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siastical authority. That separation which does really exist is placed in its true light-a separation not as between persons and persons, or between councils and councils, but simply between one class of subjects and another. If the boundaries of a nation coincided exactly with the boundaries of any one religious system-that is to say, if all the citizens of a State were members of the same religious body, one and the same Assembly might rightfully and naturally legislate on both those subjects. It is merely the necessities of outward circumstance—the fact of religious divisions, and other facts of a similar kind—which prevent both those subjects being cognizable by one and the same authority. No Divine law would be infringed by an entire coincidence of the two authorities, were it practicable; still less is any such law infringed by a partial coincidence, where it very often is both possible and wise.

"All this follows immediately and necessarily from the principle that there is no special order, or caste of men, gifted with exclusive power in spiritual concerns. But this denial of a false and superstitious distinction only places in a clearer light that true distinction which really does exist. There is a distinction between temporal and spiritual things, and there must be a corresponding distinction-not necessarily in the men who legislate-but in the nature of the legislation. In temporal matters human legislation is invested, proprio jure, with great authority, it is properly enactive. In spiritual things human legislation has no direct authority; it is merely declaratory. In the one case no number of dissentient voices is entitled to contravene the legislative power, because society has a right to enforce obedience to its civil laws. In the other case, if there be one single mind which dissents from a declaratory interpretation put upon the laws of God, that mind is entitled to maintain its dissent and to act upon it-because on such subjects human authority is none."-Presbytery Examined, pp. 294

296.

The sincerity with which the Duke of Argyll has abjured that fundamental feature in the constitution of Christ's Holy Church, the perpetual existence of a ministry of grace endued from on high, is attested, not only by the repeated denunciations of it, as a "corruption" and a "superstition," which occur in the "Essay," but by the tone which His Grace, as a layınan, takes, in pronouncing upon questions of theology with an authority to his own mind evidently not less infallible, than is that of the Pope himself to the mind of a "good Catholic." It is on the ground of what His Grace conceives to be the radical opposition of Presbyterianism to all "priestly notions," that that body of professing Christians enjoys the privilege of reckoning the noble Duke among its members, and the distinguished honour of having him for its apologist. According to his view, Presbyterianism is nothing more than the first embryo of that pure idea of Christianity which was further developed by Dr. Arnold, and would have been brought to per

fection by him if he had lived long enough; failing which, the author of the "Essay" has taken up the question, and, to his own thinking at least, settled it on an incontrovertible basis. We honestly confess, that with the conception which we have been led to form of Presbyterianism, of the high papistical claims which it advances, far beyond any that have ever been preferred by the Protestant Episcopate in Scotland or elsewhere, we are scarcely prepared to find its identity with the doctrines of the Arnoldite school as breadly asserted as in the following passage:

"In reviewing the course of Scottish Presbytery, from the Reforma❤ tion to the Revolution, we have met with ample ground for assigning to it a high place among the more distinguished class, although there are points, as we have endeavoured to show, in which its course has been for warning, not example.

"On account of one of its principles, if that principle stood alone, it deserves our special homage. The stern protest which it made from the beginning against all notions of Priesthood--of any mediatorial or exclusive power-in the Christian ministry, reached at once to one of the most profound and momentous truths which are still struggling for acceptance in the world. On this subject we have before alluded to a name, which, over a wide extent of Christendom, is now a name of solemn sound. If it had been allowed to Dr. Arnold to have his most earnest wish fulfilled,-if he had been permitted to take part in what his last words emphatically alluded to as THAT GREAT WORK,' a revival of the true Commonwealth of the Church, he could not, in this respect, have done more than the first Scotch Reformers did. He could not have disowned with more deep conviction of its danger, the very name of Priest. He could not have thrown more widely open to the Commons of the Church, the door of her councils, and the offices of her public service."-Presbytery Examined, pp. 292, 293.

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This identity the author labours to establish, in the teeth of all that he himself is elsewhere obliged to acknowledge as to the character of Presbyterian Church government, by a reference to the constitution of the General Assembly:

"The Convocation of the Church of Scotland was never a Convocation of the Clergy only. It was a great gathering-from all orders in the State,-of men whom their Christian brethren had chosen to represent them there. 'The General Assembly of the Church convened at Edinburgh, where were present Superintendents, Ministers, Deacons, Commissioners from Towns and Churches ;'-such is the common opening of the minutes of their proceedings."-Presbytery Examined, p. 293.

That laymen did intrude into the government of the Church and override the Apostolical and, therefore, divinely appointed order of Church government, and that to this intrusion and usurVOL. X.-NO. XX.-DEC. 1848.

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pation Presbyterianism is indebted for its existence, is an historical fact which we are neither disposed nor concerned to deny. And if Presbyterianism had been, in its origin, the consistent assertion of certain well-defined principles, instead of being, as it was, the turbulent overthrow of all principles, followed by the adoption of such maxims as would serve to confer upon acts of lawless violence a semblance of right, make the worse appear the better reason, and rebellion as the exercise of legitimate powers, no doubt all idea of a Divine commission of the ministry must have been expunged from the Presbyterian system. Yet, practically, it is not so; the ministry of the Presbyterian establishment has preferred, and continues to prefer, as high claims as the ministry of any other communion, to special gifts and superior powers; and if we were called upon to define the distinctive features of Presbyterianism on this head, we should rather say that they consist in the manifestly unscriptural assertion of the parity of ministers, and the somewhat extraordinary, and certainly not very reverent, assumption that the gifts of the Holy Ghost are to follow upon the unhallowed decrees of tumultuous and self-constituted assemblies. We might have been afraid, in the presence of such a doughty champion of Presbyterianism as the Duke of Argyll, to advance this charge of inconsistency against it; but, happily, we have, from the pen of His Grace himself, abundant confirmation of the fact now stated.

