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STATEMENT 
 
 CAUSES 
 WHICH LED TO THE DISSOLUTION 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 aSertotc&sfljiTe 9ttetliatj) Btfile gQtittg< 
 
 BY A MAJORITY OF THE DIRECTORS. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 PRINTED BY A. BALFOUR & CO. 
 
 1835. 
 

 
 T-iHNcrur.n : 
 PRINTED 15V A. BALFOUR AND CO. NfftOBY STR1 I 
 
STATEMENT, &c. 
 
 The Directors of the late Berwickshire Bible Society, who are 
 friendly to the principle of ecclesiastical establishments, have 
 perused with feelings of surprise and regret, the statement which 
 has been issued by their dissenting brethren, of the causes which 
 led to the dissolution of that institution. To the publication of 
 such a document there could not have been the smallest objec- 
 tion, if it had been drawn up with temper, and had exhibited a 
 full and impartial account of the reasons which were offered in 
 vindication of that measure when it was proposed to the sub- 
 scribers, and had been distinguished by that moderation and 
 courteousness of language which might have been expected from 
 its authors as Christian ministers. But we are sorry to observe 
 that it is characterized by a want of these important qualities 
 which were absolutely indispensable to entitle it to the confidence 
 of the Christian public. For it misrepresents our opinions, (we 
 hope unintentionally), even on the subject of voluntaryism, im- 
 putes to us motives of which we are utterly unconscious, with- 
 holds the reasons by which we justified our conduct, and is writ- 
 ten with a fierceness and bitterness of expression which savours 
 more of " that wrath of man which bringeth a snare," than of 
 64 the fruit of the Spirit which is in all goodness, 11 as well as 
 " righteousness and truth. 11 
 
A leading object which is contemplated in the statement, and 
 of which it never loses sight either in its details or reasonings, 
 is to inflame and irritate the public mind against the friends of 
 establishments, and it resembles rather one of those keen and fiery- 
 ebullitions which issue from the platforms of voluntary asso- 
 ciations, than an address from a religious and benevolent insti- 
 tution. Had not this been the case, it would never have repeat- 
 ed the groundless allegation, that " an attempt was made at the 
 formation of the society to fix a stigma on the Dissenters by the 
 introduction of a clause, to the effect, " that a majority of the 
 directors should be churchmen." For it is known to the presi- 
 dent of the Dissenting Society, and to several of the directors, 
 (and we challenge them to deny it), that this regulation existed 
 only for a single year, and was adopted for the time, not with the 
 most distant view of shewing disrespect to the Dissenters, but 
 partly from an impression, which was discovered to be erroneous, 
 that it was an article in the constitution of the parent society, 
 and partly in the hope of conciliating some laymen who might 
 have been of use to the society.* Nor would it have represent- 
 
 * At a private meeting 1 of the friends of the society, prior to its forma- 
 tion, the Rev. Dr. Brown endeavoured to prevent the adoption of the 
 clause, but was unsuccessful, as the society had to struggle with a num- 
 ber of difficulties, some of which it was hoped might be obviated by this 
 arrangement. But two days after the public meeting, when he was in- 
 formed of the dissatisfaction which it had given to the Dissenters, he wrote 
 a letter in his own house, before the Rev. Mr. Thomson of Dunse, and the 
 Rev. Mr. Ralston, (which he read to them, and which they put into the 
 post office), and requested the gentlemen who had proposed the clause, 
 to agree to its repeal at the first anniversary, to which they at once con- 
 sented; and upon communicating this to these clergymen, they declared 
 that they were satisfied. Was it fair then or gentlemanly, knowing, as 
 they must have done, or ought to have done, the whole of these facts, 
 and recollecting the handsome and liberal way in which the abolition of 
 the clause was proposed by Mr. Buchan, and their refusing to allow him 
 to make any explanation, to recur to this circumstance ? But it is only 
 one out of too many instances in which the authors of the Statement en- 
 deavour to exasperate the feelings of the public against their Christian 
 brethren, and imagine, we have no doubt, that they are doing God good 
 service. We should like to be informed, whether the writing of this and 
 
ed those individuals who should venture to question the loyalty 
 of Dissenters, (of which there was not even a whisper in any of 
 our discussions), as 6t actuated by a malignity equal if not supe- 
 rior to that of the accuser of the brethren ,•" — a specimen of he- 
 terodoxy, or rather of utter absurdity, which we would not have 
 expected from our brethren : for how could an inferior creature 
 like man, with his limited powers, surpass in his malevolence 
 the father of lies ? Nor would it have used such a fearful liberty 
 with the Redeemer, as to say that " he was mistaken, ,, if our 
 conduct was right, " when he prayed most fervently for the 
 union of his disciples." Nor would it have consigned us so 
 recklessly to the vengeance of the Almighty for voting for the 
 dissolution, remarking, page 12, " Vengeance is mine, I will 
 repay." Surely the men who could write under the influence of 
 such extraordinary excitement, and who could employ such lan- 
 guage, must have been ill prepared to do justice to our senti- 
 ments ; and we owe it to ourselves, and to the cause which we 
 have espoused, and to the Christian public, to correct the misre- 
 presentations of this most offensive publication. 
 
 We were completely ignorant, when the society was instituted, 
 of the sentiments of our brethren on the subject of Establish- 
 ments, for it was never mooted. But we supposed that while 
 they were opposed to coercive measures on the part of the magis- 
 trate for the punishment of heresy, (which was all that we un- 
 derstood by their new-light doctrine), they would have acquiesced 
 in the exposition of the principles of their body, which was given 
 by Dr. Peddie, when he said to Dr. Porteous, " The Associate 
 Synod will admit that legal establishments of religion are lawful 
 and warrantable^ and denied that they had asserted that " to 
 establish religion by human law was contrary to the nature 
 
 some other pamphlets which have been published of late by Berwickshire 
 Voluntaries have strengthened in their minds the feelings of devotion and 
 the spirit of prayer, and have assisted them when they were engaged in 
 preparing for the pulpit, and have raised them in the estimation of their 
 pious people, and have enabled them to repair with greater spirituality, 
 and tenderness, and comfort, to the couches of the sick and the beds of 
 the dying. 
 
of the New Testament Church, and an attempt to turn the 
 kingdom of Christ into a worldly kingdom"!!!* It appears 
 however, that we were mistaken in that opinion, for some of 
 them informed us at one of our recent discussions, that they had 
 been voluntary churchmen for twenty years (and if Dr. Peddie 
 was right) in advance of the Secession. But, whatever were 
 their sentiments, they kept them to themselves ; and Dissenters 
 neither interfered with churchmen from the pulpit or the press, 
 nor churchmen with dissenters. Our Society accordingly rose 
 above the difficulties with which it had to contend at its outset, 
 and increased both as to its members and its Branch Associa- 
 tions ; though a Missionary Society, which had been established 
 by our brethren prior to the former, had to be soon relinquished. 
 And had matters remained on the same friendly footing, it 
 would not only have been conducted with that mutual good feel- 
 ing which they themselves acknowledge, (p. 3.) distinguished 
 its operations for sixteen years, but it would have continued to 
 
 * Reply to Dr. Porteous, p. 29. This was written in 1800, after the 
 adoption of the new light principles, and was considered as expressing 1 
 the sentiments of the Synod. It is plain, therefore, that at this time they 
 still believed in the scriptural warrant for Ecclesiastical Establishments, 
 whatever may be the sentiments which a majority of their ministers 
 have recently embraced. We know that one of their ministers, not fifty 
 miles from Dunse, declared little more than two years ago, that he had 
 not then made up his mind on the question of Establishments. The Rev. 
 Dr. Mitchell, one of their Professors of Divinity, the Rev. Dr. Belfrage, 
 one of their most excellent ministers, with a few other clergymen, form- 
 ing- a small but respectable minority, still approve of Establishments. 
 The Rev. Dr. Edgar, too, and the whole of their brethren in Ireland, 
 though new-light Seceders, must be friendly to endowments, for they ac- 
 cept of a yearly allowance from government, called the Regium Donum, 
 in consequence of which, when any of their chapels happen to become 
 vacant it is speedily tilled. And if there be any truth in what was 
 mentioned in the Guardian a year and a half ago, (and it has never been 
 contradicted), namely, that some of the leading ministers of the Seces- 
 sion applied to Sir Robert Peel, before he last went out of office, for an 
 annual grant to their body of L.i 0,000, it proved that at that time they 
 must have been favourable to endowments, though they now represent 
 them as the source of the greatest evils. 
 
prosper, and we would never, for a moment, have consented to 
 its dissolution. 
 
 Our brethren, however, having either changed their senti- 
 ments within the last three years on the subject of establish- 
 ments, or having considered the times as more favourable to 
 their cause, brought out views which were previously unknown 
 to us ; and not satisfied with being supported on the voluntary 
 system by their own congregations, became anxious that the 
 present ministers of the establishment, or at least their succes- 
 sors, should be supported by it also ; and pursued a course which, 
 if they had reflected at all, and had given us any credit for being 
 attached to our principles, they could not have failed to perceive 
 would terminate infallibly in the dissolution of the Society. 
 They might not, indeed, as is mentioned in the Statement, have 
 become actual members of Voluntary Associations, but they will 
 scarcely deny that they acted as their pioneers. For, while 
 some of them attacked the principle of establishments in perio- 
 dical publications, and in private conversation, and publicly 
 from the pulpit, a number of them were busy in the circulation 
 of tracts, and magazines, and books which celebrated in the 
 most glowing and extravagant terms the orthodoxy and piety of 
 voluntary churchmen, and, as will afterwards appear, held up to 
 the loathing and detestation of the public the system of esta- 
 blishments and its most exemplary ministers. We beheld this 
 with astonishment on the part of men from whom we had ex- 
 pected to receive very different treatment, but bore it with pa- 
 tience for a considerable time, trusting that they would return 
 to a better spirit, and that we might still co-operate with them 
 as Christian brethren. We saw, however, that our hopes were 
 vain ; for, instead of relaxing, they persisted in their efforts, cir- 
 culating new and still more violent publications, in which we 
 were denounced as " state paupers," and " enemies of civil and 
 religious liberty," and were represented as " paid by the servants 
 of the . devil," while they themselves were supported by " the 
 gifts of godliness," and in which it was openly avowed, that 
 " means ought to be taken to press their plans on the attention 
 of the only living man who could turn them to account, the great 
 
8 
 
 Irish Agitator. 11 * And being convinced, that the period had at 
 last arrived when we could no longer act with them without 
 encouraging them to new and more daring attempts, and betray- 
 ing our principles, we determined to separate. 
 
