the Lairds. Todd. ers. The Omen. Ringhan Gilhaize. The Spaewife. Rothelan. Southennan. Laurie Bogle Corbet. Stanley Buxton. Eben Erskine. The Stolen Child. Lives of the PlayLife of Byron. Life of William Spence. Ouranoulogos. The Member. The Radical. The Autobiography. Poems. The Bachelor's Wife. Essay on the Works of Henry Mackenzie. Travels for a Gentleman who put his name on the title-page. A Pamphlet for a Gentleman who had sense enough to publish it anonymously. Besides various pamphlets, and some twenty-two dramas; making in all fifty-six volumes! 'Tis passing strange, that those who basked in the sunshine of his friendship,—and others who battened on the fruits of his intellectual labours, should all have remained as silent as the turf which now wraps his mortal remains. We have had many gladdened hours, Through our course of wedded years; To heaven that flower hath early gone, A troubled tide my time rolls on THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. THE Scotish Church question, of which, we doubt not, the generality of our readers have more or less heard, is beyond all controversy one of the very highest importance. For several years past it has been agitating and distracting the minds of the people of Scotland; it has been evolving in its course a multitude of subordinate questions, which have tended only to increase the embarrassment and confusion—until at last it has reached such a height, that it threatens to unsettle the elements of social order, and finally to overthrow the very constitution of the kingdom. On the right adjustment of this question depend, we verily believe, the future prosperity and happiness of the northern portion of the empire. If the one party in the struggle shall succeed in the object they contemplate, we can foresee nothing but a complete annihilation of the fabric of the Presbyterian Church, a total overthrow of all that has endeared to the hearts of the people of Scotland the beloved church of their fathers. If, as we sincerely and anxiously pray, the other party in this momentous conflict shall be successful, then can we predict a spectacle, such as no other part of the world can display-a national church enthroned in the affections of a united people, and bearing testimony, in practical operation, to those great and scriptural principles on which alone a church can be established. As this question then must come, and that speedily, under the notice of the legislature of the country, and as it is impossible that it can be confined in its results to Scotland alone, we deem it right thus early to call the attention of our readers to the subject. And, in order that they may have a proper apprehension of the matter, we shall give a short and simple statement of the facts of the case, accompanied by such observations as shall be necessary for the full elucidation of the truth. # It has ever been a fundamental principle of the constitution of the Church of Scotland, that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people. This principle was early laid down in various Acts of the General Assembly-it was embodied in the Books of Discipline—and for a long course of years, indeed, during the best and most flourishing period of the Church's history, it was uniformly and jealously maintained in the settlement of ministers. Even after the restoration of patronage by the act of Queen Anne, this fundamental principle was kept steadily in view-and so absolutely necessary was deemed the consent of the people to the formation of the pastoral relation, that numerous cases might be quoted from the records of the Church, where presentees were rejected solely on the ground of the dissent of the congregation. Thus, in the case of Mr Blackie, who was presented by the Crown, in the year 1736, to the parish of Kinnaird, but who was opposed by the whole inhabitants, the General Assembly decreed "that Mr George Blackie, probationer, cannot be admitted minister at Kinnaird, but that the parish must be otherwise settled, according to the laws that obtain in this Church." About the same period numerous other cases occurred, such as that of Currie in 1740, of Biggar in 1752, of Glendovan and St Ninian's in 1768-where the presentees were all rejected for the very same reason, a want of concurrence on the part of the people, and a decided opposition to their induction. In the course of time, however, the Church Courts began to pay less attention to the maintenance of this fundamental principle. Forced settlements of obnoxious presentees came to be common events; and pastors were intruded on many congregations contrary to the will of the people. Of this course of policy lamentable were the consequences. The affections of the nation were alienated from the church of their fathers; a secession of the best and most godly of the people once and again took place; and that church, which had been planted in suffering and cemented in blood, became, instead of a church promoting the great end of her establishment, and upheld by the affections and the prayers of her devoted children, a subservient tool in the hands of lordly politicians. Still, even in this, the darkest period of her history, the great principle to which we have alluded, though neglected in substance, was maintained in form. No settlement took place until a call (the instrument by which the consent of the people might be declared) had been produced to the congregation; on the validity of that call the Church Courts deliberated and determined; and only when that call had been sustained could the presentee be inducted to the charge. But, though thus observed in form, the principle, as we have already remarked, was neglected in reality. A party had obtained the ascendaney in the Courts of the Church who disregarded the constitutional rights of the Christian people; and who yielded obedience, in defiance both of justice and expe *Our English readers will observe, that by "the people" is to be understood the male heads of families, communicants in the congregation; and it is of importance to notice, that the power of granting admission to the communion, and so of bestowing the privileges of church membership, belongs exclusively to the kirk-session, the lowest ecclesiastical court, subject, of course, in this, as in all their proceedings, to the review of the superior judicatories. diency, to the demands of a stern and tyrannical patronage. Had that party been enabled to continue the policy on which for so long a period they had acted, there can be little doubt that the very calamity-the destruction of the Established Church-which is now threatened from without, would have been accomplished from within. But, blessed be God, better times arrived. The true principles of the Church came to be more clearly understood, and more vigorously asserted; the