you cannot give us that eternal life, which even in this world we seek for, and you cannot deprive us of it.'

We need not add, that among the charges alleged against Melville, one was, that he wished to 'overturn episcopacy, and to establish upon its ruins the ecclesiastical republicanism of Geneva.'*

Does any one ask why the church of Scotland became so impregnated with republican principles, the answer is found in the very nature of her reform. In her case, as in Germany, the order was essentially the reverse of what took place in England. "The reform in England,' says a high-toned prelatist, 'was a monarchic movement.'§ In Scotland, on the other hand, the whole movement was effected by the people, against the influence and wishes of the monarch.tt Knox and his coadjutors, men of the people, obscure in station and limited in resources, threw down the gauntlet at the foot of the throne. They made their appeal to the people. They addressed themselves to the understanding of the people, and in their own language, and threw themselves upon their bravery. Nor were they disappointed. Their burning thoughts, and heartfelt truths, once received into the bosom of society, sent forth a tide of life through every vein and artery. The reformation in Scotland was essentially republican, that is, it originated and was carried through by the people, in opposition to the nobility and the monarch. The polity of the church received, therefore, the impress of the mould in which it was cast, and has ever been characterized by a popular, representative, and republican spirit. It has, in fact, always been the reproach of the presbyterian church, that she is too popular.‡

At the reformation, the ecclesiastical supremacy was found lodged in the hands of the pope, that is, the government of the church was an absolute monarchy. There were, therefore, but three courses open to the reformers. They could transfer this supremacy to the state; to a council of bishops; or to the church, represented by its ministers and elders in ecclesiastical courts. Now England chose the first of these alternatives, and Scotland the last. The king, or the state, had nothing to do with the church of Scotland in its formation. They may be said rather to have been its persecutors, down to the period of

*Life of Melville, p. 67.

Milne on the Difference between the Presb. Estab. and the Episc. Ch. of Scotland, Aberdeen, 1841. In Dr. McCrie's Writings, pp. 171, 175. §Dr. Taylor's Hist. Biog. of the age of Elizabeth, vol. ii. pp. 57, 58. †† See the Edinb. Rev. for 1836, Oct. p. 51. Presb. Rev. July, 1842, p. 236. See also Dr. Hodge's Constitutional Hist. of the Presb. Ch. part i. p. 58-60, where the point is well illustrated from their standards. See Lectures on the Headship of Christ, pp. 45, 46, 52, 53.

its public recognition.* All was done by the people, and by spiritual authority alone. Taking the Bible as their guide, and its charter as their warrant, they constituted themselves into a regular church, administered ordinances, and drew up that plan of discipline, which they believed to be most accordant to the word of God, most consonant to the practice of the truly primitive church, best adapted to guard against spiritual despotism, and most likely to advance the cause of Christ. Every feature of the polity of the Scotch church, in its general outlines, was, therefore, republican. Her schools were 'little republics,'† and even the superintendents, out of which prelatical ingenuity has endeavored to torture some resemblance to prelates, were appointed on 'democratical principles.' A portion of the Scottish people have always been ready, even under their monarchy, to avow their republican predilections. "The remains of the school of Melville, led on by Mr. William Scott, and Mr. John Carmichael, were favorable to a republic, and opposed to every phantom of episcopacy, in all its modifications.§ In asserting the internal and independent authority of the church, it was contended, that the king, 'has no power to prohibit one called by the church, which in every point possesses, as a perfect republic, this spiritual intrinsic power.' The royalists regarded** 'the sacred person of the king as the only impediment to the republican liberty and confusion, which the covenanters have designed themselves.' The strength of this party, is further described by Dr. Aiton, when speaking of the puritans, he says,** 'this sect were of themselves, at first, few in number, and would not have made a figure in England so soon, had they not been nursed into strength by a party in Scotland, whose authority had become supreme. Henderson and his friends were attached to the monarchy, and wished merely to secure their own church against persecution. These were devoted to their faith, with self-abasement, penitence, and gratitude; but they were opposed by another party of energetic and inflexible presbyterians, who coalesced with the political puritans of the sister

