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almost every where condemned, and now that it was made a standing law without having gone through the usual forms, and no such thing as dissent or protest being allowed to be entered upon the records of judicatories against it, nothing was left for its opponents, but as occasion offered, to testify against it from the pulpit or the press, which many embraced the earliest opportunity of doing.

Of those who appeared publicly in defence of the liberties of the Scotish church on this trying occasion, the most honourably distinguished was the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, one of the ministers of Stirling, a man of great natural talents, improved by a liberal education, and upwards of thirty years spent in the faithful discharge of ministerial duties. He was possessed of singular courage, great eloquence, unquestionable piety, and had long been regarded by the better part of the church with particular respect and veneration; and scarcely had the members of assembly reached their respective homes with the report of their proceedings, when, on the evening of the Sabbath, June the fourth, in a sermon from Isaiah ix. 6. he attacked the obnoxious act, with a force of argument that was highly gratifying to its opponents, but peculiarly galling to its abettors, who were every where in the course of a few days, by the loud voice of general report, informed of the circumstance. Public, however, as this condemnation of the act of assembly was, Mr. Erskine did not think it enough. Having occasion to preach before the synod of Perth and Stirling, on its meeting at Perth, October the tenth, that same year, he delivered himself more at large, and with still greater freedom concerning it. This freedom gave great offence to several

Iy man's law, nor by God's law, but will have a way of our own different from them both.

Finally, Passing (for brevity's sake) several lesser things that seem obnoxious in the overture, we apprehend, that the making it a rule, would be exceeding far from making for peace, and from answering the great end of edification; to the attaining of which, all the institutions of Christ, our Lord and Master are calculated, and which ought mainly to be had at heart in the highest, as well as in the lowest of the courts held in his name. Therefore, we are humbly of the mind, since the remedy will for certain be a thousand times worse than the alleged disease, it ought by no means to be turned into a standing act.

of the members of synod, particularly to Mr. Mercer of Aberdalgie, who moved that Mr. Erskine should be censured for his freedom of speech, and admonished to be more cautious for the future. This produced the appointment of a committee to select the offensive passages, which committee, after having done so, appointed a sub-committee to wait upon Mr. Erskine with these passages,* and deal with him

*The following are the remarks made by the committee upon which the judgment of the synod was founded:-" The strain of a good part of the said sermon evidently appears to be, to compare the ministers of this church with the most corrupt teachers under the Old Testament, and in our Saviour's days; in regard, 1mo, That before he came to declaim upon the particular corruptions and degeneracies of the Jewish priests, he premised this general, as key to all that was to be said on that head, namely, " that he left it to the consciences of every one to judge, what of these corruptions were to be found among ourselves at this day." 2do, And having charged the Jewish preachers and teachers with very great corruptions, came at length to speak of their corrupt notions of the kingdom of the Messias; and then subjoined, “ that he might be allowed to say, that mistaken notions of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, was the ground of many things that were wrong among us at this day;" which is a further evidence, that, agreeable to the general premises, he intended a comparison all along. 5tio, Nay, so fond he appeared to aggra vate the comparison, that he charges the Jewish teachers, "that they being connected with the great, trampled upon the people, as an unhallowed mob,” with an evident design to hold forth what he judges to be the character of the ministers of the church of Scotland at this day; whereas it is evident from the scripture, that the Jewish teachers, scribes and Pharisees, did almost every thing to be seen of men, even of the multitude; as appears from our Saviour's mentioning places of public resort and concourse, when he charges them with these things.

"When he was discoursing on the head anent the builders; after he had told that it was a great crime to intrude into the office without a mission, he said, 'that in order to one's being accounted a builder, there were two things necessary, the call of God, and the call of the church; that they who had not the call of the church should be looked upon as thieves and robbers; and that this call ought not to be by the heritors, or any other set of men, but by the whole church; and refuses that any minister had God's call, who had only a call from the heritors, or any other set of men;' by which he excludes the whole ministers of the church of Scotland, and himself among them, from having the call of God; the body of christians having never been allowed to vote in the election of a minister.

"As a further evidence that he thought a call from the whole of the people absolutely necessary, he alleged, that this was a natural right, that every society had, to choose servants for themselves; and that it would be counted

to retract them, which he refusing to do, the whole was laid before the synod. After a debate, continued for three days, the synod, by a plurality of six voices, found the selected passages of Mr. Erskine's sermon censurable, and, accordingly, pronounced sentence that he should be rebuked and admonished at their bar," and the presbytery of Stirling was instructed to inquire anent his behaviour in time coming at their privy censures, and report to the synod at their next meeting." Against this sentence Mr. Erskine entered his protest, and appealed to the next General Assembly.*

Mr. Alexander Moncrieff, in his own name, and in the

a great bondage and servitude upon any family, if foreigners were to choose servants for them; and that certainly the church had a power of choosing their own ministers, seeing they were the freest society upon earth.'

