that distinguished churchman, than whom no one since the time of Principal Robertson can be regarded as better acquainted with the genius and the minutiae of our ecclesiastical institutions. We therefore think they will be a useful Supplement to PART FIRST of this Compendium; and the SECOND PART, we hope, will be found to exhibit a satisfactory continuation of the statute and decided law of the church brought down to the present times. The following extracts are taken from the second and most per fect edition of Principal Hill's" View of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland," which was published in 1817,—but references are also made to the first edition, which formed a part of the "Theological Institutes" published in 1803. The second edition was published separately; and though there are corrections and additions, they are not very material. EXTRACTS, &c. I. The Judicial, Legislative, and Executive Power of the Church of Scotland.* Judicial Power. 1. THE judicial power of the church appears in the infliction or removal of those censures which belong to a spiritual society. This power is not entrusted by the constitution of our church to the minister of a parish; for, while he performs various offices in his personal capacity, it is only when he sits in the kirk-session as moderator, or acts by their authority, that he exercises the judicial power of rebuking, of suspending, or excluding from the privileges of the church, and of absolving from censure. While those inhabitants of a parish who are of the communion of the established church, are thus secured from suffering by the caprice of an individual, they are also guarded against the intrusion of a neighbouring jurisdiction. They are placed by the constitution, under the inspection of the kirk-session of their own parish: there the judicial power, when it is exercised with regard to laymen, must originate; and no other ecclesiastical court is entitled to interfere in the first instance; although every judicial discussion before a kirk-session may ascend through the gradation of judicatories, so as to be finally decided by the General Assembly. The office of a minister being superior to that of an elder, and the minister of a parish being officially the moderator of his own kirk-session, he is not amenable to their jurisdiction. His immediate superiors are the presbytery from whom he received the charge of his parish, who have a title, at any time, to enquire in what Inst. Part II. § 5. p. 229. (first edition,) and p. 104 of edit, 1817. manner he performs his official duty, who exercise a censorial inspection over his whole conduct, and who are the only court before whom it is competent for those who wish to appear as his accusers in an ecclesiastical process, to lodge any complaint against his doctrine, or his moral character. Ministers, besides being liable to the same censures as other Christians, may be suspended from the exercise of their ministry, or deposed; and, in consequence of the connection between the church and the state, a sentence of deposition, regularly pronounced by the church-courts, deprives a minister of that right to the stipend and other emoluments which he acquired by his admission, and renders his parish vacant in the eye of law. It is a matter of essential justice, that every man who is to be tried should know the shape which his accusation must assume, and the form in which he is required to make his defence. The strict observance of a known established mode of trial is peculiarly necessary in the judicial proceedings of the church, where sentences which affect the character and comfort of the parties, and which deprive a minister of his usefulness and his freehold, are pronounced by large popular assemblies, the members of which, not being conversant in legal discussion, are in danger of deciding from some strong present impression, One of the first objects to which the Church of Scotland turned her attention after the establishment of Presbyte rian government at the Revolution, was the state of her judicial proceedings; and what is called the Form of Process, a code of laws which regulates the manner of commencing, of conducting, and of terminating processes for censure, was enacted by the church in the year 1707. In 1787, Lord Robertson, who was then procurator for the Church of Scotland, and who, after filling that office for many years with high reputation, is now one of the Lords of Council and Session,* made an attempt to obtain the sanction of the church to a more perfect code, into which he had introduced various im His Lordship has now resigned. |