While these transactions were taking place, the Scottish Bishops and their Clergy continued to discharge the duties of their respective functions in the least obtrusive manner possible; supplying the spiritual wants of their different congregations, and taking care to provide for the continuance of their Church, by Episcopal consecrations from time to time, as the exigencies of the period required. In the year 1784, an event occurred, which proved the occasion of drawing them forth in some degree from that obscurity into which the operation of the Penal laws had gradually sunk them. On the acknowledged independence of the United States of America, all political connexion between the Episcopal Churches in those States and the Church of England was necessarily brought to an end. But as an Episcopal Church cannot exist without Bishops, the Clergy of Connecticut sent over to this country, one of their number, Dr. Samuel Seabury, to be consecrated by our Prelates. The Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom the application was first directed, as well as the several Bishops with whom he consulted, were ready and even desirous to comply with the request of the American Clergy; but they soon found that without an Act authorizing them to do so, they could not in the consecration of a Bishop omit the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy; and these oaths, it is clear, could not be taken by a subject of the United States. As the Act required could not be immediately obtained, and as it would have been extremely inconvenient for Dr. Seabury to remain in England till the next Session of Parliament, he was advised to apply to the Scottish Bishops for consecration. In this case there was no difficulty connected with Acts of Parliament, for, if the Episcopalians north of the Tweed derived no countenance from Government, they were free from all those entanglements which are sometimes found to impede the movements of an Established Church. But, calling to mind the predicament in which they had been placed by the Statutes of 1746 and 1748, they felt that it would be imprudent in them to consecrate any Bishop who had first applied to the Archbishop of Canterbury, without previously ascertaining whether, by such a step, they were likely to give offence to the Church of England. Their enquiries on this head were conveyed to the proper quarter by Dr. Berkeley, one of the Prebendaries of Canterbury, and son to the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne; and the answer from the Archbishop expressed the most cordial assurance that by consecrating Dr. Seabury, the Scotch Bishops would not only give no offence, but, on the contrary, excite a more favourable opinion of their principles than what at that time generally prevailed in the South. Dr. Seabury, accordingly, went into Scotland; and was on the 14th November, 1784, consecrated at Aberdeen, by the Bishops Kilgour, Petrie, and Skinner. This consecration, as has been already remarked, was the means of recalling to the recollection of the English bench, that a depressed branch of the Church of Christ, having the same orders, liturgy, and government with their own, continued to exist in Scotland: and as the penal laws were known to operate with great force in opposing her in VOL. II. NO. III. T fluence and prosperity, various plans were taken into consideration for procuring their repeal. But the Jacobitical predilections of some of the old clergy, presented an obstacle to the fulfilment of this desirable object. Charles Edward was still alive; and the same views of duty and obligation, which had prevented them from abjuring his grandfather and father, forbade them to transfer their whole allegiance to any other branch of his family. But the time was not now far distant, when the obstacle just mentioned was to be removed for ever; and when the Episcopalians in Scotland would find themselves not only at full liberty, but in duty bound, to pray for his Majesty King George the Third. As soon as the death of the grandson of James the Second was made known to them, they performed spontaneously, and almost unanimously, the sacred duty in question, without waiting to make any previous stipulations with their sovereign. On the 25th of May, 1788, his Majesty was publicly prayed for in the terms of the English Liturgy, in all the Episcopal chapels in Scotland, with the exception of three; the ministers of which, it is said, required a longer period for deliberation on a matter, where religious truth and political honesty seemed so deeply implicated. Every obstruction being now cleared away, which formerly impeded the path towards a removal of those disqualifications that pressed so heavily on the Scottish Episcopalians, measures were almost immediately adopted for obtaining an abrogation of the laws by which they had been imposed. It was not, however, till after a lapse of four years, that the Legislature was induced to grant the relief which was prayed for; the friends of the bill having had to combat difficulties which did not in reality belong to the question which it involved, and to conciliate contending parties who, in no point of view, appeared to have any interest in its decision. Lord Thurlow, who at that period held the great seal, allowed his powerful mind to be acted upon, either by wrong information, or an unfavourable bias: and it is even imagined, that his pride was wounded, upon hearing that the petitioners had applied elsewhere, and attempted to secure other interests, before they addressed themselves to him personally. The bill was, accordingly, lost in the House of Peers on the 6th of July, 1789; an event which threw over the whole Episcopal body in Scotland a deep feeling of grief and disappointment. Nor was their success more flattering during the two following sessions, though the management of the business in London was now come mitted to the care of three gentlemen, for whose wise, zealous, and unremitting exertions in their favour, the Scottish Episcopalians cannot be sufficiently grateful, namely, the Hon. Justice Park, the Rev. Dr. Gaskin, and William Stevens, Esq. late treasurer to Queen Anne's Bounty. Even in 1792, the Chancellor continued to start new difficulties and new objections to the measure; of which one was, that he knew not the theological opinions of the Scottish Episcopalians, nor, of course, how far they deserved to be tolerated. This has been removed by a consent on the part of the petitioners, to receive for the standard of their faith the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. And at length, all other obstacles being dismissed, the bill passed through both Houses of Parliament, and finally received the royal assent on the 15th of June, 1792, being the very last day of the session. As this bill, passed into a law, is the only Act by which all