George Crai, 
 
 The Proceedings of the Late General 
 Assemhly regarding the Auchterarder 
 Case considered and defended in an 
 Address to the Parishoners of Sprouston 
 
JUL 21 1983 
 
 BX 9075 .A5 1839 
 
 Craig, George. 
 
 The proceedings of the lat* 
 
 General Assembly regardin< 
 
SEP 16 Ifi 
 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LATE \J 
 
 t^OlOGICAL SE^ 
 
 aENERAL ASSEMBLY ^ 
 
 REGARDING THE 
 
 AUCHTERARDER CASE 
 
 CONSIDERED AND DEFENDED, 
 
 IN AN 
 
 1^ ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE PARISHIONERS OF SPROUSTON. 
 
 BY THE ^y*" 
 
 REV. GEORGE CRAIG. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 WILLIAM COLLINS, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET. 
 
 1839. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 
Glasgow: William Coilins& Co., raiNTERS, North Mdntrosp Sireef. 
 
TO THE PARISHIOJ^IERS OF SPROUSTON. 
 
 Dear Friends and Brethren, 
 
 The late General Assembly, in their proceedings regarding the 
 Auchterarder case, came to the resolution, that the Veto law, notwith- 
 standing the late decision of the House of Lords, is still the ecclesias- 
 tical law of the Church of Scotland. In obedience to that law your 
 Kirk-Session have, as in former years, drawn up a list of the male 
 heads of families, and submitted it to your inspection. As there is a 
 disposition in some minds — a disposition arising from a variety of cir- 
 cumstances peculiar to the present times — to view the resolution re- 
 ferred to, and the whole proceedings connected with it, and conse- 
 quently our conformity to their requirements, as a violation of the law 
 of the land, derogatory to the Church's honour and wisdom, and sub- 
 versive of its prosperity— I therefore deem it a duty which I owe to 
 you, and to the church of which I am a minister, to vindicate, accord- 
 ing to my ability, what I cannot but consider the cause of righteous- 
 ness, honour, and wisdom, and conducive to the Church's truest pro- 
 sperity. 
 
 Before a correct judgment can be formed of the proceedings re- 
 ferred to, an indispensable prerequisite is a just and adequate concep- 
 tion of the source, the nature and extent of what is called the Church's 
 Independence. 
 
 Every parent has a certain amount of power in the government of 
 his family. This power the parent derives, not from the State but from 
 God, who has established the relation of parent and child. The State 
 may interfere with this power, either in the way of augmenting and 
 strengthening, or in the way of curtailing and weakening it; but it 
 is not from the State that it was originally derived. It existed before 
 civil authority had a being. What God has by nature given to 
 parents, he has by sacred Scripture given to every Christian church, 
 viz. a power to regulate its own affairs. Like the former, this power 
 may be countenanced or discountenanced by civil statute, but civil 
 statute did not originally bestow it. And as civil statute did not origin- 
 ally bestow it, so neither can it, without violence and resistance to the 
 authority of the God of Scripture, take it away. Nor is the inherent 
 power of every Christian church merely the power of a voluntary 
 association, formed for the accomplishment of certain specific ends, 
 which that association may surrender, when, and on what terms it 
 pleases. It is a power partaking of the nature and responsibilities of 
 a trust, to surrender which, would be to become unfaithful to Him 
 who invests us with it, and incur his displeasure. 
 
 Here the question presents itself, — How far docs a church, by be- 
 
coming established, lose its original inherent power ; and how far does 
 it owe to the State any power it possesses after establishment? It is 
 quite clear that a church might become established without losing one 
 iota of its original power, namely, by the State simply aiding the 
 Church, by emoluments and civil immunities, in discharging, in its own 
 ■way and according to its own laws, its spiritual functions: so that the 
 mere fact of its being established does not necessarily infer the loss of 
 power, or a change of the source from which it is derived. There 
 certainly might be an establishment which involved botli a loss of power 
 and a change of source from which the power is derived; but what I 
 wish you to observe is, that the mere fact that there are acts of Parlia- 
 ment respecting a church, and conveying to it civil privileges, does 
 not of itself infer the loss of its original power, for these acts may only 
 give, and may receive nothing in return but spiritual services. AH de- 
 pends upon the nature of the acts erecting the Church into an esta- 
 blishment. With respect to the Established Church of Scotland, I 
 may remark, that with the exception of one particular, namely, the 
 mode of the appointment of her ministers, she is by statute untram- 
 meled in the exercise of all her spiritual functions ; and the authority 
 on which she exercises these functions is acknowledged by the statutes 
 themselves to be, not human, but divine — not according to the will of 
 man expressed in civil enactment, but under and according to the will 
 of God expressed in Scripture.^ How far the Church's power is cur- 
 tailed by patronage, and how far she is justified in resisting the enforce- 
 ment of the recent interpretation of the law of patronage, will appear 
 in our subsequent remarks. 
 
