1838.

1834 divides the house of commons, is just this,-church, or no CHAP. VIL to church. People talk of the war in Spain and the Canada question; but all that is of little moment. The real question is, church, or no church: and the majority of the house of commons,- -a small majority, it is true, but still a majority,―are practically against it. It is a melancholy state of things, but such appears to me to be the actual position in which we now stand."*

The views of public men, and especially of those belonging to the liberal school of politics, have undergone, within the last ten years, so great a change on the whole question of church endowments, it seems already difficult to believe that, in 1838, matters could possibly have been in the position above described. Now-a-days, in place of resisting all endowments for religious purposes, the tendency is rather to offer them indiscriminately to every ecclesiastical body that will accept them. Instead of refusing the claims of existing establishments, or threatening to take from them the endowments they at present possess, the ambition of all parties in the state seems now to be to call a new establishment into existence, by endowing, almost against its will, the Irish branch of the church of Rome. The same liberalism which formerly would have nothing to do with religion of any kind, has become quite disposed to have to do with religion of every kind, or at least of every kind that will be subservient to political uses or ends. Perhaps, after all, did an evangelical establishment,-bent upon executing its divine commission without respect of persons, and crossing often in its course of straightforward and fearless integrity, the crooked schemes of time-serving politicians,-exist at this moment in Scotland, it would find as much and as vehement opposition to a demand for

From MS. notes in possession of the author, who acted as secretary to the deputation.

The views of and espe cially of liberal politichanged in such ques

public men,

cians, much

regard to

tions since

1838.

Instead of

refusing

Church enthe State to endow all especially

dowments,

now willing

parties, and

the Church

of Rome.

to

CHAP. VII. additional endowments, as the church of Scotland actually 1834 encountered ten years ago. But, however this may be, 1838. there can be no doubt in the mind of any one acquainted with the state of parties in parliament, at the period above alluded to, that the statement given to the deputation from the church of Scotland upon that subject, was strictly and literally true. And the fact, that in the judgment of one so singularly sagacious as the Duke of Wellington, the The opposi- church establishments of the country had then so little to dowments look for at the hands of the legislature, serves only the proved how more clearly to show both the wisdom and the necessity of Church had that course which the church of Scotland had been for

tion to en

in 1838,

wisely the

acted in

ing herself

strengthen some years pursuing, in throwing herself more and more
among her upon the affections and support of the people. Even the
own people.
church of England, that now seems so secure, was not in-
sensible to the danger which then threatened her. It was
in the spring of that year that Dr. Chalmers delivered, in
London, his well-known lectures on church establishments.
And it is a circumstance not undeserving of notice, that
those views of the church's independence of secular control,
in all matters spiritual, which have been traced in the
carlier chapters of this work, and upon which she had pro-
ceeded in adopting the measures of 1834, were the very
views which Dr. Chalmers proclaimed in London, not only
without offence, but amid thunders of applause. It was in
the presence of one of the most influential audiences that
ever assembled in the metropolis, including many of the
most distinguished members of both houses of parliament,
and of the leading prelates of the church of England, the
Dr. Chalmers Scottish presbyterian minister spoke as follows:-"There
the spiritual is to each of the members of the church of Scotland an in-
independ

exposition of

Church of

ence of the dependent voice from within, and from without there is Scotland, in no power or authority whatever in matters ecclesiastical.

his London

lectures.

They who feel dislike to an establishment, do so in general,

1834 because of their recoil from all contact and communication CHAP. VII. to with the state. We have no other communication with the 1838.

the kind of

existing

between

Church and

State in

Scotland.

state than that of being maintained by it; after which, we
are left to regulate the proceedings of our great home
mission with all the purity, and the piety, and the indepen-
dence of any missionary board. We are exposed to nothing
from without, which can violate the sanctity of the apostoli-
cal character, if ourselves do not violate it. In things
ecclesiastical, we decide all. Some of these things may be
done wrong; but still, they are our majorities which do it.
They are not-they cannot be forced upon us from without.
We own no head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ,
-whatever is done ecclesiastically, is done by our ministers
acting in His name, and in perfect submission to His au-
thority. Implicated as the church and the state are His view of
imagined to be, they are not so implicated as that, without connection
the concurrence of the ecclesiastical courts, a full and final
effect can be given to any proceeding by which the good of
Christianity, and the religion of our people may be affected.
There is not a clerical appointment which can take place in
any one of our parishes, till we have sustained it. Even
the law of patronage, right or wrong, is in force, not by the
power of the state, but by the permission of the church, and
with all its fancied omnipotence, has no other basis than
that of our majorities to rest upon. It should never be for-
gotten that, in things ecclesiastical, the highest power of
our church is amenable to no higher power on earth for its
decisions. It can exclude, it can deprive, it can depose at
pleasure. External force might make an obnoxious in-
dividual the holder of a benefice; but there is no external
force in these realms that could make him a minister of the
church of Scotland. There is nothing which the state can
do to our independent and indestructible church, but strip
her of its temporalities. Nec tamen consumebatur; she

to

CHAP. VII. would remain a church notwithstanding,-as strong as ever 1834 in the props of her own moral and inherent greatness. And 1838. though shrivelled in all her dimensions by the moral injury inflicted on many thousands of families, she would be at least as strong as ever in the reverence of her country's population. She was as much a church in her days of suffering, as in her days of outward security and triumph, -when a wandering outcast, with nothing but the mountain breezes to play around her, and nought but the caves of the earth to shelter her,-as now, when admitted to the bowers of an establishment. The magistrate might withdraw his protection, and she cease to be an establishment any longer, but, in all the high matters of sacred and spiritual jurisdiction, she would be the same as before. With or without an establishment, she, in these, is the unfettered mistress of her doings. The king, by himself or by his representative, might be the spectator of our proThe memora ceedings; but what Lord Chatham said of the poor man's house, is true in all its parts of the church to which I have the honour to belong.- — In England, every man's house is his castle,'-not that it is surrounded with walls and battlements. It may be a straw-built shed. Every wind of heaven may whistle round it,-every element of heaven may enter it, but the king cannot, the king dare not."

ble words

of Lord Chatham

applied by

Dr. Chal

mers to the

Church of
Scotland.

In regard to this brilliant passage there is a fact not undeserving of notice. Attempts have been often made to diminish the value of that testimony to the truth and righteousness of the cause of the church's spiritual liberty The assertion that was derived from the adhesion of Dr. Chalmers to the party who so resolutely maintained it in the ten years' conspiritual inflict. It has been said, it is to be hoped in ignorance, that dependence views late in in the beginning of that conflict he had no sympathy with the views of those with whom he was outwardly associated; that the influence and the urgency of youthful zealots first

that Dr. Chalmers acquired his

the ten

years' condict.