as established by law, and authorized to affect by her sentences the right to the temporalities of the benefice, are founded. But while they might not approve of the decision of the House of Lords, and might not be convinced by the arguments in which the grounds of that judgment were set forth, they yielded implicit submission to the sentence, in so far as it affected any question of property, that is, in so far as, by the word of God, the constitution of this kingdom, or their own previous procedure, they were under any obligation to submit to it.

It is not very likely that the Church, which was not convinced by the arguments used in the Court of Session or in the House of Lords, will be convinced by Mr. Robertson's elaborate argumentation upon this point. He has indeed stated the legal argument in a manner highly creditable to his ingenuity and acuteness; but we are not yet convinced, as a mere question of argument, that the Veto Act was ultra vires of the Church. We still retain the conviction, that by the statute law of Scotland, the Church was warranted in doing what she did in the case of Auchterarder, and that therefore her rejection of the presentee should not have involved a forfeiture of the temporalities. But the supreme civil tribunal has decided, that the rejection of the presentee in the circumstances was not warranted by the statutes; and the Church, as in duty bound, has submitted to that decision, in so far as the case involved any thing comprehended in the legitimate province of the court that pronounced it, that is, in so far as it involved any question of property, the only subject on which, by the constitution of this country, the Court of Session is competent to decide. The Church never acknowledged, but in her whole pleadings both in the Court of Session and in the House of Lords, openly and unequivocally denied, the right of these Courts to adjudicate upon any matter ecclesiastical. She acknowledged from the first their right to decide on the question of the temporalities, as that was a matter civil; and she claimed a decision in her favour in regard to the temporalities, not on the ground of alleged incompetency or want of jurisdiction in the civil courts, but on the ground, that in rejecting the presentee to Auchterarder, she had done nothing but what, by the law of the land, she was entitled to do, and that therefore she had incurred no forfeiture of the benefice, any more than if she had rejected him for heresy or immorality. She has refused obedience to the decision of the civil courts, only in so far as she had from the first openly denied their jurisdiction-only in so far as obedience would have been an admission of the right of these courts to decide on ecclesiastical matters; and in so far as she ever acknowledged the jurisdiction she has rendered obedience to the sentence.

But even if she had been convinced by the Speeches of the Judges, or the "Observations" of Mr. Robertson, that the rejection of the presentee to Auchterarder was ultra vires on the ground of the statutes, and therefore rightly involved a forfeiture of the temporalities, it does not by any means follow, as Mr. Robertson coolly assumes, that it was her duty to rescind the Veto Act. There was a previous and a higher question to be settled, viz. Whether the principle of the Veto Act was not one which, as a Christian church, she was bound by a regard to the authority of God, the principles of her own constitution, and the interests of true religion, to maintain and to apply? Her duty as a church of Christ

depended exclusively upon the settlement of this question; and last General Assembly virtually decided, that upon these grounds she could not abandon the principle of the Veto Act, in whatever way her relation to the civil power might be affected by her adherence to it. The grounds on which this determination was founded have been brought fully before the Church; and any man who now comes forward, as Mr.. Robertson does, calling upon the Church to rescind the Veto Act, must be prepared to maintain one or both of the two following propositions : 1st, That the passing of the Veto Act was in itself, and on the ground of the intrinsic merits of the case, inconsistent with the right discharge of her duty as a church of Christ. 2d, That even if this were not so, the decision of the civil court ipso facto made it her duty to rescind it. The counter-propositions on which the defenders of the recent proceedings of the Church take their stand, are these: 1st, That the principle of the Veto Act is one to which, from a regard to the authority of Christ, and the edification of his body, it is her imperative duty, as a church of Christ, to adhere; and, 2d, That the decision of the civil courts not only does not make it incumbent upon her to abandon this principle, but that to abandon it on this ground would be virtually to renounce the sole headship of Christ, and to acknowledge the right of the civil magistrate to rule in his house. Now Mr. Robertson has neither directly defended the two first of these propositions, nor openly assailed the two last, and has thus failed in grappling fairly and manfully with the present state of the controversy. The whole substance of Mr. Robertson's argument is embodied in these three positions: 1st, The Veto Act is ultra vires on the ground of the statutes; 2d, It has no warrant or sanction in the constitution of the Church of Scotland; 3d, It is liable to serious objections: And his inference from these three positions is, that it ought to be rescinded. The two last of these positions are relevant, and if fully made out, would go some length to establish his conclusion, although, even in regard to this branch of the argument, we have to complain, that he never adverts to the positive grounds in Scripture and reason on which the principle of the Veto Act has been maintained. But Mr. Robertson knows well enough that his opponents not only do not admit, but strenuously deny that the mere decision of the civil courts affords of itself any ground for rescinding the Veto Act, while yet he coolly takes this for granted, as if it were quite incontrovertible, and never even alludes, in the course of his voluminous pamphlet, to the grounds on which this notion has been disproved. It is true, that Mr. Robertson voted for Dr. Cook's motion in last Assembly, and that that motion necessarily implies that the mere decision of the civil court ipso facto cancels the laws and reverses the judgments of the church courts. But he can scarcely be ignorant that this principle, necessarily implied in Dr. Cook's motion, has been decidedly controverted, and that much that is at least plausible has been published against it.

