The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-05 00:00:00

same as those which had been used two hundred years back,
with a divided population On the one hand, and he much
feared, an unwilling eovernment on the other. Let the
Church follow in their footsteps dauntlessly and persever-
ingly, and he hart no doubt that the position she assumed
would, sooner or later, compel the Government to do jus-
tice to tl'!r cause. He would touch upon two or three
The first was, that in certain quarters the people
reeested even from the most general idea of a Commission.
There was, however, no ground for very violent alarm on
this point. The Commission for the Highland churches
was still in existence—a Commission to which, after the
excitement of this question had passed away, he trusted
the Lowland churches would be transferred. When they
asked for money, Government had a right to see that their
allegations were correct ; and when their application was
granted, Government had a right to see that the money
was properly applied. The second objection was, that the
Cors,mission were directed to inquire, not into the amount
of instruction afforded by the Church only, but into the in-
struction afforded by the Dissenters also, and this had been
considered as having been dictated by the alarming and dan-
gerous principle that, wherever the voluntaries had provided
religious instruction for the people, whatever the nature of
their tenets might be, there an establishment was uncalled
for ; and, if an heretical sect shoUld provide means of reli-
gious instruction commensurate with the wants of a whole
people, then an establishment might be altogether dispensed
with. The Church might protest against this principle—in-
deed, he should be happy if they did se.—but he hoped they
would not resist the inquiry. It was his firm conviction
that if this branch of the inquiry had resulted from error,
then the inquiry, if honestly conducted, .was the readiest
means to dissipate the error. If an erroneous principle had
led to this practical measure there was nothing so likely to
rectify that principle as the issue of the inquiry. He then
came to the question of pastoral superintendence. He had
no doubt that this question, though clumsily and unfelici-
tously expressed in the Commission, was intended to refer
to the extent of the machinery rather than to the fitness
of the men who wrought it. If there are indolent or care-
less pastors among us it is not the Legislature we would
apply to, but we would take the task of correcting them into
our own hands ; and the question is not whether the Clergy
are remiss, but whether they are not too few—not whether
they are ill qualified for their task—it is our province to look
to that—but whether the task is not above their strength, and
requires an enlargement of the apparatus, and an addition to
the number of labourers. The State is not bound to make up
for individual deficiencies ; they are not bound to build ano-
ther church because their pastor has not succeeded in filling
the church already existing ; nor were the people to throw away-
their money by buildingchurches, except when required by
the exigencies of the population, and then the Government
were requested to pay the Clergyman appointed to minister;
or, to express the matter more plainly, after they had made
a present -of a church to the families of a district, they
asked the Government to make a present to the same fami-
lies of the means of sustenance to a Clergyman for that
church. This was the legitimate inquiry which the State
was about to enter into, and he did not think there was any
aggression intended to be made on the independence of the
Church. There was one point in the letter of Lord John
Russell to the head of the Commission which he saw with
delight and hopefulness. It was that the Commissioners
were to inquire only into those cases where the deficiencies
were alleged. The best vouchers for this deficiency were,
that the people had come forward with their one hundred
pounds, and even their one thousand pounds, to meet them.
This would be a'piecemeal inquiry, and, like true students of
the reductive philosophy the Commissioners would de-
scend from their own theories and prejudices into the indi-
vidual realities of the world at large. He would not, for
the world, that the Church should oppose a barrier in the
way of this inquiry. He. had laboured twenty years to
persAde the rulers of the land and the civic authorities to
come and see, with their own eyes, the moral destitution of
thousands of the population, and to .convince themselves.
that, for the relief of this destitution, nothing but a terri-
torial and endowed establishment would suffice. It would
be the cruelest of all things if anything should be said or
done by the Church which would give the Government a
•pretext for dissolving the Commission, which, he feared,
many of them would rejoice to he furnished with. He
wished to put them in such a situation that they must either
do the Church justice, or that she might expose their in-
justice, and put them most flagrantly in the wrong. It was
beyond his imagination to conceive by what. arts of sophistry
the most active and ingenious hostile inquirers could escape
from the detaPs which he was ready, nay, anxious to lay be-
fore them. He eared not how ignorant the Commissioners
were, if they were honest, and he had no reason to believe
them otherwise ; and he hoped that everywhere they would
be received by the friends of the Church with perfect good
temper and perfect good manners. Nothing could minister
a more outrageous. triumph to their enemies than the
furnishing Government with a pretext for recalling the
Comm:as:rm. He called upon the Church to sur-
render all their tastes end likings—to give up their dearest
partialities—to coecede everything
.but their principle-3..
Their enemies cried out that they were afraid of the. Com-.
mission. This lie denied, and asserted that the fear was
entirely on ti
of :er entirely Let the Church', therefore,
swallow the pill—it would do her good, though her enemies

bad contrived in many ways to nialte it a nause,.-:tis and a I
ter one. If the CommiFsion was to be brol,:en up, let ii
not be their act ; let it nut 'Je s:tirl that the Church wee
fro in the light or esti ; but rather that that liL;111
was smothered by her enemies.

