EARNEST ADVICE TO THE NONINTRUSION CLERGY, BY A NON1NTRUSION LAYMAN.

[We have avoided as much as possible the endless, profitless, and disagreeable controversy respecting the Church of Scotland ; but we are induced to give insertion to the following letter, on account of the peacemaking overtures which it suggests, and its definite, practical bearing on the meeting in Edinburgh next week. It is sent to us by a gentleman who has extensive connexions in Scotland, is much esteemed, and exercises considerable influence : moreover, he is a very stanch Nonintrusionist.] TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

London, 28th January 1843.

SEE—The present state of the proceedings which have been instituted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, with a view to prevent clergymen, unfit or unsuitable for congregations, from being intruded on them, is now not only interesting, but alarming, to those who are anxious for the attainment of the important object, but who are also most anxious that it should be attained without producing consequences disastrous to the Churebt and to multitudes of worthy individuals. I therefore hope you will allow an avowed Nonintrusionist, viewing what is passing calmly at a distance from the exciting local agitation and strife, to endeavour to explain what I find in general society is not understood—the real point in dispute from the period when the discussion began in 1834—what the Church have required, and what the Government have now professed their wil- lingness to grant. It is most important that all parties should be completely at one as to this point, before an actual schism takes place, when two or three hundred as able, sincere, and zealous ministers as the Church of Scotland con- tains, will feel themselves constrained to retire from their parishes, to give up their incomes, which alone afford them their daily bread—to quit their com- fortable residences, and throw themselves and their families on the wide world. I know enough of the character of very many of the individuals to be morally certain, that, be the consequences what they may, they will fearlessly adopt this course, provided they do not succeed in obtaining what they conceive to be the all-important object for which they contend. The question is therefore of vast interest to them as well as to the Church of Scotland, and to that part of the public in Scotland who care for the Church. The Nonintrusion clergy-. men have now no alternative. They must either accept the terms which She Jesus Giteriase and the Government have, in Sir JAMES'S late distinct, able, and comprehensive letter, intimated their willingness to agree to, or adopt the extreme course, fraught with most ruinous consequences to themselves, to which I have alluded ; for as to petitioning Parliament, which they have signified their intention to do, it is quite clear that no further concession will be made by the Legislature.

I have mentioned in the outset, that the proceedings which have led to the present state of matters were instituted for the purpose of preventing the intrue sion of unlit clergymen on congregations ; an object as to which the Church of Scotland have at all times, though at some times more than at others, shown great anxiety and watchfulness.

Soon after the Revolution, the Act of 1690 bestowed the exclusive nomina- tion of Parish Ministers in Scotland on the Heritors (landed proprietors) and Elders ; and, what is worth noticing in passing, the late Sr HENRI( MON. CREIFF, the most trustworthy authority on such a subject, (MorienErer'S Life of Erskine, p. 432,) expressly states, that "there is no period in the his- tory of the Church in which the settlement of ministers was conducted with as little bustle or heat, or with as much regularity, as during the interval from 1690 to 1712." In the latter year, patronages were restored by an act of Par- liament, brought forward by the Tory Ministry in the end of Queen ANNE'S reign. That act, however, was not generally enforced for many years ; the Presbyteries or Church Courts proceeding more frequently on calls from the people than on presentations from the patrons : but for a century past, the per- sons presented by the patrons have with few exceptions been settled by the Church Courts; which, it is to be observed, have also in all cases required calls from the Heritors and Elders, or at least their concurrence in the settle- ment, as necessary to found the pastoral relation between a presentee and the parishioners. (MONCREIFF's Life of Erskine, pp. 435, 437, 440, et seq.) Matters were in this situation, when the General Assembly, in 1834, passed their famous Veto Act, giving to the communicants in each parish, beinie heads of families, a veto on the person presented by the patron. Although it was not passed without the concurrence of Lord MONCREiFF, justly consi- dered the ablest and best-informed lawyer in ecclesiastical questions in Scot- land, nor, as I have heard, without the advice of a noble and learned Lord who then occupied a distinguished place in the Councils of his Sovereign, the Court of Session and House of Lords have found that the General Assembly exceeded their powers in enacting such a law, because it obviously encroached on the civil rights of patrons. It is now, therefore, unquestionable that this act is illegal, and cannot be enforced ; and that none of the proceed- ings of the Church Courts following on it, including even the sentences as to the Stmthbogie ministers, can be supported. The clergy ought to have less difficulty in retracing their steps, when they find that Lord JEFFREY, possessed of the highest powers of mind as a judge, although for several years he con- sidered the Veto Act passed in 1834 to be within the powers of the Church, yet felt no difficulty in intimating, a few days ago, on the bench of the Court of

