The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-14 00:00:00

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LONDON:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1839.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

SUSPENSION OF SEVEN MINISTERS.
In The Sun of Thursday we gave an account
of a meeting of the Presbytery of Strathbogie, in
Aberdeenshire, when the Veto Act (a subject which
our English readers ought now to understand)
came under discus-Sion on the motion that a pre-
sentee to the parish of Marnoch be taken on trials.
This motion was supported in accordance with the

decisions of the Court of Session and the House of

Lords, and opposed in obedience to the decision of
the General Assembly. After lengthened speeches
a division took place, when there appeared for the
motion, 7 ; and against it, 4 ; leaving a majority
of -8 in favour of the law of the land.
The Comtnision of Assembly, (consisting of a
certain number of Clergymen and Elders, appointed
to represent the General Assembly), met in
Edinburgh on Wednesday. This important

question was taken up with great ardour, and the
d!bate continued from noon till half-past one next
morning, when the following resolution was agreed
to 10; a majority of 121 to 14:—" That the Com-
misgion resolve to suspend the remanent members
(Cl(Y..c obedient to the Civil Courts), viz., the Rev.
COWIE of Cairnie, the Rev. Mr. THOMSON,
of Keith, the Rev. Mr. rilAssoN of notriplde,

ti-,e Rev. Mr. CRUICKSHANK of Mortlach, the
Huy. Mr. CRUICKSHANK of Glass, the Rev. Mr.
IWALKER of Huntly, and the Rev. Mr. ALLAR-
DYcE of Rhynie—and the Commiczion hereby do
suspend the said min'sters 1.3 m the office and func-
I,ions of the holy ministry aye and until they shall
be repined by the-General Assembly—prohibiting
0..• d 'ii charging them from the exercise of their
it:ncons until they shall be rcponed as aforesaid,
,„d Ai faring that all acts performed by them while
,uspecded shall be void and null."
The consequence of which is, that till the ques-
tion comes before the General Assembly in May,
these svcn clergymen are suspended from all cle-

rical functions, and their places are to be supplied

by others cppointed by the Commission. It will
Thus be seen that the two powers in the State, the

Civil and the Ecclesiastical, have come into violent
) cr,flisicn, and that the Ecclesiastical power, with
its u:-teal daring, and with its utter contempt for
the authority of the State, whether that Ecclesias-
tical power be Presbyterian, Protestant, or Catholic,
( Lave commenced the attack, and set the laws of
the Jana at defiance. The Supreme Civil Court
1, of Sc-nland, on a late occasion, merely reprimanded
r""Thally certain ministers who disobeyed their orders,
) 'wit the-representatives of the Supreme Ecclesiasti-
e.-.1 Court have taken a much more decided step,
I
arl( suspended the whole of these recusant clergy,
who felt the conviction of the wholesome truth,
iixlll"tecl on the Chartists by Chief Justice TIN..
I) AL at Monmouth, that they are bound to yield
obedience to the law of their country, not from the
i
'i terror only which the law inspires, but from a
' ,euch higher and a more binding motive, the fear
', of the Almighty, and from the thorough belief that
:1 ‘• the powers which be are ordained by GOD."
Thin, however, the Commission of Assembly de-
nies, and in that respect they and the rioters of
i Wales, in the eye of the law, are Equally guilty.
1
1 it is certainly a remarkable feature of the
yes( nt times that pious and moral clergymen
~110 obey the law should be subjected to the hutni.
. ,ration, the degradation, and the disgrace of suspen-
sien . (in the words of Dr. LEE) from the most im.
( irant and most sacred duties imposed upon them
by Church and State. May not this be described
I an an act which tends to a schism in
i .1 the Church,
) tillu .may not those who commit it one day repent
t of asserting power which modern laws, customs, and
i religion too, alike reject ?