 Meanwhile, as to the nature and extent of the power originally and 
 independently of civil enactment belonging to every Christian church; 
 these are to be learned from the same statute which declares its 
 origin — the Bible. And on this point the Bible is fortunately very 
 explicit. From Matth. xviii, 15—19 ; xx, 20—29; Luke, xii, 13, 14; 
 John, xviii, 36, 37; 1 Cor. v, 1 — 6; you will perceive that the power 
 with which Christ has invested his Church is wholly of a spiritual 
 nature, and is to be exercised not upon the persons or property, but 
 upon the hearts and consciences of men. It is power to ascertain and 
 declare from Scripture, matters of doctrine, discipline, worship, and 
 Church government, and to enforce obedience to these not by civil 
 pains and penalties — for these no Christian church has any right to 
 inflict — but by counsel, warning, and rebuke, and in cases of obstinacy, 
 by excommunication and deprivation of religious privileges. It is un- 
 necessary to consider further the nature and extent of a Christian 
 church's power. In any particular question, you have but to ascertain 
 whether it affects spiritual or civil matters, in order to know whether 
 a church has power respecting it. Questions may no doubt arise in 
 which it must be difficult to mark out the distinction between the two; 
 but this does not render the reality of their entire difference a whit 
 less certain; nor does it at all affect the truth of our position, that 
 where the difference is clearly ascertained, the Church and the State 
 
 ' The Act of Parliament, 1392, entitled, " The Ratification of the Liberties of 
 the Trew Kirk," calls the church's power, respecting " matters of heresy, excom- 
 munication, collation, or deprivation of ministers," — " the priuilege thnt God has 
 given to the spiritual office-bearers in the Kirk." 
 
have different and entirely separate spheres. No 'one, for example, 
 can be at a loss to perceive that the act of ordination is wholly 
 spiritual — spiritual not only in the act itself, but in all its necessary 
 preliminaries, such as the ascertaining and pronouncing of the person 
 presented for ordination worthy or unworthy of it — fit or unfit for re- 
 ceiving any or a particular cure of souls. In the whole of this trans- 
 action the Church has to do with sacred, and not with secular matters. 
 The State may no doubt connect certain civil privileges with ordina- 
 tion, and the Church may acquiesce in such connexion ; and both may 
 thereby so merge the sacred in the civil and the civil in the sacred, as 
 to involve in one another their separate spheres of jurisdiction; but 
 they do not thereby destroy their separate rights of jurisdiction. Two 
 men in partnership may have their affairs so involved as to find it diffi- 
 cult to determine how much belongs to each; but such involvement 
 gives no more legal power than formerly to the one over the other. 
 In like manner, the Church and State may so confound tlie sacred and 
 the civil in ordination as to make it difficult to separate tlie one from 
 the other. Yet this confusion does not impair the rights which either 
 has in what belongs to it. Again, the State may cause civil privi- 
 leges to follow ordination, but it cannot without the Church's consent, 
 cause ordination to follow the possession of civil privileges. It is only 
 by a mutual compact between these two originally independent powers, 
 that in ordination the sacred can be made to follow the civil; and 
 when the terms of compact come to be so pressed by either party as 
 to encroach upon the inherent rights of the other, the independence of 
 both is such, that the aggrieved party may, without any injustice, insist 
 either upon a review or a dissolution of the compact. 
 
 The principles which we have attempted to state and illustrate, we 
 shall now proceed to apply to the proceedings of the late Assembly. 
 But before doing so, the two following observations may not be with- 
 out their use in preventing misconception. First, that while every 
 Christian church can legislate respecting spiritual matters only, it may 
 nevertheless possess and manage property and enjoy civil immunities; yet 
 when it does so, it is subject to the State, not independent of it — sub- 
 ject to it in precisely the same sense and to the same extent as any 
 private individual or body corporate. Secondly, that while every 
 Christian church is independent of the State in the sense described, 
 the State is thus far superior to every Christian church, namely, it has 
 a right to see that no church promulgate any doctrine or inculcate 
 any practice subversive of order and good government. This is, it is 
 true, a power vvhich is liable to abuse when called into exercise. Yet 
 it is a power which the State may exercise, and which it has more 
 than once lawfully exercised; as in the case of the Anabaptists of 
 Germany, and the usurpations of Popery. 
 
 We now proceed to observe, that while originally independent the 
 one of the other, the civil and the ecclesiastical powers may combine 
 ,and co-operate for the attainment of a common spiritual object, such 
 as the christianization of the people. But in doing so, no church is 
 at liberty to surrender the power with which its Supreme Head has 
 invested it, and no state ought to expect it to do so. Accordingly, 
 the Church of Scotland, independently of civil interference,' has de- 
 
 ' It is an interesting iiml important faet, that the Church of Scotland had existed 
 several years, had instituted Kirk Sessions, Provincial Synods, and the General 
 
dared its doctrine, discipline, form of worship, and church governmont, 
 in the Confession of Faith, and Larger and Shorter Catechisms. 
 The State lias declared its approbation of these, and by its countenance 
 and support, wisely, and as becomes a Christian state aids in their dis- 
 semination among the people. 
 
 The principles upon which this union and co-operation proceed are 
 embodied in certain acts of Parliament, which guarantee certain privi- 
 leges and immunities in return for certain spiritual services. Certain 
 of these acts relate to patronage, and give to patrons the power to 
 nominate, but reserve to the Church the power to examine, approve, 
 and ordain to the pastoral office. While the acts of Parliament 
 are explicit thus far, there is, however, room to differ as to the 
 precise meaning of the provisions which they make, respecting the 
 qualifications which should be required before ordination. The 
 Church has uniformly held, that fitness for the particular charge and 
 acceptableness to the people are part of those qualifications; but 
 because in the practice of the Church courts, this part of the qualifica- 
 tions had been all but uniformly overlooked, to the great detriment 
 and discontent of the people — because this practical surrender of a 
 most important portion of their ov/n and the people's rights was 
 bt.'lieved to have been made from too great deference to patrons and 
 presentees, and from personal and peculiar views of Church polity, 
 and not in conformity to authoritative statute ; — for these reasons, in 
 order to restore the practice to what they considered the statute law 
 respecting patronage, the Assembly, five years ago, enacted what has 
 been called the Veto law, — the object of which was, to secure, as far 
 as was practicable, the appointment of a Jit and acceptable minister at 
 every settlement. 
 