 After we had come to this painful but unavoidable resolution, 
 two plans occurred to different individuals for carrying it into 
 effect. The first was, if we were supported by a majority of the 
 subscribers, (of which we had not the smallest doubt,) to vote 
 them out of the management, and retain it to ourselves. But 
 one or two of the Directors, whom they have distinguished re- 
 
 * Voluntary Magazine for October 1834. How will the patrons 
 of the Scottish voluntaries, Messrs. Gillon and Whittle Harvey, after all 
 that they have done for them, like the preference which is expressed in 
 this article for Mr. O'Connel, or rather judging of the cause from the in- 
 strument, who is to be selected for endeavouriug to accomplish it, what 
 will be said of it by many pious and excellent members of the Secession ? 
 Are they prepared to co-operate with the voluntaries, headed by this 
 votary of the man of sin, in their work of demolition, and to join in the 
 cry which is raised by the enemies of our Scottish Zion, like that of the 
 children of Edora of old, " Raze it ! raze it ?" We cannot believe it. 
 The language, however, which is employed in this passage, does not at 
 all surprise us ; for it had been stated formerly by Mr. Marshall, one of 
 their most strenuous advocates, that " the whole Roman catholic popu- 
 lation in Great Britain and Ireland, amounting in the aggregate to so 
 many millions, although not dissenters in principle, were prepared to 
 lend to dissenters their cordial assistance in effecting what they have 
 come to regard as a most important object, — the entire separation of reli- 
 gion from the state." And he adds, " There is no reason why their 
 assistance should not be accepted as frankly as it is offered, and consider- 
 ing how numerous they are, and with what vehemence they are accustomed 
 to urge their claims, it cannot but prove of the greatest avail" This 
 will perhaps be considered as strange language from a Protestant and a 
 Seceder. Is it in the hope of obtaining the assistance of the papists for 
 overturning the establishment that the dissenting voluntaries, while they 
 are incessant in their endeavours to obtain the alienation of the Protes- 
 tant endowments, have never yet presented a single petition against the 
 annual grant of L.9000 to the college at Maynooth, to educate priests for 
 the Irish catholics ? Their zeal against the endowments of the popish 
 church is cold and dead, so far as we can judge from their conduct; but 
 it is ardent and restless against their Protestant brethren. 
 
9 
 
 cently by the most opprobrious epithets, and the most contemp- 
 tible scurrility, after loading them formerly, in their notes and 
 letters which still remain, with the warmest praises, refused to 
 concur in it, so far as they were concerned, though it was pressed 
 upon them repeatedly by some of the subscribers. They were 
 sensible that their brethren had treated them unkindly, but they 
 had no wish to return them evil for evil. And, accordingly, 
 they proposed to their fellow Directors the plan which was after- 
 wards adopted by the subscribers, namely, that the Society 
 should be dissolved, so as that when the separation took place 
 neither churchmen nor dissenters should have any advantage, 
 but that when the latter walked out, the former, instead of re- 
 maining, should walk out along with them. We ask, then, any 
 fair and honourable man, who has attached himself as yet nei- 
 ther to us nor our brethren, whether such is the course which 
 we would have been likely to have pursued, if, as is asserted in 
 the Statement (p. 7) with a petulance and flippancy which 
 does not at all distress us, we had intended M to offer to them a 
 wanton and unprovoked insult ;" or whether he can allow him- 
 self to believe, that> after acting with them cordially for sixteen 
 years, as they themselves admit, the reason why we at last re- 
 solved to separate from them was, " because we considered dis- 
 senters unworthy to be admitted into the society of churchmen ?" 
 And we beg him to contrast with it the very modest proposal 
 which they thought fit to make to us, namely, that, though we 
 were supported by a large majority of the subscribers, and had 
 contributed the largest proportion of the funds, and had written 
 the whole of its annual reports for nineteen years, and had taken 
 considerable trouble in the management of its affairs, we should 
 withdraw from the Society, and leave to the minority the im- 
 portant advantage of its respectable name, and its established 
 reputation. 
 
 We announced our intention to them, partly at an ordinary 
 meeting of the Directors on the 15th October last, and more 
 fully at a second meeting on the 27th of that month, when we 
 proposed that, as in the case of the Missionary Society, to which 
 they had themselves consented^ we should dissolve the Society 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 quietly and amicably, for the reasons which we specified, and 
 which will by and by be noticed. They objected, however, to 
 this plan, though it had been followed with their approbation in 
 the former instance ; and upon their insisting that it should be 
 submitted to a general meeting, we agreed to their request, re- 
 stricting, however, the meeting to the Subscribers and Delegates 
 from the Branch Associations, who alone were entitled to vote 
 upon the question, and appointing it to be held in private, and 
 not as they wished in public ; and our only motive for preferring 
 the former was our anxiety that every thing connected with so 
 delicate and important a business should be conducted peace- 
 ably, and should be as free as possible from all external influence, 
 and that we should act towards each other with as much moder- 
 ation as the circumstances would admit, and should part as bre- 
 thren. We at least had no reason to shun the most open and 
 public discussion, though in this instance it would have been 
 improper ; and so much do we approve of it on fitting occasions, 
 that we would not only have readily acceded to their proposal, 
 if it had been at all advisable, but we have abstained carefully 
 from imitating their example as to a less honourable privacy, 
 that of publishing in the newspapers anonymous letters, and 
 attacking their friends and Christian brethren while they were 
 covered with a mask.* That meeting, accordingly, took place 
 on the 27th November, and both parties having been heard in 
 support of their views, it was resolved, by a majority of two to 
 one, that the Society should be dissolved, and if letters had been 
 admitted from the female subscribers, we have reason to believe 
 that it would have been carried by three-fourths, or by a still 
 greater number.'f 
 
 * It is not a little surprising that our Voluntary opponents, after com- 
 plaining of our meeting because it was private, and stigmatizing it as " a 
 hole and corner meeting," should have had recourse to the kind of pri- 
 vacy referred to in the text. 
 
 f The following were the terms of the motion which was carried : — 
 " While this meeting deeply regret that any circumstances should have 
 occurred to mar the harmony which has so long existed in the Society, 
 yet in consequence of the painful discussion which has taken place on 
 the subject of Church Establishments, and the manner in which it has 
 
11 
 
 We can appeal, we think, to the three respectable individuals, 
 who, though present at the meeting, did not think proper to 
 vote, and who are treated in the Statement with very little cere- 
 mony, nay, we could appeal by and by to our brethren them- 
 selves, when their minds shall have regained a more tranquil 
 temperament, whether our excellent chairman, in his introduc- 
 tory address, and the different clergymen who spoke on that 
 occasion, did not abstain from all severity of language, and did 
 not treat them with courtesy. And when we met for establish- 
 ing our new Society, we appeal to every one who witnessed our 
 proceedings whether we did not endeavour to observe a similar 
 •course, and refrain from every thing like violence or asperity, 
 when we stated the reasons which led to the dissolution. We 
 wish that we had been able to say the same of them. One of 
 them, for whom we were unwilling to cherish any feelings but 
 those of sincere respect, assailed us with a vehemence which no- 
 thing that we had said could have warranted him to employ. 
 All of them concurred in presenting for the sanction of their 
 new Bible Society {though only five of its members could judge 
 of the correctness and fidelity of its details) the bitter, though 
 feeble and declamatory pamphlet, which has been the subject of 
 our animadversions, and which we have occasion to know, if a 
 number of its worst and most offensive passages had not been 
 afterwards expunged, and if it had been given to the world as it 
 was read to the meeting, would have been worthy of still more 
 severe and pointed castdgation. And others of them have at- 
 
 been conducted, and the difficulties which have occurred in the distribu- 
 tion of the funds of the Society, they consider it as advisable that the 
 Berwickshire Bible Society should be dissolved, leaving it to the friends 
 and opponents of Establishments to adopt those measures which appeal' 
 to them to be best fitted to promote the dissemination of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures." 
 
 The second motion, as delivered to the secretary by the Rev. Mr. 
 Maclaurin, and read a second time immediately before the vote was thus 
 expressed, and not as in the Statement, p. 4, " That it does not appeal 
 that there is any sufficient ground for dissolving- the Berwickshire 
 Bible Society, and that it be continued according to its present constitu- 
 tion." 
 
12 
 
 tacked us with the meanest, and coarsest, and most vulgar 
 ribaldry, and the lowest personalities, which, though they may 
 find to be easier and more congenial to their taste than manly 
 argument and fair discussion, we fear that they have learned in 
 a very different school than that of their meek and lowly Master, 
 and which we are confident that they will regret in their calmer 
 moments, and on their beds of death. What a pity that after 
 having been employed for so many years as fellow-directors of a 
 Bible Society in the hallowed work of disseminating the Scrip- 
 tures, any of us should have lost so much of their spirit, and 
 should have profited so little by these labours of love, as to fail 
 in the ordinary courtesies of life, and to have recourse to lan- 
 guage towards their Christian brethren, by which honourable 
 combatants would consider themselves as degraded if they should 
 be tempted to stoop to it, though they were only men of the 
 world. Their cause may require support like this, for it is weak 
 in itself, and its advocates may endeavour to supply that defect 
 by the violence of their abuse and the keenness of their vituper- 
 ation. Ours does not need it, and we trust that while we pro- 
 ceed to detail the reasons which led to the dissolution, we shall 
 be enabled to do it " with meekness and fear." 
 
