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the Council of Trent, or for the pope himself, yea and no more can be desired by the God of truth, than that he should be the arbitrator of all disputes which arise. The Scriptures are effectually superseded as the only test of opinions; and the Church of Scotland, instead of being a pillar of the truth therein contained, is a pillar of the opinions contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith. On the other hand, it is argued, that a preacher having subscribed the said Confession is bound in honour and consistency to preach nothing contrary thereto. But the truth is, no man doth subscribe it as absolute truth, but as relative truth-truth relative to, and checked by the holy Scriptures. At the time he subscribes it he gives his solemn declaration, that he believes it to be in all things agreeable to the Holy Scriptures. But he doth not commit himself to one day, or week, or month, or year, thereafter, but is expected to be in continual consultation of the word of God, for more and yet more light; which, as he discovereth, he is to bring not to the confession, but the confession unto it. And if, as he grows in the knowledge of truth Divine, he divergeth from the confession, what is he to do? To make it known by all means; first, by preaching in the congregation where his necessary daily duty lies; next, in the assemblies of the church, when occasion occurreth. This is exactly what Mr. Scott did. And when this is done with all seriousness and decency, what is the duty of the church? To hear their brother's views; and try them by the Scriptures. If they are right to adopt them, and alter the confession accordingly; if they are wrong, to deal with him, and endeavour to recover him to the footsteps of truth. But in this case, the General Assembly said the Westminster Confession is enough: doth he differ from it? then let him be dismissed from the number of our preachers; who are thereby declared to be responsible to a book of uninspired divines, not to the word of the Eternal and unchangeable God..

With respect to my own case, it is so novel and unparalleled in the history not only of ecclesiastical courts of conscience and charity, but of civil courts of justice, that I know not how to take an estimate of it. In all former instances in the Church of Scotland, as of Dr. Gairdner, the Marrow of Modern Divinity, &c.; and even in the Church of Rome, as in the famous. Bulls against Jansenius and Quesnel; certain propositions were drawn out of the book, which being made the subject of consideration were pronounced heretical, and so the book was condemned. But, in this case, there were no propositions exhibited, there was no time for deliberation allowed; a committee brought up a report, and the members of the court began to pronounce sentence, one after another, in the most violent and bitter strain; some of them with raillery and mockery. Then

they proceeded without serving me with any notice, or citing me, or hearing me, or taking any measure to reclaim me, to warn the church against me as an heretic, and to set a watch upon me, if I should venture within their jurisdiction. If, instead of being a grave, religious, and pious work of an unblemished Christian Minister, whom God had honoured in no slight degree, it had been some work issued from the shop of the infidels and scorners; if, instead of being brought before the venerable the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, it had been brought before the Court of King's Bench or the Old Bailey; if, instead of being charged with blasphemy against the Holiness of the Son of God, it had been charged merely with a libel against the character of some one of his Majesty's lieges, it would have had a fair and candid trial. Counsel would have been heard on the one side and the other, the author would have had all the privileges of a British subject and an innocent man, till he should be found guilty: but in this case I do find in one hour my character destroyed (so far as they can do it), my book condemned, the liberty and dignity of my office taken away, myself branded, without either indictment, knowledge of my accuser, power of answering for myself, trial, or any thing which pertaineth to honour, justice, conscience, or charity.

In the eye of truth, therefore, the actings of the last General Assembly have a threefold aspect; one against God, another against the church, and a third against the dignities and rights of men. Against God they have decreed that he doth not love every man, and that his Son hath not died for every man; that he was not manifested in flesh of our flesh, and doth not assuredly work in the believer confidence towards himself. Against the church they have decreed that its offices are not constituted under Christ, but under the Westminster synod of divines, and that its office-bearers are to be tried not by the Holy Scriptures, but by the Westminster Confession of Faith; and against the dignities and rights of man, they have decreed that they may be violently taken away, without libel or probation, or sisting of the person, or sight of his accusers, or answer for himself, in one rapturous and riotous sederunt of his judges; if men, following such a procedure, may be called by that sacred name. Such I conceive to be the account of that Assembly's doings in their threefold aspect, divine, ecclesiastical, and personal. And as it is the part of a judge to censure what is wicked, I do solemnly declare, that in the annals of the church I do not know such a combination of unprincipled acts done by any Assembly within the short period of one week, and I am convinced that if the same hardihood which now prevails in Scotland, to justify or palliate these things continue, it will bring down upon that land and church some of the most

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fearful judgments of God which have ever been seen upon the earth.

But what is the authority of that Assembly which hath done the deed? How doth it implicate the Church of Scotland? This is the next point of inquiry, to which we now address ourselves with all carefulness.

The General Assembly is the supreme council of the church, composed of somewhat more than one-fourth part of all the ministers, and about half as many elders. In all causes of doctrine or discipline, it is the court of ultimate resort, from whose decision there is no appeal. It hath no power to change laws or ordinances, but must first transmit any overture to that effect to the Presbyteries, where the matter is deliberated upon, and by the majority of their returns it is determined. Every thing therefore continues as it is constituted in the law-books or canons of the church, until a majority of the Presbyteries have decided that it shall be altered. Now, because the General Assembly is only judicial, and not legislative, and because the church hath made no alteration in her laws, many are disposed to look upon their decisions as but of slight consequence, affecting only the persons concerned, and no-wise affecting the Church of Scotland as a whole, in the sight of God and of his people. This conclusion would be just, if man could constitute the church as he pleaseth, and then ask God to judge accordingly. If God will be content to adopt our distinction of judicial and legislative, if he will be pleased to consider the Church of Scotland as innocent of the deed, until a majority of Presbyteries have approved it, we would acquiesce in this conclusion. But because we have God and not man to deal with, it is necessary, in order to ascertain the authority of that body by which the deed hath been done, to consider what is his view of a church, and of the councils of a church.