 That the passing of that law was not beyond their power, the As* 
 sembly concluded, 
 
 1st. From their own interpretation of the statutes relating to 
 patronage. Here I may observe that the Assembly have some claims 
 to be considered not altogether incompetent judges in a question of 
 this nature. For, in order to come to a correct judgment on the 
 present question, there is required an accurate knowledge of the con- 
 stitution of the Church of Scotland, as well as of the technical 
 phraseology of legal statute: and if the civil lawyer has the advantage 
 of the Assembly in the latter kind of knowledge, the Assembly have 
 the advantage of the civil lawyer in the former kind of knowledge, — 
 which is perhaps the more important of the two, for the doubtful 
 phraseology of special statute should be made to yield to constitutional 
 principles, and not constitutional principles to the doubtful phraseology 
 of special statute. 
 
 2nd. From the concurrent opinions of the law officers of the crown, 
 as well as of other lawyers whom the Assembly consulted before 
 
 Assembly, and in these courts had exercised all the functions which she now 
 exercises, before she received the sanction and assistance of tlie State. It is also 
 an important fact that the Westminster Confession of Faith was examined, ap- 
 proved, and adopted by the Assembly, as the confession of the faith of the Church 
 of Scotland, before it was ratified by Parliament. The Assembly, in the exercise 
 of their independent spiritual functions, first adopted the Confession : the Stale, in 
 the exercise of her independent civil functions, afterwards ajjprovcd, article by 
 article, of tiie whole Confession, as adopted by the Church. 
 
proceeding with the enactment — which consultation on their part 
 completely vindicates them from the unfounded calumny, that they 
 had made a rash and unwarrantable encroachment upon the statutory 
 rights of patrons and presentees. 
 
 3rd. From the practice of the Church, even when patronage was 
 most rigorously exercised — in causing the presentee to preach before 
 the congregation before he could be taken on trials by the Presbytery ,' 
 and in formally calling on the people to say whether they acquiesced 
 in the appointment of the minister; both of which forms of procedure 
 evidently imply, that the mind of the people must be consulted before 
 ordination could legally take place. 
 
 And that their opinion is not even yet without foundation, appears 
 from its concurrence with the opinion of no less than five out of the 
 thirteen Lords of Session — from the concurrent practice, if not the 
 concurrent opinion of her Majesty's government, who have hitherto 
 acquiesced in the legality of the enactment of the Veto law, by sub- 
 mitting to its operation even when rejecting the presentee — from the 
 concurrent opinion of those lay patrons who, in the late Assembly 
 supported the motion of Dr. Chalmers— and 1 doubt not tliere are 
 others. 
 
 The late decision of the House of Lords, however, taken in con- 
 nection with the judicially announced principles upon which that de- 
 cision proceeds, has now made it apparent that patronage, as inter- 
 preted by the highest judicial court in the land, is not what the 
 Assembly believed it to be, but on the contrary is, in their judgment, 
 both subversive of the spiritual independence of the Church as a 
 Ciiristian church, and inconsistent with what they consider its consti- 
 tutional rights as the Established church of this portion of the empire. 
 They have therefore by the late proceedings, in effect declared, that 
 they cannot surrender their spiritual independence in such an impor. 
 tant matter as the appointment and ordination of their ministers; and, 
 in order to preserve the countenance and co-operation of the Govern- 
 ment in their spiritual calling, they have resolved to adopt means to 
 recover what they conceive to be their constitutional rights as the estab- 
 lishment. This they have done temperately, respectfully to the Go- 
 vernment, and in entire conformity to the law. Many of her enemies — 
 rashly and inconsistently, and some of her friends and members — unna- 
 turally, and seemingly without regret, characterise her conduct in 
 doing so, as ambitious and rebellious; but were they, calndy and as 
 religious men, to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the 
 facts of the case and the nature of the question, and were they at the 
 same time to consider what consequences implicit submission would 
 entail upon the Church, not only as a Christian, but as the Established 
 church — the loss of her character, the loss of her best ministers and 
 
 ' That ilie call, or concurrence of the peoijic, was not in every case a mere form, 
 will appear from the following, wliicli I give in the words of anollier; — " It is no- 
 liirioiis tliat the Cliurcli acted on tiiis principle (llie i)rii)eiple of non-intrusion) in 
 cases innumerable, and that under tiie law of Patronage, which exists at this present 
 hour. The case of I\Ii ror in 1710, tl'.at of tlie palish of Manor in MVi, iliat of 
 Higi,'ar in 1752, tiio^e of St. Ninians and Glendevon in 17G8, were all cases in 
 which the call was rejected for want of the concmrence of tlie i>coplc, and tlie jtic- 
 sentee set in consequence aside — and in not one of these cases did tlie jJiitroii or Hk; 
 presentee attempt to ijucstioii tiip Ciiureh's judgment in doing so. 
 