Dr. CooK said that they had core them the instructions
given to the Commissioners appointed with respect to the
Church, and any additional instructions or private explana-
tions might give them satisfaction as individuels, but they
were never to be put on a level with the document itself
issued by his rtdajeety. One set of men might interpret in
one way, and another in another, but it was from its own
intrinsic merit; that the Commission of the Assembly were
to form their opinion ef it. Could he (Dr. Cieolc) have
brought himself to the belief that there was nothing in
these instructions hostile to tie Church, be would have
been most desirous to have been silent in regard to it, and
would have exercised the warmest hopes of the beneficial
effects resulting from, it ; but, after considering it gravely,
it did appear to him that there were involved in that docu-
ment principles and manims which, whatever were the inten-
tions of its frarner,, and he imputed nothing to them, would
prove most prejudicial to the national Church ; and, enter-
taining that impression, he would consider that he had little
imbibed the spirit of the noble fathers of the Church—little
appreciated the manly stand which in the days of peril they
lied made for the cause they venerated—if he should have
shrunk from any responsibility or danger in order to do
what he could do to preserve to the people of Scotland
what had been the glory and blessing of their land. There
were two or three points to which he would shortly direct
their attention, and he would then use the freedom of sub-
mitting to this venerable meeting the motion which it ap-
peared to him to be proper to be adopted. The Church
had gone to the Government, naturally requesting that ad-
ditional accommodation should be given for religious in-
struction to the increased population of Scotland. One of
two things might have been expected from this application
—either that the Government might have said there was
no occasion at all for ,ranting any Commission or giving
anything to the Church; or a Commission might have been
appointed to inquire into the specific claim made by the
Church. But, in answer to the application, there came
out a Commission, which had for its object to get an enu-
meration of all the religious accommodation that existed in
the country. What was this to the Church of Scotland?
What, suppose it should be found that, taking the Dissent-
ing meeting-hOuses of Scotland into account, there would
be sufficient accommodation for the people, what would
that be to the Church as a national Establishment if
there was not sufficient accommodation for their own
people within their own churches? Was it to be said
that they were to drive from the Establishment those
who desired to remain in it, and compel them to go to
other places, and receive instructions from other pastors ?
In this point of view nothing had been done favourable to
the views of the'Church in answer to the application. It
might be said that there was plenty of accommodation, and
Government would not interfere further in it. Government
considered a religious establishment as a great system of
preventive jurisprudence. It adopted it because it spread
religious and moral improvement among the people, and
led them to discharge their duty as good citizens. This
was implied in the principle of an establishment, and it fol-
lowed as a clear deduction that it was the duty of the Le-
gislature who had so founded it to render it efficient, and
to do everything that could be done to promote the pur-
poses for which it was intended. What was the consequence
if they should carry out this principle ; it would just come
to this, that it is a matter of no moment whether there was
an Establishment at all. It would be holding out a boon
to those who did not belong to it to say there was no occa-
sion for it ; and would they not thus be giving their ene-
mies an opportunity to exert themselves, and to build
churches on speculation, and endeavour to alienate the
affections of the people belonging to the Church ? Apply
this generally, and they would come to this, that there
was to be no Establishment at all. He (Dr. Cook)
did not quarrel with any man holding that opinion ;
what he would press on the Assembly was this, that
it was an opinion into which the devoted adhe-
rents of the Church could not go. They must raise
their voice. against it, otherwise they would commit felo dc
se, and inflict a wound on that noble fabric which it should
be their duty to maintain. This point laid in a narrow
compass. If there is no Establishment at all the principle
of it requires that those who belong to it should never for
amoment shrink from defending its principles. I agree
with one remark of my Learned Friend, that whatever con-
cessions we make there must be none of principle. We
Must stand forward and steadily, and in doing so we reflect
on no man, but we do what every honest man and conscien-