 Now, we beg to state that we separated from our brethren, 
 not because they had become proselytes to the Voluntary prin- 
 ciple, as is asserted in the Statement, for if they had held it 
 quietly as a mere speculative opinion, as at the commencement 
 of the Society, we would have continued to act with them, 
 though we disapproved of their sentiments. But instead of do- 
 ing this, and behaving with moderation, they became loud in 
 their praises of the destructive Voluntaries, whose arguments 
 they supposed were completely unanswerable, and zealous and 
 active in disseminating some of their worst and most mischievous 
 publications. Nay, to aggravate the offence, they began to do this 
 when we were treating them with kindness,* and were refraining 
 
 * Eight or nirve years ago the Kev. Mr. Thomson of Coldstream men- 
 tioned of his own accord to Dr. Brown, that lie had told Dr. Darlrngf of 
 London, the medical ffentleraao who attended Dr. \Van;Ii in his last ill- 
 
13 
 
 from interfering with them cither in public or private, and were 
 accustomed to hear from them at the anniversaries of our Society- 
 how much they were delighted that " the wall of separation 
 between them and us had become so much lower as that we 
 could shake hands across it, and how ardently they hoped that 
 it would be removed entirely, and that we would live as bre- 
 thren . ,1 We ask then any candid and impartial judge, if, after 
 submitting in silence for nearly three years to a series of such 
 rude and unprovoked attempts to overturn the general principle 
 of Establishments, and to subvert especially the Church o£ 
 Scotland, it was at ail surprising that we should dissolve the 
 Society, where, if we had remained any longer we would have 
 exhibited the strange and anomalous spectacle of being nominally 
 united to those who had aggrieved us, and who were continuing 
 to do us wrong, but could have had no cordial co-operation with 
 them in promoting the objects of that benevolent institution. 
 
 But deep as was our sense of the want of kindness which they 
 had discovered to ourselves, we felt still more strongly the part 
 which they acted in joining indirectly in that fierce and reckless 
 and unrelenting crusade which has been raised against our church, 
 as well as the cause of establishments, by a number of their bre- 
 
 ncss, that " he (Dr. B.) and his friend Mr. Hunter had done more to make 
 Dissenters respected by the higher classes in Berwickshire than had ever 
 been done before." And language the same in substance was used when 
 Dr. B. went along with Mr. Buchan of Kelloe, Mr. Swinton, then of 
 Broadmeadows, Mr. Trotter of Cruicksfield, and the Rev. Messrs. Hun- 
 ter, Lundie, and Cupples, and assisted Mr. T. in establishing a Branch 
 Bible Association in his chapel, and accompanied the same gentleman 
 the following year to attend its first anniversary. " Sed tempora mutan- 
 tur, et nos mutamur in illis," i. e. " the times are changed, and we are 
 changed with them." Our two directors also, who are members of the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Mr. Macindoe, and Mr. Wilson 
 of Chirnsidej were present on one if not both these occasions, and the 
 former advocated the cause of the Society in a very impressive speech. 
 What a pity it is thai the second Aliquis, who published a letter about 
 the Bible Society in the Berwick Advertiser, and who may perhaps be 
 known to Mr. T., should have spoken as he did of these gentlemen. 
 Was this his kindness to his friends? 
 
14 
 
 thren, and in which they are cheered on by radicals, and papists, 
 and infidels, who view it with delight. Whatever were the ob- 
 jections which they might urge against patronage, and some 
 parts of her administration, we had fondly hoped that they would 
 have sought for her reformation, and not for her destruction, and 
 that, if that reformation were effected, and if the number of her 
 churches were sufficiently increased so as that every inhabitant of 
 our native country, however poor, might enjoy the gospel " with- 
 out money and without price, 11 they would have considered her 
 moderate and humble establishment as the most important bless- 
 ing which a Christian government could bestow on its subjects. 
 Such was the opinion of the great Dr. Owen, who said to 
 the parliament of England, " Some think if you were well 
 settled you ought not as rulers of the nation to put forth your 
 power for the interest of Christ. The good Lord keep your 
 hearts from that apprehension.* If it once come to this, that 
 you shall say that you have nothing to do with religion as the 
 rulers of the nation, God will quickly manifest that he has no- 
 thing to do with you as rulers of the nation. Certainly it is 
 incumbent upon you to take care that the faith once delivered 
 to the saints in all the necessary concernments of it may be pro- 
 tected, preserved, propagated to and among the people over which 
 God has set you. If a father, as a father, is bound to do what an- 
 swers to this in his family unto his children, a master, as a master, 
 to his servants, if you will justify yourselves as fathers or rulers 
 of your country, you will find this in your attempt (government) 
 to be incumbent on you. 11 Such was the opinion of the pious 
 Baxter, who says, " When serious religion is owned by the 
 magistrate, tolerated (or dissenting) churches are but as hospitals 
 to the sick, and must not be the receptacles of all the healthful. 11 
 Such was the opinion of the judicious Matthew Henry, who 
 says, " Let us much more give God thanks for the national 
 establishment of our religion , with that of our peace and civil 
 liberty, — that the Reformation was in our land a national act, 
 
 * The Voluntaries tell us that the best thing which the magistrate 
 cat) do for religion is to let it alone. 
 
15 
 
 and that Christianity, thus purified, is supported by good and 
 wholesome laws, and is twisted in with the very constitution 
 of our government." Such was the opinion of Mr. Bell of Glas- 
 gow, perhaps the most able and profound theologian who ever ap- 
 peared among the Relief dissenters, and it would be well if his 
 sentiments were adopted by his descendants in the present day. 
 " Though not," said he " within the pale of the Established 
 Church, but sitting under the shadow of toleration, I am far 
 from thinking that all legal establishments are improper or un- 
 warrantable. I cannot yet be persuaded that because error has 
 no right to such an establishment, neither has truth. This 
 would be saying, in effect, that as Jeroboam sinned in setting 
 up the calves, (1 Kings xii. 26 — 33.) so did Jehoshaphat, 
 Cyrus, and Artaxerxes, in supporting the true worship of God ; 
 or that, because kings sin against God in giving their power 
 and strength unto the beast, Rev. xvii. 13, they do the same 
 in being nursing fathers unto Zion. r '* Nay, such was the 
 opinion of the Fathers of the Secession, and of Mr. Brown of 
 Haddington, the grandfather of the secretary of the Edinburgh 
 Voluntary Association ; for he says in his System of Divinity, 
 
 * This plain observation furnishes a complete and admirable reply to 
 an objection against establishments which is regarded by the volunta- 
 ries as perfectly unanswerable, and which they bring forward, not only 
 from platforms, but even at political meetings, namely, that if it is right 
 to have a Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland, it must be proper also 
 to have a Catholic establishment in Canada. Now, as Mr. Bell remark^ 
 this will no more follow, than it could be inferred, that, because Jero- 
 boam did wrong in setting up the worship of the golden calves, Jehosha- 
 phat, Cyrus, and Artaxerxes did so in setting up the worship of the true 
 God ; or than, because the British government went wrong last year in 
 giving an annual grant of L.2000 to the Roman Catholic bishop of New 
 South Wales, or because it would go farther wrong if it pensioned the 
 Catholic priests in Ireland, it has done the same in granting an endow- 
 ment to the ministers of the Secession in that part of the empire. Ca- 
 nada, besides, had a Catholic establishment before it was conquered by 
 the arms of Britain ; and all that has been done by government, has been 
 to suffer it to remain; just as it has allowed the Hindoo colleges in In- 
 dia, and the different orders of the priests of Brahma to retain their en- 
 dowments. 
 
w 
 
 " Magistrates ought to preserve for the church 'her spiritual 
 power allowed her by Christ, and by providing places of in- 
 struction and maintenance for her pastors and other instructors, 
 and by encouraging laws, and by their own example they ought 
 to promote the administration of and attendance on the ordi- 
 nances of the gospel. " 
 
 And so strongly was he convinced of the scriptural warrant for 
 ecclesiastical establishments, that in the article of his Dictionary 
 of the Bible on the word rule, he says that " the whole of the 
 objections to them are rather specious declamation than solid 
 reasoning. 11 
 
 And omitting other strong and decisive testimonies from 
 Boston and Doddridge in favour of establishments, who were as 
 likely to discover the doctrine of Scripture on the point in 
 question as any of the modern voluntaries, we appeal to the 
 following frank and candid acknowledgment by the late excel- 
 lent Dr. Waugh, of the disadvantages which are felt by the 
 test and most conscientious ministers of the Secession, who are 
 dependent for their maintenance on the voluntary principle, 
 compared with others who are supported by an endowment, and 
 who are as desirous to be faithful ; and it is in these circum- 
 stances alone that the comparison is fairly and impartially made. 
 " If you mean, 11 said that good man to a young person who had 
 consulted him about the church which he ought to join, (and his 
 opinion would at one time have had weight with our brethren, 
 for he was one of their most eminent ministers, and was well ac- 
 quainted with their circumstances,) " If you mean to devote 
 yourself to the ministry, and are satisfied with the creed and 
 government of the Scottish Church, I believe, that by the bless- 
 ing of God, you may be useful in the Secession, provided you 
 can submit to the prospect of a small and precarious subsistence, 
 and yield to the humour and caprice of the people. Were 
 the support of her ministers independent of the congregations, 
 and their minds free from all temptations to unmanly silence, 
 or chiming in with the popular follies of the day, I know no 
 church in which a good man might be more agreeably as well 
 as beneficially engaged than in that of the Secession. 11 So far 
 
17 
 
 from considering a moderate endowment as fitted to be hurtful, 
 or when furnished by the state as interfering in the least with 
 the rights of conscience, or from regarding it as contrary to the 
 declaration of our Lord, — " My kingdom is not of this world," 
 that the payment of it, if refused, should be legally enforced, 
 he seems to have looked upon that provision for the mainten- 
 ance ol a minister as perfectly scriptural, and instead of dimi- 
 nishing, as calculated to increase his fidelity aud usefulness. 
 And we have reason to believe that he would no more have re- 
 fused to have been supported in that way than two dissenting 
 ministers, the Rev. Mr. King of Glasgow, and the Rev. Mr. 
 French of Edinburgh, though they are zealous voluntaries, 
 deem it inconsistent with that passage to receive a stipend com- 
 posed in part of feu-duties, the payment of which, if resisted by 
 the feu-holders, would be compelled by the civil law.* But 
 though such were the hopes which we entertained of our bre- 
 thren, we were unfortunately disappointed, and we were obliged 
 at last to dissolve the Society, because they were strengthening 
 the hands and encouraging the attempts of those restless, and 
 mistaken, and misguided, men who would alienate the endow- 
 ments of our national church, and make every thing unsettled 
 and precarious with us as it is among themselves, and would, 
 so far as the system is concerned, place us in a situation, as Dr. 
 Waugh expresses it, where we might be " tempted to give way 
 to unmanly silence, or to chime in with popular follies." 
 
