pure and honourable, wise and merciful. It was a great and glorious deliverance from popery and arbitrary power, which prevented Briain from being again brought under the bondage of superstition, which rekindled the flame of civil and religious freedom, that had previously been well nigh extinguished, and re-entered our country, which, dur.ng the reigns of Charles and James, had been degraded by subserviency to France, upon that career of glory which has raised her to be the most powerful and influential nation that ever existed on the footstool of God. The Revolution affected the history of the world and of mankind in a degree second only to the Reformation. By raising Britain to the position which she has occupied during the last century and a half, it has not only affected the liberties of Europe in a beneficial manner, but, by means of British commerce and colonisation, has exercised an influence on all the nations of the earth, which will be felt through all the ages of time. Viewed as the work of God, it was therefore a most glorious and blessed revolution, for which we never can be sufficiently thankful, and of which no Protestant, who has a spark of patriotism in his bosom, will ever think or speak without grateful admiration.

When, however, we view the Revolution as THE WORK OF MAN— when we consider the nature of the change which the principal actors, in the exercise of their own voluntary faculties, saw meet to introduce truth requires us to speak in more qualified language; for their work was of a very mixed character. When the Revolution Settlement is viewed in opposition to the system of tyranny, and the general perversion of law, justice, and religion, in the period immediately preceding, our gratitude must rise, and we may justly say, The Lord hath done great things for us, turning back a long captivity as streams of water in the south; but when we view it in comparison of another system of principles and measures formerly adopted, and another settlement made and established by civil and ecclesiastical laws, in a preceding period of Scotland's reformation, it may awaken such sentiments and exercise as certain ancient men were noted for of old, when they beheld the second temple, and perceived its inferiority to the former. As a settlement merely civil, it may deserve a higher degree of commendation than when considered in an ecclesiastical light, in which light it ought surely to be principally attended to by Presbyterians and Seceders.'*

When the Revolution took place, the reformed and covenanted church of Scotland was lying buried beneath the tyrannical and wicked laws which had been passed during the eight and twenty years of persecution. In these circumstances, according to scriptural order, it behoved the state to take the initiative, and to repeal the tyrannical and oppressive laws by which the church was overthrown, and leave her in the possession of that constitution which, in the exercise of her free and independent authority, she had framed for herself from the word of God. If this course had been adopted, the church would at once have sprung into existence in that state of

* Professor Bruce's British Jubilee, p. 228.

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maturity and scriptural proportion which she had attained between 1638 and 1649. As Professor Bruce remarks, if the legislature had revived the acts of the church made in the last period of reformation, ratifying the Confession of Faith and the Form of Church Government, AS THEY HAD BEEN RECEIVED BY THE ASSEMBLY'S ACTS, AND FOR THE PURPOSES THEREIN EXPRESSED, they would not have acted so far amiss, even though they had not waited for a new and formal Assembly about to be convened.'* But the legislature did not 'revive the acts of the church made in the last period of reformation;' neither did they receive the Confession of Faith 'as it had been received by the Assembly's acts, and for the purposes therein expressed.' On the contrary, without consulting the church at the time, and without the slightest reference to her former acts, 'our presbyterial form of church government,' to use the words of our Acknowledgment of Sins,' was settled according to its civil establishment in the year 1592; and all the steps of reformation attained in that covenanting period were neglected and passed by.'t According to this statement, the legislature, at the Revolution, set aside, by its own sole authority, the whole attainments of the Second Reformation, without asking the consent of the church, and in the way of ignoring all the ecclesiastical acts by which these attainments had been sanctioned. If the church had agreed with the state beforehand to 'neglect and pass by all the attainments of the Second Reformation,' this would have been a gigantic act of apostacy; but it would not have been Erastianism, inasmuch as the state had the previous consent of the church. But the state having 'neglected and passed by all the attainments of the Second Reformation,' without the consent of the church, and in despite of the numerous laws which she had passed in behalf of these attainments, and which she never repealed, in so doing, was, on a large scale, chargeable with Erastianism, both as to the manner and the matter of their act. It was Erastian as to the manner of it; for the state took the precedence of the church, not for the purpose of repealing a civil law, but in matters purely ecclesiastical. It was Erastian as to the matter of it, inasmuch as it made the church go a century backward, and placed her in the position which she occupied in 1592, in opposition to the whole laws which she had passed sanctioning the Second Reformation. Thus, at the Revolution, the legislature, by one act, blotted out a whole Reformation-neglected and passed by all its attainments,' without ever hearing the church in the matter; and from that time to the present period, the Second Reformation, and all that was peculiar to it, has been legally unknown in the Scottish Establishment. That this was Erastianism on the widest scale, according to the sense in which that word was used in the Non-Intrusion controversy, we cannot conceive it possible for any candid person, competently acquainted with the facts, to call

