Page:(1848) Observations on Church and State- JF Ferrier.pdf/6

6 a long line. The transparency of its style dissembles the depth of its conclusions. The novelty of its historical and critical expositions is not immediately detected. The mind slides along the fluent paragraphs without perceiving at first sight that anything very remarkable lies hid beneath their surface. But let the book be studied carefully, and with a constant reference to the history of the period which it traverses, and its bold truth will by-and-by take consistency, and epitomise itself before the eye of the intelligent reader in some such proposition as this—“The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is not an ecclesiastical, but is simply a national council.” That is the marrow of the Duke of Argyll's essay, –that is the thesis which in the following pages we propose to consider.

First of all, then, is this proposition true? We answer, that, at any rate, it contains so large an amount of truth—is so indisputably borne out by the recorded evidence of the early sittings of our Assembly—throws so much light on some of the darkest problems of Scottish history—and, above all, is so strongly supported by the genuine principles of the Reformation, as to entitle it to a very high place among the theories of our perplexing constitution. We now behold these bewildering abstractions “church and state,” “civil and spiritual jurisdiction,” illuminated by the light of an idea.

But, to prepare us for meddling with the details of this idea, there is another idea which we must set forth, and that is the idea of the Reformation. Wherever the Reformation was radical and complete, it did more than correct the abuses of the church of Rome—more than establish a purer mode of worship. It abolished for ever the sacerdotium as the badge of a peculiar order. It extinguished the distinction between clergyman and layman; and thus gave, as we shall see, a totally new aspect to the constitutional policy of all the nations which embraced it. This was more particularly the case in Scotland. Here there can be no mistake as to what the Reformation effected. Here we can exhibit demonstrably the steps by which the distinction between the clerical and the lay part of the population was brought to an end. The demonstration is as follows:

If we consider what titles in the church of Rome were essential to the clerical office, we shall find that there were two—a human