The

meaning to Scripture but that which she put upon it, condemning as heretics all who differed from her interpretation of it: for this, God judged her at the French revolution, and will continue to waste her until she is utterly exterminated by His coming. Church of England expelled out of her pale, and cut off from the ordinances of Christ's institution, all who would not conform to the lawn sleeves of her prelates, and her other ceremonies of man's invention; by which the hearts of the people were alienated from her, so that now she has more enemies than friends in the land in which she is established. In like manner, the Church of Scotland, affecting a more strict discipline than her sister of England, has set the terms and rules of that discipline above the word of God, and refuses to try the guilt of a minister of Christ by Christ's words, but condemns him on human interpretations of it. Dr. Whately has shewn justly, how the errors commonly imputed to Romanism are inherent in every system; and here we see the worst Popish abomination deliberately adopted by that very church which has called itself the furthest removed from the Mother of Harlots of all the Protestant churches. Here is Brother John, who once quarrelled with Brother Martin because his dress was too like that of Brother Peter, himself now arrayed in Peter's own worst attire. When will men, either individuals or in the aggregate, learn to know themselves? Truly indeed said the Heathen poet-

Descendit coelo sententia, γνωθι σεαυτον.

The traditions, the ceremonies, the rules, the discipline, were all good in their way, but all became part and parcel of Antichrist the moment they were set above the word of Christ.

No Scotch Calvinist condemns the doctrines of the Church of Rome as unscriptural the less hotly because they have been affirmed by her doctors: the Calvinist says they are contrary to Scripture, and sets the opinions of the Fathers at nought, defies Bellarmine and St. Bernard, and defers to Augustine only as far as Augustine agrees with Paul. In like manner, it is no defence of the General Assembly that the error it delights in may be found in Knox and Calvin: if they prefer Knox and Calvin to Christ, let them take the consequences, and see whether these Reformers will stand them in His stead in the day of trial which is coming. Oh, let them not say to themselves, they have Calvin for their father! he will disown them as loudly as Abraham would have disowned the Pharisees and Scribes, in the days of our Lord, who claimed descent from the father of the faithful. Nay, how do they themselves act with regard. to the Bible Society? Lord Teignmouth, and the Secretaries, and the Committee, claim long-established custom and the laws of the Society: the Edinburgh gentlemen reply, Your custom and law is anti-scriptural, and we will be bound by nothing

that is so. Every creed and formulary of man contains imperfection; but to prefer the imperfection, to prefer it to truth, and to maintain it, marks minds untaught by the Spirit of Truth. Here is seen the grand distinction between human infirmity, and that perception of truth which is produced by the enlightening of the Holy Ghost: man is ever in error, but the regenerated man is ever seeing his error, leaving it, and becoming more and more conformed to the perfect measure of the whole truth as it is in Jesus. The Sectarian learns his "five points" at the commencement of his career; learns no more during the whole of his course; and dies trusting to his five points, but without a vestige of Christian principle, at last. We have dwelt longer upon this topic than it may seem to some to deserve; but we have done so, to guard many who have been unwarily entrapped by the argument, that whether Mr. Campbell's views or those of the General Assembly were most scriptural had nothing to do with the question, if it could be shewn that the formularies of the Scotch Church made against him.

Dr. Barr's speech concludes by a long tirade against certain persons, who must be supposed to be the disciples of Mr. Campbell; in which the Doctor charges them with ceasing to support missionary institutions, to disseminate the Scriptures, and with "neglecting family duties and professional avocations." The Doctor specifies nothing, and, therefore, to nothing, nothing specific can be replied. But we have made inquiries of many who are intimately acquainted with the neighbourhood in which Mr. Campbell exercised his pastoral duties, and the result is a perfect conviction on our own minds, that a more cruel and more deliberate falsehood was never uttered by mortal man. The best person to prove the falsehood of this charge is Dr. Barr himself; for he asserts, in a preceding sentence, that Mr. Campbell's doctrine" has not yet been brought to bear on the mass of promiscuous society, where alone its true character will be discovered, but has been confined to a select few, who certainly make no common pretensions to piety, and exhibit still less common appearances of piety, and most of whom are, I believe, really under the influence of piety." Thus we have, according to Dr. Barr's statement, "persons who exhibit uncommon appearances of piety, and most of whom are, in the Doctor's belief, really under the influence of piety," also refusing to disseminate the word of God, preach His truth, or perform family and professional duties! Such is the Doctor's idea of piety!

The case of Mr. Scott stood upon exactly similar grounds, as far as the sentiments of the General Assembly are concerned. Mr. Scott dissented from the assertion, which he was required to make, that "none were redeemed by Christ but believers only;"

and for this dissent he, as well as Mr. Campbell, was rejected by the General Assembly.

It becomes us to inquire, who, and what, is this body which thus dares to put a limit upon the love of God to His creatures, and to prohibit His servants from preaching it.