--.......-
What the State requires from a Church Estab-
I lishment is to make an orderly moral people. It
call have no interest, and no business with religious
dcgtrines as a means of salvation. Each man must
b, saved, if at all, by his individual faith, and the

State is not constituted to select—for which, 1
deed, it is utterly unfit—a faith for its subjects,
with a view to their eternal happiness. The State
is the creature of the human will for a human pur-
pose, and its business and its duties are wholly con-
fined to this life. Hence the Tories have properly
taken the opportunity of the Newport riots affording
a proof that a part of the people are disorderly and
immoral—not that they run a greater risk than
Bishop PHILPOTTS, Or Lord LYNDHURST, of
failing to reach Heaven—to demand more Church
and more religious education. Under this aspect,
remembering the ferocious opposition which the Fire-
brands have recently given to the promotion of
education, unless controlled by the priesthood, we
must remind our statesmen of the condition of

Germany.
In that country a general system of education is
carried on, over which the priesthood, as such, have
not a particle of control. Many of the body are
teachers ; some of them are members of the dif-
ferent councils and boards, though not in right of
their pastoral office, but the boards, councils, and
teachers are all appointed by the Government. Un-
doubtedly religious instruction forms a part of that
general system of secular education ; but it is not
its basis, nor is the system in any wise placed under
the priesthood. At the same time the bulk of the
people are orderly and obedient, to the full content-
ment of their rulers. Such riots as those at New-
port, Nottingham, and Bristol—such scenes as
those of the conflagrations and disorders of Kent in
1830, are nearly, or even wholly, unknown in

Germany.
We are not the advocate of the drilling system ; we
almost doubt whether a state of society, diversified by
a Chartist outrage, be not preferable to the dull
and apathetic submission to an) thing and every_
thing which distinguishes the Germans. But our
statesmen are the advocates of such a system,—the
Church is maintained in all its costly and distorted
splendour on that principle, and to our statesmen and
to those who advocate the drilling system, we say
look at the effects of a secular education uncon-
trolled by the priesthood in Germany, and the
effects of education placed in the hands of a richly
endowed priesthood in England. We confine our-
selves wholly to such considerations as ought
alone to weigh with politicians and legislators—
who, as such have nothing whatever to do with
religion as a means of salvation, who endow a
State Church for political purposes only, and on
such considerations they are bound at once to re-
pudiate the system of education controlled by the
priesthood, now established in England, and adopt
the system of secular education controlled by the
Government, and independent of the priesthood,
as established in Germany.

Sir PETER LAURIE has indited a leper to the
termagant parson who lately filled the office of
Chaplain to the Lord Mayor, and who is one of
the bottle-holders of the Reverend Ribald who
" serves out" the Wesleyans every month in the
periodical organ of the Church, yclept the Church
Magazine. It would seem that the ex-Chaplain
had taken offence, not so much at the severe
terms in which the worthy Alderman—to his
credit be it spoken—animadverted upon the bitter
and intolerant spirit displayed by him in his noto-
rious Corporation Sermon, as at the enormity
of which Sir PETER has been guilty in
applying the term " Catholic" to the Church
of Rome. "It appears to me," says he,
" that our difference arises from the term Catholic.'
Now, the sense in which 1 used it was that in which
it is used by Clarendon, Gibbon, Hume, and by
people generally when speaking of Roman Catho-
lics. Strictly speaking, the Roman Church is
certainly not Catholic, nor do I know any body
which can be so designated, except the universal
body of Christians throughout the world." No one
we think, but a quibbling bigot could have found
fault with the expression " Catholic," as used by
the Alderman. It is not only justified by the au-
thority of the best writers of our own and other
countries, but, taking it in the etymological sense,
as the Reverend pedant does, it is even then more
applicable to the Roman Church than to any
other, inasmuch as that Church approaches more
nearly than any other to universality.
Sir PETER having satisfactorily disposed of the
pious word-catcher's main objection, proceeds to
read him a lecture on his intolerance, and to defend
the twin champions of Methodism from his ma-
lignant aspersions. " I deeply regretted," con-
tinues he, " to find you attacking two such excel-
lent men as WESLEY and WHITFIELD, who may be
termed the apostles of the miners, and a vast body
of humble and neglected persons, who owe their
knowledge of religion solely to their disinterested,
earnest, and pious exertions. If their zeal had
had no other effect than that of awakening the
Church of England from her lethargy, and her
ministers from their torpor, that alone might
have protected that zeal from being considered
baneful' in its effects, these Divines from being
branded as calumniators,' and their doctrines
from having exposed the members of the Chris-
tian body to the crafty policy of the .Jesuit, or
the infidelity of the zealous Owen.' "
Never was rebuke more properly administered.
The conduct of this Mr. CATOR and his associates
in aapersing and vilifying the character of WESLEY
and WHITFIELD, is in the highest degree un-
grateful as well as grossly unjust. If they had
themselves been imbued with the true spirit of that
Gospel which they profess to teach to others, they
would have rejoiced that the Gospel was spread
abroad, no matter by whom. They would have
been overjoyed that the Church of England had
been " awakened from her lethargy and her mi-
nisters from their torpor," and they would have
held in honour and reverence the men who were the
instruments, in the hand of Providence, of this little
less than miraculous work. It is because they are
not so imbued—it is because they are mere hire-
lings in their office—because they are not spiritu-
ally minded, but of the world, worldly—that
they hate and calumniate those by whom their
slumbers have been disturbed, and by whose " dis-
interested, earnest, and pious exertions" multitude
of persons have been brought to a sense of religion,
who had been utterly neglected by their State-
provided " pastors and masters." Rather than have
the poor instructed by any other than the " lethar-
gic" teachers of his own order, Mr. CATOR, and
such as he, would gladly see. them sunk for ever in
ignorance, vice, and wretchedness. Sir PETERurgy
proceeds Revering the Church of England,
subscribing to its doctrines, admiring its liturgy,
and adhering to its communion, still I can never
approve of animadversions, however conscientious
(as I feel assured is the case with you), on the
body of Wesleyans, who, though differing from us
on minor points, are the firm supporters of our Es-
tablishment, or of their founders being classed with
St. FRANCIS, St. DOMINIC, Or IGNATIUS
LOYOLA."

