Page:(1848) Observations on Church and State- JF Ferrier.pdf/11

Rh Many people have these things at heart, and are endowed with this knowledge, equally with the clergy. The Christian community at large must be allowed an extensive share in the legislature of the council which deals with ecclesiastical concerns. This, at least, is the doctrine of the Reformation; and it flowed at once from its leading maxim—which was, that all Christians are “the called of God,” and that all ministers, quà ministers, are merely “the called of man.”

Accordingly, we find that our first Scottish Reformers summoned all classes of people to take (they did not presume to give it them) a very extensive share in the legislation of spiritual affairs. The nobles, and a large proportion of inferior laymen, under the name of commissioners, deliberated and voted together with some clergy in our early General Assemblies. So far was this court from being an ecclesiastical council–meaning thereby a council composed of ministers—that at first the ministry were but a small fraction of its constituency. No doubt the General Assembly was designed, even in its earliest institution, to embody a considerable infusion of the clerical order. But we believe that any Reformed person of respectability and station in the kingdom might have taken his place, and given his vote there,—and been welcome. At any rate, we know that it was de facto an assembly consisting of persons drafted from all classes of the community. We know that its system, if not strictly representative, was laid down upon the most liberal scale. We know, in short, that it was a national and not an ecclesiastical board. We know, moreover, that it was the intention of our Reformers—the intention of the General Assembly itself—that it should continue to be a national, and that it should not be suffered to become an ecclesiastical institution.

As a proof of the unclerical character of the General Assembly in its original idea and constitution, and of the determination of its own members to keep it so, what can be more conclusive than the following extract from Calderwood's true history of the Church of Scotland?—

“This assembly,” (of 1574,) he writes, “appointed two ministers and two barons, and the commissioners of Edinburgh and St Johnston, (now Perth.) to present a supplication to the Regent and Lords of Privy Council and others of the estates convened