pewor of that party in the Church, under whose sway the rights of the people had been so cruelly disregarded, began to totter to its fall; until at last the supporters of a wiser and more constitutional policy obtained the ascendancy. The immediate consequence, was the passing of the celebrated measure, commonly denominated the Veto Act. By this law, the General Assembly, after of new asserting the great and fundamental principle of the Church, that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people, ordained, that, in order that that principle might be carried into practical operation, every presentee, whose settlement should be solemnly dissented from by a majority of the male heads of families, communicants in the congregation, should be rejected. In passing this measure, "all parties, minority and majority, agreed in asserting that the Church Courts had the power, and the exclusive power, of judging of the fitness of a presentee, not merely in respect of life, literature, and morals, with a view to his qualifications generally for the functions of the holy ministry at large, but of his special fitness for the particular charge to which he had been presented; and for this purpose, to take into consideration all the qualifications, over and above those in life, literature, and morals, which might render him fit or unfit for the particular parish into which it is proposed to induct him."* Doubts were, however, expressed by some, though not concurred in by the majority, whether by such a rejection the presentee would lose all right to the civil cmoluments of the parish to which he had been presented; but no one for a moment ever anticipated that any civil court would attempt to interfere with the intrinsic power of the Church to determine, whether the pastoral office, in any particular instance, should be conferred or withheld. A very short time after the passing of this act, Mr Robert Young, preacher of the Gospel, was presented by the Earl of Kinnoul, the patron, to the parish of Auchterarder; but, in consequence of the dissent of an immense majority of the people, (287 out of 330 male heads of families,) he was rejected by the Presbytery. After appealing to the superior Church judicature, and thus in so far acknowledging the law of the Church under which he pleaded, Mr Young, along with the patron, had recourse to the Civil Courts. After full pleading and lengthened proceedings, the Court of Session found, that, in rejecting Mr Young on the sole ground that the majority of the male heads of families, communicants, had dissented, the presbytery acted to the hurt and prejudice of the pursuer, illegally, and in violation of their duty, and contrary to the provision of the statute libelled, particularly the Act of Queen Anne restoring patronage. This finding was afterwards affirmed on appeal by the House of Lords. In this sentence, as obligatory on herself, in so far as the temporal emoluments of the parish in dispute were involved, the Church, like every loyal subject, yielded at once her acquiescence. But in so far as, in its application, it might infringe on what she deemed * Dunlop's Answer to the Dean of Faculty. her own sacred rights and prerogatives, and, if carried out into practical operation, might compel her to do an act which, so long as she preserved her allegiance to her great King and Head, she could not in conscience perform; it was utterly impossible for the Church in that sentence to concur. To have done so would have been to prostrate her dearest rights at the feet of a worldly authority-and, for the sake of the temporal advantages of an establishment, to renounce for ever the character and authority of a Christian Church. That sentence, therefore, she did not obey-that sentence she has not yet obeyed-that sentence, in spite of all the gross and ignorant charges brought against her of treason and rebellion, she never can, and she never will, obey. The reasons on account of which she so acted are so clearly and powerfully stated by an eloquent writer, that we make no apology for transferring to our pages the following passage:* "The Church holds, that the whole of her spiritual powers and privileges are derived to her solely from the Lord Jesus Christ, and are founded exclusively on the authority of the sacred Scriptures ;-she holds, that the whole of her civil rights and immunities (as well as the whole of the personal and private rights belonging to her individual members, in common with the rest of their fellow-subjects) are derived to her exclusively from the legislature, or supreme power in the state, and that one and all of these civil rights and privileges, conferred upon her by the state, are every moment at the absolute disposal of the legislature, either to continue them to her, or to withdraw them from her. She holds, that by the existing law of the state, the whole of her spiritual powers and privileges are recognised to be essentially inherent in herself, underived from any power on earth, and to be exercised and enjoyed by her, to the absolute exclusion of every secular or civil authority whatever. She holds, that the jurisdiction of the Court of Session, being, by the express terms of its institution, limited to matters civil, that Court, while, by its institution, it is endowed with supreme power to adjudicate, according to law, upon the whole civil rights and immunities of the Church, (as well as on the private rights of her individual members,) has not a shadow of right to interfere with any of her spiritual powers or functions; first, because there exists an absolute defect of power to that effect, no such jurisdiction having been conferred upon the civil court; and, secondly, and if possible still more decisively, because all such interference has been expressly barred by the state itself, which has legislatively recognised the whole of the spiritual powers and functions of the Church to be inherent in the Church alone, to the absolute exclusion of all human control. The Church holds farther-and in application to these general principles to what has recently occurred-that the disposal of the fruits of a benefice, being in its nature civil, the judgment of the Court of Session in the Auchterarder case, in so far as it may dispose of the fruits of the benefice, is authoritative and conclusive, and the Church has therefore respectfully bowed and implicitly submitted to that judgment, as it respects the benefice; but, in so far as that judgment has respect to the spiritual function of the Church, in setting apart one of its own members to the office of the holy ministry, or to the circumstances in which it either is or is not proper for her to ordain any man to the cure of souls in The Present Position of the Church of Scotland Explained and Vindicated. By a Lay Member of the Church. |