8 
 
 most religious members, the loss of her own chartered rights and of 
 her usefulBtss as an establishment, the loss of the respect of men 
 and of the favour of God, they would, if they were unable to approve 
 of her proceedings, at least judge less severely of the motives which 
 dictated them; and before condemning the Assembly for the length to 
 which they have gone, show the point, short of implicit submission 
 and consequent servile subjection, at which they could have stopped. 
 If the Assembly have been guilty of rebellion, this much at least may 
 be said in their behalf, "It is better to obey God than man:" for if 
 they are responsible to their spiritual Head for the power in spiritual 
 matters with which He has intrusted them, they are called upon at all 
 hazards to vindicate the integrity of their trust. 
 
 But the idea of rebellion arises from a mistaken view of the relation 
 in which the Church stands to the State in the present question. That 
 relation is not the relation which subsists between a subject and a 
 sovereign, but that which subsists between two independent, co-ordi- 
 nate, contracting parties. The Church, no doubt, when viewed in another 
 aspect, stands with respect to the State in the relation of the subject 
 to the sovereign; but, just in the sense in which every voluntary church 
 is subject to the sovereign. In the present question, however, which 
 is one of privilege and not of allegiance, the attitude in which the 
 Church and State stand to each other, is that of two men differing as to 
 the terms of a contract, and endeavouring to come to an under- 
 standing as to their precise meaning. 
 
 In order to illustrate the reality and the difference of the twofold 
 relation which subsists between the Church and the State, you may 
 take the following example : A government purveyor of military or 
 naval stores, is both a subject and an independent party contracting 
 with the State. As a subject, he is bound by the laws of the land, and 
 cannot disobey them without violating his allegiance. But as a party 
 entering into a contract of purveyance, he stands on a footing of entire 
 equality with the State, and may therefore, without violating his duty to 
 the State, differ from it as to the meaning of the terms of contract, and 
 adopt means to come to an amicable arrangement. The courts of law 
 may, no doubt, give an authoritative deliverance as to the true meaning 
 of the terms of contract, and as a subject he is bound to obey that 
 deliverance ; but if he has it in his power both to obey that deliverance, 
 and at the same time to adopt means for the preservation of some 
 essential rights upon which it makes encroachment, surely no one will 
 say, that while he does the one, he is to be prevented from doing the 
 other. Now, this I conceive to be the true view of the position in 
 which the Church stands toward the State. These two independent, 
 co-ordinate parties, have come to differ as to the terms of compact. 
 The civil courts have given an authoritative decision on the subject. 
 Obedience, it will by and by be seen, has been given to tliat decision, 
 in so far as can with any justice be required; and, in as much as that 
 decision trenches upon what the Church considers her chartered as 
 well as inherent rights and independence, she is- now endeavouring 
 to obtain such a modification of the terms of compact, as shall preserve 
 entire the liberties which she cannot surrender, without proving un- 
 faithful to her spiritual Head, and incurring his displeasure, besides sa- 
 crificing her own usefulness both as a Christian and as an Established 
 
9 
 
 Church. In doing this, I have yet failed to perceive, that she is doing 
 any thing inconsistent with her duty to civil authority. Were two 
 men to unite in the prosecution of any business on certain specified 
 terms, and were a new or unreasonably stringent meaning, after a lapse 
 of time, to be put upon the terms of contract by the one, surely the 
 other might, without disrespect or injustice, at least demur and remon- 
 strate. In like manner, if the State by its courts of law, attach a 
 meaning to the statutes respecting patronage which the Church believes 
 to be unreasonably stringent, if not entirely new — and that they have 
 done so, is believed not by a part only of the Church, but by the whole 
 Church in both its parties — I cannot see that there is disloyalty or even 
 disrespect in demurring and remonstrating, especially when silent ac- 
 quiescence would be followed by results most detrimental to its 
 character, purity, independence, and prosperity. 
 
 I have hitherto reasoned on the supposition, that it is with the State 
 that the Church is at present in collision. But I apprehend that it 
 is not strictly correct to reason on such a supposition. It is with 
 the courts of law that the Church is at present in collision. The 
 courts of law have given a decision on principles, which the Church 
 considers subversive of her constitutional rights and liberties ; and 
 she is appealing to the State or legislature for protection, and 
 where is there rebellion in her procedure when it is viewed in this 
 light? Were the courts of justice te give a decision, which infringed 
 on any of the provisions of Magna Charta, would it be rebellion in the 
 people to appeal to Parliament for protection against that decision? 
 Were an appeal carried from the Court of Admiralty to the House 
 of Lords, and the decision of the Admiralty reversed there on prin- 
 ciples subversive of what the Admiralty conceived to be their con- 
 stitutional privileges, would it be rebellion in that court to appeal to 
 Parliament for protection, or even to refuse submission by surrender- 
 ing their privileges, till they had done so ? Parliament may, no doubt, 
 in the end support the civil courts, but till it has done so, and the 
 Church resisted, she cannot with any show of reason be called 
 rebellious. 
 
 But the loisdom and prudence of the Assembly's procedure have 
 been called in question by those who are the Church's friends — with 
 what justice, a consideration of the diiferent motions proposed for the 
 adoption of the Assembly, will enable you to determine. The motions 
 were three in number, and were proposed by Drs. Cook, Muir, and 
 Chalmers. To avoid confusion and embarrassment in the remarks 
 about to be submitted to your consideration, I shall leave unnoticed 
 the motion of Dr. Muir, because it will be admitted by all who have 
 seen and weighed it, that had it been carried, it must, when it came 
 to be acted on, have become substantially either that of Dr. Cook, or 
 that of Dr. Chalmers. There is no midway procedure which a com- 
 mittee appointed under Dr. Muir's motion could have adopted when 
 they came to act; so that all that would have been gained by it would 
 have been probable division and certain procrastination. 
 