 We were induced, in short, to dissolve the Society from a 
 firm conviction that while voluntary contributions may in some 
 cases be the only means of support which can be obtained for a 
 minister, they have never been able to provide an adequate, and 
 permanent supply of religious instruction for the inhabitants of 
 
 * We have no doubt that many others among- them would have no 
 objection to be paid from feu-duties, or the interest of money bequeathed 
 to their congregations, and lent on bond, the payment of which, as well 
 as of the principal, if refused, would be enforced by law, and would think 
 the exaction of it in this way in such circumstances as not at all incon- 
 sistent with the much-perverted text quoted above, ■ My kingdom is 
 not of this world." 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 a country; and that if the moderate endowment which has beea 
 allotted to our church were unhappily abolished, it would be 
 attended by the most injurious consequences to Scotland. Our 
 brethren, we are aware, are of a different opinion, and refer us 
 in proof of it to the first three centuries, when there were no en- 
 dowments, and ministers were supported on the voluntary prin- 
 ciple, and Christianity attained more splendid triumphs as to 
 the extension of her boundaries than she has ever since achieved ; 
 and to the North American States, where they represent her as 
 advancing with more rapid strides than in any of those coun- 
 tries where there are ecclesiastical establishments. Now, we beg 
 to remark on the first of these arguments, which is repeated 
 usque ad nauseam* in every voluntary publication, that though 
 Christianity flourished in a remarkable degree at that memorable 
 period, they have forgotten to shew that it arose from the cir- 
 cumstance that its ministers at that time had no endowment, 
 and not from very different causes, and in spite of that disad- 
 vantage. This however was essential to its validity, for two 
 things they must be sensible may exist together, and neither of 
 them may be the cause of the other ; and they might as con- 
 sistently maintain that ministers at present ought not to be 
 educated in divinity halls, because they were not so educated 
 at that period, and that it would be best for religion if they or 
 their people were occasionally martyred, and that the magis- 
 trate should do nothing for the gospel at all even in his private 
 capacity ) because such was the case when Christianity was most 
 prosperous, as that they should want endowments at present 
 because they wanted them in that age of suffering and persecu- 
 tion. Our brethren, too, do not act on the voluntary principle 
 when they send forth missionaries to preach to the heathen, but 
 furnish them with salaries on the principle of an endowment : for 
 if they were to allow them to be dependent on the contributions 
 of their converts, there is not a mission on the face of the earth 
 which would not instantly die ; and yet if their reasoning be 
 sound, they ought to leave them entirely to be supported by their 
 hearers, for it was in this way that missionaries were uniformly 
 
 * Till one is sickened of it 
 
19 
 
 maintained when they were labouring among the heathen during 
 the first three centuries. 
 
 The Sabbath also was desecrated during the whole of that 
 period, for works of every kind were carried on, and the theatres 
 were opened, and there was no suspension of business on that 
 day, either on the only ground on which some of the leading 
 voluntaries think that it can be enforced, viz. the right of the state 
 to regulate the time for labour,* or on any other principle. 
 
 And yet, though the sentiments of these writers respecting the 
 extent to which the magistrate ought to protect the Sabbath are 
 sufficiently liberal, and such as would have astonished their pious 
 forefathers, we doubt whether they would acquiesce in the legi- 
 timate consequences which follow from their reasoning, and 
 allow him to tolerate the performance of plays and the transac- 
 tion of business in the neighbourhood of their chapels, during 
 the hours of worship, because these things were done during the 
 first three centuries. And in addition to these proofs of the 
 fallacy of this vaunted but most inconclusive argument, we 
 
 * " Our claims," says Mr. Marshall, their principal writer, p. 134 of 
 his reply to Dr. Inglis, " Our claims to Sabbath protection must rest on 
 some more tenable ground, and perhaps the safest we can assume, is the 
 right of the state to make laws respecting labour." Such is the low and 
 feeble ground on which even men of talents and piety, from their zeal 
 against establishments, rest their claims to the protection of the Sabbath 
 from external desecration ; and on no considerations connected with 
 their own religious interests, and the spiritual interests of others. But 
 they are not entitled to demand for it that protection, if their argument 
 he conclusive, either on that or any other ground which they can men- 
 tion ; for it had no such protection when Christianity was most pros- 
 perous, and every thing must be thrown loose, according to the wishes 
 of Mr. Whittle Harvey, and Mr. Daniel O'Connel, and other patrons of 
 voluntaryism, as during the first three centuries. Besides, admitting 
 that " the state has a right, if* it think proper, to regulate the time of 
 labour," this will not furnish a reason why it should order it to be dis- 
 continued on the seventh, rather than, as in the time of the French de- 
 cades, on every tenth day ; or if it should prefer the former, it will not 
 furnish a reason why it should take the first day of the week, the Sab- 
 bath of Christians, rather than the Saturday, the Sabbath of the Jews ; 
 or as in the case of a number of our subjects in India, the Friday, the 
 sacred day of the Mahometans. 
 
20 
 
 have only farther to notice, that we are afraid that our brethren 
 would not be greatly overjoyed if they were to be treated on the 
 principle which they are so anxious to recommend, and were to 
 receive the same support from their congregations which was 
 furnished to the ministers of the first three centuries. Though 
 some of the clergy in the opulent districts and the great cities, 
 towards the middle or end of the third century, had large 
 incomes, because the wealthy converts, many of whom seem to 
 have been deeply tinged with superstition, were desirous that 
 they should equal the pagan priests, the greater part of the 
 ministers, according to Milton, who is a favourite authority with 
 Voluntary writers, though he rejected the divinity of the Son 
 and the Spirit, and the moral obligation of the Sabbath, and 
 other important doctrines, were in a very different state. None 
 of them knew, at the commencement of the year, what would 
 be the amount of his income, so as to proportion his outlay to 
 it ; for we are informed by that author, that " the hearers gave 
 what they gave, not to them, but to the Church, out of which 
 they got their portions in baskets, and were thence called 
 Sportularii, or Basket-Clerks." And he adds, that " it was a 
 very mean allowance, only for a bare livelihood, according to 
 those precepts of our Saviour, Matth. x. 7? &c., and the rest 
 was given to the poor." Now, we have very great doubts, after 
 all that they tell us of the admirable results of the Voluntary 
 principle in the first three centuries, if they would be willing to 
 be placed on a similar footing, and to burn their calls in which 
 their hearers promise them a specified stipend, because there 
 were no such papers in the primitive church, nor any exaction 
 of seat-rents, which is a modern practice ; nor any alienation of 
 the collection which is taken from the poor in dissenting con- 
 gregations, from the imperfection of the system, and given 
 exclusively, after a very trifling deduction, for the support of 
 the minister. And though they have done little of late to 
 conciliate our regard, we would be truly sorry to hear that they 
 were obliged to carry their baskets from week to week through 
 the streets of Coldstream, and Durise, and Lauder, to the 
 
 doors of their chapel-, to receive their scanty and limited allow-, 
 
 3 
 
21 
 
 ance, and were distinguished by the name of the Reverend 
 Basket-Clerks. And yet, such is the condition to which they 
 ought to be willing to stoop, if their argument be valid ; and 
 such is the reasoning which they represent as unanswerable, and 
 by which they hope to establish among men of discernment, and 
 intelligence, and piety, the triumphs of Voluntaryism ! ! ! 
 
