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cease. In the Assembly 1785, our Author, who had long been regarded as a leader among his friends, was active in bringing forward and supporting a proposal to consult the landed interest and royal burghs of Scotland, on their sentiments conerning the existing law; it being understood, that if the result of this appeal to the country should prove against them, they at whose instigation it was made, should consider themselves as in future released from any obligation to agitate the question. A negative was put on this plausible overture; and since that time, no formal attempt has been made to revive the discussion of the subject.

But if the expediency of the law itself has led to division in the deliberative councils of the church, her sons have found an equally fruitful source of debate, when called, in their judicial capacity, to investigate and to apply the principles on which the law is to be carried into execution. Though a patron be recognised as invested with power to present to a vacant charge, it is on all hands admitted that his choice is limited to a qualified

person, and that the presentee acquires no right to be settled otherwise than according to the rules of the church. But what are the qualifications which the candidate must possess, and what are the rules which must be obeyed? These are questions in the solution of which a wide diversity of sentiment has taken place. That every entrant into the ministry must have received a licence to preach as a probationer for the sacred office, and must give a pledge of his loyalty, by taking the oaths to government; that he must possess a competent portion of literature, and that he may be set aside if he refuse his subscription to the established standard of or thodoxy, or is convicted of immoralities, which infer the deprivation of his licence; these are the points on which all are agreed. But it has been contended farther, that he must receive a call from the congregation to which he is presented, before the church, according to her rules, can establish a pastoral relation between him and them. Some of the more zealous supporters of the ruling party have maintained, that the present law

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has transferred to patrons all the powers which formerly belonged to heritors, elders, and people; that, therefore, a call is a form without meaning, a shadow without a substance, an insult on congregations, who, though invited to consent, must ultimately be constrained to submit. But the more temperate of their friends have subscribed to the doctrine of their opponents, that calls were established before patronage existed, and that being rules of the church, must be observed in order to give legal effect to presentations. In the Assembly 1782, our Author distinguished himself by supporting this doctrine, and had the satisfaction to see a declaratory act on the subject sanctioned by its authority.

But though immemorial usage, and express statute, had thus imposed a necessity for the moderation of calls, it remained to be considered, in the case of contested settlements, what ought to be sustained as a call. This point was keenly agitated, both while the question relative to patronage itself was undecided, and after that question had been put

to rest. From year to year appeals were brought up from the inferior judicatories by parishes reluctant to receive the legal presentees. The decisions of the Supreme Court were almost uniformly in favour of the settlement, but opposition was made on the grounds, that if a call was requisite, a blank paper, or one to which a few subscriptions were adhibited, did not sufficiently accord to the rules of the church; that to sustain it, was to sacrifice her authority, and to exhibit a glaring solecism, by establishing a relation where there was only one party consenting. But as opposition to the law itself had been found insufficient, so opposition to the execu tion of the law, as thus interpreted, was found to be equally so, and came in process of time to be relinquished as hopeless.

While causes of this description continued to be brought up by parties having interest in the decision, our Author had frequent opportunities of strenuously maintaining his favourite doctrine. In some cases he moved that the call should be set aside, and the presentee declared unqualified for the particular

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vacant charge. In other instances, he proposed that the cause should be remitted to the radical court, with instructions to deal with the parish, and to endeavour to obtain a more ample concurrence. In former times, such conciliatory measures had been frequently adopted with success: But the times were altered, and were now unable to bear them. The last struggle of the kind which took place, was in the Assembly 1781; and it is worthy of notice, on account of the change in ecclesiastical administration by which it was soon after succeeded. A very few individuals only, (to whom strong objections were stated) had subscribed a call to the presentee to the parish of Biggar. The matter. came before the court of dernier resort. When that court had deliberated long upon it, Principal Robertson made his usual motion, that the call should be sustained, and the settlement carried into effect with all convenient speed. A counter motion was made, that the cause should be remitted, with instructions to the presbytery of Biggar to endeavour to obtain a more ample call; and so

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