L; . » MfV /A ■ ‘4- i*Aj :: ' 6< A (f;: -I ■ ; ;w' Snv ii W' V m 0 \ \ . *1 i ft .4 BRIEF NOTES ON THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1555 TO 1842. WITH A SUMMARY OF HER ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT AND DISCIPLINE, BEARING UPON THE PRESENT CONTROVERSY. BY E. C. IIARINGTON, INCUMBENT OF ST. DAVIB’s, EXETER. EXETER, P. A. HANNAFORD. LONDON, J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON; and HAMILTON & CO.: OXFORD, VINCENT : EDINBURGH, OLIPHANT & SON. MDCCCXLIII. London : Printed by S. & .1. Benti.ev, Wilson, and Fley, Bangor House, Shoe Ijane. TO THE VERY REVEREND THE DEAN OF EXETER, AND THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE EXETER CLERICAL SOCIETY, (before whom these papers were originally read,) IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF THE PLEASURE AND IMPROVEMENT DERIVED FROM HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THEM AT THEIR MONTHLY MEETINGS, THESE FEW PAGES ARE, WITH DUE RESPECT, HUMBLY INSCRIBED BY THEIR OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. A 'I ^ . ■ i t L t ' %k »1 MmiU'J '^0 Mm 3ii'r (lAmvm tv- -* t jurt Miv .Y'l.UiOH •’ ii ^ i^arit’ {jkufihiMft fiaiti mw?*'* itonw ' I • a’ ' ■ * <*f/. •'‘♦awAU'A iii*V '••, X JfYJIT UTITl HiW'♦T i)fl ' *r • ^ ** :«W Htltr /utf, fcn^'A'i 4f«if4tr«tt foJJi’m :\i J'JtlfW/tttO aJv 4 «t loifT'-JA 'tvrc - *, ■j i> % i * s •I \ i*' ■JL 4 P R E F A C E. The Writer of these pages has only to allege the deep interest excited in the country at the present moment respecting the Church of Scotland, as an apology for publishing the following very imperfect sketch of the Scottish Church from the period of the Reformation to the passing of the Veto Act. He claims no merit but that (if any) of having perused (amidst much parochial occupation) some few works on the subject of the Government of the Church of Scotland, in order to increase his own very partial information ; and, if a similar advantage should in the slightest degree be conferred on others, the Author will have received the only return which he can anticipate. Exeter, May 1843. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/briefnotesonchurOOhari CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Summary of the Reformation in Scotland . . 7 II. First period of the Reformation, from 1560 to 1572 . 10 III. Imparity in the Kirk, from 1560 to 1580 . . 13 IV. The Apostolical Succession broken . . . 17 V. Second period of the Reformation, from 1572 to 1578 . 20 VI, Third period of the Reformation, from 1578 . . 23 VII. On the “ efficacy of Ordination ” according to the Kirk . 30 VIII. The early Scottish Reformers not inimical to “ Forms of Prayer” . . . . . .34 IX. Episcopal Church of Scotland, from 1610 to 1662 . 38 X. Episcopal Church of Scotland, from 1662 to 1690 . 42 XI. The Presbyterian form re-established, 1690 . . 47 XII. Episcopal Church of Scotland immediately subsequent to the Revolution in 1688 .... 50 XIII. Episcopal Church, from 1690 to 1792 . . .53 XIV. The Scottish Non-jurors of 1689 ... 55 XV. The Greek Church and the Scottish Episcopalians, 1725 61 XVI. Episcopal Church in Scotland, from 1746 to 1784 . 64 XVII. Episcopal Church, subsequently to 1784 ' . . ,67 XVIII. Judicatories of the Church of Scotland— Kirk Sessions 72 XIX. Presbyteries . . . . . . 76 XX. Provincial Synods ..... 79 XXI. General Assembly . . . . ,82 XXII. Commission of the General Assembly . . 92 XXIII. Admission of Ministers into the Kirk . . .94 XXIV. Presentation of the Patron—“ Veto Act," &c. 97 XXV. The “ Veto Act," 1834-5 ..... 101 XXVI. Objections against the “ Veto Act ” . . . 104 XXVII. Connexion between the Church of Scotland and the State 108 A 4 - r 'i. M T VI 3 T K 0 0 i ll4>|k'r •• P.1 Tl oe tt <>c Hi U- lit(i*{kJ58 di (wjlfoufl (I ^ ^' i . 2V^1 (A‘>rt4l ni*v»l ,(drii4a»it*bS hnv'^'.Tt , .* <)i54l Wl nwiJ »il Ul ■ ., . . tniifiJi miivisww^ i>fiii''jOI lif iHfl' J50 • ' S'iTI ma^ Jirjf [' 4^ j . . «(jono (n«iw|, (ta*< 13 eSTf ■|(;m»vti»'|iw'rf1’ .'^ ^ |4» , HTl iT> W.?! npnt itt ifctiutfj fATfos^^ffM A^.X . 4'^^TU•t TUtf»f>{t(»kJdH .(F^y '»»yupi5i ^HiV—W itrwti^ ©4 j li* .ItrPK ' • ? *3i5r%vV<4»»ti‘i >,XIX • I, ... Wv*V*^*i kZid , ,• v4Aiin*>K tlXT^ . ylifnt'imK lirwtwO oHi rt<»^FtiU(io!.l .IJ XT , JhiH |♦^f) la w^ijiA/. .n I T. .!>i aU4 ftaitt^I %i{< lo .V t^CX . 5 VX«l **tV»K *)W»1 ** dflT , •,ft Nnfitjji ijljf iWi IwU* Fuifll)*»'>9i la '4 i!j «aF»7f<»^*'J llv ;sx . . t'.p ; .. ^ T» V a? ar : «t e>j . w . :o i*»r. ¥i s BRIEF NOTES ON THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. CHAPTEE L A SUMMARY OF THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND, From 15(i(t to 1689. The Eeformiitioii of the Church* in Scotland commenced under John Knox, A. D. 1555 — 1560. The various gradations and changes which then and subsequently took place, as specified in the several acts of jiarliament, and the acts of assembly, are as follow : — Popery was aholislied by act of parliament, and the Protestant religion virtually * It docs not fall within the scope of my present publication to enter upon the history of the eur l^ Church of Scotland ; but I may add one word on the “ Culdees.'" Keith, (quoting Pinkerton’s “ Inquiry,” Sib- bald’s “History of Fife,’’and Chalmers’ “Caledonia,”) in his “Preliminary Dissertation on the Culdees,” maintains, that the Culdees were the chapters in the several bishoprics, and had the election of the bishops of the seve¬ ral sees till the middle of the twelfth century. Lloyd, in bis “ Church History,” takes the same view, (pages 134 to 146,) and refers to the chap¬ ter of St. Andrew’s in support of the proposition. Maitland (“ History of Scotland,” p. 161,) says, “ that what F’ordun has told us as to the Scot¬ tish Church having been governed by presh/ters, or monks, properly called 8 A SUMMARY OF established, August 24, 1560. The first Confes¬ sion of Faith was drawn up in 1560, and ratified in 1567, and continued to be recognised till the Westminster Confession in 1649. The Reformed Church was declared established 15th December, 1567. The Presbyterian Church was established by an act for “ abolishing the acts contrary to the true religion,” 5th June, 1592; an act for the “aboli¬ tion of episcopacy” was passed in 1640 ; and a final act for abolishing prelacy^ and the superiority of any Culdees, before the coining of Palladius, a. d. 263, is manifestly erroneous, since the monkish profession did not begin till after the Dioclesian per¬ secution, A. D. 303, and was not introduced into Ireland or Scotland till 432, through St. Alartin ; so that the Culdees, said to have been in Scotland before that time, must have been presbyters, priests, or incum¬ bents of the several churches.” And he proves from Crawford’s “ Lives of the Crown Officers in Scotland,” that “ the said Culdees were pre¬ sented to churches, cure of souls, and other ecclesiastical emoluments % the bishops; which entirely refutes the opinion of their holding senti¬ ments on Church government differing from that of Episcopaep." Russell, in his “ History of the Church of Scotland,” (pp. 38—44,) adopts the opinion of Lloyd and Keith. That Colimba (a. d. 560) acknowledged an order in the Church superior to that of presbyter is proved from the anecdote related by Adamnanus, in his “ Life of Columba,” viz. that when Columba perceived that one who was officiating with him at the Eucharist was a bishop, he requested him to use the privilege of his order, as bishop, in consecrating the elements, exclaiming, “ We now know that you are a bishop. Why have you hitherto endeavoured to conceal your¬ self, and hindered us from treating you with proper respect ? ” Columba, at the request of Oswald, king of Northumbria, sent Corman, and, after him, Aldan, as bishops ; and they, together with their successors, Finan and Colman, occupied the island of Lindis/hm, where was their see. It is true that Columba was only a presbyter ; but still the ordination and consecration of Aidan, as bishop, is evident, from the testimony of Bede : he says, ‘‘ Sicque ilium ordinantes, miserunt; ” and, again, he says, “ that King Oswald desired to have a bishop, and he received Bishop Aidan ;” and, again, “ Bishop Aidan w'as sent from Iona to con¬ vert tlie Anglc.s, having received the degree of bishop ^—‘ acceplo gradu Episcopatus' —when Segenius, abbot and priest, was over that monastery.” THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND. 9 office in the Cliurch above presbyters, was passed in 1689 ; and, again, an act for ratifying the West- minste7' Confession^ and settling the Presbyterian Church Government, was passed 7th June, 1690.— During this period, it must be remarked, that the Apostolical succession had been twice restored to the Church of Scotland. From the year 1560 to 1610, the various appointments in the Church were uncon¬ nected with any episcopal ordination; but, after fifty years’ confusion, the succession of episcopacy And that this ordination was into a higher order than that of 2 )resbyters is apparent from Bede, who says, “ that Aidan chose the place of his episcopal see in the island of Lindisfarn : there he was with his clergy; and there was the abhot with his monks, who all belonged to the care of the bishop.” He had, Bede tells us, “ several clergy, who came with him from Iona ; one styled presbyter suus, his domestic chaplain ; and others styled clerici sui, his presbyters.— H/c?. Lloyd, p. 105; Russell, pp. 31, 32; Spottiswoode, pp. 15—17. The fact, according to Lloyd, ap¬ pears to he, that the greater monasteries had bishops in them of their own, who were elected by the abbot and monks, and were consecrated by the adjacent bishops, to the end that they might discharge the episcopal functions within the monasteries ; and he instances St. Martin’s near Tours, and St. Denis’ near Paris, as those which had bishops from ancient times. He adds, “ the like we have of bishops in St. Columha’s monas¬ tery at Iona,” and refers to “ Usser., De Pri.,” p. 701 (Lloyd, p. 1C6). We have likewise a very remarkable testimony of the residence of a bishop in a Scottish convent, where there was no episcopal see; (in a convent too of the celebrated Culdees, who are erroneously supposed to have sanctioned ecclesiastical parity, and even to have ordained, though only presbyters ;) viz. the charter by which David I. erected the bishop¬ ric qf‘ Brechin, and which, being granted to the bishop and Culdees in the church of Brechin—“ Episcopo et Culdeis in ecclesia de Brechin ” (Chalmers’ “Caledonia,” vol. i. p. 430, note (y)—affords most satisfactory proof that the prelate dwelt among the monks bejore he was apjiointed to the see, a. d. 1124. The reader who may desire to see the other side of the question stated and enforced may refer to Dr. Jamieson’s “Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees,” or, in a more condensed form, to Irvine’s “ Llistorical View of the Church of Scotland.” 10 FIRST PERIOD OF was restored, in 1610, by James L, Avho issued a commission to the bishops of London, Ely, and Bath- and-Wells, to consecrate the titular' bishops of Glas¬ gow, Brechin, and Galloway. The consecration was conferred October 21, 1610; and the three bishops, on their return to Scotland, consecrated ten of their titular brethren.—(Skinner, Ecc. Hist. vol. ii. 253. —Step. p. 343.)—Episcopacy was again abolished, and the succession broken, in 1641. In 1661, it was again restored, by the consecration of four bishops in England, who, on their return, filled the ten vacant sees by consecrating otliers. In 1689, the episcopal succession was superseded by the act of William and Mary, entitled an “ act for abolishing Brelacie.” CIIAPTEB II. FIRST PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. From 1560 to 1572. The “ Confession of Faith”* during this period, as we have already observed, and until 1649, was that which was drawn up in 1560. It contained twenty- * “ The Confession of Faith, exliihited and authorised August 1560, and ratified and established by act of j)arliament, 1567, as the public and avowed faith of the Church of Scotland, is the pillar of the Re¬ formation Church of Scotland, which hath derived little help from the Westniinster Confession of Faith ; whereas the twenty-five articles, thus ratified, not only, at that time, united the states of the kingdom in one linn hand against the Papacy, but also rallied the people, at sundry times of trouble and distress, for a whole century afterwards ; and, it may be said, even until the Revolution, when the Church came into that haven THE KEFOllMATION. 1 1 five articles, as follow:—“ 1. of God; 2. of the crea¬ tion of man; 3. of original sin; 4. of the revelation of the promises; 5. of the continuance, increase, and preservation of the Church; 6. of the incarnation of Jesus Christ ; 7. why it behoved the Mediator to be very God and very man; 8. of election; 9. of Christ’s death, passion, and burial, &c.; 10. of the resurrec¬ tion; 11. of the ascension; 12. of faith in the Holy Ghost; 13. of the cause of good works; 14. what works are reputed good before God; 15. of the per¬ fection of the law, and the imperfection of man; 16. of the Church; 17. of the immortality of the soul; 18. of the notes by which the true Church is dis¬ cerned from the false, and who shall be judge of the doctrine; 19. of the authority of the Scriptures; 20. of general councils, of their power, authority, and cause of their convention ; 21. of the sacraments ; 22. of the right administration of the sacraments; 23. to whom sacraments appertain; 24. of the civil magistrate; 25. of the gift freely given to the Church.” Dr. Cook, speaking of this Confession of Faith, says, that in four days some of the barons, in conjunction with the most eminent preachers, pro¬ duced a confession, embracing a number of subjects, of rest which has proved far more pernicious to her tlian all the storms she ever passed through: for, though the Westminster Confession was adopted as a platform of communion with the English Presbyterians in the year 1647, it exerted little or no influence upon our Church; was hardly felt as an operative principle either of good or of evil until the Re¬ volution of 1688; so that the Scottish Confession was the banner of the Church in all her wrestlings and conflicts—the Westminster Confession but as the camp-colours which she hath used during her days of peace— the one for battle, the other for fair aj)pearance and good order.”— (Irvine’s Preface to the Church Documents.) 12 FIRST PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. iiiid delivering, as the unquestionable dictates of in¬ spiration, opinions upon many of the most intricate speculative points to which the faculties of the human mind can be directed.* Knox was the principal agent, and Dr. Cook gives the reason of there having been only three dissentients; viz. “ that the nobility gratified the ministers as to doctrine^ that they might the more easily gain their object respecting the pa¬ trimony of the Church.” He adds, that, “ when the Confession was read in parliament, no questions were asked, no explanations were sought, and no sufficient time was given for trying it by the test of reason, or comparing it with Scripture.” The “ First Book of Discipline ” f was drawn up and sanctioned by the Kirk A. D. 1560. The principal features, connected with the Presbyterian discipline contained therein, are the following: viz. ecclesias¬ tical imparity^ the suspension of consecration^ of ordination^ and of the imposition of hands, and the non-recognition of any commissioned autiio- rityX as derived through the Apostolical succession. * See Knox, b. iii. p. 239 ; Spottiswoodc, p. 150 ; Calderwood’s His¬ tory, p. 14 ; Keith, p. 149; Wodrow’s MSS. vol. vi. p. 115. t “ The First Book of Discipline was drawn up by the same ministers wlio drew up the Confession, immediately on the dissolution of the par¬ liament in 1560. Consultation was had how the Church might be established in a good and godly policy, which by the Papists was alto¬ gether defaced. Commission and charge was given to Winrem, sub¬ prior of St. Andrew’s, Spottiswoodc, Willock, Douglas, rector of St. Andrew’s, Rowe, and John Knox, to draw in a volume the policy and discipline of the Church, whicli they accordingly did.”—(Irvine's Hist. View.) J “With a high hand does thc‘Fir.st Book of Discipline’ set at nought and abolisli the doctrine of transmission of ordination through a regular succession of bisho[)S, and even excommunicates the Roman Catholic CHAPTER III. IMPARITY IN THE KIRK. From 15C0 to 1580. To shew that the early Scotch Reformers were Episcopaliansj both in principle and practice, we may refer to a letter from Ershine^ of Dun, su¬ perintendent * of Angus, Knox’s intimate friend clergy from the number of those who have a lawful calling to the mi¬ nistry ; and if the Church be a true Church of God, it is so in despite of hereditary ordination, to which it gave no heed ; and even went so far as to set aside the imposition of hands also. There is not, I believe, a more bold rejection of the Papistical impositions, nor yet a more reverend preservation of Apostolical ordinances, than is exhibited in the part of the Church’s discipline whieh refers to the admittance of minis¬ ters.”—(Irvine.) * Irvine says, “ that superintendents were only for present necessity, until the churches should be supplied with faithful and able ministers ; after whieh the Church seemed to have contemplated no superintendence, save that of Provincial Synods and the General Assembly.” Calderwood and Petrie adopt the same argument; an argument whieh is refuted at large by Bishop Sage, (pp. 140-156,) who quotes Knox’s “ History,” where the author (probably Knox himself) says, “ Superintendents and overseers were nominated that all things in the Church might be carried with order and well; a reason which has held since the days of the Apostles, and will continue to hold.” And again, “ Knox, in his sermon at the admission of Spottiswoode to the superintendency of Lothian, asserted the necessity of superintendents, or overseers, as well as minis¬ ters ; the necessity, not the bare expediency, at that juncture.” And again, Knox, in his Exhortation to England for the speedy embracing Christ’s Gospel, says, “ Let no man be charged, in preaching of Jesus Christ, above that which a man may do. I mean, that your bishoprics be so divided that of every one (as they are now for the most part) may 14 IMPARITY IN THE KIRK. and fellow-labourer, in 1571, in wliich he asserts, not only the expediency, but also the divine au¬ thority, of the Episcopal office in the Church of Christ. He is speaking of tithes, and he says, “ that they belong to the Kirk, which alone has the distribution and ministration of things spiritual: so, by the Kirk spiritual offices are distributed and men received and admitted thereto, and the ad¬ ministration of the power is remitted by the Kii-k to bishops, or superintendents; wherefore, to the bishops or superintendents appertaineth the exa¬ mination and admission of men into benefices and offices of spiritual cure, whatever benefice it be, as well bishoprics, abbeys, and priories, as other benefices. That this appertaineth, hp the Scrip¬ tures of God, to the bishop, or superintendent, is manifest from 2 Tim. c. ii. v. 2., 1 Tim. c. v. V. 22;” upon which Erskine proceeds to comment. Dr. Cook also says, “ that they who have embraced episcopacy, although they are not averse to maintain that the ‘ First Book of Discipline’ in fact sanc¬ tioned a form of prelacy, would have preferred, to that form, an exact form of resemblance to the Church of England; while the successors of the first Beformers, who afterwards embraced with so much zeal the exclusive and divine authority of the Pres¬ byterian model, consider it a stumhling-hlock, which they are eager to remove,”—vol. ii. p. 418; and, to set be made te^i; and so, in every eity and great town, there may be plaecd a godly learned man, with so many joined with him for preaehing and instruction as shall be thought sufficient for the bounds committed to their charge.”—(Prcshytery Untwisted.) IMPARITY IN THE KIRK. 15 the question at rest, Bisliop Sage, in liis “ Freshytery Untwisted,” says, “ Prelacy^ which Melville and his party say ‘ sprang from the Devil^' prevailed con¬ stantly and nninterrnptedly, and all persons cheer¬ fully and quietly submitted thereto, till the year 1576, three years after Knox's deaths when it was first called in question,”—p. 216 ; and in pp. 121 to 139, he gives thirty marks of disparity f be- * The following are some of the notes or marks of disparity :—The snperintendcnts had districts, or dioceses, of far larger extent than other churclimen. As they had larger districts than parish ministers, so they had correspondent specialities in their election. There was as great a difference in their deposition, if they deserved it. Their ordination, or, as it was then called, admission, was quite different from tliat of pa¬ rochial ministers. They had the power of U'unslation. They had livings provided for them, about five times as much yearly as was allotted to any private minister. Superintendents, by virtue of their office, were con¬ stant members of the General Assembly. It behoved them to try those who were candidates for the ministry; they had also power of granting collations, wpon presentations. A superintendent had authority to ministers in churches, where the people were negligent to present in due time. He had the power of ordination, or admission. All presbyters or parish ministers were bound to pay canonical obedience to their superin¬ tendents. He had power to visit all the churches within his diocese, and to try the life, diligence, behaviour, &c. of the several ministers ; and to take account of their libraries, and how they profited by their books. He had power to depose ministers who deserved it. He had power to 7 iomi- note ministers to be members of the General Assembly. They had power to hold Diocesan synods, and authority within their own bounds to appoint Diocesan fasts. To them it belonged to modify or assign to parish ministers their stipends, or livings. Appeals were to be made to them from inferior judicatories. If the superintendent found it “ tnale appellatum,” he had the power of fining. He had the power, with the advice of his synod, or such of the ministers of his diocese as he might choose for that purpose, to determine intricate cases of conscience. It be¬ longed to superintendents, particularly, to judge of divorces; a point of great intricacy as well as importance. It was a branch of their power to enjoin penance to greater criminals, and to restore them to the exer¬ cise of their offices, if attached to the Church, after penance. To the 16 IMPARITY IN THE KIRK. tween superintendents and private parish ministers, each of them, as he says, “ a demonstration of in¬ equality either in power or figure.” And yet Prin¬ cipal Hill says, “ that it ever has been held as the peculiar tenet of Presbyterians, that the right of exercising inspection and rule over Christian pastors is one of those extraordinary powers held by the Apostles which was not transmitted to their suc¬ cessors. That the right of performing every mi¬ nisterial function was conveyed by the Apostles to all whom they ordained; that those, termed in the New Testament bishops or priests indiscriminately, had the right of conveying all the powers with which they had been invested; and that every person or¬ dained is as direct a successor of the Apostles as any Christian teacher can be.” superintendents was reserved the power of excommunication in cases of contumacy. It belonged also to them to delate atrocious criminals to the civil power, that condign punishment might be inflicted. The power of superintendents over universities, colleges, and schools was very con¬ siderable. And, lastly, the revising and licensing books was committed to the care of the superintendents. These several points Bishop Sage proves at great length from the Acts of Assembly, &c. 17 CHAPTER IV. APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION BROKEN. “ Calvin and his followers,” says Stephen, “ de¬ spise all ordination and succession in the minis¬ try.” (P. 73.) “ It is much to be lamented,” adds the same writer, “ that John Knox did not appear to think Apostolical succession necessary to be ob¬ served, for it cannot be denied that the Church planted by him was totally deficient in orders^ — suc¬ cession being the divine charter of the Christian Church, and the only principle of permanency, per manus ab Apostolis,^’ (p. 99,)—“ by hand to hand from the Apostles,”—“ and which is handed down by consecration^ as the Aaronical was by hereditary succession.” Knox himself allows that “ the cer¬ tain zealous men,” who “ took upon them to preach,” were totally deficient of the power of conferring orders; for he says expressly, “ that, before there \ was any face of true religion within this realm, it pleased God to illuminate the hearts of many pri¬ vate persons, and they began to put themselves in that same order, as if Christ plainly triumphed in the midst of them by the poAver of his Gospel ; and as the Spirit of God will never suffer his own to ’ be without religion, and as a variety of persons B 18 APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION BROKEN. could not be kept in honest fame without super- mtendeiits^ elders^ and deacons^ tliey elected them accordingly, and so began tliqt oiyUr^ which now, by the great mercy of God, prevails in this realm.” (P. 150.) This view is proved by reference to the “ Laws of the Church,” as they appear in the enactments of 1560. In the “ First Book of Dis¬ cipline,” (ch. iv.,) “ concerning ministers and their lawful election,” we read, “ In a Church reformed, or tending to reformation, none ought to presume to preach or minister the sacraments till that or¬ derly they be called to the same; and we determine that ordinary vocation consisteth in election^ eoca- mination^ and admission. To the jfieojo/e, and each congregation, it appertaineth to elect the minister. Being elected, he must be exaniinated by men of soundest judgment remaining in some principal town next adjacent. Being exaniinated, he must be ad¬ mitted; and we appoint, that the admission of mi¬ nisters to their offices do consist in the consent of' the people and church whereunto they shall be ap¬ pointed, and approbation of the learned ministers appointed for their examination. Other ceremonie than the public approbation of the people, and de¬ claration of the chief minister that the person there presented is appointed to serve the church, we can¬ not approve. For albeit the Apostles used impo¬ sition of liands., yet, seeing the miracle is ceased, the using of this ceremonie we deem not convenient.” —Laws of the Church., pp. 50—53. Dr. Cook says, (vol. ii. p. 392,) “ The admission of ministers at this period was very different from the ordina- APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION BROKEN. 