SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE. 171 



withdraw his protection, and she cease to be an estab- 

 lishment any longer, but in all the high matters of 

 sacred and spiritual jurisdiction, she would be the same 

 as before. With or without an establishment, she, in 

 these, is the unfettered mistress of her doings. The 

 king, by himself or by his representative, might be the 

 spectator of our proceedings but what Lord Chatham 

 said of the poor man's house is true in all its parts of 

 the Church to which I have the honour to belong : "In 

 England every man's house is his castle." Not that it is 

 surrounded with walls and battlements. It may be a 

 straw-built shed. Every wind of heaven may whistle 

 round it, every element of heaven may enter it, but 

 the king cannot, the king dare not/ 



These views of Chalmers, unchallenged at the time, 

 are accordant with the constitutional theory of the Church 

 of Scotland. The decision of Hallam, based on express 

 and unequivocal provisions of the Treaty of Union be- 

 tween England and Scotland, is conclusive on the point. 

 The Presbyterian Church was accepted as an integral 

 and essential part of the constitution of the United King- 

 dom, and the Confession of Eaith was enrolled among 

 the fundamental statutes of the realm. But neither 

 Chalmers nor Hugh Miller perceived, until the cold iron 

 of experience sent the death-like truth to their hearts, 

 that the sardonic smile with which Hallam records that 

 ' the Moderator dissolves the Assembly in the name of 

 the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and by 

 the same authority appoints another to meet on a certain 

 day of the ensuing year,' while the Royal Commissioner 

 subsequently performs the same ceremony in name of 

 the sovereign, had a minatory and potent significance. 

 By the Treaty of Union it was decreed that the spiritual 

 province and the ecclesiastical province should ' remain 

 independent of each other in Scotland, and that the 



