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the solemn league, and totally incompatible with owning the Lord Jesus Christ to be the king and head of his church, in the sense he is declared to be so in the Westminster Confession, and by the church of Scotland.

At their next meeting in the month of October, the associate presbytery proceeded to a work of much greater importance than contending with a man who fancied himself in possession of a divine calling, by which he was exempted from any thing like submission to any church, or to any ecclesiastic authority whatsoever, the vindication of the standards of the Scotish church from sundry false glosses that had been put upon them by the judicatories, from whom they had been under a necessity of separating themselves. This they did in an "act concerning the doctrine of grace, wherein the said doctrine, as revealed in the holy scriptures, and agreeable thereto set forth in our Confession of Faith and catechisms, is asserted and vindicated from the errors vented and published in some acts of the assemblies of this church, passed in prejudice of the same, with an introduction, discovering the rise and progress of the opposition to the doctrine of grace, and the reasons of passing and publishing this act in vindication of the same."

The associate presbytery had the previous year suffered a severe loss in the death of Mr. William Wilson of Perth, a man of singular judgment and piety; but within two years they had ordained twelve ministers, and at this meeting the Rev. Andrew Arrot, minister at Dunichen, acceded to them, so that the presbytery consisted now of twenty ministers, notwithstanding of all the opposition they had experienced.

The General Assembly of the church of Scotland met this

believe they are the truths of God, and have felt the power of them in my own heart. I am only concerned that good men should be guilty of such misrepresentations. But this teaches me more and more to exercise compassion toward all the children of God, and to be more jealous over our own hearts, knowing what fallible creatures we all are. I acknowledge that I am a poor blind sinner, liable to err, and would be obliged to an enemy, much more to so dear a friend as you are, to point out to me my mistakes, as to my practice or unguarded expressions in my preaching or writing. At the same time, I would humble myself before my Master, for any thing I may say or do amiss, and beg the influence and assistances of his blessed Spirit, that I may say and do so no more.

year on the sixth day of May, the Rev. Thomas Tullideph, principal of the college of St. Andrews, moderator, Alexander, earl of Leven, commissioner. We have already noticed the proceedings of this assembly, with regard to some of the seceding ministers who had not been as yet ejected from their churches. At the same time they justified the seceders, and added to the number of their adherents by the continued exercise of tyrannical power, particularly in regard to the settlement of Mr. Hume in the parish of Bowden, against which, though several members protested, their protests, as usual, were not allowed to be recorded.❤

The presbytery of Long Island was by this assembly broken down into two, the one consisting of the parishes of Lochs, Starnavoy, Barfas, and Uig, denominated the presbytery of Lewis, their place of meeting to be Carlway; and the other, consisting of the parishes of Harris, North Uist, South Uist, and Bara, denominated the presbytery of Uist, their place of meeting to be Carinish, each of them to have "the same powers and privileges which any other presbytery have, by the word of God and the constitutions of this church." An act was also passed to enforce a more regular attendance at meetings of the commission of the General Assembly, the unpopularity of whose measures had become a strong inducement for individuals who wished to stand well with the public to absent themselves. By this act, presbyteries were enjoined, after every quarterly meeting of the commission, to inquire into the attendance of their members," and to censure such as had been absent without sufficient cause."

A most excellent act and overture was published by this assembly, respecting the licensing of probationers; consolidating all former acts of assembly upon the subject. By this act it is provided, "that no presbytery admit any to probationary trials but such as are found to be of good report, of sufficient learning, sound principles, of a pious, sober, grave, and prudent behaviour, and of a peaceable disposition, and well affected to the government in church and state, and of whom they have sufficient grounds to conceive that they shall be useful and

• Index to Unprinted Acts of Assembly, 1742.

edifying in the church, and that careful inquiry be made thereanent, and that, without respect of persons, such as are esteemed to be light and vain in their behaviour, imprudent, proud, worldly-minded, or unacquainted with the power of practical godliness, be kept back from that sacred work." The presbytery taking the candidate upon trial, are also further enjoined, "by themselves, or a committee of their number, to take a private and previous trial of the progress he has made in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, in the study of philosophy, and his knowledge in divinity, theoretical, polemical, and practical; especially such points as shall be matter of the present debates and controversies, his acquaintance with the holy scriptures, and what impression he has of religion on his own soul, his knowledge of the constitution of the primitive Christian church, and also of our own, and of the government and discipline thereof; and of his spiritual wisdom to deal with the several sorts of persons he may have to do with, namely, atheists, despisers of religion, careless and secure persons, weak and tender consciences, and others, wherein the great difficulty of the pastoral charge lies, and particularly anent his ends and intentions in entering upon the preaching of the gospel. And the General Assembly further appoint the several presbyteries concerned, to take special care that these trials be not managed in an overly and superficial manner, but as in the sight of GOD, and our LORD JESUS CHRIST, the alone king and head of his church, and either to reject or delay to further trial such as are not found sufficiently qualified."*