 Dr. Cook's motion was as follows: — 
 
 It is moved, That the act on calls, commonly denominated the 
 Veto act, having been declared by the supreme civil tribunals of the 
 
10 
 
 country, to infringe on civil and patrimonial rights, with which the 
 Church has often and expressly required that its judicatories should 
 not intermeddle, as being matters incompetent to them, and not within 
 their jurisdiction, it be an instruction by the General Assembly to 
 all Presbyteries, that they proceed henceforth in the settlement of 
 parishes according to the practice which prevailed previously to the 
 passing of that act; keeping specially in view the undoubted privilege 
 of parishioners to state, at the moderation in the call, any relevant ob- 
 jections to the induction of presentees; upon which Presbyteries, after 
 hearing parties, shall decide, — it being in the power of parties to ap- 
 peal, if they see cause, to the superior Church courts. 
 To this motion I would object, 
 
 I. Because it proposes an unlawful surrender of spiritual power on 
 the part of the Church. It is well known, that the judicial' opinions of 
 the Lord Chancellor and Lord Brougham, respecting patronage, render 
 all but absolute what was by every one believed to be subject to 
 important limitations. These opinions strike at the root not only of 
 the views held by Dr. Chalmers and his majority, but of those also 
 held by Dr. Cook and his minority; so that the Assembly may be 
 viewed as unanimous in its opposition, if not to the decision itself 
 which the judges have given in the Auchterarder case, to the avowed 
 principles upon which that decision is founded. And well may they 
 be so; for those principles, beyond all doubt, involve the two follow- 
 ing, viz. 
 
 1st. That our Church courts have no right to consult the wishes 
 and peculiar wants of the parish in the settlement of any minister. 
 Our Churcii couifs are thus deprived of a power which all parties 
 believed to be not only originally and independently of civil enactment 
 inherent in them; but which they believed to be reserved to them by 
 the statute law of the land. 
 
 2ndly. That however objectionable a man may be in point of doc- 
 trine and in point of moral and religious character, if he be only so 
 good as not to give ground for libel, and such a libel too as can be 
 established and carried successfully through numerous and vexatious 
 appeals — and who knows not how bad a man may be, and yet defy the 
 few and sluggish forms of libel to touch him — that however bad a man 
 may be, not only in the estimation of the people, but in the conscien- 
 tious belief of the Church courts themselves, if he cannot be convicted 
 by libel, he can enforce ordination and induction to the cure of souls. 
 Now, who that knows what the constitution and principles of the 
 Church of Scotland are — who that knows what the principles and 
 constitution of every Christian church ought to be, will be bold enough 
 
 ' I speak of the opinions, not the decision, of the Lord Cliancellorand Lord Brougham, 
 because they are a judicial interpretation of tlie law of patronage. An attempt is 
 made by some to distinguish between tlie decision and the oj)inions, for the purpose 
 of separating t)ie one from tlie other. But let it be asked, 1st. Whether the de- 
 cision could have been given without the opinions. 2nd. Whether the opinions 
 would not have been taken as the guide of the Churcli in her subsequent conduct, 
 bad she submitted. 3rd. Whether the opinions would not have been held 
 as, so far at least, a ground of decision in any future case, both in the Court of 
 Session and in the House of Lords, both by juesent and future judges; and it will 
 then be seen with what propriety the attetnptcd distinction and separation arc 
 made. 
 
11 
 
 to say, that a patronage such as this ought to be implicitly complied 
 with ? To comply with it, would not only be to come under a grie- 
 vous yoke, but to sell our spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage ; 
 would be to open with our own hands the most sacred recesses of our 
 Sanctuary to the inroads of the unprincipled and profane; would be 
 to prove most culpably unfaithful to our spiritual Sovereign. Ac- 
 cordingly, rather than do so, the late Assembly have deliberately, with 
 open eyes, and in perilous times, chosen to put to hazard all the ad- 
 vantages and civil privileges which they possess as an Establishment, 
 well satisfied that, were they to allow the secular to trench so exten- 
 sively upon the spiritual, in such a vital matter as the appointment and 
 ordination of her ministers, they would prove traitors to their heavenly 
 Master, degrade themselves, ojien a wide and effectual door to corrup- 
 tion in the clergy, and through the clergy to unsound doctrine and 
 irreligion in the people, frustrate the ends of an establishment, and 
 permit, nay countenance, tlie State in converting one of its most 
 powerful instruments for doing good, into an instrument of serious 
 evil. 
 
 To Dr. Cook's motion I would object, 
 
 II. Because it proposes, tliat the General Assembly should be guilty of 
 a most disgraceful inconsistency in themselves, and treachery towards 
 the members of their communion. The Assembly has frequently 
 during its history, and repeatedly of late years, declared, tliat it is con- 
 trary to the constitution of the Church as established by law, to force 
 a minister upon a reclaiming people; and Dr. Cook and his supporters 
 still maintain, that it is contrary to the constitution of the Church as 
 established by law, to force a minister upon a parish without giving 
 the parishioners an opportunity of stating their objections to him on 
 points of fitness and acceptableness. But according to the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and Lord Brougham, our church courts have no power to con- 
 sult the wishes or attend to the peculiar wants of the parishioners; 
 their Lordshij)s maintaining, that to whatever extent they do so, 
 tliey interfere with the civil rights of patrons, and that the church 
 courts are bound to ordain a presentee, if they cannot libel and prove 
 him guilty of erroneous doctrine or immoral conduct. Yet Dr. Cook's 
 motion virtually proposes that the Assembly should set aside all their 
 own solemn and repeated declarations, and fix the brand of incon- 
 sistency, not only on themselves but on him, by declaring that what 
 they have hitherto held, and still hold to be within their power, is not 
 within their power — and to do this without a single reclaiming syllable, 
 against what they consider, and against wliat he himself cannot but 
 consider, an invasion of their constitutional privileges. 
 
