Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/595

1839.] not be enforced consistently with the performance of the duty of presbyteries under the statutes. It is solemnly decided, after a full, deliberate, and unprecedentedly laborious discussion, that the circumstance of a presentee being unacceptable to the people of a parish, forms no legal bar to his induction, and that no Presbytery is entitled to give effect to the people's dislike, by rejecting the presentee who is its object. If this, then, be intrusion—if being unacceptable to a majority be, in the eyes of the Church, a sufficient disqualification, though no grounds of objection are stated—and if, in such a case, they consider it intrusion to induct a presentee, then the import of the Court's judgment is, that no Presbytery can legally refuse (if so required) to a duly presented and duly qualified minister into a parish, on the general ground of his being unacceptable to the people, or a portion of the people.

By the judgment in the Auchterarder case, therefore, the Church was sufficiently certiorated that the passing of the Veto Act was contrary to law, and ultra vires of the Assembly; and that the rejection of a presentee by a Presbytery, under the operation of that Act, is illegal. In these circumstances two courses were open, either of which, we apprehend, would have been consistent with the dignity and the independence of the Church, neither of which would have subjected her to the charge of disobedience and rebellion. Viewing the existing state of the law as an intolerable evil, she might fairly, honourably, and consistently apply to Parliament for an alteration of the law, and for a legislative sanction of what is called the principle of non-intrusion. On the other hand, if a recurrence to the practice which obtained before 1834, turned out after all no such mighty evil as in the heat of controversy it had been represented, or if the success of an application to Parliament seemed doubtful or hopeless—full, unqualified, ungrudging obedience to the law, and to the Civil Court as the interpreter of the law, was the high imperative duty of the Church, both as a Christian Church and as the Church of a Christian State. And is this submission, this Christian obedience to the civil power, the less necessary or the less obligatory, because the Church has resolved to approach Parliament as a humble suppliant? Did any subject of a state ever apply to the Legislature for powers and privileges, which in the mean time, without the Legislature's sanction, and in despite of the supreme civil authority, he was exercising by masterful usurpation? Would it he decorous, would it be expedient, would it be consistent with the principles of morality and religion, would it tend to further the great end of the Church's existence in connexion with the State, that while, with an arrogant assumption of independence, the Church bid defiance to the supreme executive authority, and contemned its orders, she should at the same time humbly solicit, or respectfully importune, the Legislature to make new laws for the regulation of ecclesiastical concerns, to which, of course, she will conform so long only as it suits her own views of ecclesiastical expediency or ecclesiastical ambition—as if laws were made only to be broken, or as if Parliament would lend a ready ear to the petition of him who has already set at nought the power of Parliament, by refusing obedience to the statute law of the realm? We have put this case hypothetically only; but let us see what is the attitude which the Church has in fact assumed.

The General Assembly, in May 1839, took into their consideration the judgment of the House of Lords in the Auchterarder case, and this is their deliverance:—

"The General Assembly having heard the report of the Procurator on the Auchterarder case, and considered the judgment of the House of Lords, affirming the decision of the Court of Session, and being satisfied that by the said judgment all questions of civil right, so far as the Presbytery of Auchterarder is concerned, are substantially decided, do now, in accordance with the uniform practice of the Church, and with the resolution of last General Assembly, ever to give and inculcate implicit obedience to the decisions of Civil Courts, in regard to the civil rights and emoluments secured by law to the Church, instruct the said Presbytery to offer no farther resistance to the claims of Mr Young or the patron, to the emoluments of the benefice of Auchterarder, and to refrain from claiming the jus devolutum, or any other civil right or privilege connected with the said benefice.

"And whereas the principle of non-intrusion is one coeval with the Reformed Kirk