19 tion whicli had so long been established in the Chris¬ tian Church. It consisted merely in the consent of the people to receive a particular person as their teacher, and in the formal approbation of the learned men who had adjudged him qualified to become a religious instructor. This was all that was requisite for admission. The Reformers approved of no ce¬ remony; they even discontinued the practice of the imposition of hands^ upon the ground that, as the official miraculous communication of the Holy Spirit had ceased, which in the days of the Apostles was thus conveyed, it was not necessary to use the sign of that communication. They thus considered ad¬ mission, or ordination, solely as the designation of a person properly qualified to an important office; of course dissenting from the doctrine of the in¬ delible character of the priesthood, and rendering unnecessary the exclusive act, or blessing, of the bishop, which had been conceived requisite for con¬ ferring that sacred character.”— Cook, vol. ii. p. 392. “ And thus,” says another author, “ the dis¬ cipline they then professed was that modified epi¬ scopacy under the government of superintendents, or, in other words, bishops; but, as these governors were without consecration, and had no mission, but were unhappily elected by the people, they did not possess those orders,^ which, to use Calvin’s words, were ‘ per manus ah Apostolis,' by hand to hand,” &c. * So reasons Dr. Bryce, in his “ Address to the Clergy of tlie Chiireh of England “ Dr. Chalmers well know's the solemn and sacred charac¬ ter which you attach to ordination ; by which you believe the most holy 9 B 20 CHAPTER V. SECOND PERIOD. From 1572 to 1578. The discipline of tlie Kirk remained the same from 1560 till 1572. On the 12th of January in the latter year the Assembly met at Leith “ to treat, reason, and conclude respecting the policy of the Church;” and, after much deliberation, seven propositions were adopted, {^vide Spot. p. 260,) reviving, ivith little influences of the Divine Spirit to be conveyed. But, reverend fathers and brethren, far be it from us to attempt deceiving you; the sacred value and virtue of ordination has with us no place in the present question. We are reminded, by the place in the argument now given by Dr. Chalmers to the act of ordination, that the days were—and by him they have been extolled as those of great purity and prosperity—when this act was re¬ garded by our Church as without virtue in forming the pastoral relation between a minister and his people.—(See the Bishop of Glasgow’s ‘ His¬ tory of the Church of Scotland,’ vol. vii.) In the ‘ First Book of Dis¬ cipline,’ which, although not acknowledged as a standard of our Church, was drawn up by Knox himself, and is still received as high authority by many, it is expressly declared in the matter of settling ministers, that ‘ other ceremonies than the public approbation of the people, and declara¬ tion of the chief minister to serve the church, we cannot approve ; for albeit the Apostles used imposition of hands, yet, seeing the miracle is ceased, the using the ceremony we judge not necessa7'y. After a lapse of twenty-one years, and, it is said, at the earnest entreaty of King James, and in order to gratify his majesty, the Reformed Church of Scotland consented to the form of ordination now in use, as one ‘ not necessary,’ as in your Church it is esteemed, hut as ‘ proper and becoming.’ ”—(See an able article in the “ British Critic,” vol. xxviii. p. 42.) SECOND PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. 21 alteration, the old prior to the Eeformation. This was the second model; and the decidedly epi- scopal government was so manifest that, as Stephen says, “ neither Petrie nor Calderwood, the two Pres¬ byterian champions, have the assurance to deny it.” By this agreement, those who were to be invested with the old prelatical power were also to have the old pre- latical names and titles of bishops and archbishops; the old division of dioceses was to take place; the pa¬ trimony of the Church was to run much in the same channel; and express provision was made that chap¬ ters, abbots, priors, &c., should be continued, and en¬ joy their old rights and privileges as churchmen. In consecpience of the concordat at Leith, the vacant bishoprics were filled up. “ John Douglas,” says Bishop Keith, “ was elected titular bishop of St. An¬ drew’s,— titular^ I mean, for want of real., eccle¬ siastical consecration; James Boyd was elected to the see of Glasgow;” and so on; (Keith, p. 39.—Ste. 152.) There could not be a stronger proof of Knox’s approbation, if his opinion is to be the genuine standard of the divine right of Episcopacy, than his having preached the sermon* on the admission of * “ John Knox certainly did not institute the Presbyterian discipline which holds equality among the ministers as a fundamental principle. He introdueed an episcopacy on the ruins of the ancient Church, in which superintendents —the Latin name for bishops—enjoyed the pre-eminenee and jurisdiction, which is the just prerogative of lawful bishops; and, as a proof that his practice was every way consistent with his doetrine, he pre¬ sided at the admission, as it was called, of Spottiswoode, to be superin¬ tendent or bishop of Lothian, and also preached the sermon on that occa¬ sion. He assisted the bishop of Orkney, who was a Roman Catholic bishop that had abjured the errors of Popery, and two superintendents, to erown the Duke of Rothsay as King ; he also preached on that oecasion. Had he 22 SECOND PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. Archbishop Douglas. Douglas was admitted by the superintendent of Lothian, and the bishop of Caith¬ ness : and ecclesiastical affairs proceeded in the regu¬ lar way; only, as the Episcopalian writers have re¬ marked, “ these titular bishops had no canonical ordination'^ they were mere laymen^ and had no spiritual character whatever.” At a subsequent As¬ sembly, the same year, the above titles were again “ changed,” as Calderwood, quoting the words of the act, says, “ into names less scandalous and offensive^ been so thoroughly imbued with anti-episcopal principles as his pretended followers wish to ascribe to him, he would not have joined in these acts, far less have suffered a Roman Catholic bishop, even although he was re¬ formed, to have taken precedence of himself, and crowned the infant prince. Farther, he preached at the admission of Archbishop Douglas. He sent his sons to the decidedly episcopal university of Cambridge to prosecute their studies, and of course to become members of that Church, in which he himself had held a living.”—(Stephen’s Hist, of Ref.) 23 CHAPTER VL THIRD PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. From 1578. When the General Assembly met this year, (1578,) Andrew Melmlle* the founder of Presbyte¬ rian Parity^ was chosen moderator.f The ‘‘‘‘Second * “ Master Andrew Melvil, after some years spent at Geneva, returned to Scotland in July 1674. He had lived in that city under the influences of Theodore Beza, the true j^arent of Presbytery. He was a man by na¬ ture fierce and fiery, confident and peremptory, peevish and ungovernable: education in him had not sweetened nature, but nature had soured edu¬ cation, and both conspiring together had trickt him up into an original;. a piece compounded of pride and petulance, of jeer and jangle, of satire and sarcasm, of venom and vehemence. He hated the crown as much as the ndtre, the scept?-e as much as the crosier, and could have made as bold with the purple as with the rochet. His prime talent was lampoon¬ ing, and writing a7iti-tuini-cami-categorias ! In a word, he was the very urchetppul Bitter Beard of the party.”—(Bishop Sage, p. 217.) t “ The next Assembly met, April 24, 1578, and Air. Andrew Melvil was chosen moderator. The prince of the sect had the happiness to be the prases of the Assembly ; and presently the work was set a-going. Amongst the first things done in this Assembly, it was enacted, ^ That bishops, a7id all others bearing ecclesiastical Junction, should be called by their own na?nes, or brethren, in all time coming.’ No more Lord Bi¬ shops ! and it was but consequential to the great argument, which was then, and ever since hath been, in the mouths of all the party. This was a step worthy of Air. Andrew’s humility ; which was not like other men’s humility, consisting in humbling themselves, but of a new .species of its own, consisting in humbling his superiors. Indeed, after this, he still treated his own ordinary, the archbishop of Glasgow, in public, accord¬ ing to the above canon ; thougli, when he was at his grace’s table, where 24 THIRD PERIOD OF Book of Discipline,” * which is still the law of the Kirk of Scotland, was then agreed upon, hut was not in¬ serted in the registers of Assembly till 1581. The Presbyterian form of Church government, as thus determined, was established by lawf in 1592, and again confirmed J in 1690. Calderwood says that, “ in the Confession, or National Covenant^ 1580, he got better entertainment than at his own commons (for he was then in the eollege at GlasgoAv), he could give him all his titles of dignity and honour.”—(Bishop Sage, p. 258.) * “ No one, who is unacquainted with the history of the Church of Scotland, can conceive the unwearied travail which his ancestors under¬ went between the year 1564 and the year 1581, in preparing the ‘ Se¬ cond Book of Discipline,’ not with a view of superseding, but of perfect¬ ing the other ; and, though they prevailed not to obtain the ratification and legal enforcement thereof by the civil magistrate, it ought to be looked upon as by far the most deliberate and excogitated document, and ahno.st the unanimous voice of our Reformers upon the subject of disci¬ pline.”—(Irvine’s “ Hist. View.”) + “ There is no doubt that, in the parliament of 1592, the model of ecclesiastical rule recommended by Andrew Melville and his coadjutors was ratified by the states of the kingdom, and received the royal assent. But this fact has not precluded all difference of opinion as to the extent in which Presbyterianism, viewed as the form of an established Church, w'as thereby incorporated with the constitution of that country. Various modifications of episcopacy had been thought w'orthy of a similar sanc¬ tion ; beginning with the original system of superintendents, and proceed¬ ing to the scheme devised at Leith, and subsequently to the arrangement of 1586, by which bishops were made permanent moderators of presby¬ teries and synods. It is not, therefore, just to conclude that tlie maxims of convenience and accommodation, which in reference to the Church had guided the legislation of government during more than thirty years, were meant to be entirely laid aside in 1592.”—(Dr. Russell’s “ History of the Church of Scotland,” vol. ii. p.34.) I The following is the title, “ The Second Book of Discipline, or Heads and Conclusions of the policy of the Kirk, agreed upon in the General Assembly, 1578 ; inserted in the Registers of Assembly, 1581 ; sworn to in the National Covenant; revived and ratified by the Assembly, 1638, and by many other acts of Assembly ; and according to which the Church govenimcnt is established by law, anno 1592, 1640—90.” THE REFORMATION. 25 founded upon the principles contained in the ‘ Second Book of Discipline,’ under the name of Hierarchy, is condemned episcopal government. Some say that there is in the Catholic Kirk an hierarchy, instituted by divine ordinance, consisting of bishop, priest, and deacon. This is that hierarchy of the Koman Anti¬ christ which is here condemned. When, in the Con¬ fession, we profess that we abhor and detest all parti¬ cular heads in the Church, as they are now damned by the Word of God and the Kirk of Scotland, we protest that we detest and abhor episcopal govern¬ ment, which was damned, not only by doctrine in pulpits, but also by acts of the Assemblies and articles of the Book of Policy. The discipline to be main¬ tained by this Confession is the jurisdiction of Kirk Sessions, Presbyteries, Synodal and General Assem¬ blies.” With regard to this “ Second Book of Disci¬ pline,” Bishop Sage remarks, “ There cannot be a greater evidence of the deplorable ignorance of the clergy, in these times, in the ancient records of the Church, than their suffering Melville and his party to obtrude upon them the ‘ Second Book of Discipline,’— a split-new democratical system, a very farce of novel¬ ties, never heard of before in the Christian Church.” lie then enumerates the prominent instances.* An- * “For instance, what else is the confounding of the offices of bishops and presbyters 1 the making doctors or professors of divinity in colleges and universities a distinct office, and of divine institution ! the setting up of lay elders as governors of the Church, Jure divino ? making them judges of men’s qualifications to he admitted to the sacrament, visitors of the sick, &c. ] making the colleges oj' presbyters in the cities, in the primitive times, lay-eldership ? prohibiting appeals from Scottish General Assemblies to any judge, civil or ecclesiastical ; and, by consequence, to CEcumenick Councils ?”—(Sage, p.246.) 26 THIRD PERIOD OF Other Scottish writer says, “ that it is impossible to conceive more confusion and more absurdity than is contained in the chapters respecting the Kirk officers’’^ (chs. 4 to 9); and adds, “ that there is in¬ deed a wide difference between such a system of man’s devising and the beautiful order and simplicity of the Apostolic Church.” The prominent features of the “ Second Book of Discipline” are directly contrarient to some of the views contained in the “ First Book,” especially on the points of Presbyterian parity^ and the mode of ad¬ mission into the ministerial office. As regards pa¬ rity^ the following propositions are laid down by the Kirk in 1580: “ That the power and authority of all pastors is equal, and alike great among themselves. That the name ‘ bishop’ is relative to the flock, and not to the eldership; for he is a bishop of his flock, but not of other pastors, or fellow-labourers. As for the pre-eminence that one beareth over the rest, it is the invention of man,^ and not the institu¬ tion of Holy Writ. That the ordaining of pastors, * In an Assembly held at Dundee, in July 1580, they passed the fol¬ lowing act, which at once brought the question of Church government to a crisis : “ Forasmuch as the office of a bishop, as it is now used and commonly taken within this realm, has no sure warrant, autliority, or good ground out of the Scriptures of God, hut is brought in by the folly and corruption of man’s invention, to the great overthrow of the Church of God, the whole Assembly of the Church in one voice, after liberty given to all men to reason on the matter, none defending this pretended office, finds and declares the same pretended office, used and termed as above-said, unlawful in itself, as having neither foundation, ground, nor warrant within the Word of God ; and ordains that all such persons as hold, or shall hold hereafter, the said office, shall be charged sirnpUcitcr to demit the same, as an office to which they are not called of God, and to desist and cease from all preaching, ministration of the sacraments, or using any way the office of ])astors, till they receive admission anew from THE REFORMATION. 27 Avhicli is also called imposition of hands, appertain- etli not to one bishop only, but to presbyters of the same province or presbytery, and with the like ju¬ risdiction and authority, ministers of the Kirk.” Thus, again, in the fourth chapter of the “ Second Book of Discipline,” it is asserted, “ that pastors, bishops, or ministers are they who are appointed to particular congregations, which they rule by the Word of God, and over the which they watch. In respect whereof, sometimes they are called pastors, because they feed their congregations; sometimes episcopi, or bishops, because they watch over their flock; sometimes ministers, by reason of their ser¬ vice and ofiice ; and sometimes also presbyters^ or seniors, for the gravity in manners which they ought to have in taking care of their spiritual go¬ vernment.” (p. 129.)—“ Till this year, 1580,” says a Scottish writer, “ the Presbyterian form of Church government had no imaginable place in our Keforma- tion. Knox* was not a Presbyterian; he settled the government in superintendents (the Latin for bi- the General Assembly, under the pain of excommunication, to be used against them if they be found disobedient or contravene this act in any point. And, for the better execution of the said act, it is statuted that a Synodal Assembly shall be held in every province where any usurped bi- •shops are, and begin the 18th day of August next to come, to which they shall be called and summoned by the visitors of the said countries; viz. the bishop of St. Andrew’s to appear at St. Andrew’s, the bishop of Aberdeen at Aberdeen, the bishop of Glasgow at Glasgow, and the bishop of Aloray at Elgin, to give obedience to the said act; which if they re¬ fuse to do, that the said Assemblies shall appoint certain brethren of their ministry to give them public admonition out of the pulpit, and warn tliem, in case they disobey, to appear before the next General Assem¬ bly to hear the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them.’’'’ * See Knox’s “ Letter to the English Clergy, a. d. 15o!>.” See also Bishop Sage, p. 36. “ Did not Knox,” says Sage, “ conn>i]e the First 28 THIRD PERIOD OF sliops), ministers, and readers: and this government continued—its very forrn^ as Spotswood says, purchas¬ ing it respect,—till Andrew Melville^ the father and founder of Scottish Presbyterianism, and a layman^ without any ordination, commenced his attack in 1575 ; and now, in this year, 1580, after ten succes¬ sive Assemblies, accomplished the introduction of the Presbyterian form of government by this memorable act, which, according to the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon, was sacrilege.” The second prominent change that took place was the renewed form of ordination by imposition of hands. In the third chapter of the “ Second Book of Disci¬ pline” it is held, “ that ordinary and outward calling has two parts, election and ordination. Election is the choosing out of a person or persons, most able, to the office vacated, by the judgment of the eldership : ordination is the separation and sanctifying of the person appointed to God and his Kirk, after he be well tried and found qualified; and that the ceremo- Book of Discipline? and is not imparity fairly established therein % Did not Knox write and bear the letter sent by the superintendents, minis¬ ters, and commissioners of the Church within the realm of Scotland, to their brethren, the bishops and clergy in England, a. d. 1566 1 Did not Knox, in that same title of that same letter, acknowledge that these brethren, bishops and pastors of England, had renounced the Roman Anti¬ christ, and professed the Lord Jesus in sincerity ? And does not the letter all along allow of the Episcopal power and authority of these English bishops ? In short, does not Spotswood tell us ‘ that he (Knox) was far from the dotages wherein some, that would have been thought his fol¬ lowers, did afterwards fall ? That never man was more obedient to Church authority than he % That he was always urging the obedience of minis¬ ters to their superintendents, for which he eaused divers acts to be made in the Assemblies of the Church ; and that he shewed himself severe to the transgressors? ’ ” THE KEFORMATION. 29 nies of ordination be fasting, earnest prayer, and im¬ position of the hands of the presbyteryy —(Laws, part i. p. 128.) In '’'‘the Form of Presbyterian Church government^ and of ordination of minis¬ ters^ agreed upon by the Assembly of divines at Westminster, with the assistance of the commis¬ sioners of the Ch urch of Scotlandf (p. 582,) there is a chapter on ordination of ministers, in which it is stated, that, “ under the head of ‘ ordination of ministers,’ we must consider either the doctrine of ordination or the power of it: ” and, in the next chapter, touching the “ doctrine of ordination,” we read, “ that no man taketh upon himself the office of a minister of the word without a lawful calling; ” and, in the note published by the Kirk in support of the above proposition, is the passage of Ileb. c. xv. V. 4, “No man taketh this honour,” &c. The second proposition states that, “ ordination is always to be continued in the Church;” and the Scripture referred to is Titus, c. i. v. 5, “ For this cause left I thee,” &c. Proposition 2>rd, “ Ordination is the solemn setting apart of a person to some public Church office: ” Scripture quoted, Num. c. viii. v. 10, “ And thou shalt bring the Levites before the Lord, and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites; and Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord, for an offering of the children of Israel, that they may execute the service of the Lord.” Propo¬ sition Mh, “ Every minister of the ivord is to be ordained by imposition of hands, and prayer, with fasting, by those preaching presbyters to whom it doth belong: ” Scripture quoted, “ Lay hands sud- 30 EFFICACY OF ORDINATION denly on no man,” (1 Tim. c. v. v. 22;) “ And when they liad fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away” (Acts, c. xiii. v. 3). Touching the power of ordination,” the Kirk has decreed that “ordination is the act of the presbytery” (1 Tim. c. iv. v. 1). “ The power of ordering tlie whole work of ordination is in the whole presbytery.” “ The preaching presbyters, orderly associated, either in cities or neighbouring villages, are those to whom the imposition of hands doth appertain.” CHAPTER VIE ON THE “ EFFICACY OF ORDINATION” ACCORDING TO THE KIRK. An opinion may perhaps be formed upon this head from the following extracts. In the “ Pardovan Collections,”* constituting a part of the “Laws of the Church,” the following passage occurs in the chap¬ ter “on the election and ordination of pastors:” “Our Lord Jesus Christ hath instituted a government and governors in his Church, invested with ecclesiastical authority, with power to meet for the order and go¬ vernment thereof; and to that purpose the Apostles did immediately receive the keys from the hands of * “ Collections and Observations methodized, concerning the Wor¬ ship, Discipline, and Government of the Church of Scotland. By \\^alter Steuart, of Pardovan.” ACCORDING TO THE KIRK. 31 tlieir Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who hath from time to time furnished some in his Churcli with gifts of government, and ivith commission to exercise it when called thereunto, and has promised “ his pre¬ sence to be with them to the end of the world.” (Laws of the Church, part i. p. 155.) Again, in Hill’s “ Practice of the Church Courts,” (p. 65,) one of the questions put to the candidate for ordination is this: “ Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and discipline of this Church are founded upon the Word of God, and are agreeable thereto?” and, having obtained from the presented the requisite answers, he is, in the language of the or¬ dination service, “ invested with the full character of the minister of the Gospel; the presiding minister conveying to him, by prayer and the imposition of hands of the presbytery, all the powers implied in that character.” Dr. Campbell., in his “ Lectures on Ecclesiastical History,” (p. 356,) speaking of the Scottish Non-jurors, says, “ that they had only a sort of Pi’esbyterian ordination; and that he would by no means be understood as equalizing theirs with that which obtains in the Kirk.” “ Whoever,” says he, “ is ordained a bishop—as all ministers are—is ordained a bishop by a class of bishops: whereas the ordination of our Non-jurors proceeds from presbyters, in their own —that is, in the worst—sense of the word; men to whom a part only of the ministerial powers were committed, and from whom, particularly, was withheld the power of transmitting orders to others. When we say that our orders are from pres¬ byters, we do not use the term in their acceptation. 