The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers, -Cowper's Charity. We could conceive the souls of those done to death by the Papacy for the cause of God and of man, and who now from under the altar continually cry, "How long?" meeting the spirit of the false system that had taken away their earthly existence, with language like that which Isaiah hurled at Babylon, or the Incas at Spain. For while we feel pity and affection towards professors of the Romish faith, believing them not wilfully in error, but fascinated by a spell cast over them, and from which they cannot shake themselves free, we have no such tenderness for the system that enslaves them, but entertain, like the martyred Argyle, a heart-hatred of Popery, and rejoice over every blow that is legitimately struck at its power. And we do this not from malignancy but from charity, believing that the day when Popery perishes will be one that will relieve civilised man from the most baneful religious influence under which, in these later times, he has laboured; and open the way, we trust, for a reign of truth, and liberty, and love. R. H. IN ART. VII.-Scottish Heresy Trials. the month of June last, a number of ministers and others, representing the Broad School of Scottish theology, assembled together at a demonstration breakfast-party in Edinburgh. Things had not been going on quite so prosperously with them as formerly. One of their leaders, miscalculating the extent to which the leaven of their influence had spread, had given forth his views about sundry matters in too outspoken a manner, and the result had been something like a reaction. The General Assembly of the Established Church, which had just closed its sittings, had shewn an unexpectedly ardent attachment to the old landmarks, and an unwonted dislike for those who were given to change. Innovations were found for the time being to be at a discount. Dr Lee was compelled to give up his prayer-book. And the illusion being for the moment dispelled that they would be able to alter the doctrine and worship of the Church, by means of a growing latitudinarian majority within its courts, they met on the occasion referred to to give vent to their dissatisfaction, and to Principal Tulloch's Charge. 775 devise means whereby the ground they had lost might be otherwise regained. At this party the vice-chairman, Principal Tulloch, is reported to have spoken as follows: "The more I have gone into the history of our Church, and the more closely I have looked into the cases of men who have been brought up for what is called heresy, the more I have been convinced of this, that in almost every case these men have been sacrificed,sacrificed, not to a jealous watchfulness for the truth of Godnot to an earnest loyal feeling that these men were doing harm to the truth; but sacrificed under the mere impulse of party zeal, because the dominant party at the time would tolerate nothing but their own interpretation of the truth. What man of any culture within the church does not feel that the darkest stains on the history of the Church of Scotland were those unhappy years, when, under the commencing enthusiasm of that movement which ended in the Disruption, such men as Edward Irving-of whose heresy no man will now dare to speak-and M'Leod Campbell, were expelled from the Church ?" We cannot think so ill of Principal Tulloch as to suppose that, in speaking in this style, he was scattering firebrands in sport; that he brought these heavy charges against the Scottish Church in mere wantonness, to catch the applause of the light horsemen by whom he was surrounded; and we must conclude, therefore, that the above expresses his deliberate judgment on the subject to which he refers. But if so, we hear that such is his opinion with unfeigned surprise. That there were now and again intolerant majorities in the Church of Scotland, is indeed matter of history. It was a majority, impatient of all attempts to disturb the status quo, which forced the Rev. John M'Millan of Balmaghie into the arms of the Cameronians, and which led to the complete organisation of the oldest sect of Scottish NonConformists, the Reformed Presbyterians. It was owing to the intolerance of the dominant party of the day that Ebenezer Erskine and his friends were compelled to secede from the Establishment, in which they had no liberty, and to appeal to the first free and reforming General Assembly which might come in after times to be held. It was the high-handed exercise of authority too which drove Gillespie out of the Church, and led to the formation of the Relief community; and if it had not been for an equally intolerant interference with individual freedom at a later period, the Haldanes would have carried on their work of reformation within the Church, and we should have seen to-day in Scotland no such thing as an indigenous Congregationalism. Party majorities have indeed done much evil in the Church of Scotland, and we shall be glad when those who at present enjoy the benefits of the Establishment come to read aright the history which tells of it. But we have done our very best to make ourselves acquainted with the course of events, in so far as they relate to doctrine, as well as discipline and government, and we confess we are utterly at a loss to know on what basis at all Dr Tulloch rests his extraordinary statement, that "in almost every case, the men who have been brought up for HERESY have been sacrificed." It is, in truth, curious to see how differently things appear when looked at through different spectacles. Principal Tulloch has no eye for the great outstanding fact, that intolerance of a certain kind has almost covered Scotland with Nonconformists, while he boils with indignation at the bare recollection of an apparently much less momentous circumstance, that half-a-dozen Scotchmen have in their day been deposed for heresy. Read, on the other hand, the "Testimonies" of the Secession Churches, and you will find that, while they bitterly complain of the highhanded style in which their founders were treated, they actually state it as one of the grievances which constrained them to break off from the national Establishment, that heretics were treated with unjustifiable indulgence. No doubt, however, the explanation of this diversity of opinion is to be sought for here. To sympathise with seceders seeking to maintain even a stricter orthodoxy than the public opinion of the time required of them, is the part of a mere commonplace Christian; to feel for a free thinker, on the contrary, is the part of a "man of culture." For the "ecclesiastical characteristic," which Dr Witherspoon observed to belong to the moderates in his day, unquestionably distinguishes a good many men in