only two centuries before, they had been contending for their ancient rights, not merely in opposition to the whole power of the primacy, but to the additional support of papal authority; and where they seem to have constituted the majority of the ordinary pastors, till within a short time of their overthrow. Although we have no written documents concerning them as a body, later than the beginning of the thirteenth century, it is by no means improbable, that individuals, trained up by them, or adhering to their principles, continued to discharge the pastoral duties, especially in those places which were more remote from the episcopal seats.