It has been asserted, and, as we think, proved, that this is a principle which cannot be maintained and acted on by any society without forfeiting its claim to the character of a church of Christ; that it virtually involves a denial of the sole headship of the Redeemer, and of his appointment of a distinct government in his church; that it is opposed to

all sound Scriptural views of the nature of ecclesiastical authority, as derived from Christ, and as purely ministerial; and that it is based on Erastianism, as virtually ascribing to the civil power entire controul over ecclesiastical affairs. The supporters of Dr. Cook's motion have been openly challenged to avow and to maintain the principle on which that motion is founded, viz. that the decision of a civil court ipso facto cancels the laws and reverses the judgments of Church courts. It has also been hinted to them, that if they shrunk from maintaining this principle in all its grossness, they might perhaps take refuge in the position, that there are some, though not all, of the laws and judgments of Church courts, which the decisions of civil courts can cancel or reverse, and that the veto law is one to which this modified principle may be applied. But they have also been warned, that if they take this ground, they must define and mark out the limits within which they hold that Church courts are bound to obey civil courts, and beyond which they admit that they are not bound to obey them; and they must defend their views upon this point against the position which we have taken and maintained, viz. that the courts of Christ's church, as such, executing their peculiar functions, and performing their appropriate duties, not only are not bound, but are not at liberty to obey the orders of any civil power, or to be guided by any other standard than the revealed will of their Master, and the spiritual interests of his church.

The views put forth on this point in vindication of the resolution of last General Assembly, not only have never been answered, but they have never been met by our opponents. The Dean of Faculty, as we formerly had occasion to shew, entirely evades them. Dr. Muir and Mr. Tait have considered chiefly the intrinsic objections to the Veto Act, founded on Scriptural principles, and have scarcely entered into the consideration of the bearing of the decisions of the civil courts upon the question of the Church's present duty. And Mr. Robertson, if we might judge from his pamphlet, does not appear to have heard that such views have ever been propounded.

Surely we are entitled to say, that the fact that our opponents have never yet ventured even to meet the views on which a solemn and deliberate decision of the Church on a most important question of duty have been publicly vindicated, and which, if well founded, are beyond all question amply sufficient for its vindication, affords the strongest presumption that these views cannot be successfully assailed. Did it not occur to Mr. Robertson at the conclusion of his elaborate demonstration, that the Veto Act was, on the ground of the statutes, ultra vires, that his work was only half done; and that he had still to grapple with this leading position of his opponents, that a Christian church (and we presume he will not deny that the Church of Scotland, though established by law, is still a church of Christ) not only is not bound, but is not at liberty to change her laws, on the mere ground of the decision of a civil tribunal? And if this did occur to him, why did he not even attempt to meet it?

Perhaps Mr. Robertson will say that he has devoted a distinct chapter (Chap. V.) to proving, that "the civil courts, in the decision which they lately pronounced in the case of Auchterarder, did not invade the province of jurisdiction rightfully belonging to the courts ecclesiasti