Session, that his opinion was changed, and that he was satisfied that the Veto Act was illegal. It is now, therefore, finally established, that the proceedings of the Church Courts are only exclusive in ecclesiastical matters—when not at all, not even in the slightest degree, interfering with civil rights.

The Veto Act being thus inoperative, the General Assembly have petitioned Parliament to abolish patrouage; a measure which cannot he accomplished without making pecuniary compensation to the patrons. There is not the very slightest prospect of the Legislature giving their sanction to such a mea- sure, or countenancing the claims recently brought forward by the Church for an extension of their jurisdiction. The Government have, in Sir JAMES GRA- MAWS letter, declared their determination to resist them.

Having now, as briefly as possible, alluded to the proceedings of the General Assembly which have led to the impending crisis, it is most material to attend to the real object, the only important object, with a view to attain which, the Veto Act was passed in 1834, and every subsequent measure of the Church relative to that act has been adopted. That object I have always understood to be this—" that the pastor of a parish should not he thrust on those who are permanently to become his flock or congregation, when they can make such objections to him that it is not likely that his religious instructions will be generally useful, or that he would be a fit and acceptable person to afford them spiritual consolation, by prayer, conversation, examination, and otherwise, in times of sickness or ap• preaching death." No one more sincerely desires to see that object attained, beyond the reach of controversy, than the writer of these fines. No one is therefore more decidedly a Nonintrusionist, in what I conceive to be the ordi- nary and sound interpretation of the term. Whether that object, however, is best to be attained by leaving the decision with the heads of families being communicants, (which was the plan of the Veto Act,) or whether it might not as well rest with the Church Courts, it is now unnecessary to inquire; because the illegality of the Veto Act is, as already mentioned, now completely esta- blished. I am bound, however, in candour to admit, that if those parts of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S letter in which be explains the proceeding of the Church Courts as to the settlement of ministers, their form and exclusive character, and in which he states the readiness of the Government to have removed all doubts as to his explanation by a legislative measure, be deliberately and calmly Considered—and finally, if those parts of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S letter became the law of the land—the people ought to be satisfied that there is far less reason to apprehend improper or violent settlements of ministers than at any time for a century past. Ought they not then to rest contented ? The following are the portions of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S letter to which I refer : they are clear and unambiguous, and just amount to this, that "the Church Courts are exclusively, without the intervention of the Civil Court, to be empowered by act of Parliament to judge of objections, whatever they may be, including un- suitableness, made by the parishioners or congregation to any presentee." "The choice of a patron is now limited to licen•iates, who derive their right of preaching from the will of the Church, who are subjected to long training under eccle- siastical discipline, and who undergo the most strict examination before the licence to preach is granted.

" The power of rejecting candidates for this licence is absolute in the Church.

But even after ibis ordeal, the presentation of the patron only opens the way to a second examinatkn.

"The licentiate. when presented, is taken on trials by the Presbytery ; his qualifi- cations are tested ; if he be not fit and suitable to the congregation. objections are St died ; reasons are heard. of which the Presbytery al.ne may judge; and, although presenta- tion is a civil right, examination belongs eschisirely to the Church Court. •• It is open to the Presbytery, acting as judges, with the sense of their moral respon- sibility attaching on them, either to give effect to objections on cause shown, or to over- rule them ; making in both cases a judicial deliverance.

"Admission, also, is an ecclesiastical act.

" The Church Court alone can create the pastoral relation between the presentee clad Isis parish, or dissolve it when it has been created. The licence, then, which precedes presentation, is in she power of the Church ; the examination and admission which follow it, and without which presentation is in- effectual, are fully conceded to the Church ; and, unless it be contended that patronage itself must be either directly or indirectly abolished, the matter in dispute is reduced

to narrow limits. • •

"In the hope of peace, Lord Aberdeen. one of her Majesty's present advisers, sought by legislation to remove doubts, which by some were supposed to exist, respect- ing the admission of ministers to benefices in Scotland, by declaring the law, and by defining with precision the respective rights and powers of the different parties inte- rested in the settlement of a minister.

