A • SCOTTISH ENABLING 'BILL. (To THE EDITOR OP •
THE " SPECTATOR.") • SIR,-4, do not know whether your English readers are interested in our hyperborean affairs, but, the Spectator is more than an :English—it is an Imperial paper. I therefore beg briefly to point. out • that a Scottish Church 'Enabling Bill is in con- templation. The proposed Bill embodies. a. subtle specimen the tortuous working of the -ecclesiastical mind. Purporting as it doesr-to be:an Enabling Bill, it is.in reality a;Bill for the !absolute liberation of the Scots Kirk from State contrOl. 'A 'remarkable fact in .connexion with this phenomenon is that all the • clergy , of .the 'Kirk, including the leaders, .profess themselves to, be,.,as they well may,. entirely.satisfied with the unparalleled measure of freedom Which they enjoy,within the four corners• of the. canoordat with the State.
Why, . then,..it, may be .asked, tire, leaders 'press for the complete separation of Church- and State? The. answer is because -a -denomination known as the United Free Church, -with which they-have been negotiating with .a view to incorpo- ration, have postulated this as a modest condition of proceed- ing with the, negotiations. The ancient and historic. Church of the proud old. Kingdom of Scotland is,• forsooth, to be dragged at: the tail of..a. body. of Dissenters. But in the minds of some of us this.' is .nothing as compared with the religion& issue involied.—viz., the discontinuance on the part of the Soottish nation•to render homage to Christ as the Prince of the Kings of the earth by. the acknowledgment of His truth, and the establishment of 'His Church.
It is a policy of despair. The leaders of the Kirk. evidently think that the U.F. denomination is. so powerful that they must come to terms with it even at the cost of virtual, though disguised, Disestablishment and probable Disendowment. They propose to carry this revolutionary change over the heads of the people.
Now, Sir, according to the Treaty of Union the Kirk of Scotland is to be " the people's Church for ever." It is pro- posed without saying to the people "By your leave " to con- vert it from what it is at present, by law and in principle and ideal—the Church of the whole Scottish nation—into a side- tracked sect, or denomination which is to be, if you please, an imperium in imperio—a law unto itself in violation of the sovereignty of Parliament, and to have that law laid down, and its whole Constitution liable to chopping and changing (including its Creed) at the will of this or that majority, for the time being, in its Assemblies.
Vigorous opposition to the extraordinary proposals outlined above is being organized. A National Church Defence Associa- tion has been formed, of which the writer has the honour of being one of the Secretaries. We would rejoice in a genuine union on truly Scottish national lines; but a ramshackle -make, believe of union which brings together antagonistic and irreconcilable principles of sectarianism and national religion on a footing of voluntaryism, and which connotes a denational- ized Church and a secularized nation, we are opposing, and will oppose foot by foot and inch by inch.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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