cal;" and we admit, that if this position were really established, he would be entitled to assume, that their decisions should have been fully obeyed, for obedience would, in that case, have come under the category of rendering to Cæsar what was Cæsar's. But, as if he were determined never to ascend into the region of principle, he even in this chapter confines himself to merely legal discussion, and determines the province of jurisdiction rightfully belonging to the courts ecclesiastical, by a reference to acts of Parliament. The object of the chapter is just to prove, that by acts of Parliament the Church was bound to do certain things which she has refused to do; and that, by the same acts of Parliament, the civil courts were entitled to order her to do them. The proof of this position may do very well for certain purposes, perhaps for any purposes which Mr. Robertson had in view; but it is manifest that no argument founded on such grounds can have any bearing upon the great question of the duty of a Christian church, or can at all affect our position, that a Christian church, in the exercise of the peculiar functions which she has derived from Christ, and in the performance of the duties which he has imposed upon her, is not at liberty to be guided by acts of Parliament, or by the decisions of civil courts. Does Mr. Robertson not see, that, considering the real nature of the present controversy, and the ground taken up by his opponents, there is an absolute necessity for appealing, with a view to its settlement, to some higher standard than acts of Parliament and decrees of the Court of Session, even to those great principles which should determine the grounds of moral obligation, the decisions of conscience, and the duties of a church of Christ? Even in political matters cases sometimes occur, in which there must be an appeal to a higher standard than statute laws, or the ordinary routine of judicial procedure. In the collision that lately took place between the Queen's Bench and the House of Commons, a collision resembling, in many respects, that between the Court of Session and the General Assembly, though, with an immense preponderance in point of argument in favour of the Church as compared with the House of Commons, all the leading statesmen who defended the privileges of the House, appealed to those great fundamental principles that determine and mark out the place which the House of Commons holds in the constitution of the country, the functions which, in consequence, it is called upon to execute, and the powers necessary for the efficient execution of these functions; in short, to principles higher than mere statute law, to the leges legum which determine what laws ought to exist, what statutes ought to be passed.* And, in like manner, in the present church question, in which important cases of conscience are involved, and which may ultimately affect the very existence of a national establishment of religion, there is an absolute necessity for appealing to the fountains of law, the grounds of moral obligation, and the great principles derived from the Word of God and the dictates of right reason, which mark out the provinces and determine the duties of nations and of churches, of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities. These subjects have been often discussed

* Sir Robert Peel, in one of his speeches on this subject, expressed his contempt for men who talked as if the mere decision of a court of law at once settled the whole question."

before, and those views of them which are accordant with the Word of God, which are embodied in the standards of our Church, and which fully vindicate the course the church is now pursuing, have been conclusively established by Beza, Walaeus, Apollonius, Triglandius, Voetius, Gillespie, Rutherford, and Brown of Wamphray, in opposition to Erastus, Grotius, G. J. Vossius, Episcopius, Vedélius, L. Du Moulin, and the Episcopalian defenders of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. No man can be regarded as thoroughly versant in the Erastian controversy, unless he is acquainted with the writings of these illustrious men; and no man who is not familiar with the Erastian controversy, is fully qualified to discuss the great principles involved in the present church question. If Mr. Robertson really wishes to discuss the point, Whether the civil courts have invaded the province of the church courts, in such a way as to impress the understandings, and to tell upon the consciences of his brethren, he must turn his attention to something higher than acts of Parliament, and endeavour to acquire some knowledge of the great principles discussed in the writings of the eminent men to whom we have referred.

Mr. Robertson having resolved, apparently, not to discuss principles, and having, therefore, little to do in the chapter the title of which we have quoted, except to reassert the position which more than one third of his pamphlet had been occupied in establishing, viz. that the Veto Act is under the statutes ultra vires,-occupies this chapter chiefly with an attempt to answer the celebrated argument about co-ordinate jurisdictions, which had been so ably and ingeniously expounded by Lord Jeffrey in his speech in the Auchterarder case, and had been brought forward with so much effect in the General Assembly by Mr. Monteith. It is quite manifest, however, that he does not understand the nature and application of this argument, and the place which it holds in the general train of reasoning by which the recent proceedings of the Church have been defended; and, accordingly, the sum and substance of his answer to it just consists of an attempt to prove, that the cases by which Lord Jeffrey illustrates the principle of co-ordinate jurisdictions, as applicable to the Court of Session and the Court of Justiciary, are not analogous in every particular to the collision that has taken place between the Court of Session and the General Assembly.

Although Mr. Robertson's leading positions on this point were conceded to him, the argument would stand untouched, fully available for all the important purposes to which it has been applied. Mr. Robertson evidently does not see that this argument, as brought forward, both in the civil and in the ecclesiastical courts, was intended simply as an answer to an objection of our opponents. So far as the discussion in the civil court is concerned, the course of argument was this: It was contended by those who were in favour of the Church's views, that there is no principle of the constitution, and no statute of Parliament, which invests the Court of Session with any thing like jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters-with any general superintendence over the proceedings of church courts-with any right to review or reverse their decisions; that the constitution and law of this country have as fully secured to the church courts supreme and exclusive jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, as they have secured supreme and exclusive jurisdiction to the