32 EFFICACY OF ORDINATION ])ut in that wherein we find it used by St. Luke in the Acts, and by St. Paul in his Epistles; and, if the Fathers are of any weight, by the purest and earliest Fathers, Clemens Eomanus, Polycarp, and others,— presbyters, in short, whom the Holy Ghost has made bishops of the flock.’’ Cnlamy^ the great champion of the Presbyterian cause, bears this remarkable tes¬ timony to the necessity of a due and authorized successio7i : “ As for Luther, Zuinglius, Bucer, (Eco- lampadius, and others, they were,” he says, “ autho¬ rized, teachers in the Church of Rome; and, there¬ fore, tliey might warrantahly set others over the churches. I make the same reply,” adds he, “ to those who incpiire ‘ how we came hy our call to the ministry f Many of those whom they, in 1652, thought fit to cast out of the public churches, had been ordained in the Church of England by bishops; and though others were not so, yet their ordainers were.” Nay, further, he declares that “this is a thing that we, the Presbyterians, lay great stress upon, viz., that they who set apart others for the ministry by a solemn investiture * be themselves duly authorized * I quote the following from a note in the artiele in ‘‘ The British Critic,” previously alluded to, with reference to the opinions of Mr. Tait on this subject, as expressed in his “ Letter to the Moderator of the Church of Scotland:” ‘‘ We believe that any degree of inconsistency in Mr. Tait’s letter may he accounted for by the prejudices of education ; and, the more reverential and religious the mind, the closer very often will the prejudices cling; else we should indeed marvel to find Mr. Tait continuing in the Kirk. His whole tone is that of reverence, not of scornful derision ; and, when he approaches the doctrine of ordination, he says, ‘ Allow me to remind you of that solemn act of the Church hy which pastors are set apart to their high and holy calling. No man may presume to take the pastoral office on himself; no man may presume to ACCORDING TO THE KIRK. 33 thus, as Johnson has observed, laying great stress upon succession (Vade Mecum, v. ii. p. 94, preface). The reader, in perusing the above positions and the subjoined note, will bear in mind the state of the succession in Scotland from 1560 to 1582; and also the opinion of Dr. Bryce, as previously quoted. exercise any of its peculiar functions until he be ordained by solemn prayer and the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. In the ordina¬ tion service^ the presiding minister, with his hands, and the hands of his brethren, laid on the head of him who is called to the pastoral office, sets him apart thereto in the name of the Lord Jesus, the sole Head of the Church, imploring on his behalf the special communication of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, by wliich he may be qualified for tbe discharge of all the parts of the work of the Gospel ministry to the glory of God and the edification of the Church ; beseeching God to give him knowledge, whereby he may be furnished for instructing the people in the mysteries of grace ; and wisdom, whereby he may be fitted for rul¬ ing them in riglitcousness and love.—Now, sir, I ask your especial attention to this solemn question. Is this service a mere empty form, a mere unmeaning ceremony ? or, if it be not, what is the true meaning of it ? If any one shall say that it is a mere form or ceremony, and nothing more, and that, as such, it might be dispensed with, without pre¬ judice to the vital interest of the Church, I beg leave simply to say, that, with a man who speaks thus, I do not at present attempt to argue ; and that, while I am far from presuming to form a judgment as to the state of his mind, I cannot hesitate as to the judgment which ought to be formed of the sentiments expressed by him. I cannot hesitate to say, respecting the sentiment, that it breathes the very spirit of infidelity, the very spirit of Antichrist.The service of ordination is the divinely chosen and constituted channel whereby the Head of the Church is pleased, in answer to the prayer of faith, to grant to Ilis servants, the pastors of the Church, all needful graces and gifts of His holy Spirit for the in¬ struction and government of the Church.’ He then says, that, if the service of ordination be accompanied by prayer and faith, the man on whom the hands of the presbytery are laid ‘ receives from the Head of the Church, through the channel (f that act of the presbytery, in a man¬ ner proportioned to the degree of faith exercised by the Churcli, graces and gifts which were not previously possessed by him, and that he is thus fitted for his office, which others are not fit ford Tben examining the case, when ‘ the greater number of the functionaries in tbe service of 34 EAKLY SCOTTISH KEFOIUIEKS ClIArTER VIIL THE EARLY SCOTTISH REFORMERS NOT INIMICAL TO “ FORMS OF PRAYER.” In passing hastily over the characteristic changes which occurred in the Presbyterian system, we omit¬ ted the mention of puhlic worship^^ in the Kirk subsequently to the year 1592. Bishop Sage tells us, “ that the first Reformers in Scotland were very far from condemning '■liturgies'' or '■set forms in the public offices of the Church.’ There is nothing more plain,” he adds, “ than that they preferred public compositions to those that were composi¬ tions digested by the public spirit in the Church, to compositions digested by the private spirit of par¬ ticular individuals; and premeditated and well-digest¬ ed compositions, though performed by private per¬ sons, to the too frequently rash, meagre, incomposed, undigested performances of the extempore gift." ordination are themselves devoid of faith,’ he reminded us of the general principle, that God is not ‘ limited to work by the instrumentality of men personally godly.’ May Mr. Tait’s views spread in the Kirk, and may he, and all who hold them, be led to inquire, 1st, whether God has ever promised this grace of ordination, except by the hands of His Apostles and their successors 1 2ndly, whether, if He had so promised, the whole argument is not rendered invalid by that suspension even of Presbyterian ordination in the Kirk for a quarter of a century V — (“ British Critic,” vol. xxviii. p. 5.5.) NOT INIMICAL TO “FORMS OF PRAYER.” 35 They preferred offices which were “ the productions of grave, sedate, well-pondered thoughts, to offices which were mostly the productions of animal heat and warmth of fancy.”—“ John Knox himself, one who had as much fire in his temper, and was as much inclined to have given scope to the extempore spirit, as most men, had, as he himself tells us, a set form of grace, or thanksgiving, after meat; he had a set form of prayer for the public after sermon; and he had set forms of prayer read every day in his family.” In conformity to this principle, the Scotch Reform¬ ers, during the seven years subsequent to the “ First Book of Discipline,” used tlie Liturgy of the Churcii of England; and when, upon the persuasion of Knox, they consented to part with the English Liturgy, they did not condemn liturgical services; they did not lay it aside, and not take up another; they chose another to succeed it, they chose that which went then generally under the name of “ The Order of Geneva,” or “ The Book of Common Order,” since styled “ Knox’s Liturgy,” or “ Tlie Old Scottish Liturgie.” This Liturgy continued, not only during the period of Presbyterian imparity^ when tlie “ First Book of Discipline” was the rule, but for many decades of years after the Presbyterian spirit and party prevailed. And so far were the Presbyterians of that day from considering a liturgical service in the light of an “ impediment to devotion,” or, as the modern Presbyterians call the Liturgy of the Church of England, a “ dry, lifeless, spiritless, powerless, unwarrantable service,” an “ ill-mumbled mass, a farce of Popish dregs and relics, a rag of 36 EARLY SCOTTISH REFORMERS Romish superstition, and a remnant of idolatryso far were they from considering it, as the framers of the Scotch “Directory”* express themselves, “as an olfence, not only to the godly at home, hut also to the Reformed Cdiurches abroad,” and as “ in¬ creasing the number of the idle and unedifying ministers, who content themselves with forms of prayer and never exercise the ministerial gift;” so far were the Presbyterians of the beginning of the seventeenth century from holding these sentiments, and so universally was the Genevan Liturgy received and used and even esteemed, that when it was moved by some in the Assembly held at Burnt Island in 1605, “that there were sundry prayers in it that were not convenient for these times,” the Assembly rejected the motion, and, to quote their own words, “ thought good that the prayers con¬ tained in the book should neither be altered nor ex¬ punged; but that, if any brother wished to introduce * Vide Southey’s “ Book of the Church,” p. 501.—“ The same day that six infamous peers past the ordinance of attainder against Laud, they past an act also by which the Liturgy was suppressed, (Rushworth, part iii. voh ii. p. 839,) and a ‘ Directory for Public Worship’ set forth in its stead. This miserable tract, whereby the public worship of these kingdoms was thenceforth to he regulated, is, as the title implies, a mere ‘ Directory,’ which prescribed only the ordei of the service, leaving every thing else to the discretion of the minister. The hatred which the Puri¬ tans expressed against the Liturgy was as violent as it was unreasonable ; for it must be remembered, that none of them, as yet, differed in a single point from its doctrines. They called it, by a wretched play upon the word, ‘ the lethargy of worship.’—To prescribe a form, they said, was stopping the course of God’s Spirit, and ‘ muzzling’ the mouth of prayer (‘ Christ on his Throne,’ p. 30.) They reviled it as a compilation made by men w'ho were ‘ belching the sour crudities of Popery,’ (‘ Trial of the Liturgy,’ p. 7,) and they said that it brought the land to ‘ atheism.’ ” NOT INIMICAL TO “FORMS OF PRAYER.” 37 any other prayer, he should first present it to be tried and allowed by the General Assembly.” It is recorded of Robert Bruce^ a zealous Presbyterian, that “ he remained as minister at Inverness four years, teaching and reading of the ])rayers every sabbath before noon:” and Striingeour^ another Presbyterian champion, when summoned before the High Commissioner in 1620, for not conforming to the “ Five Articles of Perth,” appealed to the old Liturgy as that which he adopted, and which he regarded as his guide; and Bishop Sage says, “ that the Liturgy continued to be used at the beginning of the Revolution in Charles the First’s reign, 1640, and many old people remember well, even now (1703), to have heard it used indifferently, both by Presbyterians and Episcopalians, till the great Rebellion.” CHAPTEll IX. EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLANH, From 1610 to 1602. On the restoration of Episcopacy, in 1610, King James endeavoured, by degrees, to assimilate the Church of Scotland to the Church of England in her offices and discipline ; and from that period to the Kevolution in 1641, there was a progressive ad¬ vance, notwithstanding violent and frequent oppo¬ sition, towards uniformity. Three subjects of inte¬ rest occurred during the reigns of the first James and Charles, which must not be omitted, as they bear very strongly on subsequent events. The first was, the adoption of the celebrated Perth Articles^ five in number, by the Convention held at Perth in 1618. They are briefly as follow:—“ 1. That the sa¬ crament be received meekly and reverently by the people on their knees. 2. That the Lord’s Supper may be administered to the sick in private.^ accord¬ ing to the prescribed form. 3. That baptism may be administered in jwivate in case of danger, and that the minister do announce such baptism to the congre¬ gation on the next Lord’s day. 4. That the minister shall catechise the children of his parish above the age of eight years in the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 39 and the Ten Commandments; and that they shall sub¬ sequently, when of proper age, and duly instructed, be brought to the bishop to be confirmed. 5. That the following holy days should be observed; Christ- inas-day., Good Friday., Easter-day., Whit Sunday., and the Day of Ascension.'’^ These articles were ratified by King James the First in August 1621, on what the Presbyterians call the Black Satur¬ day and, as Stephen tells us, formed in the year following the basis of all the most violent oppo¬ sition to the monarchy and the church, f—The * Defoe relates, that the appellation of Black Satw'day was derived from the following circumstance ; “ That when the act for confirming the ‘ Five Articles of Perth’ had been voted and passed, and was presented for the royal assent,—which was signified by touching it with a sceptre,—the moment the Lord High Commissioner, my Lord Scone, stood up to touch this act. Heaven manifested its royal dissent in a most remarkable man¬ ner ; three flashes of lightning, one immediately after the other, darted in at the great window, and struck directly in the Commissioner’s face. He confessed afterward, that he felt the heat of the fire on his face. The last flash was more frightful than the two first ; and they were rendered more visible by an exceeding dark cloud, which, for some minutes before, hung directly over the city. The thunder which followed, and broke upon the city, and, as it were, more immediately on the Parliament house, was very terrible, especially the third clap of thunder immediately after the lightning. The darkness occasioned by the said cloud increased to such a degree, that it became truly awful; and the lords and members of Parliament, although their business was finished, were kept prisoners by the fury of the storm for full an hour. And, when they did go away, every one shifted home as fast as he could ; so that this act could not have the honour of a procession, nor have ‘ the regalia’ carried before it, as was usual on like occasions.”—“Well,” adds Defoe, “ did the day get the name of the Black Saturday, as well on account of Heaven’s de¬ nunciation, as on the occasion of the black and dirty work they had been busied in.”—(“ Mem. of the Church of Scotland,” p. 171.) f In a work, entitled “ Examination of the Articled of Perth,” I find the following objections w'ere urged against them by the Presbyterian body. First, as to kneeling at the co7mnunion., it was urged that “the 40 EPISCOI’AL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. second point of interest, during tlie period from 1610 to 1641, was the attempt, in 1637, to introduce Book of Common Prayer for the Church of Scot- landf in order to prevent the great irregularities which prevailed in the public worship at different churches. This Scottish Liturgy was compiled by Scottish bishops, and revised by Drs. Laud and Wren, and varied in a very trifling degree from the English Book of Common Prayer; but so jea¬ lous were the Scotch of English interference, that a few verbal alterations were made, and the new translation of the Psalms, Epistles, and Gospels adoration addressed to an invisible Being would soon be transferred to the intermediate object presented to the votary, and again degenerate into Romish idolatry.” And so averse w^ere they to every genuflexion, that we are told, that “ the Presbyterian clergy, after the proclamation in favour of the Perth Articles in 1620, encouraged the most irreverent and indecent conduct on the part of the communicants, and obstinately re¬ commended their flocks to sit, stand, and even to walk about, while helping themselves to the sacred symbols.”—(Step. p. 365.) Again, as to the second and third articles, “ the private administration of the sacra¬ ments,'" they urged, that “ they did not regard the sacraments as essential to salvation ; but only, the one, as an adoption by Christ into the bosom of his Church ; the other, as a covenant, and spiritual communion with his person : and, accordingly, that the celebration of these two rites should be confined to the Cliurch when the congregation is assembled.” As re¬ gards the fourth article, on “ confirmat'ion," they stated that “ confirmation was utterly inconsistent witli the spirit of the Church of Scotland ; inas¬ much as it argued, in the administration of baptism, a subordinate and im- perject power derived by presbyters from the episcopal order.” And, as to the five articles “on fasts and festivals,” they objected, that “the insti¬ tution of Christmas was an imitation of the idolatrous Saturnalia of the Romans ; that of Easter and Pentecost, the revival of the Jewish observ¬ ances ; and that the anniversary of the birth, the crucifixion, and the re¬ surrection of Christ, was no more consecrated by his actions, than the form of the manger in which he was born, of the cross on which he suft'ered, or of the sepulchre in which he was buried.”—(Laing, vol. iii. p.83.) EriSCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 41 adopted, to avoid an appearance of conformity. Tlie communion service was that of the first hook of Edward the Sixth. The Se7'vice Book, duly autho¬ rised, was read, according to royal proclamation, on Sunday the 23rd of July 1637, and was confined to the churches of the metropolis. The tumult that ensued, especially in the cathedral, the present St. Giles’, has been described as “ equally disgraceful and appalling.” Bishop Guthrie * says, that no sooner was the service begun, than a multitude of women, with the most discordant feminine execra¬ tions, seized upon the stools and benches, and threw them at the Dean’s head, who was reader, to his great personal damage; endeavouring at the same time to drag the bishop. Dr. Lindsay, from the pulpit, who was rescued by the intervention of the Earl of llox- burgh. The attempt was,f we believe, never resumed. The last point of interest was, the abolition of epi¬ scopacy in 1641, and its restoration under Charles the Second in 1662. * The account given by Frincipal Baillie, who was also a contem¬ porary, and on the Presbyterian side, does not differ mucli from tliat of Guthrie; “ On the Sunday morning, when the bishop and his dean in the great church, and the bishop of Argyle in the Grey-friars, began to officiate, as they speak, incontinent the serving-maids began such a tumult as was never heard of since the Reformation in our nation. However, no wound was given to any ; yet such were the contumelies, in words, in clamours, running and flinging of stones in the eyes of the magistrates and chancellor himself, that a little opposition would infal¬ libly have moved that enraged people to have rent sundry of the bishops in pieces.”—(“ Letters and Journals,” vol. i. p. 5.) t Vide De Foe on the Union, p. 27. 42 CIIArXEE X. EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, From 1662 to 1690. In the beginning of Charles the Second’s reign, the return ivliich was then made to the ancient form of Church government was. Bishop Keith tells us, “ not at all disagreeable to the majority of the people.” All the moderate Presbyterians attended the episcopal worship, and communicated in the parish churches ; and there was scarcely any out¬ ward distinction between the two parties, either in faith, worship, or discipline. The old “ Confession of Faith,” drawn up in 1567, was received as the standard of sound doctrine. Since the failure in the attempt, at Edinburgh, to read the “ New Service Book ” in 1637, no Liturgy, or appointed form of prayer, had been used in public worship. Many of the Episcopal clergy* compiled forms for the use of their particular congregations, with some prayers and collects taken out of the English Liturgy; and all of them uniformly concluded their prayers with the Lord's Prayer^ and their singing with the Dox- ology. The two sacraments were administered by both parties nearly in the same manner, without kneel¬ ing at the one, or signing with the sign of the cross at the other; only, in baptism, the Episcopal clergy * Bishop Skinner, v. ii. p. 467. EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 43 required the Apostles’ Creed, and the Presbyterians the Westminster Confession, as the model or directory of the child’s religious education. Again, with regard to discipline^ the Episcopal Church of that day had their “ Kirk Sessions” as the Presbyterians have at present: they had also their “ Presbyteries” where some experienced minister, of the bishop’s nomina¬ tion, acted as moderator; they had their Diocesan Synods” in which the bishop presided; their Na¬ tional Synods” they did not have, as the king did not find it expedient to summon them, or to permit their convocation. Tender consciences were not grieved by what they considered objectionable ceremonies. There was neither altar nor surplice allowed. The communion-tables were placed according to conve¬ nience, without any principle of uniform position. There were no chancels, there were no bells*; “in a Avord,” says a Scotch historian, “ the Episcopal Church of Scotland Avas so unwilling, in her ceremonial, to give offence to the Presbyterians, that she hardly ventured in anything to deviate from their forms. The clergy Avore gowns and cassocks, but they did not shock the eyes of the people by the sight of that ‘ linen garment^ \ emblematic of a false purity.” As no just offence could be taken at the doctrine., or worship., of the Episcopalians, so neither could any objection be urged against the amount of their ecclesiastical revenue., or its distribution. The pri¬ mate had 1000/. yearly; the bishops, from 300/. to * “ The church bells were on no account allowed to be used, except for calling together the congregation at the hour of divine service.”— (Bishop Skinner.) T Guthrie was excommunicated for having preached before the King in a surplice. 44 EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 5001. each; while the income of the parochial clergy varied from 20/. to 100/. each. “ In truth,” says Bishop Skinner, “ except the titles of archbishop and bishop, we perceive scarcely anything in the Scottish establishment peculiar to an Episcopal Church.” Mr. Calamy, a celebrated English Presbyterian, (1662,) upon being made acquainted with the easy terms on which those of his persuasion in the sister kingdom might have held communion with the Established Church, exclaimed, “ What would our brethren in Scotland be at, or what would they have? Would to Cod, we had these offers!” Thus the affairs of the Church of Scotland continued, with more or less of party spirit shewing itself, until the Kevolution in 1690 re-established the Presbyterian form of Church-government. And it may not be unworthy of a passing remark, that the Episcopal communion, which continues to exist northward of the Tweed, has descended regularly from the four bishops of 1661, viz. Sharpe* who was promoted to the archbishopric * A question arose, at the consecration of Archbishop Sharpe, which strongly points out the difference of opinion existing in the time of James the First and Charles the Second on the efficacy of Presbyterian ordina¬ tion. At the restoration of episcopacy in 1610, Dr. Andrews, bishop of Ely, maintained the necessity of ordaining the three Scotch prelates deacons and priests before they could be advanced to the episcopate, since they had not been canonically ordained. But Spottiswoode relates that Dr. Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, denied the necessity,—arguing “ that, where there were no bishops, ordination by presbyters must be esteemed lawful.” Heylin, indeed, asserts that the archbishop overruled the objection of Dr. Andrews, upon different grounds, viz. that “ the higher order included the lower, and that there were instances of bishops being made per saltum." As, however, Spottiswoode was present, and one of the three to be consecrated, I fear that the archbishop did reason in the way that he records. The views of the bishops of London, Worcester, EPISCOPAL CHURCH OE SCOTLAND. 