choice or alternative but submission in things spiritual, to civil control, or separation from the State and from the benefits of the Establishment. Holding firmly to the last, as she holds still, and, through God's grace, will ever hold, that it is the duty of civil rulers to recognize the truth of God, according to His Word, and to promote and support the kingdom of Christ, without assuming any jurisdiction in it, or any power over it; and deeply sensible, moreover, of the advantages resulting to the community at large, and especially to its more destitute portions, from the public endowment of pastoral charges among them: this Church could not contemplate without anxiety and alarm the prospect of losing, for herself, important means of general usefulness,-leaving the whole machinery of the Establishment in the hands of parties who could retain it only by the sacrifice of her fundamental principles, and seeing large masses of the people deprived of the advantage of having the services of a gospel ministry provided for them independently of their own resources. But her path was made plain before her. For the system of civil interference in matters spiritual being still persevered in, so as to affect materially the very constitution of the General Assembly, in the election of commissioners from the Presbyteries to that supreme court, it became the duty of those of the said commissioners who were faithful to the crown of Christ, and who formed decidedly the major part of the members chosen according to the laws of the Church,—to protest,* * Protest, &c. in presence of Her Majesty's representative, on the 18th of May 1843, against the meeting then convened being held to be a free and lawful Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Under which protest, and in the terms thereof, the said commissioners withdrew to another place of meeting, where, on the same day, and with concurrence of all the ministers and elders adhering to them, they proceeded to constitute, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only King and Head of the Church on earth, the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, and to take measures for the establishment of the Church apart from the State in the land. p. 354. How signally God opened for her, in her new position, both a door of utterance and a door of entrance, not only in this, but in other countries also-how mercifully He disappointed all her fears, and procured for her acceptance among the people-how wonderfully He disposed all hearts so as to continue to her the means of missionary enterprise, both at home and abroad—how graciously He cheered her, by giving to her the signal privilege of finding all her missionaries, to the Jews and the Gentiles, true to herself and to her principles, in the hour of trial; and in general, how large a measure of prosperity and peace He was pleased to grant to her, though with some severe persecution and oppression in certain quarters,-this Church cannot but most devoutly acknowledge: mourning bitterly, as she must at the same time do, over many shortcomings and sins, and lamenting the little spiritual fruit of awakening and revival that has accompanied the Lord's bountiful and wonderful dealing with her. In deep humiliation, therefore, but at the same time in the holy boldness of faith unfeigned, she would still seek to retain and occupy the position which the foregoing summary of her history assigns to her; humbly claiming to be identified with the Church of Scotland, which solemnly bound herself to the Reformation from Popery, and again similarly pledged herself to the Reformation from Prelacy; deploring past shortcomings from the principles and work of these Reformations, as well as past secessions from her own communion, occasioned by tyranny and corruption in her councils; and, finally, resolved and determined, as in the sight and by the help of God, to prosecute the ends contemplated from the beginning in all the acts and deeds of her reforming fathers, until the errors which they renounced shall have disappeared from the land, and the true system which they upheld shall be so universally received that the whole people, rightly instructed in the faith, shall unite to glorify God the Father in the full acknowledgment of the kingdom of His Son, our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, to whose name be praise for ever and Extracted from the Records of the General Assembly of the Free CONFESSION OF FAITH; THE LARGER AND SHORTER CATECHISMS, WITH THE Scripture-Proofs at Large: TOGETHER WITH THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE, (CONTAINED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND HELD FORTH IN THE SAID CONFESSION AND CATECHISMS,) AND PRACTICAL USE THEREOF; COVENANTS, NATIONAL AND SOLEMN LEAGUE; DIRECTORIES FOR PUBLICK AND FAMILY WOR- FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, &C. OF PUBLICK AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH OF WITH ACTS OF ASSEMBLY AND PARLIAMENT, RE- Deut. vi. 6, 7.-And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. LICENCE. In terms of Her Majesty's Letters to Her Printers for Scotland, and of the Instructions issued by Her Majesty in Council, dated the Eleventh day of July Eighteen hundred and thirty-nine years, I hereby License and Authorise Messrs Johnstone, Hunter, and Company, Publishers in Edinburgh, to print within the premises, situated in North East Thistle Street Lane, Edinburgh, occupied by Messrs Murray and Gibb as a Printing Office, and to publish, as by the Authority of Her Majesty, an Edition of the Confession of Faith in Bourgeois and Minion type, duodecimo size, to consist of Two Thousand Copies, as proposed in their Declaration, dated the Nineteenth day of March Eighteen hundred and sixty years; the terms and conditions of the said Instructions being always, and in all points, fully complied with and observed by the said Johnstone, Hunter, and Company. EDINBURGH, April 4, 1860. J. MONCREIFF. |