A violation of the Treaty of Union the main origin of our ecclesiastical divisions and other evils : a second address to the people of Scotland /
Begg, James,1808-1883.
Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose,Earl of,1847-1929,former owner.StEdNL
Edinburgh : Johnstone, Hunter, and Co.,
1871
Includes bibliographical references.
Armorial plate of the 5th Earl of Rosebery on front pastedown. Two handwritten pages tipped in before the title page, containing Rosebery's thoughts on the Scottish Church: "I have always supposed that the question of patronage in Scotland is not so much one of right, for of that there is no doubt, not so much one of expediency which would give rise I fancy to but little difficulty but the practical obstacles presented by distributing the patronage. The act of 1690 may not indeed have been entirely satisfactory: but it would at any rate be better than the present state of things. But I do not believe that government will seriously declare that the difficulties of this question are so great that they cannot deal with it. They may have scruples they can handle, have misgivings. But at any rate let them tell us plainly in what light they view the question. Lord Macaulay ends his graphic account of the passing of the act of 1712 by saying "This Sis[?] is the true history of dissent in Scotland". The true history of dissent! What an awful accusation if true. That an act of political jobbery at best, of political malice we suspect, should have divided a church whose history is the Glory of its country. But the worst is that it cannot be denied that it is so, that the act of 1712 is the direct root humanly speaking of all the evils that have since befallen the Scotch Church. The tree indeed survived the shock but gradually branch after branch withered or fell off, some indeed comparatively insignificant, but many of great importance until there came the stupendous spectacle of the disruption of 1843. Then we saw the parent trunk split, and a convulsion which rent the church in twain. Moreover we must remember that however trifling some of the former individual serepions[?] had been that at the last they united and became a hady[?] of great importance. So then in Scotland we have not one church but three churches, three not by division of doctrine so much as by the politics introduced by the act of 1712. And yet this is the year 1873."
Christian union