*Review of Proceedings of Synod.

† Acknowledgment of Sins, made by all the Ministers and Elders of the Secession Church, when renewing the Covenant, and which is imperative on all.-Gibb's Display, pp. 230, 231.

in question. To this Erastianism the church at the Revolution submitted, for she raised no protest against what was then done, nor has she at any subsequent time formally owned the Second Reformation.

In a former paper in this Magazine, entitled 'Historical View of the various Settlements of the Church of Scotland,' we took occasion to point out the defects of the Revolution Settlement, and showed that 'the Protest and Claim of Rights of the Free Church' rested on an Erastian basis, so long as that church stood upon Revolution ground; and that, historically viewed, they would only become valid when she formally owned the Second Reformation, and raised her testimony against the defects of the Revolution Settlement. The paper, we believed, was written with singleness of eye and simplicity of heart, and with a sincere and patriotic desire to promote the interests and the honour of the Free Church of Scotland. Parties, however, are not always good judges in their own case, and we, it seems, are no exception; for a western journal has recently asserted, that, besides coming short in point of tone and spirit, in that paper we had deviated from the views held by the most venerated fathers of the Original Secession Church on the subject of the Revolution Settlement-none of whom, it seems, believed as we do in its Erastianism. In making this assertion, we believe the writer to have been perfectly honest; but men often honestly make erroneous statements, because they know no better. Believing this to be the case with the journalist in question, for his information, and for the instruction of all others who may be similarly situated, we shall in this paper: first, give an historical view of the sentiments held by the fathers of the Secession about the Revolution Settlement; secondly, show the important bearing which right views on this question have upon the interests of religion and the duty of the churches in this country.

To give a connected view of the matter from the beginning, by fathers of the Secession, we shall understand the sound Presbyterians and Covenanters within the Establishment, as well as those who afterwards separated. The question naturally occurs, and is often asked with not a little surprise, How came it to pass that so defective a settlement was acquiesced in by the church? After suffering for the covenanted Reformation during eight and twenty years, how came it to pass that, in the hour of victory, they allowed the banner to fall from their hands which they had held aloft during the whole of that deadly and protracted struggle? Worn out by oppression, had they become so fond of peace, that they were ready to purchase it on any terms? Or were they all satisfied with the new Establishment? Seeing the church was silent, must we hold that the Presbyterian sufferers looked upon the Revolution Settlement as embracing the whole cause for which they suffered even unto death? No; these good men were not satisfied, but very much the opposite, with what was done; and neither were they altogether silent, but they were overborne in some things by court authority, and cajoled and hoodwinked by courtly churchmen, and made to believe that their desires would be granted when a suitable time should arrive.

A number of circumstances contributed to the defects of the Re

volution Settlement, which it is necessary to keep in view in order to have correct views on the subject. William was a great man and a great king, but he had been educated in the Belgick Church, which, though presbyterian in government and orthodox in doctrine, allowed to the magistrate a power in religion inconsistent with the spiritual independence of the church. That our readers may have some idea of the powers claimed by the magistrate over the church to which the Prince of Orange had been accustomed in his native country, we shall give them one example of its exercise. The classis, or presbytery, of Walcheren, having unanimously resolved to debar from the Lord's-table all scandalous persons, and particularly the profaners of the Lord's-day, the committee of council wrote unto the presbytery that the discerning of punishment (viz., ecclesiastical, such as is debarring from the sacrament) did not belong to them, but unto the states alone as the sovereigns of the land; and they ordered the presbytery not to proceed in that matter until the mind of the states were known thereanent. In 1671, the states judged that by this dealing of the presbytery the civil authority was weakened, and that such innovations should be withstood; and for this cause they required extracts of the said resolution, and a copy of the letter that was therewith sent to all the churches under that presbytery; and farther, they declare the said resolution, with the letter, to be unlawful, null, and of no worth,-withal enjoining the presbytery, and all the churches belonging thereunto, to disregard the said resolution and letter, and forbidding any church censure to be inflicted upon that account.* Accustomed to the exercise of a power like this, it is not to be wondered at that William gave such peremptory orders respecting the settlement of church affairs, and that he so often encroached upon the independence of the church, as it was shown that he did in our former paper.