45 of St. Andrew’s; A7idrew Fairfowl^ minister at Dunse, wlio was raised to the archiepiscopal see of Glasgow; James Hamilton^ minister of Cambiisne- tlian, and Robert Leighton^ dean of the chapel- royal, who were elevated, the former to the see of Galloway, the latter to that of Dunblane. These and Winchester, on the consecration of Sharpe, Leighton, Fairfowl, and Hamilton, were directly opposed to those of Barlow. Burnet relates (vol. i. p. 251), “ that, when the time fixed for the consecration of the bishops of Scotland came on, the English bishops, finding that Sharpe and Leighton had not episcopal ordination, (the other two having been ordained by bishops before the civil wars,) they insisted on it that they must he ordained, first deacons, and then priests. Sharpe was very uneasy at the objection, and urged the case of Barlow in 1610 ; hut they were positive on the point, and would not dispense with it.” Burnet adds, in his usual spirit, “ that Sharpe stuck more at it than could have been expected in a man who had swallowed dorvn much greater matter while “ Leighton, who acknowledged the validity of Presbyterian ordi¬ nation, was very slightly disconcerted.” Burnet, however, states that the prelates, admitting for a moment that Barlow was right, made this difference between their time and that of James, that, “ whereas the Scots were then only in an imperfect state, having never had bishops among them since the Reformation, from 1560 to 1610; and whereas they had been under a state of necessity, it was reasonable to allow of theii orders, how defective soever: hut that, of late, they had been in a state of schism, had revolted from their bishops, and had thrown off that order ; so that orders, given in such a wilful opposition to the whole con¬ stitution of the primitive Church, and contrarient to the current senti¬ ments of antiquity, was a thing of quite another nature.” I observe that Malcolm Laing, a Presbyterian writer, indirectly supports the testimony of Heylin as to the reasoning of Bancroft. Speaking of the consecration of the three bishops in 1610, he says, “ As the Scottish prelates, accord¬ ing to the argument, or rather the language, of polemics, were not yet adopted in the Apostolical order, it behoved them to proceed to England for consecration—for consecration by English Bishops, who had derived their authority from a polluted source, and had kindled their torches at the unhallowed flames of an idolatrous shrine. Their very ordination to the priesthood was questioned by these English bishops ; but the objec¬ tion was overruled, the subordinate order of priesthood being included, or supposed by them to he included, in the episcopal, and was supplied. 46 EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. four divines were consecrated in the abhey-churcli of Westminster on the 15th of December 1661: Sharpe and Leighton having been at once ordained deacons and priests on the same day and at the same place.* The Apostolical succession has not been again inter¬ rupted ; the four bishops having, on their return, consecrated ten bishops to ten vacant sees.—In 1690 prelacy was abolished by the Act of William and ]\Iary. if defective, by the regular consecration of these Scottish bishops.’’ And, again, in speaking of the consecration of the four prelates in 16G2, he says, “ that when Charles admonished Lauderdale that Presbyterianism was unfit for a gentleman, four suffragan bishops were recommended for consecration hy Archbishop Sharpe ; but as Sycherf alone, of the former prelates of 1610, survived the Restoration, they were again obliged to resort to English bishops for the supposed receipt of an Apostolical com¬ mission.” “ The danger,” he adds, “ which had threatened the extinc¬ tion of English episcopacy during the Usurpation, had not inspired modera¬ tion. At the consecration of Spottiswoode, the subordinate orders of priest¬ hood had been conferred, or supplied, by the episcopal character : but Sharpe and Leighton were required, before they could be consecrated, to submit to episcopal ordination as deacons and priests, thus acknowledg¬ ing their former orders as invalid.” Laing, however, bears testimony to the canonical ordination of Fairfowl and Hamilton prior to the civil w'ars, which Presbyterians sometimes delight to question. Carwilhen seems to clear up the difficulty as to Bancroft’s sentiments. He says, that Abbott, bishop of London, not Bancroft, was of opinion that there was no necessity of passing through the inferior orders of deacon and priest, but that the episcopal character might be conveyed at once, of wbich antiquity furnishes us with three instances. The difficulty was settled according to the suggestion of Abbott, and they were consecrated accordingly and in a note he says, “ The opinion of Abbott is by Collier imputed to Bancroft ; but Neal, with more probability, has ascribed it to Abbott.”—(Car. vol. ii. p. 232.) The instances to which Abbott or Bancroft alluded are, St. Ambrose, a. d. 374, ( Vide Cave, 569,) Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, a. d. 363 ; Ncctarius, bisliop of Con¬ stantinople.—See Collyer, vol. viii. p. 447. * In corroboration of this fact, see Bisliop Kennet’s “ Register,” p. 577, and Robert Wodrow’s “ History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland,” an. 1661 ; see also Canon 32. 47 CIIAPTEE XL THE TRESBYTERIAN FORM RE-ESTABLISHED. 1690. Bishop Keith has remarked, that, “in the measures contemplated hy William in reference to the Church of Scotland, it is not to be imagined that his final determination was at all influenced by a regard to theological principle, or that he preferred the one form of ecclesiastical government to the other on any ground but that of his political interest.” “ It is a pretty common opinion,” says a Presbyterian writer, “ that William was disposed to prefer episcopacy, had the Church rulers and her clergy taken the oath of allegiance, but, this being contrary to their principles, it was therefore never attempted; and the result was, that William favoured the Presbyterian party: and, in April, 1689, the Scotch Convention, in their cele¬ brated ‘ claim of right^ declared ‘ prelacy, and the superiority of any office in the Church above pres¬ byters, to be, and to have been, a great and insup¬ portable grievance and trouble to the Scottish nation ever since the year 1560;’ (which clause has been ably replied to by Bishop Sage (p. 277;) and on the 22nd of July, 1689, they passed their famous ‘act, aho- lishing prelacy,' and establishing the present Presby- 48 PRESBYTERIAN FORM terian system.” It has,” says Keith, “ been com¬ mon in these days to describe the Scotch bishops "who were deprived at the Eevoliition as narrow-minded persons, who sacrificed their Church to contemptible scruples.” But, before this charge be admitted, it should be remembered that the oath of allegiance, at that period, differed much from the one which is ex¬ acted now. The present oath is this: “I do solemnly promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria.” But before the Revolution, 1688, it ran thus: “I do promise to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs^ and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour; and not to know or hear of any damage or ill intended him without defending him thereon.” Upon this, Bishop Keith has remarked, “ that the oath, which all subjects in office had sworn to King James, bound them to his heirs; and, though the Scottish Convention agreed that Jaynes had forfeited his title to the crown, his infant son still remained, to whom they owed allegiance: ” and we may here remark, that the Episcopalians in Scotland did not consider themselves released from this oath till the death of Charles Edward in 1788, * when, in IMay * I have been enabled to refer to an original letter of Bishop Rose, of Edinburgh, who was deputed to wait upon the Prince of Orange, and, in the name of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, present a dutiful address. This was in December, 1688; and in February, 1689, it was agreed by the two Houses of Parliament, that, “ as James had abdicated the government, the throne was vacant, and therefore that William and Mary be, and be declared, King and Queen of England and Ireland. Bishop Rose was thus placed in great difficulty, as he was required to address the Prince as King, winch, hy his commission from the Church of Scotland, he had no power to do ; and, forther, he u'as told that it was RE-ESTABLISHED. 49 of tliat year, the king, George the Third, was prayed for, in the terms of the Liturgy, in all the chapels in Scotland, with three exceptions. absolutely necessary, in the address, that he should compliment the King on his descent, “ to deliver us from popery and slavery ” which, as he said, he liad “ not clearness in himself to do.” The poor old Bishop, having been coldly treated by the Archbishop Sancn)/'t, and rudely treated by his “ intimate acquaintance,” Bishop Stillingjleet* and hav¬ ing been urged by Compton, bishop of London, Turner, bishop of Ely, and Viscount Tarbat, and other Scotch peers, to wait on the Prince with an altered and more suitable address, and having refused to ac¬ quiesce, was about, as he says, “ weary and heart-broken,” to journey home again. He was, however, apprized that none could obtain passes but those who had waited on the Prince ; whereupon, willing to got back, he applied to the bishop of London to introduce him to the Prince, who, after strongly urging him to recognize William as King, addressed him in these remarkable words: “ You see, my lord, that the King, having thrown himself upon the water, must keep himself a-swimming with one hand. The Presb 3 derians have joined him closely, and offered to support him ; and therefore he durst not throw them off, unless he is assured of your support. And the King bids me tell you this, that he now sees that what he heard in Holland, about the great body of the Scotch being Presbyterians, is false ; he sees that the great body of no¬ bility and gentry are for Episcopacy, and that it is the trading and infe¬ rior classes that are for Presbyterianism ; and, therefore, the King bids me tell you, that, if you will undertake to serve him to the purpose that he is served here in England, he will take you by the hand, support the Church and Episcopal order, and throw off the Presbyterian.” The reply Avas, “ that he had no advice on that head from his brethren in Scot¬ land.’’ At length he was introduced to the King, who, on his being ad¬ mitted, “stepped three or four paces forward from his company, and pre¬ vented me by saying, ‘ My lord, are you going for Scotland 1 ’ My reply was, ‘ Yes, sir, if you have any commands.’ Then he said, ‘ I hope you will be kind to me, and folloAv the example of England.’ Wherefore, being somewdiat difficulted to make a mannerly and discreet answer Avithout entangling myself, I replied, ‘ Sir, I Avill serve you so far as law, reason, and conscience will allow me.’ Whereupon the King turned aAA'ay from me, and, I think, was displeased at the limitations and condi¬ tions.” * Bishop Burnet told him that he “ did not meddle in Scotch affairs.” D 50 THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CHAPTER XII. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IMMEDIATELY SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. By the act of parliament which established Pres¬ byterianism in 1690, it was provided, greatly to the detriment of the Episcopal Church, that “ the go¬ vernment of the Church, through the medium of her several judicatories, should be vested in those mi¬ nisters who were ejected from their livings subse¬ quent to the 1st of January, 1661, and in such other ministers and elders as they had already ad¬ mitted, or might thereafter admit;” and further it declared, “ that all such ministers have free access to their kirks, and that they may immediately exer¬ cise their ministry in those parishes, without a new call thereto, allowing the whole stipend for 1689 to such ministers.” Bishop Skinner asks “ with what show of justice was this done, when it is remem¬ bered that these Presbyterian ministers, before 1661, had possessed themselves, against all law, and in di¬ rect violation of private property, many of them without the pretence of ordination; for which reason it was, and not for nonconformity, that they lost what they never really possessed.” It will be at once seen, that this provision deprived their ministers of all SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION. 51 claim to the Apostolical succession^ as derived through the consecrated bishops of 1662; which, as it has been before remarked,* is insisted on by Calamy as the basis of Presbyterian ecclesiastical authority, so far as regards the right of admitting ministers into the kirk. Of these deprived incumbents of 1661, sixty-five were living in 1690; and the object of the clause was, to exclude from the management of eccle¬ siastical affairs all the Episcopal clergy who might conform^ and put it into the hands solely of the Presbyterian body—of men, in fact, who had sworn “ to the solemn league and covenant,” f and bound themselves to “ extirpate prelacy as well as popery.” * See p. 32. t Sections 2 and 4.—“ And tins covenant vve make in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. And we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of popery and pi'tlacy; that is, the government of the Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, chancellors, &c., deans and chapters, canons, and archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy : and we will labour, praying for the aid of God’s Spirit to this end, to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for public worship, and catechising.” This “ solemn league and covenant ” was agreed upon by the commissioners from the Parliament and Assembly of divines in England, with the commissioners of the Convention of estates and General Assembly in Scotland, and by both of the Houses of Parliament in England in 1643 ; and by the said authority taken and subscribed by all ranks above the age of eighteen in England and Scotland, and ratified by act of parliament in Scotland in 1644 ; it was again renewed 1648, and by parliament in 1640 ; and subscribed by Charles the Second at Spey in 1650, and at Scone in 1651 ; and is still binding upon the Scotch Presbyterians as one of their acknow¬ ledged ecclesiastical legal enactments. % + Vide Con. of E. p. 501. I) 2 52 EPISCOPAL CHURCH AFTER 1688 . In the year 1689 commenced the sorrows of the Episcopal Church of Scotland; sorrows which did not cease till the year 1792. In the former year, or rather on Christmas-day, 1688, began a crusade, founded on the obligation of the “ solemn league and covenant” to “ extirpate prelacy, ” during which upwards of two hundred clergy were forcibly ba¬ nished from their several cures with every indig¬ nity. “ They were brought from their homes, were exposed to the gentle populace, their gowns were torn over their heads, while the Prayer Book was publicly burnt. They were commanded, on pain of death, never to preach again in that parish, but to remove instantly to some other quarter.” These persecuted ministers, we are told, in the “ Case of the afflicted clergy of Scotland^'' (published in 1690,) wandered about during an inclement winter, without shelter, begging their bread, all despoiled of their goods,* many robbed of their children, and dependent on the tender mercies of Scotch Pres¬ byterians. But these excesses, though pleasing to the members of the Kirk, were not committed osten¬ sibly under any authority.f * De/be, who palliates these excesses, remarks on the above facts, “that this was not persecution, as some would fain style it, hut restoring the persecuted and removing the Episcopal intruders ; it was no more than putting the injured men into possession of their rights.”—“ And, after all,” says Defoe, “ what harm was done to the Episcopal ministers ? The utmost violence complained of amounts to no more than a somewhat hasty turning of the said Episcopal ministers out of the parsonage-houses, and some injurious hurrying of their goods out with them ; but, as to any personal injury, such as wounding or killing any, I do not find that this was done.”—(Mem. pp. 311-14.) f This is the answer given in a work styled “ Presbyterian Persecu¬ tion examined.” “ Supposing,” .«ays the author, “ that the Presbyte- 53 CHAPTER XIIL EPISCOPAL CHURCH, From 1690 to 1792. The next step is to examine the various legal en¬ actments relating to the Episcopalian Church from 1690 to 1792. By the act which established the Pres¬ byterian discipline, the courts, composed (it will be recollected) of the “ solemn league and covenant men^' were “ to try and purge out all insulRcient and erroneous ministers, by due course of ecclesiastical process and censures; ” and it was ordained that “ whatever minister, being summoned before them, or visitors appointed by them, should refuse to appear, or appearing should be found guilty, should, by their rians did commit some violence, as to plunder, and as to personal rude¬ ness to the ministers, what’s this to the Church ? It might and was done by Presbyterians of the Church, but it can never be said that it was done by Presbyterians as a Church, because it was not done by any act of the Church. It is true, that there was no public punishment of the actors, neither was it the time to punish excesses of that sort; and it was thought wiser to bear with them, and to stop all process against tlie offenders.” It has been justly remarked that these writers seem to forget that an act had already passed for abolinhing prelacy, and that the pulpits of the several kirks rang with denunciations against the Episcopal clergy; and, above all, that the “ solemn league and cove¬ nant ” for extirpating prelacy had been a legal enactment since 1643, and renewed several times ; and, as Carwithcn tells us, “ a simple refusal of the covenant was deemed a sufficient ground of deprivation of all eccle¬ siastical benefices, and of deposition from the ministry.” 54 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 1690—1792. sentence, be deprived of liis kirk, stipend, and bene¬ fice.” The consequence of this enactment was, that these courts deprived every Episcopal clergyman who did not appear before them, and ^'■abjure Episcopacy or Prelacy as an Antichristian usurpation; ” and they deemed every minister as “ insutficient, negli¬ gent, scandalous, and erroneous,” who had entered on his living by presentation from the patron* of the parish, and by ordination and institution from the bishop of the diocese. In the year 1695, an act was passed by the Scotch Parliament to prevent those who might conform, (by taking the oath of allegiance, &c.) from having any successors, or taking any part in the government of the Church. It enacted, “ that all such as shall come in, and duly qualify, shall have and enjoy his majesty’s protection, and retain their respective kirks and stipends; provided that they do not exercise any power, either in licensing or ordain¬ ing, or take any part in the government of the Cliurch, either in the General Assembly of presby¬ teries, or Synods : ” and Bishop Skinner observes, “ that those who did qualify, and pray for the king and queen, but would not ‘ abjure Episcopacy^ were perpetually teased and harassed by answering ques¬ tions, under the authority of the Kirk courts, as to their sutficiency and their orthodoxy.” Notwithstand¬ ing this persecution, the qualified ministers were not entirely removed in Scotland; for Defoe informs us that at the Union (1707) there were one hundred and sixty-five Episcopal ministers, possessing churches and stipends in Scotland, who had no other qualification * Vide the act against “patronage.” 1690. THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS. 55 required of them than that of taking the oaths to the Government. The whole vengeance of the Govern¬ ment, civil and ecclesiastical, was directed against those Episcopalians from whom the present Episcopal Church is descended. CHAPTER XIY. THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS In 1689. The first act of parliament* directed against the Non-jurors was passed on the 22nd of July, 1690, “ prohibiting every deprived minister from preach¬ ing, or exercising any ministerial function, either in vacant churches or elsewhere^ under any pre¬ text whatever, until first he present himself before the privy council, and there take, swear, and sub¬ scribe the oath of allegiance, and also engage him¬ self to pray for William and Mary as King and Queen of this realm;” and it further declared, “ that such * Walker, in his “Sufferings of the Clergy,” says, “ that the minis¬ ters, who composed the several commissions for trying Episcopal mi¬ nisters, were ignorant, factious, schismatical, and intolerant, or else intruding mechanies, recognised as ministers, who, without any calling from God or man, stepped from the cobbler’s stall, the butcher’s board, or the bricklayer’s scaffold, into the pulpit, like Sheba’s trumpet sum¬ moning the people to rebellion.” And Carwithen says, “ that these courts reported those as faultier who were faulty, and those faulty who were faultless ; and they brought back, under the specious colour of plundered ministers, the silenced and factious lecturers, who, within the last ten years, had fled the country for non-conformity and debt." (Vol. ii. p. 305.) 56 THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS. ministers as shall do the contrary, shall be pro¬ ceeded against as persons disaffected, and enemies to their Majesties’ government.” It should he ob¬ served, that the Episcopal ministers were not prohi¬ bited from officiating in any parish church only, but “ elsewhere they could not baptize, nor ad¬ minister the other sacrament, even in private^ with¬ out subjecting themselves to the rigour of the Scotch Star-chamber. But still the laymen, who possessed the Church property, feared lest the Episcopal clergy should so interpret the oath of allegiance as to enable them to comply with the conditions imposed, and thus gain possession of the vacant parishes ; they, there¬ fore, obtained the passing of an act by which it was appointed that “ all the clergy in Scotland do make and subscribe the following declaration: ‘ I do, in the sincerity of my heart, assert, acknowledge, and de¬ clare, that their Majesties, King William and Queen Mary, are the only lawful and undoubted sove¬ reigns King and Queen of Scotland, as well de jure^ as de facto; and, therefore, I do sincerely and faithfully promise and engage that I will, with heart and hand, life and goods, maintain and defend their Majesties’ title and government against the late King James and his adherents^ and all other ene¬ mies, who, either by open or secret attempts, shall disturb or disquiet their Majesties in the exercise thereof.’” So far was the title of William and Mary to the throne of Scotland from being undoubted^ that the Presbyterian clergy refused to take this oath, and a rebellion would have been the conse¬ quence, had not Carstares prevailed iqiori the King to THE SCOTTISH NON-JUllORS. 57 dispense with the Presbyterians taking it.* The Epi¬ scopal clergy, however, were required to take the oath, or to relinquish the exercise of their ministry, both in private and in public. The alternative was universally * The following is the account given in “ The Life of William Car'- star-es," prefixed to his “ State Papers : ”—“ The commissioner to the Assembly lays the matter of the refusal on the part of the Presbyterian clergy before the King. His Majesty, far from listening to the me¬ morial of the clergy, by the advice of Lord Stair and Lord Tarbat, who represented this act of the clergy as an act of rebellion against his government, renewed his injunction. When Mr. Carstares came to Kensington, where the King was, he immediately inquired what was the nature of the despatches his Majesty had sent off to Scotland ; and, upon learning their contents, he went directly, and in his IMajesty’s name required the messenger, who was just setting off, to deliver them up to him. It was now late at night, and, as he knew no time was to he lost, (the General Assembly being to sit in a few days,) he ran to his Ma¬ jesty’s apartment; and, being informed by the lord in waiting that he was gone to bed, he told him it was a matter of the last importance which had brought him at that unseasonable hour, and that he must see the King. Upon entering the chamber, he found his Majesty fast asleep ; upon wdiich, turning aside the curtain and falling down upon his knees, he gently awakened him. The King, astonished to see him at so late an hour and in this posture by his bed-side, asked him what was the matter 1 He answered, he had come to ask his life. ‘ And is it possible,’ said the King, ‘ that you have been guilty of a crime that deserves death V He acknowledged he had, and then produced the despatches he had brought back from the messenger. ‘ And have you,’ said the King, with a severe frown, ‘ have you indeed presumed to countermand my orders V Mr. Carstares then begged leave to be heard a few words, and he was ready to submit to any punishment his Majesty might think proper to inflict. The King heard him with great attention, and, when he had done, gave him the despatches to read, and desired liim to throw them into the fire ; after which he bid him draw up the instructions to the commissioner in what terms he pleased, and he would sign them. Mr. Carstares immediately wrote to the commissioner, sig¬ nifying that it was his Majesty’s pleasure to dispense with putting the oaths to the ministers ; and, when the King had signed it, he imme¬ diately dispatched the messenger, who, by being detained so many hours longer tlian he intended, did not arrive in Edinburgh till the morning of the day fixed for the sitting of the Assembly.”