Page:(1848) Observations on Church and State- JF Ferrier.pdf/26

26 parish. In the year 1707, the Act of Security was passed by the Scottish Parliament. This act, which was admitted to form an essential part of the Treaty of Union between the two kingdoms, enacted “that the true Protestant religion, as presently professed within this kingdom, with the worship, discipline, and government of this church, should be unalterably secured.” In the year 1711, a statute was passed by the British Parliament rescinding the act of 1690, and restoring the patronages to their original possessors! And this was done in the face of the Security Act and the Union Treaty of 1707! What an atrocious infraction of that treaty! What a perfidious violation of the established constitution of the two kingdoms! In 1690 the Scottish Parliament makes over patronages to the heritors and kirk-sessions. In 1707 it secures unalterably the government of the church of Scotland. By the Treaty of Union, England binds itself to preserve inviolate this arrangement. Patronages are to remain for ever in statu quo. But, lo! in 1711, the Parliament of the United Kingdom divests the heritors of their right of patronage, and restores it to its original holders. What can be more unconstitutional—more iniquitous than this? We must confess that when the story is told in this way, it does seem a very bad business. But, before we give in our adhesion to the Free Church party, let us consider whether the case does not admit of a somewhat different interpretation.

Three minutes investigation changes the aspect of the whole particulars of this story. It will naturally have occurred to the reader to inquire whether the patrons, who were deprived of their rights by the Act 1690, were to get no compensation. Yes; they were to get compensation. But they never got it. The heritors were ready enough to accept the property which the act bestowed upon them—but they “refused, or at least delayed,” to pay up the sum which the same Act took them bound to disburse as its equivalent. The heritors and liferenters were ordained “to pay the said patrons, betwixt this and Martinmas next, the sum of six hundred merks.” Be this compensation large or be it small, that is nothing to the purpose,—its smallness only aggravates the injustice of the heritors who neglected to pay it—for it was paid only in a very few instances, although the heritors were empowered by the statute to force the patron to accept it, and to