CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 



have since been repealed. There is, however, a 

 not inconsiderable difference of opinion in these 

 two Churches respecting the interpretation of their 

 common standards as bearing on the doctrine of 

 the province of the civil magistrate in religious 

 affairs. While both are agreed in asserting, 

 generally, the headship of Christ and the co- 

 ordinate jurisdiction of church and state, as 

 these are embodied in the standards, the Free 

 Church maintains that the existing relations of 

 church and state, in the case of the Establish- 

 ment, are inconsistent with the perfect freedom of 

 the Church in the conduct and management of its 

 own affairs. The legislative and administrative 

 freedom of the Church regarding spiritual matters, 

 and the people's right of call, were the main 

 elements of dispute in the ' Ten Years' Conflict,' 

 which terminated in the formation of the Free 

 Church. It is held by Free Churchmen that in 

 the enforcement of the rights given to patrons by 

 the Act passed in 1712, when Jacobite counsels 

 prevailed in the court of Queen Anne, during the 

 1 8th century, and a considerable part of the 

 1 9th, no direct invasion of the ecclesiastical 

 province took place on the part of the civil courts 

 and of the civil power ; the presentation of the 

 patron was regarded as simply conveying a civil 

 right to the benefice or emoluments ; and that the 

 Court of Session, in requiring ecclesiastical action 

 to follow presentation, took new ground, tanta- 

 mount to an unwarrantable interference with the 

 liberty of the Church. In August 1842, the 

 House of Lords affirmed a decree of the Court 

 of Session, which required the presbytery of 

 Auchterarder to take the ordinary steps towards 

 the settlement of the presentee to Auchterarder, 

 without regard to the dissent of the parishioners. 

 An application to parliament, in the form of a 

 'Claim of Right' from the evangelical majority 

 for an Act such as would have reconciled the 

 duties of their position according to the law of the 

 land, in the Church by law established, with what 

 they believed to be their duty towards Christ and 

 according to His law, was rejected ; and it now 

 seemed to them that the only course open was to 

 retire from their position by the sacrifice of the 

 emoluments and benefits of an establishment. 

 Accordingly, in 1843, 474 ministers renounced 

 their connection with the Establishment, and 

 along with them a great body of its elders and 

 members. 



The Free Church forthwith addressed itself to 

 the important work of organisation. An im- 

 mense enthusiasm pervaded its members, by whose 

 unprecedented liberality a Sustentation Fund, fur- 

 nishing an equal dividend to all the ministers of 

 the Church, was successfully launched ; churches 

 and manses were erected in all parts of Scotland ; 

 the support of all the missionaries who had be- 

 longed to the Church of Scotland, and who now 

 joined the Free Church, was undertaken from the 

 first ; and when it was found that the question 

 affected the position of parish schoolmasters, an 

 ' Education Scheme ' was framed and carried out. 

 Colleges for the training of ministers were founded 

 in the cities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glas- 

 gow. The Free Church movement reacting upon 

 the Establishment, and profoundly influencing 

 other churches both at home and abroad, lent an 

 immense impetus to the work of church extension 

 in Scotland, as well as to evangelistic and mis- 



sionary enterprise in other countries. The move- 

 ment affected the colonial no less than the mis- 

 sionary field, though, in this case, not with like 

 results. The divisions which it wrought in the 

 colonies have, however, since been almost entirely 

 healed. The Presbyterians of the colony of 

 Victoria realising that in their new circumstances 

 the Scottish differences occasioned by state con- 

 nection had no practical bearing on their case, 

 took the initiative in union, the advantages of 

 which soon became so obvious, that various 

 Presbyterian bodies in the other colonies have 

 since formed united churches. An effort to bring 

 about a union between the Free Church and the 

 United Presbyterian Church of late, failed through 

 the opposition of a minority in the Free Church. 



In the first year of the Disruption, the sum of 

 ,367,000 was raised by the Free Church, whose 

 Sustentation Fund now amounts to ^152,112 a 

 year. The total sums raised for the various 

 objects of the Free Church of Scotland, for the 

 year ending 3131 March 1874, amounted to 

 ,511,000. The equal dividend is .150 a year, 

 the number of ministers who receive it being 826. 

 Of these, 600 also share in a general surplus fund. 

 The whole number of ministers is upwards of 937, 

 and the congregations number more than 954. 



UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 



The United Presbyterian Church, one of the 

 three larger religious denominations in Scotland, 

 was constituted in 1847 by the amalgamation of 

 the Secession and Relief Churches. 



The Secession Church was the earliest out- 

 come of dissatisfaction in the Church of Scotland 

 with what was regarded by the Covenanting 

 element within its pale as those compromises 

 attendant on the Revolution, by which, for ex- 

 ample, hundreds of Episcopalian curates were 

 allowed to retain their parishes, in which they 

 had been stationed, on subscribing the Confes- 

 sion of Faith ; and great numbers of laymen 

 became office-bearers in a church whose strict 

 adherents they had but lately hunted to death. 

 The enforcement of the law of patronage was 

 the occasion of the secession of Ebenezer 

 Erskine and a few other ministers, who, by means 

 of little Christian societies, which were every- 

 where formed, and gradually supplied with pastors, 

 succeeded in making an impression on the reli- 

 gious life of the country. In 1747, the small but 

 increasing body divided on the question of the 

 consistency of a Seceder taking the burgess-oath, 

 the party condemning the religious clause consti- 

 tuting the General Associate Synod, or, popularly, 

 the Anti-burgher Synod; the party tolerating it, 

 the Associate or Burgher Synod, Each of these 

 was subsequently divided, and two other trivial de- 

 nominations were formed, the Old Anti-burghers 

 (1806) and Old Light Burghers (1799). The 

 Burghers and Anti-burghers were again united in 

 1820, when their congregations, which numbered 

 32 at the breach (1747), amounted to 262. The 

 chief controversies in which the Secession Church 

 was engaged are the Voluntary Controversy, 

 conducted with leading divines of the Established 

 Church (1829-1834), and the Atonement Contro- 

 versy. At the date of union with the Relief 

 Church in 1847, the Secession had a staff of 60 

 missionaries. 



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