CHAP. IX. as a naval officer, from bestowing on them all the cultivation of which they were susceptible, having been recently appointed to the government of Jamaica, happened to express some doubts of his competency to preside in the court of chancery; Lord Mansfield assured him that he would find the difficulty not so great as he apprehended. Trust,' he said, 'to your own good sense in forming your opinions: but beware of attempting to state the grounds of your judgments. The judgment will probably be right, the argument will infallibly be wrong.''-Stewart's Elements, vol. ii. 8vo. pp. 103-106.

gation com

pared to a jury, which

dict without assigning

reasons.

"I would take," continued Dr. Chalmers, after giving this most pertinent quotation from the celeThe congre- brated metaphysician, "the verdict of a congregation, just as I take the verdict of a jury, without reasons. Their judgment is what I want,-not the grounds of their judgment. Give me the aggregate will; and tell me only that it is founded on the aggregate conscience of a people who love their bibles, and to whom the preaching of the cross is precious: and to the expression of that will, to the voice of the collective mind of that people, not as sitting in judgment on the minor insignificancies of mode, and circumstance, and things of external observation, but as sitting in judgment on the great subject-matter of the truth as it is in Jesus, to such a voice, coming in the spirit and with the desires of moral earnestness from such a people, I for one would yield the profoundest rever

The motion of Dr. Chalmers having been seconded in a vigorous speech by Mr. Bruce, of Kennett, as

satisfied

of the two motions.

scheme.

that of Dr. Cook had, without any speech, been CHAP. IX. seconded by Mr. Smythe, of Methven, Dr. Muir presented himself to the notice of the assembly. When these motions were tabled two days before, Dr. Muir Dr. Muir not had intimated that neither of them met his views, and with either hinted that he would probably propose something different from both. The addition Dr. Cook had since agreed to make to his motion, by introducing special fitness for the particular congregation, as one of the grounds on which the presbytery must rest its judgment in rejecting or admitting a presentee,-had, to some extent, conciliated Dr. Muir; though he was "still desirous of going further.”* His own plan, His own which he proceeded forthwith to explain, would have involved a complete departure from the course which had been followed by the church in the settlement of ministers from time immemorial. The first step of that process had always been to send the presentee to preach to the congregation; for until he had done so, and obtained their call, it was the assumption of the church that they had no warrant to proceed further in the matter. Dr. Muir proposed, instead of this, Proposes to "that immediately on a presentation being received and sustained, the presbytery enter on the trials of the thereafter to presentee, trials the object of which shall be to ascer-before the tain his still having those qualifications, theological, moral, and literary, which at the first sanctioned the granting to him a licence to preach the gospel."

The addition made to his motion by Dr. Cook was this," that all ministers or entrants presented to kirks be tried before their admission, if they be qualified for the places to which they are presented, besides the ordinary trials of expectants before their entrance to the ministry."

take the trials of the presentee first, and

appoint him

to

congregation.

"The mind of

to be taken

into account,

explain how,

or to what

effect.

CHAP. IX. Having passed safely through the first ordeal, they were to record the fact in their minutes, and then to submit him in some way or other, which Dr. Muir did not attempt to explain, to a second ordeal, by which his suitableness for the particular congregation should be tested. Under this second ordeal, the "mind of the people" the people" was to be one of the "circumstances and but did not considerations for ascertaining his suitableness," which ought to become the subject "of investigation and judgment to presbyteries" in accepting or rejecting the presentee. It would not have been easy to contrive a scheme fitted to run more directly than this of Dr. Muir in the teeth of those views of the law which had been laid down in the house of lords in deciding the Auchterarder case. Let the presentee only have the presbytery's attestation that all was right with him in regard to " qualifications theological, moral, and literary," and anything beyond this would prove but a cobweb in the way of hindering his ordination and induction. The presbytery, by this process, would merely have furnished him with the staff to break their own heads, in the event of their presuming to throw their second ordeal across his path. The first had given him, by an express and recorded judgment of the presbytery, all which Lords Cottenham and Brougham held to be necessary for the completion of his title both to orders and admission. The attempt to interpose a second would be as great an illegality as scheme as the act of 1834,-and one still more offensive to the riance with civil law, as having been framed at the very moment

The whole

much at va

the Auchter

so the when the judgment of the civil courts forbidding it, had

sion as

Veto-law

itself.

just been pronounced.

Dr. Muir ans. Candish.

swered by the Rev. R.

There were, however, many other objections to the CHAP. IX. scheme of Dr. Muir: and these were stated and urged with singular felicity and force, by one who was destined from that day forward to exert perhaps a greater influence than any other single individual in the church, upon the conduct and issues of this eventful controversy. The reputation of Mr. (now Dr.) Candlish as a preacher was already well known. His extraordinary talents in debate, and his rare capacity for business, not hitherto having found any adequate occasion to call them forth, were as yet undiscovered by the public,-probably undiscovered His great even by himself. They seemed, however, to have debate, and needed no process of training to bring them to maturity. The very first effort found him abreast of the most practised and powerful orators, and as much at home in the management of affairs as those who had made this the study of their life. There was a glorious battle to fight, and a great work to do, on the arena of the church of Scotland,—and in him, as well as in others evidently raised up for the emergency, the Lord had His fitting instruments prepared.

talents in

in the management of

affairs till

then un

known.

Candish.

Dr. Muir had thrown his motion into the form of a series of resolutions. "First of all," said Mr. Candlish, after a brief exordium, "I find expressions Speech of Mr. introduced into these resolutions which, unless carefully explained and strictly guarded, would go far to lay the authority of the church prostrate at the feet of the civil power, not only in questions relating to the admission of ministers, but in other questions also, affecting the most sacred spiritual functions which the church can be called to exercise." In his second

D

Points out the errors,

ple, contain

ed in Dr.

Muir's

solution.

In

CHAP. IX. resolution Dr. Muir had laid it down, "that in passing this act (that of 1834) of her own will, and carrying it both in fact into effect, the church was influenced by the belief that this act, being not only in its nature, but also in second re- its consequences, strictly and purely spiritual, there was no necessity to obtain previously the concurrence of the legislature to it." As Dr. Candlish justly remarked, this statement was really not true. passing the act of 1834, the assembly knew well enough, and could not but know, that "in its consequences" it was not "strictly and purely spiritual." They knew that if the law took effect in the ordinary way, one of its consequences must be to exclude the presentee from the benefice. Why, indeed, did the church follow Mr. Young and Lord Kinnoull into the civil court at all but just because " consequences" were connected with the act 1834 that were not spiritual but civil, and on which, accordingly, the civil court alone was competent to adjudicate? But, furthermore, this statement of the resolution, so incorrect in point of fact, was as unsound in point of principle. If it had any meaning at all it could be only this, that it was ultra vires of the church to pass. any act, however purely and strictly spiritual in its own nature, if only it could be shown to carry, no matter how indirectly and remotely, some civil consequences in its train. It was to this Mr. Candlish alluded, as a principle that would place the church, even in her most spiritual functions, under the entire and absolute control of the courts of law. In a word, it was precisely Dr. Cook's erastian principle somewhat less broadly announced; and their essential