of that year a new declaration of the doctrine of the spiritual independence of the church. The “exclusive jurisdiction of the civil courts in regard to the civil rights and emoluments secured by law to the church and the ministers thereof” was acknowledged without qualification; and continued implicit obedience to their decisions with reference to these rights and emoluments was pledged. At the same time it was insisted on “that, as is declared in the Confession of Faith of this National Established Church, ‘the Lord Jesus Christ, as King and Head of the church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church officers distinct from the civil magistrate’; and that in all matters touching the doctrine, discipline and government of the church her judicatories possess an exclusive jurisdiction, founded on the Word of God, which power ecclesiastical” (in the words of the Second Book of Discipline) “flows immediately from God and the Mediator the Lord Jesus Christ, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only spiritual King and Governor of His Kirk.” And it was resolved to assert, and at all hazards defend, this spiritual jurisdiction, and firmly to enforce obedience to the same upon the office-bearers and members of the church. The decision of the court of session having been confirmed by the House of Lords early in 1839, it was decided in the Assembly of that year that the church, while acquiescing in the loss of the temporalities at Auchterarder, should reaffirm the principle of non-intrusion as an integral part of the constitution of the Reformed Church of Scotland, and that a committee should be appointed to confer with the government with a view to the prevention, if possible, of any further collision between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While the conference with the government had no better result than an unsuccessful attempt at compromise by means of Lord Aberdeen’s Bill, which embodied the principle of a dissent with reasons, still graver complications were arising out of the Marnoch and other cases.[1] In the circumstances it was resolved by the Assembly of 1842 to transmit to the queen, by the hands of the lord high commissioner, a “claim, declaration, and protest,” complaining of the encroachments of the court of session,[2] and also an address praying for the abolition of patronage. The home secretary’s answer (received in January 1843) gave no hope of redress. Meanwhile the position of the evangelical party had been further hampered by the decision of the court of session declaring the ministers of chapels of ease to be unqualified to sit in any church court. A final appeal to parliament by petition was made in March 1843, when, by a majority of 135 (211 against 76), the House of Commons declined to attempt any redress of the grievances of the Scottish Church.[3] At the first session of the following General Assembly (18th May 1843) the reply of the non-intrusion party was made in a protest, signed by upwards of 200 commissioners, to the effect that since, in their opinion, the recent decisions of the civil courts, and the still more recent sanction of these decisions by the legislature, had made it impossible at that time to hold a free Assembly of the church as by law established, they therefore “protest that it shall be lawful for us, and such other commissioners as may concur with us, to withdraw to a separate place of meeting, for the purpose of taking steps for ourselves and all who adhere to us—maintaining with us the Confession of Faith and standards of the Church of Scotland as heretofore understood—for separating in an orderly way from the Establishment, and thereupon adopting such measures as may be competent to us, in humble dependence on God’s grace and the aid of His Holy Spirit, for the advancement of His glory, the extension of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour, and the administration of the affairs of Christ’s house according to His holy word.” The reading of this document was followed by the withdrawal of the entire non-intrusion party to another place of meeting, where the first Assembly of the Free Church was constituted, with Dr Thomas Chalmers as moderator. This Assembly sat from the 18th to the 30th of May, and transacted a large amount of important business. On Tuesday the 23rd, 396[4] ministers and professors publicly adhibited their names to the Act of Separation and deed of demission by which they renounced all claim to the benefices they had held in connexion with the Establishment, declaring them to be vacant, and consenting to their being dealt with as such. By this impressive proceeding the signatories voluntarily surrendered an annual income amounting to fully £100,000.
The first care of the voluntarily disestablished church was to provide incomes for her clergy and places of worship for her people. As early as 1841 indeed the leading principle of a “sustentation fund” for the support of the ministry had been announced by Dr Robert Smith Candlish; and at “Convocation,” a private unofficial meeting of the members of the evangelical or non-intrusion party held in November 1842, Dr Chalmers was prepared with a carefully matured scheme according to which “each congregation should do its part in sustaining the whole, and the whole should sustain each congregation.” Between November 1842 and May 1843, 647 associations had been formed; and at the first Assembly it was announced that upwards of £17,000 had already been contributed. At the close of the first financial year (1843–1844) it was reported that the fund had exceeded £61,000. It was participated in by 583 ministers; and 470 drew the full equal dividend of £105. Each successive year showed a steady increase in the gross amount of the fund; but owing to an almost equally rapid increase of the number of new ministerial charges participating in its benefits, the stipend payable to each minister did not for many years reach the sum of £150 which had been aimed at as a minimum. Thus in 1844–1845 the fund had risen to £76,180, but the ministers had also increased to 627, and the equal dividend therefore was only £122. During the first ten years the annual income averaged £84,057; during the next decade £108,643; and during the third £130,246. The minimum of £150 was reached at last in 1868; and subsequently the balance remaining after that minimum had been provided was treated as a surplus fund, and distributed among those ministers whose congregations have contributed at certain specified rates per member. In 1878 the total amount received for this fund was upwards of £177,000; in this 1075 ministers participated. The full equal dividend of £157 was paid to 766 ministers; and additional grants of £36 and £18
- ↑ According to the Free Church “Protest” of 1843 it was in these cases decided (1) that the courts of the church were liable to be compelled to intrude ministers on reclaiming congregations; (2) that the civil courts had power to interfere with and interdict the preaching of the gospel and administration of ordinances as authorized and enjoined by the church; (3) that the civil courts had power to suspend spiritual censures pronounced by the courts of the church, and to interdict their execution as to spiritual effects, functions and privileges; (4) that deposed ministers, and probationers deprived of their licence, could be restored by the mandate of the civil courts to the spiritual office and status of which the church courts had deprived them; (5) that the right of membership in ecclesiastical courts could be determined by the civil courts; (6) that the civil courts had power to supersede the majority of a church court of the Establishment in regard to the exercise of its spiritual functions as a church court, and to authorize the minority to exercise the said functions in opposition to the court itself and to the superior judicatories of the church; (7) that processes of ecclesiastical discipline could be arrested by the civil courts; and (8) that without the sanction of the civil courts no increased provision could be made for the spiritual care of a parish, although such provision left all civil rights and patrimonial interests untouched.
- ↑ The narrative and argument of this elaborate and able document cannot be reproduced here. In substance it is a claim “as of right” on behalf of the church and of the nation and people of Scotland that the church shall freely possess and enjoy her liberties, government, discipline, rights and privileges according to law, and that she shall be protected therein from the foresaid unconstitutional and illegal encroachments of the said court of session, and her people secured in their Christian and constitutional rights and liberties. This claim is followed by the “declaration” that the Assembly cannot intrude ministers on reclaiming congregations, or carry on the government of Christ’s church subject to the coercion of the court of session; and by the “protest” that all acts of the parliament of Great Britain passed without the consent of the Scottish church and nation, in alteration or derogation of the government, discipline, rights and privileges of the church, as also all sentences of courts in contravention of said government, discipline, rights and privileges, “are and shall be in themselves void and null, and of no legal force or effect.”
- ↑ The Scottish members voted with the minority in the proportion of 25 to 12.
- ↑ The number ultimately rose to 474.