—(Pp. 59-61.) 58 THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS. adopted. Some of the clergy, notwithstanding, ven¬ tured to have divine worship in their own houses on the Lord’s Day, and left their doors open that others might unite. This was deemed an heinous offence, and, a list of the principal offenders being sent to the Presbyterian Star-chamber, several were punished. In the year 1695, an act of great severity was passed against Episcopalians, “ prohibiting every de¬ prived minister from baptizing any children, or solemnizing marriage betwixt any parties, in all time coming, under pain of imprisonment;” ay, and “ until he find caution to go out of the kingdom, and never return thither.” It is to be observed, that this act was aimed, not at the politics, but at the religion, of the Non-juring clergy. At the union of the two kingdoms (in 1707), a short respite occurred to the Episcopal clergy; and on the 3rd of March, 1712, they obtained from a British Parliament the celebrated “ Act of Toleration,” of the 10th of Queen Anne, “ to prevent the disturbing of those of the Episcopal communion in Scotland in the exer¬ cise of their religious worship, and in the use of the Liturgy of the Church of England; and for re¬ pealing an act passed in the Scotch Parliament, 1695, entitled ‘ An act against irregular Baptisms and Marriages;’ and declaring it to be lawful for all of the Episcopal communion to assemble for di¬ vine worship in any place, except in parish churches, to be performed after their own manner, by pas¬ tors ordained by a Protestant bishop.” This act, however, still imposed severe penalties on those officiating Episcopal clergymen Avho slioidd not take THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS. 59 tile required oaths; yet it prohibited, under a fine of £100, even them and their congregations from being disturbed during the performance of public worship. In 1714 Queen Anne died, and in 1719 the persecution of the Episcopal Church was re¬ newed, and an act was passed for “ making more effectual the laws appointing the oaths for the se¬ curity of the Government to be taken by ministers of churches and meeting-houses in Scotland.” By this act, “ every Episcopal minister officiating in Scotland, without having taken the oaths, and pray¬ ing for King George by name, was to suffer six months’ imprisonment,” during which period his chapel Avas to be closed; and every house, where nine or more persons besides the family were as¬ sembled for divine service, was declared “to be a meeting-house within the meaning of this act.” Not¬ withstanding all these enactments, which were not very rigorously enforced, the Episcopal Church of Scotland was in repute and prospered from 1720 to 1746; and we are told that her clergy were nu¬ merous, and many of them of great learning, Avhilst her chapels Avere Avell frequented, judges, magis¬ trates, and peers joining in her worship.— Before AA^e proceed to the painful change which occurred consequent on the defeat of Charles Edward at Culloden in 1746, Ave will very briefly survey the internal affairs of the Episcopal Church, which con¬ tinued during some years under the spiritual super¬ intendence of the dejyrived bishops. Ross, the last archbishop of St. AndrcAvs, died in 1704; upon Avhich event the authority, usually vested in the metro- 60 THE SCOTTISH NON-JURORS. politaiis, was conveyed to the bishop of Edinburgh, who discharged the duties and exercised the power of “ primus Scotiae episcopus.” In 1705 a certain number were added to the episcopal bench, to pre¬ vent the order from becoming extinct; but the go¬ vernment of the Church remained, by agreement, in the hands of the deprived bishops so long as they lived. The last of the deprived bishops,* Bishop Douglas of Dumblane, died in 1716; and the first two post-revolution bishops were Sage and Fullarton^ who were consecrated in 1705 at Edinburgh by the archbishop of Glasgow and the bishops of Edinburgh and Dumblane. The Episcopalian succession has thus remained unbroken from the year 1662 till the present period. * For a brief history of the other dejirived eleven Scottish bishops I must refer the reader to Keith, p. 517. 61 CHAPTER XV. THE GREEK CHURCH AND THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPALIANS. 1725. It may be worthy of remark, that a project of a very singular nature occupied, during two or three years of the period of 1725-46, the attention of some of the leading Non-juring bishops both in England and Scotland. This was nothing less than an attempt to form an union between the Greek Church * in * I have extracted the following account from Bishop Skinner ; and, as shewing the sentiments of the Eastern Church, the extract may be interesting. The English bishops presented twelve propositions to Arsenius, translated into Greek by Bishoj) Spincks. These were ac¬ companied with a declaration of those points wherein the two churches agreed together, and wherein they disagreed. The latter were com¬ prehended under five heads; viz., 1. The rejection of the General Councils as being of the same authority with Scripture. 2. The re¬ fusal to worship the Virgin Mary. 3. Against the invocation of Saints and Angels. 4. Against the veneration of Images. 5. Against the worship of the Host. Arsenius carried this paper with him ; and, on his return, stayed at Muscovy, and engaged the Czar Peter on his side, who, through one of the order of Archimandrites, in 1717, wrote to the English bishops approving the design. In 1721, Arsenius, having, during the four years which intervened, communicated with the Eastern patriarchs, sent their answer to the English bishops. It is entitled “ The Answers of the Orthodox in the East to the Proposals sent from Britain for an Union and Agreement with the Oriental Churches and is said, in conclusion, to be drawn up “ by a synodical judgment of the Eastern Church, after the most mature deliberation of the Lord Jeremias, the most holy oecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, the New Rome ; and the most holy and most blessed patriarch, the Lord Samuel, of Alexandria; G2 THE GREEK CHURCH AND Turkey and Eiissia, and the unestahlislied Episcopa¬ lians in Great Britain. Bishops Camphell and Gad¬ der ar acted for their brethren in the North; and, in conjunction with the bishops Brett, Griffin, and Collier, of the English communion, entered seriously into a negotiation with Arsenins, metropolitan of the Lord Chrysanthus, of Jerusalem; with the holy metropolitans and the holy clergy of the great Church of Christ in Constantinople in coun¬ cil assembled, April 12, 1718." It is a long paper in Greek, accepting the twelve propositions, but vindicating the practice of the Eastern Church with much acrimony in the five points of difference, and re¬ quiring a full conformity thereto, without any abatement. This was answered in 1722 by the Non-juring bishops, in Greek, Latin, and English, adhering to their former views; and the reply was sent by proto-syncellus of the Church of Alexandria, to Arsenius at Moscow; and, at the same time, they wrote to the Grand Council of the Eccle¬ siastical affairs at Petersburgh, and to the Great Chancellor Golqf'kin, to recommend the affair to their protection. Arsenius wTote in the year following, by command of his Imperial Majesty, requesting a conference with two English and two Russian clergymen on the imints of difference; but, before this could be effected, a most uncompromising and peremptory answer came from the Eastern Church, requiring assent to the five articles in sincerity, without any dispute or scruple. Tliis reply was dated Constantinople, September 1723, and signed by Jercmius, by the mercy of God, archbishop of Constantinople, the New Rome, and oecumenical patriarch; Athanasius, by tbe mercy of God, patriarch of the great city of God, Antioch; Chrysanthus, by tbe mercy of God, patriarch of the holy city, Jerusalem ; Callinicus, metropolitan of Heraclea: Auxentius of Cyzicum; Paisius of Nicomedia; Gerusimus of Nice; Pai'thenius of Chalcedon ; Ignatius of Thessalonica ; Arsenius of Prusa ; Theoctistus of Polypolis, and Callinicus of Varna. The death of Peter the Great, in 1725, was fatal to this conciliating project. Bishop Collier endeavoured to pro¬ mote it, but in vain. Bisbop Skinner has the following remarks on this subject: “ Ineffectual as it turned out, one great advantage was gained by it, viz., that it gave us a genuine view of the doctrines and rules of the present Eastern Church ; which, in all the religious disputes here in the West, has been so often appealed to, but which neither party can claim full kindred with. For, from their own papers on this occasion, the originals of which, we are told, were carried to Lambeth, and perhaps are there still, we find them differing from the Papists in the following THE SCOTTISH EPISCOPALIANS. 63 Thebais in Egypt, who happened to be in England, and with the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alex¬ andria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Nicomedia, Chalcedon, and Thessalonica. The death of Peter the First, who favoured the measure, putting an end to the corre¬ spondence and the stipulations, the scheme was aban¬ doned. points, viz. Purgatory by fire, Communion in both kinds, and the Pope’s universal supremacy; in all which, as stated in the articles of agreement, they appear on the Protestant side. But then, in the points of praying to Saints and Angels, and worshipping Images, by the new and insipid dis¬ tinction of BovXeia and Xarpeia, and in tlie doctrine of Transubstantiation, with its consequent adoration of the Host, all of which the Protestants disclaim, these Greeks are as high-flown and obstinate as the most vio¬ lent Papist in the whole church of Rome : besides sundry other pecu¬ liarities of less importance, in which they stand unrelated to any European denomination,”—(Skinner, vol. ii. p. G39.) 64 EPISCOPAL CHURCH CHAPTER XVL EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN SCOTLAND, From 1746 to 1784. On the defeat of Prince Charles Edward, in 1746, the Episcopal Church began again to feel the innate hatred of the Presbyterian body. The Episcopalians alone were blamed for the prince’s attempt at re¬ bellion : their chapels were closed or demolished; and the following severe legal enactments were di¬ rected against them. In September, 1746, it was provided “that from and after September 1st, 1746, every person exercising the function of a pastor or minister in any Episcopal meeting-house in Scotland, without registering his letters of orders, and taking all the oaths required by law, and praying for his Majesty King George and the royal family by name, shall for the first offence suffer six months’ impri¬ sonment, and, for the second, transportation for life. Every house where five besides the family, or five if the house were vacant,” should “ meet for public wor¬ ship,” was declared to be “a meeting-house within the act;” and no letters of orders were allowed to be registered after September 1st, 1746, but those given by a bishop of England or Ireland. But the act further declared, “that if, after September 1st, 1746, IN SCOTLAND. G5 any person should attend an illegal meetingdiouse, and 'not give information to the magistrates, within five days, of such meeting-house, he should be fined or imprisoned:” and it further enacted, “that no peer of Scotland should be eligible for election as one of the sixteen peers of parliament, or vote at such election; nor should any person be eligible for elec¬ tion as member of any shire or burgh, or vote at such election; who should, after September 1st, 1746, have been twice present at any such Episcopal meet¬ ing-house in Scotland.” But this was not all:—many of the Scotch clergy, contrary to the expectation of the Presbyterian party, registered their letters of orders, took the oaths, and legalized their meetings; consecpiently, in May, 1748, the bill of 1746 was, in parliamentary language, “ amended'''’ by the fol¬ lowing most unjust explanatory clause, viz.: “ that no letters of orders not granted hy some bishop of England or Ireland should, from the 29th of Sep¬ tember, 1748, be sufficient to cjualify any Episcopal clergyman in Scotland, whether the same were regis¬ tered, or not^ before the 1st of September, 1746; and that every such registration, whether made before or after the said date, should, after the 28th of Septem¬ ber, be null and void! This bill was most strongly opposed in the House of Lords,—even by Hoadly, Sherlock, and Seeker,—but was carried by the zeal of Lord Chancellor Hardivicke^ in conjunction with the Scottish peers, by 37 to 32. It of course suspend¬ ed the Episcopal authority of the Scottish bishops, and forbade the exercise of any ministerial function on the part of any jierson ordained in Scotland; G6 EPISCOPAL CHURCH and one of tlie most eminent of the Scottish Episcopal clergy, though he had registered his letters of orders, and prayed for the King for two years from September, 1746, was imprisoned six months for preaching sub¬ sequently to September, 1748. The bishops in Scot¬ land were, during this period, strictly recognised by their Episcopal brethren in England; the constitu¬ tion of the Church was carefully watched at home ; and the Episcopal order duly continued by requi¬ site consecrations. Bishop Skinner, however, gives, with marks of great disapprobation, two instances of intrusion^ on the part of two Irish prelates, into the province of the Scotch bishops, which, he said, “ tended more to depress the Episcopal succession in Scotland than any acts of her avowed adversaries.” In 1760 the great traveller Dr. Pocock, bishop of Ossory, being in Scotland, was prevailed upon to ad¬ minister the rite of confirmation in some of the northern congregations; and, about ten years after, Dr. Traill, bishop of Down and Connor, was pleased to ordain a priest in Scotland, and that where there was a bishop residing, who had held the pastoral charge of that place for thirty years. It was, of course, during period (1748-92) i\\Q Eng¬ lish Episcopal clergy began to multiply in Scotland. IN SCOTLAND. G7 CHAPTER XVIL EPISCOPAL CnUPvCII, From 1784. Thus affairs continued, with more or less of perse¬ cution, till the beginning of the reign of George the Third; and, though no repeal of the severe enactments took place, still they were not very rigidly enforced. In 1784, an event, very interesting to the members of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, occurred, which, in a degree, served to raise them from their previous state of depression. In the spring of 1783 the “ independ¬ ence of America^'' was recognised by England, and necessarily dissolved the established connection be¬ tween the Episcopalians in America and the bishop of London^ who had hitherto been ordinary of the Episcopal communion in America. “ The United States ” having granted an universal liberty of con¬ science, each party of religionists was left to act for itself. The Episcopal clergy of Connecticut took the lead in settling their Church, and sent to England Dr, Samuel Seahury for consecration. Great difficulties arose, however, in omitting the oaths of ^’"allegiance'''' and supremacyf without an express act of parliament; and these oaths could not, of course, be taken by a subject of the United 68 episcopal church States. Ill this dilemma, Dr. Seahiuy applied to the bishops of the Church of Scotland., whose episcopal powers were undoubted, and at whose consecrations and ordinations the above oaths were not required, llis application was acceded to, with the hearty con¬ currence of the archbishop of Canterbury; and Dr. Seabury was publicly consecrated at Aberdeen, by Bishop Kilgoiir, primus, and Bishops Petrie and Skin¬ ner, on the 14th of November, 1784. So gratified were the Episcopal clergy of America at the act of the Scotch bishops, that, expressing themselves in the language of our Lord to the woman who anointed his head with a very precious ointment, they said that, “ wherever the American Episcopal Church shall be mentioned in all the world, there should that which the bishops of Scotland had done for her be told for a memorial of them.” In the year 1786 another ap¬ plication was made, by the clergy in the Southern States, to the English bishops ; and, the obstacles having been removed by act of parliament, Drs. White and Prevost were consecrated at Lambeth, — the former as bishop of Philadelphia, the latter as bishop of New York,—by the archbishops of Canterbury and of York, and the bishops of Peterborough and of Bath and Wells. The persecutions of the Episcopal Church in Scotland were now drawing to a close. In 1788 Charles Edward died; and, in May of that year, the clergy, being released from their oath of allegiance “ to James and his heirsf (and the oath of “ abjuration” being, in that respect, no longer ap¬ plicable,) spontaneously prayed for George the Third on the 25th of May, 1788, in the terms of the Eng- IN SCOTLAND. 69 lish Liturgy, in all the Episcopal chapels in Scotland, with the exception of three, the ministers of which required a longer time for deliberation. Four years elapsed before an act was obtained, re¬ pealing the laws of 1746-1748, and granting a com¬ plete toleration to the Episcopal Church in Scotland. The act passed in 1792, with the provision “that every minister shall pray for the King, &c., as in Eng¬ land; that he shall take and subscribe the oaths of allegiance, abjuration^ and assurance; and that he shall subscribe his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles according to the Act of Uniformity of the 13th of Elizabeth.” There is one objectionable clause* in the act, which, as it has been recently alluded to in the House of Lords, may be mentioned: “ Be it enacted, that no person exercising the function, or assuming the office and character, of a pastor or minister of any order in the Episcopal communion in Scotland, shall be capable of taking any benefice, curacy, or other spiritual promotion within that part of Great Britain called England, the dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or of officiating in any church or chapel within the same, where the Liturgy of the Church of England as now by law established is used, unless he shall have been lawfully ordained by some bishop of the Church of England or Ire¬ land.” Keith remarks upon this clause, “ that it should be observed that the same restriction applies to all clergymen, even though ordained by English bishops, who are appointed to discharge their profes- * See “Annals of Scottish Episcopacy,” by the Rev. John Skinner, p. 216 . 70 EPISCOPAL CHURCH sional duties iii any other part of tlie empire, Ire¬ land and the Isle of Man excepted; all ministers or¬ dained for India, the West Indies, North America, and, in short, for every colony under the British Crown, are placed hy the act of parliament of 1792 in precisely the same position as the Episcopal clergy who are or¬ dained in Scotland. The restriction, therefore, as to Scotland has no reference whatever to the character of the orders which are conferred by Scotch bishops; such orders are everywhere admitted to be equally valid with those granted by the archbishop of Canter¬ bury himself; and it is because they were held equally valid^ on all the recognised principles of ecclesiasti¬ cal institution, as well as of primitive practice, that a statute on the part of the legislature became ne¬ cessary to confine the exercise of them to the country in which they are bestowed. Had they been re¬ garded as in the slightest degree defective in point of spiritual authority, 7io law would have been ne¬ cessary to regulate the extent of their legal compe¬ tency as defined by any geographical limits; since they would, by that circumstance alone, have been altoge¬ ther excluded.” (P.554.) Russell says, “that the restriction has reference to certain literaiy or rather academical qualifications.” (P. 410.) The act of the 32d of George the Third (1792) has been amended by the 3d and 4th of Victoria (1840). This latter act contains the following clauses: “ That it shall be lawful for the bishop of any diocese in England or Ireland, if he shall think fit, on the application of any bishop of the Protestant Epi- scoital Church in Scotland, or of any priest of such church canonically ordained by any bishop thereof IN SCOTLAND. 71 residing and exercising at the time of such ordina¬ tion Episcopal function within some district or place in Scotland, to grant permission under his hand, and from time to time, also under his hand, to re¬ new such permission, to any such bishop or priest to perform divine service, and to preach, and administer the sacraments according to the rites and ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland, /or any one day, or any two days, and no more^ in any church or chapel within the diocese of the said bishop where the Liturgy of the said United Church is used ; such day or days, and church and chapel, to be specified in such permission, or renewed permis¬ sion : and thereupon it shall be lawful for the party mentioned in such permission, or renewed permis¬ sion, with the consent of the incumbent or officiating minister of such church or chapel, to perform divine service, and to preach, and administer the sacraments therein according to the rites and ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland, on the day or days specified in such written permission, or re¬ newed permission, and on no other.”—“ Be it enacted, that all the several provisions hereinbefore contained with respect to the bishops and priests canonically ordained of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Scotland shall respectively extend to the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America^ and to the priests canoni¬ cally ordained by a bishop of such church, residing and exercising at the time of such ordination Epi¬ scopal functions within some district or place in the United States of America '^—(Statutes at Large, vol. Ixxx. p. 75.) 72 THE “judicatories” OF CHAPTER XVIIL THE “judicatories” OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. I. THE KIRK SESSION. The Judicatories of the Cliurcli of Scotland are four in number, viz. Kirh Sessions, Presbyteries, Provinckd Synods^ and General Assembly, The Kii'h Session is the lowest judicatory in the Church of Scotland, and is composed of the minister of the parish and of lay elders: the latter are elected by the Session, and, though formerly an annual office, the eldership is now held for life, it being decreed in the “ Second Book of Discipline” that elders, once lawfully ordained to the office, and having gifts of God meet to exercise the same, may not leave it again. The Kirk Session is therefore the only radical judica¬ tory; that is, its members possess intrinsic and not delegated authority. The Presbytery, however, as will be shewn, is radical as regards its clerical members, delegate as regards its lay members. The Synod is the same. The General Assembly is delegate as regards both,, the clerical and lay members being elected annually. The Kirk Session is legally con¬ vened when summoned by the minister from the - pulpit, or by personal citation to the members. There are no fixed times for its meetings. In many parishes they are held at regular and no very distant in- THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. 