an older organization in the early part of the century. Under the leadership of Dr. Henry Hunter, this became a firm rallying ground for wholesome discipline and evangelic principles. In the preamble of the minutes, bearing date 5 August, 1772, it is said, "The Scots' Presbytery in London, since their first formation as an ecclesiastical body, have conformed strictly to the worship and government; inviolably maintained the faith. and spirit; and legally exercised the powers, of the parent Church in the land where Providence hath cast their lot." It would appear that those English Presbyterians who met at the Williams Library at the end of that same year, disowned their Scotch brethren because they deemed them "not Dissenters upon principles of liberty." And certainly they were not, if by "principles of liberty" were meant that novel notion of a speculative freedom for ministers on matters of doctrinal opinion which was to put congregations entirely at the mercy of their preachers, and was opposed to all the meeting-house trusts, except perhaps a very few that may have been doctrinally open ones. THE EARLY SCOTTISH SECESSION CHURCHES IN LONDON. Meantime a rupture had taken place in the Presbyterian National Church of Scotland, and this led to another line of Presbyterian Congregations being planted in England. Overruled as that division may have been for good, the disintegrating evils of it must be attributed to the illegitimate and blundering action of the Imperial legislature, as we shall presently see. A threatening political danger rendered legislative Union. with Scotland a necessity; and after no small difficulty, the 1 The following extract is according to the invariable but not too accurate claims and representations of the whole Arianizing and Anti-subscriptionist party,— "The Presbyterians in particular, with regard to their notions of ecclesiastical power and government, are a different set of men from the Presbyterians of the last century. The English Presbyterians of this age have discarded all ideas of parochial sessions, classes, provincial synods, and general assemblies. They disclaim all coercive jurisdiction in spiritual concerns, and believe that every distinct and separate congregation ought to be the sole director of its religious affairs, without being controllable by or accountable to any other earthly authority. In short, they retain little of Presbyterianism, properly so-called, but the name."-A Vindication of the Protestant Dissenting Ministers, etc., by Andrew Kippis, D.D., 1772. Act of Union was passed in 1707. According to the Articles of Treaty, the preservation of the Presbyterian form of Church government and worship was made an essential and fundamental condition; and for greater assurance, a special "Act of Security" became part of the Treaty, requiring of every Sovereign, on ascending the British throne, an oath to support intact the privileges and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland. In five years, however, this part of the solemn compact was violated. For in 1712, an Act restoring patronage was passed, the Bill being hurried through both Houses of Parliament in a single month. "The British legislature violated the Articles of Union, and made a change in the constitution of the Church of Scotland. . Year after year the General Assembly protested against the violation, but in vain; and from the Act of 1712 undoubtedly flowed every secession and schism that has taken place in the Church of Scotland."' For a number of years the Act was almost a dead letter, the popular feeling being strongly averse to the settlement of any minister by lay patronage without the direct "call" of the Church over which he was to preside. Up to 1728, there had been no intrusions of ministers on reclaiming congregations; but in 1729, forced settlements commenced, the call of the people being set at nought, and the patron's nomination of a presentee reckoned sufficient by the majority of the Assembly, who disregarded all cases of appeal or protest. Against this and other forms of faithlessness there were those who strongly testified; and out of this agitation the FIRST SECESSION sprang in 1733, under the leadership of Ebenezer Erskine, who, having been formally censured by the General Assembly for denouncing the corruptions of the Church in a Synod sermon, protested with three others against the sentence. These four protesting brethren were declared no longer ministers of the Church; but they constituted themselves into a Presbytery, 5 Dec., 1733, and in the following May gave full reasons for their procedure in their first document, entitled, "A Testimony to the Doctrine, Worship, Government, and Discipline of the 1 Lord Macaulay's Speeches, vol. ii. p. 180. Church of Scotland." It was not against the constitution of the Presbyterian Church, but against the "prevailing