During the negotiations which led up to the Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England in 1707, in order to prevent in all time coming the changing of the national religion and form of Church government in Scotland—for Episcopacy or any other form of religion and Church government, in any way different from or derogatory to the true Protestant religion and Presbyterian Church government established and endowed as at that time in Scotland—the Scottish Parliament, in 1706, passed the Act of Security. In this Act it is expressly stated: “That this Act of Parliament, and settlement therein contained [the true Protestant religion and Presbyterian Church government, discipline and worship] shall be insert and repeated in any Act of Parliament that shall pass, for Agreeing and Concluding the foresaid Treaty of Union betwixt the Two Kingdoms; and that the same shall be therein expressly declared to be a Fundamental and Essential Condition of the said Treaty of Union in all Time coming. WHICH ARTICLES OF UNION, and Act immediately, above written, Her Majesty, with advice and consent foresaid; Statutes, Enacts, and Ordains to be, and continue in all Time coming, the sure and perpetual Foundation of a complete and entire Union of the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England under this express Condition and Provision, that the Approbation and Ratification of the foresaid Articles and Act, shall be nowise binding on this Kingdom, until the said Articles and Act be Ratified, Approven, and Confirmed by Her Majesty, with, and by the Authority of the Parliament of England, as they are now Agreed to, Approven, and Confirmed by Her Majesty, with, and by the Authority of the Parliament of Scotland.”
“As required by this Act the whole Act of Security is appended to and forms part—and the Foundation—of the Act of Union passed by the Parliament of Scotland in 1707, and the Articles of that Scots’ Act of Union, including the Act of Security as Fundamental to the Union, was Agreed, Approven, and Confirmed by the Parliament of England at Westminster, in its Act of Union of the Two Kingdoms in 1707; and the Scottish Act of Security is contained as a fundamental Condition of Union—and stated to be so—in The Exemplification under the Great Seal of England, of the Act of the Parliament of that Kingdom, Intituled, An Act for a Union of the Two Kingdoms of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND, as the same was Transmitted to the Parliament of Scotland, and Ordered to be Recorded.“
The Scots also require that the Monarch be bound officially by Oath to maintain inviolate the true Protestant religion and Presbyterian Church government in the Church of Scotland, and this Oath the Monarch is required to take within forty-eight hours of his or her accession to the throne.
The Scots Parliament and people insisted on this double security of the Oath, and the Foundation of the Act of Union, because Presbyterian Church government is that which is set forth in the Scriptures, and, besides being of Divine appointment, it is the most representative, democratic, the strongest, and most flexible form of government known.
Mr. Finlay Beaton, elder, Inverness, sent us a copy of the Act of Security, as above, and the following personal observations along with it, which we take the liberty of publishing here, viz.: “You will have noted, as reported in the press, that the Government intend, in their proposed reform of the House of Lords, to give direct representation in that House to the Church of Scotland on the same basis as that presently held by the Church of England, by giving seats in the House of Lords to some of the ministerial leaders of the Church of Scotland, that is, they are to be made—or at least the proposal is to be advanced—Lords Spiritual in being made life Peers, as the Prelates of the Church of England are designated in that House.
“Now the pastor or the minister of the gospel is forbidden to be a lord over God’s heritage. He is to give himself wholly to the work of the pastorate, feeding and ruling the Lord’s flock. Further, a Prelate or Lord Spiritual with a seat in the House of Lords is a very different functionary from the New Testament bishop or elder. The apostle Peter called himself an elder, not a Lord Spiritual or Prelate. Again, this proposal mixes up the kingdoms of this world with the Kingdom of Christ, an evil which the British reformers maintained tended to greatly corrupt the Church of Rome.
“Furthermore, this proposal is a political, religious and ecclesiastical matter, and the religious and ecclesiastical are fundamental. Nevertheless, this Government proposes to foist upon Scotland the Church of England form of Episcopacy or Prelacy for which they have no mandate; for this is implied in turning some of the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in which Church Presbyterian ministerial parity is the rule established by law, into Lords Spiritual having a seat in the House of Lords.
“Nay, more, if this proposal becomes law, it thereby overthrows or subverts the Act of the Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England, 1707. For in order to prevent just such an attempt at foisting Episcopacy upon the Church of Scotland, as some of the leaders of that Church and the Government advocate, the Scots Parliament in 1706 passed the Act of Security to secure Presbyterian Government for the Church of Scotland, ‘for all time coming.’ To make assurance doubly sure, they made the Act of Security fundamental to Union, stating that until the Parliament of England accept that Act as a fundamental condition, there could be no union. The Parliament of England did accept this condition and their acceptance of it and of the Act of Security, are both inserted in The Exemplification under the Great Seal of England, of the Act of the Parliament of that Kingdom, Instituted An Act for an union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland, as the same was Transmitted to the Parliament of Scotland, and Ordered to be recorded.
“Are the people of Scotland prepared to see the Act of Security, the foundation of the Act of Union, treated as a scrap of paper, and with it the Monarch’s Scottish Oath which requires the Monarch to maintain the Presbyterian Government of the Church of Scotland? Surely not. But they need to be informed on these vital issues now at stake.”
As a matter of interest, there appeared in The Scotsman of 7th December, 1957, the day we received Mr. Finlay Beaton’s above statement, two letters on the question he deals with. First of all, we quote from Rev. Professor Thomas F. Torrance’s letter inter alia, “The suggestion for ‘Kirk peers’ I view with considerable alarm. I should like to ask the advocates of this suggestion whether it is not basically un-Christian for those who have been set apart for the holy ministry to be assimilated to secular rank and honour in this way, even if it is intended to be in the interests of the Gospel. The ordained minister shares in a peculiar way in the self-consecration of Christ to the humble ministry in the form of a servant, in which he is ready to be made of no reputation for Christ’s sake. It seems to be altogether un-Biblical, un-Christian, and un-Reformed for any minister of the Gospel, as such, to be clothed with secular rank and prestige and therefore with worldly power. In his ordination the minister renounces all such worldly ambitions in order to be ‘a slave of Christ.'”
We now quote from a letter from Rev. J. Strathearn McNab, Ayr, inter alia, “Consultations, we are told, are going on with a view to having the Church represented in the House of Lords. Such a thing would be a complete subversion of what the Church has consistently held, since the First Book of Discipline, about the relations of Church and State. . . . Even if the ‘leading personalities’ favour the proposed change, the presbyteries will not allow our Presbyterian principles to be violated and will have nothing to do with ‘Lords Spiritual.'”
Professor Torrance and Rev. Mr. McNab both belong to the Church of Scotland, and their views coincide with those expressed by our Church elder, Mr. F. Beaton, on these vital issues.