loss of benefice. This is a point which has been determined by the decisions of the civil courts, in their interpretation of that law, and it is one which the Church implicitly yields to their authority. But no decision of a civil court, in its sphere of statutory interpretation, can annihilate the fundamental principles of the constitution, or level the barriers which it has set up between independent jurisdictions. Yet must this be first done, ere the charge of rebellion against the law can be justly brought against the Church, for exerting her constitutional and independent power in the "collation of ministers." There has been a most mischievous fallacy here in the reasonings of the Moderate party; -a fallacy which has not only involved an ignorance and confusion, as to the nature of the decisions which have been actually given by the civil courts, but a deep-seated misapprehension as to what these decisions. can alone refer to or affect, so long as the civil courts do not transgress those LEGES LEGUM to which they are themselves subordinate. The "Veto law" mayand the Church must bow to their authority, when they tell her that it does-prescribe the rejection of presentees, upon grounds not contemplated in the law of Patronage; and the necessary consequence is, that, in every instance in which such rejection takes place, she must incur a loss of an endowment. The law which confers the cure, has been so altered as to cease to be co-incident with that which confers the benefice; and a separation is thus liable to ensue. But the authority which regulates the one is constitutionally independent of the authority which regulates the other; and not until every one principle is overthrown, upon which the laws of this country proceed, in regard to the relation between these two powers, can the former be said to have disobeyed the latter in altering its rules in regard to the "collation of ministers."

When such, unfortunately, comes to be the state of matters, some method must be adopted of again reconciling them to each other, otherwise the Establishment must be gradually destroyed. But this is to be effected, neither by preferring false and angry accusations against the Church, for the course which she has thought it her duty to pursue in regard to "matters of ordination;" nor by unconstitutionally subjecting ecclesiastical authority to the "rights of patrons." If it is to be done at all, it must be done after a calm and dispassionate survey of the reasons and motives which have influenced the conduct of the Church, and those which must decide the course which the Legislature is called upon to adopt.

It would be equally foreign to the object of this Letter to enter into the stormy debate which has arisen as to the propriety or expediency of the "veto law." It has been a discussion embittered by all the anger of party spirit, and confused by much of the prejudice of political opinions. It is sufficient for my purpose if I have succeeded in freeing it, in your Lordships' estimation, from the ignorant and reckless charge of rebellion which has been brought against it: a charge, which being urged in utter contempt or oversight of the most primary principles of the constitution, has only served to withdraw from view what now forms the great practical question,-whether the weight of obligation lies with the Church to abandon her ecclesiastical, or with the Legislature to modify the civil, law. This is a question, which, when the charge of delinquency has been removed, remains to be determined by other considerations;-considerations, which, as I trust to make it appear in the succeeding part of this Letter, all tell with strong and decisive force in favour of the Church,

The review of constitutional law, to which the previous pages have been devoted, I now, my Lords, consider at a close; for I have traced, and endeavoured to lay distinctly before you, the principles which regulate in Scotland the relationship between the law of Patronage, and the powers of spiritual jurisdiction. They are obviously such as to overthrow at once that charge of disobedience against the law which rests upon the assumption that the "rights of patrons" include both the benefice and the cure, and that the Church is as subordinate in regard to the "collation of ministers" as the constitution declares her to be supreme. This unwarrantable assumption has, however, been adopted by those who have had it too much in their power to give it mischievous effect; and consequently the Church has suffered all that violence and invasion of her rightful power, which now places the Legislature in such deep debt to her for an interference in her behalf.

Yes, my Lords, the Court of Session, that idol of the Moderates, which can do no wrong, and whose right of interpreting civil statutory law extends, if we would believe their strange reasonings, to an absolute power over constitutional principle, has gone forth upon a crusade in defence of Patronage, as invested with all the potency of these gigantic "rights;" and no one function of the Church, including those which have been held most sacred by all the various Parliaments who have had to do with her affairs, has escaped being subjected to the commands of its authoritative dictation. All this has happened as the natural, and almost necessary, consequence of neglecting the expedient by which the Constitution has enabled the powers of patrons and of the Church to act in harmony, whilst the one is declared to be

independent in regard to, and the other is yet concerned in, the appointment of ministers. I am afraid that your Lordships may have judged of this Letter, that it dwelt at unnecessary length upon this remarkable provision of the Legislature; but its vast importance will be fully estimated, when you turn your attention to the consequences which are entailed by its absence or neglect. The instant it is removed, there is a danger that the "rights of patrons" should mount from their proper sphere, and, infringing upon the powers which have been sacredly secured to the "spiritual office-bearers of the Church," should trench upon ground where they cease to be legitimate. It is a landmark which our fathers have wisely set, nor can it be with impunity removed. The constitutional distinctions between the provinces of civil and ecclesiastical authority then become obliterated, the latter is exposed to mischievous, and emphatically illegal innovation, and, to use the expression of an eminent Reformer, which has been selected as the motto of these pages, "confusion follows in all Estates." Nor can this result be possibly avoided. The temporary separation of benefice and cure,-when the authority which rules the one becomes at variance with the authority which rules the other, appears to be the only practicable method of preserving the integrity of both within their respective spheres, and of preventing either the one or the other from being subjected to a foreign and usurped controul.

Accordingly, my Lords, the results which necessarily flow from the neglect of this great constitutional principle are painfully illustrated in the present situation of the Church.

I now beg to direct your Lordships' attention, to the enormous evils to which she has been exposed,

from the adoption, by powerful parties, of principles which, I trust, have been sufficiently proved in the previous pages to be the very antithesis of those which, according to the laws of the constitution, should regulate the conduct of civil power towards the councils of the Scottish Church. If these evils had been confined to the external attacks made against that freedom of action in the "collation and deprivation, of ministers" which it is the great object of these laws to secure to her, and without taking into account the violence and bitterness of feeling which has been thus raised against those who in no way deserve it, and towards whom very different dispositions should be cherished, the Legislature would be yet placed in deep debt to the Church for the alteration of that statute, which has been so interpreted, as to justify such glaring innovations upon constitutional and established principle. But to violence from without has been added the far more perplexing evil of instigated rebellion from within.

OF

Strange and incredible as it must one day appear, when, to the heat of angry controversy, has succeeded the calmness of historical reflexion,-strange and incredible as it now appears to those who think of the views involved in their proceedings,-men, who, in entering into the sacred offices of the Church, have publicly declared as one of the CONFESSIONS THEIR FAITH, that her "government" has been ordained by Divine appointment to reside "in the hands of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate,-men, who have come under a solemn engagement to obey her tribunals in all matters ecclesiastical; to do all in their power to preserve her "unity," "notwithstanding what trouble or persecution may happen," and "humbly and willingly to sub