V. In addition to the unspeakable evils of having the law of the land set plainly in opposition to the law of God, and the civil and ecclesiastical laws brought into direct conflict,-in those countries where the relaxation of the Divine principle has been perpetrated, the law of marriage, guided by no fixed principle, has degenerated and fallen into confusion; and the change has been attended with widespread moral corruption, and been fatal in numberless instances to the peace, purity, and love of family life. It is therefore earnestly submitted that the most strenuous opposition should be given to the proposed change in the existing law. J. MACRAE, D.D., Chairman of the Scottish Branch of the Marriage Law Defence Association. CHAS. J. BROWN, D.D.,} Sub-Committee. W. H. GOOLD, D.D., Notes on Public Affairs. THE SYNODS AND ASSEMBLIES. THE SYNOD OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH met in Edinburgh on the second Monday of May. Much important business was transacted. The statistics of the Church, a matter to which the United Presbyterians pay a very commendable attention, were fully reported on. The number of congregations had increased during the year from 597 to 599. The number of members was returned as 177,905; of baptisms, 11,624; of Sabbath School teachers, 9753; of students at the Theological Hall, 139. The total income for all purposes, home and foreign, including £36,000 of bequest from the late John Henderson, Esq. of Park, was £318,853. In the Foreign Mission stations in Jamaica, Trinidad, Old Calabar, Caffreland, Rajpootana, in India, and Ningpo, in China, there was an educated agency of 199 persons. From the large balance in hand, and in prospect from legacies, amounting to £44,000, it was resolved that ten new missionaries should be sent without delay to the foreign field. £9801 had been raised for the augmentation of stipends throughout the Church, with the happy result of raising the minimum stipend to £157, exclusive of manse. 72 congregations, however, had as yet not completely accepted the Committee's offer, but four years ago there were 307 such congregations. Of the 72 only 20 were under the former minimum stipend of £120. On Union the discussion was of the same calm, and temperate, and brotherly nature that has hitherto marked the discussion of this great question in the United Presbyterian Synod. A resolution substantially the same as that adopted in our own Synod was unanimously agreed to -that the Report be published for the information of the Church. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE FREE CHURCH met in Edinburgh the week after the United Presbyterian Synod. Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, Bart., of ancestral fame, and noted, himself, for his profound acquaintance with Scottish Church History lore, and for his tact and sagacity in the management of ecclesiastical matters, both in his own denomination and as clerk in the Union Committee, occupied the moderator's chair. The Reports submitted were generally of a cheering character. The total income for the past year was £421,636-being an increase of £26,081 on the previous year. The discussion of the Union question occupied two long sederunts, and resulted in a motion for the publication of the Report to the world, against another for dismissing the Committee, and sisting in the meantime all further procedure in the matter, being carried by a majority of 429 against 89. One of the best speeches, and a speech well worthy of separate publication, was that of Dr Wylie, in favour of publishing the Report. With great force he pointed out what the opponents of the present union movement too readily overlook, that the "Statement of Principles held by the negotiating Churches in common," drawn up by the Joint-Committee, really embodies the truth taught in the Word of God on the subject of the duty of nations and their rulers to Christ. The Sustentation Fund again reported an increase. Its income was £132,123, a larger sum than that of last year by £813. 740 ministers had received the equal dividend of £150, against 728 last year. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH met at the same time as the Free Church, under the moderatorship of Dr Norman Macleod. Patronage took the place of Union in the Free Church, and was the subject of a discussion about equal length, and a motion in favour of its removal was carried against one that deprecated the discussion of the subject as unwise and inexpedient, by a majority of 193 against 88. It is refreshing to see more correct views in regard to the rights of the Christian people spreading where, some years ago, we could have little expected them. We fail, however, to find in the speeches of the majority, the question of anti-patronage advocated as it used to be by Dr William Cunningham and his friends before the Disruption. It is merely sought for on the ground of expediency, and as likely to please the mass of their adherents, rather than as the birthright of every Christian man, without which he is treated as of the nature of goods and chattels, at the disposal of an official utterly unknown in Apostolic times-a patron. Such a line of argument will utterly fail in conciliating the thinking Christian people either in the