 We have expatiated so long in the refutation of this argument, 
 that we can notice only briefly their other famous argument 
 from the effects of Voluntaryism in the North American States. 
 We know that there was an establishment in three of the 
 States, from the time when they were settled till a very few 
 years ago, when it was abolished in two of them, from the rest- 
 less and levelling spirit of republicanism. Now, we cannot 
 conceive a more impartial way in which a conscientious inquirer, 
 who was desirous to ascertain from the case of America whether 
 the Establishment or Voluntary scheme was best, could make 
 up his mind, than to compare the effects which they had seve- 
 rally produced in the older States, where they had long existed, 
 both as to the number of ministers whom they had supplied for 
 the people, and the progress of the inhabitants in religion and 
 morality. Aaid if he try them by this standard, and judge of 
 the facts from the statements, neither of churchmen nor of dis- 
 senters in Britain who have engaged in this controversy, but of 
 the Americans themselves before it began to be agitated, he will 
 perceive that the preference ought to be given to establishments. 
 It would be easy to refer, in confirmation of this assertion, to 
 many other witnesses, but we appeal only to the testimony of 
 the Rev. Dr. Dwight. " In the year 1800," said he, " there 
 were in Connecticut (one of the States where there was an 
 Establishment) 251,002 inhabitants, with 194 ministers ;" or 
 one, with a parish school, for every 1293 inhabitants. " On 
 the other hand, in the States south of New England, (where 
 the Voluntary system was adopted,) there were 4,033,775 inha- 
 bitants, with 275 ministers,' or one to every 14,668 persons; in 
 place of 3024, who would have been necessary, along with as 
 many parish schools, if they had been supplied in the same 
 proportion in which the Establishment had provided for the in- 
 
c?9 
 
 habitants of Connecticut. " In this estimate, ,, he adds, " we 
 have a fair specimen of the natural consequences of establishing, 
 or neglecting to establish, the worship of God by the law of the 
 land. In Connecticut every inhabitant who is not prevented 
 by disease or inclination, may hear the gospel and celebrate the 
 worship of God every Sabbath day. In the States specified, it 
 is not improbable that a number of people, several times as great 
 as the census of Connecticut, have scarcely heard a sermon or a 
 
 public prayer in their lives. A sober man, who knows these 
 
 States, (Rhode Island and Connecticut.) which are separated 
 only by a meridional line, and which were peopled by colonies 
 from the same country, and who sees the peace, the good order, 
 the general distribution of justice, the universal existence of 
 schools, and the existence of superior education in the latter, 
 can hardly hesitate, whatevemnay have been his original opinion 
 concerning this subject, to believe that a legislature is bound to 
 establish the worship of God." And as such was the testimony 
 of this distinguished man, and as such was the conclusion which 
 he thought that every enlightened and candid individual would 
 draw from the effects of these different systems at the period at 
 which he wrote, so there is reason to believe, that if he had 
 been living at present, he would have been of the very same 
 opinion ; for the scenes of spiritual and moral destitution which 
 are witnessed in America under its Voluntary system are 
 heart-rending and appalling. It possesses, indeed, a number of 
 able and pious clergymen, and many zealous Christians ; but a 
 considerable proportion of its country ministers are imperfectly 
 educated,* and many who are educated are poorly paid ; for it 
 is mentioned by the biographer of Dr. Payson, that "his 
 father, like most ministers of country parishes, derived the means 
 of supporting his family from a farm, which his sons assisted 
 him in cultivating." And in opposition to the tumid and ex- 
 travagant accounts of its unexampled prosperity, which are 
 published by the Voluntaries, we would farther remark, that it 
 
 * It was mentioned some time ago, by a respectable individual in 
 Dunse, to one ol* the Directors, that two tobacco-spinners who had work- 
 ed to his father, upon going to America, had become preachers. 
 
23 
 
 is stated in one of the last of its Tract Reports, that, " about 
 five millions of the inhabitants are without the means of grace ;" 
 by the Home Missionary Report for 1827, that " not much 
 less than half the population were to an alarming degree desti- 
 tute of the regular administration of gospel ordinances, 1 ' — "many 
 ministers,' 1 according to Mr. Col ton, a Voluntary, " serving 
 two or three, 1 '' and according to Professor Howe of Columbia, 
 " from two to six churches ! I 11 * and by the Rev. Mr. Lorimer, 
 in the two last Numbers of the Church of Scotland Magazine, 
 (and he produces his authorities,) that there are 6000 of their 
 churches without ministers."}* And it is mentioned by the New 
 York Observer for July 1833, that " there are a million of 
 children and youth between the years of five and fifteen who 
 are without the means of a common school education ; and in 
 the State of New York alone, eighty thousand young men who 
 are electors, and who cannot read ; 11 by the Temperance So- 
 ciety, (though a partial improvement has been effected,) that the 
 
 * Colton's Review of the Bishop of London's Reply. — Proceeding's of 
 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, May 
 25, 1834. 
 
 f The Rev. Dr. Miller, in a sermon which he preached before the 
 Assembly's Board of Education, May 19, 1834, says, " We now urgently 
 need a large additional number of gospel labourers ; there are more than 
 COO vacant congregations in this presbyterian church, and 400 or 500 
 populous districts to the north, south, and west, ready to receive preach- 
 ers, were they sent, so that 1100 or 1200 additional ministers are want- 
 ed for our own country, and yet we are not now able to send a tenth 
 part of this number" It is stated also by the Rev. Mr. Da vies, an Eng- 
 lish baptist, that among the 2000 baptist congregations which are va- 
 cant, " there are very few, if there are any, who are able to afford even 
 half a support to a minister" And in the Report of the Congregational 
 Churches in New Hampshire, which was made to the General Assembly 
 of the Presbyterian Church in May last year, it is said, that " in 70 out 
 of 223 towns there are no congregational or Presbyterian churches. In 
 about 40, destitute and feeble churches exist, which have only an occa- 
 sional or temporary supply. And one of them at least has not had more 
 than three or four Sabbaths preaching in six years, and in all that time 
 has not even once enjoyed the privilege of commemorating the Saviour's 
 death." 
 
24 
 
 annual consumpt of ardent spirits is ^2 millions of gallons, or 
 in the proportion of nearly six gallons to every individual, man, 
 woman, and child ; and by the first Report on the Pauperism 
 of America, that the annual cost of crime is 8,700,000 dollars. 
 We leave it to these facts to speak for themselves as to the ef- 
 fects which will arise even in the most favourable circumstances, 
 where taxation is light and provisions are cheap, from permit- 
 ting the religious instruction of a people to depend for its sup- 
 port on the principle of voluntaryism. And we trust that we 
 shall be justified to the Christian public for separating from our 
 brethren, when we state that we did so because they were 
 strengthening and encouraging those restless agitators who, 
 whatever they may intend, would ultimately spread those scenes 
 of spiritual and moral destitution through the hamlets, and vil- 
 lages, and parishes of Scotland. 
 
 We have only farther to add, for completing our argument, 
 that voluntaryism has been no less feeble and inefficient at home 
 than it has been impotent abroad to provide for the religious 
 instruction of the people. And in support of this position, we 
 might appeal to the many thousands of the poor and desolate in 
 our large cities who could not be accommodated in the Esta- 
 blished Churches from the high seat-rents demanded by the ma- 
 gistrates,* nor superintended by the ministers, from the size of 
 their parishes, and whom it has totally neglected from the very 
 nature of the system, because they could not pay for its minis- 
 trations. We might appeal to the little which it has done for 
 the Highlands, where not one out of a hundred is to be found 
 in its communion, *(* and of which it is acknowledged, in one of 
 
 * In the College Church of Edinburgh, for instance, about the unlet 
 seats, of which so much ado is made by the Voluntaries, the seat-rents 
 were doubled last year by the Magistrates, in opposition to a petition on 
 behalf of the poor presented by the Session. Dr. Heugh, in an address 
 to the Christian Institution, which he published last year, admits that 
 there are 50,000 individuals in Glasgow alone who have no seats in any 
 place of worship, Established or Dissenting ; and it would be easy to 
 shew that there is a very great want of church accommodation in many 
 other parts of Scotland. 
 
 f That of the Secession and Relief in eight northern counties. 
 
25 
 
 the Reports of the Congregational Union, that " such is the 
 real poverty of the population as entirely to exclude the hope of 
 the gospel being supported among them, in our day at least, but 
 by the instrumentality of others. ,, Nay, we might appeal to 
 what is admitted by the Secession themselves respecting their 
 own congregations ; for, after mentioning in one of their own 
 synodical reports, the small allowance of ten pounds a-year, 
 which they had given to a few of their superannuated ministers, 
 (we should rejoice that it had been more,) and the grants 
 which they had made to a number of their chapels, they add, 
 w the congregations relieved are only those deemed the most ne- 
 cessitous, out of a large number whose applications, though 
 urgent and deserving attention, must, from the poverty of the 
 fund, be refused; and when aid is granted it is too frequently 
 inadequate.'''' And if such be their state when they are united 
 and harmonious, what must it be when they are rent by divi- 
 sions, as during the IScw Light Controversy, when we know 
 that some of their best and most excellent ministers got little 
 more than the half of their stipends. It was mentioned last 
 year, at a public meeting in Aberdeen, that a number of 
 their ministers resigned their congregations lately in the course 
 of a single year, because they could not obtain even a very mo- 
 derate maintenance from their people. We have not observed 
 any contradiction of this statement. Would it not have been 
 better for them and their people, that they had been able to 
 remain with them, in consequence of their having been fur- 
 nished with an adequate and permanent income ? Some of the 
 reports of the Congregational Union, too, give an affecting ac- 
 count of the state of a number of their ministers who have 
 stipends of forty or fifty pounds to support themselves and 
 their families, and who live even in great uncertainty as to the 
 payment of these small sums. But without enlarging on these and 
 other convincing proofs of the danger which would arise to the 
 cause of religion if the erection of churches and the support of 
 ministers were to depend on the precarious efforts of voluntary- 
 ism, we shall conclude these remarks, by submitting to the 
 public a few of those extracts which we read to the meeting 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 from the books and pamphlets which were circulated by our 
 brethren, and shall leave them to judge, after they see the lan- 
 guage in which they speak of Establishments, and their most 
 pious ministers, and their most exemplary members, in common 
 with others, whether we had any other alternative than to dis- 
 solve the Society. 
 
 It was stated by Dr. Peddie, in the name of his brethren, 
 after the Synod had adopted the New Light Scheme, that he 
 had no fault to find with the two following propositions. 
 " 1st, That all lawgivers have thought it necessary to the well- 
 being of a state, to have an established religion. And 2d, That 
 God himself having been pleased to give an establishment, 
 proves that there is no moral evil in legal establishments of reli- 
 gion.'"*' But the following are the terms in which establish- 
 ments are now spoken of in these Voluntary publications. 
 
 " Civil government, when it establishes a church, scatters 
 through society the missiles of the madman, firebrands, arrows, 
 and death" ! ! ! — Ecclesiastical Establishments farther Consi- 
 dered, p. 122. 
 
