self. He gravely tells us that those who have employed close reflection in aid of their inquiries after truth will only disregard it. But you, Mr. Smith, have not followed this course; you have actually blazoned it on the title-page of your book that you have answered the Protest. You have written thirty pages of very unreadable matter in an abortive attempt to fulfil the pledge of your title-page. You have not disregarded the Protest, and fairly convict yourself of not employing close reflection in aid of your inquiries after truth. We most frankly accept your acknowledgment, and only regret that the making of it should have been so unnecessary. Did it not demand some boldness, only four years after the Disruption, and not much longer after the facts which led to it, to say that these facts, embodied in the form of specific charges in the Protest, rest on no better authority than the assertion of the parties who prefer them? The charges in the Protest are not inferences, not processes of reasoning-they are matters of fact and history; they were brought out of the form of abstract principle, and embodied in a series of actions, which were public, notorious, simple, and intelligible enough. Yet it turns out they are not facts after all, but assertions. This is the sum of Mr. Smith's answer to the Protest!

This book is remarkable for its dulness. We had almost said that, in this respect, it was unparalleled, and this would have been unjust to Mr. Smith. We have a very painful recollection of an abortive effort we made many years ago to wade through the monster letter of the then Dean of Faculty, and of being obliged to give up the task in despair. It would be wrong to say that Mr. Smith's book is more awfully opaque than the Dean's, but it is a homogeneous production. It is shorter considerably than the Dean's book was, and we have been enabled to struggle through it, by repeated efforts, and the exercise of untiring patience, stimulated to the labour as a necessary preparation for our present work. We are somewhat curious to ascertain whether we are quite single in the performance of this herculean labour. We would like to have an interview with any body who could honestly say that he had read this book. We would be disposed to venerate the unwearied industry of such a man, and could recommend him as, in that respect, a rare specimen of humanity. We have met some few people who had bought the book, being mainly attracted by the statement in the title, that it contained an answer to the Protest; but we have seen nobody who had succeeded in struggling through more than twenty pages of it. We are persuaded, indeed, that the only chance it has of being read, is, that the publisher should distribute copies of it in the public rooms of inns during the season when sight-seers and hunters of pleasure are flocking about, and intrust it to the accidents of a succession of wet days. It is amazing what a man will read under such desperate circumstances.

It may appear, at first sight, to contradict the above statement, to say that this book is remarkable for the laudations it has received from the Residuary press. But the assertions are not contradictory in reality. It is true, both that the book is unreadable, and that it has been extravagantly lauded. It is a book very much to be praised by Residuaries who have only read its title-page, and its invincible dulness, which has secured it against being read, has been the very means of securing for it the most extravagant laudations. We cannot conceive the pos

sibility of a man praising it who has read it; but it is both possible and likely that "Truth as Revealed; or, Voluntaryism and Free Churchism opposed to the Word of God: with an Answer to the Protest," should be commended, without qualification, as most logical, conclusive, and masterly. The praises which have been heaped upon it, would lead any one to doubt either their intelligence or their sincerity. They are, however, demonstrative of one thing, namely, of the desperate need the Establishment has of a vindication of some kind, and the eagerness with which they hail the appearance of any production which bears such an aspect. There are some among the ministers and adherents of the Establishment who have the wisdom and the caution of the Scottish proverb-" Least said is soonest mended;" and this class includes all their more distinguished and intelligent men, who never attempt any vindication of the principles on which the Establishment is based, and among whom the name of the Protest is never heard of. But the public organs of the Establishment-the newspapers which support it, and its magazine-cannot maintain the same reserve, and are glad when they can get anything to say. When, therefore, the Rev. George Smith was pleased to unveil his greatness, and shine upon the world as the luminary of the nineteenth century, his apotheosis was quite certain. Is it to be regretted that, in attempting to make divinities of some men, we should only succeed in making them more contemptible?

