of Dr. Cook's

seventh rea

of his legitimate weapon, the sword, but would hand CHAP. XI. over to him the keys of Peter too, and this, moreover, on the express understanding, that should the church refuse to open and shut, to bind and loose, according as Cæsar turned the keys, she must be compelled to do it at the point of Cæsar's sword. The latter of the two reasons of dissent above-recited partook of the same erastian character with these Erastianism additional aggravations: first, that the civil tribunals had at that time pronounced no judgment on the legal standing of the ministers of quoad sacra churches; and tions. second, that it condemned Dr. Cook himself, whose motion, in 1833, first gave ministers of quoad sacra churches a seat in church courts. It seemed, therefore, as if, by committing themselves to principles like these, and making common cause with the Strathbogie ministers, Dr. Cook and his friends were determined to make the government of the church impracticable, and to precipitate the impending schism.

son of dissent, and its aggrava

moves the

of a commit

swer the

reasons of

When the reasons of dissent were given in and read, a member of the house proposed that a committee should be appointed to answer them. Mr. Dunlop Mr. Dunlop observed, that as a general rule, he was against appointment answering reasons of dissent,-because the discussions tee to anand the authority of the house formed usually the best dissent. vindication of its decisions,-nor was it consistent with the dignity of the house to engage in a controversy with its own members. But the present case was peculiar, and would require peculiar treatment. "He had heard those reasons (of dissent) with the deepest sorrow, and they could not fail to create much anxiety. He was grieved to observe the encouragement they gave

CHAP. XI. to the suspended ministers to persevere in the unhappy course which they had entered upon; but the more solemn considerations which these reasons gave rise to, flowed from the declaration of principles therein contained. The dissentients, besides challenging the actings dissented from, not only disputed the legality of the constitution of the assembly, but avowed principles diametrically opposed to those on which the constitution of the church itself was founded, and on which alone the majority held that a church could be constituted in accordance with the law of Christ.

tients should

follow out

ples, they

and the majority could not continue

in the same Church.

It

If the dissen, was now perfectly obvious, that if these parties pertheir princi. Severed in acting on the opposite principles, now held by them, they and the present majority could not possibly continue ultimately to be members of one and the same church. This declaration by the dissentients was, unquestionably, the first step towards a schism in the church. It was, therefore, necessary at the very outset, to put upon record a declaration of those principles in which the church held her constitution to be founded. The circumstances in which all parties now stood were very solemn, and it was right that their respective principles should be explicitly declared. He therefore moved the appointment of a committee to prepare and record a declaration of the principles of the constitution of the church, in opposition to those set forth in the reasons of dissent by Dr. Cook and those who had adhered to him."

Report of the committee

confer with

On Monday, the 1st of June, the committee appointed appointed to to confer with the seven ministers, gave in its report. Along with it there was laid, by the committee, on the table of the assembly, a statement, signed by the seven

the seven ministers.

Dr. M'Far

vener.

ministers, in which they avow, that "they deem CHAP. XI. themselves specially bound, alike by their oaths of allegiance and by their duty as subjects, and as ministers of the established church, having right to the offices of ministers of parishes under the law of the land, to give due effect and obedience to the decree of the supreme civil court pronounced against them." And further, in reference to their past conduct, instead of tendering any apology, they distinctly declare that, “for having taken that course they feel it impossible for them conscientiously to acknowledge that they have justly become the objects of censure by the church." The convener of the committee, the Rev. Statement of Dr. M'Farlan, of Greenock, referring to these senti- lan, the conments and purposes of the suspended ministers, observed, that it was with the deepest pain he announced them to the general assembly. He had fondly hoped at the first meeting of the committee with these ministers to have "succeeded in obtaining from them an expression of regret for the course they had pursued, and of their willingness to submit themselves to the authority of the church. He was grieved to say that his anticipations had been disappointed, and he felt the utmost pain in being compelled, in the discharge of his duty, to proposethat the sentence of suspension should be continued ; that they should be cited personally to appear before Is shut up to the commission in August, and if they then continued the suspencontumacious, and refused submission to the church courts, that they should be served with a libel for that contumacy, and that the commission should proceed until the case was ripe for the next general assembly." macy.

* * *

propose, that

sion be con

tinued, and

that they be libelled by

the Commis

sion if they

persist in

their contu

The course proposed the only one

with the

maintenance of a

in the

Church.

CHAP. XI. He would also appoint the commission in August next, in the event of their submitting,-to remove the sentence of suspension, and to repone them in the exercise of all their functions as ministers of the church of Scotland. The course thus recommended was consistent manifestly the only one consistent with the maintenance of a governing authority in the church. The government laws of the church had been deliberately violated,— the orders of the general assembly and of its commission had been set at nought, and the avowal was now made in the very face of the supreme ecclesiastical court, of a resolution to persist in maintaining the same attitude of disobedience and defiance. In opposing the motion of Dr. M'Farlan, Dr. Cook, in common with all the others who followed him on the same side, studiously shunned the real question in dispute. That question was-Does the constitution of the church, as ratified by law, empower the civil courts to prescribe their duty to church courts, in the examination and admission of ministers, and to coerce them in the performance of these proper ecclesiastical functions? Confounding the courts of law with the supreme power of the state, Dr. Cook assumed that assumptions the decision of the courts of law, upon this point, was true state of the decision of the state: that because these courts had arrogated to themselves a jurisdiction in these matters, the jurisdiction was to be held as legally and constitutionally theirs and hence that by the very terms of her establishment the church was bound to acknowledge it. But Dr. Cook could not be ignorant that this was to take for granted the very thing which the assembly emphatically denied. He

Dr. Cook's

misrepre

sent the

the question.

could not but be aware that every individual of the CHAP. XI. majority conceded to the state, as readily and as fully as their opponents in this great controversy, the right to declare what were the conditions on which it had conferred on the church the immunities of her civil establishment, -to require either that these conditions should be strictly observed, or that the immunities of the establishment should be surrendered into the hands of the state again; but he also knew that, in common with a large and influential minority of the civil judges themselves, the majority of the assembly maintained, that the state had not given to the civil courts that peculiar jurisdiction which they had assumed and were now attempting to enforce; and hence, that in resisting that jurisdiction the assembly claimed to be standing not simply on scriptural, but also on strictly legal and constitutional ground. For Dr. Cook, therefore, to insinuate, as he ventured to do, that the general assembly were setting up claims as extrava- accusations. gant and intolerable as those of the "anabaptists of the reformation and of the fifth monarchy men of the great rebellion," was merely to substitute injurious and calumnious epithets in the room of fair and manly discussion. The debate was long and animated, but as the ground which it traversed was in all essential respects the same with that which had been already gone over in the preceding debates, both in the commission and in the assembly, any further details appear to be unnecessary. The amendment of Dr. Cook proposed to remove the sentence of suspension; another amendment, proposed by Dr. Simpson, recommended that it should be removed only in so far as ministerial and

Extravagance of Dr. Cook's