 " Establishments are popish in their principles, and popish in 
 all their ramifications ; the very bane of society, the most efficient 
 instrument of misgovernment, the surest recipe for disturbing a 
 country s peace, and consequently destroying its prosperity." 
 Pp. 146, 147. 
 
 They must never have existed, certainly, according to this 
 statement, before popery was introduced, or where Christianity 
 was not professed. Those ministers, too, in the Secession, who 
 are favourable to establishments, including one of their profes- 
 sors of divinity, must be considered by their brethren as holding 
 one of the leading principles of popery, and as doing more, ac- 
 cording to some of the subsequent quotations, than all other 
 causes put together, to promote the interests of infidelity. 
 
 " An established church, with an appetite insatiable as the 
 grave, notwithstanding the millions she possesses, is perpetually 
 crying, Give, give ; and from year to year, in order to still her 
 
 * i. e. It can neither, as Voluntaries maintain, be unjust nor cruel. 
 
27 
 
 clamours, liberal donations are thrown to her ; but of him who 
 should expect any thing from her in return, we might say, in 
 the language of Virgil, " Jungat vulpes, mulgeat hircos," i. e. 
 he may as soon expect to yoke the foxes for the labours of the 
 field, or obtain milk from the he-goats ! ! ! P. 157* 
 
 " The method of supporting religion by an establishment is 
 a method which gives birth to as much turbulence, as much 
 sedition, as much of the worst and most malignant passions, as 
 might be sufficient to ruin a world, — a method which seems the 
 very recipe for discord — discord throughout the length and. 
 breadth of a land, which turns every hamlet, every parish, every 
 county into a scene of strife, and which, if not checked in its 
 operation, may bring on more appalling calamities ; a method 
 too which does more to swell the ranks of infidelity than all other 
 causes put together, which turns the holy religion of Jesus, the 
 religion of peace and love, into an object of execration — which 
 opens the lips of the blasphemer to curse it as a main cause of 
 his miseries" Pp. 182, 183. 
 
 " The oppressiveness of the church is indeed an objection to 
 it, an objection of insuperable magnitude ; yet it is far from 
 being the only objection even connected with the subject of 
 revenue. A den of thieves, if I may be allowed the illustration, 
 may be deprived of a third, or a half, or any given proportion 
 of its inmates, yet will it for that reason lose either its character 
 or its name ? It may be a smaller den than before, -and less 
 injurious to the neighbourhood, yet still it will be a den of 
 thieves"!!! Pp. 186,187. 
 
 And in his Reply to Dr. Inglis, p. 236, the same author 
 declares that " the established church is the very tarantula 
 that goads society to madness — the very caldron where the de- 
 mons of mischief brew their most pernicious spells." 
 
 " When the Marshal Tavannes, whose hands had been so 
 deeply stained in the Parisian massacre, was brought to his 
 death-bed," says a leading article in the Voluntary Church 
 Magazine, vol. i. p. 99, " his Confessor, who had been familiar 
 with his life, after hearing ill he had to say, asked with much 
 eagerness, Why speak you not a word of the night of St. Bar- 
 
tholomew ? Because, replied the dying fanatic, I look upon 
 that as the most meritorious action of my life,,* an action which 
 ought to atone for all the sins I ever committed. The poor 
 wretch had brought himself to believe that to kill men was to do 
 God service ; and who does not see" adds the writer, " that the 
 advocates for establishments, although perhaps they may spurn 
 at the charge, are pretty nearly of the same mind?" 
 
 Now, we would briefly observe, that if our brethren were 
 convinced that we were guilty of all, or of any of these evils, 
 (and they must certainly have been so, or they would not have 
 circulated these publications,) so far from being indignant at our 
 dissolving the Society, they ought to have considered it as a 
 happy and desirable consummation ; or rather, they ought them* 
 selves to have proposed it. How could those who were men of 
 unspotted and unimpeachable integrity associate with others 
 whom they had denounced as "the inmates of a den of thieves?" 
 How could men who were " zealous for the cause of truth and 
 piety co-operate in the labours of a Bible Society with those 
 whom they represented as " doing more," at other times, " than 
 all other causes put together, to swell the ranks of infidelity, 
 and to turn the religion of Jesus into an object of execration, 
 and to open the lips of the blasphemer to curse it as the main 
 cause of his miseries ?" How could those who are distinguished 
 by their liberal and peaceable dispositions, unite with others, 
 " who are animated by the spirit of the monster Tavannes, and 
 who think that to kill men is to do God good service?" And 
 how could those who were so jealous of their reputation for the 
 most devoted loyalty, be connected with others " who were spread- 
 ing as much sedition through every village, and hamlet, and 
 parish in the country, as was sufficient to ruin a world ?" What 
 we had done to merit the last of these foul accusations, we are 
 at a loss to discover, and we are persuaded that our neighbours 
 will feel some difficulty to ascertain. -f- But whatever were the 
 
 * Ten thousand protestants were butchered on that night, 
 t If we had been disposed to retaliate, we might have referred to a 
 number of instances in which Berwickshire Voluntaries, who profess to 
 
29 
 
 reasons which induced our brethren to circulate the charges 
 which are contained in these writings, it must be evident, we 
 apprehend, to every impartial judge, that we had no other choice, 
 if we had the smallest regard for our character and usefulness, 
 but to dissolve the Society.* 
 
 Our brethren, we are aware, are of a different opinion ; for 
 they told us at the meeting, that, as offensive allegations had 
 been advanced against themselves by the advocates of establish- 
 ments, and yet that they were willing to act with us. But, in 
 the first place, we deny this ; for the worst that had been said 
 of them was merely this, that their attempts to pull down our 
 ecclesiastical establishments had given peculiar satisfaction to 
 papists and infidels, the last of whom consider them as doing 
 their work, by removing a secure and adequate provision for the 
 religious instruction of the inhabitants of the country ; while the 
 former have published the articles of their societies, with expres- 
 sions of their approbation, in the Roman Catholic Magazine, 
 and have spread them over Scotland. And if the saying of the 
 ancient has been justly applauded, who, when he was told that 
 some bad men had commended him highly for some parts of his 
 conduct, instantly exclaimed, " Why, what evil have I done 
 that they have praised me ?V it has been stated that Volun- 
 taries, if they are men of piety, ought to pause, and consider 
 whether they are really in the right, when the patrons of infi- 
 delity, and the ministers of antichrist, and the followers of the 
 beast, are so delighted with their doings. And it has been 
 affirmed, that their principles have a radical tendency ; and if it 
 
 believe that the ministers of the gospel ought not to interfere in civil po- 
 litics, have done so on public occasions, in a Avay which subjected them 
 to very cutting animadversions even from their own friends. But we 
 forbear, as we have no wish to add to the injury which we know that 
 they did to themselves on these occasions ; and we should rejoice to hear 
 that their zeal was directed to more appropriate objects connected with 
 their high and holy vocation. 
 
 * It is very strange that no notice should be taken, in the Statement 
 published by the other Society, of our having referred to these charges 
 as a part of our reasons for proposing the dissolution of the old Society. 
 
30 
 
 be one of the leading characteristics of that system to destroy our 
 institutions, root and branch, and if our religious establishments 
 be one of the chief of them, we are at a loss to perceive how 
 they can rebut the charge. They tell us, indeed, that they 
 would leave our congregations, which would be as numerous as 
 ever, though they abolished the endowments, and that these 
 form the church ; just as the Radica/s inform us, that they 
 would spare our king, and princes, Sjjjid nobles, though they 
 stript them of their honours, and reduced them to the condition 
 of private citizens, and that they would form a part of the com- 
 munity. But, judging from what we see in the North Ame- 
 rican States, where there are no teinds or tithes to diminish the 
 Voluntary contributions of the rich, if you take away the funds 
 which were provided by our fathers for the erection of churches 
 and the maintenance of ministers, the number of clergymen 
 in twenty, or thirty, or forty years will be reduced nearly a half, 
 and many of them who remain will be of an inferior order, and 
 the scenes of destitution which will be witnessed in the High- 
 lands, and in our Lammermuir districts, and in many of our 
 thinly-peopled parishes, and even in our large and populous 
 cities, where the churches at present are insufficient for the in- 
 habitants, will exhibit some of the most fearful effects of radi- 
 calism ; for of all our destructives there are none whose doings 
 would be so pernicious to the country as our religious destruc- 
 tives. The Conservatives, they are sensible, are opposed to their 
 principles. The constitutional Whigs would reject them with 
 scorn, for there never were more zealous friends of Establish- 
 ments, (though they would reform their abuses) than the great 
 Lord Somers, and the other enlightened patriots who effected 
 the Revolution. And they will receive the support only of the 
 nominal Whigs and of the Levellers and Radicals.* And, 
 2dly, if their statement be correct, and if the things which have 
 
 * We have occasion to know that some of the hearers of Voluntary 
 clergymen, whom they have succeeded in proselyting- to their opinions, 
 are carrying- their principles to their legitimate consequences, and are 
 proposing- to engage ministers by the year, or at the utmost for three 
 years. WHI these gentlemen like this ? 
 
31 
 
 been advanced against Voluntary churchmen by the friends of 
 Establishments be as revolting and offensive as those which the 
 former have urged against' the latter, it only furnishes an addi- 
 tional argument for the dissolution of the Society, for it makes 
 the difference greater ; and the Scripture teaches us, that " two 
 cannot walk together except they be agreed." 
 