The excellence of this act will be admitted by all who have any knowledge of Christianity, and any proper sense of the vast importance and responsibility that attaches to the character of its public teachers; but we are afraid, that it will be impossible to look at the many decaying churches of the Scotish establishinent, with their every avenue overgrown with grass, or choked up with nettles, without a strong suspicion that it has been but very partially attended to, if it be not altogether a dead letter on the statute book.

This assembly displayed a laudable attention to literature,

• Printed Acts of Assembly, 1742.

and the history of the church and nation, by naming a committee to examine some manuscripts belonging to the historian of the sufferings of the Scotish church, Robert Woɑrow, minister at Eastwood, at whose recommendation, thirty pounds sterling were ordered to be paid to the said Mr. Wodrow, for certain volumes of manuscripts mentioned in their report, and the volumes deposited in the hands of the clerk of assembly, "that any minister or elder of the church may have access to peruse them."*

Perhaps it was fortunate, that, while religious disputes were running so high in Scotland, the court was so much occupied, as to be able to bestow but little attention upon them. Walpole had long kept his place, and succeeded in circumventing all his opponents; but his arts, and especially his means of corruption, began to fall short, while the rage of his enemies was every day becoming more inveterate. The Spanish war, into which he had been forced by the clamour of the public, diverted his energies into a channel where they were lost to himself and to the nation; and making a merit of necessity, he at last yielded to the torrent of opposition which he could no longer control, and this present year, 1742, resigned all his employments, and was created earl of Orford, with a pension of four thousand pounds per annum.

The resignation of this very able, but now unpopular minister, threw the English public into a transport of joy; and his enemies thought that one effort more would certainly bring him to the block. The joy of the one, however, was shortlived, and the rage of the other vain. His successors in office, changing their views with their circumstances, as has always been, and ever will be the case, adopted nearly the same plan of policy which he had incurred so much odium by pursuing. They remedied no domestic grievance whatever. The commerce of Britain was still unprotected, and, though the public voice was clamorous for vengeance, her thunders slumbered in the clouds of imbecility, or were idly spent amid the pestilential exhalations that brooded over the dreary wilds of the New World. Expensive foreign subsidies, instead of being retrenched, were continued

* Index to Unprinted Acts of Assembly, 1742.

and extended, with a profusion, that, were not the industry and talents of a free people mines of wealth infinitely more productive than those of Peru, must of necessity in a year or two have exhausted them; and instead of that unanimity in every popular measure which was so warmly anticipated, there was the same scowling opposition, and flails of oratory continued to thrash the dusty floor as unprofitably as ever. Attempts to criminate the late minister, were twice, by the dexterity of himself and his friends, baffled in the house of commons; a third succeeded with that house, but was quashed by the lords, and the parliament was shortly after prorogued.

In Scotland, though the lord president Forbes, one of the most worthy men which that country has ever produced, and one of the warmest patriots, was exerting all the influence of his high station, and of his still higher reputation for promoting the general prosperity of the country, it was retrograding rather than advancing. The linen manufacture, which had long been an object of care and of expectation to every lover of his country, was now so far advanced, as to be declared "a promising child, well worth nursing and bringing up;" but the revenues of the country were in such a declining state, that it was with the utmost difficulty the necessary expenses of the government could be met. Depredations were still common among the Highlanders, and felonies of the most atrocious kind were frequently committed with impunity, because the country could not afford the means of bringing the perpetrators to justice. The fisheries, from which a great increase of wealth, as well as of the means of subsistence, had been anticipated, had for several of the previous years been totally unproductive. The foreign trade of the country, which centred chiefly in Glasgow, and was carried on principally with America and the West Indies, was in no small degree cramped by the Spanish war. The serges and stockings of Aberdeenshire were unsaleable from the same cause, and the universal complaint was, that there was remarkably less coin to be met with than ever had been at any former period. "Paper," says President Forbes, writing of this period, "is the only coin that one sees, and even that is far from being in any tolerable plenty."

Culloden Papers, 182-189.

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