a CHAPTER X. PRINCIPLES OF THE FREE CHURCH.* THE Essay, entitled "Presbytery Examined," by the Duke of Argyll, was originally intended as a contribution to a periodical work, in the shape of a review of some of the publications of the Spottiswoode Society. The "Spottiswoode" was a society formed few years ago in Edinburgh, and now, we believe, extinct, for republishing the works of Scottish Prelatists in defence of their peculiar principles and polity. These publications are specimens of prelatic controversial discussion in its worst form, and in its most offensive spirit; and are accompanied with notes, which prove that Scottish Prelacy retains, in our own day, the principles and the temper which made it so odious to former generations, and which have secured for it the deep and lasting disapprobation and dislike of the Scottish people. The Essay, however, begun with this view, gradually extended, and it now appears in the shape of a goodly volume, divided into two parts,the first, which occupies about two-thirds of the book, presenting a pretty full and elaborate survey of the ecclesiastical history of Scotland from the Reformation till the Revolution; and the second giving an exposition and illustration of the leading principles which the noble author regards this historical survey as suggesting. To this there is added an Appendix of Notes, chiefly directed against the principles and reasonings of the Free Church, and pervaded by a considerable amount of severity and bitterness. It is greatly to be regretted, for the noble Duke's own sake, that the work should have been an occasional one-should have been, in some measure, the result of circumstances, and not of a deliberately-formed and well-digested plan. With all the ability NORTH BRITISH REVIEW, No. xx., February 1849. Art. 6.-"Presbytery Examined:" An Essay, Critical and | Historical, on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation. By the DUKE of ARGYLL. R which the Essay manifests, it displays likewise a good deal of confusion-a want of distinct and definite principles; and it contains some indications that its noble author is not altogether unconscious that he has not attained himself, and presented to others, a clear, consistent, well-digested system of doctrines as to the relations of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities. It was highly honourable to the Duke of Argyll that he should have thought of writing a review of the Spottiswoode publications, and exposing the true character and tendency of Scottish Prelacy, and of church principles for this he was well qualified, and this part of his task he has executed most successfully. But it would, we think, have been better if, for the present, he had confined himself to this topic, and given a little more time to reading and reflection, so as at least to have formed a definite and consistent scheme of opinions for himself, before he ventured to pronounce, and to pronounce so dogmatically, upon all the great questions involved in the controversy inter imperium et sacerdotium. The old Scottish Presbyterians, whom his Grace so freely charges with extravagance and fanaticism, had read much more extensively, and had reflected much more profoundly, upon these subjects than he has yet done; and we have no doubt that their views, as to their substance, are quite able to stand, without injury, a much more careful and elaborate investigation than that to which he has subjected them. His Grace's present position, ecclesiastically, is not favourable to a deliberate and impartial investigation of these questions; and we fear that he has allowed the position which he has chosen to occupy to affect his opinions, instead of letting his opinions, fairly and freely followed out to their legitimate consequences, determine his position-his ecclesiastical relations. In the early part of the year 1842, his Grace, then Marquis of Lorn, published a "Letter to the Peers, from a Peer's Son," on the constitutional principles which were involved in the Auchterarder Case, and which soon after led to the disruption of the Church of Scotland. In this pamphlet, which exhibited a very remarkable specimen of precocious talent, and an intrepidity and elevation of tone which reminded men of his heroic and martyred forefathers, he proved, most ably and conclusively, first, that by the existing laws and constitution of Scotland, the church was legally entitled to do what she did in the case of Auchterarder-namely, reject the pre sentee of the patron upon the ground of the opposition of the congregation; and, secondly, that even conceding, for the sake of argument, that this proceeding of the church was, under the statutes, illegal and ultra vires, the utmost extent of interference legally competent to the civil court in the matter, was to find that the patron, in consequence, was entitled to retain the fruits of the benefice; and that the control or jurisdiction over the proceedings of the church courts which the civil courts assumed, was thoroughly precluded by the fundamental principles of the constitution of Scotland, by the powers which the statutes did not indeed confer upon the church, but sanctioned or ratified as vested in the church jure divino. His Grace then conclusively and unanswerably established these important positions; and he still holds them to be true, having unequivocally declared his adherence to them in the Essay which we are now considering. It might have been expected that, when the Legislature sanctioned the violation of the constitution which the proceedings of the civil courts involved, every one who held these positions would have felt himself called upon, in consistency, to cast in his lot with the Free Church. The Duke of Argyll, however, took a different course, and continued a member of the Scottish Establishment; and we fear that, in doing so, he was somewhat