communities, is inferior to that of licentiates of the Established church. A perusal of the Supplement is fitted to remove this impression; and will show that, both in point of theological acquirements and of attainments in general literature, the former are in no respect inferior to the latter. Among the authors of the Secession Church-of whom a list is given in the Supplement-will be found the names of individuals who have rendered eminent service to the cause of literature and religion; and whose writings have procured for them a lasting and an honourable reputation among the admirers of piety and genius both in our own and other countries. In looking back upon the lives of these distinguished men, and in comparing the theological and literary productions that have issued from their pen, with those that have been given to the world by the ministers of other churches, the Secession has no reason to be ashamed.

After the friendly communications which have been received from so many quarters, expressing a favourable opinion of the merits of the Secession History,-of the accuracy of its statements, and of the spirit in which it has been written,—the Author commits, with increased confidence, this new edition to the judgment of the public. He dedicates his work anew to the service of the Saviour. He lays it at the foot of the Cross, as an humble offering to the cause of religion. And his earnest prayer is, that the perusal of it may, by the blessing of God, tend to foster in the bosom of the members of the Secession Church a spirit of piety, and may lead them to a more diligent improvement of those valuable privileges, which, as a religious community, they have long enjoyed.

BRIDGE-OF-TEITH,
11th Oct., 1841. S

HISTORY OF THE

SECESSION CHURCH.

INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE.

Proceedings of the Scottish Parliament-First General Assembly after the Revolution Imposition of oaths-Cameronians Mr. John HepburnFirst process against Professor Simson-Condemnation of the Auchterarder Creed The Marrow Controversy-Second process against Professor Simson -Law of Patronage Discussions concerning it--Refusal of the Assembly to record dissents-Ecclesiastical Despotism.

To trace the rise and progress, to describe the present state, and to dwell upon the future prospects of the SECESSION CHURCH, are the objects which I propose in the present work. Since the memorable era of the Reformation, no event has taken place in our country which has been productive of such important consequences, in a religious point of view, as that which forms the subject of the present narrative. The effects, which have followed from it, have been far more extensive, and in every respect more important, than could possibly have been anticipated by the venerable men with whom the Secession originated, or by that church from which they felt themselves under the necessity of withdrawing. Before proceeding to detail the particulars of this memorable event, and the consequences that have resulted from it, I shall carry my readers backward to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and shall present them with a rapid glance of some of those circumstances connected with the state of the Scottish Church, immediately after the Revolution, which tended to alienate the minds of a large portion of the people from the ecclesiastical establishment of the country; and which, operating as so many predisposing causes, paved the way for a rapid, as well as an extensive revolt, so soon as the banner of the Secession was unfurled.

A

The first Scottish Parliament that met after the Revolution, declared prelacy to be "a great and insupportable grievance to this nation, and contrary to the inclination of the generality of the people ever since the Reformation ;" and they forthwith abolished the same. In the second session of the same parliament, which met in 1690, the presbyterian form of church government was re-established, according to the ratification and establishment which had been given to it in 1592. This first act of the Scottish Parliament, in reference to the national church, was very unpalatable to many, and was condemned by them on the following grounds:-that it did not recognise what God had done for the Scottish Church during one of the brightest periods of her history, viz. that which elapsed from 1638 to 1650,-that it did not formally condemn and disannul the Act Recissory passed (1661) during the first parliament of Charles II.,-and that it did not in express terms declare prelacy to be contrary to the word of God, and abjured by the national covenants. That the act should adopt as its basis, for the re-establishment of the presbyterian government, what had been done in 1592, rather than what had been accomplished in 1638 and subsequent years, was considered as a decidedly retrograde movement in the work of reformation. Another unpopular act passed by this parliament was that which enjoined the oath of allegiance to be sworn "in place of any other oaths imposed by laws and acts of preceding parliaments." Though this act appeared to be framed with a view to the abolition of those oaths, which had been imposed during the period of the persecution, yet it was so worded as to include amongst the number of the oaths that were abolished, the oath of the covenant-and was obviously designed to open the door of admission to all classes of his majesty's subjects, into places of trust and power, whether they were favourers of the covenant or not. The passing of such an act could not but give grievous offence to all those (and the number was not small) who considered the covenant as the grand palladium of the liberties of their country. The disappointment, occasioned by the adopting of this measure, was the more severely felt, that the same parliament which sanctioned it, laid aside the draught of an act, after it had been twice read, which had been introduced avowedly for the purpose of excluding from places of public trust all who had taken any share in the oppressive measures of the bygone period.

