CLXIII.

CHAP. fermline, "it is wholly unnecessary that I should follow the example of the reverend divine who has preceded me, by A. D. 1756 making any profession of zeal for the pure Presbyterian church established in this country. I say with him, peace be within her walls! prosperity within her bulwarks!' Our object is the same, and we can only differ as to the means by which that object is, under Providence, to be attained. Now, notwithstanding the headlong fervour I see prevailing in some quarters, and the impatient eagerness to crush Mr. Hume with the censures of the Church, I would humbly advise the venerable Assembly to dismiss the overture, and to trust to reason and scripture for the refutation of his errors. In the first place, let me very respectfully ask whether all who are now disposed to concur in this vote have read the writings to be condemned? Am I to believe that the holy presbyters, trusted with the care of souls of which they are to give an account, instead of preaching, praying, and catechising, have been giving up their days and their nights to Mr. Hume's Treatise on the Human Understanding,' or to his 'Essays on Miracles,' and on 'Cause and Effect?'-writings said to be so poisonous and so pernicious, in neglect of the spiritual good of others, and possibly to the peril of their own principles. But suppose these wicked books to have been deliberately read by every member of this assembly, by how many of you have they been understood? And are you to defer coming to a decision till you are all agreed on their meaning, and are all of one mind upon the various abstruse questions which they discuss? Can you all tell us the difference between coincidence and causation? One Essay, very acrimoniously alluded to by the reverend mover of the overture, is on Liberty and Necessity;' but some have declared elsewhere that the views of the essayist thus reprobated are in entire harmony with the doctrines of Calvin and Knox on predestination and the eternal decrees of God by which the fall of man was preordained before the

bursts of insolence. Of the lawyers in the Assembly by far the most pleasing and successful speaker was Mr. Andrew Pringle (afterwards Lord Alemore), whose flowing and dignified eloquence attracted universal admiration."

CLXIII

A. D. 1756.

foundation of the world, and all those who are to perish CHAP. everlastingly are under the doom of eternal reprobation. Such notions may be unphilosophical, and may be unscriptural, but when are you to come to a unanimous and satisfactory conclusion on the questions broached by your overture? You must have made up your own mind upon them before you call in Mr. Hume,- who may be better prepared than it may be convenient for some of you, to prove that they are not at variance with the standards of the true presbyterian faith. I would, with all possible respect, request you to recollect the procedure in another meeting of intelligences, with which I would venture to compare this venerable Assembly only for eloquence, and a deep theoretical knowledge of divine truth. When these casuists, though of more than mortal grasp of thought

'reason'd high

Of providence, fore-knowledge, will and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, fore-knowledge absolute,
They found no end, in wandering mazes lost.'

The opinions complained of, however erroneous, are of an
abstract and metaphysical nature - not exciting the attention
of the multitude-not influencing life or conduct; your
spiritual censures should be reserved for a denial of the divine
right of presbytery, or practical errors which lead to a
violation of the ten commandments. What advantage do
you really expect from the course which is proposed? Is
there any chance of your convincing Mr. Hume, and of
making him cry peccavi? Alas! I am afraid he has with-
stood the reasonings of the subtlest philosophers who have
attempted to refute him; and you can hardly expect that a
miracle should again be performed one of your number
being specially empowered to speak to him. Upon his prov-
ing contumacious you are resolved to punish, if you can-
not reform him; and the awful sentence of the Greater
Excommunication' is to be pronounced-by which he is to be
excluded from the society of all Christians, and to be handed
over to the evil one. But this is a sentence which the civil
power now refuses to recognise, and which will be attended

CHAP. CLXIII.

A. D. 1756.

with no temporal consequences. You may wish for the good
of his soul to burn him as Calvin did Servetus; but you
must be aware that, however desirable such a power may
appear to the Church, you cannot touch a hair of his head,
or even compel him against his will to do penance on the
stool of repentance.* Are you sure that he may not be so
hardened as to laugh at your anathemas, and even to rejoice
in them as certainly increasing the circulation of his books
and the spread of his opinions? If he is grave and sarcastic,
may
he not claim the right of private judgment for which your
fathers have bled, and if you deny it to him, may he not call
upon you to obey the mandates of the Roman Catholic Church,
and again to keep company with that Lady of Babylon whom
you hold in such abomination? But there is one other point,
which being a lawyer, as well as a member of this venerable
Assembly, I wish before I conclude to bring under your
serious consideration; where is your jurisdiction to proceed
in this case? I admit your jurisdiction in spiritual matters
over all the members of your church. But you assert that
Mr. Hume is not even a Christian. Why are you to sum-
mon him before you more than any
Jew or Mahometan who
may happen to be travelling within your bounds? Your
'libel,' as we lawyers call it, is ex facie inept, irrelevant,
and null, for it begins by alleging that the defender denies
and disbelieves Christianity, and then it seeks to proceed
against him and to punish him as a Christian. Your charge
must be true or false. If it be false, it is to be rejected as
contrary to truth and justice; and if it be true, the party
charged is unfortunately one of those who in the language of
the Bible are without' and consequently are not proper ob-
jects of Christian discipline. For these reasons I move that
while all the members of the General Assembly have a just
abhorrence of any doctrines or principles tending to infidelity
or to the prejudice of our holy religion, yet they drop the