"The language which had now become common respecting the independence and authority of spiritual power-above all, the appropriation of Scripture texts on which that language sought to justify itselfwould involve principles utterly subversive of the legitimate power of Christian legislatures, as well as of the liberty of private judgment. It was logically inconsistent with any but a priestly idea, both of the nature of the Church and of the extent of its authority. Accordingly, it has been a frequent charge against Presbytery at this time, that it attempted to establish over the civil power, and over individual conscience, a spiritual tyranny as bad as that of Rome. And, certainly, we might quote innumerable passages from the documents of this time, which, if the principles they imply were logically evolved, would justify this accusation to the full. But there are other passages equally numerous, and very often contiguous in the same papers, which lay down doctrines directly contradictory-showing that what was extravagant in the claims. of Presbytery, or rather in the words in which it clothed them, was due to its passions, not its principles. In one breath we are sometimes told that it is the duty and right of the civil magistrate to see that the officebearers of the Church 'do their duty,' and 'judge aright according to the word of God;' in the next breath he is deprived of all independent 'judgment as to what is, or what is not, according to that word. He is told he may not venture to take upon himself to interpret Scrip

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ture in matters of controversy-this power being given of God to the 'Pastors and Doctors of the Church.'

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"The close proximity of such contradictory positions is one of the most curious features of the time, reminding us always that, however. excited may be the language in which the liberty of the Church is asserted, or however ambitious the appropriations of Scripture texts, there was something-deep in the principles of Presbytery-which was preventing, and must prevent, its claims from becoming even the same in kind, far less equal in degree, with the claims of priesthood. But. the language to which we refer was sometimes wild and extravagant enough. In one of those declinatures' of the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, given in by a minister, when cited to appear before it, to which we have before alluded, we find it asserted, that the Spiritual officebearers and ministers of the Church have power to deliver unto Satanto bind the impenitent in their sins-to lock out and debar from the kingdom of heaven-having the keys of that kingdom given them of God.' And in another paper of this time, language equally rash is used. Among those questions which the King proposed to the assemblies of the Church, and which they justly considered as intended to 'cast in doubt' the whole liberties and government of Presbytery, we find the following query:Is it the King separately, or the pastors separately, or both conjointly, that should establish the acts anent the external government of the Church; or what is the form of their conjunction to make laws?' To this the Synod of Fife replies, that the ordinary interpretation of God's word belongs to the Pastors and Doctors of the Church, and that Kings and princes ought, by their civil authority, to ratify and approve by their laws, and vindicate by their civil sanction, that which they (the Pastors and Doctors) declare to be God's will out of his word.' In support of such positions, reference is made to the most irrelevant texts, such, for instance, as 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name,' &c.,-as if this promise had any reference at all to the power of ecclesiastical assemblies, any more than to that of any other assemblies of professing Christians. We could quote many other passages in which the idea of the authority of the Church-of the absolute distinction between civil and spiritual power-and of the independence of the latter on the former, finds expression in language equally extreme, and is referred to texts equally irrelevant or misleading.

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"Yet, however positive may be the form which that idea had now assumed, and however dogmatic the terms in which it was expressed, it is certain that it formed no part of the fundamental or essential principles of Presbytery, but was a mere growth arising from the external circumstances in which it had been placed. It is perfectly true that, for more than a hundred years, it strikes the eye as one of the most prominent characteristics of the genius of Presbytery; and to this hour it is esteemed as such by a large portion of its members.”—Presbytery Examined, pp. 96-99.

Thus, by the showing of the Duke of Argyll himself, it is un

deniable that the notion of priestly power to which he so strongly objects, was, and to this day is, no less strongly cherished in the Presbyterian community. His Grace may, to suit his purpose, assert that this was due to the "passions" and not the "principles" of Presbytery; but this is a mere gratuitous assertion. It is quite as competent for us to assert, on the contrary, that the retention of an idea of special gifts and powers attached to the ministerial character, is the result of adherence, in some measure, at least, and amidst all the inconsistencies of tumultuous change, to the true principles of the Catholic Church; and that the repudiation of that idea at other times, and by certain members of the Presbyterian community, was and is the result of extreme party violence, and of the difficulty of maintaining claims, the historical foundations of which have been cut away from under the schismatical edifice. The reason why the noble author of the Essay" deems it more expedient to assume that the very essence of Presbytery consists in the denial of a distinct.ministerial order and power, is obvious enough. His Grace is desirous of enlisting the authority of an old establishment on behalf of the modern notions of the Arnoldite school, and to screen his own peculiar heresy under shelter of the religious body to which he seems to belong fortuitously, rather than on principle, and with which he makes common cause against the main object of his hatred, the Divine ordinance of a true Church and an Apostolic ministry. At the same time, if the Presbyterian Kirk should venture to differ from the noble Duke on the question of the ministerial office, it may expect as little quarter from His Grace as Prelacy itself. The following extract is so characteristic of the whole spirit and tendency of his performance, that we cannot forbear from transcribing it :

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"But why, it may be asked, have thus gone over again the fierce battles of the Covenant, and retraced the long contests between Presbytery and Prelacy in Scotland? Because they are living parties: because they are fighting now: because, with all the hereditary features of their character, they still stand opposed, as they did of yore. bytery has not lost its wild, wayward vigour; it is marked with the same rugged virtues; in excess, it tends to the same vices of opinion. Prelacy has not abated its narrow bigotry; it is incited by the same grasping ambition to be national; its opinions tend to the same sacerdotal usurpations. The Divine right of Bishops is still the central point in the theology of the one: the Crown of Christ' is still extravagantly quoted in the system of the other. They are both things of the present day. It is well that we should know what is to be hoped or feared from each; and, in order to anticipate their future, we must understand their past.

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