 But I have said that Dr. Cook's motion is fraught with treachery 
 towards the members of our communion. The Assembly are the 
 guardians of their rights ; and it is chiefly as guardians of the people's 
 rights that they are acting in the whole of this controversy. But to 
 adopt Dr. Cook's motion would be to make an entire surrender of these 
 rights; would be to betray the otherwise helpless; would be to betray 
 those for whose good they exist as an Assembly, and for whose good 
 it is that there is such a tiling as pastoral relationship. 
 
 To Dr. Cook's motion I would object, 
 
 II f. Because it offers no security against the enormous evils which are 
 inseparable from such a patronage as the Chancellor's judicial exposi- 
 
12 
 
 tion of the law prescribes. It proposes, indeed, the resumption of the 
 practice, in the settlement of ministers, which prevailed before the 
 enactment of the Veto law. But I need not insist on the evils inhe- 
 rent in ])atronage, and which were rather augmented than mitigated 
 by the practice which prevailed before the passing of the Veto law. 
 In those settlements in which there was any mitigation, the cause of 
 the mitigation is to be found in that very thing which the Lord Chan- 
 cellor and Lord Brougham have declared to be illegal, namely, the 
 consulting of the wishes and peculiar wants of the people. The prac- 
 tice which prevailed before the passing of the Veto law, was practice 
 under a patronage which was understood, both by the Church and by 
 patrons, to be much more restricted than it has now been authorita- 
 tively declared to be. To return to that practice with a more unlimited 
 and more strictly defined patronage, would be to return to the very 
 evil in a more inveterate and unmanageable form, which the Veto law 
 was intended to destroy. For it is not to be supposed, that a patron 
 or a presentee, who will not scruple to drag the church into the civil 
 courts, rather than give up an obnoxious power, whose legality is at 
 the time questionable, will have any scruple in compelling the mem- 
 bers of the Church courts, by pains and penalties, to do violence to 
 their consciences, by performing the most solemn of services, by con- 
 ferring the most sacred of privileges, and by instituting the most mo- 
 mentous of relationships, under the constraint of what they cannot but 
 consider an unscriptural exercise of power. Let a return be made to 
 the old practice under the new interpretation of the law of patronage, 
 and unless you suppose a vast improvement in human nature, amount- 
 ing to a moral regeneration, cases will soon and frequently arise, in 
 which both patrons and presentees will urge their rights to the very utmost 
 — and the worse the men are, and the more imperative on the Church 
 courts to resist them, the more urgent and inexorable will they become; 
 so that the Church would soon be brought to the alternative of either 
 assuming the position which she now occupies — and in far more un- 
 favourable circumstances, or of becoming so servile and corrupt as 
 wholly to frustrate the end of her institution. Against such a result 
 as this Dr. Cook's motion offers no security. 
 
 IV. My fourth objection to Dr. Cook's motion is, that it proposes 
 what is substantially as much a contravention of the rights of patrons 
 as that of Dr. Chalmers. One object which Dr. Cook's motion 
 professes to keep in view, is the non-infringement of the rights of 
 patrons; yet that motion contains these words, "keeping specially in 
 view the undoubted privilege of parishioners to state at the moderation 
 in the call any relevant objections to the induction of the presentee." 
 Does Dr. Cook include under the term " relevant," objections relating 
 to fitness and acceptableness ? If he has not surrendered to a legal 
 opinion, his often expressed convictions as to the powers of the Church, 
 he must include in that term fitness and acceptableness. But he has 
 in effect told the Assembly, that he does include these qualifications 
 under that term, by proposing the following addition to his motion. 
 " And also keeping in view what was laid down and sanctioned by the 
 Assembly of 1639, agreeably to the resolution of former Assemblies, 
 that all ministers and licentiates presented to Kirks be tried before 
 admission as to their literary and theological attainments, and their 
 
13 
 
 fitness for the parish, beyond the ordinary trials of expectants before 
 they enter upon the ministry." 
 
 So that our argument is shortly this: Dr. Cook has all along held 
 and continues to hold, that it would be no infringement of the law of 
 patronage, as he understands it, if the Presbytery rejected a presentee 
 because he was found by them unfit for the particular parish to which 
 he was presented ; and his motion proposes that the Church courts 
 should continue to exercise that power. But Lord Brougham, in his 
 exposition of the law of patronage, makes the very supposition of a 
 Presbytery rejecting a presentee on the ground of unfitness, and holds 
 that if they did so, they would infringe on the rights of patrons. 
 Hence you perceive that Dr. Cook's motion is in substance as directly 
 at variance with the declared law of patronage as that of Dr. Chalmers, 
 and is as fraught with the rebellion which is alleged against it. 
 
 Any one of the above objections is fatal to Dr. Cook's motion, but 
 taken together they may well excite a painful regret that that motion 
 should have found any and such an advocate in our Assembly. 
 