"After he had spoke of the great encroachments that had been made on Christ's kingly office in the times of popery and prelacy; he said, "that after the late wonderful revolution, by which our church was delivered, it might have been expected, that this church would have given some testimony against these encroachments; but that he did not remember ever they had made an act, asserting the headship of our Lord Jesus Christ, since the revolution;" by which, at least, he charges our forefathers with a sinful silence or negligence.

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66 Speaking of the encroachments that had been made upon Christ's kingly office, and the rights of the people since the revolution, he said, that a cry had gone up to heaven about these things in the words of the spouse, that the watchmen that went about the city had found her, and taken away her vail from her, and smote her; that the cry came before the bar of the last General Assembly; but that instead of redressing this and other grievances, they increased them, by lodging the power of election in the heritors and elders, excluding the people; whereby Christ was deeply wounded in his members.' He farther added, that whatever church authority there was in that act, there was nothing of the authority of the head of the church: that he was sure it had no foundation in scripture, where there was no distinction in spiritual matters made betwixt the rich man with the gold ring and gay clothing, and the poor man.' And he concluded with this, that if Christ were personally present, (and I being here, by appointment of the synod, in his stead) I say, were Christ personally present, he would say to you, 'Forasmuch as you have done it to one of those little ones, you have done it to nie.'

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"In the end of his discourse, he gave this advice to ministers, not to be as dumb dogs when their fellow builders go wrong; and though this will offend, yet he said, he behoved to speak."'

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* True State of the Process against Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, &c. Edinburgh,

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name of all that should adhere to him, did also dissent from and protest against the said sentence, to which dissent Mr. Wilson, Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Bowis, Mr. M'Intosh, Baillie Gib, Mr. Coventry, Mr. Brugh, Mr. Halay, Mr. Frier, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Gow, Mr. Beaton, and Mr. Meik, the moderator, adhered. Mr. Fisher, who, in regard Mr. Erskine was his father-in-law, had been excluded from any vote in the affair, also protested against the foresaid sentence, not only as prejudicial to Mr. Erskine, but as injurious to the truths of God's word, and appealed to the next General Assembly.*

At the last sederunt of this synod, Mr. Moncrieff gave in, for himself and those that adhered to him, reasons of dissent from this decision with regard to Mr. Erskine, which, in consequence of a late act of assembly, they could not enter upon their minutes, but they allowed the same to be kept in retentis by their clerk. Mr. Erskine was also at this sederunt called up in order to be rebuked and admonished in terms of his sentence, but he not compearing, they resolved that he should be rebuked at their next meeting in April.

This procedure on the part of the synod could not but be regarded by the greater part of presbyterians as tyrannical and unjust, and it was as impolitic as it was unjust. Nothing seems to have been farther from Mr. Erskine's intention than formally to separate from the church of Scotland. He appears to have had no farther idea in the course he pursued than merely to exonerate his own conscience, by an explicit testimony against what he really believed to be sinful, which, from the closing of the registers of church courts, he could do only from the pulpit, and having once done it fully, he could not have had much temptation to repeat it. Personal pique against Mr. Erskine, and envy of his extensive popularity, were unhappily at the bottom of the whole procedure, which, as it increased that popularity in a tenfold degree, heightened the angry feeling of his opponents, and rendered them incapable of improving the few months that elapsed between the meetings of synod, for taking a more cool and dispassionate view of the subject. Accordingly, when the synod

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met in April, we find them in the very same temper, and though the presbytery of Stirling, and the kirk session there, the first by communing with a committee of synod, and the latter by petitioning it, endeavoured to have the matter accommodated, they both endeavoured it to no purpose, the representations of the one being disregarded, and the petition of the other not read. Mr. Erskine being called at this synod, and compearing, when they were going to execute their sentence, only told them, that he adhered to his appeal.*

More eagerly expected, and, in consequence of the above events, looked forward to with more anxiety than any that had sat since the Union, the General Assembly convened at Edinburgh, May third, 1733. The Rev. John Gowdie, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, was chosen moderator, William, marquis of Lothian, being appointed commissioner. His majesty's most gracious letter was, as usual, presented to the assembly, and was answered in common form. On the fifth of May, a complaint was laid before this assembly for Sir John Bruce, and others of the parish of Kinross, against the presbytery of Dunfermline, for refusing to receive and enrol Mr. Robert Stark, minister at Kinross, as a member of presbytery, in obedience to an act of the General Assembly, May 1732, and two several appointments of the commission in November and March last; and a warrant was issued for summoning several brethren, members of that presbytery, with the presbytery clerk, to compear before the assembly on Thursday next, at ten in the forenoon, to give the reasons why they did not obey the said act and appointments, and some ministers, members of the said presbytery, present at the assembly bar, were cited apud acta to

that diet.

On Thursday, the ministers comprising the presbytery of Dunfermline, answered to their summonses,-two excepted, whose excuses were sustained-and their complaint against the commission of the last assembly, as having no power to meddle in the affair of Mr. Stark's enrolment, being heard, the commission was assoilzied therefrom, and a committee appointed to

• True State of the Process, &c.

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