 But our brethren inform us that " we were guilty of violating 
 this plain and positive precept of Scripture, that whereto we 
 have already attained we ought to walk by the same rule, and 
 to mind the same thing, and that we ought not to push our 
 practical separations beyond our speculative differences. 1 ' Now, 
 we beg to remark, that our speculative differences in the in- 
 stance referred to had a bearing on the character of at least ^0 
 one of the parties, and how we were chargeable with transgress- 
 ing this precept when we dissolved the Society they have for- 
 gotten to tell us, and we are unable to discover. It is one of 
 the speculative opinions of our brethren, so far as we can judge 
 from the books which they have been circulating, that the mi- 
 nisters of the Establishment " do more than all other causes 
 put together to swell the ranks of infidelity, and to hold up 
 the religion of their master to execration. , ' > Now, we differ 
 from them in that opinion, as they may naturally suppose, and yet 
 we would be glad if they would shew us that we have pushed 
 our practical separation beyond it, or farther than we ought to 
 do, if we value our reputation, when we refused to act with them 
 in a Bible Society for disseminating that Book, the autho- 
 rity of which they say that we are destroying. It is another, 
 too, of their opinions, that we are " the inmates of a den of 
 thieves ;" and since we happen to disagree with them, and to 
 think that we are as honest and conscientious as themselves, we 
 imagine that we do not carry our practical separation beyond 
 our speculative difference when we cease to act with them, be- 
 cause they have done what they could to rob us of our good 
 name. And it is another of our opinions, in which we are 
 equally opposed to them, that " we are spreading as much se- 
 dition and discord around us as might ruin a world." And we 
 do not consider that we carried our practical separation beyond 
 
32 
 
 that speculative difference when we dissolved the Society, as on 
 the one hand they had cast on us a most unworthy imputation, 
 and on the other, we were only withdrawing the unclean from 
 the clean, or the factious and turbulent friends of the Establish- 
 ment from the loyal and peaceable defenders of Voluntaryism. 
 We trust that the exposition which they have offered of this 
 precept is not to be considered as a specimen of those expositions 
 of Scripture which they are in the habit of statedly delivering 
 to their people, or we would be disposed to adopt a much lower 
 opinion than we were accustomed to entertain of their ordinary 
 ministrations. 
 
 They tell us again, that our conduct in dissolving the 
 ^0ble Society was " a gross violation of the principle on which 
 the Parent Society, and all the Branch Associations were form- 
 ed, namely, the union and co-operation of all who were agreed 
 upon the propriety of circulating the pure word of God., without 
 respect to any difference of sentiment which may exist among 
 them on other subjects." And they refer to the late Mr. Hall 
 of Bristol, and Mr. Graham of Newcastle, who never could 
 have been admitted upon any other principle into Bible So- 
 cieties. But it deserves to be noticed, that the course pursued 
 by many dissenting ministers in the present day towards the 
 ministers of the Establishment differs materially from what was 
 followed by their predecessors when these Societies were formed, 
 for there is reason to believe that if any of the latter had made 
 use of the language and had recourse to the agitation which 
 are now employed, these religious institutions would never have 
 been established, or they would have been otherwise constituted. 
 At that time they were peaceable, and if they had Voluntary 
 principles they held them with moderation, and made no at- 
 tempt to injure the respectability, or to destroy the usefulness 
 of the ministers of the Establishment. But now they are fierce 
 and restless and unsparing, representing " their church as from 
 heaven, and the Church of Scotland (from which by the way 
 they sprang) as from heU,"* and its ministers as persecutors and 
 
 " Dr. Ritchie of the Potterrovv, Edinburgh, who was present at a 
 meeting in defence of the Establishment in one of the churches in Ar- 
 
33 
 
 inmates of a den of thieves, and propagators of infidelity, and 
 instigators of sedition. And it is a most extraordinary inter- 
 pretation of the fundamental principle of the Bible Society, to 
 allege that if we are agreed in a mere general conviction of the 
 propriety of circulating the word of God, we are to merge, not 
 only all difference of sentiment on the doctrines of religion, but 
 all regard to character, and to ministerial usefulness, and to 
 submit to the grossest abuse from Voluntaries, and to the most 
 revolting calumnies against our respectability as men, and citi- 
 zens, and Christians. This indeed would be forbearance with a 
 witness, so far as churchmen were concerned, and what Dis- 
 senters neither would nor ought to have exercised if we had 
 ventured to cast on them the same foul aspersions, and the sa^ie 
 insulting abuse. We hold then that their interpretation of the 
 fundamental principle of the Bible Society is equally incon- 
 sistent as their exposition of the precept, and that as our bre- 
 thren had completely overstepped the limits within which for- 
 bearance was required, we were neither " bigots nor sectarians," 
 as they think proper to represent us, when we dissolved the 
 Society. 
 
 broath, 16th April 1834, was charged by the Rev. Mr. Guthrie of Ar- 
 birlot with having- said this a few days before at a Voluntary meeting- in a 
 Secession chapel, and he never attempted to contradict it, though he 
 frequently interrupted the speakers at other times ; and though the 
 speeches have been published for many months, he has never yet ven- 
 tured to deny it. Mr. Davidson, too, a dissenting minister in Arbroath, 
 who was present on that occasion, says, in a Sermon which he publish- 
 ed, that the principle of ' ( the connexion of Church and State is of the 
 synagogue of Satan." If we had affirmed the same things of dissent, or 
 had circulated books containing such statements, we are greatly mis- 
 taken if they would not soon have ceased to act with us. And yet our 
 Berwickshire Voluntaries represented their Bible Society in one of the 
 advertisements which announced its formation, as a Society, which was 
 to be instituted on liberal principles, and intimated their willingness to 
 receive all those members of the Church of Scotland who would be dis- 
 posed to join them, and permit them to disseminate books in which the 
 Establishment was held up to the execration of the public, and they 
 themselves and their ministers were distinguished by the names which 
 are mentioned in the text. If such be its constitution, it is indeed a 
 liberal Society. 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 We regret sincerely that they have indulged in such ungene- 
 rous and illiberal remarks on the ministers of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church for voting with churchmen for the dissolu- 
 tion of the old, and for consenting to unite with them in the 
 new Society. Surely, if they were convinced that the principles 
 of these modest and excellent individuals, as is asserted in the 
 statement, " were the most radical and revolutionary on the face 
 of the earth," or as a seceding clergyman once gravely maintain- 
 ed, that " the only sense which they assigned to that passage,. 
 Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's, would be to 
 render to him a halter and a gallows," they would never have 
 preached on so many occasions for the Chirnside Association, 
 rfttr would they have acted w T ith them so long in the old Society, 
 (for they might have done so as consistently with as many 
 United Irishmen,) nor would they have felt so much dissatisfied 
 because they attached themselves to us, who must have been 
 their proper associates in the opinion of our brethren, as we 
 were more corrupt than the Voluntaries, and did not connect 
 themselves with them. We trust, however, that it was only 
 an expression of momentary chagrin because they did not unite 
 with them in their attempts against Establishments, and that in 
 their calmer moments they will hasten to do justice to their 
 Christian brethren. But whatever may be their sentiments 
 respecting the principles of our friends, it is impossible for any 
 one who has read the able vindication of their tenets which was 
 published a few years ago, in the Christian Instructor, by the 
 Rev. Mr. M'Indoe, to question their loyalty; and among all 
 the parts of this offensive pamphlet, there is none which we 
 have perused with stronger dissatisfaction, than that which 
 contains this bitter and unprovoked attack, on two of our most 
 discreet and unobtrusive office-bearers, who had never utter- 
 ed a word in any of our discussions which could have excited a 
 painful or an angry feeling in the minds of our opponents.* 
 
 * We are happy to mention that a second Defence of the principles of 
 his Church against the misrepresentations of this and other Voluntary 
 productions, Jias heen published by that gentleman. 
 
35 
 
 As to the last allegation, that we bear with ministers in the 
 church of Scotland " who teach the most erroneous and damnable 
 doctrines, 11 and will not bear with Voluntaries in the Bible So- 
 ciety, we would briefly remark, that we have no such ministers 
 in the Bible Society, which is the point in debate, and we are 
 not to be decoyed from it by any of those popular excursive ob- 
 servations which are so common with our brethren on certain sub- 
 jects, and which are easier than close and conclusive argumenta- 
 tion. Let them shew us that we have such clergymen in our 
 Bible Society, which is a voluntary institution, and that we treat 
 them with forbearance, while we did not exercise it towards 
 Voluntaries, and it will be a case in point, but every thing else 
 is wide of the mark. Besides, we call upon them to name any 
 such clergyman in the church of Scotland who preaches these 
 doctrines, and not to take refuge, for obvious reasons, in vague 
 generalities. The moment that they do so, means will be taken 
 to inquire into the case, and to call him to an account, as was 
 done of late in a variety of instances ; and means may be taken, 
 if it be found to be groundless, to call them to account for such 
 injurious imputations, or for other base insinuations. Till they 
 produce, then, instances in which Established ministers, who, 
 whatever may be their sentiments on doctrinal points, and 
 whether connected with our Society or not, have accused us of 
 " doing more to swell the ranks of infidelity" than all the deists 
 and sceptics around us, — and of having "spread as much sedition 11 
 through the parishes of Berwickshire " as would be sufficient to 
 ruin a world, 11 and we have allowed it to pass, though we would 
 not submit to these charges when they were advanced by the 
 Voluntaries, the objection which they have urged to the con- 
 sistency of our conduct is utterly groundless, and we trust that 
 we shall be justified to the Christian public when they are ac- 
 quainted with the real circumstances of the case, for imitating 
 the example of the friends of establishments in Dundee and 
 Fifeshire, and dissolving the Society. 
 
 "VVe might have adverted to their gross and flagrant perver- 
 sion of a benevolent sentiment which was expressed by our 
 chairman, not certainly as a reason for dissolving the Society, as is 
 
36 
 
 alleged in the Statement, but for soothing our feelings when we 
 saw that it was unavoidable, namely, that " God was able to 
 bring good out of evil, and that good might result from the 
 division that was to take place." And we might have enlarged 
 on another strong expression of their feelings in assuming the 
 very name of our new Bible Society, though it had been estab- 
 lished some weeks prior to theirs, and though, if they had reflected 
 for a moment, they could not have failed to perceive that it was 
 fitted only to embarrass themselves and us in conducting the 
 correspondence of our several institutions. We refrain, how- 
 ever, from remarking on either of these circumstances any far- 
 ther than to say, that when taken along with the tone of the 
 pamphlet, they furnish very plain and decisive evidence of the 
 necessity for the separation. 
 
