CHAP. IV. to her, the patrons, under the patronage act of Queen Anne, 1688 came "to enjoy both the purchase and the price.' The wrong done to the the Act 1712 aggravated by the baste it was passed. * If anything could have aggravated the outrage done by the passing of this act to the rights of the church, and to the solemn obligations of the treaty so recently concluded between the two kingdoms, it was the indecent speed with which it was hurried through parliament. Without any Church by communication held with the church on the subject, the bill was introduced into the house of commons on the 20th with which March, and on the 8th of April it was already in the house of lords. In less than three weeks a measure affecting so deeply the religious interests and privileges of Scotland, and trenching so directly on the settlement which the treaty of union had only four years before declared to be unalterable, had been pushed forward through all those stages which the constitution of parliament has so wisely interposed as obstacles to hasty legislation; and within that brief period it had obtained, by a majority of 173 to 76, the sanction of the most important branch of the British legislature! Those were not times when news travelled upon the lightning's wing, and when men could be transported in less than a summer's day from Edinburgh to London. Science had not then learned so to annihilate either space or time. No sooner, however, did the intelligence of what was in progress in the south reach the northern metropolis, than the commission of assembly was convened; and commissioners were dispatched with all haste to deliver the remonstrances of the church. Commission These gentlemen, the Rev. William Carstairs, Thomas the Church Blackwell, and Robert Baillie, ministers of influence and consideration in the church, immediately on their arrival against the brought their case by petition before the house of lords; in ers sent by to London, to remonstrate passing of the Bill. which petition, after an able statement of the question, they *Representation of Commissioners of the Church against Queen Anne's Act. to 1833. 1833. 1688 craved "from their lordships justice and mature deliberation, CHAP. IV to that a bill, as they humbly conceived, so nearly affecting the late treaty of union, in one of its most fundamental and essential articles, respecting the preservation of the rights. and privileges which their church at that time was possessed of by law, for the security of which the parliament of Scotland was so much concerned as not to allow their commissioners to make it any part of their treaty, but reserved it as a thing unalterable by any judicature deriving its constitution from the said treaty, shall not be approved by their lordships, especially while the nature of the treaty itself shows it to be a reciprocal transaction betwixt the two nations." way in which their strance was treated: Bill hurried on with greater before. speed than The house of lords paid to these reverend commissioners The the empty compliment of allowing them to be heard by remon counsel against the bill, at the bar of the house. This took place on the 12th of April; and, as if in mockery of the deference they had affected to show to the representations of the church, their lordships, without giving to the arguments. that had been laid before them the consideration even of an hour, had the bill, on the same day and at the same sitting, read a second time, committed, read a third time, and sent back, with certain amendments, to the house of commons. These amendments were agreed to without a division; and on the 22d of the following month, the queen gave the royal assent to a bill which, after deadening the church for a century, has at length proved the occasion of rending it asunder from the state. The commission of assembly had petitioned the queen against the measure, at the same time that they had sent their commissioners to London to oppose it. But all these remonstrances were thrown to the winds. Many, in all probability, of the English members of the legislature neither knew nor cared much about the matter. Scotch questions have seldom obtained much consideration, at any period, in the British parliament. In 1711, national Scotch questions not much 1833 CHAP. IV. prejudices in the south were peculiarly strong, and were no 1688 doubt easily enlisted by the government of the day in favour of any scheme that promised, as Burnett expresses it, "to the British spite the presbyterians" of Scotland. Hence the facility with which this most obnoxious and disgraceful measure was carried through. regarded in Parliament. Steps which the Church took with a the obnoxi view to get ous Act repealed. It may not be improper, before proceeding to notice the character and to trace the history and influence of this act restoring patronage, to advert to some of the other steps which the church subsequently adopted in the vain endeavour to procure its repeal. As the death of queen Anne, and the consequent accession of George I., in 1715, overthrew the jacobite influence by which the court had been for some years so much and so mischievously guided, a favourable opportunity seemed to have arrived for assailing the patronage law, and getting justice done to the treaty of union and to the church. In the month of May of that year, the