*Mr. Mackenzie, in his History of the Christian Church, Lond. 1842, at p. 313, states, that 'the spirit in which the Scottish reformation was conducted, appears to have been less christian, as well as less catholic, than that which took place in England.' In illustration of this, he states, 'the right divine of kings, which, until after this period, was scarcely questioned in England, was not only canvassed by the Scottish presbyterians, but was declared by them to be a fallacy.' Fas est ah hoste doceri. See also Maurice's Kingdom of Christ, Pref.

+Chalmers, Wks. vol. xii. p. 217.

Dr. McCrie's Miscell. Writings, p. 178.

Life and Times of Henderson, by Dr. Aiton, p. 241.

||Ibid, 331. **Pp. 402, and 448, 482, 483.

**Life and Times of Henderson, by Dr. Aiton, p. 524.

kingdom.' 'Is it any wonder then,' asks Dr. Hodge,† ‘tha. the Scotch abhorred episcopacy? It was in their experience identified with despotism, superstition, and irreligion. Their love of presbyterianism was one with their love of liberty and religion. As the parliament of Scotland was never a fair representation of the people, the general assembly of their church became their great organ for resisting oppression, and withstanding the encroachments of their sovereigns. The conflict, therefore, which, in England, was so long kept up between the crown and the house of commons, was, in Scotland, sustained between the crown and the church. This was one reason why the Scotch became so attached to presbyterianism; this too was the reason why the Stuarts hated it, and determined, at all hazards, to introduce prelacy as an ally to despotism.'

SECTION III.

The republicanism of presbytery illustrated from its history in modern times in England.

We now pass to the history of presbyterianism in England. The genealogy of presbytery in England is not fully understood. It is thus given by Fuller: 'In the days of king Edward it was conceived; in the reign of queen Mary (but beyond sea at Frankfort) was born; in the reign of queen Elizabeth it was nursed and weaned; under king James I, grew up a youth; but toward the end of king Charles's reign, shot up to the full strength and stature of a man, able not only to cope with, but to conquer the hierarchy, its enemy.' But he might have gone even further back, to the time of Henry VIII, or even earlier. There were in fact two reformations struggling together for establishment in England; the one monarchic, the other democratic; the former relying for its support on power, the latter seeking strength by courting popularity.*

In the reign of Elizabeth, the commons were in favor of puritanism, because of its democratic principles, which were, like it, opposed to the power of royalty and aristocracy. The Irish church, from its commencement, evinced a still greater

Hist. of the Presb. Ch. part i. p. 58. For further illustrations of the noble conduct of our Scottish fathers in battling for liberty, see The History of the Covenanters, vol. i. pp. 199, 230, and vol. ii. pp. 52, 65, 125, 184. Also Patrick Welwood, p. 76-78. Presb. Rev. Ap. 1839, pp. 631, 681, 694. Irving's Last Days, pp. 551, 553. Dr. Aiton's Life and Times of Henderson, pp. 297, 449.

*Taylor's Biography of the Eliz. Age, vol. ii. p. 67.

Ibid, p. 78.

leaning to puritanism than the church of England.‡ In short, the church of England, in the age of Elizabeth, had no hold on the affections of the great body of the nation. It was only maintained by the strong arm of power, and by the zealous exertions of those whom grants of abbey-lands had won to its support. Among the middle ranks, puritanism was all but

