of ambiguous import; but we hope to prove that there is nothing ambiguous about the law, and that, of course, an appeal to the practice of the church to determine its import is inadmissible. Besides, there are many obvious causes that detract greatly from the weight due to the decisions of church courts in determining particular cases in the settlement of ministers. The General Assembly is a numerous and popular body, and liable to those misleading influences which more or less prevail in all popular bodies when exercising judicial functions. Many influences combine to lead such a body to be too favourable to presentees. And on this account it is, we think, a matter of unquestionable certainty, that in almost every period of our history, the actual practice of our church courts has been more unfavourable to the rights and influence of the people than the ecclesiastical law warranted. Gillespie, in his Miscellanies,* plainly enough hints that cases of intrusion, or something like it, did occasionally occur, though in opposition to the declared mind and law of the church. And when intrusions first began to be practised by the church courts under the present law of patronage, those who opposed these intrusions maintained, and those who supported them scarcely ventured to deny, that the intrusion of a minister upon a reclaiming congregation was opposed to our ecclesiastical constitution.

It is a fact that ought never to be forgotten,-one full of most valuable instruction, both in the way of enabling us to form an estimate of the weight due to decisions in particular cases as affording evidence of the deliberate mind of the church, and in the way of establishing the folly of expecting, even from the General Assembly as now constituted, a series of righteous decisions in regard to the settlement of ministers, unless tied down by a strict and imperative law, that the Assembly of 1835, which finally established the Veto Act as the law of the church, and ordered the rejection of the presentee to Auchterarder, did substantially perpetrate (for the iniquity was not consummated till next year) two gross and unquestionable intrusions upon reclaiming congregations. None, we presume, will deny the honesty and sincerity of the majority of the Assembly of 1835, or doubt that they really intended to establish the Veto Act as

* P. 21.

the law of the church, and the rule to be followed in the settlement of parishes; and yet it is a melancholy fact, that the same Assembly ordered the intrusion of presentees upon the reclaiming parishes of Trinity Gask and Dron. These facts may perhaps puzzle controversialists after a century has elapsed, but we know well enough how they are to be explained; and deeply as we lament, and decidedly as we condemn, the conduct of the Assembly of 1835, in perpetrating two intrusions, we cannot admit that this affords any good reason why we should set ourselves to explain away the import of the law which they passed against intrusion, or doubt their honesty in enacting that law, and in enforcing it in the case of Auchterarder.

There is a very striking resemblance in these points between the Assembly of 1736 and that of 1835. The Assembly of 1736 redeclared the old law of the church, "that no minister be intruded into any parish contrary to the will of the congregation;" but in consequence of decisions pronounced by that Assembly and by some subsequent ones, it has been doubted whether this declaration is to be understood in the sense which the words naturally bear, or whether, if it is, it was intended to act upon it honestly. This Assembly, as Mr Dunlop shows, rejected the presentee to Kinnaird, because of his unacceptableness to the people, while they seem, according to Mr Robertson's account,* to have thrust ministers upon the reclaiming parishes of Denny and Troqueer; but with the strikingly similar case of 1835 before us, we cannot regard this inconsistency of the Assembly of 1736 as entitling us to pervert the plain meaning of their words, or to doubt their sincerity; while it very strikingly illustrates how little weight is due to decisions of popular Assemblies, in particular cases, as indications of the deliberate judgment even of those who pronounce them on the general principles that may seem to be involved in them.

But even if these cases were much more important, as indicating the deliberate mind of the church, than they are, we labour under some difficulty in applying them, in consequence of having often very defective information as to the real circumstances of the case. What is gleaned from the records of church courts often gives a very imperfect view of the facts of the case, and

* Pp. 199-201.

leaves us in ignorance of important considerations that might be well known to the members of the judicatory. Some of the cases adduced by Mr Robertson in support of his views prove too much, and therefore, according to the well-known maxim, prove nothing. The only cases which he gives in illustration of the practice of the church under the Directory of 1649, are those of Birnie in 1658, and Hailes in 1659.* And in regard to these cases, he is obliged to admit, that the "procedure," as described in the Presbytery Record, "was contrary to the provisions of the Directory of 1649," as "no reference at all is made to the congregation," excepting only in the serving of the edict for the induction. Such cases-and they are the only ones Mr Robertson produces in regard to this important period-manifestly cannot afford any materials for judging of the construction then generally put upon the Directory. The probability is, that in these and in similar cases, the concurrence of the congregation in the person chosen by the session was well known to the presbytery, and therefore was not formally adverted to.