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland consists of a certain number of clergymen and laymen delegated from the presbyteries. A presbytery consists of a certain number of associated parishes: if composed of less than twelve, it delegates two ministers and one layman to the General Assembly; if from twelve to eighteen, it sends three ministers and one elder; and if from eighteen to twenty-four, it sends four ministers and two elders. The number of clergymen in the Scotch Church who are, in the estimation of the Evangelical party, truly converted and spiritual men, is as small as in the English Church; and we ask with confidence, what would be thought or cared, by the Evangelical party, for the decisions of Bishops Tomline, Mant, and Lawrence, nay, of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York themselves, upon the theological opinions of such men as Mr. Simeon, Mr. Marsh, Mr. Wilberforce, or Mr. Howells? Just not worth one rush. They would be held, by the whole Evangelical party, to be radically incompetent to pronounce an opinion upon any one article of Evangelical truth, because they esteem them ignorant of the first rudiments of the Divine life. But would any thing better be thought of the decision of these bishops, if Lords Brougham, Holland, Lansdowne, and King, were associated with them, and agreed in opinion? Certainly not. Yet such a body is the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which has met, and in its wisdom come to this notable decision. The lay elders are often men of the highest rank in the kingdom; almost always chosen for their local importance, arising from talents, wealth, or influence; but scarcely ever, or rather never, for their theology or piety: they have been in many instances, within our own knowledge, men living in the habitual practice of acknowledged sin; nay, one such figures in the debates on these very cases. And such an assembly, so convened and so composed, has the effrontery to challenge our submission to its decisions upon questions of theology! We would just as soon submit to the votes of the House of Commons on the question of justification by faith, the idolatry of Popery, or the propriety of fasting and prayer in the apprehension of national calamity.

The very same journal which Dr. Barr selected as the fit organ for the publication of his philippic, the Greenock Advertiser, contains a notice of a pamphlet on Ecclesiastical Reform in the Church of Scotland, by Dr. Burns of Paisley, in which it is declared, touching the elders in the General Assembly, that "those

are sent there who, though bearing the name, know nothing of the labours and duties of an elder." It is further asserted, that the elders are chosen for the political influence which they possess; and that" obnoxious clergymen are forced at the point of the bayonet upon a roused and indignant people." The Sanhedrim at Jerusalem was not more incompetent to form a sound judgment upon the teaching of Paul and Peter, than such an assembly is to pronounce an opinion upon the doctrines of Messrs. Campbell and Scott.

Germany is said to be the father of music, while Italy is the mother; and in like manner Scotland may be said to be the father of infidelity, while France is the mother. The Scotch have ever wanted the humour of Voltaire, and the pathos of Rosseau, and the universal learning of Bayle and Volney. Their scepticism has been of that cold, calculating character, which forms the basis of all their secular undertakings. If they want the vices of the South, they want in as large a measure the warmth of affection, love, and disinterestedness, which more than half redeem the profligacy of warmer climates. Intellectualism and inordinate pride is their bane, and runs through every part of their social and religious system; pervades their domestic arrangements, their legal proceedings, and their theological tenets. Most of their best theologians have yet to learn the immeasurable distance between an enlightened understanding and a loving heart. If the head be the seat of godliness, then may Scotland stand high in the scale of eternal truth: if the heart be the seat of the image of Christ, and if all knowledge be as tinkling brass without love, then there is not a part of the habitable globe which ranks lower. The Assembly was almost unanimous in casting out Mr. Campbell: it came to its decision at six o'clock in the morning by a majority of 119 to 6. It was not enough for them to suspend him, which was proposed: no; they were determined at once, and without a moment's pause for reflection, to drive him from their church for ever. This haste is like that which was made use of against his Master, who was arrested on the Thursday; arraigned, tried, condemned, and crucified within twenty-four hours. Many voted who were asleep during great part of the defence; many were absent during the discussion, and only present at the vote; and some concurred in the vote of whom we are unwilling to write as they deserve, and concerning each of whom, therefore, we shall only

say,

Who would not grieve that such on earth should be?
Who would not weep that Atticus were he?

The cases of Mr. Maclean and Mr. Irving, upon an entirely different point, we cannot now enter into. A body that could decide as it did with respect to Messrs. Campbell and Scott,

was as incapable of understanding the former gentlemen as they would be a dissertation in Russian or Chinese. The downright and undeniable heresy of the General Assembly, on the humanity of our Lord, is placed beyond the shadow of doubt or question in the following passage: "that in Mr. Maclean's opinion our Lord was kept from sinning only by the hypostatical union, and that his nature IN ITSELF was not more holy than that of other men; and that this opinion is inconsistent with the representations of Scripture and the standards of the Church of Scotland." Away then, for the future, with all quibbles and subterfuges of the Record, and Marcus Dodds; here is a holy humanity per se; creature holiness; a nature wholly dissimilar in essence and in every part from the nature of man; a distinct and unequivocal denial that Christ was "man of the substance of his mother." If evidence were still further wanting, it is to be found in the bill of indictment found against Mr. Maclean, wherein the charges specified are," That you, Mr. H. B. Maclean, used expressions of the import and tendency, that Christ had taken our fallen nature upon him; that he had taken a body formed of the sinful flesh of the Virgin.'" Has the General Assembly taken leave of its wits? does it mean to hold itself up to the universal ridicule of mankind? Of what, in the name of common sense, and meaning of words, could a child's body be formed, but of the flesh of its mother?-Another count is, that he alleged "that the nature of Christ was the fallen nature of man, and his body was a body of fallen flesh, formed of the substance of the Virgin, who was not more pure than the rest of our sinful race." Well! was she? was the virgin formed of impeccable flesh too? Is the General Assembly going to preach Popery altogether? We wish our readers to attend to those expressions in Italics, because we know that some men, of honest hearts but weak minds, have been puzzled by persons calling themselves great theologians, but who seem to have no faculty for expressing accurate ideas, and who rail at the word fallen, as if its use constituted a mortal offence in Mr. Irving and Mr. Maclean, although they themselves are sound on the true humanity of the substance of the Virgin. To quibble about a mere term is contemptible: no one has used the term fallen in any other sense than as the substance of the Virgin: those who have attacked the term have really and bona fide intended to deny that Christ took substance of the Virgin Mary: this we have ever shewn, and of this we have here irrefragable proof: the heretics assert that Christ's body was not formed of the substance of the Virgin, but was a new creature. This is the doctrine of Marcus Dodds, the Record, and hoc genus omne.

Again and again we will reiterate, that this heresy against