This book is remarkable for the revelations it gives us of the condition into which the renegades have sunk. The Erastianism advocated by Dr. Cook, and maintained by the principals of Glasgow University and King's College, was nothing like so farreaching as that which is advocated by Mr. Smith. There would seem, indeed, just to be two courses possible for men in the wretched position of apostatesmen who have put their hand to the plough, and turned back-either to abandon themselves, as unhappily some of them have done, to evil habits, and endeavour to drown both sense and conscience in habitual intoxication; or to take up such extreme views as those advocated by Mr. Smith-envelop themselves in a cloud of metaphysical speculation, and try by what processes they can persuade themselves that their conduct is justifiable. There are few things more melancholy than to observe a man trying to mystify his conscience, to pervert his perceptions of truth, and, by ways inconceivable to those who have not tried it, evolving such processes of reasoning as are contained in this book. Poor Mr. Smith, we once hoped better things of you. We never hoped that you would write a book, it is true; and you never would have written it, had you not felt yourself under a terrible necessity of adopting some method to divert and lull the demands of conscience. If this book is to be taken as an indication of the sentiments of the renegades generally, it reveals very clearly how universally and totally the Establishiment has surrendered itself into the hands of the civil power; or, as one of themselves once expressed it," laid prostrate at the feet of the civil magistrate." The professed Evangelicals who remained in the Establishment, remained avowedly to protest against abuses in it, and to reform them. We have sometimes wondered that their efforts in this department never came to light; but the publication of this book reveals to us the fact, that now, in their view, the

Establishment has no abuses to be reformed-it is quite a perfect institution, and perfect especially in its entire and willing subjection to civil authority, and its happy privilege of obeying, in all things, the decrees of the Court of Session.

This book is remarkable as containing, so far as we know, the only formal attempt which has ever been made public of an answer to the Protest. It is incumbent upon us to endeavour to let our readers see what the answer is. We are quite alive to the difficulty of doing this, for it is by no means very easy to comprehend at all times what Mr. Smith would be at; and often, when we have decyphered his meaning, we are fain to seek for one more recondite, the plain meaning involving a denial of such manifest and admitted truth, or such ludicrous absur dity, as to make it difficult for us to believe that any man, however inane or stupid, could mean to say what he says. However, we shall do the best we can, by quoting his own words. He says: “An | answer can be given to the Protest without difficulty. The strength of this apparently formidable document rests upon two assumptions. 1st, That a Church cannot be scriptural which recognises any limitation of her spiritual independence. 2d, That the acts of the civil courts, complained of in the Protest, are wrong in principle-that is to say, are in violation of the Word of God." Mr. Smith then proceeds to answer the first of these assumptions, by contending that it is lawful and scriptural in the Church to make offer, and bind herself to the State to teach certain doctrines, and to regulate her administration according to certain fixed principles; that it is lawful for the State to accept this offer, and to charge itself with seeing that the Church, so long as it is established, continues to adhere to that offer and obligation. In the previous part of his book, he wastes very much unnecessary argument in endeavouring to establish these principles, which no member of the Free Church ever thought of denying. But he argues, if you admit these principles, you do consent to some limitation of the spiritual independence of the Church; and "the spiritual independence claimed by the Free Church is liberty to act in accordance with the Church's future convictions. Such an independence is by no means scriptural, and implies that the Church is bound to adopt as her rule of duty more than God himself has commanded, and is required to be wise above what is written."

"With this answer to its first and great principle, the Protest might be entirely dismissed." (P. 67.) Thus the Protest is answered, by a farrago of nonsense which has not the most remote connection with it. It is not true that the protesters ever held or said that the Church, as established, was at liberty to adopt any standard of belief or government she pleased. They did hold that no man, or body of men, ought to surrender their unfettered liberty to inquire into and act out all truth; but it behoved them, if they could escape the guilt of breach of promise with the State, to withdraw from their connection with it, if they came to change their views. So far from seeking to follow out their principles under an engagement that did not sanction them, they proved that their principles were again and again, with every kind of solemnity, adopted and sanctioned by the State. They held, further, that the State, having made known with sufficient clearness its determination to depart from its former engagements, and to contract new ones, no resource was left to them but

to abandon the Establishment; which they did. The propositions which it is incumbent on Mr. Smith to establish, in answer to the Protest, are these :—1. That the decisions and decrees of the civil courts, finally sanctioned by the State in 1843, referred to in the Protest, and more fully stated in the Claim of Right, are in harmony with the standards of the Church. 2. That these decisions and decrees are such as a Church of Christ ought to obtemper and obey, because founded on the Word of God, and agreeable thereto.