ours also. All ecclesiastical persons," says he, "of whatever rank, whether principals of colleges, professors of divinity, ministers, or even probationers, that are suspected of heresy, are to be esteemed men of great genius, vast learning, and uncommon worth, and are by all means to be supported and protected." But we propose to inquire here into the actual facts of the question raised by Dr Tulloch. It would be needless to go back beyond the Revolution, and our space will not allow us for the present to come down later than the close of last century; but within the period thus indicated, there occurred the majority of those cases on which the charge against the Church of Scotland has been founded, and in the course of a brief review of these, we can so far ascertain the justice or injustice of the charge itself. Of course, in speaking of trials for heresy, we allude to all processes having as their object the correction of opinions believed to be inconsistent with the Confession of Faith. Some of these opinions may seem to us not only not heretical, but, on the contrary, eminently scriptural; while Macaulay on Aikenhead. 777 In others, though we may pronounce them unsound, we may hesitate, in ordinary circumstances, to call positively heretical. But we take the term employed on each occasion by the prosecutors, and call that for the time being "heresy" which they sought to prove to be so. And it will be at once seen what an interesting field of inquiry is here opened up before us. one aspect of it, it is nothing less than the History of Doctrine in the Church of Scotland. We are led, in pursuing it, to inquire, What views prevailed in the different ages of the church? who were the leaders of opinion in successive generations? and what were the causes which contributed to the rise of errors from time to time? We cannot dwell upon this side of the subject; but any one can see at a glance how much promise of instruction there is in it; and for one thing, it is impossible to read, however cursorily, the story of the past, and compare its leading features with those of the present age, without being anew impressed with the fact, that there is nothing new under the sun. The Revolution Church, if we are to believe Lord Macaulay, began very early its course of intolerance. In the year 1697, a young man named Thomas Aikenhead openly professed himself an unbeliver, and, in his intercourse with his fellow-students, gave expression to opinions which were in the highest degree offensive to the Christian feelings of the community. He spoke of the Old Testament as a bundle of fables invented by Ezra ; he ridiculed the Trinity, and called Christ an impostor; he even denied the separate existence of God, and asserted that God and the world were one. For uttering such opinions he was taken up and tried, and, having been found guilty, he was publicly executed in Edinburgh. It is true that the process against the youth was carried on before the Court of Justiciary, and that the civil and not the ecclesiastical authorities were directly responsible for his condemnation and death; but the historian roundly charges the crime upon the church, and affirms that if it had not been for its influence this outrageous act of persecution would never have been perpetrated. "The ministers," he says, "demanded not only the poor boy's death, but his speedy death, though it should be his eternal death! Even from their pulpits they cried out for cutting him off. .. The preachers who were the boy's murderers crowded around him at the gallows, and, while he was struggling in the last agony, insulted heaven with prayers more blasphemous than anything that he had uttered. Wodrow has told no blacker story of Dundee." It is unfortunate for Macaulay's credit in this case that, for his extraordinary account of it, he has given his authorities; for an examination of these authorities not only does not bear out his charges against the ministers, but serves to give fresh confirmation of the now too well accepted fact, that his gifts as a rhetorician sadly affected his capacity for acting the part of an accurate and judicial historian. In a pamphlet published some years ago anonymously, but whose authorship is now well known, Dr M'Crie shews this most conclusively; and at the same time adduces independent evidence to prove that Macaulay had done more than colour and exaggerate,-that he had actually stated as facts what were little better than pure fictions. It did indeed sound incredible to begin with, that such a man as Carstares (who must have been one of the ministers referred to) had given his countenance to the truculent conduct which Macaulay describes; and here is testimony which directly contradicts the story. Two discourses have been preserved which were preached in Edinburgh at the very time of Aikenhead's trial, and their author, Mr William Lorimer, expresses himself in his preface in the following terms:-"Some of the ministers, to my certain knowledge, and particularly the late reverend, learned, prudent, peaceable, and pious Mr George Meldrum, then minister of the Tron Church, interceded for him with the Government, and solicited his pardon; and when that could not be obtained, he desired a reprieve for him, and I joined with him in it. This was the day before his execution. The Chancellor was willing to have granted him a reprieve, but could not do it without the advice of the Privy Council and Judges, and to shew his willingness, he called the Council and Judges, who debated the matter, and then carried it by plurality of votes for his execution, according to the sentence of the judge, that there might be a stop put to the spreading of that contagion of blasphemy." We may dismiss this case therefore without a word of further comment. Whatever of the spirit of intolerance appeared in the treatment of Aikenhead, it is not to be charged, either directly or indirectly, upon the courts or the leaders of the church. A case much more in point occurred in 1701, when Dr George Garden, one of the ministers of Aberdeen, was deposed for Bourignonism. The history of this heresy supplies some of the strangest illustrations we have anywhere met with of the lengths to which human credulity will occasionally go. Antoinette Bourignon, the author of it, was born at Lisle in 1616. She was so ugly that, on her birth, a question arose as to whether she should not be put to death as a monster. She was brought up a papist, and never left the Romish communion. Many of her doctrines were not only absurd, but positively disgusting; and there were some features in her character, such as her unwillingness to contribute of her abundant means to any good object, which one would fancy were calculated to chill |