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been exalted to the throne, they have been led, by gratitude and principle, to be loyal themselves, and to inculcate loyalty on the people under their charge. In whatever else there may have existed diversities of opinion among them, their official communieations with the throne, their public discourses, and their private deportment, have fully established their claim to a continuance of that protection, and of those immunities which have been secured to them by the constitution, and by the laws of the land In times of danger, they have uniformly stood firm and unanimous; and particularly during rebellions raised by the adherents of a family who had forfeited the crown, and, more recently, when men given to change were inclined to fraternize with those whose revolutionary phrenzy had made desolate á neighbouring kingdom.

But among so numerous a body, possessed of cultivated minds, permitted to think for themselves, and publicly to express the result of their reflections, some differences of opinion, some collision of interests might natu

rally be expected to take place. It has accordingly happened, that, like the members of all popular assemblies, they have arranged themselves into separate parties. This separation has arisen from the different views they have taken of what is most expedient in the regulation of their internal affairs. To discover and to execute the best plan for introducing pastors into vacant charges, has proven the grand bone of contention. Some have been of opinion, that the right of election belongs to the people at large, or may with advantage be vested in them. Some, more aristocrati cally inclined, have been for committing it to the landed proprietors and elders; and some have been willing to recognise the right of patrons to bestow what is of patrimonial interest, while the church is secured in her powers to judge of the qualifications of candidates for the ministry, and to establish or to dissolve the pastoral relation between them and their flocks. These several opinions have, at different periods, had their abettors in the senate and in the executive govern

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ment of the country, and the law of the land has varied accordingly.

For more than a century, there have been only two acts of parliament, the merits of which have been brought into competition in the judicatories of the church. Whatever may have been the sentiments and wishes of some of the people, the expediency of popu lar elections has scarcely been defended by any who have held official situations. Their attention has been confined to Act 23d, Parl, 1. William and Mary, concerning patronages, and to anno decimo, Annae Reginae, An act to restore the patrons to their ancient rights ' of presenting ministers to the churches vacant in that part of Great Britain called "Scotland.'

By the former of these acts, the heritors being protestants and the elders, were to propose a person to the whole congregation to be approven or disapproven by them; and if reasons of disapprobation were given in, these were to be cognosced by the presbytery of the bounds, at whose judgement the calling and entry of a particular minister was to be

ordered and concluded. In 1712, this act was repealed, and patrons were to resume the exercise of their ancient powers.

What thus became the law of the land. was extremely unpalatable to the church. They pronounced it a grievance, from which they laboured to obtain relief. But in process of time, the minds of many were reconciled to the new order of things; and they formed themselves into a party gradually increasing in numbers and in strength, whose professed object was to defend, to obey, and to enforce the law of the country. Still, however, there remained a considerable number from whom they received a systematic opposition. According to his views of this leading question, every entrant into the ministry has been put down as belonging to the one party or to the other. Accustomed thus to take counsel together on a particular subject, a bond of union still be traced among men, after the question on which they were originally associated hath ceased to be agitated.

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It was to those who had espoused the popular cause, that the subject of this Memoir

was led by principle, and mature reflection, to attach himself from his introduction into public life. Never hath that cause had a more able and zealous advocate, or those who differed from him a more candid and fair oppo nent. He had studied with care our ecclesiastical constitution and laws; and it was universally allowed, even by those whose measures he resisted, that no man ever understood them better. At an early period, he obtained an ascendant in the inferior judica tories of which he was a member, and was recognised as eminently qualified to controut their counsels, and to guide their decisions. The confidence which his presbytery reposed in his ability, public spirit, and uprightness, led them to return him, more frequently than any of his brethren, as one of their representatives in the General Assembly. In that supreme court, he soon rose to celebrity, by the strength of his arguments, by the thunders of his eloquence, and by his invincible attachment to the principles he had espoused.

For several years after he became a minister, the idea of applying to the Legislature

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