 The substance of Dr. Chalmers's motion is as follows — To offer no 
 further resistance to the claims of Mr. Young or of the Patron to the 
 emoluments of the benefice of Auchterarder, or to any other civil right 
 or privilege connected with the said benefice, — to maintain inviolate 
 the principle of non-intrusion as an integral part of the Church's con- 
 stitution, and to appoint a Committee, for the purpose of considering 
 in what way the privileges of the National Establishment, and the 
 harmony between Church and State may remain unimpaired, with in- 
 structions to confer with the government of the country if they see 
 cause. 
 
 This motion claims our approbation, 
 
 I. Because it preserves entire the Church's consistency and integrity. 
 The Church might preserve consistency at the expense of integrity. 
 But the consistency, in the present instance, is in the preservation of 
 its integrity. The consistency is admitted as also the integrity, in so 
 far as her own rights are concerned, but in so lar as regards her duty 
 to the State, the integrity is denied. I therefore remark that Dr. 
 Chalmers's motion claims our approbation, 
 
 II. Because it yields all the submission to the decision of the House 
 of Lords that can with any justice be asked, and all she has it in her 
 power to give. It makes an entire surrender of the stipend and other 
 emoluments to the parties in whose behalf the decision has been given. 
 It is no objection to the reality and completeness of that surrender, 
 that the parties to whom it has been made, encounter difficulty in re- 
 covering the emoluments; for these difficulties arise not from the in- 
 completeness in the surrender, but from the defectiveness of the law of 
 recovery in this particular case : and it surely cannot be expected that 
 the Assembly, in order to facilitate the recovery of that which the 
 Earl of Kinnoul and the presentee have obtained by what is considered 
 an unconstitutional decision, should give up more than they can by 
 law be required to do, and bring themselves into circumstances in 
 which it would be impossible for them to get that decision peacefully, 
 constitutionally, and successfully rectified. 
 
 But there seems to be a general impression that the law claims ordi- 
 nation and induction as well as the emoluments, and that till these be 
 granted, the Church's obedience is incomplete. But upon what this 
 
u 
 
 Impression rests, it will be difficult for any one to show. The very 
 opposite may be shown from the express terms of the statute : for, con- 
 templating the possibility of a refusal on the part of the church courts 
 to ordain and induct, the Act of Parliament, 1592, contains the fol- 
 lowing explicit provision : " Providing always, in case the Presbytery 
 refuses to admit any qualitied minister, presented to them by the patron, 
 it shall be lawful to the patron to retain the whole fruits of the said 
 benefice in his own hands," How such an express provision can be made 
 compatible with the claims to ordination and induction as a civil right, 
 I am unable to understand. In former times it was deemed enough 
 to surrender the emoluments ;^ and, had it not been that her late pro- 
 ceedings manifested a greater jealousy respecting her spiritual privi- 
 leges, than her enemies and the abettors of Erastianism and arbitrary 
 power cared to see exhibited, the surrender of the emoluments would 
 still have been deemed sufficient — and would have been reasonably 
 deemed sufficient; for from her first establisliment, and down through 
 all her subsequent history, she has held it to be a fundamental 
 principle that, while the civil is wholly at the disposal of the State, the 
 spiritual is wholly at her own disposal ; and that if the Church and 
 State come to differ on any point, the one may withhold the civil and 
 the other the spiritual with equal justice. This principle she has so 
 frequently from first to last exemplified, that nothing short of an ex- 
 press condition in the articles of agreement will sanction the doctrine 
 we are attempting to expose. But no such express condition can be 
 adduced in support of such a doctrine. All that can be said in sup- 
 port of such a doctrine is, that by withholding ordination and induc- 
 tion, the Church has not kept faith with the State, according to the 
 statutory terms of compact, as these have been interjireted hi/ the Lord 
 Chancellor and Lord Brougham. But it is enough to say in reply, 
 that the Church has never promised to give what the new interpreta- 
 tion of the law of patronage demands ; that the demand is now made 
 for the first time ; and that therefore she cannot be viewed as having 
 broken faith with respect to a promise which was never given. 
 
 Nay more : it may with justice be urged, that the law of patronage 
 is not correctly spoken of as a part of the original terms of compact. 
 The terms of compact are to be found in the various acts which were 
 ratified at the union of the two kingdoms, on the provisions of which 
 patronage was a subsequent clear infringement — an infringement 
 against which the Church has ever since less or more protested : and 
 now that, by the recent interpretation of the law of patronage, that 
 infringement has been carried so far as to deprive the Church of any 
 power peculiarly her own — carried so far as to convert her into a crea- 
 
 ' It is well known, that there have been instances in which the church courts 
 have oidaiiied other than the legal presentees. In these instances the only civil 
 consequence that ensued, was the surrender of the fruits of tiie benefice. No at- 
 tempt was made to compel the Presbytery to give ordination as a civil right. " In 
 the only case in which they were asked to do this — that of Dimse in 1749 — they 
 pointedly refused. In that case the plea was urged " — in the civil courts — "that 
 the Presbytery ought to be discharged to moderate in a call at large, or to settle 
 any other man; and Lord Monboddo, in his report of the case states, that the 
 Lords refused to meddle with tliis because this was interfering with the power of 
 ordination and the internal policy of the Church, with which the Lords thought 
 they had nothing to do." 
 
15 
 
 ture of the State — a creature so servile, as not to be allowed any 
 independent liberty of judgment or of action ; now tiiat all this is done, 
 not on the ground of the original terms of compact, but on the ground 
 of an enactment which contravenes, if not the letter, at all events the 
 spirit of the original terms of compact, may not the charge of want 
 of faith be urged with greater justice against the State than against 
 the Church ? 
 