Protes-' tant Episcopalians in Scotland (by whomsoever their clergy may have been ordained) are now tolerated in the public exercise of their religion, we shall lay before our readers one or two of its main articles.' After stating, by way of preamble, that there is reason to believe that the pastors, ministers, and laity of the Episcopal communion in Scotland, are now well attached to his Majesty's person, family, and government, it proceeds in the usual way to repeal all the Statutes enacted against that communion, from the reign of Anne down to the year 1748. "Provided always, that every person who shall exercise the office of a pastor or minister in any Episcopal chapel, meeting-house, or congregation in Scotland, shall, within six months, take and subscribe the oaths of abjuration, allegiance, and assurance, in such manner as all officers, civil and military, in Scotland, are now by law obliged to take and subscribe the same; and shall also subscribe at the same time and place, a declaration of his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, as contained in the Act passed in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth. "Provided also, that every such pastor or minister as aforesaid, who shall at any time after six months officiate in any Episcopal chapel or meeting-house as aforesaid, shall, as often as he shall so officiate, at some time during the exercise of Divine service, pray for the King's most excellent Majesty by name, for his Majesty's heirs or successors, and for, all the Royal Family, in the same form and words as they are, or shall be, directed by lawful authority to be prayed for in the Church of England." Next are specified the penalties to be inflicted on peers, members of parliament, and freeholders, if they shall be twice present in any one year at Divine Service where the King and Royal Family are not prayed for as above specified: and it is also provided, that the doors of the house or chapel where Divine worship is performed by Episcopal clergymen, shall not be barred, locked, bolted, or otherwise fastened, during the assembly of the congregation. Penalties in this case, too, are enacted with the usual formality and precision; provided always, that every prosecution for any offence committed against this Act, shall be commenced within the space of twelve months after such offence committed, and not afterwards. These clauses were all well received by our northern brethren, though they all bore a very clear and somewhat suspicious reference to their former political delinquencies. But the next which we are to transcribe was far from meeting with their approbation at the moment, and continues still to be the occasion of considerable regret and disappointment. "Provided also, and be it further enacted, that no person exercising the function, or assuming the office and character of a pastor or minister of any order, in the Episcopal communion in Scotland, as aforesaid, shall be capable of taking any benefice, curacy, or other spiritual promotion, within that part of Great Britain called England, the dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon Tweed, or of officiating in any church or chapel within the same, where the Liturgy of the Church of England, as now by law established, is used, unless he shall have been lawfully ordained by some Bishop of the Church of England, or of Ireland." We have now arrived at a memorable era in the history of the Episcopal Church of Scotland-the repeal of the penal laws, and the renewal of her toleration, as a body thought worthy of trust and protection. There yet remains an important part of our article, namely, an account of the present condition of that ancient communion, and a brief abstract of her annals since the year 1792, when she entered upon her new career, accredited and impeded by the honours of Parliament. We wish it were in our power, by any eulogy that we could frame, to do justice to the steady and disinterested conduct of those older members of the Scottish Episcopal Church, who, through bad report and much actual suffering, adhered firmly to the principles, both political and religious, which they believed to be founded on Divine truth. With a degree of self-denial worthy of the primitive ages, they submitted to the severest privations and the most depressing penury, rather than depart from their ancient faith, or leave their people without that spiritual instruction, and those other means of grace, upon which, as well from habit as from the maturest decisions of their understandings, they were led to place the highest value. The panegyric pronounced by Bishop Horne may perhaps be thought a little strained, and yet he was not a man who was ever accused of insincerity, and who on this occasion had certainly no motive to extend his complaisance to undue bounds. "He had such an opinion," says his biographer, "of the Scottish Episcopal Church, as to think, that if the great Apostle of the Gentiles were upon earth, and it were put in his choice with what denomination of Christians he would communicate, the preference would probably be given to the Episcopalians of Scotland, as most like the people he had been used to.' NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. "A Protestant" is referred to "Wall's History of Infant Baptism." We beg to acknowledge the receipt of a long and interesting letter from "A. T. R." “D." will find that we have not been inattentive to his wishes. Our Review of Single Sermons is unavoidably postponed to the next Number. CONTENTS ΤΟ N. IV. I. An Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sa- crifice, and the Scripture Evidence respecting it; with Observations on the Opinions of Spencer, Bishop Warburton, Archbishop Magee, and other writers on the same subject: and some Reflections on the Uni- tarian Controversy. By John Davison, B.D....... 277 II. An extensive Inquiry into the important Questions, What it is to preach Christ? and what is the best mode of preaching him? By Richard Lloyd, M.A. 293 III. An Apology for the Church of England, by the Right Rev. John Jewell, D.D. Lord Bishop of Salisbury: faithfully translated from the original Latin, and il- lustrated with copious Notes, by the Rev. Stephen Isaacson, B.A., of Christ's College, Cambridge: to which is prefixed a Memoir of his Life and Writings, and a preliminary Discourse on the Doctrine and Dis- cipline of the Church of Rome; in reply to some Ob- IV. Letters to Charles Butler, Esq. on the Theological parts of his Book of the Roman Catholic Church; with Re- marks on certain Works of Dr. Milner and Dr. Lin- gard, and on some parts of the Evidence of Dr. Doyle, before the two Committees of the Houses of Parliament. By the Rev. Henry Phillpotts, D.D.... 315 V. A Defence of Religious Liberty, in a series of Letters, with Notes and Illustrations, from a Lover of Truth. |