It is more immediately to our purpose, however, to observe that the first part of Mr. Smith's answer to the Protest proceeds upon an averment which is not true. It is not true that the Protest proceeds on the assumption, that a Church cannot be scriptural whose constitution recognises any limitation of her spiritual independence. The Protest is not an exhibition of abstract principles, but an eminently practical document. It does not tell us what may be right or wrong under some conceivable circumstances-it proceeds to pronounce upon the matter in hand, and it does no more. Mr. Smith has surely read the Protest, and he was surely capable of understanding a deed so very plain, and so simply illustrated by fact; and yet at the very outset of his answer, and as the ground-work of the whole of it, he deliberately asserts regarding it what is not true --what one would presume he must have known and seen not to be true. We can very well believe that Mr. Smith found it easier to answer his own convictions than the Protest, but we do rather wonder at the effrontery or stupidity with which he deliberately affirms that these inventions are part of the Protest. The Protest is grounded on the fact, "that a free Assembly of the Church of Scotland, in accordance with the laws and constitution of the said Church, cannot at this time be holden;" and then having set forth the facts on which this assertion is based, it proceeds to say: "We are now constrained to acknowledge it to be the mind and will of the State, as recently declared, that submission [to the decrees of the civil courts, as to matters spiritual and ecclesiastical] should, and does form a condition of the Establishment, and of the possession of the benefits thereof; and that as we cannot, without committing what we believe to be sin, in opposition to God's law, in disregard of the honour and authority of Christ's crown, and in violation of our own solemn vows, comply with this condition, we cannot in conscience continue connected with, and retain the benefits of, an Establishment to which such condition is attached." The charge against the Establishment is, that it has submitted to this condition; and he who undertakes to answer the Protest, must affirm this proposition that, in complying with the decrees of the civil courts as to matters spiritual and ecclesiastical, the Establishment has acted in harmony with her own laws and constitution, with God's law, with the honour and authority of Christ, and with the vows under which her ministers have come. Mr. Smith does not even pretend to attempt this-that is to say, he answers the Protest by leaving its charges altogether untouched.

Mr. Smith notices and comments upon the acts of interference by the civil courts recited in the Protest, and says, to what "do they amount? Just to one of the two following acts: 1st, They restrained the Church from adopting, what were her future convictions of God's Word, at the period when the

It

rule obtained the State's sanction, and obliged her to adhere to her original convictions therein expressed. Or 2d, They imposed on the Church the State's sense of their original convictions." Now, here again the Protest and Mr. Smith are at issue on a matter of fact. The Protest assumes and declares that neither the one nor the other of these things was true. It sets forth that what the Church aimed at was to act in accordance with its laws and constitution, as recognised and sanctioned by the State. It asserts no claim on the part of the Church to adopt a new rule, in its connection with the State. asserts that the State had often, by acts of Parliament and solemn treaty, guaranteed and sanctioned the principles which the Free Church attempted to carry out within the Establishment. It assumes that the State, by its denial of the Claim of Right in 1843, adopted and declared a rule altogether new, namely, that the Church as established, in all acts and causes, was henceforth to be subject to the decisions and dictation of the civil court. This is what the Protest says, and proves, and this was what Mr. Smith had to deal with in answering it. He was bound to affirm this proposition, that it is a right and scriptural constitution for a Church of Christ to acknowledge and recognise the civil courts as its supreme head in all cases, spiritual, ecclesiastical, and civil; that is to say, to have no rule of duty, but the property of obeying the mandates of civil courts. But the whole of Mr. Smith's observations upon the Protest, in so far as it sets forth the acts of interfe. rence on the part of the civil court, are ranged under the two general heads we have noticed, and therefore none of them are applicable to the Protest at all.

In the course of his observations, however, many things occur which might claim a passing observation, were it only to notice the ludicrous gravity with which the most absurd statements are made, as if they ought to claim universal assent by the mere rehearsal of them. As thus: "Of the acts of the civil courts narrated in the Protest, the Church of Scotland can only be bound to vindicate two, viz., those implied in the first and second Auchterarder decisions by the House of Peers, since 'in these alone has the mind of the State been finally given. Respecting others, we do not know what its mind may be. They were not brought by appeal before the supreme courts; and until the principle adopted by the State shall have been given, it is utterly unreasonable to charge the acts of an inferior court against us, or even to call on us to vindicate our submission to them as in accordance with the Word of God." This is an exquisite piece of reasoning. By it Mr. Smith at once gets rid of at least seven of the eight specific charges adduced in the Protest. The Protest says it is in violation of the Word of God for the civil courts to interdict the preaching of the gospel. Oh! but says Mr. Smith, it is utterly unreasonable to call upon us to vindicate our submission to such interdicts, for they were never appealed to the House of Lords. The Protest, says it is in violation of the Word of God for the civil courts to suspend spiritual censures pronounced by the Church courts. Mr. Smith answers again, that the interdicts and decrees in these matters were never appealed to the House of Lords. The Protest says, the civil courts should not reduce and set aside a sentence of deposition from the office of the ministry. It is true, says Mr. Smith, that the

