Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/500

482 present day would do well to consider. "The credit of Episcopacy will never be advanced by the scheme of supplying the Episcopalian congregations in Scotland with Pastors of our ordination: and for this reason, that it would be an imperfect crippled Episcopacy that would be thus upheld in Scotland. When a Clergyman ordained by one of us settles as a pastor of a congregation in Scotland, he is out of the reach of our authority. We have no authority there: we can have no authority there: the legislature can give us no authority there. The attempt to introduce any thing of an authorized Political Episcopacy in Scotland would be a direct infringement of the Union. As to the notion, that Clergymen should be originally ordained by us to the ministry in Scotland, the thing would be contrary to all rule and order. No Bishop, who knows what he does, ordains without a title, and a title must be a nomination to something in the diocese of the Bishop that ordains. An appointment to an Episcopal congregation in Scotland is no more a title to me, or any Bishop of the Irish Bench, than an appointment to a Church in Mesopotamia."

Lord Thurlow was content, with subscription to the Articles, on the part of the Scottish Clergy, as a test of their principles. This was agreed to on the part of the Bishops: and a Bill for the relief of the Scottish Episcopalians received the Royal assent on the 15th of June, 1792. This Bill repealed the clauses of the Acts of Queen Anne, George I. and George II. by which any penalties were imposed. It then provides, that the Clergy should take the usual Oaths, subscribe a