(Continued from page 150)
In March 1712, the carved work of the Scottish Church was again in imminent danger, and was considerably marred by the re-introduction of Patronage. Availing themselves of the absence of the Scottish Commissioners, the enemies of the Church, mostly Jacobites, passed a Bill through its successive stages in the House of Commons with unusual rapidity, and carried it up to the House of Lords. Although the Scottish Commissioners, who had by this time returned to London, were heard, with little more than empty courtesy, the Bill was passed and received the Royal Assent on 22nd April. Hetherington says, on this matter, “Whether the hand of the misguided sovereign shook when affixing the sign manual has not been recorded; but certainly at that moment she put her hand to a deed by which her right to reign was virtually rescinded, the Revolution Settlement overturned, and the Treaty of Union repealed; unless, indeed, the Bill itself were to be regarded as an absolute nullity, — an idle arrangement of mere words, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ For it will not be disputed by any person possessing competent knowledge, that the British parliament exists as such, and the British sovereign reigns over the united empire, solely in virtue of the Act of Security, which is the basis of the Union. Any infringement of that great, and, as it may almost be termed, creative act, must therefore be either, with regard to the British parliament, a suicidal deed, and with regard to the sovereign, a virtual abdication; or must be altogether and for ever null and void, incapable of acquiring any possible degree of validity, or of imposing on any British subject the slightest shadow of obligation. It may be safely affirmed, that no jurist will ever prove that the British parliament ever did, or can, pass an Act greater than, and subversive of, that to which it owes its own existence.” History of the Church of Scotland, page 197.
That this Act, restoring Patronage, had as its design, the weakening, if not the complete overthrowing of the Presbyterian Establishment in Scotland is very clear from various matters which could be pointed out. Even such a decided Jacobite as Sir Walter Scott, says, “The Act which restored to patrons the right of presenting clergymen to vacant churches, was designed to render the churchmen more dependent on the aristocracy, and to separate them, in some degree, from their congregations, who could not be supposed to be equally attached to, or influenced by, a minister who held his living by the gift of a great man, as by one who was chosen by their own free voice.” That this Act was the fore-runner of other plans to destroy the Church of Scotland is evident from the fact that when Principal Carstares went to London on this occasion, as one of the Commissioners of the General Assembly, he found that a Bill was prepared for abolishing all General Assemblies, and another for compelling Presbyteries, under certain penalties, to settle ministers, without further form or trial, and especially without any form of consulting the parishioners. The Patronage Act in itself was ruinous to the interests of the Church and a direct violation of the Treaty of Union. Its passing was part of the machinations of the Jacobites, who were mostly Roman Catholics or infidels, to defeat the Protestant succession to the Throne through the House of Hanover. The party who passed it were strong, and were secretly countenanced by the Queen, and they were fully resolved to foist their purposes on the Church of Scotland when it was not strong enough to resist. It was a determined effort to impose as many as possible of ministers over the people in order to make them instruments to instil into their minds principles of disloyalty to a Protestant Throne. Unfortunately there were too many ministers in Scotland at the time who could be relied on to instil such principles into the minds of the people.
Of the Patronage Act Dr Begg of Newington says, “Preachers were ashamed of it; Church Courts unanimously considered it as inconsistent with the constitution of the Church of Scotland; and even during the whole reign of the wily Principal Robertson, and down till the year 1784, the Commission of the Assembly was annually instructed to adopt all proper means for getting rid of it altogether. In a word, two opinions did not exist on the subject, till two or three whole generations had gone to their graves. And it will indeed be strange, if, in such a time as the present, when our Church is more than ever instinct with spiritual life, and our nation boasts of its superior intelligence, its noblest institution, the Church of Scotland, shall, for the sake of a few hireling preachers, be attempted to be strangled before the eyes of an astonished world, with the same rope which the cunning and infamous Bolingbroke, 130 years ago, (written in 1841) threw round her neck, — and that too, by professed maintainers of the constitution of the kingdom.” By it the carved work was again broken down, and after repeated requests to the Government, for over one hundred and thirty years, it at last became apparent that if the work of the Reformation was not to be undone there would need to be separation from the State. This was effected by the Disruption of 1843, when 784 ministers parted with the emoluments of the Establishment, worth at that time £100,000 a year, while at the same time they carried with them the Establishment Principle. This was made clear by Dr Chalmers at the first Free Church Assembly, when he said, “Though we quit the Establishment, we go out on the Establishment Principle — we quit a vitiated Establishment, but would rejoice in returning to a pure one. To express it otherwise — we are the advocates for a national recognition and national support of religion — and we are not Voluntaries.”