assembly accordingly transmitted to the king an earnest testimony against the yoke which the law of patronage had imposed-declaring that, while "it appears equitable in itself, and agreeable to the liberty of Christians and a free people, to have interest in the choice of those to whom they intrust the care of their souls, it is a hardship to be imposed upon in so tender a point, and that frequently by patrons who have no property nor residence in the parishes." This appeal proving unsuccessful, commissioners were again sent to London two years afterwards, who laid the representations of the church once more before parliament, and urged the repeal of the offensive law,—but equally in vain. By various measures of a similar kind, taken from time to time, and to which more particular reference will afterwards be made, the church long continued to maintain its protest against the act of Queen Anne. But meanwhile, in 1833. 1688 order to preserve the continuousness of this narrative, and CHAP. IV. to also to place the reader in a position to understand the change which began soon after this period to manifest itself in the whole spirit and administration of the church herself, it will be necessary to advert to some points not yet considered. Change which began to appear in the spirit and admini the Church. stration of which the Act 1712 conferred ou Patrons. The terms of the Act on And first, as to the act of Queen Anne restoring patronage. Its discreditable authorship and intention have been already exposed. But what were the powers which it The powers actually conferred upon patrons? It is important to know the judgment that was entertained and acted on in regard to this question, by the church on the one hand, and by the courts of law on the other, while that statute was still fresh and new, and when its proper legal force and effect could hardly have been misunderstood. To the ordinary reader, the only change which it would seem to have introduced, was in the initial right of selecting the presentee. Under the statute 1690, that right belonged to the protestant heritors and elders of the parish. Queen Anne's act repealed the act 1690, "in so far as the same relates to the presentation of ministers by heritors and others therein mentioned;" and declares, that "from and after the 1st day of May, 1712, it shall and may be lawful for her majesty, her heirs and successors, and for every other person or persons who have right to any patronage or patronages, of any church or churches whatever, in that part of Great Britain called Scotland, * * to present a qualified minister or ministers to any church or churches whereof they are patrons." But that nothing beyond this change, in the initial act of selecting the qualified minister to be presented, was designed-nothing more than taking the power to nominate from the heritors and elders, and transferring it to the patrons-the act itself seems very distinctly to declare. So far from professing to touch the previous stand this point. the act The terms of indicate no save in one the substi patron for and elders. change, single point, tution of the the heritors to CHAP. IV. ing of any of the other parties concerned in the settlement 1688 of a minister, whether the presbyteries or the people, the 1833. act expressly sets forth, "that the presbytery of the respective bounds shall, and is hereby obliged, to receive and admit in the same manner such qualified minister or ministers as shall be presented by the respective patrons, as the persons or ministers presented before the passing of this act, ought to have been admitted." Upon no view of the Act held to have jurisdiction of the presbytery. Neither in terms, nor Even Were it even granted that the expression "heritors and could it be others," which the act employs, was intended to describe the touched the right of presentation which it repealed, as consisting of the whole complex right of heritors, elders, and people taken together, still this would not and could not touch the jurisdiction of the presbytery. This construction of the statute, of course, assumes that the people had a direct share under the act 1690, in the right of presentation, and that this right of theirs, co-ordinate with the right of the elders and heritors, was, by the act restoring patronage, taken away; and if this be conceded-and it is so, only for the sake of argument-it is the very utmost extent of the change which any one can pretend that Queen Anne's act introduced. by implica after all this, it still remained statute law that the presbyrepeal those tery was the only competent tribunal "at whose judgment, and by whose determination the calling and entry of a particular minister is to be ordered and concluded." It cannot be pretended that either that important clause in the act 1690, or any of the other fundamental acts relating to the jurisdiction of the church in matters spiritual, which the revolution settlement restored and ratified, were in any way affected; and, as by these ancient statutes it was "according to the discipline of the kirk," that church judicatories were called on to proceed in the examination and admission of ministers, the church remained free, even under the act 1712, to give effect to her own conscientious judgment in tion, did it statutes which ratified the spiritual jurisdiction of the church. |