party," or defective majority, who were unfaithful to its spirit and genius, that "The Associate Presbytery" testified and laid down their programme of action, for which they were finally deposed from office in 1740.1 From this time and for nearly a century, what came to be known as "the MODERATE party" were in the ascendant, defending and enforcing the alleged rights of patrons, and coming under the influence of a most unevangelic and rationalistic spirit. The MODERATE leaders, of whom Principal Robertson, the historian, was chief, were more at home in literature than theology, and were vehemently opposed to everything that looked like enthusiasm in religion or to popular power in ecclesiastical administration. A cold wave of latitudinarianism was kept long rolling over Scotland; and it was this and the struggles that ensued thereon, that prevented Scottish Presbyterians from rendering more effective service earlier to their orthodox and subscribing brethren in England, and that greatly delayed the Presbyterian revival. The high-handed measures of the Moderate majority in the General Assembly gave great impulse to the Secession, which rapidly advanced, under the banner of an earnest Evangelical style of preaching on its one side, and of freedom for congregations to choose their own pastors emblazoned on the other. In 1737-8, upwards of seventy applications, chiefly from "praying societies," for supply of Gospel ordinances were laid on the table of the "Associate Presbytery"; and so early as 1744, certain of these 1 The disintegrating influence of State law's interference with religion went forward apace. This "Secession," or " Associate" Presbytery was split into two over the question of the lawfulness of the parliamentary BURGESS oath, which required adhesion to "the true religion presently professed within this realm." As the Secession congregations increased, the names "Associate Synod," and "General Associate Synod," or in vulgar parlance, "Burghers," and "Anti-Burghers," came to designate the two bodies which respectively admitted or denied the lawfulness of the Burgess oath. On the abolition of the oath, the two parties coalesced in 1820, and were called "The United Secession Church." Meanwhile, in 1752, the Patronage Law had created another Secession, which issued in the "Synod of Relief," owning the same Westminster Presbyterian doctrine and government, but protesting against "the power of the civil magistrate in religious concerns." This and the United Secession Synod of 1820 joined together in 1847, to form "The United Presbyterian Church." "praying societies" in London that had put themselves in correspondence with that Presbytery, were received under its inspection as the nucleus of a Church which should help to carry out the spirit and aims of the Westminster Assembly's order of government, according to the uncoercive, voluntary, and Evangelic policy desired by such as Adam Martindale and the section which he and many others represented among the fathers and founders of early English or Westminster Presbyterianism. II. A FAITHFUL REMNANT OF ORTHODOX ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION OF AN OLD ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH GROWING INTO THE MODERN ORGANIZATION. IN a back part of the "Anciente towne of Stafforde" is an interesting and venerable specimen of an old English Presbyterian meeting-house,' still in use as a place of worship in connection with the Presbyterian Church of England, though not now so serviceable for that purpose as once it was. The building itself, only surpassed in age among the ecclesiastical buildings of that town by St. Chad's and St. Mary's parish churches, dates from the year of the Toleration Act; but the congregation belongs to a considerably earlier period. Among the fifty names of the "ejected" in Staffordshire in 1662, mentioned by Calamy, is that of the Rev. Noah Bryan, who, as "minister of Marie's in Stafford," had conducted public worship in that parish church after the Presbyterian form. His distinguished father, Dr. Bryan, of Coventry, his two brothers, and an uncle, were among the ejected ministers also, in other parts of England. Mr. Bryan was the founder of the little company of Nonconformist Presbyterians in the town of Stafford; and after he had been forced to quit the neighbourhood (he became chaplain to the Earl of Donegal, and died in Ireland in 1667), it would appear from an interesting MS. in Lambeth Palace (Cod. Tenison, 639), which contains a list of Conventicles within the Archdeaconry of Stafford in 1669, that a Conventicle was held in the house of John Wade, their preacher in Stafford, who is registered as a Curate, and with whom were associated some "persons of quality"-the number 1 Jubilee and Bicentenary Memorial of the old Stafford Meeting House by Rev. S. D. Scammell, F.R.G.S., 1887. |