universal.'§

In fact, the prelatic constitution of the English church never was, and never will be, popular. The people, and many of the clergy, have ever been, from the first, protesting parties. It never received the national acquiescence, but awakened indignation, roused the spirit of rebellion, and summoned men to the defense of their liberties, until the scene closed in anarchy and blood.* 'In England,' says Mr. Lathbury, 'the reformation was effected by the authority of government.'† 'It made, therefore, the executive the religious teacher; it instituted uniformity of belief in a human creed as the criterion of salvation; it arrogated to the regenerated church the sole possession of apostolical descent; it cut off all possible intercommunion with other religious bodies; and, withal, made the people the crouching slaves of a high priesthood. These things we charge upon the English reformation as its serious deficiencies. We charge upon it, that the people were never consulted, in the mutilation of their parish temples, in their change of rites, or the nature of their instruction. We charge upon it, that it left irregularly, unjustly distributed wealth among the clergy. We charge upon it, that it assumed itself to be so exclusively apostolical, that it would recognize the officers of no other church,-except we admit that it did, and still does, recognize the papal hierarchy.'††

The popular will in England found voice in puritanism. By their intercourse with foreign protestants, and their sympathy with the foreign churches, the people of England had ever before their eyes the vision of a spiritual republic, and this they believed to be realized in the church of Geneva.** And finding under a civil monarchy nothing but oppression and spiritual thraldom, they were anxiously led to inquire into their civil

#Ibid, p. 81.

Ibid, p. 97.

*See Edinb. Review, Oct. 1836, p. 51.

Hist. of the English Episcop. in ibid, p. 52. 'A king,' says Macauley, (Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 243, Boston ed.) 'whose character may be best described by saying, that he was despotism itself personified, unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile Parliament; such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work, which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy,' &c.

++Edinb. Rev. ibid, p. 52.

**Dr. Taylor's Hist. Biogr. of the Age of Elizabeth.

7-VOL. III.

rights. They soon discovered, that the whole jugglery about the divine institution and right of kings, as well as their absolute power, had no foundation in fact or reason, but arose from an old alliance between ecclesiastical and civil policy. They found, that to preserve their own rank, dignity, wealth, and power, prelates claimed a divine right for themselves and for kings, and had imposed their usurpations upon a silly world.† The character of the despots with whom they had to contend, thoroughly schooled the puritans in the truth and importance of their views. Henry VIII was despotism itself personified. Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest, enforced conformity by penal laws, only because this was the fastness which arbitrary power was making strong for itself. Of Charles I, it has been said, that his whole life was a lie; that he hated the constitution the more because he had been compelled to feign respect for it, and that to him the love and the honor of his people were as nothing.§ Churchmen, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Independents, his enemies, his friends, his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions and subdivisions of his people had been deceived by him.

Such were the despots, male and female, against whom the puritans were called upon to contend. A systematic political opposition, vehement, daring, and inflexible, was thus engendered. From religion, they were led to politics. Debarred their relegious rights, crushed in their assertion of freedom of conscience, and persecuted for exercising the inalienable privilege of private judgment, the puritans were forced to turn against the power that thus oppressed them, and to assert their original and sovereign independence. All lawful government having been dissolved, and an arbitrary despotism established, their monarchs were justly regarded as usurpers and tyrants, and all allegiance to them as for ever forfeited. The spirit of liberty was grafted upon the stock of religion, and was thus quickened with a heavenly ardor, and an impetuous zeal, against which nothing could stand. During the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, the youthful Hercules was found strong enough to crush the serpent, in the question of monopolies. While Whitgift contended for the absolute despotism of monarchy, 'Cartwright gave utterance to the system of a democratic republic,'* while 'the house of commons, itself, exhibited

† Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot King, p. 79. Macauley's Miscell. vol. i. p. 249.

§Ibid, pp. 267 and 290.

*Dr. Taylor's Hist. Biog. of the Eliz. Age, vol. ii. p. 84. In his table of dangerous doctrines, avouched by Cartwright, Whitgift says, (Def. of the Answ. Prefatory matter, 19th error,) 'he affirmeth that the government of the church is aristocratical, or popular, and therefore his opinion must needs be, that no government of any commonwealth ought to be monarchical, but either aristocratical or popular; which is a dangerous error.'