 We shall be extremely sorry if in any part of this statement 
 there shall be reason to complain of our having had recourse to 
 unnecessary severity of language in repelling these attacks ; for 
 we would recollect that the individuals whom we have been 
 obliged to oppose, though they were not only the aggressors, but 
 have proceeded to extremes which we could not have anticipated, 
 are Christian brethren. Much of that language has been used 
 towards ourselves, but we hope that we shall not be permitted to 
 lower our cause in the estimation of the public, or to offend our 
 Master by being tempted to render to them railing for railing, 
 though we might find plenty of materials for it, and have got 
 abundant provocation. We know not how soon we may be 
 called to lie down on our beds of death, and whatever may be 
 the course pursued by our opponents, we are afraid to add to the 
 darkness and anxiety of that affecting scene by the painful re- 
 membrance of our having wounded the cause of the blessed Re- 
 deemer in the house of his friends, or of wounding the hearts of 
 any of his servants with whom we may be willing, after all that 
 has| passed between us, to dwell for ever in his heavenly king- 
 dom. We would regret to think that in any part of the remarks 
 which we^have thought it our duty to make in vindication of 
 our conduct, we had lessened the influence of any private Chris- 
 tian, though a disciple of Voluntaryism, for doing good to his 
 
37 
 
 neighbour, or of any Christian minister, though a Dissenter and 
 a Voluntary, for doing good to his flock. What a pity that 
 this great and hallowed object should have been so much over- 
 looked on both sides of the question ; and that if it was neces- 
 sary that we should differ on the subject of Establishments, we 
 could not differ as brethren, and should give occasion to the 
 world to remark respecting us, in melancholy contrast to what was 
 said by the pagans respecting the primitive believers, " See how 
 these Christians hate one another.'" We shall never forget what 
 was said frequently during the last months of his life, by one of our 
 friends who had an uncommon propensityfor telling ludicrous and 
 amusing anecdotes, and who had misimproved many valuable op- 
 portunities of usefulness, " O that foolish tongue of mine, what it 
 has cost me, that foolish tongue. 11 And if such were his feelings 
 when he thought only of his having exceeded in those evils of the 
 tongue to which he was addicted, though they were compara- 
 tively harmless, what will be the feelings of the dying professor 
 who has been permitted, either in speech or writing, to weaken 
 the hands of the humblest of God's sincere though mistaken 
 children, or of any of his sincere though erring ministers, for that 
 part of their work about which there will be no serious difference, 
 the conversion of sinners and the edification of saints ? May 
 God grant that the present unnatural and hurtful controversy 
 between the friends of religion may speedily pass away, and Eph- 
 raim may no longer vex Judah, nor Judah Ephraim, and when 
 the leaders of the tribes of God's spiritual Israel, instead of quar- 
 relling about their several distinctions, and honours, and privi- 
 leges, shall fix their eyes more steadily and intently on the pil- 
 lar and cloud, and instead of wasting their zeal and strength in 
 angry discussion and unseemly recrimination, shall be seen con- 
 ducting their several companies of holy pilgrims, in the spirit of 
 peace, by the track which is pointed out to them by the ark of 
 the covenant to the celestial Canaan. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 We beg to call the attention of Seceders to the following summary 
 of some of the principal arguments for Ecclesiastical Establish- 
 ments, not by a minister of the Church of Scotland, but by the 
 Rev. Mr. Brown of Haddington, and to the answers which he 
 published many years ago to the objections which are urged against 
 them by the Dissenting Voluntaries of the present day. 
 
 " Some have pretended," says he, in his Dictionary of the Bible 
 on the word Rule, vol. ii. page 395, " that magistrates have no 
 concern with religion at all, and especially with revealed religion, in 
 the execution of their office, but ought to leave every man to profess, 
 teach, or worship, what, and in what manner he pleaseth, providing 
 he do not disturb the commonwealth by any civil crimes, and ought 
 to protect them in their full liberty to propagate their blasphe- 
 mous tenets, or idolatrous worship. Some have even pretended, 
 that civil establishments of the true religion are calculated to ren- 
 der men irreligious, or at best hypocritical dissemblers. But 
 when we consider, that all things ought to be done to the glory of 
 God, 1 Cor. x. 31 ; 1 Pet. iv. 11 ; Pro v. xvi. 4 : — that magistracy 
 is an ordinance of God, and magistrates, ministers, or deputies of 
 God, for good to men, appointed to be a terror to evil-doers, and a 
 praise of them that do well, Rom. xiii. 1 — 5 ; 1 Pet. ii. 14 ; Gal. v. 
 19—21 ; Phil. iii. 2 ; Tit. i. 10, 11. — that every head of a family 
 
39 
 
 liatli power to exclude superstition and idolatry from it, and to 
 establish in it the true worship of God, and refuse lodging to here- 
 tical seducers, Gen. xviii. 19; Josh. xxiv. 15; — that magistrates 
 ought to exercise their power as is most conducive to make all 
 their subjects live quietly in all godliness, as well as honesty, 
 1 Tim. ii. 1 — 3 ; — that magistrates are often expressly commanded 
 to punish obstinate idolaters, false prophets, blasphemers, pro- 
 filers of the Sabbath, &c, as well as thieves, robbers, murderers, 
 Deut. xiii. 5 — 7 ; xvii. 2 — 5 ; Lev. xxiv. 15, 16 ; Exod. xxii. 18, 20 ; 
 Numb. xv. 35. — that magistrates, not only Jewish, but heathen, 
 have, with God's approbation, required their subjects to worship 
 the true God, and have suppressed and punished obstinate idola- 
 ters or blasphemers, Gen. xviii. 19 ; xxxv. 2 — 4 ; Exod. xxxii. 20, 
 27; Josh. xxiv. 14; 2 Chron. xiv. 2 — 5; xv. 13; xviii. xix. xx. 
 xxix — xxxi. xxxiii. 15, 16 ; xxxiv. 31 — 33; 2 Kings x. 30; Ezra 
 vii. 13—27; vi. 1—14; Dan. iii. 29; vi. 26 ;— that the fourth 
 commandment, of which the obligation is perpetual and universal, 
 binds magistrates to provide that the Sabbath be sanctified in all 
 their gates, which cannot be done by the teaching of blasphemy, 
 or practising idolatrous worship ; — that the exercise of the magis- 
 trate's power in favour of the true religion, and opposition to false 
 religion, is promised as a blessing to the New Testament church ; 
 Isa. xlix. 23 ; lx. 10, 16 ; Psal. lxxii. 10 ; ii. 12 ; Zech. xiii. 2 ; Rev. 
 xvii. 14, 16. — that magistrates have power to appoint Christians to 
 observe public fasts or thanksgivings when the state of the nation 
 requires it. 1 Sam. vii. 5, 6 ; 2 Chron. xx. 3 ; Ezra viii. 21 ; Neh. 
 ix. 1 ; Jer. xxxvi. 6 ; Jon. iii. 7. — and that the very law of nature 
 requires that magistrates chiefly care for the honour of God, who 
 is the sovereign head of civil societies, as King over all the earth, and 
 the source and bestower of all their happiness; and that men 
 should be governed, as having immortal souls, not as mere ani- 
 mals ; that as righteousness exalteth nations, sin, even idolatry 
 and blasphemy, is the reproach and ruin of any people ; that sins 
 are especially hurtful to nations, as they tend to debauch men's 
 manners and provoke God to wrath against the nation ; that, if 
 God grant men the benefit of any duly attested revelation, it should 
 be readily received as the rule of our conduct, be our station what 
 it will. — It is plain, that magistrates can never lawfully exercise 
 their power, which they, as his deputies received from God, for his 
 honour and the true welfare of mankind, in giving equal establish- 
 
40 
 
 merit and protection to the religion of the devil, as they may to 
 the religion of Jesus Christ, by whom kings reign and princes de- 
 cree justice, Prov. viii. 15, 16. 
 
 " The whole of the objections against what we have just assert- 
 ed, are rather specious declamation than solid reasoning. To pre- 
 tend, that civil laws can bind but in so far as dependent on and 
 regulated by the authority and the law of God ; to pretend, that 
 magistrates ought or may punish crimes only as injurious to men, 
 without any way regarding their offensiveness or injuriousness to 
 God ; to pretend, that conscience, which derives all its authority 
 from God, can warrant men either to do or establish what is sinful, 
 or protect them in it ; to pretend that men's civil liberty, which is 
 all derived to them from God as his free gift, can protect them in 
 blasphemy or idolatry, any more than in theft or murder, proceeds 
 plainly upon atheistical principles. To pretend, that such as en- 
 joy the benefit of revelation, should not make use of it for regulat- 
 ing the laws of their nation, or the administration of civil offices, 
 is plainly a contempt of revelation, and obstinate drawing back to 
 heathenism. To pretend that the Jewish church and state were 
 not distinct, is false, and hath been repeatedly refuted by Leusden, 
 Gillcspy, Apoloni, and others. To pretend, that the Jewish ma- 
 gistrates being typical, renders the laws enjoined them, or their 
 example, useless to us, is absurd, and infers, that we ought to ac- 
 count almost all the Old Testament useless to us as a rule, because 
 it primarily respected persons who were typical. Upon an accu- 
 rate comparison, it will be found, that after the Jews' rejection of 
 the theocracy under Samuel, 1 Sam. viii., their magistrates were 
 in almost all things similar to our own. No difficulties that I 
 know of attend magistrates' civil power about religious matters, 
 but the like, if not greater, attend church-rulers' ecclesiastical 
 power about them." 
 

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