Sir PETER is right. No man- professing to be a
Christian, whatever stuff his conscience is made of,
has a right to be uncharitable, inasmuch as charity,
in its widest acceptation, is the fundamental princi-
ple of the Christian religion.
We did not know, before we saw the last quoted
paragraph, that Sir PETER LAURIE was a member
of the Church of England. We know that he was
once a Presbyterian, but we doubt not he has em-
braced " black prelacy," from a conviction of its
apostolical authority. We have
superior claims to
often been surprised at the new light which Scotch-
men receive On religious matters when they have
resided a little time in England,. While in other re-
spects Arg a stiff-necked and opinionative race,

somehow or other they almost all swallow the
Thirty-nine Articles after the Confession a Faith,
with as much relish as they do the roast-beef and
plum-pudding after the porridge and the brose of
their native land.

The next paragraph of the worthy Alderman's
letter is not in good taste. Its style is a trifle too
ambitious for us. It runs thus :
" I may be wrong, but in my opinion the wiser
course would be to accept, and not repel, support, be-
cause it does not come from our own communion, which
I alone renders such testimony more valuable, for, strong
as the Church of England is in the affections of the
people, it is not so powerful as not to be aided by the
noble championship of a Chalmers, or the classic elo-
quence of the lamented Hall."
We have a notion that when Sir PETER had
written this sentence, lie fancied he had achieved
something almost, if not altogether, as fine as any-
thing that ever dropped from the pen of champion
CHALmERs or the tongue of classic HALL. We
are sorry that we cannot acquiesce in this opinion.
It gives us pain to disturb the self-complacency of
the worthy Alderman, but truth is truth. We are,
therefore, bound to say that, notwithstanding the
pains which the writer seems to have bestowed
on the composition of the above paragraph,
it appears to us to be very far from a master-piece,
either in respect of its logic or its " classic
eloquence." We are of opinion that to say that
the Church of England stands in need of the aid
of those whom it either despises or persecutes, is
not very consistent with the assertion that it is
" strong in the affections of the people." But, per-
haps, Sir PETER used the word " people" in the
sense in which the three tailors of Tooley-street did
when they began their petition to Parliament with
",We, the people of England." Let that, how-
ever, pass. " The championship of a CHALMERS"
is, questionless, a fair specimen of the alliterative ;
but as to the "classic eloquence of a lamented
HALL," we think there may be a doubt. The elo-
quence no one will question, but whether the epithet
" classic" is exactly that which a good judge would
apply to it we will not take the responsibility of
determining. Perhaps, if Sir PETER were to
leave subjects relating to " classic eloquence"
alone, the world would sustain no great loss.
There is a trite maxim fully as applicable
to Aldermen as to other ambitious aspirants,
"ne sutor," &c. We are quite willing to
allow that in all matters pertaining to gastronomi-
cal science the judgment of an Alderman is final.
From his decision on the merits of turtle soup we
admit, there is no appeal. But between the domain
of calipash and the regions of classic eloquence
there is a great gulf fixed, which, as far as we
know, no member of the Honourable Court has
ever yet passed. We do not now expect that Sir
PETER will form an exception to the general fate
of the worthy fraternity, for, after upwards of five-
and-twenty years of hard labour to attain the accom-
plishment of " classic eloquence," he is farther
from his point than when he set out. The very
best of his oratorical exhibitions are nulli tnagni
concussus, as the Eton boy said to the cobbler, who
asked him the Latin for " no great shakes."

