SECTION X.

Presbytery republican in its creeds; in its protection of minorities; in the framing of its laws; in its universal suffrage; and in its simplicity and opposition to all unnecessary forms.

Let us, however, call attention to a few additional points, in which the analogy will be as strikingly manifest.

Presbyterians are attached to creeds; that is, they believe that certain great truths and principles in religion must be fixed, certain, and established. But this is not inconsistent, as

is ignorantly affirmed, with the spirit of republicanism, but is, on the contrary, necessary to true freedom. 'Obviously,' says Tocqueville,* 'without such common belief no society can prosper; say rather, no society does subsist; for without ideas held in common, there is no common action, and without common action there may still be men, but there is no social body. In order that society should exist, and, a fortiori, that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied, and held together by certain prominent ideas; and this cannot be the case, unless each of them sometimes draws his opinion from the common source, and consents to accept certain matters of belief at the hands of the community. The public has, therefore, among a democratic people, a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties, by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the reason of each. In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Every body, then, adopts great numbers of theories on philosophy, morals, and politics, without inquiry upon public trust.'

Such established opinions are the common law of the land and of the church. In both, alike, they protect the minority from that capricious tyranny of the democracy, which otherwise would oppress them. In both cases, also, these fundamental principles are embodied in the public constitutions, and are thus, in a measure, immutable and fixed.

*Vol. ii. p. 7. See also pp. 8-10.

Again, in the republic, power is determined by numbers, and yet even the minority are protected by the charter of the constitution; and so in our church the same principle prevails, since it is fundamental to our compact, that the majority shall be ruled by the constitution, and all by the Bible. We have one law, and one interpretation of the law.*

It is another essential principle of all true liberty, that no man should be bound by laws, canons, or decrees, over which, in their origination, and in their continuance, he has no control, by himself, or his legal representative. And, hence, in England, the canons of 1603 have never been recognized in law as binding upon the laity, because they were not represented in the convocation by which they were passed. Now this, also, is the law of our church. To no rule or canon is any part of the clergy or laity required to pay respect, which has not been confirmed by their assent, either given in person, or by their delegated representatives. As thus securing in all their amplitude, the rights of all its members, the constitutional bulwarks of our church, stand as a proud monument on which their liberties are inscribed, and which pledge them to be free, and to hold the equal, universal, civil, and religious rights of all other men, denominations, and people.†

Universal suffrage in the choice of its legislators is also considered a prominent feature of republicanism; and universal suffrage amongst communicants, in the choice of their clergy, is equally necessary to ecclesiastical republicanism. But this principle, we have seen, is fundamental to our system, and one for which the church of Scotland is, at this moment, willing to

*See Dr. Junkin's Inaugural Address, p. 39. To such a political creed, and to its noble defence by an oppressed and persecuted minority, we owe our present liberties. In the times of Charles, a band of independent and public-spirited men were raised up. Their aim was to recover the nation's forgotten liberties and privileges. And in what manner did they act? They fell back upon the CONSTITUTION of the country; they had recourse to statutes and acts which were declared to be perpetual; and these they plead in opposition to all succeeding innovations. There was an old record on which the dust of years had gathered; this they brought from its resting-place; they studied the provisions of Magna Charta, and for these provisions they determined to contend, and to contend for them on the ground that they were embodied in this charter, which defined the country's constitution. The authority of this record they maintained against all contrary changes. Charles could plead precedents and longcontinued usage, and the authority of judges, in support of many of his measures. Yet Hampden, and Pym, and Hollis, resisted these measures, and the ground of their resistance was, that these measures were contrary to the provisions of Magna Charta. Charles had the authority of his lawcourts for the measure which he pressed, but these men set the authority of the constitution against the authority of the law-courts, and one of the leading grievances of which they complained was this, 'the judgment of lawyers against our liberty.'

White's Mem. of Prot. Ep. Ch. p. 78.

†Breckinridge and Hughes's Discussion, p. 146.

run the hazard of the most imminent peril and loss.‡. Our system constitutes the people umpires in determining the comparative merits of preachers, and in deciding who shall rule over them. It is a system worked by popular power, which bestows a kind of franchise on all who become parties to it, and which is, therefore, dependent upon popular intelligence. There must, therefore, as in the republic, be some limits to the exercise of this franchise; and this is found in the qualifications laid down for membership in the church, and which imply such a measure of discernment and goodness, as is necessary to the exercise of that franchise, and to the privileges of this 'holy and equal aristocracy.'*

Simplicity, and an opposition to all unnecessary forms and external observances is, we have found, another principle of republicanism. Nothing is more repugnant to it, than a subjection to forms-nothing more unimpressive, than ceremonial observances. That religion, therefore, which hopes to amalgamate and to become identified with a republican form of government, must assume few external observances, and vulgar, superstitious pageantry, dress, and show. 'I have shown,'† says Tocqueville, 'that nothing is more repugnant to the human mind, in an age of equality, than the idea of a subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice which is used to conceal or set off truths which should more naturally be bared to the light of open day; they are unmoved by ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary importance to the details of public worship. I firmly believe in the necessity of forms which fix the human mind in the contemplation of abstract truths, and stimulate its ardor in the pursuit

