Page:(1848) Observations on Church and State- JF Ferrier.pdf/28

28 defiance the provisions of its own enactments? If it does not, then the Act of Queen Anne was not only a justifiable, a constitutional, and an equitable statute—it was an imperative duty upon the people of this country that it should be passed. Had it not been enacted, the injustice which it left uncorrected would have been a scandal to the nation.

In answer to these observations, it will perhaps be said that the courts of law were open to the patrons—that this was the quarter to which they should have appealed for address, and in which they should have pled for the compensation that had been awarded to them. It seems rather hard, however, that a man should be both stripped of his privileges by Act of parliament, and compelled to run the gauntlet of the Court of Session before he can obtain the compensation (such as it is) which the Act allows him as a partial indemnification for his losses. No; in the circumstances, the equitable, the suitable remedy—the remedy commensurate with the entire mischief—was that which was actually applied,—namely, a wholesale legislative enactment rescinding the previous statute, and not a retail system of judicial interlocutors.

We have dwelt on this subject at greater length than may perhaps seem necessary—because we suspect that some people, who might be supposed to know better, are rather in the dark as to the Acts of which we have been speaking. The Duke of Argyll himself, who has studied this question more than most people, is here quite out of his reckoning. He speaks of the Patronage Act of Queen Anne (for it is to this, we presume, that he refers in page 231 of his essay) as a statute “manifestly, undeniably, unconstitutional; because passed manifestly, undeniably, in violation of the Revolution Settlement.” We suspect that the Duke of Argyll has here referred inadvertently to the “Revolution Settlement,” instead of the Act of Security, or the Treaty of Union. But, be that as it may, we beg to ask his grace this simple question: Admitting that these statutes confirmed the heritors and kirk sessions in the perpetual right of presentation to church livings, are you of opinion that they were entitled for ever to enjoy this right, and yet for ever to resile from the fulfilment of the conditions under which they obtained it? We cannot think that an answer to our question will be returned in favour of the heritors'