 Besides, let the Church's primary responsibility — that is, her re- 
 sponsibility to her spiritual Head, be kept steadily in view, then, even 
 supposing that she had made a promise which she afterwards came to 
 see it is scripturally unlawful to fulfill, I venture to affirm that honour 
 and duty are to be found in the breach and not in the observance, 
 I claim not infallibility for our Church, but I claim for her the appro- 
 bation of every well constituted mind and well regulated heart, if, 
 when she errs against her spiritual Head, she, as soon as it is discovered, 
 corrects the error, even though it be at the expense of displeasing and 
 breaking her compact with the State. But I hold that she has not 
 erred by acting unfairly toward the State ; on the contrary, I hold that 
 she has acted with a wisdom, an uprightness, a consistency, a modera- 
 tion, and a self-denial, to which few parallels will be found in the his- 
 tory of any body of men, so numerous and so varied in character and 
 circumstances — with a wisdom, an uprightness, a consistency, a mo- 
 deration, and a self-denial, which can be accounted for, only by refer- 
 ing to the high moral and religious principles which dictated their 
 proceedings. 
 
 The Church, I repeat it, has surrendered all claim to the temporali- 
 ties ; and let me now add that more than this she had it not in her 
 power to do. She is no more at liberty to barter away her spiritual 
 rights, than a man is to barter away the rights of conscience ; and, 
 as the rights of conscience are not understood to be surrendered by 
 any paction into which a man may enter with his neighbour or the 
 Government ; so no general agreement into which the Church may 
 enter with the State, ought to be held as a surrender of that which she 
 is not at liberty to give, especially when no enactment can be cited by 
 which she has done so ; when, on the contrary, she has so often by 
 word and deed declared, that she has never done so. The Church is 
 originally and inherently the sole, at least the final judge, as to who 
 are entitled to her spiritual privileges, and is unable, without a dere- 
 liction of duty to her spiritual Head, to give up this power to the State ; 
 so that if the Church and the State come to differ respecting a pre- 
 sentee, all that the Church can do, is to give up all claim to the 
 emoluments. 
 
 If it be said that in the present case she ought to have thrown up 
 the emoluments, not only of the parish respecting which the differ- 
 ence has arisen, but of every parish ; in short, that she ought to 
 have thrown up all her privileges as an establishment : I answer, 
 that she has virtually declared that she has no other alternative ; 
 and that, if the State continue to demand what she has not in her 
 power to give except at the expense of losing that which no emo- 
 luments can countervail — she is prepared to do so. But believino- 
 that the interpretation of the law, by which the partial demand hat 
 been made, and to her utmost complied with, must be as new to the 
 
16 
 
 government as it is to herself— must appear to the government as un- 
 reasonable and unconstitutional as it appears to her to be, it was the 
 course of wisdom and of duty, and I apprehend of respect too, to 
 confer with the government, before taking so violent and so precipi- 
 tate a step as a dissolution of the compact. To have taken so violent 
 and precipitate a step would have been to act like peevish children — 
 would have been to endanger the peace of the Church and of the 
 country — would have been to provoke Government to abandon their 
 incumbent duty of harmoniously co-operating with the Church, in the 
 promotion of Christian truth and righteousness. 
 
 If it be said that provocation to this effect has been already given, 
 then I have only to express my hope, that Government is more reason- 
 able than many of the Church's enemies and injudicious friends; and 
 that, if it is not so, the provocation has been causelessly taken — 
 certainly it has not been purposely given, by the Church's defence of 
 a principle, the abandonment of which would have brought the sin of 
 treachery upon themselves — the sin of rebellion against the King of 
 kings upon the State. I protest against the merely secular view which 
 has been taken of this purely and momentously religious question. I 
 deprecate that thorough worldliness, to call it by no stronger name, (for 
 it seems to me to come little short of impiety,) which would give all 
 the prominence to the civil and the secular, and engross all the par- 
 tiality in their favour, and keep" so completely out of view the spiritual 
 and religious. It is one of the most striking and important features 
 of the Gospel economy, that it represents all civil and sacred matters 
 as being in the hands and under the control of the once crucified 
 but now exalted Saviour. He is King of kings and Head of the 
 body, the church. But why is he King of kings ? Why, but that 
 he may not only rule, but be obeyed ; and that his honour may be 
 consulted not only by earthly subjects but by earthly potentates. 
 And why is he the Head ? The apostle tells us, " That in all things 
 he might have the pre-eminence" — the pre-eminence in our affections, 
 in our views of civil and religious policy, and in our efforts to promote 
 the present and eternal wellbeing of man. Let the proceedings of the 
 late Assembly be considered by men who are truly and habitually im- 
 pressed with this fact in the economy of grace, by men whose reason- 
 ings respecting this purely religious controversy are unperverted by 
 worldly policy, personal interest, or political prejudice — by men who, 
 from a devout and heavenly-minded spirit, desire to consult what is 
 most for the glory of God, the good of immortal souls, and the purity, 
 efficiency, and permanence of the church of Christ, and the result will 
 be, a greater unanimity in the conclusions to which they come, and a 
 greater Christian charity towards those who still may differ. 
 
 That you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wis- 
 dom and spiritual understanding — that you may walk worthy of the 
 Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every gouil work, and increas- 
 ing in the knowledge of God," is the earnest prayer of your affectionate 
 Pastor. George Craig. 
 
 EU BY W. COI.MNS & CO., GLASGOW, 
 
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