Had the parliament been animated by the spirit of the lords of the congregation at the first Reformation, or by that of the nobility of Scotland in 1638, the Erastian principles of the king would have been rendered innocuous. But of a very different stamp were most of the men who composed the parliament of 1690. By comparing the lists of the members of parliament during the persecuting period, and especially King James' last parliament, with that of the Convention of Estates in 1689, it appears that the far greater part of the persons who composed the former were members of the latter. In the Convention of Estates, which presented the Claim of Rights on which the Revolution Settlement was based, there were present no less than twenty members of the bloody privy council. And on comparison it appears that, with the exception of seven bishops who sat in the Convention of Estates, but did not afterwards sit in parliament, the members of the first parliament of William and Mary were precisely the same as those who sat in the Convention of Es

*The Erastianism of the Belgian States, in this and other proceedings, drew forth a very able paper from James Stewart, afterwards Lord Advocate of Scotland; from the papers bound up with which in the Advocate's Library the above account was taken.

tates, and the members of the Convention of Estates were for the most part members of the persecuting parliaments of the preceding reign. The best of them had succumbed in spirit, and all the leading men among them had been actively engaged in framing and upholding the most oppressive and iniquitous laws that ever disgraced the statute books of a civilised land. These were the men who were for the most part employed in the settlement of religion at the period in question. It was not to be expected that an assembly composed of such members would be guided by any other rule than expediency, or have in view any higher ends than political advantage, except in so far as they were constrained by the voice of the country overpoweringly expressed. It was impossible to propose anything else than that prelacy should be abolished and presbytery established. Accordingly, in the Claim of Rights it was demanded that prelacy be abolished, not because it was opposed to the word of God, nor because its establishment had been contrary to the constitutional law of the country; but simply because it was a grievance and trouble to this nation. And it was claimed that presbytery be established, not because it was the only scriptural form of church government, but because it was agreeable to the inclinations of the people. A parliament, the majority of which was thus prepared to act on the principles of expediency, was fitted to strengthen instead of checking the Erastian tendencies of the king.

Had the spirit of Knox, or Melville, or Henderson, presided in the first General Assembly after the Revolution, and been surrounded only by men of upright hearts, and simple intentions, and steady faith, and consciences void of offence, few as were the numbers of the presbyterian ministers who survived the persecution, these firetried men would have made both the court and the parliament do homage to Scotland's covenanted laws. Conscious of our own infirmities, it becomes us to remember the very difficult circumstances in which ministers were placed during the persecution, and that we who live in this soft, and luxurious, and self-complacent age, if called to act the same part, would probably fall farther short than they did. At the same time, truth must be told, if we are at all to learn wisdom from the past. And true it is, that the greater part of the constituent members of the Revolution Assembly were more or less implicated in the defections of the preceding period. Nearly one-half of the members of the first Assembly were Public Resolutioners; and the Public Resolutions, according to the Original Secession Testimony, were 'the first step of defection in Scotland, and that which led the way to the overthrow of the Reformation.' A second class of ministers in this first Assembly had accepted the indulgence, which, according to the Judicial Act and Testimony, flowed from the blasphemous supremacy, and tended to advance and establish the same.' Others of them had been guilty of swearing some of the sinful oaths and bonds imposed during the persecution. Besides, almost all of them, two years before, had accepted King James' Toleration, and united in forwarding an Address to his majesty, wherein they offer their hearty thanks to that popish prince, and bless the great God of