The Scotch church has declared herself republican, in the ecclesiastical sense, insisting upon universal suffrage amongst communicants in the choice of the clergy. If the movement party in Scotland is maintaining the right of election for the people—that in England is demanding it for the bishops. The electoral rights of the people are never mentioned in the Oxford conclave. There, they treat only of the rights of the successors of the apostles, which protestantism has invaded and catholicism is determined to restore. Here the two churches are directly opposed. They are the ecclesiastical counterparts of radicals and tories-the radicals being the Scotch and the tories the English divines. In perfect harmony with this distinctive character, the Scotch divines are aiming at the most simple and unostentatious finale for their ecclesiastical reformation-the simple preaching of the word! The English regard the preaching as a matter of minor importance; considering rites and ceremonies, with ostentatious display in dresses, and plate, and statues, and pictures, and genuflexions, and music, as the primary, whilst preaching is only a secondary, subject of consideration. In other words, the Scotch are argumentative, and aim at the full establishment of a system which will encourage the exercise of judgment and criticism amongst the people, by constituting them judges of ministers, and umpires in determining the comparative merits of preachers and doctrines. Letter from England, in N. Y. Journal of Commerce.

*Milton. See Vaughan's Congreg. p. 11.

†Vol. ii. pp. 25, 26.

of them, while they invigorate its power of retaining them steadfastly. Nor do I suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without external observances; but on the other hand, I am persuaded that in the ages upon which we are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them beyond measure; and that they ought rather to be limited to as much as is absolutely necessary, to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which is the substance of religion of which the ritual is only the form. A religion which should become more minute, more peremptory, and more surcharged with small observances at a time in which men are becoming more equal, would soon find itself reduced to a band of fanatical zealots in the midst of an infidel people.' Now is not this a portraiture of the presbyterian church in contrast with prelatic and Romish churches?

"The worship of the Lutherans,' says Mr. Villers,* ‘and still more that of the Calvinists, is simple and strict. A stone, a cloth, form the altar; a pulpit and benches are all the decorations necessary to the temple. Here nothing is thought of but the gospel, and some divine songs on morality and the christian duties, sung by the congregation. All is devoid of ornament, pomp, and elegance. The priest is clothed in a modest black garment; no veneration of a saint or an angel, and still less of their images, is recommended to pious souls. It might be said, that this worship is melancholy and dry in comparison with that of the Catholics, if, indeed, an assembly of persons collected to worship in common, can really correspond with the idea of melancholy. Nevertheless, it is certain, that this worship can elevate the soul, and tends to disenchant the imagination.'

And who can witness this form of presbyterian worship, which has been termed 'the undeflowered and unblemishable simplicity of the gospel,' and which is the very embodiment of the republican spirit, and then contrast it with that "falsewhited lawny resemblance of the gospel, like that air-born Helena in the fables, made by the sorcery of prelates,' without feeling that these latter, by their caps and hoods, their gowns and surplices, their belts and ornaments, their rochets and scapulaires, their crosses and pictures, their dishes and censers, their little bells and big bells, their singing-boys and singinggirls, their train-bearers and worshippers, their bowings and crossings, their risings and sitting down, their kneelings and prostrations, their paradings and genuflexions, and all the pride; pomp, and circumstance, which make up the sabbath desecration of our Romish temples, do actually, and in the experience of a large proportion of the worshippers, drive holiness out of living into lifeless things, and seduce men to the worship of the *Villers on the Ref. p. 249.

Milton's Wks. vol. i. p. 143.

† Milton, ibid.

creature more than the creator, who is a Spirit, and to be worshipped only in spirit and in truth. Certain it is, that even Tocqueville positively affirms, of our republican form of government, that there is nothing, 'hierarchical in its constitution;' and if, as he gives reason to believe, the gradual development of the principle of equality is now the law of providence,§ we may confidently hope either that other systems must conform to presbytery, or that presbytery will be finally triumphant.

SECTION XI.

Presbytery eminently republican in having originated and secured in this country the separation of religion from politics, and of the church from the state.

But there yet remains one most important feature in this wonderful analogy. The separation of religion from politics, and of the church from the state, are essential to the true development of both; to universal tolerance by the state of all religions in it, and of all religions by one another;-and therefore to all civil and religious liberty.* Such, as we have seen, was the original appointment of Christ, and such are the existing principles on which our church is founded. It was to the controversies, originated by the Puritans, and carried on by those who extended their views, we owe whatever distinct separation has been made between the civil and ecclesiastical powers. Previous to that time 'the clergy generally claimed their tithes by divine right.' 'In no long time after,' says bishop Warburton, in his 'Alliance,' 'the clergy, in general, gave up this claim.' 'And I think,' says he, 'the priest's divine right to a tenth part, and the king's divine right to the other nine, went out of fashion together. And thenceforward, the church and the crown agreed to claim their temporal rights from the laws of the land. only.'††

Indeed, all the efforts to attain this independence can be traced, by an uninterrupted chain, to the first reformers. 'Luther,' says Villers,** brought the Saxon church, in what relates to its internal government, to the demoracracy of the first age, and the hierarchy to a moderate system of subordination. The

§On the Ref. p. 97.

Vol. i. p. 73.

**Ibid, p. 4.

*See the Church Independent of the Civil Govt., and Tocquev. vol i. pp. 339, 340.

† See above, p.

tt Wks. vol. vii. p. 225.