182 EDITOR. 



out a lawful vocation ; and that a lawful vocation stand- 

 eth in the election of the people^ examination of the minis- 

 try, and admission of them both." I find in the Second 

 Book, as sanctioned by our earlier Assemblies, and sworn 

 to in our National Covenant, that as this liberty of elec- 

 tion was observed and respected as long as the primitive 

 Church maintained its purity, it should be also observed 

 and respected by the Reformed Church of Scotland ; and 

 that neither by the King himself, nor by any inferior 

 person, should ministers be intruded on congregations, 

 contrary to the will of the people.' His expression of 

 devotion to his Church may be not uninstructive to those 

 who cannot conceive of a Church which has a definite 

 and comprehensive creed, as anything else but a grinding 

 intellectual tyranny. ' To no man do I yield in the love 

 and respect which I bear to the Church of Scotland. I 

 never signed the Confession of her Faith, but I do more, 

 I believe it ; and I deem her scheme of government 

 at once the simplest and most practically beneficial that 

 has been established since the time of the Apostles. But 

 it is the vital spirit, not the dead body, to which I am 

 attached : it is to the free popular Church, established 

 by our Reformers, not to an unsubstantial form or an 

 empty name, a mere creature of expediency and the 

 State : and had she so far fallen below my estimate of 

 her dignity and excellence as to have acquiesced in your 

 lordship's decision, the leaf holds not more loosely by 

 the tree when the October wind blows highest, than I 

 would have held by a Church so sunk and degraded.' 



A large part of this masterly tractate is necessarily 

 devoted to a consideration of the law of patronage en- 

 acted t by the British Legislature in the reign of Anne. 

 The incompatibility of that law with the fundamental 

 principles of the Church of Scotland, the baseness of the 