The Patronage Act and all that was connected with it was alien to the constitution of the Church of Scotland. In fact there is hardly a country in the world where lay patronages had so little place. They proceeded from the canon law of the Papists which was very little regarded in Scotland ever since it became a nation, and any regard paid to it was brought to an end by Act of Parliament when the Reformation was established. This can be verified by consulting the First and Second Books of Discipline. In the 23rd Act of the Parliament which met on 19th July 1690, in the reign of William and Mary, the patron’s power of presentation was taken away. This Act, with various other Acts for the protection of the Church of Scotland, is embodied in the Claim of Right and the Act of Security, which are essential conditions of the Treaty of Union. By the Patronage Act, all this was treated as null and void and, instead of the noble fabric raised by the Reformers, Scotland had foisted upon it a Church which was the creature of the State, having its office-bearers elected, not by the people but by the patron, and its decisions in spiritual matters liable to the review of the civil courts. Thus, all government, worship, and discipline, centred in the Sovereign, which the Patronage Act constituted a kind of civil Pope. This was diametrically opposed to the principles of our forefathers at the time of the Reformation, and, be it remembered, it is to the Word of God they went for direction and guidance.
In this connection we may quote Mr Andrew Crosbie, Advocate, writing in 1769. “The total depravity which Popery introduced into every part of discipline, worship, and church government, is well known. The Church of Rome was a fabric of political contrivance, tending to aggrandize the pontiff, and to enslave the Christian world; its oppression had become intolerable, and our forefathers, by a spirited effort, threw off its yoke. As the innovations of the Church of Rome, not only in worship and religious principles, but in church government and discipline, had been numberless, and had been introduced, not at once, but by degrees, through a series of ages, our first Reformers had no other model by which they could form themselves in church government and discipline, but that of the primitive Church in the age of the apostles. The Scriptures they resolved to make the rule of their reformation throughout; their principles of religion and their worship they gathered only thence; and, in so far as it could aid them in government and in discipline, they followed no other rule. In this state of things, it was natural for them to resort to the Scriptures for a rule for admitting ministers. They there found, that among the first acts of the Christian Church after our Saviour’s death, an apostle was chosen, and he was chosen by the voice of all the disciples gathered together: this method, therefore, they seem to have adopted.”
In the face of persecution in a multitude of forms, which it is not our purpose to enter upon at this time, the carved work of the Reformation was again set up in Scotland, emphasising in the most practical way the doctrine, so clearly set forth in the Subordinate Standards of the Church of Scotland, that Christ is the sole Head of the Church. Many parishes throughout the country which hitherto had not the benefit of an evangelical ministry, had the gospel in its purity proclaimed, and, freed from State interference, had the sealing ordinances of the New Testament ministered among them by men of their choice whose life manifested that they were called of God. The Disruption had its sad aspect and its promising one. As a writer of the period puts it; “How very brief a period has elapsed since the Government of this country could have settled at small expense the Church question! and how entirely has it passed beyond the reach of human adjustment now! In disestablishing the religion of Scotland, there has been a breach made in the very foundations of national security, which can never be adequately filled up. The yawning chasm is crowded with phantoms of terror: there are the forms of an infidel Erastianism in front: and surplices, crosses, and treble crowns in the rear; while deep from the darkness comes a voice, as of many waters, the roar of infuriated multitudes broken loose from religion, and thirsting for blood. May God avert the omen! That man must have studied to but little purpose the events of the last twelve days, who does not see that there is a Guiding Hand ordering and regulating all. The pawns in this great game do not move of themselves; the adorable Being who has ‘foreordained whatsoever cometh to pass’ is working out His own designs in His own way. The usurpations of civil magistrates, the treachery of unfaithful ministers, the errors and mistakes of blind-hearted and incompetent statesmen, all tend to accomplish His decrees; and it would be well, surely, since in one way or other all must forward His purposes, to be made to forward them rather as His fellow-workers than as His blind insensate tools. Let the disestablished Church take courage: there is a time of severe conflict before her, but the result of the battle is certain.” The Witness, 1st June 1843.
(To be continued.)