Establishment or out of it. It is much more likely to send their intelligent adherents into one or other of the Free Churches outside. Dr Macleod's address at the close of the Assembly is of the nature of a manifesto in favour of his denomination retaining the emoluments of an Established Church. As might be expected, its pleadings are able, but they will not reconcile the great body of his countrymen to the keeping up, out of national resources, an institution that does not fulfil the ends of a Christian Church better than any of the Free Churches in the land. Indeed, the speech has much the air of a man of the world, who sees the dissolution of the tie between the Established Church and the State as inevitable in the not very distant future, and wishes to prepare his country friends for what will surely come to pass whether they wish it or not. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLIES IN AMERICA. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY (OLD SCHOOL) OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES, met at New York on the 20th of May last. Dr Jacobus, the commentator on the Evangelists, the Acts, and Genesis, occupied the moderator's chair. At the same time, and in the same city, met the GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE NEW SCHOOL. The subject of Union was before both Assemblies. After lengthened discussion the following basis was unanimously agreed upon in the New School; and in the Old School it was adopted by 259, against 8 of a minority: "The Re-union shall be effected on the doctrinal and ecclesiastical basis of our common Standards; the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments shall be acknowledged to be the inspired Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice; the Confession of Faith shall continue to be sincerely received and adopted, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures; and the government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in the United States shall be approved, as containing the principles and rules of our polity." Their Confession of Faith is our Westminster Confession, but with the Sections on the Civil Magistrate cancelled or recast.* The two Churches will now contain between 5000 and 6000 ministers. The second Sabbath of September first was appointed as a day for prayer, to enable them, in the contemplated new relations, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The two Assemblies are to meet as one body in May 1870. We trust their union, formed in circumstances that at first seemed far more unfavourable than the state of matters among the negotiating Churches on this side the Atlantic, may be the precursor of success to the efforts of the Joint-Committee; and that, ere long, Presbyterians in Britain and America may present to the world the spectacle of a United Church. It has recently been publicly stated, that the changes made by the American Churches on the Confession are the following:-From the last clause of the 20th chapter, the words, " And by the sword of the Civil Magistrate," were delete. In place of the 3d section of the 23d chapter, which declares it to be the duty of the Civil Magistrate to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, etc., there is substituted the following:"The Civil Magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and Sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or in the least interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of the Civil Magistrate to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner, that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions without violence or danger. And as Jesus Christ has appointed a regular government and discipline in His Church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let or hinder, the due exercise thereof among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of Civil Magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner, that no person be suffered, either upon pretence of religion or infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever; and to take order that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance." In the Larger Catechism, too, the words in answer to question 109, which declares "tolerating a false religion" to be one of the sins forbidden in the Second Commandment, are delete. Reviews and Notices. Digest of Rules and Procedure in the Inferior Courts of the Free Church of Scotland. With an Appendix, embracing a Ministerial Manual, and also containing Forms and Documents. By the late Rev. Robert Forbes, M.A., Woodside. Extra Foolscap 8vo. Pp. 215. Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter, & Co. 1869. THE late Mr Forbes' Manual of Rules and Procedure in the Inferior Courts of the Free Church has, in this volume, reached a third edition. This fact is sufficient to show that it has been a much needed book. This third edition has been thoroughly revised; and to adapt it to a still wider circle than ministers, a carefully drawn up glossary of the legal terms sometimes employed in Church business is appended to the close of the volume. Ostensibly it relates to Free Church procedure, but it is fitted to be scarcely less useful to the office-bearers of all the Presbyterian Churches. It is an indispensable companion to our own book of ecclesiastical government and discipline. Handbook and Index to the Principal Acts of Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 1843-1868. By a Minister of the Free Church of Scotland. Extra Foolscap 8vo. Pp. 128. Edinburgh: Johnstone, Hunter, & Co. 1869. THIS Index, which at first sight might seem of the dry-as-dust order, is really of interest to the general reader. It may be said to be a history, alphabetically arranged, of the Free Church since the Disruption. Thus, under the heading "Sustentation Fund," there is given, in about seven pages, an outline of its progress from the first dividend of £100 in 1844, to that in 1868 of £150, to all ministers, and with additions to others. Added to the Index, is an Appendix of some seventy pages, embracing the substance of the most recent legislation of the Free Church in regard to the Trust-Deed, Formula, Election of Office-bearers, Vacant Congregations, Students, etc. "Church and State-Ireland." Reprinted verbatim from the "North British Review," November 1845. By Robert S. Candlish, D.D., Edinburgh. 8vo. Pp. 28. Edinburgh: J. Maclaren. 1869. DR CANDLISH has done well to reprint this article of his, contributed to the "North British Review" so far back as November 1845. It has an antiquarian interest, for it shows that the questions that are now stirring the public mind are questions far from new; and it has a present practical interest, for it proposes the very solution of present difficulties in the relation of Church and State, to which the wisest of our statesmen are evidently tending. "That the nation and its rulers are bound to honour Christ, and maintain His cause, is a doctrine which even those of its advocates who had quitted an Establishment for conscience' sake, may maintain with as much tenacity and strength of conviction as ever; but they may hold, at the same time, that the nation and its rulers would, on the whole, best discharge this duty, in present circumstances, by having no Established Churches, in the common sense of that phrase, at all. And, as to the views of statesmen and politicians, it might not be unwise for them to consider, whether it may not be safer and better to have all the Churches of Christ unestablished alike, rather than to have the present plans of endowment made the instrument of corrupting the more pliant among them, and irritating justly the more conscientious and sincere." The Scottish Church in her relation to other Churches at Home and Abroad. By Alexander Beith, D.D., Stirling. 8vo. Pp. 82. Edinburgh: J. Maclaren. 1869. DR BEITH is an ardent lover of his country, and strong in his admiration of the contendings of the Reformed Church of Scotland. He is a Free Churchman, but not blind to the services that the Seceders and our fathers and their descendants have done to the cause of truth. The object of the first part of his pamphlet is to show the important place the Scottish Church occupies, or has occupied, in the world as a witnessing Church; the Scriptural character of its principles, and their special adaptation to the necessities of the times in which we live. The second part is an attempt to identify the Scottish Church with the Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse. On this matter his reasonings are certainly ingenious, if not convincing. His first part is really of value, both as reminding us of the important service the contendings of the Scottish Church have done, and may yet do, to Christendom, and as likely to stir up Scottish Christians to continue to maintain the great principles of our Lord's supremacy in the Church and over the nations. As might be expected, Dr Beith longs for the union of the Presbyterian Churches in our country :— "To provide, in its most effective form, the testimony which the times demand UNION among these bodies-visible union, not mere uniform action and cordial co-operation-seems to be required, as well as union with the like-minded in the sister kingdom. Were this attained, the grand idea of the sages of the 'Solemn League and Covenant' would be realised; and, though the Scottish Church may be accounted the least among the tribes of the spiritual Israel, God would then be heard to speak by her, so that all the house of Pharaoh would hear."-P. 74. An Exposition upon the Epistle to the Colossians; being the Substance of near Seven Years' Week-day Sermons. By Nicholas Byfield, late one of the Preachers for the City of Chester. 4to. Pp. 413. Edinburgh: James Nichol. 1869. NICHOLAS BYFIELD died in 1622, in his forty-fourth year. He wrote many books, which Anthony à Wood, with some reason, says, show him to have been a person of great parts, industry, and readiness. The Exposition of Colossians is one of the best of Mr Nichol's series of Commentaries. It is a full and painstaking explanation of the Epistle. With Byfield, Mr Nichol announces the close, for the meantime, of this valuable set of good books. He purposes, if sufficient encouragement be given, to commence the issue of the works of Thomas Manton. It is much to be desired that he obtain the needed countenance, as Manton, in a portable form, would be a great acquisition to the student's library. Mr Ryle is to furnish the Introductory Memoir. |