Establishment has submitted to such judgments of the civil court; but it is utterly unreasonable to call upon me to vindicate its submission, because it was rendered to the Court of Session, and not to the House of Lords. And so on through the whole narrative of the Protest. Had the House of Lords, indeed, pronounced a decision upon all the cases recited, a vindication of the submission of the Establishment would have been necessary, and might, perhaps, have been difficult. But if the Establishment chooses to submit without appeal to the Court of Session, or to a sheriff, or it may be a justice of peace, we have, it seems, no right to ask her to vindicate her conduct, and to prove its accordance with the Word of God. The Establishment contents itself with the decisions of the inferior courts

recognises the rightness of these decisions in the fact of yielding obedience to them-consents that these decisions shall become, to it, law; and by its submission declares that these decisions do, in fact, constitute the terms of the relation now subsisting between it and the State; and Mr. Smith tells us that for the doing of this it is utterly unreasonable to demand a vindication! Our inference from this statement is, that he means to affirm the following proposition: That it affords matter for reasoning and proof when a Church submits to the decision of the House of Lords, but that the Establishment ought to submit implicitly to the Court of Session is a thing so elementary and axiomatic, so essentially involved in the relation between the two bodies, that it is incapable of proof, and it is utterly unreasonable to call on them to vindicate it as in accordance with the Word of God. Of such stuff is the answer to the Protest composed. Our readers surely do not expect that we should trouble them or ourselves farther about it.

There is only one other thing which we shall notice in this book, and we do so that our readers may be convinced that, in the preceding observations, we have not been dealing unjustly by it, nor treating it with undue severity. Mr. Smith ventures to tell us, at p. 61 of his book, what Erastianism is, as follows: "And here we would venture to put the minds of others right as to the true nature of Erastianism. Erastianism, according to the view of it taken by our opponents, implies the Church's acting in accordance with all the truths of God's Word, revealed to her mind, under the additional obligation of an act of Parliament to adhere to it. [This is absurdly false, but entirely in accordance with Mr. Smith's way of stating the views of his opponents.] But the charge of sinfulness brought against the Church of Scotland, because of such obligation, is entirely at variance with those principles declared in the Word of God. In the act of the Established Church there is no Erastianism, no sacrifice of a single scriptural principle. Of Erastianism proper the Church could ONLY be guilty were she to acknowledge a ciril obligation not to relinquish her endowments." This, we are bold to say, is a discovery in ecclesiastical science, if not worthy of the nineteenth century, at least quite worthy of the Establishment in Scotland. According to this definition, it would be hard to find an Erastian Church. Erastianism consists in the Church coming under a civil obligation not to relinquish her endowment! Of course, then the Establishment in Scotland is not Erastian. Her ministers might, if they chose, give up their manses and stipends, and as the law does not compel them to re

preached as incessantly; inasmuch as these are the evidence of doctrine having become operative, and the visible fruits of the truth having been received in the love of it. Hence the apostle thus instructs Titus (iii. 8), and all other ministers, These things'-that is, these previously mentioned doctrines of grace-I will that thou affirm constantly, in order that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works;' where it is important to observe, that the good works' spoken of are demonstrated, by the 14th verse, to have reference specially to contributions of worldly substance, for necessary uses' in the Church. And it ought to be remembered, that one of the most touching exhibitions of the doctrines of grace which Paul ever gave, was given by him for the express purpose of stirring up man's liberality toward such an object:See that ye abound in this grace also. FOR ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich.' (2 Cor. viii. 7, 9.)"

Inaugural Lecture, Addressed to the Theological Students of the Free Church of Scotland, November 9, 1847, at the opening of the Session of College succeeding the Death of Rev. Dr. Chalmers. By WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, D.D., Principal of the New College, and Professor of Theology and Church History.

A Tribute to the Memory of Dr. Chalmers; Being the Substance of a Lecture delivered at the commencement

of the Present Session of the New College, Edinburgh. By JAMES BUCHANAN, D.D.

We rejoice at the publication of these two introductory lectures. The first is characterized by that solid thought and masculine good sense by which the esteemed lecturer is always distinguished; and as to the second, we do not know that we ever read anything, even from the pen of Dr. Buchanan, more elegant or appropriate. Need we say more of either? We regret that our space this month does not allow of our presenting our readers with some passages from both.

Notes of the Month.

