1838. 1834 drew him into the struggle, and afterwards drove him on, CHAP. VIL, to overbearing his own better judgment and his own juster views! It will not be denied that the ground taken by the church against the courts of law in the disruption controversy was never, at any period of the contest, more broadly stated than in the noble paragraph cited above. And yet, with the single exception of the reference, at its close, to the striking and memorable words of Lord Chatham, the entire passage, verbatim et literatim, is taken from a sermon "on religious establishments, preached by the He had puhRev. Dr. Chalmers, in St. George's church, Edinburgh, before the society for the daughters of the clergy, in May, 1829!" So little had he to learn from others concerning the fundamental principle of the disruption controversy, that five years before the controversy commenced that principle was as fully before his mind, and its magnitude was as thoroughly realized, as when he left the establishment for its sake. lished these views as early as 1829. It is not, however, for the purpose of refuting a very silly story that this passage from the London lectures has been adduced. It has been brought forward chiefly in connection with the remarks of the Duke of Wellington, as to the danger which at that time threatened even the English church establishment. Nothing but a conviction of the existence of such dangers could have brought nine bishops at once to listen to a presbyterian minister defending the connection of church and state; and there was but one theory of that connection which Dr. Chalmers would undertake to vindicate, the theory that had been realized in the church of Scotland. There seemed to be nothing monstrous in that theory then; conservative peers and statesmen could hear it propounded with the utmost complacency, because in an hour of peril it proved by far the most effective argument against those who were striving to do all his London religious establishments away. Posterity will not fail to There seemed to be no thing monthese views strous in when Dr. C propounded them in lectures. CHAP. VII. mark that, when the danger had disappeared, the very same 1834 The glorious opportunity that was given to the kingdom to bless the people. to individuals concurred in 1843 in driving Dr. Chalmers from 1838. his place, and in rending the church to which he belonged asunder from the state, rather than sanction the very views which they had themselves applauded to the echo in 1838. Never, perhaps, did God, in His providence offer to men in power a more glorious opportunity of blessing their counFulers of the try than, on the occasion in question, was presented to the rulers of this land. Here was a great religious institution, strong in the historical recollections and hereditary attachments of the people; and stronger still in the scriptural purity of its faith, in the reviving warmth of its evangelical spirit, in the popular character of its free constitution, in the earnestness of its desires, and in the unprecedented vigour of its efforts and liberality of its contributions, for the public good. If ever that preserving salt, which a living christianity alone supplies, was to be lodged in the very heart, and in the lowest depths of those corrupting masses that were fast accumulating on the ground floor of society, and are now so fearfully endangering the stability of the whole social edifice, it was by such means and agencies as the church of Scotland, led on by Dr. Chalmers, was multiplying on every hand; and which it needed only a very limited assistance from the state to have multiplied still more, and so as to have made them co-extensive with the spiritual destitution of this northern kingdom. If the church, through the generous kindness of her own members, at her own expense, reared the places of worship, the state need not have grudged the little help that was necessary, in order to bring their services within the reach of the humblest and poorest of the people. "We seek by it," said the eloquent expounder of that claim, "no increase to the govern any of our livings; and as we have no pluralities, each of our new churches must be occupied by a distinct and addi The attitude in which Dr. C. and the church extensionists approached 1834 tional ecclesiastic. Let the government themselves deter- CHAP. VII. to mine what his revenue ought to be; and then, for every 1838. extension ists were donors, not suppliants. shilling they contribute thereto, by a grant from the trea- tion to go Chiefly, it is believed, under the influence of that hostile The applicapolitical pressure, to which the Duke of Wellington alluded, vernment as being at the time so strong against religious establish- endowments ments in general, the government did nothing. Their own Chalmers on Church Establishments, pp. 109, 110. for church failed. to CHAP. VII. proposal, limited and defective as it was, was allowed to 1834 drop, and the church was left to prosecute her great enter- 1838. prize unsupported and alone. And nothing, assuredly, but the immense hold which the reforming policy and the revived evangelism of the church had given her of the affections of her people, could have enabled her to achieve, unaided, those triumphs in the cause of church extension which have been already described, and which, in the face of all the discouragements encountered on the side of the government, went on increasing every day. evangelical were not limited to the home field. spirit had ing in the Church. The fruits of Nor was it by any means in the home department alone ascendency that the fruits of evangelical ascendency in the management of church affairs appeared. The reader, doubtless, has not forgotten the anti-missionary assembly of 1796. It was natural, and indeed inevitable, that with the increasing numbers, and influence of evangelical men in the courts of the church, a better state of feeling would begin to show itself in the proceedings of the assembly, even before the A missionary direction of its business had passed into their hands. Five been grow or six years anterior to that period, such was already the reaction in favour of those views, for which Dr. Erskine and his little band of evangelical supporters had struggled in vain thirty years before, that a proposal to enter on the work of foreign missions now received the unanimous sanction of the general assembly. At the head of the committee which was accordingly appointed, was placed the late Rev. Dr. Inglis, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. He was not perhaps the individual whom it would have occurred to an onlooker to propose for that office. His cold and somewhat rigid character, and the prominent place he had long occupied in the leadership of a party never known for zeal in missionary schemes, would probably have led any one who was in quest of a suitable director for this new enterprize to look elsewhere. And the Rev. Dr. Inglis, the first Convener of the Committee Missions. "Vindica 1834 yet, Dr. Inglis had many qualities which fitted him to CHAP. VII. to undertake this task with eminent advantage to the cause. Character of 1838. Possessed of a powerful intellect, of uncommon sagacity, and of remarkable talents for business, the practical arrangements necessary for establishing the mission could on Foreign not well have been in safer hands. And if awanting somewhat in that religious earnestness, and depth of devotional feeling, so necessary to kindle and keep alive the public sympathy in such a cause, he was at least sincerely and increasingly interested in its prosperity. Not mingling much, in his later years, in the proceedings of the party to which he continued to belong, it is believed he found in his new office more congenial employment. He died before the disruption controversy began, and it is therefore useless to conjecture what part he would have taken in it had he lived. In his able "vindication of ecclesiastical establish- Dr. Inglis' ments," he has certainly laid down principles which no tion of Ecingenuity can reconcile with those proceedings on the part of Establish the civil courts which his party sanctioned. "The kingdom of Christ," said Dr. Inglis, "is not only spiritual, but independent. No earthly government has a right to overrule or control it." "If any civil government, under pretence of providing for the welfare of Christ's spiritual kingdom, shall usurp its peculiar and appropriate jurisdiction,-if a civil government shall attempt to direct the appropriate concerns of the visible church of Christ, by either superseding, or controlling its separate and Maintains the independent power for the regulation of its own spiritual and inherent interests,-if a civil government shall pretend to regulate the administration of its ordinances, or to pronounce judgment on the qualifications of its ministers, that government is so far an adversary of Christ and of Ilis cause in the world."* There is enough, in these few * Vindication of Ecclesiastical Establishments, by John Inglis, D.D., pr. 102, 103. clesiastical ments." doctrine Church's in that the dependence spiritual is right. in matters of divine |