73 tervals, and not very unusually immediately after divine service on the Lord’s Day. The meeting is constituted, and is also concluded, by prayer; and both these acts must be entered on the minutes, otherwise facie" the meeting has not been re¬ gularly held. The minister of the parish is officially Moderator of the Kirk Session. Where there is a collegiate charge either minister presides, as they please to decide between themselves; the other is a constituent member of the Session. In the Kirk Session, as in all other judicatories, the Moderator has only a casting vote. The number of elders belonging to a Kirk Session is regulated by the exigencies of the parish. In every Kirk Session there must be at least two elders, as it requires a minister and two elders to form a “ Quorum.” It belongs to the Kirk Session to superintend and promote the religious concerns of the parish in re¬ gard to discipline and worship, to appoint special days for the worship of God, when it considers such days to be for the spiritual advantage of the parish, to settle the time for dispensing the ordinances of religion, to judge of the qualifications of those who are to partake of them, to take cognizance of such as are guilty of scandalous offences, and to cause them to undergo the discipline of the Church. The right of Kirk Sessions to determine as to tlie fre¬ quency of dispensing the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is under the controul of their respective Pres- * Tlic act of the General Assembly, December 17, 1638, decrees that, “where there are two or more ministers in one congregation, they shall have equal power in voting.”—“ Acts of Assembly,” 1638. 74 THE KIRK SESSION. byteries. Immediately after the occasion of dis¬ pensing the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, whicli precedes the 22nd of November in each year, the Kirk Session has to revise and re-adjust the roll of male heads of families, being members of the congregation and communicants in the Church. After lying open for inspection by any parishioner, or member of the congregation, for the space of one week, of which notice is given from the pulpit, the roll is to be authenticated by the Moderator and Session Clerk, and transmitted to the Presbytery be¬ fore the expiration of the first week of December; when countersigned by the Moderator of the Pres¬ bytery on each page, it forms part of the Kirk Ses¬ sion record. The term, “ heads of families,” in¬ cludes unmarried men and widowers, as well as married men, provided they occupy houses of which they are proprietors or tenants; and eldest sons, when their fathers are deceased, provided they are of the age of twenty-one, and reside in the same house with their mothers, and are constantly in full com¬ munion with the Church.* A formal inquiry into the conduct of any suspected member of the congrega¬ tion, previous to the dispensation of the Lord’s Sup¬ per, is fallen into desuetude. Indeed, great leniency is now exercised in the administration of “ discipline and we are told,')' that there “ is everywhere an accommodation, more or less, to the change of times, and the change of feeling in tlie Christian commu¬ nity.” But the author referred to seems to ques¬ tion whether such a leniency tends to “ edification.” f Hill’s Practice, p. 20. * Act 11, Assembly 1836. THE KIRK SESSION. 75 No lawyers are allowed to aid an accused party be¬ fore the Kirk Session, the Kirk alone being the agent; it being supposed, according to the opinion expressed by the Kirk, that, were lawyers allowed to under¬ take the cause of parties before a Kirk Session, it would be hopeless to expect any moral or spiritual beuefit to result from its proceedings. The minutes of Kirk Sessions are faithfully registered; the mem¬ bers in attendance and the business transacted at each meeting being carefully recorded. The Session- record must be regularly kept, as the Presbytery may issue a peremptory order to have it produced. And here it should be remarked, that all ecclesias¬ tical business, which is transacted in any Church judicatory, is subject to the review of the immediate ecclesiastical superior of that judicatory; and it is a standing order, as regards each judicatory, that the books and papers, containing the minutes of the court immediately below it, shall be laid before the court immediately above it. A revieiu of a case may arise in four ways: 1. Any superior court may exer¬ cise its inherent right of superintendence and controul over an inferior court; or, 2. in cases of difficulty, an inferior court may refer to the court above; or, 3. by appeal on the part of those dissenting from the decision of the court below; or, lastly, by cow- plaint on the part of the minority of the inferior court against the majority. Every Kirk Session is represented, both in the Presbytery of the bounds and in the Provincial Synod, by one of its elders. The representative is elected every half-year, within two months after the sitting of the Synod. The 76 PRESBYTERIES. elder carries with him an extract of his election, under the hand of the Session Clerk; and unless he produce this extract, first to the Presbytery, and then to the Synod, his name is not admitted on the roll of these judicatories. The Kirk Session no¬ minates its own clerk and its own officer. C II A P T E E XIX. II. PRESBYTERIES. The judicatory immediately above the Kirk Ses¬ sion is the Presbytery. There are eighty-two Pres¬ byteries in the Church of Scotland. The number of parishes which may compose a Presbytery is inde¬ finite. In some of the populous districts there are thirty ministers in a Presbytery : in some remote situations, where a few parishes cover a large district, there are not more than four. As the General Assembly has the power of disjoining and erecting Presbyteriest at its pleasure, their bounds may be altered, or their numbers increased, according to change of circum- * Act 12, Assembly 1776.—Pardovan Collections, passim in book i. title 7, and book iv. f “ To have a new Presbytery erected, or to have one or more parishes disjoined from one Presbytery and annexed to another, a petition is presented to the General Assembly, or a representation is made to it, setting forth the circumstances which would render the attainment of these objects desirable. The Assembly makes the necessary inquiries, and judges accordingly.”—(Hill’s Practice, p. 40.) PRESBYTERIES. 77 stances. A Presbytery consists of the ministers of all the parishes within the bounds of that district; of the professors of divinity, if they are ministers in any university that is situated within these bounds; and of representatives from the Kirk Sessions in the district. Every Kirk Session has the right of sending one elder; so that, unless there be a collegiate charge, or an university, within the bounds of the district, the number of ministers and elders in any meeting of Presbytery may be equal. The Roll is made up every half-year, at the first meeting after the Pro¬ vincial Synod, when new members are returned, and the extracts of their election presented. A new Mo¬ derator is also then chosen: he must be a minister: the election is only nominal; since the invariable practice is, that the next in succession on the roll, that is, the next according to the date of his ordination, should take the chair. When the Presbytery meets, the roll is first called; the minutes of the last meeting are then read, and signed by the Moderator. The business of the Presbytery is as follows: To judge in the “ references,” “ appeals,” and “ complaints ” from the Kirk Session; to examine all schoolmasters on their appointment; to provide for the annual exami¬ nation and inspection of every parochial and other school of the district; and to make an annual report on this subject to the General Assembly. It also be¬ longs to Presbyteries to grant licences to “licentiates” to preach the Gospel, and to judge of the cpialifica- tions of those “ divinity students ” who are desirous of being admitted “ licentiates.” By an act of Assem¬ bly of 1706, Presbyteries are required to hold fre- 78 PRESBYTERIES. quent visitations of tlie parishes within their bounds: the delicacy and difficulty of the duty has caused it to fall into disuse as a general measure, but attempts are now made to restore it. When a Presbyterial visitation of a parish is appointed, notice of it is given from the pulpit ten free days before it takes place; and the heritors, elders, and whole congrega¬ tion are summoned to be present on the day, and to acquaint the Presbytery if they know anything amiss in their minister, elders, and other office-bearers in the parish. After public worship, the elders are exa¬ mined upon oath, and the heads of families closely interrogated: * the visitation is concluded with prayer. The ordinary meetings of the Presbytery depend, as to frequency, on the local business to be transacted: some Presbyteries meet once a month : they have power to meet when they please. It is necessary, before the meeting is closed, to resolve when the next meeting is to be held; to enter this resolution in the minutes; and to cause it to be publicly intimated by the officer: otherwise the Presbytery is defunct, and, * In the “ Laws of the Church,” part i. p. 237, we find the questions to be put by the Presbytery to the Eldership concerning the minister of the parish ; the questions, likewise, to be asked of the heads of families respecting the members of Session —ministers and elders. The ministers, elders, and heads of families are then examined touching the lives, con¬ versation, and diligence of the precentor, schoolmaster, and clerk, together with inquiries respecting the ringers, and all the Church officers. The heads of families being removed, the ministers and elders are interrogated respecting the lives, &c. of the congregation ; and the heritors, heads of families, members of Session, and ministers are examined as to the fabric, and the various apjiointments of the Church. The rnhdster's library is inspected, and a catalogue of his books given in. Among the questions touching the ciders, is the following : “ Are your elders drunk¬ ards, tipplers, or drinkers of toasts or healths I ” PROVINCIAL SYNODS. 79 without the intervention of the superior court, lias no power to re-assemhle for business. Extraordinary or “ pro re natd ” meetings of the Presbytery are called by the Moderator^ either on his own motion, when any thing has occurred which appears to him to require the assembling of the brethren before the time of the ordinary meeting; or on application made to him by some of the members of Presbytery, with a statement of the grounds on which the application is made. In the latter case he may refuse^ but it is on his own responsibility. The Presbyteries appoint their own clerk and officer. CHAPTER XX. III. PROVINCIAL SYNODS. The Synod, or Provincial Assembly, is immedi¬ ately superior to the Presbytery, and consists of se¬ veral Presbyteries, met together for their mutual help and comfort, and for managing the affairs of public concern within their bounds. Three or more Presby¬ teries, as determined by the General Assembly, com¬ pose a Provincial Synod. There are at present six¬ teen Synods in the Church,* and they meet ordinarily twice in each year. Every minister of all the Pres- * Before the year 1830, there were only fifteen Synods in the Church ; but, by an act (8) of the General Assembly of that year the Presbyte¬ ries of Lerwick and Burravoe were constituted into the Synod of Shet¬ land. 80 PROVINCIAL SYNODS. byteries witliiii the hounds of tlie Synod is a mem¬ ber of that court; and the same elder^ who had last represented the Kirk Session in the Presbytery, is its representative in the Synod: so that the number of ministers and elders may be equal. Neighbouring Synods correspond with one another by sending one minister and one elder, who are entitled to sit, to deliberate, and to vote with the original members of the Synod to which they are sent. The roll being made up, a new Moderator, who must be a minister, is chosen. The mode of election varies; but the general rule is, to take the oldest of those ministers who have not filled the chair. At each meeting the Moderator is changed. The business of the Synod is transacted by “Committees,” who are appointed by the Synod, and meet in the interval between the diets {i. e. the appointed times of meeting) to fulfil their respective duties. Each Synod may have three com¬ mittees, a Committee for Overtures,"^ a Committee for Bills, Eeferences, and Appeals, and a Committee for examining and attesting the books from the several Presbyteries, which, by law, must be laid before them. * A brief consideration of the nature of an “ Overture ” will throw great light on the legislation in the Church of Scotland. From the first establishment of the Presbyterian government in 1560, till some time after the Revolution of 1690, the standing laws of the Church proceeded from the sole authority of the General Assembly. In the year 1697, an act, called the Barrier Act, prescribes the following mode of enacting permanent constitutions : “ The proposal for a new law, or the repeal of an old one, originates with any individual, who, through his Presbytery or Synod, if they approve, lays it before the General Assembly ; and this proposal is termed an ‘ overture.’ Tlie Assembly dismiss it, or alter it, or accept it entire, as they please. If accepted, it is sent, entire or amend¬ ed, to the several Presbyteries, who are required to forward their opinion PROVINCIAL SYNODS. 81 These committees may, in order to facilitate busi¬ ness, severally sub-commit; and each committee and subcommittee must consist of ministers and ruling elders. At the next diet the reports of the several committees are received and acted upon ; the extracts of the certificates laid before Presbyte¬ ries in favour of students proposed for probationary “trials” are read; and the Synod judges of the ex¬ pediency of allowing the several Presbyteries to admit the different students “ on trials,” in order to their admission as “licentiates.” The act of Assembly of 1647 asserts the right of assembling synodically re natdS These meetings are occasionally but very rarely held. The minutes of each Synod must be transmitted to every Presbytery within the bounds; and the Synod books, completely filled up, are re¬ quired to be produced, for revision, annually at the General Assembly “ in mundoS to the next General Assembly; and, if approved by a majority of Pres¬ byteries, it becomes a standing law.” The Barrier Act was intended “ to prevent any sudden alteration, or innovation, or other prejudice to the Church, in either doctrine, worship, discipline, or governmentand the practical working is, that, from negligence or difference of opinion on the part of Presbyteries, great tardiness exists in the legislation of the Church. Years roll on, sometimes, before a law is passed. This evil is remedied in part by the Interim Act, which enables the Assembly to adopt the overture as an interim enactment, year after year, till the majority of Presbyteries decide; and this “ Interim bill” is binding pro tern : on all the members of the Church. 82 CHAPTER XXL IV. GENERAL ASSEMBLY. The highest ecclesiastical court in the kingdom of Scotland is the General Assembly. Dr. Singer states, that there are nine hundred and thirty-six ministers in Scotland who enjoy benefices: all these possess eccle¬ siastical authority, and attend personally the Presby¬ teries and the Synods to which they severally belong; and, as regards the three inferior courts, are what is termed “ radical officers.” At the beginning of the Reformation all ministers were “ radical members ” of the General Assembly,—that is, they were members “ex officio;” and the Assembly consisted, amongst others, of a general meeting of all the ministers: yet so small was their number that they did not ex¬ ceed the fourth part of the meeting, as may be seen from their “ sederunts,” in the manuscript copy of the Acts of Assembly. When the number in¬ creased, they empowered and “ commissioned ” repre¬ sentatives of the body of clergy, who are styled “commissioners of the General Assembly:” and the proportion which the representation of the several Presbyteries in the General Assembly bears to the number of parishes within each Presbytery was* set¬ tled, long after the Revolution in 1694, as follows:— * Act Assembly 1694. GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 83 All Presbyteries, consisting of twelve parishes or under, shall send two ministers and one ruling elder;* all Presbyteries of eighteen parishes, or un¬ der, three ministers and one elder; twenty-four pa¬ rishes, or under, four ministers and two elders; above twenty-four, five ministers and two ruling elders ;f collegiate kirks, where there used to be two or more ministers, are, as regards the act of 1694, to be un¬ derstood as so many distinct parishes; and no per¬ sons are to be admitted members of Assembly but such as are either ministers or ruling elders. The sixty-six royal burghs are represented in the General Assembly by ruling elders; Edinburgh sending two, and every other burgh one: and each of the five uni¬ versities is represented by one of its members, either a minister or an elder. At the present time | * Chosen by selection. f By an act of 1712, in order to meet the cases of Edinburgh and great cities, it was agreed, that Presbyteries exceeding thii'ty-six minis¬ terial charges should send seven ministers and three ruling elders ; and, by an act of 1835, Presbyteries exceedingyw’/y-Oeo ministerial charges, eight ministers andyoMr ruling elders. t This was written in 1841 ; but having, in the “ British Magazine” of April 1842, given the above as the actual number of representatives, I was corrected by “ one of the highest authorities in the Kirk,” in a letter from w'hich the following is an extract :—“ The writer falls short of the actual number of members of Assembly. For several years past there has been a progressive increase. Last year the number of representatives actu¬ ally returned for the whole constituencies was three hundred and ninety- two ; hut as eighteen burghs sent no members, or at least did not appoint members who produced commissions, the number of which the Assembly might have consisted would have been four hundred and ten, if all the bodies entitled to elect had availed themselves of the privilege. Probably the next Assembly may consist of a greater number of members ; but it is not easy to calculate beforehand what may he the amount. If a Pres¬ bytery consists of a number not exceeding twelve ministers, the rule is, F 2 84 GENERAL ASSEMBLY. the General Assembly is constituted thus: — the eighty-two Presbyteries send two hundred and twenty-four ministers and ninety-nine elders; the sixty-six royal burghs send sixty-seven elders; the five universities, five ministers or elders; the churches in India send one minister and one elder;—total, three hundred and ninety-seven: and a question is pending^ as to the introduction of the ministers of chapels of ease. The election of representatives is made at least forty days before the meeting of the General Assembly: the day of election is fixed ten days prior to the elec¬ tion, and must take place between one and eight, p.m. The dignity of representative being now an object of desire, in order to prevent collision of interests and jealousy, the system of rotation is generally adopted in choosing representatives. The General Assembly thus constituted is pre¬ sided over, as the Crown supposes, by the Lord High Commissioner; as the Kirk maintains, by a minister that two ministers and one elder are chosen ; if the number be tbirteen, then three ministers and one elder are entitled to be sent. From thirteen to eighteen, no addition of ministerial charges occasions any increase of representatives ; but the addition of one minister above eighteen gives the Presbytery a right to send two additional members, \yi.four ministers and two elders,” (as I have stated in the text.) The writer adds, “ I am not writing with such exactness as to have my words quoted. Indeed, I am not absolutely certain that I have not given you a smaller number for last year than I ought to have done ; and if any one had asked me on the street what number of members for 1841 might have been admissible according to the present rule, I would have said, about four hundred and twenty. The members, exelusive of the ‘ quoad sacra’ ministers, exceed three hundred and sixty-nine ; but it is not easy for me to say to what extent.” * I believe that I am correct in stating that the question has been carried in the affirmative. GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 85 elected as Moderator.* The exact relative authority of these two functionaries is a very delicate question, and has not been mooted since 1693. At the close of every session of the Assembly, the Moderator ap¬ points the next diet, in the presence and with the consent of the members: then he turns to the High Commissioner, and acquaints his Grace thereof; to which he usually answers, “ Be it so,” or, “ I am satisfiedwhereupon the adjournment is publicly notified; each president, as the writer in a late Re¬ view remarks, “ as if by great good-luck, always fixing on the same day for the next meeting.” In the Pardovan Collections there is the following pas¬ sage, which throws considerable light on the autho¬ rity of the High Commissioner. “ The Commissioner assents to the proposition of the Moderator as to the day of the next meeting in these or like words, which to many,” adds the writer, “ are grievously of¬ fensive : ‘ I do, in my master’s name, or her Majesty’s name, dissolve this Assembly; and in the same name, and by the same authority, I appoint the next Ge¬ neral Assembly to meet at such time and place as the Moderator has appointed.’’’f It appears that * It is usual for a Moderator to be proposed by the Moderator of the last Assembly, but any member of Assembly may propose another candidate for the chair. In the year 1840 there was a contest for the chair. t See “ Proceedings of the General Assembly for 1840,” (p. 263,) from which I extract the following ;—“ At the close of the proceedings, the Moderator, Dr. Makelar, addressed the Assembly, and at the con¬ clusion of his speech said, ‘ As we met in the name and by the autho¬ rity of the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone Head of the Church, so in the same name, and by the same authority, I 7ioio dissolve this Assembly; and, with your permission, I appoint the next meeting of the General 86 GENERAL ASSEMBLY. the authority of the High Commissioner has been in two instances altogether questioned. “ The first was in the Assembly of 1638. At that assembly the Mar¬ quis of Hamilton, the High Commissioner, having dis¬ solved them, after a few days, both in the Assembly- house and by public proclamation, they did, not¬ withstanding, (having protested against their disso¬ lution,) continue their sitting till they had ended the work they met for, and appointed, without the au¬ thority of the High Commissioner, the day for their next meeting. The other instance was this: The Earl of Lothian, the High Commissioner in 1692, by the command of William and Mary, who were displeased with the proceedings of the Assembly, addressed the president as follows: ‘ Moderator, I, in their Ma¬ jesties’ name and authority, do dissolve this present General Assembly.’ Whereupon the IModerator asked his Grace, ‘ whether the Assembly was dissolved without naming a diet for another?’ To which his Grace replied, ‘ that his Majesty would appoint another in due time, of which they would be time- Assembly of the Church of Scotland to be held in this city on Thursday the 20th day of May, 1841.’ He then asks, ‘ Is it the pleasure of the Assembly that I should now address his Grace, the Lord High Commis¬ sioner I May it please your Grace, the General Assembly has brought its proceedings to a close, and we are about to separate and return to our own dwelling-places, and to resume the discharge of our parochial duties. We trust to your Grace’s candour to acknowledge that we have endea¬ voured to conduct our proceedings with suitable decorum and solemnity, and we humbly trust you will he able to give a favourable account of us to our gracious sovereign the Queen. To your Grace we would renew the expression of our profound respect and heartfelt gratitude,’ &c. To which the Commissioner was pleased to return a gracious reply; there¬ after dissolving the Assembly, and indicting the next Assembly to meet on Tuesday the 2Qth of May, 1841.” GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 87 ously advertized.’ The Moderator begged to be heard; but the High Commissioner refused to hear him, excepting as a private person, as the Assembly was dissolved. Upon which the Moderator spake as follows: ‘ I, as Moderator of this Assembly, in their name, they adhering to me, declare that the office-bearers in the House of God have a spiritual intrinsic power from Jesus Christ, the only Head of this Church, to meet in Assembly about the alfairs thereof, the necessity of the same being ffi’st re¬ presented to the magistrate. And, further, I hum¬ bly crave that the dissolution of this Assembly may not be to the prejudice of our yearly Assemblies granted to us by the laws of this kingdom, inasmuch as no day is indicated for a future diet' Here the members rose up, and with one voice declared their adherence to what the Moderator had said. Where¬ upon the Moderator, turning himself to the Assem¬ bly, cried, ‘ Brethren, let us pray.’ But the mem¬ bers, by a general cry, demanded that a diet be named for the next Assembly; and the Moderator said, ‘ If they pleased, the next General Assembly should meet at Edinburgh in August, 1693;’ and the members did with one voice testify their appro¬ bation.”* Since that period, we believe, neither party has agitated the question. As, however, the sub¬ ject is at this moment one of great importance, being connected with the constitution of the Kirk of Scot¬ land, the following authorities on the subject will be interesting. In the “ Laws of the Church of Scotland,” under the head of “ General Assemblies,” * Vide “ Pardovan Collections,” book i. p. 262. 88 GENERAL ASSEMBLY. (section 15,) the Kirk expresses herself thus: — “ Tlie General Assembly used to he honoured by /he Sovereign’s presence, either by their royal per¬ son, or their High Commissioner, for which the /Mo¬ derator, in the Assembly’s name, used to express their fervent thankfulness, and how great a mercy they do esteem it to have the countenance of civil authority: but there have been many General As¬ semblies begun, held, and continued in Scotland without either the King’s or his High Commissioner’s presence; and that it is not contrary to law, is evi¬ dent from the act of Parliament in 1592,*" ratified in 1690.”f Principal G. Hill, a writer of great authority in the Church of Scotland, says, “ The General As¬ sembly is honoured with a representation of the Sovereign by the Lord High Commissioner, whose presence is the gracious pledge of protection and countenance of the Established Church, and the sym¬ bol of that sanction which the civil authority of the state is ready to give to its legal acts.” The same writer says, “ that the Church of Scotland claims the right of meeting in a General Assembly, as well as in inferior courts, by its own appoint¬ ment. But it also recognises the right of the su¬ preme magistrate to call Synods, and to be present at them; and the two rights are easily reconciled, * See the Act in the Appendix to Dr. Hill’s “ View,” &c. t The act declares, that “ it shall be lawful to the Kirk and ministers, every year at the least, and oftener, pro re natd, as occasion and necessity shall require, to hold and keep General Assemblies.” To tins agrees the act of parliament of 1690 ; and we are told that “ the Sovereign, till these laws be altered, cannot, by his mere authority and proclamation, render the meetings of Assemblies precarious and uncertain.” GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 89 wlieii there subsists between the Church and the State that good understanding which the true friends of both will always study to cultivate.” It may, perhaps, throw additional light on this point to state, that, after the “Moderator” has been chosen from the ministers on the roll, his first business is to receive a communication from the throne, viz. the commission'^ appointing the nobleman who delivers it to represent the Sovereign, and a letter from the Sovereign to the General Assembly. After the royal commission f and the letter have been read by the * “ The first commission tliat was granted was by King James VI. anno 1580, as may be seen in an old AIS. of the Acts of Assemblies ; and Mas nothing else but a missive letter under the King’s own band, the tenor rvhereof follows : ‘ Trusty and well-beloved friends, we greet you ■well. We have directed tOM'ards you our trusty friends, the prior of Pittenween and the laird of Lundie, intrusted with our power for that effect, for assisting you with their presence and counsel in all things that they may, tending to the glory of God, and the preservation of us and our estate, desiring you heartily accept them, and our good-will com¬ mitted to them for the present, in good part. Sua we recommend you to God’s blessed protection. From our palace at Falkland, the 22d day of July, 1580.”—Laws of the Church of Scotland,” part i. p. 251.) Again we read in the same “ Collection of Law's,” “ Now these com¬ missions are more pompous and solemn, passing in Latin under the great seal. Sometimes they have been complex, clothing the Commissioners with somewhat of a viceroyship in the state, as well as Commissioner to the Assembly ; thus, it is said, of the Alarquis of Hamilton, and Earl of Traquair, whose commissions were in the years 1638 and 1639. Tlie commissions granted since the Revolution you may see in the printed Acts of Assemblies. Though these Commissioners he respected in the Assem¬ blies, and about Assembly affairs, as representing the Sovereign’s person, yet I doubt if they could claim any place or precedency in meetings of state merely as Commissioners to the Assembly. But this is still kept undecided, as appears by their disappearing at such meetings while the General Assembly is sitting.”—(“ Law's of the Church.”) f I know not what the custom is at present, hut in the “ Pardovan Collections ” I find that “ both the letter of the Sovereign and the com¬ mission arc read with great honour and respect, the members standing 90 GENERAL ASSEMBLY. principal clerk, and ordered by the House to be recorded, the Lord High Commissioner addresses from the throne a speech to the Assembly; and the Mo¬ derator, in their name, makes a suitable reply. The court being thus constituted, a committee is appointed to prepare an answer to the letter of the Sovereign; and, if the General Assembly deem it proper, a duti¬ ful and loyal addi’ess is drawn up to be presented to the Sovereign. The author of “ The Practice of the Church Courts” says, “ that the Lord High Com¬ missioner takes no part in the proceedings of the Assembly, nor is it thought that his presence is abso¬ lutely necessary to the holding of the Assembly.” He adds, “ when the High Commissioner is ill, the business proceeds in his absence ; and in 1798 he did not appear till the fourth session, though the King’s commission had been read and laid on the table.” The same writer, however, states “ that when, formerly, the High Commissioner wished to retire before the business of the day was finished, it was usual for the Assembly to form itself into a committee of the whole House; by which means an adjommment took place, the business proceeded, a report was given in at the next meeting, and the Assembly pronounced the deliverance which had been resolved on in the committee.” It is important to remark, that the Moderator receives from the all the time that the letter directed to them is being read ; and, by their appointment, both commission and letter are recorded in their books: and, all the time of the Commissioner’s presence, the members sit un¬ covered.” I observe that the commission and letter were ordered to he engrossed at the General Assembly, May, 1840. GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 91 Exchequer the sum of 100/. to defray his expenses, and the Lord High Commissioner 2000/. from the same source, and for the same purpose; in addition to which there is a further sum of 900/. for the salaries of the procurator and agent of the Church, the law-officers, (to whose advice the courts and Pres¬ byteries may refer,) the two clerks, and the door¬ keepers and other inferior officers. The surplus of the 900/., after these expenses are paid, is applied to assist clergymen in defending the rights of the Church of Scotland. By an act of 1639, we find that the expenses of the members of the General Assembly are to he paid by the parishes in the respective Pres¬ byteries ; and “ yet so,” says the act, “ that the money be not exacted., but only received from a ivill- ing and condescending people; which, if it be obtained otherwise, will certainly be very unsavory., unless the expenses be most moderate and inconsiderable.'' The General Assembly sits for ten days in the year, gene¬ rally in the month of May. The constitution of the Church of Scotland is completed by the following court. 02 CHAPTER XXII. COMMISSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. This court is composed of the Moderator and all the members, with the addition of one minister, who is named by the Moderator; and meets after the Assembly is dissolved, without the representation of the Sove¬ reign, and may be considered as “a committee of the whole House.” The General Assembly gives power to the said commissioners, or their “quorum,” (which is declared to be thirty-one in number, whereof twenty-one are always to be ministers,) to meet within the Assembly-house the first day after the disso¬ lution of the General Assembly, and, thereafter, the second Wednesday in August^ the third Wednesday in November^ the first Wednesday in March., and oftener, when and where they shall think fit and convenient, with power to choose their own Moderator; and it empowers them finally to determine, as they shall see cause, in every matter referred to them by the As¬ sembly. They are required to watch ne quid detri- menti capiat Ecclesia, and for this cause they may see fit to meet oftener than at the four stated diets ; and a Commission is legally constituted at any time Avhen thirty-one of the commissioners, of whom twenty-one are ministers, finding themselves assem- COMMISSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 93 bled in any place, proceed to choose a Moderator. As the Commission is a delegated court, the commis¬ sioners are accountable for all their acts to the next General Assembly, who may reverse their sentences, and find those who concurred in them censurable, if it shall appear that they have exceeded their powers, or meddled with matters which did not belong to them, or acted to the prejudice of the Church. Thus it would appear that, as regards the Church courts, the judicial power ascends through all the courts, terminating in the General Assembly. The legislative originates and ends there; with the restriction, that a majority of Presbyteries must concur in the enact¬ ment of any standing law. The supi^eme executive is lodged in the General Assembly, and the orders from that body direct and controul the inferior branches. 94 ADMISSION OF MINISTERS CHAPTER XXIIL THE ADMISSION OF MINISTERS INTO THE KIRK. As tlie admission of ministers will necessarily in¬ clude the present controverted point in the Church of Scotland, it will he interesting to trace the pro¬ gress of a candidate for ordination through the several gradations of student, licentiate, presentee. The information connected with this subject may be arranged under four heads: viz., “ The trial of the qualifications;” “ The presentation of the patron;” “ The voice of the people;” and “ The solemn deed of the Presbytery.” The course of a young man in¬ tended for the ministry is as follows. AVlien a stu¬ dent, has gone through a full course of philosophy, in any one of the five universities, and thus has been recognised as “ a student of philosophy,” he continues, after examination, to prosecute the study of divinity, as “ a divinity student,” for the time prescribed; and then he may be proposed to a Presbytery, in order to being “taken on trials” prior to admission as a licen¬ tiate. The Synod, in which the Presbytery of the candidate is included, must give consent before any person can be “ taken on trials.” It is required that a student who is proposed “ for trials” shall have completed his twenty-first year. The certificates which he produces from the professors, under whom INTO THE KIRK. 95 he has studied as “ a student of divinity,” must not only certify that his attendance has been regular, but also that he has delivered an exegesis in Latin on some controverted point in theology, a homily in English, an exercise on some portion of the original text of the New Testament, a critical Hebrew exer¬ cise on some portion of the original text of the Old Testament, a lecture on some portion of Scripture, and a popular sermon. His life and conversation must be certified as correct; and he must have at¬ tended, during two sessions, on the classes of Church history and Hebrew. He ought to reside for one year within the bounds of the Presbytery before whom he is to appear, that he may be personally known to its members; or he must bring the most ample testimonials from the Presbytery in whose bounds he has lived. The student is examined strictly and privately by the Presbytery in his know¬ ledge of the Greek and Latin languages, philosophy, and theology. If in all these several particulars the student is duly qualified, a record is made, and a letter is sent to the several Presbyteries within the bounds of the Synod, bearing the requisite cer¬ tificates as above stated, and declaring the intention of the Presbytery to take the student “on trials;” and nothing farther is done till the Synod authorises the Presbytery to proceed. Leave being granted, the Presbytery of the bounds proceeds to examine the candidate thus:—1. Catechetic trials on divinity, chronology, and Church history; 2. On the Hebrew and Greek languages; 3. A treatise in Latin on some controverted point in theology; 4. A homily in Eng- 96 ADMISSION OF MINISTERS INTO THE KIRK. lish; 5. An exercise in divinity; 6. A lecture on some extended portion of Scripture; 7. A popular sermon, and sometimes a brief written history of the Christian Church. If approved,* eight questions as to his faith, doctrine, practice, &c., are put to the stu¬ dent ; and, these being satisfactorily answered, he sub¬ scribes the formula in which the questions are embo¬ died. The “ Act against Simony,” of 1759, is read to him; and the Aloderator is appointed to licence him “to preach the Gospel,” without ordination, and without power to administer the sacraments. The student thus becomes a licentiate^ oy probationer i he lives under the inspection of, and is in some degree subject to, the Presbytery in whose bounds he resides.; he preaches occasionally as he is called, but remains without any fixed charge until he receives a presentation to a church, when, after further trials, to which we shall presently advert, he is ordained. * See Hill’s “ Practice in the several Judicatories of the Church of Scotland,” p. 46. 97 CHAPTER XXIV. PRESENTATION OF THE PATRON.—“ VETO ACT,” ETC. In the year 1565, an Assembly of the Church ex¬ pressed, (according to Principal Hill,) most accurately, (in a message to Queen Mary,) their opinion concerning “ vacant parishes:”—“ Our mind is not that her Ma¬ jesty, or any other patron, should be defrauded of their just patronages; but we mean, that whensoever her Majesty, or any other patron, do present any person to a benefice, that the person so presented should be tried and examined by the judgment of learned men of the Church, such as are the present ‘ superintend¬ ents : ’ and as the presentation to the benefice apper¬ tains unto the patron^ so the collation,, by law and reason, belongs unto the Church; and the Church should not be defrauded of the collation, no more than the patrons of their presentation; for, otherwise, if it be lawful for the patrons to present whom they please, without trial or examination, what can abide in the Church of Cod but mere ignorance?” When the Presbyterian form of Church government was established, the., spirit of this message was carried out in the acts of the Scotch Parliament of 1567- 1592, by which “ the presentation of laic patronages is reserved to tha just and ancient patrons and “Pres¬ byteries are bound and astricted to receive and admit G 98 “veto act,” etc. any minister, duly qualified, presented by his Majesty, or laic patrons^ Upon the re-establishment of the Presbyterian government at the Pevolution, an act of the Scotch Parliament, in 1690,* constituted the “ he¬ ritors, and elders of the parish, patronsP This act was repealed in 1712 by an act “restoring to the respective patrons their ancient rights,” and declaring that “ the Presbytery is obliged to receive and admit a presentee, if duly qualified, in such manner as those presented before the passing of the act of 1690.” The act of 1712 is still in force, and forms the basis of the present controversy in the Church of Scotland. Before the resolution of the General Assembly of 1834, which, it is important to remark, is only an act of Assembly, and not an act of Par¬ liament, and therefore not of equal force with the act of Parliament of 1712,—before the adoption of that celebrated resolution, better known by the name of “ the Veto Act,” it was a recognised prin¬ ciple of the Kirk of Scotland, in the language of to Dr. G. Hill, “ that the idea of a right in the people to elect a person to be presented to the Presbytery, in order that, as a consequence of that election, he may by them be ordained and admitted, is inconsistent with the nature of the religious establishment of this country; in which, the state, by reserving to the patrons their ancient rights, ascertains a particular mode of inducting into the Church those who are * The enactment of 1690 placed the appointment of ministers in the hands of heritors, being- Protestants, and elders ; reserving to Church members to approve or disapprove with etfect.” — Macfarlan, on the Right Appointment of jVIiTiisters, p. 48., THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE. 99 to receive the legal emoluments.” At the same time it was a principle equally recognised, according to the several acts of 1562, 1592, and 1719, “that nothing herein contained shall prejudice or diminish the right of the Church as to the trying and deter- mining on the qualities of any person presented to a church or benefice.” It must be moreover ob¬ served, that a patron can present only a “ licentiate^ And, Principal Hill remarks, that, “ as a licence is the stamp of the Church, declaring that a person is duly qualified to receive a presentation, she has herself to blame if the stamp be improperly afixed; but her privileges as a Church are completely se¬ cured against invasion, when the choice of patrons is by law restricted to those whom she has ‘ licensed ’ to preach the Gospel, and when, subsequent to pre¬ sentation, she is competent to extend her trials, with¬ out restriction, in order to ascertain the qualifica¬ tions of a presentee according to her own standard.” “And yet,” to quote the language of the same eminent writer, and to shew, by comparing the two principles^ the precise change effected by the “ Veto Act,”-—“ yet the constitution of the Church of Scotland, regard¬ ing the inhabitants of a parish as deeply interested in the character of the person who is to minister to them in holy things, has not overlooked them in his settlement, but in two different ways affords them an opportunity of expressing their sentiments. — I. Before a Presbytery, to whom a presentation is ad¬ dressed, take the candidate upon second trials, which as a probationer he is required to undergo, they appoint him to preach on two Sabbaths, or oftener, 100 THE CALL, ETC. in the parish church; and whether he is a proba¬ tioner or an ordained minister, they assemble there upon a day, subsequently to his preaching, (and of which ten days’ notice has been given,) and after a sermon suited to the occasion, by one of their num¬ ber, they inform the people that a presentation in his favour has been received, and ask them to subscribe a paper called ‘ a Call,’ * inviting him to be their minister, and promising him ‘ subjection in the Lord.’ ” One of the legal steps in the settlement of a minister is a sentence of the Presbytery sustaining the call; and, before the passing of the “ Veto Act,” a call might be sustained^ however small the number of subscribers. It is in this particular, as being im¬ mediately connected with the call^ that the “Veto Act” is at variance, as we shall presently see, with former practice.—II. The second way in which the Church of Scotland provides for the voice of the people being * Tlie following is a verbatim copy of “ a Call,” as immemorially used in the Church of Scotland, and adopted at present:—“We, the (“ heritors and elders,” added in 1690) heads of families, and parishioners of the parish of-, within the bounds of the Presbytery of-, and county of-, taking into our consideration the present desti¬ tute state of the said parish, through the want of a Gospel ministry among us, occasioned by the death of our late pastor, the Rev.-, and being satisfied with the learning, abilities, and other good qualifica¬ tions of you,-, preacher of the Gospel, and having heard you preach to our satisfaction and edification, do hereby invite and ‘ cull ’ you, the said-, to take the charge and oversight of this parish, and to come and labour among us in the work of the Gospel ministry, hereby promising to you all due respect and encouragement in the Lord. We likewise entreat the reverend Presbytery of-to approve and concur with this our most cordial cull, and to use all proper means for making the same effectual, by your ordination and settlement amongst us, as soon as the steps necessary thereto will admit. In witness whereof we subscribe these presents,” &c. VETO ACT, 1834-5. 101 legally heard in the admission of their minister, is by giving the parishioners a right to appear as accusers of the presentee. At any time during the course of his trials, they may give in to the Presbytery a lihel^ {idest, an indictment,) charging him with immorality of conduct, or unsonndness of doctrine. This libel they bind themselves to prove, under pain of eccle¬ siastical “ censure;” and, until the libel be discussed, tlie Presbytery cannot proceed to his settlement. By an “ edicV the people are again summoned to object, if they have anything to urge against his ordination; and these last objections may be made, without the formality of a “ libel,” “ apud acta.^^ CHAPTEK XXV. VETO ACT. 1834-5. Such was the nature of Presentation and Collation prior to the passing of the “Veto Act” in 1834-5. By this act it was enacted that, “ as it is a funda¬ mental law of the Scotch Church that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people, the Presbyteries of the Church shall be instructed, that if, at the moderating* in a call to a * “ The day of moderation,” or of “ moderating the call,” is the day npon which the proceedings for inducting a new minister into a parish are commenced.—(Vide “ Short Statement,” &c., p. 7.) 102 VETO ACT, 1834-5. vacant pastoral charge, the major part of the male heads of families^ being members of the vacant con¬ gregation and in full communion with the Church, shall disapprove of the person in whose favour the call is proposed to be moderated in, such disapproval shall be deemed sufficient ground for the Presbytery reject¬ ing such person; and that he shall be rejected ac¬ cordingly.” This act was approved of by forty-seven Presbyteries, and rejected by twenty-six^ and carried in the Assembly by a large majority. In addition to this power vested in the majority of the heads of families, it is competent for any male head of a family, in full communion with the Kirk, to state to the Presbytery any objections whatever against the admission of the presentee, relating either to his moral and religious character, to his fitness for the ministerial office, or to his qualifications for the par¬ ticular charge assigned him. The privilege of ob¬ jecting upon specified grounds was originally pos¬ sessed by the members on the roll; but these alle¬ gations are now inadmissible^ if a majority on the roll have declared their dissent^ under the “ Veto Act.” The particular specified objections are dis¬ posed of by the Presbytery at their discretion, sub¬ ject to an appeal. “ Dissents” under the “ Veto Act” are given without any reason or cause assigned; it being only necessary that the dissentient, if he be required to do so by the patron and presentee, or any member of the Presbytery, shall solemnly declare “ tliat he is actuated by no factious or malicious motive, but solely by a conscientious regard to the spiritual * Sec a “ Letter to the Lord Chancellor,” by the Dean of Faculty. 