The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-28 00:00:00

THE ~ FREE " ASSEMBLY.

Up till the period at which we write, we have no
account from the "Free " Assembly of the introduc-
tion of any of the great questions which the public
look forward to as the test-stones of the policy of the
new Secession. There has been, as formerly, a great
deal of talk about minor details, and much self-glo-
rification ; but nothing definite has been proposed,
either in the shape of a constitution, or in regard to
the management and division of the funds. It would
appear to be the intention of Dr. Candlish and the
other leaders to stave off, as they did in the first two
Assemblies, all discussion of these important points,
till the withdrawal of general attention from their
proceedings enables them to secure a settlement fully
in accordance with their own priestly notions. At
all events, six days have been already spent in such
a way as gives strong probability to this supposition.
For another year, the members of the Free Church
will be left in the dark as to the respective powers of
the laity and the clergy—they will get no satisfac-
tion about the extent of their suffrage—whether it is
to include females, or be restricted to males ; nor will
they know whether their Church Courts have re-
served to themselves more power than is conferred on
the Church Courts of the Establishment, even by
Lord Aberdeen's Bill. As to money matters, beyond
earnest injunctions to keep perpetually pouring into
the treasury, they will be told little or nothing. But
this, though it may disappoint, will not offend them.
Faith in the clergy is more blind, indulgent, and con-
fiding, than any other faith whatever.
Two of the minor questions enumerated above as
having come under discussion, are worthy of some
notice, as indicating the intolerant character of the
Free Assembly, and the selfish instinct with which it
acts on the lawyer's principle of " the case being al-
tered, that alters the case." All the speeches in which
Unitarianism is mentioned breathe the fiery spirit of
persecution, and the very men who are complaining
of their own places of worship being taken from them,
are indignant at the Legislature for interfering to pre-
vent a much grosser injustice of the same kind.
The members of the Free Church think it hard
that the quoad-sacra chapels, towards the erection of
which they were the chief contributors, should be
withheld from them; but they have no hesitation in
calling upon the Legislature to permit a few indivi-
duals to deprive numerous congregations in England
of the property which they have held for years,_
which was left to them by their forefathers, and which
they had every reason to believe was indisputably
their own. A number of the English chapels, no
doubt, might originally be intended for the use of
Trinitarianism ; but, in the course of time, like
other ecclesiastical muniments, they have fallen
into the hands of a sect professing a different
creed. This sect being numerous, and being the de-
scendants of the parties for whose use the chapels
were built, is there any harm in so altering the law,
that they may make the bequest really available for
religious purposes, although not exactly according to
the form or profession that prevailed when the be-
quests were made ? If there is—then as we said last
week, the whole Reformation in England, Scotland,
and Ireland, was a grievous wrong. Henry the Eighth -
and Regent Murray committed foul injustice, and
Latimer and John Knox were the instigators and
abettors of robbery.
When it suits themselves, the members of the Free
Assembly are not scrupulous in insisting that Church
property shall be held only in strict accordance with
the deeds by which it has been created. It was
on the very same day on which they petitioned
against the Dissenters' Chapel Bill, that they pro-
tested loudly against the retention of the quoad-sacra
places of worship by the Establishment. None
know better than they—for they framed most
of the constitutions under which these chapels
exist—that they 'are strictly tied down to a per-
petual connexion with the Establishment. Now, if
the Legislature, in its wisdom, were engaged in de-
vising some plan whereby such of these chapels as are
useless to the Establishment, and of which the Free
Church has need, should be handed over quietly to
the new secession, what would they think of any sect
of Unitarians who should come forward and petition
against the measure ? Yet this is just what they are
doing to the Unitarians.—Aberdeen Herald.