influenced, though no doubt unconsciously, rather by some of the accidents and accompaniments of the subject, than by a deliberate and impartial investigation of its intrinsic merits. This position and procedure were certainly not favourable to progress in the clearness and soundness of his conceptions with regard to the principles that ought to regulate the relations of Church and State, or of the ecclesiastical and civil authorities; and it is an easy matter to show, by a comparison of his "Letter to the Peers" with his "Essay on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," that his views upon this subject are more indefinite and erroneous in 1848 than they were in 1842. If the Duke of Argyll had seen it to be his duty to join the Free Church in 1843, instead of adhering to the Scottish Establishment, we have no doubt that he would now have possessed a much better-defined and more accurate knowledge of the relations of the civil and the ecelesiastical than his Essay exhibits; and that he would also have enjoyed a more assured conviction of the firmness and consistency of his position, than, notwithstanding the dogmatism and severity with which he frequently assails Free Church principles, we feel called upon at present to concede to him. We mean to give a brief notice of what we reckon erroneous in the Duke of Argyll's Essay; but it is only an act of justice to quote a brief passage, in which he declares his present adherence to those great constitutional principles which he advocated with such singular ability when Marquis of Lorn:-“ The struggle which has ended in the formation of the Free Church, originated very much in the same cause from which all the former struggles of Presbytery began. It arose from the principles of Presbytery being infringed-in violation of natural right and of positive. institution by an unconstitutional statute. It became more determined from a still more unconstitutional use being made of that statute's provisions; and its fatal result was precipitated by the most blind and prejudiced obstinacy on the part of the civil government. The Government of 1637 were hardly more ignorant of the elements they had to deal with than the Government of 1842. The former believed that very few would ultimately resist the Liturgy, until they heard of the aspect and of the arms of the thousand 'Supplicants' who crowded the streets of Edinburgh. The latter believed that only some five—or ten—or twenty ministers would maintain their principles at the expense of their livings, until they heard of the number of that resolved procession which, on the 18th of May 1843, tramped with psalm-singing from the Assembly Hall to the Canonmills. There is this difference to be marked, indeed, between the two Governments: That of 1637 had the excuse of bigotry-that of 1842 had not. And it will be recorded in history, not certainly to the honour of those who were responsible, that the institutions of Scottish Presbytery received their most fatal blow under a 'Conservative' Government, and for the sake of a statute manifestly-undeniably-unconstitutional: because passed manifestly-undeniably-in violation of the Revolution Settlement."† * We cordially approve of the Duke of Argyll's views upon the subject of Scottish Prelacy and the subject of Church Principles, and we believe that he has rendered important service to the cause of true religion by what he has said upon these points; but we do not concur with him in the opinion "that Scottish Presby† Essay, pp. 230, 231. * This "psalm-singing" is a pure fiction. tery has left her house of worship needlessly bare of furniture," though we fear that the chief ground on which we rest our disapprobation of his Grace's views upon the subject, will be regarded by him as affording another specimen of that tendency of Scottish Presbyterians, which he so frequently and so earnestly deprecates, to exalt their notions into religious dogmas resting upon scriptural authority. We believe that this position can be established upon scriptural grounds, namely, that it is unwarrantable and unlawful for men to introduce into the worship and government of the Christian church any rites or arrangements which have not the positive sanction of the word of God. We take this position, of course, with the necessary and reasonable limitation. expressed in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession, "that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions. and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word." Thus understood, we believe the position can be shown to rest upon scriptural authority, and to constitute a law binding upon the church of Christ in all ages. And if so, it fully warrants all that the most rigid Presbyterians have ever maintained and practised. It is true that the considerations urged by the Duke of Argyll, and by Prelatists in general, in favour of a more complete and ornate furnishing of the "house of worship," derived from certain features and tendencies in man's constitution, have some measure of plausibility, and can be made to wear a sort of philosophical aspect; but we think it no difficult matter to show, that it is a much sounder and deeper philosophy which demonstrates, both from an examination of man's constitution and a survey of the testimony of experience, the consummate wisdom of the scriptural prohibition-and of the "bareness" which it demands. But the main object of this Essay, in addition to that of exposing the true character and tendency of Scottish Prelacy and of Church principles, is to refute the doctrines and reasonings of the Free Church in regard to the distinctness and mutual independence of the Church and the State, and the unlawfulness of the authoritative interference of the civil power in the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs; and the work may thus be fairly * Essay, p. 299. |