103 VETO ACT, 1834-5. interests* of himself and the congregation.” These dissents without cause assigned^ being numbered by the Presbytery, are to be wholly without effect unless they are offered by a majority of the whole body qualified to tender them; viz. “ male heads of fami¬ lies, members of the vacant congregation, and in full communion with the Church.” If offered by such a majority, and not withdrawn before or on the day of the second meeting, (about ten days after,) and if any or all such dissentients shall be required by the patron, presentee, or any member of Presbytery “ to declare,” another meeting is appointed, within ten days; and every person, to whom notice in writing has been given, who shall fail to appear or refuse “ to declare,” is struck off the roll of dissentients; and if, after all these preliminaries, the “ dissents ” form the majority, the presentee is rejected without trials on the part of the Presbytery, so far as regards that particular presentation; and notice of such rejection is intimated, within two days, to the patron, presentee, and the elders of the parish. If a second presenta¬ tion is issued, the same course is repeated; and, if the parish continue vacant beyond six months, it lapses to the Presbytery, who, when the act was first passed, could present, without being subject to dis¬ sents ; but, since its fii’st enactment, it has been agreed that the people may “ veto” even the presentee of the Presbytery, and decide, against the expressed opinion of the members of that body, whether the * “ The Veto Law requires anotlier qualification of the presentee, when it assigns and fixes as a disqualification, that he. preaches not to the hearts oj' the people." —(Dr. Chalmers’ “ Answer to the Dean of Faculty.”) 104 OBJECTIONS TO THE person presented does, or does not, preach the Gospel. If “ the call ” he sustained^ it still appertains to the Presbytery to judge of the qualifications of the pre¬ sentee. Trials, of exactly the same nature with those which he underwent before obtaining his “ licence,” are prescribed to him: he is required again to assent to and subscribe the “formula;” the act against simony is read to him; a day is fixed for serving his “edict,” (a notice similar to the “Si quis” of the Church of England;) and another day, at an interval of ten days from reading the edict, is appointed for “ the solemn deed of the Presbytery,” (his “ ordina¬ tion”* in fact,) and his admission into the parochial charge. CHAPTER XXVI. OBJECTIONS TO THE “ VETO ACT.” Such is this celebrated “ Veto Act,”—and against this enactment three prominent objections have been advanced, which form the basis of the present oppo¬ sition to this act of Assembly. They are briefly, 1. That it is in direct opposition to the law of the land, it having been decided by the Court of Session, (the highest civil tribunal of Scotland,) in March 1838, and confirmed by the House of Lords, May 1839, * It must be borne in mind that “ the ‘ licentiate,’ though examined and aj'proved by the Presbytery, lias not been ordained” 105 “ VETO ACT.” “ that the Presbytery in rejecting the said Robert Yong, as presentee of the church and parish of Auchterarder, on the sole ground that a majority of the male heads of families, communicants in the pa¬ rish, have dissented, according to the enactment termed the ‘ Veto Act,’* without any reason as¬ signed, and debarred his admission as minister, have acted to the hu7l\ and prejudice of the said pursuers,” (that is, “plaintiffs,”) “ have adjudicated illegally, and in violation of their duty, and contrary to the provisions of sundry statutes.”^ Upon this deci¬ sion was founded the opposition of Dr. Cook and his party in the General Assembly, on the ground that “ resistance to the solemn judgment of the Court of Session, affirmed, upon an appeal by the Church, in the House of Peers, is inconsistent with the duty of every good subject, is subversive of the great purpose for which all government is instituted, * See “ The Earl of Aberdeen’s Correspondence with Dr. Chalmers and “ A Short Statement, by a Minister of the Church of Scotland.” t It must here be observed that the Kirk admits that a presentee, rejected under the ‘‘ Veto Act,” without having been adjudged disqualified by the Presbytery, is deprived only of his spiritualities, not of his tempo¬ ralities. Thus the Dean of Faculty says, “ that a presentee, rejeeted under the Veto Act, would have right to the stipend and other emolu¬ ments of the living without induction by the Presbytery to tbe spirituali¬ ties, as minister of the parish.” And thus it would, and did appear at first, that the presentee had no ground of complaint in the civil courts. But an act of parliament of 1816, respecting the “ Widows' Fund,” presented them with fresh difficulties. By that act, the stipend of vacant parishes is paid to certain trustees for the augmentation of the “ Widows’ Fund,” and consequently both patron and presentee are deprived of the temporalities of such pai'ishes, to “ their hurt and prejudice.” j; Five formidable volumes of “ Tracts on the Veto Act,” now lying before me, whisper a caution as to the necessity of brevity in giving a sketch of the tenor of this enactment. 106 OBJECTIONS TO THE and is peculiarly to be lamented and condemned, when exhibited by the members of an established Church deriving from the legislature its privileges as an establishment.” Dr. A. Hill, the present divinity professor in the university of Glasgow, ad¬ vances another objection, “ That this ‘ Veto Act’ is not only an invasion of the rights of patrons, but also of the rights of the judicatories of the Church; inasmuch as, though it belongs to Presbyteries solely to judge of the qualifications of presentees, yet this judgment is, in fact, transferred in the first place to the people, and Presbyteries are reduced to this de¬ grading condition, that, without inquiry being made, or reason being assigned, or any other exercise of the mind being allowed but what consists in reckon¬ ing the number of those who dissent^ they have to reject a presentee who is vetoed, although in their conscience they may at the same time believe, not only that he is a worthy person, but also that he is likely to be useful and successful as a minister of Christ, and has been so declared by the Presbytery when admitted to preach the Gospel as a licentiate.’’ “ In these circumstances,” adds Dr. Hill, “ the ob¬ jections to the ‘ Veto Act’ appear insurmountable.” Mr. Tait, minister of Kirkliston, in “a letter to the Moderator of the Church of Scotland,” takes still higher ground. He says, “that if the people claim a right to reject a presentee as a ‘ civil right j the civil courts have decided against them; if as a ‘ spiritual right j I cannot,” he says, “ recognise it, believing it not to be according to the mind of Christ that the pastor should be chosen by the peopled He then 107 “ VETO ACT.” states his conviction that, “ in enacting the ‘ Veto Law,’ the Church of Scotland has subjected herself to the very serious charge of surrendering a sacred and high jurisdiction with which the Head of the Church had invested her; for the due preservation of which He holds her responsible; and by the aban¬ donment of which she is placing herself in a position necessarily displeasing in His sight, and destructive to her true prosperity, if not to her very existence, as the ordinance in His hand for salvation to the people of Scotland.”* I need hardly add, that at the present meeting of the General Assembly (May, 1843) an open rupture has occurred, some 197 members of Assembly having, after protest, seceded^ and formed themselves into the ‘ '"Free Presbyterian A ssemblyP The number of ministers who have signed and adhered to “ the protest,” (whereby they deprive themselves of a legal maintenance* by the State,) is 395. The total number of parochial ministers is 947; there are now remaining 733 ministers of parishes, besides 102 ministers of chapels, who have not retired from the Establishment. * See also pages 54, 55 of the same letter, and “ A Brief Account of the Constitution of the Estahlished Church of Scotland, by the Rev. Sir Henry Moncreilf Welwood, D.D.” 108 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND CHAPTEE XXVIL CONNEXION BETWEEN THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND AND THE STATE. The following brief but very interesting remarks on the connexion between the Church (of Scotland) and the State are given in the language of Dr. George Hill, the Presbyterian writer so frequently quoted, and of high authority in Scotland: “A connexion between the Church and the State, notwithstand¬ ing the authorities and recommendation in its fa¬ vour, has been severely reprobated. While the enemies of religion have studied to divert the public attention from the offensive and mischievous nature of their principles, by disguising their hostilities to religious establishments under pretensions to libe¬ rality of sentiment and enlarged toleration* many, * The opinions of the modern Presbyterian on the subject of tolera¬ tion differ widely from those of the same persuasion during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In a subsequent note I have given the opinion of John Knox on the subject:—“ But intolerance and bigotry did not pass away with the generation which listened to Knox. In the reign of Charles the First, and more particularly in the time of the Commonwealth, the spirit of persecution animated the breasts of the leading Presbyterians, both in England and Scotland, to such a degree that they pertinaciously refused toleration to every other class of Christians.”—(Keith, p. 487.) “ Certainly the worst feature of Presbytery at this time (1655),” says Orme in his “ Life of AND THE STATE. 109 who profess an earnest zeal for the stability and success of the Gospel, have asserted that it stands in no need of forming any connexion with the State, and that its purity is always contaminated by so unnatural an alliance. The reasons of this asser¬ tion may often be traced in the private resentments or the political situation of those from whom it pro¬ ceeds. The assertion is dictated to some by that spirit of innovation which is weary of the present institutions of society, without having any distinct apprehension of what is to be substituted in their place ; and with others it is merely the rash expres¬ sion of an opinion, which has been formed without due attention to the violence of the human passions, and the course of human affairs. We may often ob- Dr. Owen,” “ that which excited the greatest attention, and which ultimately ruined the body, was its intolerance, or determined and per¬ secuting hostility to liberty of conscience. The most celebrated Pres¬ byterian divines, such as Culamy and Burgess, in their discourses before Parliament, represented toleration as the hydra of schism and heresies, and the floodgate to all manner of iniquity and danger, lohich, therefore, the civil authorities ought to exert all their energies to put down. Their most distinguished authors advocated the rights of persecution, and endeavour¬ ed to reason or rail down religious liberty! And, not to notice the ravings of Bustwick and Paget and Vicars, it is painful to quote the respectable names of Principal Baillie, of Glasgow, and Samuel Ruther¬ ford, professor of divinity in St. Andrew’s, as engaged in supporting so bad a cause. The former, throughout his ‘ Dissuasive,’ discovers how determined a foe he was to what he calls a ‘ monstroiis imagination.' The latter wrote a quarto volume of four hundred pages ‘ against pre¬ tended liberty of conscience!' It was,” adds Mr, Orme, “the Trojan horse, whose bowels were full of warlike sectaries and weapons of de¬ struction. Like the fabled box of Pandora, it had only to be opened to let loose upon the world all the ills that ever afflicted our race. It was the Diana, before whose shrine the motley groups of dissenters from Presbytery were represented as making their devoutest prostration.” no CHURCH OF SCOTLAND serve an indilference about religion, wliicli, fostered by the multiplicity of the business and amuse¬ ments of life, proceeds to open profanity,—a turbu¬ lence, which derives pleasure from interrupting, upon every capricious impulse, the serious occupations of others,—a rashness of speculation, and love of singu¬ larity, which delight in attacking truths the clearest, the most important and the most generally received, —and a depravity of heart and obstinacy in wicked¬ ness, which regard with contempt and aversion an authoritative system of pure morality.Eccle¬ siastical power, feeble and unarmed when opposed to the violence of man, is aided by the authority of human government. The blasphemy and open im¬ piety, which shock the feelings of good men, which corrupt the young, and unsettle the minds of the multitude, are restrained by those punishments which the civil magistrate can inflict. The day upon which Christians have, from the beginning, assembled for public worship, is guarded by law from profanation; worshippers are secured against any rude interruption; the ministers of religion are protected in the celebra¬ tion of the ordinances of the Gospel; and the regular ministrations of an order of men, recognised by the civil constitution, furnish a continual exhibition of the doctrines and the duties of true religion. Chris¬ tianity becomes a part of the law of the land, which no man is permitted to revile or openly to attack. The profession of it is an inheritance which we receive, together with our civil liberties, from our fathers; and the succeeding age has the same security for the trans- AND THE STATE. Ill mission of this, as of any other part of their inheritance.” Dr. Hill then considers two several points: 1. “ That a connexion between the Church and the State produces a religious establishment and under this head he says, “ There are two general points respecting the authority of the State in matters of religion, which are implied in the idea of a religious establishment: First, the civil magistrate is entitled to know the opinions of the community of Christians to whom he imparts the benefits of an establishment. He adopted that community, in preference to others, from the know¬ ledge he then had of their tenets; and, if they were to embrace opinions essentially difierent, he might see cause to withdraw that preference. Hence, confessions of faith, which, ecclesiastically considered, are an exposition of the truth, prepared by the society of teachers to direct their own ministrations, and to warn the people against error, become a declaration to the State of the opinions and principles held by the ministers of the established religion; and subscription to confessions or articles of religion is a solemn pledge to the civil magistrate that they will not, without his knowledge, make any change upon that system of doctrine which had received his sanction. Accordingly, divers acts of parliament enjoin ‘ that every person who administers the Word and Sacra¬ ments in the Church of England shall openly sub¬ scribe the Thirty-nine Articles; ’ and, at the Revo¬ lution, the same acts of parliament which settled Presbyterian Church-government in Scotland ordain¬ ed, ‘ that no person be admitted, or continued 112 CnURCII OF SCOTLAND hereafter, to be a minister or preacher within this Church, unless that he subscribe the Confession of Faith^ declaring the same to be his confession of faith.’ Secondly, as regards this authority, the civil magistrate is entitled to take care that the established Church do her duty, and that none of her regulations and acts disturb the public peace. The form of the religious establishment generally provides some mode of exercising this superintending power. In one of the ‘ Thirty-nine Articles ’ of the Church of England it is declared, that ‘ the synods and councils, where those regulations and orders which may affect the public tranquillity are enacted, shall not be gathered together without the commandment of princes;’ and the Church of Scotland in her ‘ Confession of Faith’ declares, what in effect comes to the same thing, ‘ that the civil magistrate has power to call synods, to he pre¬ sent at them, and to provide that whatsoever is trans¬ acted in them he according to the mind of God .’— (See ‘ Confession of Faith,’ ch. xxiii. ‘ Of Civil Ma¬ gistrates.’) It will always be the wish of every person who understands the true interests of the community, to avoid even the appearance of a col¬ lision between the powers of the Church and the State. But, if the Church derive essential benefit from the State, it is agreeable to common sense and common equity that there should be some mode in which that supreme power, which is the guardian of the whole community, may be exerted, as cir¬ cumstances shall require, in order to prevent the Church, Avhich is a part of the community, from 113 AND THE STATE. neglecting those duties for the sake of which she enjoys protection and favour, or from exercising her rights in a manner which appears hurtful to the State.” Again, he writes, “ With some variety in the manner of connexion between the Church and the State, and with considerable difference as to the measure of public favour, both Churches, (that of the Episcopal Church of England, and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland,) enjoy the essential benefits of an establishment; that is, both are incorporated with the State, so as to make a part of the Constitution. In Scotland the ‘ Confession of Faith’ is ratified by act of parliament^ which, without adding confirma¬ tion to the truth of the doctrines therein contained, gives security for the continued profession of them. Those meetings of the office-bearers of the Church, which Presbyterian government implies, are recog¬ nised by law, and the sentences which they have a right to pronounce are supported and enforced by civil authority. The ministrations of the established teachers of religion in the places provided for public worship are not only protected from insult, but com¬ mended to the respect of the people. The teachers are maintained by the Statefi and the emoluments * The maintenance of the ministers in Scotland is derived from tlic land, and secured by the State; a full description of the mode of pay¬ ment, &c. will be found in Dr. Hill’s “ View of the Church of Scotland,’"’ p. 94. By an act of parliament, passed in 1810 on the motion of Mr. Spencer Perceval, stating that, “ Whereas it is expedient that means should be provided for augmenting the stipends of certain ministers in Scotland to a yearly value of 150/. sterling: and whereas it appears that an annual sum, not exceeding 10,000/., will be sufficient for that purpose, to be set apart and appropriated in the hands of his Majesty’s II 114 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND annexed to tlieir office being a freehold, which they enjoy under the protection of law, cannot be with¬ held by the caprice of the multitude or the oppres¬ sion of the great. When they who preach the Gospel depend for their subsistence upon the good-will of those to whom they minister, they are laid under a strong temptation to flatter the prejudices, or inflame the passions of the people; and, if the firmness of an en¬ lightened and virtuous mind enable them to withstand the temptation, they and their families may be reduced to severe distress. Wliereas the fixed provision for the clergy of the established (Presbyterian) Church, while it delivers them from the humiliating condition, which embitters the lives and impairs the usefulness of many dissenting ministers in England and Scotland, may be regarded as a national blessing; because, by rendering them completely independent of the opinions and maxims of the world, it leaves them at perfect liberty, in fulfilment of the sacred obligations derived from the authority and example of the Shepherd and Bishop of souls, to declare the truth as it is in Jesus, Receiver-general and Paymaster in Scotland : it is enacted, that, as soon as conveniently may be, there shall be made up from the accounts sent by ditferent Presbyteries a list of all the stipends which do not extend in their yearly value to the sum of 150/. sterling, and which cannot be augmented to that extent by the laws now in force, and of the sums necessary to augment the same stipends, including their present annual value, to the annual value of 150/. sterling ; provided that the said aug¬ mentation shall not exceed in the whole sum 10,000/. sterling,” &c. The law of Scotland provides the minister of every country parish with a dwelling-house, called a manse ; a garden ; a glebe, of not less than four acres of arable land, designed out of lands in the parish near the manse ; and with grass, besides the glebe, for one horse and two cows ; and with the re(|uisite outhouses. AND THE STATE. 115 and to oppose tlieir influence to prevailing vices.” II. Tlie second point which Dr. Hill considers is, “ That a connexion between the Church and the State may he accompanied with religious toleration ‘ Tole¬ ration' was a word for many ages unknown in eccle¬ siastical history. The spirit of persecution was not peculiar to any description of Christians during the troubles in Scotland, from 1562 to 1784. The Pres¬ byterians had complained loudly of what they suflered before the civil war (1640). But, when the troubles of the times conducted them to supreme power, they adopted the principle of uniformity in its full extent; they spoke of toleration* as a deadly sin, and they * The sentiments of John Knox on the subject of toleration are known to every reader, whilst the inhuman counsels and remonstrances which he founded upon his intolerant dogmas are scattered throughout every page of his works. A standing text with him, and indeed with all the immediate disciples of Calvin, was that injunction mentioned in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy against participating in the idolatry of the Gentile nations : “ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly,” &c. &c. “ thou shalt not consent unto them, nor hearken unto him ; neither shall thy eye pity him ; neither shalt thou spare him ; neither shalt thou conceal him : but thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death ; thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.”—“ Such therefore,” concludes John Knox, “ as solicit only to idolatrie (popery) ought to be punished with death, without favour or respect of persons. The punishment of such crimes as are idolatrie, blasphemy, and others, that touch the majesty of God, doth not pertain to kings or chief rulers only, but to the ivhole body if the people, and to every member of the same, according to the vocation of every man, and according to that possibility and occasion which God doth minister to revenge the injury done against His glory.” “ To the same law, I say, and covenant, are the Gentiles no less bound than were the Je^vs, whensoever God doth illuminate the eyes of any multi¬ tude or people, and putteth the sivord into their own hand to remove such enormities f7-om amongst them as before God they hnow to be abo min able." 116 CHURCH OF SCOTLAND conceived that civil power could not be exercised in a manner more acceptable to God than in en¬ abling them to accomplish the purpose of the solemn league and covenant, by extirpating popery and prelacy. These prejudices have gradually yielded to the steady operation of the law and the pro¬ gress of civilization; and all, whether Presbyterian or Episcopalian, are now understood to be account¬ able for their interpretation of Scripture, and their mode of worship, only to Plim who is Lord of con¬ science. Such is the liberal system under which we have the happiness to live.”—And such were the A century after (1646), Thomas Edwards published his “ Gangraena,” the object of which work will he learned from the “imprimatur:”—“ Reader, that thou mayest discern the mischief of ecclesiastical anarchy, the mon- stroiisness of the much-affected toleration, 4 c., I approve that this treatise should he imprinted.”— James Cranfor. In this celebrated treatise we have the following definition of toleration: —(p. 58.) “Toleration is the grand master-piece of the Devil, the principal design and chief engine he works by at this time to uphold his tottering kingdom. It is the most compendious, ready, sure way to destroy all religion, lay all waste, and bring in all evil. It is the most transcendant, catholic, and funda¬ mental evil for the kingdom of any that can be imagined. As original sin is the most fundamental sin, having the seed and spawn of all in it, so a toleration hath all errors in it, and all evils. It is against the whole stream and current of Scripture, both in the Old and in the New Testament; both in matters of faith and manners; both general and particular commands. It overthrows all relations, political, ecclesiasti¬ cal, and economical. And whereas other evils, whether of judgment or practice, be but against some one or two places in Scripture or revela¬ tion, this is against all; this is the Abaddon, Apollyon, the destroyer of all religion, the abomination of desolation and astonishment, the liberty of perdition ; and therefore the Devil follows it day and night, w'orking mightily in many by writing books for it and other ways ; all the devils in Hell, and their instruments, being at woi'k continually to promote toleration.'" — I need hardly add that this Edwards was a violent Pres¬ byterian. AND THE STATE. 117 sentiments of Principal George Hill in 1818, and, it is presumed, of Dr. Alexander Hill, who re-edited Dr. G. Hill’s “ View,” &c. in 1835, and who has taken, and still takes, a very active and prominent part in the present dissensions in the Church of Scotland. THE END. LONDON : Printed by S. & J. 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