• ' In the same spirit, I expressed, on the part of the Government, in the course of last session, willingness to attempt legislation on these same recorded principles ; hoping that both the Church and people of Scotland might be found desirous to terminate this unhappy controversy on terms which are strictly conformable to Presbjterian discip'ine and to established rights."

The intention to resign their charges, unless matters be adjusted, was ex- pressed long before Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S letter appeared ; so that those minis- ters who announced that intention, have yet time leisurely to consider those parts of it now quoted, before they adopt a step which once taken cannot be recalled, and the consequences of which are such that it ought not to be taken sinless they believe that the attainment of their object is entirely frustrated. They are in no degree committed by the terms of the answer male with so great precipitation, and therefore apparently not with becoming respect, to such a state paper as that communicated to the Church by Sir JAMES GRAHAM. If the offer made by him be rejected, and the people generally come to understand its precise meaning, and that they are substantially, though not according to the plan of the Veto Act, to attain the object ; the clergy re- signing, unless I labour under some great mistake, will lose the sympathy of their congregations, and of that part of the public which has hitherto gone along with them, and from which effectual support was hereafter to be expected by them. This is a most serious consideration for the great majority of their number. Some of the very able and zealous clergy in the towns may indeed succeed in drawing large congregations about them, with undiminished incomes ; but what is to become of the equally useful pastors in remote and country parishes, which do not, perhaps, contain a single wealthy person but the heritors, not one of whom entertains the same views as their pastor ? The consequences to aged clergymen in such circumstances are too fearful to be even glanced at.

There is yet, however, time for each minister seriously to reflect, and to de- !ermine for himself, whether he ought not to be contented with the offer now made, "that the Church Courts are exclusively, without the intervention of the Civil Courts, to be empowered by the Legislature to judge of objections, whatever they may be, including unsuitableness, made by the congregation to any pre- sentee." Much, as already said, is gained by accepting this offer—much which the Church has not enjoyed for a century past. Sir JAMES GRAHAM merely notices the question in dependence in the Court of Session respecting the right of Church Courts to create parishes guoad sacra, and to give the ministers the same privileges as the parochial clergy. Since the date of Sir JAMES'S letter, a decision has been pronounced by the Court of Session, finding that no such right belongs to the Church Courts ; but several of the ablest Judges were opobsed to the decision, which will of course be carried by appeal to the House ofLords. The question involved in it, however important as affecting the proceedings of the Church in passing the Veto Act, and since that period, would not, I apprehend, in whatever way decided, induce any of the clergy to resign their livings, and is therefore at present not materially connected with my purpose; which was, in the first place, to explain what the point in dispute really is; and secondly, by doing so, to induce the Nonintrusion m,inisters to satisfy tlismselves in time, by anxious deliberation, whether they ought to leave their congregations, reject- ing the terms for settling the great and all-important question now submitted to them by the Government, or whether these terms are not rather such as they ought to accept. It is very difficult to convey to an English reader any adequate notion of the value which all classes in Scotland, of the Established Presbyterian Church, but especially those in the middling and lower walks of life, set on having a minister in whom they place confidence ; but it is this consideration which renders the Nonintrumon question of so deep and general importance in Scot- land. Sir HENRY MONCREIFF, in his work before referred to, published in 1818, pp. 69, 70, 71, 72, accurately describes the duties of a Scotch minister, without curate or any assistant, in a large parish,—the composition of sermons, and the official duties of the Lord's Day, not the most important parts of pastoral labour; the visitation of the sick and dying, a labour of perpetual re- currence, and in no country in Christendom more faithfully attended to than in Scotland ; the private instruction given to the whole parishioners in their separate houses at least once every year, catechizing the children and servants, admonishing all the members of each family, and concluding with prayer ; holding regular diets of catechizing in all the villages of the parish, as well as conversing in private with the communicants. This is but a faint outline of the enumeration given by Sir HENRY MONCREIFF, himself one of the mi- nisters of the largest parish connected with the city of Edinburgh.