The church, in God's sense, which is the only true one, consisteth of the true members of Christ Jesus, united to him by living faith, the gift of the Father, and the operation of the Holy Ghost. And this church is one and indivisible, through the oneness of the Head and Spirit, though of many members, in many places subsisting. It hath no division proper to itself, but is intended to heal all the divisions of mankind, by teaching them that they are made of one blood, for the one end of glorifying God who created, and Christ who redeemed them. in order to counteract the diversity of speech and nation and kindred, and bring about peace and unity amongst all the tribes and tongues upon the earth, the church ever laboureth. But because the members of Christ are not a company of invisible spirits, but of living men, who are expected to meet together,. and edify one another with their several gifts, and all of them

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to stand forth like a city upon a hill in the sight of the world, and to testify upon the house tops for Christ, against all wickedness; it is absolutely necessary, that in every place where Christians are found, there should be a provision for their congregating and communing together, in order to fulfil the high and holy purposes of worship and of witness, of piety and of charity, for which they are set in the world. And accordingly without dividing the body of Christ, or weakening the unity of the church, the Apostles of the Lord did in every city, town, and place, yea sometimes in single houses constitute churches which they addressed as "the churches of Galatia," "the churches of Achaia," "the churches of Thessalonica," &c. And the Great Head of the church himself in the Apocalypse, doth in like manner address the seven churches in Asia; comprehending them in one vision, and yet distinguishing them as to their condition. And thus did the Reformers of the church in Scotland look upon the churches in their land*. These churches were each constituted under one responsible person, called "the angel of the church," who was helped in his care by "the elders and the deacons," and other office-bearers, to whom he communicated a delegated authority, without thereby parting with his own sole responsibility as the pastor of the people. Churches were thus constituted in every place, and were left to labour there in the work of the Lord, edifying themselves in love, and converting sinners unto the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Every parish in Scotland is constituted into such a church, and the large towns are divided into several portions, each with a church of the like kind established for the same ends.

This now is the aspect in which the Lord looketh upon the church within the realm of Scotland; not as one great body constituted of Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assemblies, with divers powers and functions judicial and legislative, but as so many churches as there are pastors with flocks, and ordinances of preaching, discipline, and sacraments. And for each of these churches he taketh the pastor as responsible; and according to his doings, the flock will be visited. There is another aspect of the subject derived from the relation of the church to the state: but that the question may not become too intricate upon our hands, let us keep this out of view at present; the more as it is not essential but accidental to the church to be established, and therefore only a particular case of the general question; and the church hath always most solemnly protested against being changed in any thing thereby. This, then, is the simple state

* See "Scottish Confession," Art. XVIII., and Preface to the Original Documents of our Church, now republished by the author of this paper; who counts it a matter of so much importance, that he permits-yea, will thankany one to republish this paper, in whole or in part, in the form of a tract.

of the question before us for judgment. Of these pastors, somewhere between a third or a fourth part being assembled together, have unanimously denied the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and advanced a modern book to the level, and, for all ecclesiastical uses, above the level of the word of God; and not only so but have cast out those ministers of Christ who stood for the truth of his name and the honour of his word. Taking as the ground of our judgment, then, Christ's dealings with the seven churches of Asia, we give it as our deliverance that the act of the General Assembly is the act of all and each of the pastors who were members thereof, and that Christ looks upon every one of the hundreds of ministers who took part in, or did not oppose, the doings of that Assembly as guilty of all the deeds thereof; and because the churches are always looked upon as represented in their angels, he is angry with all those churches, and, if they repent not, will visit every one of them according to their deeds. The guilt is not divided share and share alike over the churches whose ministers sat in that assembly, and were art and part in their monstrous deeds; but it lies in all its weight upon each one of them, and will come with its proper retribution upon each of them, if they repent not. The people think little of this, the ministers still less. One common sleep beguiles them to perdition. The more fervently, O Lord, do I beseech thee to carry these truths into every corner of my miserable sin-hardened native land.

And how is it with respect to those churches whose ministers did not personate them in that ungodly assembly? Here again if we could get God to adopt our ideas, and act according to them, it would be easy to say, they were represented therein (for the members go from the several presbyteries by election, although, to prevent contention and partiality, they have generally sacrificed this principle to the convenience of rotation); but because God will judge by his own rule of judgment we must weigh this also in the balances of the sanctuary. Those ministers who had no part in the transaction, and whose churches therefore are not implicated in the guilt of it, must either approve or disapprove of the thing which hath been done; that is, of the casting out of these men from the preacher's and the pastor's office for maintaining the fundamental truths of the Gospel. They will shew their disapproval by preaching the more zealously the repudiated truths, and, on all occasions public and private, protesting against the wickedness. But words are not enough in a case of this kind, or indeed in any case: acts are what God looks to; personal acts, with all their consequences. If Campbell and M'Lean, were ministers of Christ before this sentence, they are not less ministers of Christ because they have singly contended against a host of the enemies of the truth; and received the honourable distinction of being evil spoken of and cast out for the name of

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