Again, the only case which Mr Robertson adduces to illustrate, by the practice of the church, the construction put upon the Act 1690, is that of Falkirk in 1695; † and here, too, the procedure, as described in the Presbytery Record, was contrary to the provisions of the Act 1690, as the person chosen by the elders and heritors does not appear to have been "proposed to the congregation, to be approven or disapproven by them." This case, then, also proves too much, and therefore proves nothing. The fact probably was, that the presbytery, without any formal investigation, was fully satisfied of the consent or concurrence of the parish in the nomination of the heritors and elders.

Mr Robertson makes a considerable parade of his cases, and yet these are the only ones he has produced to illustrate these two most important periods of our ecclesiastical history; and most assuredly they render no service to his cause. We shall afterwards produce much more satisfactory evidence on these points. As Mr Robertson's object, in producing his cases, is to prove that the ecclesiastical law of the period, in whatever terms it might be expressed, was not practically understood to sanction. our views of non-intrusion, he was, of course, bound to produce † Pp. 169-171.

*Pp. 155-158.

cases in which intrusion was practised, and ministers were thrust upon reclaiming congregations. Now, he has produced only a single case of an intrusion perpetrated by church courts previously to the restoration of patronage in 1712, although we doubt not such cases occurred. It is not necessary for us to consider the cases that occurred after the restoration of patronage, because we are not discussing the question of the power claimed and exercised by the church under the Act of Queen Anne, and because we admit, that about the time of the restoration of patronage, there are some traces, in the proceedings of the church courts, of a departure from the sounder views that formerly prevailed in regard to the rights of the Christian people; although the Popish principles now advocated by our opponents were scarcely avowed or applied openly till about the period of the Secession, and even after that were sometimes disregarded in practice, when sound principle and true piety had any ascendency in the Assembly. Even about the time of the restoration of patronage, the injurious effects of the admission of the Episcopalian conformists, who were the progenitors of the Moderate party, were beginning to be displayed. A disregard to purity and soundness of doctrine, and to the interests of vital godliness, was already beginning to show itself in the church; and when we see this, we fully expect, as its natural consequence, the prevalence of the views of Dr Muir and Mr Robertson about the power of church courts, and the rights of the Christian people.

The second case of intrusion brought forward by Mr Robertson is that of Peebles, in 1717. We do not remember to have seen this case described before, and we were scarcely prepared to expect so disgraceful a case at that period. But it is satisfactory to observe, that the presbytery of the bounds had found the presentee disqualified on his trials, and that the Assembly appointed a committee of their own number to carry the settlement into effect, the first instance, probably, of the appointment of a riding commission. It is also deserving of notice, that the Theological Chair at Glasgow was at this time held by Professor Simson, who taught Arian and Arminian tenets, and who, having been processed for heresy for several years, was let off by this very Assembly of 1717 with a very inadequate censure. We do not intend, then,

to examine the cases of settlements which Mr Robertson has brought forward, as such cases are manifestly, in their very

U

nature, most inadequate and defective sources of information upon the point under discussion; and as they are, indeed, in most of the instances he has adduced, wholly irrelevant.

Sec. II.-Views of the Church,-Primitive and Reformed.

Mr Robertson, before proceeding with the more direct evidence in support of his allegation, that "the principles of the Veto Act are nowhere recognised in the acknowledged laws and constitutions of the Church," makes some statements about the doctrine of the canon law and the practice of the continental churches, borrowed not from his usual authority, Lord Medwyn, but from the speech of Lord Corehouse in the Auchterarder case. has gone so far back, we may go a little farther, and briefly advert to the doctrine and practice of the primitive church on this point.

As he

It can scarcely be disputed, that for about the first six centuries the Christian people had generally the choice of their own ministers. Election is the best of all securities against intrusion; and the fact that popular election prevailed, is the most conclusive proof that intrusion, both in doctrine and in practice, was repudiated. That popular election was both the doctrine and the practice of the primitive church, is proved in Mr Brown's excellent lecture on Non-Intrusion, who has also shown that traces of this right-and resting, too, upon grounds manifestly inconsistent with intrusion-continued to exist in the standard books of the Church of Rome (although the people, under the tyranny of the man of sin, had, of course, long before, been wholly deprived of it in practice) down till the time of the Council of Trent.†

We have the express testimony of Clemens, the companion of the apostles, whose name is in the book of life,† that the apostles settled ministers with the consent of the whole church,

*Rev. Charles J. Brown, Edinburgh. † De Dominis's celebrated work, "De Republica Ecclesiastica (lib. iii. c. iii.), and Blondel's "Apologia pro sententia Hieronymi de Episcopis et Presbyteris" (p. 379 to the end), commonly reckoned the most learned

work ever written in defence of Presbytery, contain the fullest statements with which we are acquainted of the evidence as to the doctrine and practice of the early church with regard to the appointinent of ministers. † Phil. iv. 3.