Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/295

Rh . Such was especially the case when they beheld him accompanying the Presbytery of Dunkeld to the bar of the Court of Session in 1839, to be censured for ordaining a minister to the parish of Lethendy in opposition to a civil interdict. In 1811 he presided as moderator of the General Assembly, and in this capacity it was his painful duty—from which he did not shrink—to depose the seven ministers of Strathbogie. In the same year, Dr. Gordon presided at the great meeting which was held on the 25th of August in the West Church, Edinburgh—a meeting limited expressly to those office-bearers of the church who approved of its late resistance to the civil power, and were willing to persevere at every hazard; and his address on that solemn occasion, to about twelve hundred ministers and elders assembled from every part of Scotland, while he announced the principles for which they were now called to contend, and his own settled resolution to maintain them at whatever cost or hazard, sunk deep into every heart. His next public appearance was at the convocation held at Edinburgh in November, 1842, in consequence of the judgment pronounced by the House of Lords on what was called the second Auchterarder case, in which it was declared, that the refusal of a people to a patron's presentee was not only no bar to his enjoying the temporalities of his parochial charge, but none also to his being ordained as minister of the parish. It was evident that the contest had come to such a height that a separation between church and state was inevitable, if each party still continued to hold by its respective principles, and accordingly the convocation was called for the purpose of considering whether, and in what manner, the separation should take place. These meetings extended over several evenings, and were held in Roxburgh church, where between four and five hundred ministers gave their attendance. It was at one of those meetings that a speech of Dr. Gordon made a solemn impression upon the hearts of his auditory; and in the course of it he so clearly defined and so distinctly announced the duties of a church thus circumstanced, that his statements form the best apology for the disruption that afterwards ensued. "I set out," he said, "with the principle, that the state, the supreme power in the state, has an absolute, uncontrolled, uncontrollable dominion over civil things. Civil rulers may exercise their power in a bad way—they may do what is clearly wrong; but theirs is the power, as an ordinance of God: to God they are responsible; but I, as a subject of the realm, am bound to obey them. In the next place, I hold that we have a certain connection with the state, in which connection a certain temporal thing is concerned. They were entitled to offer us these temporalities on any conditions they chose at first. In the same way they may come forward at any future period and say, 'We have changed our mind:' they may propound new conditions to us; and if we cannot agree to these conditions, they may take back the temporalities they gave us. But then it may be said, 'We are not come to that; the state does not insist yet on the conditions to which we object.' It must be admitted, however, that the judgment of the supreme civil court is a prima facie ground for the belief that the state regards these conditions as binding, and that these decisions, unless repudiated by the state, must be so interpreted. We don't need them to pass a new statute declaring what the conditions are. The statute, as interpreted by the supreme court, is virtually a new statute. It is thought by some parties that the ecclesiastical courts will succumb to the decisions of the civil, and therefore that the interference of the state will not be required; it is therefore our duty to go to the state, and say that we cannot and will not succumb. I