The proceedings of the first General Assembly, held after the Revolution, appear in some respects not to have been more satisfactory than those of the parliament, to a considerable portion of the presbyterians. This Assembly, after a suspension of its meetings for more than thirty years, sat down upon

FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY AFTER THE REVOLUTION.

3

the 16th of October 1690. Of the old presbyterian ministers who had been ejected at the Restoration, not more than sixty were now alive;* and these men-who had themselves suffered so much for conscience' sake-rejoicing that their favourite form of church government was again restored, and influenced by an amiable and forgiving spirit, showed a much greater disposition to conciliate the episcopal clergy than to retaliate upon them the wrongs which they had received. The following declaration, made by their moderator, (Mr. Hugh Kennedy,) they adopted, and entered upon their record, "That it was not the mind of the Assembly to depose any incumbent simply for his judgment anent the government of the church, or to urge re-ordination upon any incumbent whatsoever." And in accordance with this declaration were the instructions which they gave to their Commission, "That they be very cautious of receiving informations against the late conformists; and that they proceed in the matter of censure very deliberately, so as none may have just cause to complain of their rigidity; and that they shall not proceed to censure but upon relevant libels and sufficient probation." Three ministers, viz. Messrs. Shields, Linning, and Boyd-who had previously belonged to the Society-men, or Cameronians, but who at this meeting had been received into the bosom of the church-gave in a paper enumerating certain grievances connected with the defections of the past and present times, which they wished the Assembly to redress. The consideration of this paper was referred to the committee of overtures, who, when they gave in their report, characterised it as containing "unseasonable and impracticable proposals, uncharitable and injurious reflections, tending rather to kindle contentions than to compose divisions."t

This spirit of lenity, which influenced the members of the present Assembly, and which disposed them in a great measure to overlook, if not altogether to bury in oblivion, the delinquencies with which many of the conforming clergy had been chargeable, displayed itself no less in the proceedings of some of the subsequent Assemblies: For in 1694, among other charges which the commission received from the Assembly, they were enjoined "to receive into ministerial communion such of the late conform ministers, as, having qualified themselves according to law, shall subscribe the Formula:" And that no violence might be done to their consciences by subscribing a presbyterian formula, it was so framed that it did not require them to acknowledge that presbyterian government is founded on the word of God, but only, "That the church • Appendix to Sir Henry Moncrieff Welwood's Life of Erskine, p. 420, † Act 5th Assembly, 1690.

government, as now settled by law, is the only government of this church." By such measures as these, a wide door of admission into the national church was opened to men who had hitherto thrown all their influence into the scale of arbitrary power, and who, by the active part which they had taken in the persecutions carried on during the preceding reigns, had rendered themselves exceedingly odious in the eyes of the people. Not a few availed themselves of the opportunity which was thus presented, of keeping possession, upon such easy terms, of their livings: they abjured prelacy, at least in form, and became the avowed adherents of a system of church polity, which it had been the unremitting object of their past lives to extirpate. That the number of ministers received into the Establishment, in consequence of these measures, was not small, we learn from the following passage in an address presented by the commission to Queen Anne: "We cannot but lay before your Majesty this pregnant instance of our moderation, that, since our late happy establishment, there have been taken in, and continued, hundreds of dissenting (i. e. episcopal) ministers upon the easiest terms." By the too easy admission of such men† into the Church of Scotland, immediately after the Revolution, an injury was done to her character at the very outset, from which she did not speedily recover; and the groundwork was thus laid of that system of coercion and of mal-administration which drove, at no distant period, from her communion, multitudes of the best of her members.

By such proceedings, the Assembly subjected themselves to the charge of being too compliant with the wishes of those who were in power-of being favourers of erastianism—of renouncing their covenant engagements and of causing the work of reformation, so auspiciously begun by their forefathers, to retrograde instead of advance. What was expected of them was, that they would have taken as their model, the Assembly which met in 1638-that, like the nobles and ministers of that reforming period, they would have asserted their independence as a spiritual court, and protested in decided terms against every attempt on the part of those in power to interfere with or control their proceedings that they would have sisted at their bar, and deposed and excommunicated the bishops and

Act 10th Assembly, 1712.

For a description of the characters of the men who were thus received into the church on such easy terms, I refer the reader to Burnet's History of his own times. That prelate says of them, "They were generally very mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard. They were ignorant to a reproach. Many of them were openly vicious. They were a disgrace to their orders, and the sacred functions, and were indeed the dregs and refuse of the northern parts."-Burnet, vol. i. p. 158, folio @dition.