The Morning Chronicle to-day reproduces from
the Monthly Chronicle the scale of duties on corn
proposed by Mr. CANNING'S Administration, and
displays, with some pomp, its apparent advantages
over the present scale. We fa tr,ifrom this conduct
of two Ministerial Journals, that it is intended to
recommend Parliament to adopt Mr. CANNING'S
scale, on the authority of Mr. HUSKISSON, who
was its real author. Such a scheme will, however,
leave in full force all the objections on principle
which apply to the present law. If the Duke of
WELLINGTON'S scale• has, according to the
Chronicle, doomed more of his own country-
men to destruction than he ever destroyed
of their enemies by all his famous victo-
ries, Mr.. CANNING'S scale would also consign
a number to destruction, though not so great, per-
haps, as the more stringent scale of the Duke. If
he, however, have by his Coin-law slain his thou-
sands and his tens of thousands, why should the
Whigs, by adopting Mr. CANNING'S scale, enable
people hereafter to say that they have slain their
hundreds and their tens of hundreds. Such con-
duct would be dictated by a most pitiful ambition,
making a little :war on their starving country-
men because his Grace had made a great war. A
gigantic mischief is ennobled by a sense of the
power which can cause it ; and while the mighty
murderer or plunderer is exalted to
.a demi-god, the
petty imitator of his rapine gets hanged as an as-
sassin, or is sent to the treadmill as a thief. We
hope the Whigs will not degrade themselves
by starving their countrymen on a small scale.
Better allow the present law for which they
are not responsible—the odium of which belongs to
WELLINGTON, PEEL, GRAHAM, and their
political corn-rogues—to remain, than to substitute
for it a Whig Cern-law, which will concentrate
hereafter all the odium which now belongs to the
Tories, for upholding a system of starvation, on the
present Ministry.

We cannot comprehend the terrible and yet de-
urading ambition of statesmen, to take on them-
selves the awful responsibility of interfering with
the food of the nation. They know nothing, or
next to nothing, of the great natural laws
which regulate the production and the
distribution of food, and yet they rashly
thrust their own impediments into the
vast and complicated machine, producing harsh
grating friction at every movement, and ending in
destruction. From one end of the land to the
other does the voice of hunger and complaint now
rise. Distress and misery are stalking gaunt and
terrific through the country. For them the authors
of the Corn-laws are by all men declared to be
responsible. If they were not to interfere with the
food of the country, no man could lay this misery,
and the slow, painful death of numerous human
beings, at their door. No man could or would dare
to say that the Legislature assassinates the people•
But men do now say it—do write it—do print it
—and there is not a hired advocate of the
Corn-laws in the country who has audacity
enough to deny the charge. Now that enor-
mous guilt rests on the Tories. Let the Whigs
make a new Corn-law, however slight may be its
interference with the great laws which the Al-
mighty has proscribed for the production and
distribution of food, and all these heavy and in-
supportable charges will weigh on them. We hope,
therefore, that it is not the intention of Ministers
to propose a measure which will substitute Mr.
CANNING'S scale for the Duke of WELLINGTON'S
scale of duties, a maiming for a murder. The total abo-
lition of the Corn-laws is the cry which has gone
forth ; the iniquity must have an end, though the
Whigs may decline the honour of being the instru-
ments of achieving the good work.
To show how little is known of the operation of
these laws, let us beg the attention of our readers
to the latter part of the first and the whole of the
second passage in Mr. WEBSTER'S letter. It was
read by the Duke of RUTLAND at a meeting of the
Leicestershire Agricultural Association on the sth
instant :

,d My DEAR DUKE " LONDON, Nov. 16.
am obliged to you for the
respectful mariner in which, while presiding at the meet-
ing of the Waltham Agricultural Association, you were
pleased to refer to our conversations at Belvoir, and I
have still higher pleasure in noticing the just and liberal
sentiments expressed by you on that occasion, respecting
the relations of our respective countries. Such senti-
ments, I assure you, will be heartily reciprocated on our
side of the Atlantic. England and the United States are
not only the two most commercial countries in the world,
but they axe
gree
one who shall compare the small amount of annual
trade between England and France with the great
of intercourselso with t4se
each other. friiis will strike ally
two which have the greatest de-