* This form, being often occupied by young ladies who become mothers without being wives, and are rebuked from it in the face of the congregation, is usually called "the Cutty stool," but was formerly the place where all delinquents sat when rebuked before the congregation.

overture anent Mr. David Hume, because it would not, in their judgment, minister to edification.""

CHAP. CLXIII.

A. D. 1756.

Wedder

Wedderburn was rather roughly handled by several clerical speakers who followed. They abstained from any insinua- Reply to tions against his own sincerity or orthodoxy, but maintained burn. "that Mr. Hume's writings were a fit subject for the animadversion of the supreme court of the Church, as they were directly subversive of all religion, natural and revealed. It was limiting the power of God to suppose that an erring mortal might not be brought to a right frame of mind through the instrumentality of the punishments and prayers of the Church, and, at any rate, the reformation of the peccant individual was less to be regarded than the safety of others. No views of expediency should interfere with the plain precepts contained both in the Old and New Testament for the correction, by the instrumentality of the Church, of heresy and schism, including most especially a denial of the being of a God, or of the mission of his Son Jesus Christ. It was by no means so clear that excommunication would be treated so lightly by Mr. Hume. He had hitherto seemed desirous of enjoying the worldly advantages of being considered a Christian, after having forfeited all title to the name: his writings henceforth would be shunned by all in any danger of being corrupted by them; and, above all, it was most desirable that a broad line of separation should be drawn between him and all who professed to be Christians; for it was lamentable to think that, at present, ordained clergymen of the Church of Scotland were in the daily habit of associating with him, to the great scandal of all real Christians. * The objection on the question of jurisdiction was a quibble, and would go to put an end to such prosecutions, in the worst cases; for in proportion as the crime against religion was great, the power to punish it would be taken away. Let a man utterly deny and revile the Holy Scriptures, and the learned elder for Dunfermline would tell you, 'You have no power to censure him, for he is not a Christian.' Mr. Hume, who had been received at his birth into the Church of Christ, had never been formally excluded

*This was chiefly aimed at Dr. Robertson.

CHAP. CLXIII.

from it, and had not only never renounced his baptism, but he continued to profess himself a Christian, and to talk of A. D. 1756. Christianity as our most holy religion.'"*

Speech of Dr. Robertson.

Prosecution of Hume dropped.

Appear

ance of the tragedy of Douglas.

Dr. Robertson (now fully established in the lead of the Church), according to his custom, concluded the debate with admirable tact and discretion; a great many ministers left the house to avoid the opprobrium of voting on either side; and on a division, the amendment to dismiss the overture was carried by a majority of 50 to 17.

This alarm, joined to the bad success of his History on its first appearance, caused such disgust in the mind of Mr. Hume, that Wedderburn and his other friends had great difficulty in dissuading him from putting in execution the plan of for ever renouncing his country, changing his name, and spending the remainder of his days in a remote provincial town in France.

He was soon freed from all apprehension of further disturbance on account of his opinions, by the penal visitations of the Church being directed against other objects. † A few months after the dissolution of the last General Assembly there was brought out on the stage at Edinburgh the tragedy of DOUGLAS, written by the reverend John Home, minister of Athelstonford, which threw all Scotland into a ferment. The great majority of the inhabitants were intoxicated with delight; for, not contented with the just belief that this was a most beautiful poem, and admirably adapted to scenic representation, they asserted that it was by far the finest drama that had ever appeared in the English language; that Shakespeare was to be eclipsed, and that Corneille and

-

"Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on Reason."-Essay on Miracles.

He had previously entertained the vain hope that his errors might be forgotten in the controversy then raging between the ancient and modern psalmody. Upon the maxim that "the Devil ought not to have all the good music," an attempt was now made to introduce into the service some of the best airs of a solemn character composed in modern times; but this was resisted as a dangerous innovation, and the faithful were as equally and as keenly divided upon it as upon the recent question of the Free Church. Not unfrequently, when the psalm had been "given out" and the singing was to begin, in contempt of the Precentor one half of the congregation would sing the appointed lines to an old tune, and the other to a new. But through the mediation of Dr. Blair, the church escaped this peril, and the threatened disruption did not take place.