The Hampden Case. - Dr. Hampden is a bishop after all, and Dr. Merewether is a very sorry sort of martyr. The Church of England, as by law established, is now formally told that she is in a state of the most abject bondage. No matter that Mr. Justice Coleridge cannot believe that such a system of mockery and impious formalism could be sanctioned by any Parliament, or submitted to by any Church! All the world has known for ages that the fact is so; and the only melancholy thing is, that this state of matters should not only be submitted to, but gloried in, especially by the Record and other evangelical organs. The controversy, however, is not yet at an end. The Archbishop of Canterbury is said to be dying; and it is rumoured that Dr. Whately will be his successor! What will the Record say to this? Is he Evangelical? Is he Protestant? Did he not expel an estimable clergyman from his diocese for no other offence than that he joined the Evangelical Alliance? The Record will soon find that it has small cause of thankfulness for the protection of an Erastian supremacy.

English Dissent.—A remarkable article, understood to be from the pen of Dr. Vaughan, appears in the last Number of the British Quarterly Review. It adverts to the policy and prospects of Voluntary Dissent in England, and in strong terms laments the nature of both. The reviewer declares that the effect of the agitation of the Voluntaries against the Church of England, as an Established Church, has been disaster and decay :

the signs of progress among Dissenters seem to be counterbalanced by the signs of decay. The antagonist influence is everywhere, as a grave impediment; and, in the case of not a few of our smaller interests, it is felt as an almost crushing weight. Nor have we reached the worst, probably even now.. The resources of Churchism are not exhausted. Every new hostile movement will call forth more of its still latent power."

The reviewer continues :

Beyond all this is the effect of this policy on ourselves. The energies that might have been directed successfully to the building up of our own Churches, have been largely wasted in attempts to pull down what we condemn in the Church of our neighbours. In this respect we have inverted the scriptural and rational order of things, by aiming to make men Dissenters that they might become Christians, in place of aiming to make men Christians, leaving their becoming Dissenters to be a question subsequent and subordinate. We thus take a false position in the public eye, as though we were more concerned to make men proselytes than to make men religious.

"Even this, moreover, is not the worst form of reaction attendant on this mistaken course. Our familiarity with strife abroad has rendered us less scrupulous of indulging in it at home. Our Churches, accordingly, have become restless, disputatious, and the seat of it is not a little of that acerbity of temper which is natural to men who feel that they are losing ground, and losing ground in the main, through their own. pulpit. The preacher is expected to be so attractive, so potent, folly. With this exigency comes an undue dependence on the

as to counteract this multitude of hostile influences directed against him and his flock; and if he be not a man of the rare. power necessary to this end-an end little short of miraclein comes discontent, and a childish hankering after change... Thus the policy so much applauded by some meu, as being the very heroism of modern Nonconformity, has entailed on this Nonconformity two alarming evils-much external loss, and as a natural consequence, internal discord and weakness."

National Defences.-Considerable discussion has been occasioned by the recent publication of a letter from the Duke of Wellington, urging a large increase in our army and navy, assigning, as a reason for the demand, the imminent danger in which we stand of a French invasion. Mr. Cobden has taken a chief part in opposing such a measure-ridicules the fears which gave rise to it-and even asserts that the real reason of the proposal is not any fear of France, but a wish to provide. berths for the children of the aristocracy, and, by creating a war, to put a drag on the advance of practical liberty in the country. We concur very much in the observations of our acute and able contemporary, the London Patriot, who, in referring to the subject, says:—

"We presume that the most peaceably disposed persong among us even the members of the Peace Society themselves -are accustomed at night to bolt and chain their doors, and to bar their windows, not in expectation of any hostile or predatory visit, but simply that they may sleep in security Some people, without any murderous intention, keep loaded arms in their houses to frighten away thieves. Others content themselves with the protection of the armed patrol or watchman; and as paying, it may be, a heavy rate for this protection, they may naturally presume upon its efficiency. How great would be one's surprise, after having for some years indulged in this feeling of security, without any known cause for distrust or alarm, to be suddenly called upon by one's landlord to order iron linings for the window shutters, alarm-bells in every room, to procure a fierce house-dog, purchase fire-arms, and incur all this expense for no better reason than that a determined gang of burglars might some night lay siege to one's house, and force an entrance. The first inquiry would probably be, Have any such outrages been committed in the neighbourhood, or have any such evil-disposed persons been seen lurking about? But the next question, at all events, would be, What has become of the money raised for the peace of the roads and the public safety? Why am I rated for the police or patrol? Why am I to be told that I am utterly without defence, when I pay so much a year for protection?

"This seems to us a fair, though familiar view of the National-Defence question. We have a Peace-establishment of some 192,500 men, of whom about 60,000 are abroad, and