SCOTLAND. 283 



solemn. The patron of a living is bound to nominate or present in 

 six months after a vacancy ; otherwise the presbytery fills the place 

 jure devoluto ; but that privilege does not hold in royal burghs. 



A kirk session is the lowest ecclesiastical judicatory in Scotland, and 

 its authority does not extend beyond its own parish. The members 

 consist of the ministers, elders, and deacons. The deacons are laymen, 

 and act nearly as churchwardens do in England, by having the super- 

 intendency of the poor, and taking care of other parochial affairs. The 

 elder, or, as he is called, the ruling elder, is a place of great parochial 

 trust, and he is generally a lay-person of quality or interest in the par- 

 ish The elders are supposed to act in a kind of co-ordinacy wito the 

 minister, and to be assisting to him in many of his clerical duties, par- 

 ticularly in catechising, visiting the sick, and at the cammunion table. 



The office of ministers, or preaching presbyters, includes the offices 

 (teacons and ruling elders ; they alone can preach, administer the 

 sacrament, catechise, pronounce church censures, ordain deacons and 

 ruling elders, assist at the imposition of hands upon other ministers, 

 and moderate cr preside in all ecclesiastical judicatories. 



The established religion of Scotland formerly partook of all the 

 austerities of Calvinism, and of too much of the intolerance of popery.: 

 but at present it is mikl and gentle ; and the sermons and other 

 theological writings of many of die modern Scotch divines are equally 

 distinguished by good sense and moderation. In the Lowlands 

 there are a great number of congregations who dissent from the pres- 

 byterian establishment and doctrines in several particulars, and are 

 called Seceders. These are again subdivided into Burghers and Anti- 

 burghers. They maintain their own preachers, though scarcely any 

 two congregations agree either in principle or practice with each other. 



The other dissenters in Scotland, consist of the episcopalians, a few 

 quakers, many baptists, and other sectaries, who are denominated from 

 their preacners. Episcopacy, from the time of the restoration in 1660, 

 to that of the revolution in 1688, was the established religion of Scot- 

 land ; and would probably have continued so, had not the bishops, who 

 were in general very weak men, and creatures of the duke of York, 

 afterwards James VII and II, refused to recognize king William's title. 

 The partisans of that unhappy prince retained the episcopal religion: 

 and king William's government was rendered so unpopular in Scot- 

 land, that in queen Anne's time, the episcopalians were more numer- 

 ous in some parts than the presbyterians ; and their meetings, which 

 they held under the act of toleration, as well attended. A Scotch episco- 

 palian thus becoming another name for a jacobite, they received some 

 checks after the rebellion in 1715 ; but they recovered themselves so 

 well, that at the breaking out of the rebellion in 1745, they become 

 again numerous : after which the government found means to invalidate 

 the acts of their clerical order. Their meetings, however, still subsist, 

 but thinly; the decline of the nonjurors having suppressed episcopacy 

 ia Scotland. The English bishops supply them with clergy qualified 

 according to law, whose chapels are chiefly filled by the English, and 

 such Scotch hearers of that persuasion as have places under govern- 

 ment 



The defection of some great families from the cause of popery, 

 and the distinction of others, have rendered its votaries inconsiderable 

 in Scotland. They are chiefly confined to the northern parts, and the 



